and shuttle these efforts to go after the scientists and to discredit the scientists is a key element of a much larger strategy to just gum up the entire policymaking process to the point where nothing happens that translates into hundreds of billions of dollars of sales and profits so the whole game is just slow down. in the documents on dr preston martin other even more machiavellian scenarios were studied. here it was suggested that talks be held with the scientist. and hear a proposed seminar in order to lure her. to influence her and even shape the conclusions of her future studies. the common point of these documents they all come from the same lobbying firm

multinational business services. already hired by philip morris to contest the effects of passive smoking on health and headed by a certain jim toth see a master of influence. amazingly in washington the heart of american power this lobbyist is still well established. as he never answered our requests for an interview we went to see him without an appointment with our documents in hand and a hidden camera it's. into the. works here. i'm looking for. and i'm looking on the number the deed. here the new point meant no new i was just

looking for him because i called from france but a few. months these are. the good news american lobbyists can be welcoming. we even managed to have jim talk to you on his cell phone there. are a couple of minutes. jim can you hear me. i want to ask you some questions about susan system not to. work. because you have the set of a strategy to discredit to work for us come here so i want you to know more about this. well. i don't know if you she's talking about. me and i know if you do your work in congress i'm going to ask you you know i can

say no i'm going to have to as. understand you if you like the welcoming lobbyist you love the angry why i'm asking you to have no point inductees leave now join egypt may leave you could lose your yes please please write a moldering you out just leave now this is out. of here ok do you understand that you have a tough life out here and you cannot go back. to do you had to end like that. in the end mr trotsky did a great job well at least for the industrialists. back then and he pressed a martin arguments were brought into the media spotlight. this is by this health journalist on a major national t.v. channel a few days after the publication of the famous study. let's get back to our hot dog

study remember they asked the people did you eat a hot dog they didn't ask them did you put it in a bun did you put ketchup on it did you put mustard on it now you might be saying who really cares one way or the other but that's important because it may be that it's not the hot dog at all that's causing this increased risk of cancer maybe it's the maybe it's the ketchup maybe it's the mustard so you have to be careful when you read these studies not to say oh this causes this. the powers that be didn't go any farther than one nine hundred seventy s. nitrites file which could have resurfaced remains locked away. you're probably wondering what susan president thinks the woman targeted by the lobby. we showed her the documents and what upset her the most was seeing that fellow scientists had played along with the industrialists. these professors will get paid a huge amount to do

a review by in this case probably the american media i mean thousands and thousands of dollars they probably get more from doing this kind of thing than they do from their regular jobs. seeing your name like this in all. my goodness a i gave a lot of people a lot of work. were you aware of this well i was aware that the processed meat community was concerned. but not aware of all the extent of this. twenty years on and she had turned the page. not of interest anymore that's how. the public awareness of science goes it's of interest in that it's not of interest so when you did all that work today but it doesn't it doesn't matter i mean it's still in the literature and. it may influence people in future and it has influence people in the past and that's fine.

but another scientist involved in the case has enjoyed a much more flourishing career. a scientist paid by the american meat institute to shoot down susan preston martin's work. david clear found. today david kerrville is head of the u.s. government's nutrition program and he's invited all over the world for a scientific conferences where he gives his experts point of view. totally independent. this week to. introduce reasons why the meat is important to the healthy diet it's been just. on that day he was in france speaking to scientists from around the world about meat and the link between processed meat and cancer in order to denounce backed up by

a power point the climate of fear panic and even hysteria. and we know because we were there. it was right at the start of our investigation when we barely knew about nitrites and had the need of enlightened specialists to help us. and. so there are new reviews published this year that say nitrite is not harmful and others that say it is harmful. i don't think anybody really knows. definitively what but the answer is. a few months after this handshake when we have learned more about the industry of doubt. bells started ringing. so we took advantage of our trip to america to ask him for another interview. only this time and a lot more cards up our sleeve.

do you remember the american meat institute no never no i was interested in the scientists was interesting martin yes do you know her i know who she is i do not know her personally i do remember reading a paper on her desk for the american media institute found this and it was prepared for the american it institute. ok. this is something different yes. this was done twenty years ago roughly so. i had forgotten about that do you remember how much you were paid for this evaluation i do not as i said it was twenty or twenty five years ago you didn't know when you were working for the american to do this or that philip morris was opening there.

i'm not going to say yes or no at this point in time because it's more than twenty years ago did you know that the tobacco strategy motto was doubt is our product no i never heard that though no doubt twas your productive. that was not mine and that was not my intent my intent was to do an evaluation. if i had read these papers and found that there were not shortcomings in the papers that they would not deficiencies in the papers i don't think i would have criticized them but don't you think that your point of view would be stronger than your argument stronger. i hadn't found that to have been long by the american meat institute. no i don't i don't think that. would change it wouldn't change my point of view it might change your point of view that you tend

to not believe what i'm saying because twenty five years ago i got some amount of money that i don't remember. for making progress he can't remember how much but he does remember getting paid. but you have to understand that the industry is a money making business so they're very risk averse they would not fund a study that. someone proposed to them that eating hot dogs increases the risk of childhood cancer why would they fund that you know they would only fund something that says. proposes childhood cancer is prevented by eating more hotdogs or there's no relationship you know they're not going to fund a study that. is bad for their business. at least he's honest much of the meat industry is lobbying depends on collaboration with paid scientists and that's still how things work.

during a conference on processed meats and cancer. of french scientists confirmed that. there is a reference on the subject internationally renowned expert. speaks and acts casually and doesn't get telling us how things work at scientific events. just because you're going to keep me. it's a. good point. to beat it to eat. just comes to me. because if you soon does. it it's because if you'll just get into a more fit. you should she can meet. any of the. fifty fifty split. there so it's not going to be what you did

was an issue she didn't put on the. president beside you just doesn't seem marshmallows as the ground so the president said again and again but you just got. in here for the long haul. well there's no real need for it but the employer or you would like to. extend martial law for that for personal reasons or for small for.

killing. me does she don't consume don't tell you that in talking to them joking dealing with the single and will soon enough that equal distances assignments are what equals this tells me going on in condolence don't leave then suddenly i'm doing the movie that devotional putting in a song is this is also the answer to all the sitting on.

finally. i said if they can get out now how does it violate the point. line and if he would be would it be that easy to find a friend that i mean me. plus is that don't yet see

the same people. that. i thought it might have been my little bit of a why did i'm not proud of it i'll accept that i that money could be no doubt much a little too late but i'm not going to go but it. is this one bit like. somebody to. see. if anybody. please. please. please. a few days later professor corp a sent us some e-mails and photos of scientists he suspects of being close to the food industry.

to americans he came across at a conference on meat and cancer. and nathan bryant. as we checked out these scientist profiles we discovered a document which should certainly never have been on the web. internal report issued by the american media and. it lays out the strategy for influencing the decisions of high profile organization. this organization is the i r c the international agency for research on cancer little. this institution based in the old france is the world wide reference on cancer. in two thousand and six.

the scientists classified nitrites in the probably carcinogenic category of products group too. and that was bad for business. so lobbyists are fighting to have this classification changed. page sixty four of the document. changing the i.r.c. nitrate nitrate classification from two agent to be. possibly carcinogenic. the strategy has a name i am arcee challenged. it notably involves the two scientists we were interested in andrew wilkow ski and nathan bryant. armed with our brand new file it was time to set off to meet the meat sectors heavyweights. welcome to nashville tennessee the capital of country music and

notably the hometown of johnny cash. it's here that the american meat institute is holding its annual conference. in this huge building to be precise. the meat industry in the u.s. is very very big business. all of the world's biggest players are here. smithfield number one import with a turn. over a fourteen billion dollars a year cargo the giant with thirty three billion dollars a year in food alone. and tyson he all divisions record holder this year will mate with all of our divisions between b. or poultry and prepared between have thirty seven billion and forty billion dollars

in revenue so it's a snowball many very small companies put it. we checked it's over forty one billion dollars. after half an hour we spot a face in the crowd that rings a bell. that woman there tasting nibbles at every stand. that's right page ninety two of the i.r.c. challenge document with the short hair the american media institute senior vice president of public affairs janet riley. it's just that she's sorry the lieutenant tried that yet again headlines on him you go i'm looking for close to on to system tend to answer any question about seduction type found. it's is this document it didn't do it i'm sorry. i wanted to supposed to. poke it and i didn't see it registered and no no actually it was in fact just so but i have

some important question that you keep in your business yes of course i have mine stuff journalist caught just a question but i want you to know what do you know about the eos challenge you know let me octet into your camera and silly know what i'm good at that it's about not touch and chances think you know this is mine so me and i want to know who came so much for our interview not me why you disagree with you why you are. having been escorted outside. this is my press conference ok. order to show id we. try one last time it's close do into looks like what tobacco industry did twenty k. that's your opinion that's your opinion what we're doing is providing science based here if you doubt this that our products are safe and it's like you see right there but are you paying those scientists know you've got a camera rolling don't you. look away for such cases we always have a plan b.

. on the list of i.r.c. challenge scientists there was one who agreed to see us the first on the list. andrew wilkow scheme. we had to madison wisconsin. this city in the north of the united states is home to andrew milk housekeeper and the company of hot dog king oscar meyer who we came across in the preston martin case americans and. the scientist worked for this company for thirty years. he now teaches at the university. but he doesn't hide his proximity to the american meat lobby. presented with our

i.a.r. see challenge documents he acknowledges everything. almost. so did the needs industry paid you for this i received some compensation for my time as well as the others how much i am likely to say a minute thousands tens of thousands of small. small amounts can we have an idea. and defending nitrite seems to be a very big thing for industry. looking for a substitute has been attempted. and was it told fairly. something is chemically simple nitrite. in this uniqueness nitrite having a substitute has not been possible to anyone's ability but if there is more risk of

getting cancer don't you think it's important to try to find a solution. now as we're going to see really because they do not believe that that risk is is true and you think there is no risk at all i think the risk is. if it is indeed. on hearing that we pulled this expression. so for andrew wilkow ski the colorectal cancer or the hundreds of studies on the dangers of nitrites none of it exists off you go nothing to do with it. in the united states it's thanks to scientists like neil county that the meat industry has been able to cut another notch in its belt. surprisingly in the health conscious state of california. and. this imposing building is home to the state

cabinet level california environmental protection agency. we have an appointment with sam del said deputy director for external and legislative affairs. to show us a document that doesn't exist in any other american state with a shell or. something. so this is the lists yes it's a list of substances judged dangerous to man by the state of california. to do business here manufacturers are banned from using the substances or their be. to warn consumers and it's very restrictive because there are over eight hundred products on the list so good example that would be tobacco smoke entirely and there's other things like benzene that would be something you know we have come in

things like exhaust and then here we have an inspiration and then as aspirin you know it's a special note especially for pregnant women oh here's kind of an odd one but you know the brand you know if you want to eat this go for it but be aware that you maybe don't want to eat it every single day so you don't find nitrates i tried is not on the list. it's been here since nitrites has been targeted but procedures have never been seen through when we believe the chemical meets the criteria for listing we post what's known as a notice of intent a list and that triggers a period in which people can submit public comments on whether it does or does not meet the criteria we review the comments before making a final decision to complete. the nitrites here are the comments that swung the scale of the seven contributions six come from food industry lobbyists. and with thirty one pages the winner is. andrew milk house.

before the interview we show sam all our documents on the t.v. i challenge and the attempts at influence. based as an avalanche of proof gathered during months of investigation he ends up taking out his cell phone to take photos. however in answering our questions he seems less inspired. we. it's their business if they think that they can. influence a decision be on the science but we want the science to the talking do you think it might happen that sometimes you are many created by the industry we. do our best. to make decisions based soley on the science

regardless of whatever. pressure we're expense and persuasion may be made by any outside group ok. go for new will read examine the dangers of nitrites but not before next year. or the lobby it's a many victory time gained and profits not lost. in europe a new study on nitrite was expected in december two thousand and fifteen almost a year later it still has not been.

this is. the love. you got it was the love interest.

so i feel environment you're right. chemical discoveries over the last century made every day life easier but at what cost this is cereal is exceptionally sick. no wonder it's confidential. cyst says the years old industrial giants reap the benefit. by chemical production. you know as if these people aren't people just experimental animals decades later the toxic environment continues to poison lives and we found these astronomically high levels of dioxin levels that my staff think maybe some of the highest levels ever found in the united states for almost thirty years this very serious problem had not actually been addressed what will that investigation into the chemical industry secrets revealed. to us despite.

the earth. you see your bone in them really like my real age and then you have the kind of which are you have for sure. you have to suffer. people think we do not to die being hunting and being in the process we are being isolated because of skin a car. breaking

news on our t.v. u.s. led coalition is shot down a syrian fighter jet in iraq the coalition says it was a retaliatory strike after the syrian jet bombed opposition forces also in syria tonight iran's says it has launched missile strikes against what it describes as terrorist positions in the country. i welcome you watching r.t. international start with that breaking news from syria where one of the country's fighter jets has been shot down by u.s. led forces the syrian government says the plane was conducting.