> Everyone loves a good conspiracy story.  

Is this speculation that Dr. Lungren, his boss, and Dr. Pettis are all
somehow mistaken about their own experiences?  If so, I fail to see how
someone gets to be a USDA ARS Lab Head, holds the post for over a decade,
earns accolades, and then is suddenly found to be incapable of doing the job
he had done for so many years before without complaint.

But the EPA thing, that's different, isn't it?  We have to sue them, as they
won't ever change with anything less than a court order to do so, and we
have to protect the bees from a policy that is so clearly counterintuitive. 

In this context, "conspiracy theory" is an epithet.
But there is never any need for an organized conspiracy - individuals at all
levels see that government service that complies with certain
highly-profitable viewpoints leads directly to well-paid revolving-door
employment at several multiples of the government payscale, and this
includes Congresspersons.

Those who fail to take the hints, such as Dr. Pettis and Dr. Lungren, are of
course not able to fit in, as they fail to take the hints. A tautology.

Arthur C. Clarke coined the axiom "Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."  Since then, a corollary has been found -
"any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice".
I submit that the correct corollary for modern times is "any
sufficiently-developed self-interest is indistinguishable from corruption".

Here's just ONE example - Michael Taylor.  (No, not the center-fielder for
the Washington Nationals)  See if just a quick skim of his resume from
Wikipedia has enough revolving door to induce vertigo:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_R._Taylor
http://tinyurl.com/nw7vrph

As a lobbyist/attorney for Monsanto, Talyor came up with the idea that "1
part per million" of any carcinogenic substance in any food would be
construed as inherently "De Minimis", meaning "below the minimum worthy of
any attention" .  This gutted "the Delaney Clause", which prohibited toxic
things in food, turning the clearly-worded law of the land (the "pure food
and drug act") into a game of statistics, risk analysis, and conditional
mealy-mouthed excuses rather than what it was - a simple rule of "no poisons
in food".

George H. W Bush Picked Taylor to bring more of the same to the FDA, and he
delivered - the FDA decided that milk from cows treated with BGH did not
have to be labeled as such, and that GM food plants are assumed to be
"identical" to their naturally-bred counterparts.  This was part of the
Bush/Reagan trend towards regulations that did the opposite of what their
titles were, so, for example, the "Clean Air Act" actually allowed more
pollution than before. 

Then over to USDA, where he headed up "Food Safety", still enthusiastic
about 1ppm being "de minimis" no matter how nasty the substance.  

Then, as a reward for all his hard work, he was hired directly by Monsanto,
as Bill Clinton had just been elected.  When Clinton was re-elected, Taylor
joined a right-wing think tank to do more lobbying via "white papers" from
an ivory tower, one seemingly made of actual elephant ivory.

In 2009, he was brought back into the FDA, first as a senior advisor, then
as the Deputy Commissioner for Foods.  Any impact that might have resulted
on Country Of Origin Labeling (COOL) for food, or GMO labeling, or
Artificial-Hormone-Free labeling, or National Standard for Honey is OF
COURSE, purely coincidental, and "conspiracy" would be the words of an
irrational and irresponsible person.

Is that enough "revolving door"?  And this is just one of many people who
have scrupulously followed all the appropriate laws, while not even
pretending to be anything more than a blatant shill for an agenda that
openly works against protecting US consumers, protecting US producers, and
works for crafting regulations that make the unconscionable not just
"permitted", but the default policy of the regulatory agencies and the
courts.

"Conspiracy"?  How adorable by comparison to the cancerous self-interest
that so clearly prevails unabated.

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