Monsanto
===
see bayer, roundup glyphosate
SEE CLARENCE 3
=
https://www.ecowatch.com/glyphosate-approval-eu-2626086402.html
EU Approval of Glyphosate Based on Review That Plagiarized Monsanto Studies
The European Union's license extension of the world's most popular weedkiller, glyphosate, was based on a review that heavily plagiarized industry studies, according to a report (pdf) commissioned by European parliamentarians (MEPs).
The new analysis released Tuesday compares whether a risk assessment of the controversial herbicide was actually authored by scientists representing Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) or by the European Glyphosate Task Force (GTF), an industry group that includes Monsanto, the manufacturer of glyphosate-based Roundup, in its ranks.
"Plagiarism was discovered exclusively in the chapters dealing with the assessment of published studies on health risks related to glyphosate," according to the report by plagiarism researcher Stefan Weber and biochemist Helmut Burtscher-Schaden. "In these chapters, 50.1 percent of the content was identified as plagiarism."
In one of their most "remarkable findings," the report's authors determined that even BfR's assessment methods were directly lifted from GTF text.
"The BfR had thus copied Monsanto's explanation of Monsanto's approach in evaluating the published literature, yet had presented it as the approach of the authority. This is a striking example of deception regarding true authorship," the report states.
The BfR and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) rejected the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer's March 2015 classification of glyphosate as a possible carcinogen. The EFSA based its conclusion on the BfR's stance. Critics have previously accused both agencies of its close ties to the industry.
Weber pointed out to POLITICO that BfR's plagiarizing also means that dozens of studies dismissed by the Glyphosate Task Force were similarly disregarded by European food safety authorities.
"It is very concerning under the hypothesis that all these studies ignored are simply considered as not reliable," he said.
MEPs from the Greens, Socialists & Democrats and European United Left–Nordic Green Left parties commissioned the new report not long after the Guardian revealed that the BfR's glyphosate safety assessment copy-and-pasted large sections of text from a study conducted by Monsanto.
..[doc comp graf]
...
==-=-
Thomas' Monsanto years offer window into justice's enviro roots
As debate roils over Justice Clarence Thomas’ involvement in election-related cases, one environmental lawyer is exploring another time the Supreme Court justice has faced recusal calls.
In a new Harvard Environmental Law Review article, lawyer Scott Stern delves into Thomas’ history as a Monsanto Co. attorney in the late 1970s during the dawn of the modern environmental movement — and his resistance over the years to bow out of cases involving the agrochemical giant.
Based on his research of archival materials, Stern purports that Thomas’ three years at Monsanto early in his legal career helped transform him from registered Democrat at age 18 to one of the Supreme Court’s most conservative members at 73.
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“[T]he effect Monsanto and the broader chemical industry had on [Thomas] was profound,” wrote Stern, a recent Yale Law School graduate who is now a clerk for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “The effect he, in turn, has had on the environment and on our environmental rights is undeniable.”
Stern’s article comes as Democratic lawmakers and some ethics experts have called for Thomas to step back from cases related to the 2020 election and for the Supreme Court — or Congress — to strengthen its recusal rules.
The calls follow reporting on March 24 by The Washington Post and CBS News that the justice’s wife — Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni — had urged then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to push baseless claims that the 2020 election had been stolen from former President Donald Trump.
In January, Clarence Thomas was the sole vote against the Supreme Court order that blocked Trump’s request to withhold White House communications from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot.
“This is a textbook case for removing him, recusing him from these decisions, and all I hear is silence from the Supreme Court right now,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, during a March 27 appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”
Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky have come to Thomas’ defense.
“Washington Democrats are now trying to bully this exemplary judge of 30-plus years out of entire legal subjects or off the Court entirely,” McConnell said during a March 30 speech on the Senate floor.
The Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
Supreme Court recusals are a controversial subject, as they are left to the discretion of the justices, who rarely explain their decisions to step back from cases.
Judicial disqualification law requires justices to bow out of cases in which their impartiality “might reasonably be questioned” — including in disputes presenting family or financial conflicts or where a jurist has served as a private practice attorney “in the matter in controversy.”
Recusals can also sometimes cause problems for the court if the remaining eight justices cannot form a majority.
While recusals from cases involving former employers depend on the particular facts of a dispute, debate over Thomas’ participation in Monsanto cases “highlights another deficiency in the current ethics regime,” said Alicia Bannon, director of the judiciary program at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice.
“Even when judges recuse themselves or are asked to recuse themselves, they don’t typically give reasons for their decisions,” she said. “In instances where there could potentially be a case for recusal — but it’s very fact-dependent — having the justices give reasons for their decisions is very important for accountability.”
Questioning impartiality
During his 30 years on the nation’s highest bench, Thomas has faced calls to stay out of Monsanto cases but has routinely helped issue rulings in favor of the company and other chemical industry litigants, Stern found in his paper.
He cited one document in a polychlorinated biphenyls contamination case in which a plaintiffs’ lawyer said a search for records related to Thomas’ role at Monsanto might be “useful to induce settlement and/or head off appeal from final judgment.”
Monsanto manufactured the chemicals, known as PCBs, from 1935 until they were banned in the United States in 1979. While he was at Monsanto, Thomas was responsible for negotiating contracts for PCB disposal, Stern wrote.
“Clearly, it would appear that members of the public as well as litigants are questioning Justice Thomas’s impartiality, or are at least well aware that others could raise such questions,” Stern wrote. “Whether such questioning is ‘reasonable’ is, per the statute, up to Justice Thomas himself.”
Thomas has weighed in on PCB contamination cases that have come before the Supreme Court.
In the 1997 case General Electric Co. v. Joiner, for example, Thomas was part of the court’s unanimous rejection of a claim related to electrician Robert Joiner’s case that GE and Monsanto should be held liable for his exposure to PCBs while working with machinery at a Georgia utility plant.
Joiner said the chemicals “promoted” the lung cancer he later developed.
The Supreme Court has taken up many more Monsanto cases since Thomas arrived on the bench in 1991 — and the justices could soon consider a petition from the company that has the potential to upend a landmark cancer settlement related to its Roundup weedkiller (Greenwire, Dec. 9, 2021).
In his paper, Stern cited instances of other justices recusing in similar circumstances. As one example, Justice John Paul Stevens — whose son, a Vietnam war veteran, died from cancer — did not participate in former military members’ challenges against Monsanto and other manufacturers of the lethal herbicide Agent Orange.
Monsanto, which is now owned by the German pharmaceutical company Bayer AG, did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
Limited role for agencies
As a member of the Supreme Court, Thomas has repeatedly expressed skepticism of broad powers for federal agencies like EPA — an attribute Stern links back to the justice’s early environmental work.
When Thomas left Monsanto in 1979 for a two-year stint advising then-Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.) on environmental issues, Thomas worked with corporate lobbyists fighting new federal laws like the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Shortly after former President Ronald Reagan was elected, Thomas urged Danforth to pursue a position on the Environment and Public Works Committee to “limit the impact of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts,” according to the lawmakers’ archived documents, which Stern reviewed for his research.
“After all,” Stern wrote, “reining in these laws could cripple the regulatory authority of EPA and liberate companies like Monsanto to operate unencumbered.”
From Danforth’s office, Thomas eventually joined the Reagan team as assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education — but two of his biographers say the administration originally eyed him for an environmental position.
He went on to serve as chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and was appointed by former President George H.W. Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
That move eventually catapulted Thomas to the nation’s highest bench.
Stern wrote in his paper that he aimed to offer a fuller view of Thomas’ environmental work at a time when the justice’s “once-fringe positions” are gaining mainstream acceptance by the court’s newly bolstered conservative wing.
Challenges seeking to limit the reach of both the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act are currently before the Supreme Court — as is a case that could upend Chevron deference, which gives agencies like EPA leeway to interpret ambiguous statutes (Greenwire, Feb. 14).
“[H]is environmental ideology matters because, as numerous commentators have argued, Thomas — the senior Associate Justice on an increasingly conservative Court — is arguably the nation’s most influential justice,” Stern wrote.
==
http://www.ecowatch.com/orca-lulu-monsanto-pcbs-2404432231.html
Monsanto PCBs May Leave Orca Pod 'Doomed to Extinction'
By Carey Wedler
The Guardian reported last Tuesday that Lulu, the full-grown whale who died, "was a member of the UK's last resident pod and a postmortem also showed she had never produced a calf. The pollutants, called PCBs, are known to cause infertility and these latest findings add to strong evidence that the pod is doomed to extinction."
The levels of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, found in Lulu's blubber were "more than 100 times the 9mg/kg limit above which damage to the health of marine mammals is known to occur," the Guardian noted. Lulu had 950mg/kg in her blubber. The average orca in the North-Atlantic ocean has 150mg/kg.
Polychlorinated biphenyls were first used in the 1930s until they were banned by the U.S. government in 1979. According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), PCBs are synthetic organic chemicals found in "old fluorescent lighting fixtures, electrical devices or appliances containing PCB capacitors made before PCB use was stopped, old microscope oil and old hydraulic oil." When released into the environment, they take long periods of time to break down.
They have been found to cause damage to human health. As ATSDR notes, "Some studies in workers suggest that exposure to PCBs may also cause irritation of the nose and lungs, gastrointestinal discomfort, changes in the blood and liver and depression and fatigue."
The Guardian explained the effects these chemicals have on marine life, as well:
"PCBs, which cause cancers and suppress the immune system, are especially harmful to top predators because they accumulate in fat up the food chain. Killer whales can live for many decades, meaning they can end up with very high levels of PCBs."
Though Lulu died after getting caught in ropes used for fishing, according to Andrew Brownlow, head of the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme, "Given what is known about the toxic effects of PCBs, we have to consider that such a high-pollutant burden could have been affecting her health and reproductive fitness."
"Lulu's apparent infertility is an ominous finding—with no new animals being born, it is now looking increasingly likely that this small group will eventually go extinct. One of the factors in this group's apparent failure to reproduce could be their high burden of organic pollutants," he said.
According to Monsanto's website, the company was deeply involved in the proliferation of the chemicals:
"The former Monsanto Company produced and sold PCBs to manufacturers—such as General Electric and Westinghouse—that incorporated the fluid into their products. The former Monsanto's PCB products bore the trade name 'Aroclor' (although not all Aroclor products were PCB products).
"Although the former Monsanto Company was the principal manufacturer of PCBs in the United States, its share of the global production was about 45 percent. There were many manufacturers in other countries, including West Germany, East Germany, Japan, France, Czechoslovakia, Spain, Italy, Poland, Russia and China. Production and use of PCBs continued in many of these countries into the 1990s."
...
no link
==
==
http://www.globalpossibilities.org/monsantos-herbicide-linked-to-fatal-kidney-disease-epidemic-could-it-topple-the-company/
Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup has been linked to a mysterious fatal kidney disease epidemic that has appeared in Central America, Sri Lanka and India.] 7/14
==
alternet
Spurring thousands of farmer suicides.
In India, more than 250,000 farmers have taken their own lives after Monsanto’s Bt cotton seeds didn’t perform as promised. Monsanto has established a seed monopoly when it comes to Indian cotton. Seeds used to be the property of the farmer, but Monsanto patents the seeds it has genetically modified—even second-, third- and fourth-generation seeds are considered to be “Monsanto-owned.” Monsanto has created a monopoly in the country and its GMO seeds the only ones available, so farmers are forced to purchase the seeds from Monsanto, often on credit. When those seeds don’t perform as promised, or sometimes even if they do, the farmers are left trapped in severe poverty and debt. Some farmers have turned to drinking Monsanto’s poisonous pesticides in an attempt to free their families from that debt.
In a 2013 Al Jazeeraarticle titled “Seeds of Suicide and Slavery Versus Seeds of Life and Freedom,” Vandana Shiva wrote that Monsanto’s PR is in stark contrast to reality. Of Monsanto India’s website, she wrote, “All the pictures are of smiling prosperous farmers from the state of Maharashtra. However, we see that the reality on the ground is completely different. Farmers are in debt and in deep distress, and have become dependent on Monsanto's seed monopoly.”
She wrote that what was once the cotton belt in India is now the suicide belt: “The highest suicides are in Maharashtra. Monsanto's talk of 'technology' tries to hide its real objectives of ownership, where genetic engineering is just a means to control seeds and the food system through patents and intellectual property rights.”
==
patrick tucker book tv 5/14 crop insurance is basically weather insurance based on big data models?
see hawaii fight sorta indigenous EJ 4 seed co's
big data
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/29/monsantos_scary_new_scheme_why_does_it_really_want_all_this_data/
Imagine cows fed and milked entirely by robots. Or tomatoes that send an e-mail when they need more water. Or a farm where all the decisions about where to plant seeds, spray fertilizer and steer tractors are made by software on servers on the other side of the sea.
This is what more and more of our agriculture may come to look like in the years ahead, as farming meets Big Data. There’s no shortage of farmers and industry gurus who think this kind of “smart” farming could bring many benefits. Pushing these tools onto fields, the idea goes, will boost our ability to control this fiendishly unpredictable activity and help farmers increase yields even while using fewer resources.
The big question is who exactly will end up owning all this data, and who gets to determine how it is used. On one side stand some of the largest corporations in agriculture, who are racing to gather and put their stamp on as much of this information as they can. Opposing them are farmers’ groups and small open-source technology start-ups, which want to ensure a farm’s data stays in the farmer’s control and serves the farmer’s interests.
Who wins will determine not just who profits from the information, but who, at the end of the day, directs life and business on the farm.
One recent round in this battle took place in October, when Monsanto spent close to $1 billion to buy the Climate Corporation, a data analytics firm. Last year the chemical and seed company also bought Precision Planting, another high-tech firm, and also launched a venture capital arm geared to fund tech start-ups.
In November, John Deere and DuPont Pioneer announced plans to partner to provide farmers information and prescriptions in near-real time. Deere has pioneered “precision farming” equipment in recent years, equipping tractors and combines to automatically transmit data collected from particular farms to company databases. DuPont, meanwhile, has rolled out a service that analyzes data into “actionable management strategies.”
Many farmers are wary that these giants could use these tools to win unprecedented levels of insight into the economics and operational workings of their farms. The issue is not that these companies would shower the farmers with ads, as Facebook does when it knows you’re looking to buy sneakers. For farmers, the risks of big data seem to pierce right to the heart of how they make a living. What would it mean, for instance, for Monsanto to know the intricacies of their business?
Farm advocacy groups are now scrambling to understand how — if given free rein — these corporations could misuse the data they collect. “We’re signing up for things without knowing what we’re giving up,” said Mark Nelson, director of commodities at the Kansas Farm Bureau. In May, the American Farm Bureau Federation, a national lobbying group, published a policy brief outlining some potential risks around these data-driven farm tools.
For farmers, the most immediate question is who owns the information these technologies capture. Many farmers have been collecting digitized yield data on their operations since the 1990s, when high-tech farm tools first emerged. But that information would sit on a tractor or monitor until the farmer manually transferred it to his computer, or handed a USB stick to an agronomist to analyze. Now, however, smart devices can wirelessly transfer data straight to a corporation’s servers, sometimes without a farmer’s knowledge.
“When I start storing information up on the Internet, I lose control of it,” said Walt Bones, who farms in Parker, S.D., and served as state agriculture secretary.
Justin Dikeman, a sales representative with DuPont, said farmers continue to own whatever data they collect on their operations. A spokesman for John Deere also said farmers own their data, and that farmers have the opportunity to opt-out of the company’s cloud services. Monsanto did not reply to a comment request.
Details on who owns what at which stage of the analytics process is less clear, though. Even if a contract guarantees that farmers own the raw data, for instance, it’s not obvious whether farmers will be able to access that data in a non-proprietary format. Nor is it evident how easily farmers can stop these devices from collecting and transmitting data.
How corporations use the information is another central concern. One worry is the giants will harness the data to engage in price discrimination, in which they charge some farmers more than others for the same product. For example, details on the economic worth of a farm operation could empower Monsanto or DuPont to calculate the exact value the farm derives from its products. Monsanto already varies its prices by region, so that Illinois farmers with a bumper crop might be charged more for seeds than Texas farmers facing a drought. Bigger heaps of data would enable these companies to price discriminate more finely, not just among different geographic regions but between neighbors.
Another issue is how the value of this information will be determined, and the profits divided. The prescription services Monsanto and DuPont are offering will draw on the vast amounts of data they amass from thousands of individual farms. Farmers consider much of this information – such as on soil fertility and crop yields – confidential, and most view details about particular farming techniques as akin to personal “trade secrets.” Even if the corporations agree not to disclose farm-specific information, some farmers worry that the information may end up being used against them in ways that dull their particular competitive edge.
“If you inadvertently teach Monsanto what it is that makes you a better farmer than your neighbor, it can sell that information to your neighbor,” said John McGuire, an agriculture technology consultant who runs Simplified Technology Services and developed geospatial tools for Monsanto in the late-1990s. And if the corporation gathers enough information, “it opens the door for Monsanto to say, ‘We know how to farm in your area better than you do,’” he said.
There are also no clear guidelines on how this information will be used within commodity markets. Real-time data is highly valuable to investors and financial traders, who bet billions of dollars in wheat, soybean and corn futures. In a market where the slightest informational edge makes the difference between huge profits and even bigger losses, corporations that gather big data will have a ready customer base if they choose to sell their knowledge. Or they could just use it to speculate themselves.
“If this real time yield data goes into the cloud and a lot of market investors get into it, there is potential for market distortion,” said Kyle Cline, policy advisor for national government relations at the Indiana Farm Bureau. “It could destabilize markets, make them more volatile,” he said.
John Deere has stated it will not share data with anyone it believes will use it to influence or gain an advantage in commodity markets. Monsanto, DuPont and other firms have not, however, issued similar public statements.
Some farmers and smaller manufacturers also worry that data analytics will give conglomerates like Monsanto and DuPont more power to compel farmers to buy other lines of products. Monsanto, for example, has proven highly adept at leveraging its wide suite of products to support one another. How Monsanto used its dominance in one business (genetic traits) to benefit others (seeds, fertilizer) was the focus of a three-year antitrust investigation by the Justice Department. (DOJ closed the probe last November without taking any action).
In recent years, Monsanto, DuPont and John Deere have also expanded into selling farmers a variety of financial services and insurance. John Deere, for one, acknowledges that its financial division may consult data from a farmer’s machinery, if the farmer permits.
Other private corporations are also competing for a share of the big data pie. Established equipment manufacturers like AgCo and Case IH have been expanding their data analytics services, and some high-tech upstarts are also joining the game. The Climate Corporation, the weather data and insurance company Monsanto bought in October, for example, was founded by a former Google employee.
Open-source groups attempting to provide farmers with some similar technologies includeISOBlue, a project based at Purdue University, which teaches farmers how to capture and independently store their own data. FarmLogs, a Michigan-based company backed by Silicon Valley money, sells software and data analytics that let farmers fully control the information collected. “We’re pushing back against the monopoly on information” that some existing vendors create, said FarmLogs founder Jesse Vollmar, who grew up on a farm.
What is not clear is whether these smaller open-source companies will be able to keep up with the established giants over the long run.
“Monsanto has its fingers awful deep within our industries,” McGuire said. “Its expansion [into data analytics] should scare a lot of people.”
To be sure, much depends on how widely farmers adopt the privately-designed “decision-support” services. Monsanto has estimated this to be a $20 billion market, but there is no proof yet whether the company will be able to process these reams of data into profitable farming and business strategies. Whether Monsanto’s bet will pay off is “tough to validate,” said Paul Massoud, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus.
Some experts question whether relying on prescription-based services is in farmers’ best interest at all. “I don’t see farmers themselves crunching numbers, so [I] doubt they’ll be learning anything more about how to farm well,” said Bill Freese, expert on agricultural biotech and science policy analyst with Center for Food Safety. “Monsanto’s scheme does not really represent farmers embracing data analytics, but Monsanto embracing it to better sell the seeds it wants to sell with a pseudo-scientific rationale.”
A new group called the Grower Information Services Cooperative thinks the best way farmers can protect their interests during the transition to big data is to organize. Formed in west Texas last December, GISC is pushing a model where farmers would store their data in a repository through the co-op, and companies would pay the group a fee to access it. The system would give farmers technical as well as legal ownership, and provide a way for them to share in its monetary value, said Mark Cox, controller and communications director for GISC.
“Growers need to be proactive in how their information is managed,” Cox said. “Otherwise all that economic power will consolidate to these corporations and the grower will be at even more of a disadvantage. We don’t want the grower to become a tenant on his own farm.” GISC began accepting members this month, and is meeting with farm bureaus around the country to publicize its mission.
Soil sensors and seed planting algorithms may be a game-changer. Whether farmers fully reap the fruits of that harvest, though, will depend not on technologies but on the legal technicalities that bind their use.
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/29/monsantos_scary_new_scheme_why_does_it_really_want_all_this_data/
http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/
http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/http://www.salon.com/writer/lina_khan/Lina Khan reports on the effects of concentrated economic power with the Markets, Enterprise, and Resiliency Initiative at the New America Foundation.
AlterNet [1] / By Ocean Robbins [2]
Monsanto's Very Bad Week: 3 Big Blows for GMO Food
October 21, 2013 |
It hasn't been a good week for Monsanto and the rest of the biotech industry.
Just three days ago, Mexico banned [3] genetically engineered corn. Citing the risk of imminent harm to the environment, a Mexican judge ruled that, effective immediately, no genetically engineered corn can be planted in the country. This means that companies like Monsanto will no longer be allowed to plant or sell their corn within the country's borders.
At the same time, the County Council for the island of Kauai passed a law [4]that mandates farms to disclose pesticide use and the presence of genetically modified crops. The bill also requires a 500-foot buffer zone near medical facilities, schools and homes -- among other locations.
And the big island of Hawaii County Council gave preliminary approval [5] to a bill that prohibits open air cultivation, propagation, development or testing of genetically engineered crops or plants. The bill, which still needs further confirmation to become law, would also prohibit biotech companies from operating on the Big Island.
But perhaps the biggest bombshell of all is now unfolding in Washington state. The mail-in ballot state's voters are already weighing in on Initiative 522, which would mandate the labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Knowing full well that 93 percent of the American public supports [6] GMO labeling, and that if one state passes it, many others are likely to follow, entrenched agribusiness interests are pulling out all the stops [7] to try to squelch yet another [8] state labeling effort.
This time, however, things aren't going quite as planned. On Wednesday, Washington state Attorney General Bob Feguson filed a lawsuit [9] against the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA). The GMA, a lobby for the junk food industry, has been by far the largest donor to efforts to defeat the labeling initiative. The lawsuit alleges that the GMA illegally collected and spent more than $7 million while shielding the identity of its contributors.
This story [10] first appeared on the Huffington Post.
The source of the money has now been exposed, and it turns out [11] to be Pepsico, Coca-Cola, NestleUSA, General Mills and a few other junk food companies. The lawsuit reveals [12] that GMA leadership held a series of secret meetings to plot how to perpetrate a money laundering scheme and illegally hide member donations from Washington state voters, in direct violation of campaign disclosure laws.
Unlike the junk food companies that feared consumer backlash, Monsanto hasn't even bothered to hide the more than $4 million the company has given to the "no" campaign. In fact, GMA, Monsanto and a handful of other corporate donors have now broken a state record [13] by pouring more than $17 million into their effort to stop Washington's GMO labeling ballot initiative.
Voting is already underway in Washington, and the final ballots will be cast on November 5. The "yes" side is ahead [14] in the most recent polls, but supporters of the right to know fear that a barrage of heavily funded and misleading [15] ads could sour voters to the initiative.
They remember that just last year, California's Proposition 37 was well ahead in the polls until Monsanto and its allies spent more than $46 million [8] on their campaign in the Golden State.
All this label fighting and money laundering leads to some very significant questions. Why are Monsanto and the junk food industry willing to spend many tens of millions of dollars every year trying to keep you in the dark about your food? What doesn't big food want you to know? And what are they afraid might happen if you did?
Monsanto tells us that their products are about the best thing to come along since sliced bread. For years they've been promising that GMOs would reduce [16] pesticide use, increase [17]yields, reduce [18] water consumption, and offer foods that are more [19] tasty and more [20] nutritious.
I wish they were right.
But in the 20 years since GMO crops first came on the market, studies have found that they have led to higher [21] pesticide use, and no meaningful improvement in flavor [22], nutrition [23],yield [24] or water [18] requirements. Instead, what they've created are plants that are engineered to withstand massive [25] dosing of toxic [26] herbicides, and plants that function as living pesticide factories. Monsanto's Bt. corn, for example, is actually registered [27] with the EPA as a pesticide.
With concern about GMOs growing fast, and with the public being pummeled with vast amounts of misinformation, there is a tremendous need for clear, accurate and reliable information about GMOs. In response, the 100,000+ member Food Revolution Network and the Institute for Responsible Technology are co-sponsoring a free online GMO Mini-Summit [28]. From October 25-27, some of the top GMO experts on the planet will be providing insights and clear calls to action in this teleseminar that is also being broadcast without charge on the Internet. Monsanto probably isn't too happy about the prospect of tens of thousands of people getting informed and mobilized. But if you love life, safe food, and the truth, then you might want to check it out. [28]
And if you want to lend a hand to getting out the vote in the state of Washington, you cansign up to volunteer here. [29]
Nobody knows what's going to happen in Washington between now and November 5. But from Mexico, to Hawaii and to the 64 nations that already have GMO labeling, this tide just might be turning.
Maybe we, the people, do get a say in what we know, and what we eat, after all.
See more stories tagged with:
gmo [30],
right to know [31],
food [32],
agriculture [33],
monstanto [34]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/food/monsantos-very-bad-week-3-big-blows-gmo-food
Links:
[1] http://alternet.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/ocean-robbins
[3] http://www.theyucatantimes.com/2013/10/mexico-bans-gmo-corn/
[4] http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/23707723/kauai-council-approves-controversial-gmo-pesticide-labeling-bill
[5] http://bigislandnow.com/2013/10/16/council-votes-to-restrict-gmos-ban-fracking/
[6] http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97567
[7] http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2021941264_gmomoneyxml.html
[8] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ocean-robbins/monsanto-prop-37_b_2088934.html
[9] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/16/us-usa-gmo-labeling-idUSBRE99F19B20131016
[10] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ocean-robbins/huge-gmo-news_b_4129311.html
[11] http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2013/10/18/pepsi-coke-nestle-top-multi-million-dollar-campaign-against-i-522/
[12] http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2013/10/17/corporate-secrets-how-the-anti-522-campaign-was-planned/
[13] http://blogs.seattletimes.com/politicsnorthwest/category/general-election/gmo-initiative/
[14] http://www.seattlemet.com/news-and-profiles/publicola/articles/elway-poll-eyman-initiative-gmo-labeling-measure-hold-big-leads-september-2013
[15] http://www.inspirationsforchange.com/healthy-living/yes-522-misleading-no-on-522-commercials-analyzed/#.UmJCIWRgb0g
[16] http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/10/how-gmos-ramped-us-pesticide-use
[17] http://www.alternet.org/food/why-monsanto-wrong-about-gm-crop-promises
[18] http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/genetic-engineering/monsanto-fails-at-improving.html
[19] http://www.biotech.iastate.edu/biotech_info_series/bio8.html
[20] http://monsantoblog.com/2009/04/01/gmos-improving-nutrition/
[21] http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/02/us-usa-study-pesticides-idUSBRE89100X20121002
[22] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/booming/you-call-that-a-tomato.html
[23] http://www.medicaldaily.com/nutritional-value-corn-does-gmo-corn-contain-same-nutrients-246496
[24] http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/genetic-engineering/failure-to-yield.html
[25] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html?pagewanted=all
[26] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=weed-whacking-herbicide-p
[27] http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/biopesticides/pips/regofbtcrops.htm
[28] http://www.gmosummit.org/
[29] http://yeson522.com/volunteer-for-yes-on-522/
[30] http://www.alternet.org/tags/gmo
[31] http://www.alternet.org/tags/right-know
[32] http://www.alternet.org/tags/food-0
[33] http://www.alternet.org/tags/agriculture
[34] http://www.alternet.org/tags/monstanto
[35] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
==
Monsanto just dropped $1 billion on better weather forecasts
By John Upton
Congressional paralysis is freezing or slashing national spending on weather forecasting and monitoring. Plans to deploy a next-generation array of satellites known as COSMIC-2 could be cut by lawmakers as part of the sequester spending cuts --if only they would pass a budget. And workers at NASA, which provide data used by climate researchers the world over, are being furloughed.
But Monsanto -- that profitable agro-corporation that wields ever-increasing power over the world's food supply -- is taking a smarter approach. As the effects of climate change devastate crops the world over, Monsanto has announced it is buying the Climate Corporation for $930 million. From the press release:
“Farmers around the world are challenged to make key decisions for their farms in the face of increasingly volatile weather, as well as a proliferation of information sources,” said David Friedberg, chief executive officer for The Climate Corporation. “Our team understands that the ability to turn data into actionable insight and farm management recommendations is vitally important for agriculture around the world and can greatly benefit farmers, regardless of farm size or their preferred farming methods. Monsanto shares this important vision for our business and we look forward to creating even greater experiences for our farmer customers.”
*Modern Farmer* explains the acquisition:
Climate Corporation underwrites weather insurance for farmers, basically in real time, using some of the most sophisticated data tools available to determine the risks posed by future weather conditions and events.....
==
http://www.alternet.org/print/food/monsanto-and-big-foods-new-ploy-win-hearts-and-minds
==
[http://www.alternet.org/print/food/why-monsanto-wrong-about-gm-crop-promises Research Shows that Monsanto's Big Claims for GMO Food Are Probably Wrong]. A new peer-reviewed study published in the [http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14735903.2013.806408#.UcE_LOsd67I International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability] examined those claims and found that conventional plant breeding, not genetic engineering, is responsible for yield increases in major U.S. crops. Additionally, GM crops, also known as genetically engineered (GE) crops, can’t even take credit for reductions in pesticide use. 7/13.
Monsanto's Unapproved GMO Wheat Stored In Colorado For 7 Years, Investigators Say
Reuters
|
Posted: 06/28/2013 9:21 am EDT | Updated: 06/28/2013 11:30 am EDT
By Carey Gillam
June
28 (Reuters) - Monsanto Co's unapproved, experimental genetically
engineered wheat, which is feared to have potentially contaminated U.S.
wheat supplies after it was found growing in an Oregon field this
spring, was kept in a U.S. government storage facility until at least
late 2011, according to documents obtained by Reuters.
The
revelation that the seed for the controversial genetically engineered
wheat was kept viable in a Colorado storage facility as recently as a
year and a half ago comes as the U.S. government is investigating how
the strain of experimental wheat wound up growing in an Oregon field
this spring.
The probe by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture includes an examination of the handling of the GMO wheat
seed that Monsanto directed be sent to the government-controlled
National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation in Fort Collins,
Colorado, beginning in late 2004, according to Peter Bretting, who
oversees the center for the USDA's Agricultural Research Service.
David
Dierig, research leader at the National Center for Genetic Resources
Preservation, also said the matter was "under active investigation."
The
National Center uses high-tech methods to extend the viability of
seeds for decades, much longer than their viability in conventional
storage. The facility took in at least 43 physical containers of
Monsanto's so-called "Roundup Ready" wheat in late 2004 and early 2005,
the documents show. The material represented more than 1,000 different
unique varieties or lines, according to the documents that Monsanto
provided in a heavily redacted format.
The documents were made up of correspondence between Monsanto and the Colorado facility.
==
http://grist.org/news/organic-farmers-lose-court-battle-with-monsanto/Organic farmers lose court battle with Monsanto] 6/13.
===
Despite the pressure from an incredible 340,664 activists including yourself, Sen. Merkley's amendment never even came up from a vote. Initially it was blocked from consideration by Senator Blunt (R-MO) - who has taken over $160,000 from Monsanto in campaign and PAC contributions since 2008.2 Then the clock ran out as senators continued obstructing each others' amendments, and Senator Reid moved for a vote on the farm bill without including any amendments.
There is some good news however. Because the Monsanto Protection Act (MPA) was attached to the continuing resolution to fund the government through September, the MPA itself is set to expire in September.
And thanks to Senator Merkley's leadership, and the pressure you created, Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) committed on the senate floor to blocking the Monsanto Protection Act from getting renewed in the same way it was passed -- anonymously, without debate, and without most in congress even knowing it was in the bill.
gmo bgh
rbst gmo fox killed akre and wilson investigation on milk monsanto hired lawyer who sent letter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JL1pKlnhvg0 invest rept
JUST PROMOTED TO PRIMARY 5/13 THO NOT DIRECT TO CLIMATE
==
CCF pr ovides virtually no referencing, yet their statements are circulated by other industry groups, animal breeders and brokers, news wires and even some media outlets. CCF does not link back to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), nor any sites of groups or individuals purportedly being "exposed". Richard Berman and CCF clients have included Phillip Morris, Monsanto, Tyson Foods, Dean Foods and Coca Cola. Tyson is also a major supplier of restaurant chains, including Kentucky Fried Chicken [[3]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Berman_cares_about_animals:_clients_exposed#cite_note-2) and McDonalds. [[4]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Berman_cares_about_animals:_clients_exposed#cite_note-3) Monsanto contracts product toxicity testing on animals out to Huntingdon Life Sciences. [[5]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Berman_cares_about_animals:_clients_exposed#cite_note-4) All of these corporations, as well as Phillip Morris contract laboratory Covance Laboratories, have subjects of campaigns and investigations by PETA and/or other groups.
BITTER SEEDS indian farmers commit suicide b/c of debt Bt cotton seeds
Last year, Monsanto spent nearly $6 million on lobbying, and their payoff was the "Monsanto Protection Act," which was written anonymously, passed in secret, and allows Monsanto to keep selling genetically engineered seeds even if a federal court says they may pose a health risk.1
Now, Monsanto has sneaked an amendment into the farm bill that would block GMO labeling laws moving forward in states like Vermont and Connecticut.2
This time, Monsanto may have gone too far. A massive backlash is growing against the Monsanto Protection Act, and Senator Jeff Merkley is demanding a floor vote to repeal it.
===
5 Most Horrifying Things About Monsanto—Why You Should Join the Global Movement and Protest on Saturday
May 22, 2013 |
Fed up with the fact that she has to spend “a small fortune” in order to feed her family things she says “aren’t poisonous,” Tami Canal of Utah has organized a global movement against the giant chemical and seed corporation Monsanto. Monsanto is the conglomerate mastermind behind many of the pesticides and genetically engineered seeds that pervade farm fields around the world. Monsanto [3] produces the world’s top-selling herbicide; 40 percent of US crops contain its genes; it spends millions lobbying the government each year; and several of its factories are now toxic Superfund sites. [4]
Canal, who has a 17-month-old baby and a six-year-old girl, cites concerns over public health, adverse affects on the environment, and political corruption as her motivation to organize against the biotech giant. And her concern has resonated. Protesters around the world have responded to Canal’s call to action, and will amplify their dissatisfaction with the corporation in a “March Against Monsanto” on May 25.
“Not only are they threatening our children and ourselves as well, but also the environment,” Canal says. “The declining bee population has been linked to the pesticides that they use, and that’s just the start. I’ve been reading studies recently that butterflies are starting to disappear, and birds. It’s only a matter of time, it’s pretty much a domino effect.”
What started as one mother’s call to action on a Facebook page has become a movement with more than 400 demonstrations scheduled in 50 countries and 250 cities around the globe. The events are organized online via an open Google Document [5], where people can find the protest nearest them. The March Against Monsanto Facebook page has received more than 105,000 “likes.” It has reached more than 10,000,000 people in the last week according to its website, [6] which averages over 40,000 visitors per day.
One of the short-term goals of the march, Canal says, is to spread immediate awareness about the offenses Monsanto commits. Another is to inspire people to vote with their dollars by boycotting Monsanto-owned companies that put unsafe products—like genetically modified organisms (GMO) and pesticide-ridden foods—on the market. The effort also advocates for labeling of genetically modified products so consumers can make informed decisions, and demands further scientific research on the health effects of GMOs.
Canal is particularly interested in drawing attention to what she calls dangerous products that are marketed to children. “Like Kellogg's,” she says. “For example, Froot Loops is 100-percent genetically engineered, and that’s a children's cereal. That’s irresponsible and unacceptable on so many levels.”
The ultimate goal of the march is a complete ban on Monsanto within the US. At least 60 countries worldwide, including Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Peru, South Australia, Russia, France, and Switzerland, have implemented outright bans of Monsanto and its genetic modification of food products.
“I don’t understand why the US isn’t on the forefront of that thinking,” says Canal. “[Monsanto] has a long history of crimes against humanity.”
Here are the five most disturbing reasons you should join the March Against Monsanto:
1. Profiteering poisonous chemical company posing as agribusiness.
Remember the horrors of Operation Ranch Hand during the Vietnam War, when the US military designed a chemical warfare program and used the herbicide and defoliant Agent Orange to kill and maim 400,000 people (estimated by the Vietnam government), and ultimately cause birth defects for 500,000 children? Monsanto made that possible.
Monsanto began as a chemical company [7] in 1901 and was responsible for some of the most damaging toxins in US history, like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB’s), and dioxin. Consumer advocacy group Food and Water Watch (FWW) released a report [8] on APril 3 detailing Monsanto’s role in chemical disasters, Agent Orange, and the first genetically modified plant cell. The report shows that the “feed-the-world” agricultural and life sciences company Monsanto markets itself as today is only a recent development. The majority of Monsanto’s history is involved with heavy industrial chemical production, including the supply of Agent Orange to the US for Vietnam operations from 1962-'71.
Ronnie Cummins, executive director of the Organic Consumers Association told Common Dreams [9], in response to the FWW report:
Despite its various marketing incarnations over the years, Monsanto is a chemical company that got its start selling saccharin to Coca-Cola, then Agent Orange to the U.S. military, and in recent years, seeds genetically engineered to contain and withstand massive amounts of Monsanto herbicides and pesticides. Monsanto has become synonymous with the corporatization and industrialization of our food supply.
Another example, according to the FWW corporate profile, is a Monsanto plant in Sauget, Illinois that produced 99 percent of PCBs until they were banned in 1976. PCBs are carcinogenic and harmful to multiple organs and systems, but they're still illegally dumped into waterways. They accumulate in plants and food crops, as well as fish and other aquatic lifeforms, which enter the human food supply. The Sauget plant is now home to two Superfund sites.
Monsanto’s chemicals continue to impact the world, both inside and outside of the United States, and Monsanto has settled a number of chemical lawsuits [10] in the last couple of years alone. Scientific studies [11] have linked the chemicals in Monsanto’s Roundup pesticides to Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimers disease, autism and cancer.
Another example of Monsanto’s chemical folly came in February when a French court declared Monsanto guilty [12] of chemical poisoning of French grain grower, Paul Francois. The farmer suffered neurological problems including memory loss, headaches and stammering after inhaling Monsanto's Lasso weedkiller in 2004, and blames the agri-business giant for not providing adequate warnings on the product label.
AlterNet published an article [13] in April titled, “Exposed: Monsanto’s Chemical War Against Indigenous Hawaiians,” which details a series of protests on the five Hawaiian Islands Monsanto and other biotech companies have turned into the world’s “ground zero” for chemical testing and food engineering.
2. Building a monopoly, putting farmers out of work.
There is nothing more quintessentially American than the independent family farmer; and there is nothing more un-American than stomping out that farmer’s livelihood to bolster your corporate monopoly. Monsanto is attempting this as it sues small farmers out of their livelihoods time and again.
You might have heard about [14] the 75-year-old soybean farmer from Indiana, Vernon Hugh Bowman, who was ordered in the beginning of May to pay Monsanto $85,000 in damages for using second-generation seeds genetically modified with Monsanto’s pesticide resistant “Roundup Ready,” treatment. He pulled the seeds from the local grain elevator, which is usually used for feed crop, and planted them. The court decided Monsanto’s patent extends even to the offspring of its seeds, and the farmer had violated the company’s patent.
Bowman is by no means the only US farmer to be sent into debt at Monsanto’s hands. Monsanto reported [15] enormous profits from 2012 to shareholders in January, while American farmers filed into Washington, DC to challenge the corporation’s right to sue farmers whose fields have become contaminated with Monsanto’s seeds. Oral arguments began on January 10 before the U.S. Court of Appeals to decide whether to reverse the cases' dismissal last February. The corporation’s total revenue reached $2.94 billion at the end of 2012, and its earnings nearly doubled [15] analysts' projections.
In the article, “Monsanto's Earnings Nearly Double as They Create a Farming Monopoly”—originally published in Al Jazeera and reprinted [16] on AlterNet on January 16—Charlotte Silver outlines how Monsanto has increased the price of the Roundup herbicide and exploiting its patent on transgenic corn, soybean and cotton, to gain control over those agricultural industries in the US, “…effectively squeezing out conventional farmers (those using non-transgenic seeds) and eliminating their capacity to viably participate and compete on the market.” The company also uses its power to coerce seed dealers out of stocking many of its competitor products.
Monsanto was under investigation by the Department of Justice for violating anti-trust laws by practicing anticompetitive activities towards other biotech companies until the end of 2012. The investigation was quietly closed before the end of last year.
Monsanto exerts vast control over the seed industry [17]. It started buying out seed companies as early as 1982. Some of Monsanto’s most significant purchases were Asgrow (soybeans), Delta and Pine Land (cotton), DeKalb (corn), Seminis (vegetables) and Holden’s Foundation Seeds (in 1997). Monsanto is unmatched in its tactics for squashing its competition, but the US has not put its antitrust laws into practice to clamp down on the corporate monopoly it's forming.
3. Controlling the food, privatizing the water.
Half of the Earth’s population will live in an area with significant water stress by 2030, according to estimates [18] from the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development. Corporations like Monsanto (along with Royal Dutch Shell and Nestle) are vying for a future in which free water supply is a thing of the past, and private companies control public water sources.
According to a government report titled "Intelligence Community Assessment; Global Water Security [19]," by 2025, the world's population will likely exceed 8 billion people, and the demand for water will be 40 percent higher than sustainable water supplies available, with water needs of around 6,900 billion cubic meters due to population growth.
Private corporations already own 5 percent of the world's fresh water [20]. Billionaires and companies, including Monsanto, are purchasing the rights to groundwater and aquifers. In an even more ominous twist, Monsanto is accused of dumping its plethora of toxic chemicals, including PCBs, dioxin and glyophosate (Roundup) into the water supply of various nations worldwide. Then, seeing a profitable market niche, it has begun privatizing those water sources it polluted, filtering the water, and selling it back to the public.
4. Running the FDA, writing its own protection laws.
Ex-Monsanto executives run the United States Food and Drug Administration, the agency tasked with ensuring food safety for the American public.
This obvious conflict of interest could explain the lack of government-led research on the long-term effects of GM products. Recently, the U.S. Congress and president together passed the law that has been dubbed “Monsanto Protection Act.” Among other things, the new law bans courts from halting the sale of Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds.
The pro-Monsanto “Farmer Assurance Provision, Section 735,” rider was quietly slipped into Agricultural Appropriations provisions of the HR 933 Continuing Resolution spending bill, designed to avert a federal government shutdown. It states that the department of agriculture “shall, notwithstanding any other provisions of law, immediately grant temporary permits to continue using the [GE] seed at the request of a farmer or producer [Monsanto].”
Obama signed the law on March 29. It allows the agribusiness giant to promote and plant GMO and GE seeds free from any judicial litigation that might deem such crops unsafe. Even if a court review determines that a GMO crop harms humans, Section 735 allows the seeds to be planted once the USDA approves them.
Public health lawyer Michele Simon told the New York Daily News [21] the Senate bill requires the USDA to “ignore any court ruling that would otherwise halt the planting of new genetically mengineered crops.”
5. Continuing environmental nightmares.
As Tami Canal points out, studies have linked Monsanto and other biotech conglomerates to the decline of bee colonies in the US and abroad. [22]
Their environmental blunders don’t stop there. In 2002 the Washington Post published a piece titled “Monsanto Hid Decades of Pollution,” [23] outlining the corporation’s pollution of an Alabama town with toxic PCBs for decades without disclosure.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) published an article [24]debunking Monsanto’s claim that it is a “leader and innovator in sustainable agriculture.”
While Monsanto advertises its technology as important to achieving such goals as adequate global food production and “reducing agriculture's negative impacts on the environment,” the UCS says in reality, the corporate giant stands in the way of sustainable agriculture.
For one, Monsanto’s policies promote pesticide resistance. “Their RoundupReady and Bt technologies lead to resistant weeds and insects that can make farming harder and reduce sustainability,” reads the UCS article.
The article also notes that Monsanto’s policies increase herbicide use, which can cause health effects, and perpetuates gene contamination, as engineered genes tend to show up in non-GE crops. Additionally, the UCS says Monsanto is a purveyor of monoculture because it focuses only on limited varieties of a few commodity crops, reducing biodiversity, and as a result, increasing pesticide and fertilizer pollution.
The union points out that Monsanto’s lobbying, advertising and stronghold over research on its products makes it difficult for farmers and policymakers to make informed decisions about more sustainable agriculture.
Finally, UCS says Monsanto contributes little to helping the world feed itself, and has failed to endorse science-backed solutions that don't give its products a central role.
***
Tami Canal encourages those who can’t make it to the March Against Monsanto on Saturday to support and foster relationships with their local farmers, buy organic, plant a vegetable garden, and become more self-sustainable. “That is definitely the one way to break the bond Monsanto has on us,” she says. “People should get involved because this is basically an outright attack on humanity.”
See more stories tagged with:
march against monsanto [25],
monsanto [26],
monopoly [27],
gmo [28],
agent orange [29],
tami canal [30],
agribusiness [31],
lawsuit [32],
Superfund [33],
pcb [34],
chemical [35]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/take-action/5-most-horrifying-things-about-monsanto-why-you-should-join-global-movement-and-protest
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/april-m-short
[3] http://www.alternet.org/progressive-wire/monsanto-controls-your-diet
[4] http://cfpub.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=1000213
[5] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ah7h2ApbBPnpdGhOMElaSVg1QUQtRlJQWm1FaUZISlE#gid=0
[6] http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/
[7] http://www.alternet.org/food/how-monsanto-went-selling-aspirin-controlling-our-food-supply
[8] http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/MonsantoReport.pdf
[9] https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/04/03-2
[10] http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/24/us-monsanto-lawsuits-idUSTRE81N1W920120224
[11] https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/04/26-3
[12] http://ww.alternet.org/story/154284/monsanto_found_guilty_of_chemical_poisoning_in_france
[13] http://www.alternet.org/activism/exposed-monsantos-chemical-war-against-indigenous-hawaiians
[14] http://www.alternet.org/food/big-ag-wins-round-supreme-court-backs-monsanto-ruling
[15] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-08/monsanto-raises-forecast-as-profit-rises-on-latin-american-sales.html
[16] http://www.alternet.org/food/monsantos-earnings-nearly-double-they-create-farming-monopoly
[17] http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/monsanto_controls_your_diet_partner/
[18] http://www.oecd.org/environment/resources/thewaterchallengeoecdsresponse.htm
[19] http://www.state.gov/e/oes/water/ica/index.htmGlobal
[20] http://www.naturalnews.com/water.html
[21] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/food-oversight-curbs-spending-bill-outrage-article-1.1298967
[22] http://www.globalresearch.ca/death-of-the-bees-genetically-modified-crops-and-the-decline-of-bee-colonies-in-north-america/25950
[23] http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0101-02.htm
[24] http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/genetic-engineering/eight-ways-monsanto-fails.html
[25] http://www.alternet.org/tags/march-against-monsanto
[26] http://www.alternet.org/tags/monsanto
[27] http://www.alternet.org/tags/monopoly
[28] http://www.alternet.org/tags/gmo
[29] http://www.alternet.org/tags/agent-orange
[30] http://www.alternet.org/tags/tami-canal
[31] http://www.alternet.org/tags/agribusiness
[32] http://www.alternet.org/tags/lawsuit
[33] http://www.alternet.org/tags/superfund
[34] http://www.alternet.org/tags/pcb
[35] http://www.alternet.org/tags/chemical-0
[36] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
GMO Labeling Passes Vermont House as Activists Prepare to March Against Monsanto
by Rebekah Wilce [1] — May 15, 2013 - 7:58am
- Topics: Food [2], Genetic Engineering [3], Politics [4]
- Projects: Food Rights Network [5]
Share this [6]
In an advance that makes history, Vermont's House of Representatives passed a bill [7] on May 10 requiring foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to be labeled. This is the furthest any such legislation has made it through the legislative process in the United States.
Vermont's legislative session was due to end already, but negotiations over a tax bill have kept lawmakers in the capitol this week. With the Senate's attention focused fiscally rather than on food, however, H.112 to label GMOs will have to wait to be taken up by the Senate in January 2014.
The bill would exempt animal products [8], including meat and dairy, even though livestock are often fed genetically engineered (GE) feed.
State Faces Threat of Monsanto Lawsuit
GMO labeling legislation has been stalled in the Vermont legislature for three years, in part because of a concern that biotechnology companies would sue the state if it passed. The concern seems justified, as Monsanto [9] -- the world's largest GE seed company [10] -- reportedly threatened [11] to do so last year.
According to Organic Consumers Association [12] Executive Director Ronnie Cummins and Vermont farmer Will Allen, "Monsanto has used lawsuits or threats of lawsuits for 20 years to force unlabeled genetically engineered foods [11] on the public, and to intimidate farmers into buying their genetically engineered seeds and hormones."
GMO Labeling Bills Across the Country
California's Prop 37 to label GMOs was narrowly defeated in 2012, as the Center for Media and Democracy reported [13]. Afterwards, Jennifer Hatcher, senior vice president of government and public affairs for the Food Marketing Institute, who had previously said that Prop 37 "scared us to death [14]," said in an official statement, "This gives us hope that you can, with a well-funded, well-organized, well-executed campaign, defeat a ballot initiative and go directly to the voters. We hope we don't have too many of them [14], because you can't keep doing that over and over again . . ."
Contrary to industry hopes, however, similar bills have been introduced [15] in Connecticut, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, Arizona, Illinois, and Iowa [16] in 2013. Food and Water Watch and other organizations are encouraging supporters to petition for a national GE labeling law [17]. The passage in the Vermont House of Representatives of that state's long-sought labeling bill marks an important and historic step towards realizing eaters' right to know whether or not foods contain GMOs.
==
180 on labelling http://www.mediafreedominternational.org/2013/04/01/monsanto-changed-stance-on-gmo-labeling/
==
AlterNet [1] / By Jill Richardson [2]
How Monsanto Went From Selling Aspirin to Controlling Our Food Supply
April 18, 2013 |
This article was published in partnership with*GlobalPossibilities.org* [3].
Forty percent of the crops grown in the United States contain their genes. They produce the world’s top selling herbicide. Several of their factories are now toxic Superfund sites. They spend millions lobbying the government each year. It’s time we take a closer look at who’s controlling our food, poisoning our land, and influencing all three branches of government. To do that, the watchdog group Food and Water Watch recently published a corporate profile of Monsanto [4].
Patty Lovera, Food and Water Watch assistant director, says they decided to focus on Monsanto because they felt a need to “put together a piece where people can see all of the aspects of this company.”
“It really strikes us when we talk about how clear it is that this is a chemical company that wanted to expand its reach,” she says. “A chemical company that started buying up seed companies.” She feels it’s important “for food activists to understand all of the ties between the seeds and the chemicals.”
Monsanto the Chemical Company
Monsanto was founded as a chemical company in 1901, named for the maiden name of its founder’s wife. Its first product was the artificial sweetener saccharin. The company’s own telling of its history [5] emphasizes its agricultural products, skipping forward from its founding to 1945, when it began manufacturing agrochemicals like the herbicide 2,4-D.
Prior to its entry into the agricultural market, Monsanto produced some harmless – even beneficial! – products [6] like aspirin. It also made plastics, synthetic rubber, caffeine, and vanillin, an artificial vanilla flavoring. On the not-so-harmless side, it began producing toxic PCBs in the 1930s.
According to the new report, a whopping 99 percent of all PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls, used in the U.S. were produced at a single Monsanto plant in Sauget, IL. The plant churned out toxic PCBs from the 1930s until they were banned in 1976. Used as coolants and lubricants in electronics, PCBs are carcinogenic and harmful to the liver, endocrine system, immune system, reproductive system, developmental system, skin, eye, and brain.
Even after the initial 1982 cleanup of this plant, Sauget is still home to two Superfund sites. (A Superfund site is defined [7] by the EPA as “an uncontrolled or abandoned place where hazardous waste is located, possibly affecting local ecosystems or people.”) This is just one of several Monsanto facilities that became Superfund sites.
Monsanto’s Shift to Agriculture
Despite its modern-day emphasis on agriculture, Monsanto did not even create an agricultural division within the company until 1960. It soon began churning out new pesticides, each colorfully named under a rugged Western theme: Lasso, Roundup, Warrant, Lariat, Bullet, Harness, etc.
Left out of Monsanto’s version of its historical highlights is an herbicide called Agent Orange. The defoliant, a mix of herbicides 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, was used extensively during the war in Vietnam. The nearly 19 million gallons sprayed in that country between 1962 and 1971 were contaminated with dioxin, a carcinogen so potent that it is measured and regulated at concentrations of parts pertrillion. Dioxin was created as a byproduct of Agent Orange’s manufacturing process, and both American veterans and Vietnamese people suffered health problems from the herbicide’s use.
Monsanto’s fortunes changed forever in 1982, when it genetically engineered a plant cell. The team responsible, led by Ernest Jaworski, consisted of Robb Fraley, Stephen Rogers, and Robert Horsch. Today, Fraley is Monsanto’s executive vice president and chief technology officer. Horsch also rose to the level of vice president at Monsanto, but he left after 25 years to join the Gates Foundation. There, he works on increasing crop yields in Sub-Saharan Africa. Together, the team received the National Medal of Technology [8] from President Clinton in 1998.
The company did not shift its focus from chemicals to genetically engineered seeds overnight. In fact, it was another 12 years before it commercialized the first genetically engineered product, recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH), a controversial hormone used to make dairy cows produce more milk. And it was not until 1996 that it first brought genetically engineered seeds, Roundup Ready soybeans, onto the market.
By 2000, the company had undergone such a sea change from its founding a century before that it claims it is almost a different company. In Monsanto’s telling of its own history, it emphasizes a split between the “original” Monsanto Company and the Monsanto Company of today. In 2000, the Monsanto Company entered a merger and changed its name to Pharmacia. The newly formed Pharmacia then spun off its agricultural division as an independent company named Monsanto Company.
Do the mergers and spinoffs excuse Monsanto for the sins of the past committed by the company bearing the same name? Lovera does not think so. “I'm sure there's some liability issues they have to deal with – their various production plants that are now superfund sites,” she responds. “So I'm sure there was legal thinking about which balance sheet you put those liabilities on” when the company split. She adds that the notion that today’s Monsanto is not the same as the historical Monsanto that made PCBs is “a nice PR bullet for them.”
But, she adds, “even taking that at face value, that they are an agriculture company now, they are still producing seeds that are made to be used with chemicals they produce.” For example, Roundup herbicide alone made up more than a quarter of their sales in 2011. The proportion of their business devoted to chemicals is by no means insignificant.
Monsanto’s pesticide product line includes a number of chemicals named as Bad Actors by Pesticide Action Network. They include Alachlor (a carcinogen, water contaminant, developmental/reproductive toxin, and a suspected endocrine disruptor), Acetochlor (a carcinogen and suspected endocrine disruptor), Atrazine (a carcinogen and suspected endocrine disruptor), Clopyralid (high acute toxicity), Dicamba (developmental/reproductive toxin), and Thiodicarb (a carcinogen and cholinesterase inhibitor).
Roundup: The Benign Herbicide?
Defenders of Monsanto might reply to the charge that Roundup is no Agent Orange. In fact, the herbicide is viewed as so benign and yet effective that its inventor, John E. Franz, won [9] the National Medal of Technology. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, kills everything green and growing, but according to Monsanto, it only affects a metabolic pathway in plants, so it does not harm animals. It’s also said to break down quickly in the soil, leaving few traces on the environment after its done its job.
Asked about the harmlessness of Roundup, Lovera replies, “That’s the PR behind Roundup – how benign it was and you can drink it and there’s nothing to worry about here. There are people who dispute that.” For example there is an accusation that Roundup causes birth defects [10]. “We don’t buy the benign theory,” continues Lovera, “But what’s really interesting is that we aren’t going to be having this conversation pretty soon because Roundup isn’t working anymore.”
Lovera is referring to “Roundup-resistant weeds [11],” weeds that have evolved in the past decade and a half to survive being sprayed by Roundup. Nearly all soybeans grown in the United States is Monsanto’s genetically engineered Roundup Ready variety, as are 80 percent of cotton and 73 percent of corn. Farmers spray entire fields with Roundup, killing only the weeds while the Roundup Ready crops survive. With such heavy use of Roundup on America’s farmfields, any weed – maybe one in a million – with an ability to survive in that environment would survive and pass on its genes in its seeds.
By 1998, just two years after the introduction of Roundup Ready soybeans, scientists documented the first Roundup-resistant weed. A second was found in 2000, and three more popped up in 2004. To date, there are 24 different weeds [12] that have evolved resistance to Roundup worldwide. And once they invade a farmer’s field, it doesn’t matter if his crops are Roundup-resistant, because Roundup won’t work anymore. Either the weeds get to stay, or the farmer needs to find a new chemical, pull the weeds by hand, or find some other way to deal with the problem.
“We’ve wasted Roundup by overusing it,” says Lovera. She and other food activists worry about the harsher chemicals that farmers are switching to, and the genetically engineered crops companies like Monsanto are developing to use with them.
Currently, there are genetically engineered crops waiting for government approval that are made to tolerate the herbicides 2,4-D, Dicamba and Isoxaflutole. (These are not all from Monsanto – some are from their competitors.) None of these chemicals are as “benign” as Roundup. Isoxaflutole is, in fact, a carcinogen. Let’s spray that on our food!
Corporate Control of Seeds
No discussion of Monsanto is complete without a mention of the immense amount of control it exerts on the seed industry.
“What it boils down to is between them buying seed companies outright, their incredible aggressive legal maneuvering, their patenting of everything, and their enforcement of those patents, they really have locked up a huge part of the seed supply,” notes Lovera. “So they just exercise an unprecedented control over the entire seed sector. Monsanto products constitute 40 percent of all crop acres in the country.”
Monsanto began buying seed companies as far back as 1982. (One can see an infographic of seed industry consolidation here [13].) Some of Monsanto’s most significant purchases were Asgrow (soybeans), Delta and Pine Land (cotton), DeKalb (corn), and Seminis (vegetables). One that deserves special mention is their purchase of Holden’s Foundation Seeds in 1997 [14].
George Naylor, an Iowa farmer who grows corn and soybeans, calls Holden’s “The independent source of germplasm for corn.” Small seed companies could buy inbred lines from Holden’s to cross them and produce their own hybrids. Large seed companies like Pioneer did their own breeding, but small operations relied on Holden’s or Iowa State University. But Iowa State got out of the game and Monsanto bought Holden’s.
Monsanto’s tactics for squashing its competition [15] are perhaps unrivaled. They use their power to get seed dealers to not to stock many of their competitors products, for example. When licensing their patented genetically engineered traits to seed companies, they restrict the seed companies’ ability to combine Monsanto’s traits with those of their competitors. And, famously, farmers who plant Monsanto’s patented seeds sign contracts prohibiting them from saving and replanting their seeds. Yet, to date, U.S. antitrust laws have not clamped down on these practices.
With the concentrated control of the seed industry, farmers already complain of lack of options. For example, Naylor says he’s had a hard time finding non-genetically engineered soybean seeds. Most corn seeds are now pre-treated with pesticides, so farmers wishing to find untreated seeds will have a tough time finding any. Once a company or a handful of companies control an entire market, then they can choose what to sell and at what price to sell it.
Furthermore, if our crops are too genetically homogenous, then they are vulnerable to a single disease or pest that can wipe them out. When farmers grow genetically diverse crops, then there is a greater chance that one variety or another will have resistance to new diseases. In that way, growing genetically diverse crops is like having insurance, or like diversifying your risk within your stock portfolio.
Food and Water Watch Recommendations
At the end of its report, Food and Water Watch lists several recommendations. “There are a lot of ways that government policy could address the Monsanto hold on the food supply,” explains Lovera. “The most important thing is that it’s time to stop approval of genetically engineered crops to stop this arms race of the next crop and the next chemical.”
She also calls Monsanto “the poster child for the need for antitrust enforcement” – something that the Justice Department has yet to successfully deliver up. In fact, last November the government ended a three-year antitrust investigation of Monsanto [15].
A third recommendation Lovera hopes becomes a reality is mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods. “If we had that label and we put that information in consumers’ hands, they could do more to avoid this company in their day-to-day lives,” she says.
In the meantime, all consumers can do to avoid genetically engineered foods is to buy organic for the handful of crops that are genetically engineered: corn, soybeans, canola, cotton, papaya, sugar beets, and alfalfa.
See more stories tagged with:
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food [17],
farming [18],
seeds [19],
gmo [20],
agriculture [21]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/food/how-monsanto-went-selling-aspirin-controlling-our-food-supply
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jill-richardson-0
[3] http://globalpossibilities.org/
[4] http://foodandwaterwatch.org/reports/monsanto-a-corporate-profile/
[5] http://www.monsanto.com/whoweare/Pages/monsanto-history.aspx
[6] http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Monsanto_Company.aspx
[7] http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/index.htm
[8] http://www.uspto.gov/about/nmti/recipients/1998.jsp#heading-2
[9] http://www.thetech.org/nmot/detail.cfm?ID=10
[10] http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/other_comments/938661/the_inside_story_on_monsanto_and_the_glyphosate_birth_defect_data.html
[11] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Roundup_resistant_weeds
[12] http://www.weedscience.org/Summary/MOA.aspx?MOAID=12
[13] https://www.msu.edu/~howardp//seedindustry.html
[14] http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/07/business/monsanto-in-a-big-seed-deal-whose-price-raises-eyebrows.html
[15] http://www.salon.com/2013/03/15/how_did_monsanto_outfox_the_obama_administration/
[16] http://www.alternet.org/tags/monsanto
[17] http://www.alternet.org/tags/food-0
[18] http://www.alternet.org/tags/farming
[19] http://www.alternet.org/tags/seeds-0
[20] http://www.alternet.org/tags/gmo
[21] http://www.alternet.org/tags/agriculture
[22] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
http://www.alternet.org/print/food/how-monsanto-went-selling-aspirin-controlling-our-food-supply
big scotus win (tho kagan says limited)
AlterNet [1] / By April M. Short [2]
Big Ag Wins This Round: Supreme Court Backs Monsanto in Ruling
May 13, 2013 |
On Monday the Supreme Court sided with Monsanto in a legal dispute against an Indiana soybean farmer.
Seventy-five-year-old Vernon Hugh Bowman, who inherited his farm from his father, argued that his use of second-generation seeds did not violate Monsanto’s patent. Bowman’s supporters had hoped the Supreme Court would use the case as an opportunity to mitigate corporate control of agribusiness.
Instead, the court sided with Monsanto on Monday, stating that the planting of Monsanto’s pesticide-resistant “Roundup Ready,” genetically modified soybeans violated the company's patent.
Bowman’s defense had been that he did not violate the patent because Monsanto’s pesticide-resistant soybeans replicate themselves, and that he had used a second-generation variety of the soybeans. In an unusual planting tactic, he purchased the grain from the local grain elevator, which is usually used for feed, and planted it.
As a Washington Post [3] article pointed out prior to the ruling, the big question was: “When a farmer grows Monsanto’s genetically modified soybean seeds, has he simply ‘used’ the seed to create a crop to sell, or has he ‘made’ untold replicas of Monsanto’s invention that remain subject to the company’s restrictions?”
Monsanto warned the court in its brief [4] that an adverse ruling, “would devastate innovation in biotechnology,” which involves “notoriously high research and development costs.”
The court unanimously rejected Bowman’s argument, and Justice Elena Kagan said there is no such thing as a “seeds-are-special” exception [5] to the law. She added that Bowman was not just a passive observer of his soybean crop.
“Bowman devised and executed a novel way to harvest crops from Roundup Ready seeds without paying the usual premium,” she told the court. [5]
The justices also said they thought Bowman’s practices posed a threat to the incentive for invention, around which patent law revolves. The court ordered Bowman to pay nearly $85,000 in damages to Monsanto.
The Supreme Court's decision implies that Monsanto has the legal right to stop farmers from saving seeds from patented genetically modified crops one season, and plant them the next season.
Justice Kagan insisted that the unanimous ruling only concerned the case at hand, “rather than every one involving a self-replicating product."
As AlterNet’s Jill Richardson explained in February, [6] however, Bowman vs. Monsanto could be considered a major win for corporate food producers in the long run.
See more stories tagged with:
monsanto [7],
bowman vs. monsanto [8],
soybeans [9],
patent [10],
elena kagan [11],
supreme court [12],
agriculture [13]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/food/big-ag-wins-round-supreme-court-backs-monsanto-ruling
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/april-m-short
[3] http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-02-09/politics/37008186_1_soybean-seeds-monsanto-legal-battle
[4] http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/supreme_court_preview/briefs-v2/11-796_resp.authcheckdam.pdf
[5] http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-796_c07d.pdf
[6] http://www.alternet.org/food/monsanto-likely-score-supreme-court-win-far-reaching-benefits-corporate-farming
[7] http://www.alternet.org/tags/monsanto
[8] http://www.alternet.org/tags/bowman-vs-monsanto
[9] http://www.alternet.org/tags/soybeans
[10] http://www.alternet.org/tags/patent
[11] http://www.alternet.org/tags/elena-kagan-0
[12] http://www.alternet.org/tags/supreme-court
[13] http://www.alternet.org/tags/agriculture
[14] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
AlterNet [1] / By Ronnie Cummins [2]
How Monsanto Is Using Cronies in Congress to Take Away States' Rights to Label Genetically Modified Foods
May 16, 2013 |
Reliable sources in Washington D.C. have informed the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) that Monsanto has begun secretly lobbying its Congressional allies to attach one or more “Monsanto Riders” or amendments to the 2013 Farm Bill that would preempt or prohibit states from requiring labels on genetically engineered (GE) foods.
In response to this blatant violation of states’ rights to legislate, and consumers’ right to know, the OCA and a nationwide alliance have launched a petition [3] to put every member of Congress on notice: If you support any Farm Bill amendment that would nullify states’ rights to label genetically modified organisms (GMOs), we’ll vote – or throw – you out of office.
On Wednesday, May 15, an amendment (the King Amendment) to the House version of the Farm Bill, inserted under the guise of protecting interstate commerce, passed out of the House Agricultural Committee. If the King Amendment makes it into the final Farm Bill, it would take away states’ rights to pass laws governing the production or manufacture of any agricultural product, including food and animals raised for food, that is involved in interstate commerce. The amendment was proposed by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), largely in response to a California law stating that by 2015, California will allow only eggs to be sold from hens housed in cages specified by California. But policy analysts emphasize that the amendment, broadly and ambiguously written, could be used to prohibit or preempt any state GMO labeling or food safety law.
Will the King Amendment survive the Senate? No one can be sure, say analysts. However few doubt that Monsanto will give up. We can expect that more amendments and riders will be introduced into the Farm Bill--even if the King Amendment fails—over the next month in an attempt to stop the wave of state GMO labeling laws and initiatives moving forward in states like Washington, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut and others.
Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) have admitted privately that they’ve “lost the battle” to stop GE food labeling at the state level, now that states are aggressively moving forward on labeling laws. On May 14, Maine’s House Ag Committee passed a GMO labeling law. On May 10, the Vermont House passed a labeling bill, 99-42, despite massive lobbying by Monsanto and threats to sue the state. And though Monsanto won a razor-thin victory (51 percent to 49 percent) in a costly, hard fought California GMO labeling ballot initiative last November, biotech and Big Food now realize that Washington State voters will likely pass I-522, an upcoming ballot initiative to label GE foods, on November 5.
If Monsanto can’t stop states from passing laws, then the next step is a national preemptive measure. And all signs point to just such a power grab. Earlier this year, Monsanto slipped its extremely unpopular “Monsanto Protection Act,” an act that gives biotech immunity from federal prosecution for planting illegally approved GE crops, into the 2013 Federal Appropriations Bill. During the June 2012 Farm Bill debate, 73 U.S. Senators voted against the right of states to pass mandatory GE food labeling laws. Emboldened by these votes, and now the House Ag Committee’s vote on the King Amendment, Monsanto has every reason to believe Congress would support a potential nullification of states’ rights to label.
The million-strong OCA and its allies in the organic and natural health movement are warning incumbent Senators and House members, Democrats and Republicans alike, that thousands of health and environmental-minded constituents in their Congressional districts or states will work to recall them or drive them out of office if they fail to heed the will of the people and to respect the time-honored traditions of shared state sovereignty over food labels, food safety laws, and consumers’ right to know.
Trouble in Monsanto Nation
Over the past 20 years Monsanto and the biotech industry, aided and abetted by indentured politicians and corporate agribusiness, have begun seizing control over the global food and farming system, including the legislative, patent, trade, judicial and regulatory bodies that are supposed to safeguard the public interest.
In the U.S., despite mounting evidence [4] of the damage GE crops inflict on human health and the environment, approximately 170 million acres of GE crops, including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola, sugar beets, alfalfa, papaya, and squash, are currently under cultivation. These crops, untested and unlabeled, comprise 41 percent of all cultivated cropland, or 17 percent of all cropland and pastureland combined. According to the GMA, at least 70 percent of non-organic grocery store processed foods contain GMOs. And GE grains and mill byproducts now supply the overwhelming majority of animal feed on the factory farms that supply 90 percent to 95 percent of the meat, eggs and dairy products that Americans consume.
Yet despite their marketplace dominance, record profits and enormous political clout in Washington D.C., Monsanto and the biotech industry are in deep trouble. A new peer-reviewed study [5] in the journal Entropy reports that Monstanto’s top-selling herbicide, Roundup, is a deadly poison, destroying important human gut bacteria and likely contributing to the rapid increase of food allergies and serious human diseases including cancer, autism, neurological disorders, Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), dementia, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Those most susceptible to poisoning by Monsanto’s Roundup are children and the elderly.
Scientists aren’t the only ones raising new questions about Roundup. Farmers are complaining that they’re being forced to spray more and more chemicals on crops increasingly under siege from a growing army of herbicide-resistant weeds. The situation is so bad that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just raised [6] the limits of Roundup residue allowed on grains and vegetables to even more dangerous levels. But just in case the EPA someday stops raising the limits, Monsanto, Dow and the biotech industry are working on a new “solution” to the onslaught of herbicide-resistant Superweeds: They’ve applied for approval of a new and highly controversial generation of super toxic herbicide-resistant GE crops, including “Agent Orange” (2,4-D and dicamba-resistant) corn, soybeans and cotton.
As a recent widely-circulated article [7] points out:
The use of 2,4-D is not new; it’s actually one of the most widely used herbicides in the world. What is new is that farmers will now ‘carpet bomb’ staple food crops like soy and corn with this chemical at a previously unprecedented scale—just the way glyphosate has been indiscriminately applied as a result of Roundup Ready crops. In fact, if 2,4-D resistant crops receive approval and eventually come to replace Monsanto's failing Roundup-resistant crops as Dow intends, it is likely that billions of pounds will be needed, on top of the already insane levels of Roundup being used (1.6 billion lbs were used in 2007 in the US alone).
In addition to these Agent Orange crops, an expanded menu of genetically engineered organisms are awaiting approval. Next on the menu? GE apples, trees, and salmon.
State Labeling Laws: The ‘skull and crossbones’ that terrify Monsanto
Monsanto’s greatest fear isn’t a federal government charged with protecting the health and safety of its citizens. Congress and the White House seem only too happy to oblige the biotech industry’s unquenchable thirst for growth, power and dominance. No, it’s the massive, unstoppable (so far) grassroots movement of Millions Against Monsanto that strikes fear in the heart of the Biotech Bully. U.S. citizens are waking up. They’re demanding labels on genetically engineered foods, similar to those already required in the European Union. They’re calling for serious independent safety-testing of GE crops and animals, both those already approved (especially Monsanto’s Roundup-resistant crops) and those awaiting approval.
The anti-GMO movement has finally figured out, after 20 years of fruitlessly lobbying Congress, the FDA and the White House, that the federal government is not going to require labels on GE foods. Instead the movement has shifted the battleground on GMO labeling from Monsanto and Big Food’s turf in Washington D.C. to the more favorable terrain of state ballot initiatives and state legislative action—publicizing the fact that a state GMO labeling law will have the same marketplace impact as a national labeling law.
State laws spell doom for Monsanto. Companies like Kellogg’s, General Mills, Coca-Cola, Pepsi/Frito-Lay, Dean Foods, Unilever, Con-Agra, Safeway, Wal-Mart and Smuckers are not going to label in just one or two states. Monsanto knows that U.S. food companies will go GMO-free in the entire U.S., rather than admit to consumers that their products contain GMOs.
As Monsanto itself has pointed out, labels on genetically engineered foods are like putting a “skull and crossbones” on food packages. This is why Monsanto and their allies poured $46 million into defeating a California ballot initiative last year that would have required labels on GMO foods. This is why Monsanto has lobbied strenuously in 30 states this year to prevent, or at least delay, state mandatory labeling laws from being passed. This is why Monsanto has threatened to file federal lawsuits against Vermont, Connecticut, Maine and Washington if they dare grant citizens the right to know whether or not their food has been genetically engineered or not.
And this is why Monsanto’s minions are trying to insert amendments or riders into the Farm Bill that will make it nearly impossible, even illegal, for states to pass GMO labeling laws. And there’s nothing to stop them when Congress is filled with pro-biotech cheerleaders who could care less that 90 percent of U.S. consumers want mandatory labels and proper safety testing of genetically engineered crops and foods.
Countering Monsanto’s Final Offensive: Throw the Bums Out!
Only a massive grassroots resistance will deter the U.S. Senate and House from stomping on our rights. Only an unprecedented campaign of public education, petition-gathering and grassroots pressure will be able to convince the ever-more corrupt and indentured politicians in Washington D.C. to back off.
Eighteen state constitutions have century-old provisions for state registered voters to collect petitions and recall state and local officials, forcing them to either resign or stand for reelection. But what very few Americans, and even members of Congress, realize is that 11 states have constitutional provisions to recall U.S. Senators and House of Representative members, as well as state elected officials.
It’s time we exercise the full power of direct democracy, not just state and municipal ballot initiatives. We must continue to support efforts like the current state ballot initiative to label GMOs in Washington state, and county ballot initiatives to ban GMOs, factory farms and other corporate crimes, in the 24 states and hundreds of counties and municipalities where these are allowed. But we also need to use the power we have to recall and throw out of office our out-of-control Congressional Senators and Representatives as well.
If our elected officials in Congress continue to represent Monsanto and big corporations, rather than their constituents, then let’s throw the bums out! If the Washington political establishment, both Democrats and Republicans, continue to trample on our inalienable constitutional rights and contemptuously disregard the 225-year principle of a shared balance of power between the federal government, the states and local government, then we have no choice but to recall them or throw them out of office.
Please join the nation’s organic consumers and natural health advocates in this strategic battle, the Food Fight of Our Lives. Please join this campaign to save, not only our right to choose what’s in our food, but our basic right to democratic representation and self-determination as well. Sign the petition [3]. Tell your Congressmen and women, especially the 73 incumbents who voted last year to eliminate states rights’ to legislate on GMO labels, and those in the House this week who voted to support the King Amendment that “enough is enough,” “basta ya.” Power to the People!
See more stories tagged with:
gmo [8],
monsanto [9],
labeling [10],
right to know [11],
food [12],
agriculture [13]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/food/how-monsanto-using-cronies-congress-take-away-states-rights-label-genetically-modified-foods
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/ronnie-cummins
[3] http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/congress-dont-pass-a?source=c.url&r_by=5382364
[4] http://www.earthopensource.org
[5] http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416
[6] http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_27491.cfm
[7] http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/05/14/glyphosate.aspx?e_cid=20130514RRG_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20130514RRG
[8] http://www.alternet.org/tags/gmo
[9] http://www.alternet.org/tags/monsanto
[10] http://www.alternet.org/tags/labeling
[11] http://www.alternet.org/tags/right-know
[12] http://www.alternet.org/tags/food-0
[13] http://www.alternet.org/tags/agriculture
[14] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
[http://www.alternet.org/print/food/how-monsanto-using-cronies-congress-take-away-states-rights-label-genetically-modified-foods How Monsanto Is Using Cronies in Congress to Take Away States' Rights to Label Genetically Modified Foods] 5/13
Wednesday, Mar 27, 2013 01:44 PM PDT
How the Monsanto Protection Act snuck into law
A provison that protects the biotech giant from litigation passed Congress without many members knowing about it
Slipped into the Agricultural Appropriations Bill, which passed through Congress last week, was a small provision that’s a big deal for Monsanto and its opponents. The provision protects genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks and has thus been dubbed the “Monsanto Protection Act” by activists who oppose the biotech giant. President Barack Obama signed the spending bill, including the provision, into law on Tuesday
Since the act’s passing, more than250,000 people have signed a petition opposing the provision and a rally, consisting largely of farmers organized by the Food Democracy Now network, protested outside the White House Wednesday. Not only has anger been directed at the Monsanto Protection Act’s content, but the way in which the provision was passed through Congress without appropriate review by the Agricultural or Judiciary Committees. The biotech rider instead was introduced anonymously as the larger bill progressed — little wonder food activists are accusing lobbyists and Congress members of backroom dealings.
The Food Democracy Now and the Center for Food are directing blame at the Senate Appropriations Committee and its chairman, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. According to reports, many members of Congress were apparently unaware that the “Monsanto Protection Act” even existed within the spending bill, HR 933; they voted in order to avert a government shutdown.
“It sets a terrible precedent,” noted the International Business Times. “Though it will only remain in effect for six months until the government finds another way to fund its operations, the message it sends is that corporations can get around consumer safety protections if they get Congress on their side. Furthermore, it sets a precedent that suggests that court challenges are a privilege, not a r
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/27/how_the_monsanto_protection_act_snuck_into_law/
[http://grist.org/news/too-big-to-prosecute-how-monsanto-slipped-the-dojs-grasp/ Too big to prosecute: How Monsanto slipped the DOJ’s grasp] 3/13.
http://www.alternet.org/print/food/what-it-means-monsanto-holds-patents-life
==
Monsanto: Big Guy on the Block When it Comes to Friends in Washington
By Janie Boschma on February 19, 2013 1:54 PM
| More
Political heavy
weight Monsanto took on an Indiana soybean farmer today in the U.S. Supreme Court over Monsanto's patents of its Roundup-resistant seed.
And, once again, Justice Clarence Thomas was on the bench, hearing the case with the other justices. Thomas worked as a corporate lawyer for Monsanto in the 1970s. Thomas has participated in at least one other case involving the company, Monsanto v. Geertson, which resulted in a favorable decision for Monsanto; Thomas joined the majority in that case.
Some have criticized Thomas' participation in cases involving a previous employer. Monsanto is so used to the question that it gets space on the company website.
Thomas knows something about the subject of today's case: In 2001, he authored an important decision in this field, J. E. M. Ag Supply, Inc. v. Pioneer Hi-Bred International, which -- while it didn't involve Monsanto -- held that new, developed plant breeds are patentable.
At issue today were Monsanto's patents of its herbicide-resistant seed. Monsanto requires farmers to use its purchased seed for just one planting cycle; they must buy new seed every spring. Farmer Vernon Bowman has not reused any of the soybean seeds he purchased. However, Monsanto's patent does allow growers to sell second-generation seed to a grain elevator, where Bowman purchased his seed and has been planting it in some of his fields since 1999.
That's where Monsanto took issue. It claims Bowman's use of the second-generation seed infringed the company's patent rights, even if it was sold by a third party and is not the original Monsanto seed, but descended from it. Monsanto won its case in a lower federal court.
Monsanto typically reaches a settlement with farmers it has sued for patent infringement. This time, *The Guardian* reports, the case traveled to the Supreme Court because 75-year-old Bowman -- already bankrupt from an unrelated land deal -- couldn't pay damages and is fighting the case with literally nothing to lose.
Clarence Thomas aside, Monsanto has plenty of other ties to Washington. Eight lawmakers own stock in Monsanto, including Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) and Reps. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.), Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Jim Renacci (R-Ohio), Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.).
Monsanto itself contributed more than $500,000 to federal candidates in the last election cycle, primarily favoring Republicans. Monsanto spent nearly $6 million on lobbying in 2012, down from its $8.8 million record in 2008. That's still enough to keep Monsanto the big guy on the agribusiness block -- it has spent the most on lobbying by far in the industry since 2008; the American Farm Bureau is the only other to even come close. The majority, by far, of Monsanto's lobbyists have made at least one trip through the revolving door; in-house lobbyist Michael Holland, Jr., for instance, logged 13 years working for various House Republicans before he jumped to Monsanto in 2011.
Third on that agribusiness lobbying list is CropLife America, one of a number of political heavyweights that have jumped on board with Monsanto. CropLife submitted an amicus brief to the Court supporting Monsanto's position. Other powerful groups that have filed amicus briefs on Monsanto's behalf include Pioneer Hi-Bred International (from the 2001 plant patent case), Business Software Alliance, American Seed Trade Association, New York Intellectual Property Law Association, American Intellectual Property Law Association, Bayhdole25, Washington Legal Foundation, Biotechnology Industry Organization, CHS Inc. and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, as well as a number of soybean associations and economists.
The Obama administration pushed the Court not to take the case in the first place, echoing concerns of those filing briefs for Monsanto that a reversal of the lower court's decision could adversely affect other patents involving DNA, nanotechnology or other self-replicating technology, according to the Huffington Post.
A few parties have written amicus briefs in Bowman's support, including the Center for Food Safety, Knowledge Ecology International, the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association, the Automotive Parts Remanufacturers Association, the International Imaging Technology Council, the American Antitrust Institute, National Farmers Union, Food & Water Watch, the Organization for Competitive Markets, the National Family Farm Coalition and the Public Patent Foundation.
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/02/monsanto.html?utm_source=CRP+Mail+List&utm_campaign=68e9393b0f-Newsletter_2_14_2013&utm_medium=email
http://grist.org/news/monsanto-ceo-acknowledges-climate-change-open-to-gmo-labels-thinks-veggies-suck/
===
**:{Monsanto:(style="color:#ed1c24"):}:** and other agro-chemical companies have invested more than $20 million -- on top of the food industry's nearly equivalent contribution -- for ads opposing Proposition 37, a California measure that would require labeling of genetically modified foods, or GMOs. Proponents of the bill have raised less than $8 million.
Meanwhile, chemical interests have spent some $375 million since 2005 to help elect and try to influence federal leaders, specifically in regards to a pending overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA), according to a report released this week by Common Cause, a nonprofit, nonpartisan citizen's lobbying organization.
"It's been 36 years since they passed TSCA, and people are showing how it really fails to protect people," said James Browning, Common Cause's regional director for state operations and a principal author of the report. "Public health advocates are starting to win the fight, they have so much evidence on their side. Industry is realizing it needs to start spending more to stop it."
In July, the Safe Chemicals Act passed out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. First introduced by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) in 2005, the act would replace the TSCA and essentially reverse the burden of proof on chemical safety. In other words, chemicals would be required to be tested and proven safe before they are placed on store shelves -- something that it not the case today. The bill is now awaiting a vote from the full Senate.
The ACC, whose member companies' spending was included in the Common Cause report, has said it is committed to working on a bipartisan bill, but has also expressed concerns with the Safe Chemicals Act.
"As one of America's most significant manufacturing industries, we have a significant interest in seeing good policies enacted that will encourage economic growth and job creation including a balanced approach to regulation, a strong domestic energy policy and sound tax and trade policies, and we believe it is important to support leaders in Congress who share those priorities," Kolton said.
Overall, Common Cause found that chemical industry contributions in the current election cycle have gone predominantly to Republicans: 78 percent compared to 22 percent for Democrats. President Barack Obama received $217,283, for example, compared to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's $704,337.
The report, titled "Toxic Spending," also highlights how the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision opened up a new "avenue of influence" for the chemical industry in the form of so-called Super PACs. Chemical interests have given $23 million to these groups in the current elections, according to the study.
==
fox rgbh reporters hushed http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1998Q2/foxbgh.html
bs defense http://www.campaignfreedom.org/about/board-of-directors/ eric okeefe sam adams
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear a dispute between a soybean farmer and Monsanto Co. over the company's efforts to limit farmers' use of its patented, genetically engineered Roundup Ready seeds.
The justices said they will hear an appeal from Indiana farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman, who is trying to fend off Monsanto's lawsuit claiming Bowman made unauthorized use of the seeds.
Monsanto's patented soybean seeds have been genetically engineered to resist its Roundup brand herbicide. When Roundup is sprayed on a field, the product will kill the weeds without harming the crop.
The Obama administration urged the court not to take the case and warned that the outcome could affect patents involving DNA molecules, nanotechnologies and other self-replicating technologies.
Monsanto has a policy that prohibits farmers from saving or reusing the seeds once the crop is grown, ensuring that farmers have to buy new seeds every year.
Bowman used the patented seeds, but also bought cheaper soybeans from a grain elevator and used those to plant a second crop. Most of the new soybeans also were resistant to weed killers, as they initially came from herbicide-resistant seeds, too. Bowman repeated the practice over eight years. Monsanto sued when it learned what he was doing.
The company has filed lawsuits around the country to enforce its policy against saving the seeds for the future.
Bowman's appeal was among seven new cases the court added Friday to its calendar for argument during the winter.
The justices also will consider whether a government's refusal to issue a development permit can amount to "taking" private property for which the owner must be paid.
Monsanto’s Quiet Coup: Will Congress Limit Scope and Time for GMO Reviews?
by Jill Richardson — August 1, 2012 - 7:32am
- Topics: Genetic Engineering, Corporations, Politics
- Projects: Food Rights Network
After a series of court defeats over the past few years, Monsanto and friends are trying to use Congress to make an end-run around the courts and current law. Lawsuits brought by opponents of genetically engineered (GE) crops resulted in the temporary removal of two products -- Roundup Ready Alfalfa and Roundup Ready Sugarbeets -- from the market. If the biotechnology industry and the legislators they support have their way, future GE crops will not suffer the same fate.
Genetically engineered crops are plants that have had genes from other species inserted into their DNA. "Roundup Ready"crops like alfalfa and sugarbeets fall in a class of GE crops called "herbicide tolerant" crops, which are engineered to survive exposure to Monsanto's bestselling herbicide Roundup. Farmers spray their entire fields with Roundup, killing only the weeds. Monsanto profits by selling both the seeds and increased quantities of Roundup herbicide.
The "Big 6" pesticide and genetic engineering corporations -- BASF, Bayer, Dupont, Dow, Syngenta, and Monsanto -- have made millions while providing everyone else with questionable benefits and enormous risks. The riskiness of genetically engineered crops comes in part from their ability to cross-pollinate crops in other fields, spreading their genes far and wide. Once a new genetically engineered crop is introduced, the genie is out of the bottle, and those genes are in our food supply for good. Therefore, it's in everyone's interest (except for the biotech companies that stand to profit) to thoroughly examine any new crop before allowing it on the market.
===
farm bill:
A so-called “Monsanto rider,” quietly slipped into the multi-billion dollar FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations bill, would require – not just allow, but require - the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed. All the farmer or the biotech producer has to do is ask, and the questionable crops could be released into the environment where they could potentially contaminate conventional or organic crops and, ultimately, the nation’s food supply.
Unless the Senate or a citizen’s army of farmers and consumers can stop them, the House of Representatives is likely to ram this dangerous rider through any day now.
http://www.alternet.org/story/156195/the_monsanto_rider_are_biotech_companies_about_to_gain_immunity_from_federal_law
Move to Amend Coalition
From: Bill Haff <[bill.haff@gmail. com>
Don't forget this Supreme Court decision from 1996. Monsanto may cite this as a precedent if the initiative passes. Monsanto may argue they are being forced to disclose a "trivial fact" and claim free speech rights which include the right "not to speak." This is picked up from the WILPF timeline:
International Dairy Foods Association v. Amestoy [1996]
Supreme Court overturns a Vermont law requiring the labeling of all products containing bovine growth hormone. The right not to speak inheres in political and commercial speech alike and extends to statements of fact as well as statements of opinion.](http://us.mc314.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=bill.haff%40gmail.com)
...
From: bodhirobin@pacific. net
SCOTUS overturned corporate right to privacy in March 2011 based on the
term "personal privacy." The court concluded that the word "person" is
defined in the law, and includes corporations and trade unions.
But the word "personal" is not defined in the law, and has a very
human-like sense about it and can't be applied to a corporation. To see
the exact language of the decision:
http://www.outsidet hebeltway. com/corporations -dont-have- privacy-rights/
Therefore, Corporations may currently have 1st Amendment Free Speech
rights, 4th Amendment Unreasonable Search & Seizure rights, 5th Amendment
private property rights, and they got this all with their 1886 14th
Amendment rights to Due Process of Law awarded during the Railroad Baron
days in SCOTUS case: Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad v. Beckwith (1889).
[They didn't waste much time, did they?]
But they don't have "personal privacy" rights.
In Peace,
Robin Sunbeam
Ukiah
Lobbying:
It's planting season, which brings to mind one of the most ubiquitous names in agribusiness: Monsanto.
Love it or hate it -- and there are plenty of people on either side -- the company controls much of the agricultural market, and also sells products for the suburban yard such as the weed-killer Roundup. Roundup is the core of Monsanto's agricultural breakthrough: The company produces genetically modified seeds that are resistant to the herbicide, making it easy for farmers to spray whole fields of soy or corn and kill only the weeds. Food production made easy.
On the flip side, environmentalists and organic food fans maintain there are too many unknowns and potential dangers involved with genetic modification. Monsanto, which last year had revenues of $11.8 billion, has become their bogeyman.
But such efforts as grassroots petitions and proposed legislation to require at least the labeling of genetically modified food have thus far withered on the vine next to Monsanto's deeply rooted Washington presence, which has proved resistant to most lines of attack.
According to OpenSecrets.org data, in the first three months of this year, Monsanto spent $1.4 million lobbying Washington -- and spent about $6.3 million total last year, more than any other agribusiness firm except the tobacco company Altria.
Monsanto's interests in Washington are diverse. It lobbied bills ranging from the American Research and Competitiveness Act of 2011, which would extend tax credits for companies doing research, to several bills that would change the way the Department of Homeland Security handles security at chemical facilities -- chemicals being a big part of Monsanto's product portfolio.
And just as important as Monsanto's legislative agenda for 2011 and 2012 is its regulatory one: the company's lobbying reports list the departments and agencies it visited to talk to federal bureaucrats and appointees as they wrote rules to implement and enforce Congress' handiwork. That explains why Monsanto reports having lobbied the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and many other executive branch offices.
The FDA currently is the target of a petition signed by more than 1 million people, according to a sponsor known as Just Label It, asking the agency to require that genetically engineered food be labeled as such. The petition, sponsored by a coalition of environmental and food groups, is an attempt by activists to make an end-run around Monsanto's Washington operation -- a necessity because their lobbying dollars pale in comparison to the cash spent by Monsanto and others in the industry. For instance, one of the coalition members, the Environmental Working Group, has spent just $82,000 on lobbying this year -- or about 5 percent of Monsanto's total.
"The power of Monsanto, whether in the halls of Washington, or in farm country, should not be ignored," said Environmental Working Group spokesman Alex Formuzis. "Monsanto comes armed with some of the deepest pockets and a bench of influential lobbyists, which makes the coalition's efforts over GMO labeling on behalf of consumers a very tough fight indeed."
Another upcoming matter of great interest to Monsanto: the new farm bill, an omnibus piece of legislation that sets the nation's agricultural policy and deals with nearly every aspect of the country's farming and food industries. The current bill expires in 2013; when it went through Congress, Monsanto filed more lobbying reports on it than any other organization. The process of piecing together a new proposal is already well under way.
The company's access to members of Congress who are likely to be key in shaping the final legislation may be eased by the contributions of its very active PAC, the Monsanto Citizenship Fund. Already this cycle it has spent $383,000. The biggest recipient of that money so far is Rep. Frank D. Lucas (R-Okla.) who has received $20,000 from Monsanto's PAC -- $10,000 for his campaign committee and $10,000 for his leadership PAC. Lucas happens to be the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee -- no farm-related legislation is passed without his say-so.
Monsanto has hedged its investment with the agriculture committee, though -- it also gave $13,500 to Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), the top-ranking Democrat on the committee. So far this election cycle, Monsanto's PAC has given $77,500 to 17 members of the House agriculture committee, or their leadership PACs.
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/154951
A growing corps of food, health, and environmental activists - supported by the Millions against Monsanto and Occupy Monsanto Movements, and consumers and farmers across the nation - are boldly moving to implement mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods in California through a grassroots-powered citizens ballot initiative process that will bypass the agribusiness-dominated state legislature. If passed, the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act will require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods and food ingredients, and outlaw the routine industry practice of labeling GMO-tainted foods as “natural.”
Passage of this initiative on November 6 will radically alter the balance of power in the marketplace, enabling millions of consumers to identify - and boycott - genetically engineered foods for the first time since 1994, when Monsanto’s first unlabeled, genetically-engineered dairy drug, recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH), was forced on the market,
As Alexis Baden-Mayer, Political Director for the Organic Consumers Association, pointed out at an Occupy Wall Street teach-in in Washington DC in early April: “The California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act ballot initiative is a perfect example of how the grassroots 99% can mobilize to take back American democracy from the corporate bullies, the 1%. By aggressively utilizing one of the last remaining tools of direct democracy, the initiative process (available to voters not only in California and 23 other states, but in thousands of cities and counties across the nation), we can bypass corrupt politicians, make our own laws, and force corporations like Monsanto to bend to the will of the people, in this case granting us our fundamental right to know what’s in our food.”
Moving the Battleground
This is not the first time Monsanto has been challenged by citizens’ initiatives or state and local legislative efforts. But this time, the momentum is in our favor.
In the past, GMO “right-to-know” activists have been outmaneuvered and outgunned by Monsanto and its minions in every state, except Vermont and Connecticut, where passing a labeling bill is still, at least theoretically, a long-shot. (Monsanto recently threatened to sue the state of Vermont if legislators there pass a GMO labeling bill).
Efforts to pass GMO labeling laws at the federal level have gone nowhere, despite the fact that more than one million consumers have emailed “Just Label It” petitions to the FDA, demanding mandatory labeling. (The FDA counted only 394 of the signatures, claiming that the main petition was submitted as a single document, or docket, and therefore counted as only one signature.)
Dennis Kucinich of Ohio has introduced his perennial GMO labeling bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, though everyone knows it will never make it out of committee and come to a full House vote on the floor. Similar symbolic bills have been introduced in 18 state legislatures.
The battle has been raging for decades. But this time, it’s different.
Behind this historic California initiative is a broad, growing and powerful health, environmental, and consumer coalition, which includes the Organic Consumers Association, Organic Consumers Fund, Food Democracy Now!, Mercola.com, Nature’s Path, Lundberg Family Farms, LabelGMOs.org, Eden Foods, Alliance for Natural Health, Dr. Bronner’s, United Farm Workers Union, American Public Health Association, Cornucopia Institute, Institute for Responsible Technology, Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, California Certified Organic Farmers, and scores of others.
This time, the industry faces informed – and alarmed - consumers who understand the danger of allowing out-of-control chemical and biotech companies like Monsanto, Dow, or Dupont - the very same corporations that have assaulted us with toxic pesticides and industrial chemicals, Agent Orange, carcinogenic food additives, PCBs, and now global warming – to dictate their food choices.
Keeping Consumers in the Dark, Keeping Farmers and Scientists Intimidated
Why has it taken so long to get this far? How have Monsanto and its cohorts been able to grow and maintain market supremacy while force-feeding unlabeled “Frankenfoods” to the public for decades?
By buying off politicians, bullying farmers and scientists, and keeping consumers in the dark.
Monsanto has sued more than 150 farmers across the US and Canada, and threatened thousands of others, for refusing to pay for “intellectual property theft” after their fields were contaminated by Monsanto’s patented genetically engineered crops.
The company has harassed and used the media to bully scientists who have exposed the public health and environmental hazards of genetically engineered foods and crops in the United States, Canada, Latin America, and Europe. The renowned scientist Dr. Arpad Pusztai from the UK, was pressured and discredited for reporting on the dangers of genetic engineering until he was eventually fired from his job. The same thing happened to the UK’s Environmental Minister, Michael Meacher.
In a number of other cases, scientists such as Ignacio Chapela, have received death threats. Chapela also said he received death threats to his children from “a high government official” in Mexico after he showed contamination of native corn with Monsanto’s GMOs. Other scientists, most notably Andres Carrasco from Argentina, have been assaulted by thugs. Monsanto has even hired the notorious mercenary gang, Blackwater, to spy on its opponents worldwide.
Why has Monsanto gone to such great lengths to thwart GMO labeling laws and initiatives? Because it understands the threat that truth-in-labeling poses for GMOs – and biotech industry profits. As soon as genetically engineered foods are labeled in the U.S., millions of consumers will read these labels and react. They’ll complain to grocery store managers and companies, they’ll talk to their family and friends. They’ll switch to foods that are organic or at least GMO-free. Once enough consumers complain about GE foods and food ingredients, stores will eventually stop selling them. Farmers will stop planting them.
Europe Shows Labels Can Drive GMOs off the Market...
=
===
Monsanto Threatens to Sue Vermont if Legislators Pass a Bill Requiring GMO Food to Be Labeled
What it really comes down to this: Elected officials are abandoning the public interest and public will in the face of corporate intimidation.
April 4, 2012|
The world’smost hated corporationis at it again, this time in Vermont.
Despite overwhelming public support and support from a clear majority of Vermont’s Agriculture Committee, Vermont legislators are dragging their feet on a proposed GMO labeling bill. Why? Because Monsanto has threatened to sue the state if the bill passes.
The popular legislative bill requiring mandatory labels on genetically engineered food (H-722) is languishing in the Vermont House Agriculture Committee, with only four weeks left until the legislature adjourns for the year. Despite thousands of emails and calls from constituents who overwhelmingly support mandatory labeling, despite the fact that a majority (6 to 5) of Agriculture Committee members support passage of the measure, Vermont legislators are holding up the labeling bill and refusing to take a vote.
http://www.alternet.org/food/154855/Monsanto_Threatens_to_Sue_Vermont_if_Legislators_Pass_a_Bill_Requiring_GMO_Food_to_Be_Labeled/
===
---
farmers sue seed police
http://grist.org/industrial-agriculture/farmers-advance-in-their-suit-against-monsanto/
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Monsanto's High Level Connections to the Bush Administration
While much of the controversy over Monsanto has centered on its products and technology, many have raised concerns about the company's high level connections to the administration of George W. Bush.
"The connections between Monsanto and the new Bush administration are also very solid. G.W.’s pop, Bush Sr. appointed Clarence Thomas, a Monsanto attorney, to the Supreme Court. Thomas played a key role in the selection of G.W. as president. John Ashcroft, the current attorney general, was the top recipient of Monsanto contributions when he recently tried to get reelected to the U.S. Senate.
Donald Rumsfeld, the current secretary of defense, was president of Searle Pharmaceuticals, now owned by Monsanto. Tommy Thompson, now the secretary of Health and Human Services, helped the biotech industry by getting the state of Wisconsin to set up a $37 million biotech zone there. He received $50,000 from the biotech industry for his reelection campaign.
The current secretary of Agriculture, Ann Veneman, was on the board of directors of Calgene Pharmaceuticals, an affiliate of Monsanto.
Recently, Linda J. Fisher, a former Monsanto official, was nominated by Bush to be second-in-command at the EPA. She was Monsanto’s representative in Washington from 1995 to 2000 and coordinated the company’s strategy to blunt resistance to genetically modified food" [1] See also GM lobby takes root in Bush's cabinet. Other high level government connections include Stansfield Turner, former Director of the CIA and member of the Monsanto Board [2] and Earle H. Harbison former president of Monsanto and CIA officer for 19 years [3]. For still more connections see [4]. See also Revolving Doors.
Monsanto's close ties are paying off now in Iraq. Article 81 (one of the "100 Orders" Paul Bremer issued "means that in future Iraqi farmers will be forced to plant 'protected' crop varieties defined as new, distinct, uniform and stable.... Where ownership of a crop is claimed, seed saving will be banned, and royalties will have to be paid by the farmer to the registered seed "owner". Farmers will be required to sign contracts relating to seed supply and, probably, to the marketing of the harvest. Where GM crops are involved (and possibly in other cases as well) they will also be required to sign contracts for the purchase of herbicides, insecticides and fertilisers.... The control of all protected varieties will last 20 years for field crops and 25 years for trees and vines. Farmers who save seed or otherwise break their agreements, and farmers unlucky enough to find the adventitious presence of 'registered varieties' in their fields, can be prosecuted; or else their harvests, tools and buildings will (may) be destroyed. Conversely, farmers will have no right to claim compensation from the seed owners who, for example, allow their GM crops to pollute organic crops and destroy livelihoods in the process.[5]. "In 2002, FAO estimated that 97 percent of Iraqi farmers used saved seed from their own stocks from last year's harvest or purchased from local markets. When the new law - on plant variety protection (PVP) - is put into effect, seed saving will be illegal and the market will only offer proprietary 'PVP-protected' planting material 'invented' by transnational agribusiness corporations" [6] [7]. See also Mutant Seeds for Mesopotamia.
Monsanto and the American Farm Bureau have teamed up to sponsor a PBS program called America's Heartland. The idea, they say, is to educate citizens about farming, but others see a more suspecious motive - the softening of Americans views toward factory farming and genetic engineering. "Having built its California audience with a typically cheerful tone and general avoidance of controversies underlying the state's food supply, the new national "Heartland" has a two-year financial commitment, station officials said, from the powerful voice of the nation's farming establishment, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and St. Louis-based agribusiness giant Monsanto Co. Both sponsors decline, as does KVIE, to say how much they're spending. But the investment is significant. 'It takes seven figures to produce a show like this,' said Jan Tilmon, KVIE vice president for content and a creator of "California Heartland." "We project that the first season of the program will be available in markets totaling more than 60 percent of the nation's viewers ... reaching more than 71 million households." says Jim O’Donnell, Director of Program Marketing, KVIE-TV [8]. See also [9] [10]. "Former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman of Modesto has also helped introduce the new national show by talking up 'a tremendous amount of viewers' for the California version". This comes at a time when public broadcasting is increasingly coming under major control of Republican interests [11].
Other SourceWatch resources
Categories: Food | Genetic engineering
palast book shows how Monsanto got secret reports on BSt, and ex employee squash BST free label p100
The Amazing Revolving Door -Monsanto, FDA & EPA
From Rich Murray
rmforall@att.net
12-24-2
|
http://www.psrast.org/ecologmons.htm
The Monsanto FilesThe Ecologist September October 1998 (This edition was trashed by the printing office after threats from Monsanto) {footnotes are missing} Revolving Doors: Monsanto and the Regulatorsby Jennifer Ferrara Traditionally, key figures at the FDA in particular have either held important positions at Monsanto, or are destined to do so in the future. Is it surprising therefore that Monsanto gets clearance frr its often dangerous products? |
ann venmin sec of agric 141
http://www.politicalfriendster.com/showPerson.php?id=5580&name=Monsanto%27s-American-Government-
pinkerton
| Left DoD to join Searle and champion Aspertame approval in 1976. Rumsfeld, the current secretary of defense, was president of Searle Pharmaceuticals, now owned by Monsanto. | Submitted by fedup | 2005-12-07 08:52:15 | Edit | Donald Rumsfeld reportedly earned $12 million from increased stock value when G. D. Searle & Company was sold to Monsanto in 1985 |
| Left DoD to join Searle and champion Aspertame approval in 1976. Rumsfeld, the current secretary of defense, was president of Searle Pharmaceuticals, now owned by Monsanto. | Submitted by fedup | 2005-12-07 08:52:15 | Edit | Donald Rumsfeld reportedly earned $12 million from increased stock value when G. D. Searle & Company was sold to Monsanto in 1985 |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto
Environmental and health record
According to an anonymous 2001 document[^22](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-21) obtained by the Center for Public Integrity, Monsanto has been identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as being a "potentially responsible party" for 56 contaminated sites (Superfund sites) in the United States. Monsanto has been sued, and has settled, multiple times for damaging the health of its employees or residents near its Superfund sites through pollution and poisoning.[^5](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-washingtonpost-4)[^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-22)23][^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-23)24] In 2004 The Wildlife Habitat Council and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Environmental Performance Track presented a special certificate of recognition to Monsanto Company during WHC's 16th Annual Symposium.
Monsanto is the largest producer of glyphosate herbicides through its popular brand, Roundup.
Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications (referring to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) explained the company's regulatory philosophy to Michael Pollan in 1998: "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is FDA's job."[^25](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-24)
[edit] Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO)
 | This section requires expansion. |
Much of Monsanto's seed products are genetically modified, often to make them immune to Monsanto's "Round Up" herbicide. In a study published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences, researchers applied a different statistical analysis on raw data obtained from Monsanto and concluded that these GM corn (maize) varieties induced a state of hepatorenal toxicity.[^26](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-Vend.C3.B4mois-25) They suggested that the presence of the new pesticides associated with the inserted genes were responsible, although the possibility that this could be due to a mutation during the transformation process was not excluded.[^26](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-Vend.C3.B4mois-25)
[edit] Terminator seed controversy
Main article: Genetic use restriction technology
In June 2007[^27](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-26), Monsanto acquired Delta & Pine Land Company, a company that had patented a seed technology nicknamed Terminator. This technology, which was never used commercially, produces plants that have sterile seeds so they do not flower or grow fruit after the initial planting. This prevents the spread of those seeds into the wild, however it also requires customers to repurchase seed for every planting in which they use Terminator seed varieties. Farmers who do not use a terminator seed could also be affected by his neighboring farmer that does. In recent years, widespread opposition from environmental organizations and farmer associations has grown, mainly out of the concerns that these seeds increase farmers' dependency on seed suppliers.
In 1999, Monsanto pledged not to commercialize Terminator technology.[^28](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-27)
[edit] rBGH (recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone)
Main article: Bovine somatotropin
In October 2008 Monsanto sold this business, in full, to Eli Lilly for a price of $300 Million plus additional considerations.[*citation needed*]
Monsanto sparked controversy nationwide with the introduction of Bovine somatotropin, abbreviated as rBST and commonly known as rBGH. It is a synthetic hormone that is injected into cows to increase milk production. IGF-1 is a hormone stimulated by rBGH in the cow's blood stream, which is directly responsible for the increase in milk production. IGF-1 is a natural hormone found in the milk of both humans and cows causing the quick growth of infants.
Though this IGF-1 occurs naturally in mothers' milk to be fed to their infants it produces adverse effects in non-infants, behaving as a cancer accelerator in adults and non-infants; this biologically active hormone is associated with breast cancer (correlation shown in premenopausal women),[^29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-pmid9593409-28) prostate cancer,[^30](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-pmid9438850-29), lung cancer[^31](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-pmid10882860-30) and colon cancers[^31](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-pmid10882860-30)[^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-pmid12096082-31)32]
A Monsanto-sponsored survey of milk showed no significant difference in rBST levels in milk labeled as "rBST-Free" or "Organic milk" vs milk not labeled as such.[^33](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-pmid18589029-32)
According to *The New York Times*[^34](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-33) Monsanto's brand of rBST, Posilac, has recently (March 2008) been the focus for a pro-rBST advocacy group called AFACT, made up of large dairy business conglomerates and closely affiliated with Monsanto itself. This group has engaged in large-scale lobbying efforts at the state level to prevent milk which is rBST-free from being labeled as such. As milk labeled as hormone-free has proved enormously popular with consumers, the primary justification by AFACT for their efforts has been that rBST is approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and that the popularity of milk sold without it is damaging what they claim to be the right of dairy producers to use a technology that maximizes their profits.
Thus far, a large-scale negative consumer response to AFACT's legislative and regulatory efforts has kept state regulators from pushing through restrictions that would ban hormone-free milk labels, though several politicians have tried, including Pennsylvania's agriculture secretary Dennis Wolff, who tried to ban rBST-free milk labeling on the grounds that "consumers are confused". The statement by Agriculture Secretary Wolff was reported by pro-biotech site Earth Friendly-Farm Friendly which elaborated on the issues of rBGH/rBST labelling:
“Consumers are getting confused with the extra labels,” said Pennsylvania Ag Secretary Dennis Wolff. “They deserve a choice, and so do producers. But from the standpoint of safety, all milk is healthy milk. Our milk is a safe product. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture is not in a position to say use rBST or not. The key word is: choice. I used rBST from day one of its approval to the last day that I milked cows. It was an important management tool on my dairy farm. What we oppose is the negative advertising or the selling of fear. If producers are asked to give up a production efficiency, and if that efficiency nets them $3000 or $10,000 a year for their dairy farm… That's a lot of money. [^35](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-34)
Proposed labeling changes have been floated by AFACT lobbyists in New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Utah, Missouri and Vermont thus far[*citation needed*].
===
negative free sp: corp pers:
At the heart of this case were conflicting claims to the human right of free speech by humans and corporations. As readers of constitutional cases know, the framing of a case substantially determines whose rights, and thus whose interests, shall triumph: the right of human beings to be informed of factual information or the corporate claims to negative free speech? Current Supreme Court doctrine holds that both reside in the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech. International Dairy Foods concerns a Vermont labeling law that sought to provide factual information to consumers, enhancing their ability to make informed purchasing decisions.
A closely related collection of dairy industry corporations appealed the law. The Monsanto Company, the producer of the only FDA-approved rBST product, filed an amicus brief. Their lawyers claimed the statute violated the corporations’ negative free speech rights of the First Amendment. But the court recognized that the human beings who were to be the beneficiaries of this factual information were also making claims upon the First Amendment — specifically the right to be well informed.The law required that dairy products produced by cows treated with genetically engineered recombinant growth hormone (rBST) be labeled as such. The labeling technique detailed in the law was simple: either producers of affected products would add a blue rectangle to their packaging or retailers would affix a blue dot to the package. The Vermont merchant would also post a sign in their store defining what that blue symbol meant to the purchaser:
The court decided on behalf of the dairy corporations, agreeing with their lawyers’ claims that the statute required them to make involuntary statements in violation of their First Amendment rights. The court then failed to see any substantial state interest as being served by the labeling law. Unlike food additives, rBST is not directly added to food but rather added to dairy cows. “[T]he state itself has not adopted the concerns of the consumers; it has only adopted that the consumers are concerned. Unfortunately, here consumer concern is not, in itself, a substantial [state] interest.”Ideologically speaking, the court presumed that consumers had no interests other than curiosity, which is inadequate justification to pass a law restricting corporate speech. The court decided that the knowledge of how products are produced – including such unsavory production practices as child labor and environmental damage resulting from production process — is beyond the authority of its citizens’ demands and not of legitimate concern for the purpose of labeling laws.
The Court of Appeals recognized this power of law to influence ideology and thus public consciousness. If mere human concern alone were sufficient to compel corporations to label products with details on how a product was produced, then it is reasonable to infer that any and every request for informational disclosure could be justified. So the Court of Appeals used the law to temper such human expectations and ideals:
“Although the Court is sympathetic to the Vermont consumers who wish to know which products may derive from rBST-treated herds, their desire is insufficient to permit the State of Vermont to compel the dairy manufacturers to speak against their will. Were consumer interest alone sufficient, there is no end to the information that states could require manufacturers to disclose about their production methods. For instance, with respect to cattle, consumers might reasonably evince an interest in knowing which grains herds were fed, with which medicines they were treated, or the age at which they were slaughtered. Absent, however, some indication that this information bears on a reasonable concern for human health or safety or some other sufficiently substantial governmental concern, the manufacturers cannot be compelled to disclose it. Instead, those consumers interested in such information should exercise the power of their purses by buying products from manufacturers who voluntarily reveal it.”
Dirty Tricks and Front Groups
B-M was hired by the pharmaceutical corporation Eli Lilly and Monsanto subsidiary Nutra Sweet to promote the use of the genetically-engineered synthetic bovine growth hormone rBGH. This hormone, which increases milk output in cows, is strongly opposed by dairy farmers and consumer and environmental activist groups. Their two main arguments are that 1) There is already a milk glut in the US. To bring more of it into the market would depress prices so severely that small dairy farmers would be run out of business; and 2) the use of rBGH has already been linked to severe health problems in cows and to calves born with grotesque birth defects.
B-M's campaign to neutralize the opposition to rBGH included the use of spies to penetrate activist groups. This fact became public when University of Vermont spokesperson Nicola Marro admitted that a mole had been placed in an anti-rBGH ad-hoc group headed by Jeremy Rifkin, a well- known critic of biotechnology and author of several books. Participants in the group singled out a woman named Diane Moser as a suspect. Moser, who attended a Washington DC meeting of the group, avoided small talk and read a paperback during the meeting. Vermont state representative Andrew Christiansen, who a ttended the meeting, told journalist John Dillon that "She said she represented housewives concerned about BGH...I had suspicions immediately. I've never seen anybody with a paperback coming to a me eting like that". When the activists called the number she left in the sign-up sheet, it rang in the Washington DC offices of Burson- Marsteller. B-M executive Timothy Brosnahan acknowledged that Moser was a B-M employee but denied knowing of any snooping on her part.
A freedom of information act (FOIA) request by activists Tim Atwater and John Stauber, who were then with Rural Vermont and the Foundation on Economic Trends respectively, uncovered a broader pattern of espionage against foes of rBGH. Atwater and Stauber's FOIA request uncovered documents of the quasi-governmental, farmer-funded National Dairy Board (NDB), which promotes rBGH. These documents revealed that the NDB hired the PR firm of Creswell, Munsell, Fultz & Zirbel (CMF&Z). This firm is a subsidiary of communications conglomerate Young & Rubicam (Y&R), which happens to be B-M's parent company. Given that Y&R represents rBGH backer Monsanto, Stauber concluded that "The day-to-day work is done out of Burson-Marsteller and CMF&Z. But I'm sure there's overall coordination with Young & Rubicam". Stauber is now editor of PR Watch, a newsletter that provides critical reporting on the PR industry, and is co-author, along with Sheldon Rampton, of Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry (Common Courage Press, 1995).
[edit] Pollution in Anniston, Alabama
In 2002, *The Washington Post* carried a front page report on Monsanto's legacy of environmental damage in Anniston, Alabama related to its legal production of polychlorinated biphenyls, a chemical once used as a common electrical insulator, 40 years ago. Plaintiffs in a pending lawsuit provided documentation showing that the local Monsanto factory knowingly discharged both mercury and PCB-laden waste into local creeks for over 40 years.[^36](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-35) In a story on 27 January, *The New York Times* reported that during 1969 alone Monsanto had dumped 45 tons of PCBs into Snow Creek, a feeder for Choccolocco Creek which supplies much of the area's drinking water. The company also buried millions of pounds of PCB in open-pit landfills located on hillsides above the plant and surrounding neighborhoods.[^37](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-36) In August 2003, Solutia and Monsanto agreed to pay plaintiffs $700 million to settle claims by over 20,000 Anniston residents related to PCB contamination.[^38](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#cite_note-37)
^----^
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Monsanto-Fisher-EPA-Job.htm
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Monsanto-Fisher-EPA-Job.htm
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Monsanto-Paid-Protection-EPA.htm mojo 1997
Lobbying / consulting work
After returning to private life, Whitman founded a consulting / lobbying firm called the Whitman Strategy Group in 2004. [4]
The Whitman firm's first client was FMC Corporation, "a chemical company negotiating with the EPA over the cleanup of arsenic-contaminated soil at a factory near Buffalo, N.Y." In a May 2005 interview, Whitman said she had not worked directly with FMC, but would likely advise them on "how to improve their image" and gain "access to the people they need to speak to." FMC "is responsible for 136 Superfund sites across the country ... and has been subject to 47 EPA enforcement actions." [5]
Nuclear power
Cheney Energy Task Force
"Whitman owns interests in oil wells in Texas and Colorado valued at between $55,000 and $175,000," reported the San Jose Mercury News on February 28, 2001 ("Top officials face conflict of interest queries over oil connections"). "She has promised to divest of them to meet ethics guidelines." The particular companies Whitman held investments in were CEX Operating Co. of Dallas, Hunt Oil Co. of Houston, and St. Mary Operating Co. in Colorado. The conflicts were highlighted during meetings of Vice-President Cheney's Energy Task Force.
EPA record
Whitman championed "free market environmentalism"; voluntary initiatives promoted by conservative think tanks and industry lobbies as an alternative to regulatory measures. Some of these programs included Climate Leaders, Energy Star, SmartWay Transport, and the new Water Quality Trading Policy and Bush's Clear Skies Initiative.
"Under Administrator Whitman's leadership, the EPA ... also [undertook] aggressive efforts to fulfill its mission by cleaning up the Hudson River, protecting children from environmental health hazards such as asthma and sun exposure, and requiring cleaner burning diesel engines and lower-sulfur diesel fuel to reduce emissions from America's dirtiest mobile sources," her biographical note stated. [16]
Yet, "EPA documents showed that the number of officially defined smoggy days had increased by 32 percent from 2001 to 2002. The completion of clean-ups at Superfund sites was down by close to half," writes Laura Flanders in "Bushwomen." Eric Schaeffer, the EPA's head of regulatory enforcement under Whitman, resigned under protest. He told Flanders that Whitman is "a Republican first and an environmentalist way down the list."
As Whitman was leaving the EPA, not only was "the Inspector General's report on the clean-up operation after 9/11" soon to be released (see next section), but new information was about to surface on pollution in Anniston, Alabama. According to Laura Flanders' book "Bushwomen":
- Court documents revealed that a multi-million-dollar verdict against the chemical company found liable (Monsanto) was changed in Monsanto's favor just days after Whitman received a forty-five-minute "briefing" on the case. On the eve of Whitman's departure from the EPA, a former EPA attorney who had testified in the Anniston case came forward and said that inspectors general at the EPA and the Department of Justice had pressured her not to testify. Janet MacGillibray, formerly a Superfund attorney, said a high-ranking EPA official told her Anniston didn't make a list of national clean-up priorities because Monsanto didn't want it to.
On August 11, 2003, President George Walker Bush named Utah Governor Mike Leavitt as Whitman's successor. [17]
see also http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ed_Rollins voter supression
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Christine_Todd_Whitman
http://www.psrast.org/ecologmons.htm
--
jim ht
Meet Michael Taylor. Coming out of law school, he went to work for FDA, the Food & Drug Administration, for five years, gaining valuable expertise in food regulatory issues.
Then [whoop, whoop] he slipped-out through that revolving door to a hot-shot Washington lobbying and lawyering outfit. There, Mr. Taylor specialized in -- Big Surprise -- food regulatory issues!
His client list included Monsanto -- a chemical giant trying to get FDA, Taylor's old agency, to approve a genetically-engineered growth hormone called BGH. This synthetic hormone would be injected into cows to force more milk out of them. Problem is, not every parent wants their kids drinking milk spiced with antibiotics and extra hormones. But Monsanto, with Taylor's help, got FDA to go along. Now that their drug was approved, there was the testy matter of keeping consumers from knowing which carton contains Monsanto's Mystery Milk, since most folks don't want to buy it.
So when FDA recently wrote guidelines to regulate the labeling of this milk -- guess who was in charge? Yes! Michael Taylor! He'd [whoop, whoop] slipped through that revolving door back inside the FDA, just in time to write the guidelines.
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 1999 10:43:59 -0600
From: Peter Khaled
Subject: Revolving Door - Updated list - FYI
David W. Beier . . .former head of Government Affairs for
Genentech, Inc., . . .now chief domestic policy advisor to Al
Gore, Vice President of the United States.
Linda J. Fisher . . .former Assistant Administrator of the
United States Environmental Protection Agency's Office of
Pollution Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, . . .now
Vice President of Government and Public Affairs for Monsanto
Corporation.
Michael A. Friedman, M.D. . . former acting commissioner of
the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Department of Health and Human Services . . .now senior
vice-president for clinical affairs at G. D. Searle & Co., a
pharmaceutical division of Monsanto Corporation.
L. Val Giddings . . . former biotechnology regulator and
(biosafety) negotiator at the United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA/APHIS), . . .now Vice President for Food &Agriculture of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).
Marcia Hale . . . former assistant to the President of the
United States and director for intergovernmental affairs, . .
.now Director of International Government Affairs for Monsanto
Corporation.
Michael (Mickey) Kantor. . . former Secretary of the United
States Department of Commerce and former Trade
Representative of the United States, . . .now member of the
board of directors of Monsanto Corporation.
Josh King . . . former director of production for White House
events, . . . now director of global communication in the
Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.
Terry Medley . . . former administrator of the Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the United States
Department of Agriculture, former chair and vice-chair of the
United States Department of Agriculture Biotechnology Council,
former member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
food advisory committee, . . . and now Director of Regulatory
and External Affairs of Dupont Corporation's Agricultural
Enterprise.
Margaret Miller . . . former chemical laboratory supervisor for
Monsanto, . . .now Deputy Director of Human Food Safety and
Consultative Services, New Animal Drug Evaluation Office,
Center for Veterinary Medicine in the United States Food and
Drug Administration (FDA).*
Michael Phillips . . . recently with the National Academy of
Science Board on Agriculture . . . now head of regulatory affairs
for the Biotechnology Industry Organization.
William D. Ruckelshaus . . . former chief administrator of the
United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), . .
.now (and for the past 12 years) a member of the board of
directors of Monsanto Corporation.
Michael Taylor . . . former legal advisor to the United States
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s Bureau of Medical
Devices and Bureau of Foods, later executive assistant to the
Commissioner of the FDA, . . . still later a partner at the law
firm of King & Spaulding where he supervised a nine-lawyer
group whose clients included Monsanto Agricultural Company, .
. . still later Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the United
States Food and Drug Administration, . . . and later with the
law firm of King & Spaulding. . . . now head of the
Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.*
Lidia Watrud . . . former microbial biotechnology researcher at
Monsanto Corporation in St. Louis, Missouri, . . .now with the
United States Environmental Protection Agency Environmental
Effects Laboratory, Western Ecology Division.
Jack Watson. . .former chief of staff to the President of the
United States, Jimmy Carter, . . .now a staff lawyer with
Monsanto Corporation in Washington, D.C.
Clayton K. Yeutter . . . former Secretary of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, former U.S. Trade Representative
(who led the U.S. team in negotiating the U.S. Canada Free
Trade Agreement and helped launch the Uruguay Round of the
GATT negotiations), now a member of the board of directors of
Mycogen Corporation, whose majority owner is Dow
AgroSciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical
Company.
Larry Zeph . . . former biologist in the Office of Prevention,
Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, . . . now Regulatory Science Manager at
Pioneer Hi-Bred International.
*Margaret Miller, Michael Taylor, and Suzanne Sechen (an FDA
"primary reviewer for all rbST and other dairy drug production applications"
) were the subjects of a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation in
1994 for their role in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's approval of
Posilac, Monsanto Corporation's formulation of recombinant bovine growth
hormone (rbST or rBGH). The GAO Office found "no conflicting financial
interests with respect to the drug's approval" and only "one minor deviation from
now superseded FDA regulations". (Quotations are from the 1994 GAO
report).
http://www.monsantosucks.com
panna
http://www.panna.org/resources/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto
A Wide Range of Impacts
Monsanto's social and environmental impacts are very broad:
Hazardous wastes Monsanto is a potentially responsible party for at least 93 Superfund sites. [[37]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn37 "_ednref37") Four of Monsanto's six industrial facilities in the U.S. rank amongst the worst 40% of comparable facilities in total toxic releases. [[38]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn38 "_ednref38")
Recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH, rBST) Monsanto brought rBGH to market in the mid-1990's amidst allegations that it prevented three British scientists from publishing a study regarding rBGH's impact on animal health. Furthermore, the company purportedly violated federal law by illegally promoting the hormone prior to rBGH's FDA approval, manipulated high-level government contacts to gain approval, and attempted to bribe Health Canada officials to approve it in Canada . [[39]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn39 "_ednref39") Monsanto has threatened and sometimes sued food companies that have labeled their products as rBGH-free. For example, Monsanto sued Oakhurst Dairy for including the statement that its milk contains no artificial hormones on the label. [[40]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn40 "_ednref40")
Price-fixing In January 2004, Monsanto was accused of illegal price fixing in the genetically engineered seed market. According to Julian Borger of the Guardian (UK), Monsanto spoke with competitors at Pioneer Hi-Bred, Novartis and Mycogen in an attempt to coordinate pricing policies. [[41]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn41 "_ednref41")
Dioxin According to EPA official Cate Jenkins, Monsanto knowingly submitted fraudulent data and studies about dioxin to EPA. Specifically, the company attempted to conceal contamination of its products, strategically rigged samples and fixed dioxin health studies. These efforts played a role in weakening dioxin regulations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). [[42]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn42 "_ednref42") After she exposed Monsanto's lies and cover-ups, Dr. Jenkins was later demoted to a clerk level position by the EPA with no explanation. [[43]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn42 "_ednref42")
Plan Colombia As part of its effort to fight rebels and drug trafficking, the U.S. government approved the aerial spraying of coca crops in Colombia . The chemicals sprayed included a Roundup formulation (containing a glyphosate concentration 26 times higher than that recommended for agricultural use) in combination with a surfactant, called Cosmo-flux, which has not been approved by EPA. [[44]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn43 "_ednref43") According to many reports, family residences, food crops, rivers and forests have been sprayed, resulting in livestock deaths and human ailments. [[45]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn44 "_ednref44")
Industrial coolants (Polychlorinated Biphenyls, or PCBs) For four-decades, Monsanto benefited from a lucrative monopoly in the U.S. PCB market. [[46]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn45 "_ednref45") During this time, Monsanto regularly dumped PCBs in open pits and creeks in the city of Anniston , Alabama . In 1966, the company discovered and concealed its knowledge that in one creek, fish submerged for ten seconds would die, bleeding and shedding skin, as if dunked into boiling water. [[47]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn46 "_ednref46") Similarly, Monsanto suppressed a company study indicating that PCBs cause tumors in rats. [[48]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn47 "_ednref47") Though Monsanto stopped producing PCBs in 1977, two years before the substance was banned, PCB contamination continues to be a problem in Anniston and around the world today. [[49]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn48 "_ednref48")
False Advertisements In 1996, Monsanto settled a case brought against it by the New York state attorney general for false advertisement of its glyphosate-based products, including Roundup. [[50]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn49 "_ednref49") Monsanto paid a settlement of US$50,000 and agreed to stop referring to its glyphosate-containing products as “biodegradable” and “environmentally friendly.” [[51]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn50 "_ednref50")
In Focus: Patents on Life
Monsanto has made a concerted effort to acquire numerous patents related to genetic engineering techniques and genetically engineered seed varieties. Typically, farmers purchasing these seeds must pay licensing fees and sign a licensing agreement prohibiting seed saving and reuse and including other restrictions. Farmers violating the agreement face severe fines. [[52]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn51 "_ednref51")
In one case, although he claims that he never planted Monsanto's seed, Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser was sued by Monsanto after the company found genetically engineered Roundup Ready canola plants's growing in his fields. In fact, the plants may have contaminated Schmeiser's plots through pollen carried by wind from modified plants on nearby farms. Schemeiser says that the genetically engineered canola destroyed his own carefully developed local variety. He has faced severe consequences as a result of the suit. [[53]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn52 "_ednref52")
Schmeiser's situation is not isolated. Tom Wiley, a farmer in North Dakota , put it this way: “Farmers are being sued for having GMOs on their property that they did not buy, do not want, will not use and cannot sell.” [[54]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn53 "_ednref53")
A coalition of organic famers in Canada has filed a class-action lawsuit against Monsanto for planting test crops of genetically engineered wheat in undisclosed locations. Farmers are concerned that their natural and organic crops could easily become contaminated, which would put them at risk of losing more that $170 million[[55]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn53 "_ednref53")
Undue Influence
To advance their interests, giants like Monsanto invest heavily in political and social influence. Some of Monsanto's efforts to influence policy and public opinion include:
Trade organizations and think tanks Some of the trade and policy organizations in which Monsanto participates include: [[56]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn54 "_ednref54")
- American Seed Trade Association (http://www.amseed.com/)
- CropLife Internacional (http://www.croplife.org/)
- EuropaBio (http://www.europabio.org/)
- European Chemical Industries Council (http://www.cefic.be/)
- Green Biotechnology Industry Platform
- Grocery Manufacturers of America (http://www.gmabrands.com/)
- International Chamber of Commerce (http://www.iccwbo.org/)
- International Food Information Council (http://www.ific.org/)
- International Seed Federation (http://www.worldseed.org/)
- World Business Council for Sustainable Development (http://www.wbcsd.ch/)
Campaign Contributions The Monsanto Citizenship Fund, a political action committee, donated US$298,000 to federal candidates (42% to Democrats, 58% to Republicans) in the 2008 election cycle, and US$226,400 in the 2006 cycle. Most of the Fund’s money come from donations by Monsanto employees. [[57]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn57 "_ednref57")
Lobbying From 1998 to 2004, Monsanto spent US$22,504,610 lobbying the federal government. In 2004 alone, the company spent US$3,257,000. [[58]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn58 "_ednref58") The trade organizations to which Monsanto belongs also employ lobbyists.
Monsanto spent $4,174,000 on lobbying so far in 2009. Inn 2008, they spent $831,120. [[59]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn58 "_ednref58")
Monsanto was also the driving force behind the proposed H.R. 875 Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, introduced to Congress by Rosa DeLauro whose husband is Monsanto employee Stanley Greenburg. “The bill is monstrous on level after level - the power it would give to Monsanto, the criminalization of seed banking, the prison terms and confiscatory fines for farmers, the 24 hours GPS tracking of their animals, the easements on their property to allow for warrantless government entry, the stripping away of their property rights, the imposition by the filthy, greedy industrial side of anti-farming international "industrial" standards to independent farms - the only part of our food system that still works, the planned elimination of farmers through all these means.” [[60]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn58 "_ednref58")
In Focus: The Revolving Door
High-level employees commonly rotate between industry and the public agencies that regulate them, providing insider know-how and friendly connections through which rules can be bent and loopholes exploited. Monsanto employees have passed through this so-called revolving door many times.
For example, Linda Fisher worked from 1995 to 2000 as Monsanto's Vice President and Corporate Officer, responsible for government relations and public affairs. She then became Deputy Administrator at EPA until 2003. [[61]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn59 "_ednref59")
Michael Taylor worked at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), then worked as an attorney representing Monsanto, went back to work for FDA, [[62]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn60 "_ednref60") and then joined Monsanto as Vice President for Public Policy. At EPA, Taylor helped draft FDA's policy on genetically modified foods [[63]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn61 "_ednref61")
Others who have passed from Monsanto to government or vice versa include:
- Gwendolyn S. King, who served on the Monsanto Board of Directors, also served as the 11 th Commissioner of Social Security from 1989-1992 and has served on President Bush's Commission to Strengthen Social Security [[64]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn62 "_ednref62")
- George H. Poste, another member of Monsanto's Board of Directors is also a member of the Defense Science Board of the U.S. Department of Defense [[65]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn63 "_ednref63")
- Michael (Mickey) Kantor served as a United States Trade Representative from 1993-1996 [[66]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn64 "_ednref64") and has been a member of Monsanto's board of directors since 1997
- Donald Bandler was US Ambassador to Cypress from 1999-2002, then Senior VP of Govt Affairs at Monsanto from 2002-present
- Marcia Hale (who is also a registered lobbyist for McKenna, Long & Aldridge) worked in the White House under Legislative and Congressional affairs from 1993-2000, and for Monsanto from 1999-2000[[67]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn66 "_ednref66")
- Toby Moffet was a staff assistant for Walter Mondale from 1970-1971, and a member for the US House of Representatives from 1975-1983. He then worked for Monsanto as an international lobbyist from 1998-2000.[[68]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn66 "_ednref66")
- Linda Avery Strachan was the Director of Federal and Government Affairs for Monsanto, and also worked as the Assistant Secretary of Congressional Relations for the Department of Agriculture, and as an assistant for the EPA[[69]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn66 "_ednref66")
- Jim Travis was a Policy Advisor for California Representative Cal Dooley, and now works for Monsanto.[[70]](http://www.panna.org/campaigns/caia/corpProfilesMonsanto.dv.html#_edn66 "_ednref66")
