Monday 23rd of December 2024
Home » Blogs » John Richardson's blog

a modern day plague .....

monsantoland .....

Monsanto's history is one steeped with controversial products, deadly consequences, massive cover ups, political sleight of hand, and culminates as a modern day plague on humanity, a plague that is about to peak to biblical proportions. Created in 1901, the company started producing its first form of poison, the artificial sweetener saccharin. The rise in use of saccharin really began 70 years later. Monsanto had plenty of time for a realistic and long term study on the impact of saccharin on human health. Instead, Monsanto learned how to finagle political support and grow its empire despite the growing consensus that saccharin caused cancer.

No surprise then that the company continued on a path of controversy. Here's a bullet point history.

- Contributed to the research on uranium, for the Manhattan Project, during WWII

- Operated a nuclear facility for the U.S. government until the late 1980s

- Top manufacturer of synthetic fibres, plastics and polystyrene (EPA's 5th ranked chemical production that generates the most hazardous waste)

- A top 10 US chemical company

- Agriculture pesticides producer

- Herbicide producer - herbicides 2,4,5-T, Agent Orange, Lasso, and DDT

- Agent Orange (used in Vietnam), had the highest levels of dioxin and contaminated more than 3 million civilians and servicemen of which only partial compensation awarded

- Nearly 500,000 Vietnamese children were born deformed and never compensated

- Lasso was banned in USA, so weed killer "Roundup" is launched in 1976

- A major producer of both dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which generated many law suits and environmental clean-ups

- $180 million settlement for Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange

- Fined $1.2 million for concealing the discharge of contaminated waste water

- Ordered to pay $41.1 million due to hazardous waste dumping

- Paid $600 million in settlement claims to more than 20,000 Anniston residents in Abernathy v. United States Link here

- Produced GM cattle drug, bovine growth hormone (called rBGH or rBST)

- Acquiring seed companies from the 1990's and forward

- Monsanto Filed 144 lawsuits against struggling farmers and settled out of court with 700 farmers, for reportedly violating seed patents. A full time staff of 75 Monsanto employees investigates patent infringements. They are dedicated solely to finding farms that have been contaminated by their unwanted seed. As of 2007, Monsanto was awarded in 57 recorded judgments against farmers a total of $21,583,431.99. Monsanto vs. Farmers click here.

The Washington Post reported, "For nearly 40 years, while producing the now-banned industrial coolants known as PCBs at a local factory, Monsanto Co. routinely discharged toxic waste into a west Anniston creek and dumped millions of pounds of PCBs into oozing open-pit landfills. And thousands of pages of Monsanto documents -- many emblazoned with warnings such as 'CONFIDENTIAL: Read and Destroy' show that for decades, the corporate giant concealed what it did and what it knew."

PCB's are considered an absolute threat to our world. Environmentalists rightfully want a pound of Monsanto's flesh! In 1969, Monsanto knew the impact of their products and put together an abatement plan for the entire United States, Canada and sections of Europe, especially the UK and Sweden. It's disingenuous to suggest it could be done, for any amount of money. In the town of Anniston, Alabama, where the Monsanto plant was located, residents had PCB levels hundreds and sometimes thousands of times higher than the average person. They were dying or ill.

Monsanto decided to look at other products they could produce because their economic reliance on one profitable product was precarious at best. They split the company and Monsanto spawned Solutia, so that the massive lawsuits would not take down the entire company. Found guilty of conduct "so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society." The court decisions were destroying profitability.

Monsanto was just getting started with its assault on our ecosystem. Roundup was being marketed in 115 countries. Meanwhile Solutia was going down by means of Chapter 11 bankruptcy and lawsuits.

With the popularity of Roundup, the company became increasingly concerned about the patents expiration in 2000. They sold off the plastics division in 1996 and their phenylalanine facilities in 1999. Here again, Monsanto was trying to avoid financial liability for its hazardous waste producing past.

Monsanto merged with Pharmacia, and became legally a different corporation, despite sharing the same name, the same corporate headquarters, the same executives and employees, not to mention most of the liabilities from its former activities.

The new focus was genetic engineering and particularly creating genes that are resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. Can you imagine farming without weeds? Farmers were intrigued and some delighted. Growing food and spraying poison at the same time did nothing to boost the confidence of consumers. False claims that it was biodegradable lead to its frequent use. Health complaints came from neighbours of farmers and farmers themselves. Soon the biodegradable claim on the packaging was removed.

Heading in a new direction, Monsanto was buying up seed companies left and right. They became the world's largest seed company, acquiring a quarter of the global proprietary seed market. By coupling their sale of Roundup with their gene modified seeds, they began dominating the agriculture market. By 2007, almost 90% of the world used GM seeds carrying at least one genetic trait for herbicide tolerance. Now Monsanto was a dominating the food chain, the farmers, and its assault on mankind.

Where there is market control, there is price gouging. In 2006 Roundup cost $32 per gallon, and by 2008 it was up to $75 per gallon. Not satisfied with this dominance of the world food chain, Monsanto began patenting their glyphosate resistant seeds. They hiked up the price of corn seeds by 35% and soy by 50%, leaving farmers financially plundered. Farmer suicide went from a trickle to a torrential rain. Averaging about one farmer suicide every 30 minutes.

Soy, corn, sugar beets, rice, alfalfa, cotton seed oil, canola oil, Hawaiian papaya, zucchini, crookneck squash are now the sources of genetically food. But it gets worse. Corn and soy products are being fed to livestock, the livestock that you eat; chicken, eggs, sheep, pig, cows, goats, turkey, etc. Unless you have removed meat from your diet you are being systematically poisoned and perhaps even sterilized like the livestock that eats GMO corn and soy products.

The rights of farmers to save or exchange seeds have been stolen from them. Something that has been done for centuries, that guaranteed the survival of our species, changed overnight. Like a game of chess, Monsanto has with absolute intent, created a food crisis, offered up its poisonous solution, and has knocked chess piece after chess piece down in a calculated plan.

Just look at the list of players behind the schemes and profiteering. Monsanto, U.S. regulators and judicial bodies have become strange bed fellows:

- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a former Monsanto lawyer, wrote the majority of the opinion in a key Monsanto case

- Lawyer Michael Taylor, FDA employed, represented Monsanto sometime after, then returned as the FDA's Deputy Commissioner for Policy right as rBGH was granted approval. He was appointed as a senior adviser to the Food and Drug Administration (United States) Commissioner on food safety in August 2009 by President Barack Obama

- Dr. Michael A. Friedman, prior deputy commissioner of the FDA, hired as a senior vice president of Monsanto

- Linda J. Fisher, prior assistant administrator at the US Environmental Protection Agency, became a vice president at Monsanto from 1995-2000. In 2001, Fisher returned as the deputy administrator of the EPA

- Donald Rumsfeld, Former Secretary of Defense, former chairman and chief executive officer of G. D. Searle & Co., (Monsanto purchased in 1985). Rumsfeld privately made at least $12 million from the transaction.

If by now you are feeling paranoid, targeted, and overwhelmed by this information, I understand why.

You will move through all the stages of rage in time. Resist the urge to kick the produce man. Don't hire a plane to spray Roundup on the White House, Senate, or House, I don't advocate stooping to their levels.

But you may want to go picket in front of Whole Foods after you read their blog explaining why they buckled under the pressure of the USDA and Monsanto. Whole Foods, the very symbol of health conscious living, has betrayed everything they stood for to the consumer. Read Whole Foods Blog here.

Now Monsanto can push full steam ahead, contaminating our nation's 25,000 organic farms and ranches. Top executives from Whole Foods Market, Stonyfield Farm and Organic Valley have given up on their 12 year battle to protect consumer's choices.

This decision sets a precedence for how genetically engineered foods will be regulated in the future. You can now expect the spread Monsanto's mutant genes and seeds across the nation, contaminating other farms, and taking down other farmers by lawsuits.

A Swedish study found that spraying Roundup doubles the risk of getting cancer for farm workers' and rural residents'. More worrisome is the fact that Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) do not require safety testing, nor labelling identifying them as GMOs.

Anti- GMO efforts by organic companies, who demanded labelling and oversight, will begin to accept the so-called "natural" foods that are routinely contaminated with GMO's. Companies like Wal-Mart, Kroger, Costco, Supervalu, Publix, Target and Safeway shy away from the attacks on GMO's that they sell to their unwitting customer base.

Whole Foods' already sells "Natural" processed foods and animal products that are contaminated with GMOs. At least two thirds of WFM's $9 billion annual sales is derived products that are contaminated with GMOs. Whole Foods' moral high ground is looking more like a sink hole. This constitutes fraud in my book.

Consumers must learn the difference between products marketed as "natural," and those products that are "certified organic." Just because you're in a Whole Foods Market, does not mean your expensive food is safe. They are misleading you by masquerading natural as organic.

GMOs and organics cannot coexistence. They are polar opposites in every way imaginable. GMOs destroy biodiversity, damages the environment and public health, economically devastates farmers, and destabilizes the climate.

In the European Union, all foods containing GMOs or GMO ingredients must be labelled. Thus the market shelves are empty because consumers are not buying them. American consumers want mandatory labels on GMO foods, and according to the polls by a strong 85-95%. They don't want the top poison producer, to monopolize the agricultural industry and have anything to do with the worlds food supply.

Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations have prevented consumer GMO truth-in-labelling laws. A new bill by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio) calling for mandatory labelling and safety testing for GMOs is in Congress now. But Monsanto is allowed to buy vote's thanks in part to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and the Citizens United case. In 2010, big corporations and billionaires got the right to spend obscene amounts of money to buy media coverage, elections, and do it anonymously.

Recent news is ... 5 million farmers are now suing Monsanto. They are fighting for the right to use seeds from previous year's harvests. Seeds they harvested, but Monsanto patented. The bad news is ... it's still GMO seeds, a toxic transgenic breed, in markets without labels and health studies, and we have a government that finds this all acceptable.

Monsanto: A Modern Day Plague

 

pure evil ....

With sweet corn containing a genetically engineered toxin headed toward Wal-Mart produce sections as you read this, it's time to talk about Monsanto's evil little kid's book.

The corn is from Monsanto seeds, which produce a plant that exudes bt toxin, a pesticide that will kill insects that feed on the plant. It's coming to Wal-Mart from farms in the Midwest, Northwest, Southeast and Texas. It will be the first genetically modified food to go directly from the farm to consumers - unlabled as GMO. Besides the toxin people who east the corn will consume, there are other serious farming issues with genetically modified crops outside the scope of this article. But it should be noted that Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and General Mills have vowed to not sell or use the genetically engineered.

Apparently, enough adults are informed and concerned enough to raise a stink, so Monsanto is aiming at the next generation, eyes always on the profit prize. How else to explain the absurd disinformation of the Biotechnology Basic Activity Book it sponsors?

No book should be banned. That's an axiom of this column.

Choices, however, are legitimate. As parents and librarians, gift-giving grandparents, whatever, we eschew children's books that are too scary for our little ones, we don't choose books that seem stupid or unfunny, and, most importantly, we don't want books that are a pack of lies.

It's proper, too, to shield tender young minds from harsh realities - but when they're ready and we intend to inform them, our job is to get real.

Monsanto thinks otherwise.

If you think a food additive that kills human kidney cells improves our health, don't read any further, the GMO propaganda machine has already fried your brains. The U.S. allows this stuff. Corporations own our government. But the European Union, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Russia and China, require labeling for GE foods. (It's staggering to think that Russia and China are more concerned about their citizens' health than the majority of our elected representatives.)

One constantly wonders if any of these corporate people or bought politicians have grandchildren, or even think about the consequences of poisoning the food supply or the land in ways that will harm them, their great-grandchildren, and generations beyond. Forget it, they aren't that human.

Monsanto is likely the most evil multi-national corporation ever. They make Phillip Morris and R.J. Reynolds getting kids hooked on tobacco look absolutely benign; BP's malfeasance in the Gulf oil spew minor, Ciby Geigy pushing Ritalin on kids and useless, dangerous drugs to third world countries - fogeddaboutit. Maybe Dow ... but Monsanto must take the prize.

These are the people that brought us polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), now banned worldwide; DDT, banned for most uses, and Agent Orange, the defoliant than caused birth defects among generations of Vietnamese and children of U.S. soldiers exposed to it.

These are the people who put bovine growth hormone in our milk supply. Neither you nor I may say that makes our milk any different or they will sue us. (Only why have other countries banned its use?) And the cows, who suffer terribly, can't speak up for themselves.

These are the people who invented terminator seeds, so farmers can't collect seeds from their plants, and replant with them, They have to buy more seeds from Monsanto. What monster could think up a terminator seed? (One envisions Arnold Swartzenegger with a machine gun spewing seeds at recalcitrant planters.)

And when they aren't terminator seeds, Monsanto still doesn't want plants produced from its seeds used to propagate a next generation.

Health writer Anthony Gucciardi says Monsanto is to blame for one farmer suicide every 30 minutes across a swath of India. It happens like this:

Farmers pay exorbitantly higher prices to plant genetically modified seeds that Monsanto promises will yield more. Often they do not, and tremendously more water is needed to grow them anyway. The crops do poorly, then Monsanto swoops in and charges a royalty on the next batch, often to the farmers' financial ruin.

The practice of using renewal seeds dates back to ancient times, but Monsanto seeks to collect royalties on what it says is its patented "intellectual property" - the original seeds. Something the Indian government calls an attempt to patent life.

If you don't want them at all, you still aren't safe. When Monsanto's genetically modified seeds accidentally blow over and contaminate a non-GMO farm, often an organic one, the corporation sues the farmer for "using" the patented seeds they didn't want in the first place! In a just world, Monsanto would owe reparations to the organic farmer.

They're clever people, to be sure. Monsanto was the first to genetically modified a plant.cell (in 1982).

So here we are in 2012 facing Monsanto's unprecedented messing with Mother Nature - the genetically modified plant.

Based purely on anecdotal evidence, admittedly, I believe most people think "genetically modified" simply means designing a hardier tomato, lettuce or bean. A shinier apple, maybe. Would it were just that! Nope, genetically modified means they are inserting a pesticide in the genome of the plant. A killer we will all eat.

There is no way to wash it off. The pesticide is systemic - within the plant. Part of the plant. It IS the plant.

It may not affect human health, but it may. We don't know. And Monsanto doesn't want anyone to have a choice in whether or not they take the gamble. They are fighting GMO labeling requirements.

The main battleground right now is in California, where labeling is on the November ballot. California is a big state, so as California goes, so goes the nation, some say.

CALLING ALL CALIFORNIANS: Please vote for labeling!

In the meantime, worry about the bees, too. Beekeepers and researchers say these systemic pesticides are apparently killing off bee colonies at an alarming rate. Bees are needed to pollinate a vast number of fruit and vegetable crops.

It is said that Albert Einstein once predicted that mankind could survive the demise of the honeybee for only perhaps four years.

Here's why more water is needed for bt toxin plants. Portland State University researchers reported in April that the corn aimed at insects also damages beneficial soil life. The roots of bt corn, they found a decrease in mycorrhizal fungi, which are important for nutrient and water uptake.

Imagine more water being needed to grow plants in a land like India, or drought ravaged world.

Is Monsanto a company you want speaking to your children or grandchildren?

The Biotechnology Basic Activity Book, produced by an organization laughably called the Council for Biotechnology Information. Its members are Monsanto and BASF, BAYER CropScience, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, and Syngenta.

The book can be examined on the council's website. Judge for yourself which of these claims for genetically modified food are true:

It help us grow more food.

It helps the environment.

It grows more nutritious food that improves our health.

Kids are given puzzles to "learn more about biotechnology and all of the wonderful ways it can help people live better lives in a healthier world.l"

Science writer Anthony Gucciardi writes:

"According to 900 scientists, GMO crops actually do not grow more food than traditional farming practices. In fact, they are simply not an effective tool to fight starvation in any capacity, thanks to their excessive costs and immense failure to yield crops. ...(and) genetically modified seeds were outperformed by traditional "agro-ecological" farming practices.

Do GMO's improve our health? "... Nothing could be farther from the truth." Gucciardi writes. "A prominent review of 19 studies examining the safety of GMO crops found that consumption of GMO corn or soybeans can lead to significant organ disruptions in rats and mice - particularly in the liver and kidneys. . Monsanto’s modified biopesticide, known as Bt, has been found to be killing human kidney cells in conjunction with Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Roundup.

"Roundup ready crops have also been linked to mental illness, obesity, infertility, and DNA damage."

Helping the environment? Gucciardi calls this the most ludicrous claim of all. (Remember, this is what kids are reading in this book and teachers are supposed to take as a guide in instructing their pupils.)

"Research has shown that Monsanto’s modified Bt pesticide is actually mutating the very genetic coding of insect life on the planet, creating super resistant ‘mutant’ bugs that are wreaking havoc on farms using Monsanto’s harmful concoctions across the globe. At least eight populations of insects have developed some form of resistance, with two populations resistant to Bt sprays and at least 6 species resistant to Bt crops as a whole.

"Perhaps most concerning is the mounting rootworm resistance as a result of Monsanto’s GMO corn usage. A group of 22 academic corn experts recently petitioned the EPA over the extreme danger presented by the crops... agricultural stability is threatened...(due to) the mass amount of ‘superweeds’ currently springing up around the globe as a result of Monsanto’s Roundup. These resistant weeds currently cover over 4.5 million hectares in the United States alone, though experts estimate the world-wide land coverage to have reached at least 120 million hectares by 2010. The onset of superweeds is being increasingly documented in Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Europe and South Africa."

This biotech book represents a war for the minds of the next generation, Gucciardi says.

Surely it's not the only propaganda ever aimed at children. But it does highlight the need for parents and librarians and teachers to be super vigilant when corporations write books.

The answer is not to ban the book. Just don't buy it, literally and figuratively.

And counter it with better books.

Monsanto Tries Biotech Brainwash With Kid's Book