Tuesday, September 28, 2010

In the Government?


 
*A Monsanto executive told The New York Times that the safety of genetically engineered foods was the government's problem, not the company's:
"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."

As Angell implies, Monsanto's interest in selling as much genetically engineered food as possible is in direct conflict with the government's responsibility for food safety.
Monsanto has induced politicians to abdicate their responsibility to protect consumers through generous campaign contributions and heavy lobbying.

The most telling evidence that Monsanto's strategy has been an overwhelming succes is the number of former Monsanto employees who have been given jobs in the FDA and other regulatory agencies that monitor Monsanto's products.

Margaret Miller is just one example. While working as a Monsanto researcher, she contributed to a scientific report for the FDA on Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth hormone.

Shortly before the report was submitted, Miller left Monsanto to work at the FDA, where her first job was to review the same report! Assisting Miller was another former Monsanto researcher, Susan Sechen. Needless to say, the FDA accepted Monsanto's findings, which became the basis for its approval of Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth hormone and its decision not to require labels on milk produced through the use of the artificial hormone.

The FDA official who made the decision not to label Monsanto's milk was Michael Taylor, who had worked as a lawyer for Monsanto. Today, Michael Taylor is in the Obama Administration, in charge of food safety.






 *Note: The entire article listed above was taken from: http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm

Thursday, September 23, 2010

10th Grader asks if Monsanto is evil

Note: The sound levels aren't consistent.  Her voice remains low while the background music is high so careful so you don't blow your ear drums apart. 

Monsanto evil?

False Advertising

Excerpt taken from Wikipedia:

"False advertising

In 1996, Monsanto was accused of false and misleading advertising of glyphosate products, prompting a law suit by the New York State attorney general.[52] Monsanto had made claims that its spray-on glyphosate based herbicides, including Roundup, were safer than table salt and "practically non-toxic" to mammals, birds, and fish.[53]

Environmental and consumer rights campaigners brought a case in France in 2001 for presenting Roundup as biodegradable and claiming that it left the soil clean after use; glyphosate, Roundup's main ingredient, is classed by the European Union as "dangerous for the environment" and "toxic for aquatic organisms". In January 2007, Monsanto was convicted of false advertising.[54] The result was confirmed in 2009.[55]
[edit] Scientific fraud

On two occasions, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has caught scientists deliberately falsifying test results at research laboratories hired by Monsanto to study glyphosate.[56][57][58] In the first incident involving Industrial Biotest Laboratories, an EPA reviewer stated after finding "routine falsification of data" that it was "hard to believe the scientific integrity of the studies when they said they took specimens of the uterus from male rabbits".[59][60][61] In the second incident of falsifying test results in 1991, the owner of the lab (Craven Labs), and three employees were indicted on 20 felony counts, the owner was sentenced to 5 years in prison and fined $50,000, the lab was fined 15.5 million dollars and ordered to pay 3.7 million dollars in restitution.[42][62][63] Craven laboratories performed studies for 262 pesticide companies including Monsanto.

Monsanto has stated that the studies have been repeated, and that Roundup's EPA certification does not now use any studies from Craven Labs or IBT. Monsanto also said that the Craven Labs investigation was started by the EPA after a pesticide industry task force discovered irregularities."

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Ot Nas Nom

This blog is intended for the collection of evidence and reports of all things related to the Monsanto Corporation.  I honestly don't know how much information there is regarding this corporation and their exploits, but I'll be casually searching and posting any I do find.