I'm tired of such sweeping allegations against those darn nutty whole foods types. Most tiring is having this organic debate every few months, please read some old threads. I no longer have the patience and hate repeating myself. Have yourself a looksie
http://www.imminst.o...ST&f=171&t=9078Read this. You will note arguments and documentation brough up by KevinK that pretty much outlines any facts you might need about the "broad allegations and hand-waving" I laid down...sorry, but I simply can't spoonfeed all the information. Have a look - facts. You obviously have not done your research if you have such praise for Monsanto. I do not bash corporations because it's trendy, it can be deserved.
Please clarify this statement if you think I'm putting words in your mouth:
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The amount of fear-mongering and scientific ignorance is really astonishing and shameful.
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Where is the ignorance located exactly? Are you suggesting organic consumers, or produce buyers in general? How about both parties, generally speaking.
I'll post it here for anyone who does not want to read the discussion - here are very specific allegations against Monsanto.
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Monsanto Co.'s "seed police" snared soy farmer Homan
McFarling in 1999 and the company is demanding he pay it hundreds of thousands of dollars for alleged technology piracy.
McFarling's sin? He saved seed from one harvest and replanted it the following season, a revered and ancient agricultural practice.
"My daddy saved seed. I saved seed," said McFarling, 62, who still grows soy on the 5,000-acre family farm in Mississippi and is fighting the agribusiness giant in court.
Saving Monsanto's seeds, genetically engineered to kill bugs and resist weed sprays, violates provisions of the company's contracts with farmers.
Since 1997, Monsanto has filed similar lawsuits 90 times in 25 states against 147 farmers and 39 agriculture companies, according to a report by The Center for Food Safety, a biotechnology foe.
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Multi-Billion $$ Monsanto Sues More Small Family Farmers
Percy Schmeiser is a farmer from Saskatchewan Canada whose Canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto's genetically engineered Round-Up Ready Canola by pollen from a nearby farm. Monsanto says it doesn't matter how the contamination took place, and is therefore demanding Schmeiser pay their Technology Fee (the fee farmers must pay to grow Monsanto's genetically engineered products). According to Schmeiser, "I never had anything to do with Monsanto, outside of buying chemicals. I never signed a contract. If I would go to St. Louis (Monsanto Headquarters) and contaminate their plots--destroy what they have worked on for 40 years--I think I would be put in jail and the key thrown away."
Rodney Nelson's family farm is being forced into a similar lawsuit by Monsanto. Support Schmeiser, Nelson and hundreds of other family farmers who are being forced to pay Monsanto to have their fields contaminated by genetically modifeid organisms. Sign OCA's "Millions Against Monsanto" petition. These petitions will be physically delivered to Monsanto and related court hearings.
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Monsanto Brings Small Family Dairy to Court
Oakhurst Dairy has been owned and operated by the same Maine family since 1921, and Monsanto recently attempted to put them out of business. Oakhurst, like many other dairy producers in the U.S., has been responding to consumer demand to provide milk free of rBGH, a synthetic hormone banned (for health reasons) in every industrialized country other than the U.S. Monsanto, the number one producer of the rBGH synthetic steroid, sued Oakhurst, claiming they should not have the right to inform their customers that their dairy products do not contain the Monsanto chemical. Given the intense pressure from the transnational corporation, Oakhurst was forced to settle out of court, leaving many other dairies vulnerable to similar attacks from Monsanto.
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Monsanto Hid PCB Pollution for Decades
ANNISTON, Ala. -- On the west side of Anniston, the poor side of Anniston, the people grew berries in their gardens, raised hogs in their back yards, caught bass in the murky streams where their children swam and played and were baptized. They didn't know their dirt and yards and bass and kids -- along with the acrid air they breathed -- were all contaminated with toxic chemicals. They didn't know they lived in one of the most polluted patches of America.
Now they know. They also know that 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... (Read more...)
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Monsanto's Agent Orange
The Corporation Continues to Refuse Compensation to Veterans and Families for Exposure to the Toxic Chemical
The dioxin in Agent Orange has been accepted internationally as one of the most toxic chemicals on the planet, causing everything from severe birth defects, to cancer, to neurological disorders, to death. But Monsanto has successfully blocked any major movement towards compensating veterans and civilians who were exposed to the company's Agent Orange.
Long before Agent Orange was used as a herbicide in the Vietnam war, Monsanto knew of its negative health impacts on humans. Since then, Monsanto has been unsuccessful at covering its tracks and has even been convicted of fabricating false research documentation that claims Agent Orange has no negative health effects, other than a possible skin rash. Thanks to Monsanto's influence, the Center for Disease Control also released a report claiming veterans were never exposed to harmful levels of Agent Orange.
As a note, from 1962 to 1970, the US military sprayed 72 million liters of herbicides, mostly Agent Orange, on over one million Vietnamese civilians and over 100,000 U.S. troops.
Monsanto continues to claim this now banned chemical is not toxic.
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Taxpayers Forced to Fund Monsanto's Poisoning of Third World
Monsanto has also been implicated in the indiscriminate sale and use of RoundUp Ultra in the anti-drug fumigation efforts of Plan Colombia. Of the some $1.3 billion of taxpayers' money earmarked for Plan Colombia, Monsanto has received upwards of $25 million for poviding RoundUp Ultra.
RoundUp Ultra is a highly concentrated version of Monsanto's glyphosate herbicide, with additional surfactants to increases its lethality. Local communities and human rights organizations charge that Ultra is destroying food crops, water sources and protected areas in the Andes, primarily Colombia.
Paradoxically, the use of RoundUp Ultra has actually increased coca cultivation in the Andes. As local farming communities are increasingly impacted by RoundUp Ultra fumigations, many turn to the drug trade as a means of economic survival. Regional NGOs have estimated that almost 200,000 hectares have been fumigated with Ultra under Plan Colombia.
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Monsanto's Roundup Pesticide Killing Wheat
Monsanto also produces the most commonly used broadleaf pesticide in the world, glyphosate--or Roundup. In addition to its inherent toxicity as a chemical pesticide, Roundup has now been found to aid the spread of fusarium head blight in wheat. This disease creates a toxin in the infected wheat, making the crop unsuitable for human or animal consumption. Canada's wheat industry is currently being ravaged by this disease. At the same time, the widespread use of Roundup has resulted in the formation of "super weeds" --- unwanted plants that have developed an immunity to these pesticides. Read study linking Monsanto's Roundup to Cancer.
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Monsanto Takes Ownership of Public Water Resources
Over the past century, global water supplies have been contaminated with the full gamut of Monsanto's chemicals, including PCBs, dioxin and glyophosate (Roundup). So now the company, seeing a profitable market niche, is taking control of the public water resources they polluted, filtering it, and selling it back to the people. In short, Monsanto is making a double profit by polluting the world's scarce freshwater resources, privately taking ownership of that water, filtering it, and selling it back to those who can afford to pay for it.
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Monsanto's GE Seeds are Pushing US Agriculture into Bankruptcy
Genetically engineered crops are causing an economic disaster for farmers in the U.S. So says a new report released by Britain's Soil Association. The report is a massive compilation of data showing GE crops have cost American taxpayers $12 billion in farm subsidies in the past three years. "Within a few years of the introduction of GM crops, almost the entire $300 million annual US maize exports to the EU had disappeared, and the US share of the soya market had decreased," the report said. In addition, the study says that GE crops have lead to an increased use of pesticides, while resulting in overall lower crop yields.
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Cotton Farmers Going Bankrupt from Monsanto's GE Cotton
(2002) In India the financial figures for the recent cotton growing season have finally been crunched. Although Monsanto convinced many of India's farmers that buying the more expensive GE cotton seeds would result in higher yields and better cotton, the reverse is actually true. Crop yields for GE cotton were 5 TIMES LESS than traditional Indian cotton and the income from GE cotton was 7 TIMES LESS than conventional cotton, due to Monsanto's cotton having lower quality short fibers. As a result of the insurmountable deluge of debt accrued from paying more for the GE seeds and having a weak crop, more than 100 Indian farmers committed suicide in the last year.
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Wheat Farmers Say No to Monsanto's GE Wheat
The Washington Post and other major publications have been highlighting a massive new movement of conventional and organic farmers who are working together to pass state legislation that would put a moratorium on Monsanto's new genetically engineered wheat. North Dakota farmers recently met with Monsanto representatives to express their concerns about the new crop. Steven Pollestad, a conventional farmer, said, "The foreign buyers have flat out said they won't buy it. And I believe they won't."
Japan has announced to the US that if GE wheat is approved here, it is likely they will completely discontinue importing wheat from American farmers. This makes up a total of 2.5 million tons of US grown wheat each year---enough to put thousands of family farmers out of business. Similarly, South Korean officials gave the US similar warnings in May 2003. In the meantime, Monsanto continues to test its new GE wheat in fields across the US, despite staunch farmer opposition throughout North America.
Meanwhile, Scientists from the University of Manitoba have released a report indicating, "Under current conditions the release of Roundup Ready wheat in Western Canada would be environmentally unsafe." Despite the landslide of data revealing probable negative impacts on the environment, the economy and human health, the FDA is posed to approve Monsanto's GE wheat. Why?
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Monsanto's Government Ties
A Monsanto official told the New York Times that the corporation should not have to take responsibility for the safety of its food products. "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food," said Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications. "Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job."
It would be nice to think the FDA can be trusted with these matters, but think again. Monsanto has succeeded in insuring that government regulatory agencies let Monsanto do as it wishes. Take a look:
Clarence Thomas was Monsanto's lawyer.
Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (Anne Veneman) was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Calgene Corporation.
The Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Searle pharmaceuticals.
The U.S. Secretary of Health, Tommy Thompson, received $50,000 in donations from Monsanto during his winning campaign for Wisconsin's governor.
The two congressmen receiving the most donations from Monsanto during the last election were Larry Combest (Chairman of the House Agricultural Committee) and John Ashcroft (Head of the Department of Homeland Security). (Source: Dairy Education Board)
In order for the FDA to determine if Monsanto's growth hormones were safe or not, Monsanto was required to submit a scientific report on that topic. Margaret Miller, one of Monsanto's researchers put the report together. Shortly before the report submission, Miller left Monsanto and was hired by the FDA. Her first job for the FDA was to determine whether or not to approve the report she wrote for Monsanto. In short, Monsanto approved its own report. Assisting Miller was another former Monsanto researcher, Susan Sechen. Deciding whether or not rBGH-derived milk should be labeled fell under the jurisdiction of another FDA official, Michael Taylor, who previously worked as a lawyer for Monsanto.
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Monsanto.
