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Kloor's story described the background of USRTK's president, Gary Ruskin, in pushing for GMO labeling, and quoted some of the professors who had received the requests expressing concerns. One of the quotes featured was from the University of Florida's Kevin Folta, whom Kloor quoted as claiming he would be smeared for having innocent communications with companies: "They will show I have 200 e-mails from big ag companies. While it is former students … or chitchat about someone’s kids, it won’t matter. They’ll report, ‘Kevin Folta had 200 emails with Monsanto and Syngenta,’ as a way to smear me.”<ref>Keith Kloor, ScienceMag, Feb. 11, 2015, accessed Jan. 2016, http://news.sciencemag.org/scientific-community/2015/02/agricultural-researchers-rattled-demands-documents-group-opposed-gm</ref>
However, when public records responsive to USRTK's request for communications by Folta were released, they revealed more the than emails about the kids of his corporate friends. As Kloor noted in a follow-up blog for Nature, the university released more than 4,000 pages of Folta's communications with industry, and "The documents show that Monsanto paid for Folta's travel to speak to US students, farmers, politicians and the media. Other industry contacts occasionally sent him suggested responses to common questions about GM organisms. 'Nobody ever told me what to say,' says Folta."<ref>Keith Kloor, Nature, Aug. 6, 2015, accessed Jan. 2016, http://www.nature.com/news/gm-crop-opponents-expand-probe-into-ties-between-scientists-and-industry-1.18146</ref>
In his letter to the editor of the online magazines, Murphy pointed out the Kloor gave a speech in 2015 at an Alliance for Science (AFS) meeting at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Murphy asked both magazines to inquire whether Kloor had received any honorarium or travel expenses for the speech titled "How Cultural Brokers Shape the GMO Debate."<ref>Cornell Alliance for Science website, Apr. 8, 2015, accessed Jan. 2016, http://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/keith-kloor-how-cultural-brokers-shape-gmo-debate </ref> AFS is funded almost entirely by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has worked closely with the [[Monsanto]] Corporation to push GMO crops and oppose restrictions on GMOs, including most recently working together to urge Kenya to overturn its ban on GMO cotton.<ref>GMWatch website, Jan. 6, 2016, accessed Jan. 2016, http://www.gmwatch.eu/2016-articles/16631-monsanto-us-and-gates-foundation-pressure-kenya-to-reverse-gmo-ban</ref>
