A multinational exposed

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Sun, 27 Feb 2005 22:57:55 GMT

 

 

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BIOTECHNOLOGY

A multinational exposed

ASHA KRISHNAKUMAR

Frontline (India's national magazine)

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2205/stories/20050311003312500.htm

 

Agribusiness giant Monsanto faces criminal and civil charges in the

United States for bribery and other offences committed in Indonesia.

 

IN a setback to the cheerleaders of the multinationals-driven

genetically modified (GM) crops, agribusiness giant Monsanto, which

controls

most of the global GM seed market, was recently caught bribing Indonesian

officials to scrap the requirement that GM crops be subject to an

environmental assessment, so that it could freely develop GM crops in

that

country. This has vindicated the stand that some 650 civil society

organisations from over 80 countries took last year against the United

Nations' Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) report " Agricultural

biotechnology: Meeting the needs of the poor " , which sees GM crops as the

answer to the plight of poor farmers.

 

Monsanto faced both criminal and civil charges from the Department of

Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United

States. The MNC agreed to pay $1 million to the Department of Justice,

adopt internal compliance measures, and cooperate with continuing civil

and criminal investigations. It will also pay $500,000 to the SEC to

settle the bribe charge and other related violations.

 

In the latest incident of bribery, in 2002, a former senior manager at

Monsanto directed an Indonesian consulting firm to give $50,000 to a

high-level official in Indonesia's Environment Ministry. The manager

apparently told the company to disguise an invoice for the bribe as

" consulting fees " .

 

Monsanto accepted that it paid the bribe and also admitted to a series

of " illegal or questionable " payments totalling " at least " $700,000 to

" various Indonesian officials between 1997 and 2002 " . The payments were

partly financed " through unauthorised, improperly documented and

inflated sales of Monsanto's pesticide products in Indonesia " . The MNC

apparently bribed more than 140 incumbent and former Indonesian

government

officials and their families.

 

According to Rob Edward, Environment Editor, Sunday Herald, Lori

Fisher, a spokesperson for Monsanto in St. Louis, said: " We accept full

responsibility for the improper activities that occurred in connection

with

our Indonesian affiliates. " But she pointed out that the company had

voluntarily disclosed the potential irregularities to the U.S.

authorities after they were discovered by an internal audit and review.

 

But, says Jonathan Matthews, director of GM Watch, an international

non-governmental organisation that monitors GM crops: " What has emerged

about corrupt practices in Indonesia may just be the tip of the iceberg. "

 

" Monsanto has a long history of bringing out products that have proved

harmful to people and the environment, " says Jule Klotter, who traces

the history of the company since its inception, in Townsend Letters for

Doctors and Patients, a popular U.S.-based magazine that aims at

educating people on issues related to health and medicine.

 

Founded in 1901, Monsanto Chemical Company has manufactured industrial

chemicals (for example, sulphuric acid), plastics and synthetics,

pesticides, and saccharin, a proven carcinogenic artificial sweetener. It

has also produced or granted production licences for most of the world's

polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs; a common name for a group of over 200

chemical compounds of varying viscosity). These oily, insulating

fluids, according to Klotter, cause brain damage and other birth

defects in

mammalian foetuses, immune system disorders and cancers. Says Klotter:

" The public became aware of the PCBs in 1968, when PCB-contaminated rice

made 1,300 people in Kyushu, Japan, sick; and serious birth defects

appeared in babies whose mothers had eaten it. "

 

Monsanto's herbicide 2,4,5,-T contained a highly toxic chemical

byproduct, the dioxin TCDD. This herbicide was one of the two used in

Agent

Orange, a defoliant used by the U.S. military in the Vietnam War.

Although Monsanto was not the only company that produced Agent Orange,

its

products contained the highest levels of dioxin.

 

According to Klotter, Dr. Cate Jenkins, a chemist for the U.S.

Environment Protection Agency's (EPA) Regulatory Development branch,

urged the

EPA to investigate the company in her November 1990 report, " Criminal

Investigation of Monsanto Corporation - Cover up of Dioxin Contamination

in Products - Falsification of Dioxin Health Studies " . But Monsanto

lobbied hard and the investigation, which lasted over two years, was

dropped.

 

Asparetame, also known as " Nutrasweet " and " Equal " , is produced by

Monsanto's subsidiary G.D. Searle Pharmaceuticals. According to Klotter,

though Monsanto denies Asparetame's toxicity, consumers have complained

of headache, blurred vision, numbness, hearing loss, muscle spasms and

epileptic-type seizures since the 1980s. A 1996 study in the Journal of

Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology reported a correlation

between Asparetame and an increase in brain cancers.

 

Monsanto's recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH), sold under the

name Posilac, makes cows produce more milk than normal. According to a

study by Mark Kastel of the Wisconsin's Farmers' Union, Wisconsin farmers

reported numerous spontaneous deaths, an increase in udder infection,

severe metabolic difficulties and calving problems in cows that were

given the drug. Posilac is now banned in several countries.

 

At the time of Posilac's approval by the Food and Drug Administration

(FDA), Margaret Miller was Deputy Director of the FDA's office of New

Animal Drugs, and Suzanne Sechen was the FDA's lead reviewer of

scientific data on rBGH. Margaret Miller had worked for Monsanto on

rBGH safety

studies as a research scientist, and Suzanne Sechen on Monsanto-funded

rBGH studies during her graduate studies at Cornell University. The

FDA's Michael R. Taylor, who wrote the rBGH labelling guidelines that

requires labelled non-rBGH products to say that " there is no difference

between rBGH and the naturally occurring hormone, " was a lawyer

representing Monsanto for seven years (1984 to 1991) before joining

the FDA.

 

Now Monsanto's interest in agriculture has expanded to GM seed.

Monsanto is selling Roundup-Ready (herbicide tolerant) soybean, canola

and

corn seed, which produce plants that can withstand high doses of

Monsanto's herbicide Roundup. Monsanto has acquired several seed

companies,

including Holdens Foundation Seeds, Asgrow, Agronomics, DeKalbGenetics,

Delta and Pine Landand Sementes Agroceres SA. The company is said to have

spent $8 billion acquiring large seed companies during the last few

years.

 

In effect, according to Klotter, Monsanto is trying to gain control

over the seed market and eventually its genetic-engineered,

herbicide-resistant seed could become the only choice for farmers.

Further,

Monsanto's merger with American Home Products creates the largest

manufacturer

of pesticides and herbicides in the world.

 

MONSANTO'S major brush with the law was over Agent Orange. The negative

health effects of exposure to Agent Orange are well documented over the

past three decades. Everyone agrees that the dioxin in Agent Orange is

one of the most toxic chemicals on the planet, causing everything from

severe birth defects, cancers, neurological disorders and deaths. But

there has been no major movement towards compensating American Vietnam

War veterans and civilians who were exposed to Agent Orange. Monsanto

continues to claim that this now-banned chemical is not toxic.

 

A study by eminent oncologists Dr. Lennart Hardell and Dr. Mikael

Eriksson of Sweden has revealed clear links between one of the world's

largest selling herbicides, glyphosate produced by Monsanto and

non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) - a form of cancer.

 

In the study published in the March 15, 1999 issue of the Journal of

American Cancer Society, the researchers also maintain that exposure to

glyphosate " yielded increased risks for NHL " .

 

It is alleged that though primarily used to control annual and

perennial plants, glyphosate kills indiscriminately a wide variety of

weeds.

According to the Organic Consumers Association - an international NGO

campaigning for food safety, fair trade and sustainability - companies

developing herbicide-resistant crops are also increasing their production

of herbicides such as glyphosate and requesting permits for higher

residue levels of these chemicals in genetically engineered food. For

example, Monsanto is said to have received a permit for a threefold

increase

in herbicide residues on GM soybeans in Europe and the U.S. (up from 6

parts per million to 20).

 

PERCY SCHMEISER is a farmer from Saskatchewan, Canada, whose fields

were contaminated with Monsanto's genetically engineered Canola by pollen

from a nearby farm. Monsanto says it does not matter how the

contamination happened but wants Schmeiser to pay it the Technology

Fee (for

" growing " Monsanto's genetically engineered products). Schmeiser said: " 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's

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.

But now I have been asked to pay for the contamination of my land by

Monsanto's GM seeds. "

 

Like Schmeiser, hundreds of other homesteaders are being forced to pay

Monsanto for fields contaminated with GM seeds.

 

According to the Centre for Food Safety, a Washington-based advocacy

group and a critic of the biotechnology industry, Monsanto has filed 90

lawsuits targeting 147 farmers and 39 small businesses since 1997. While

some were filed against farmers who planted transgenic seeds without

paying Monsanto as required in their contract with the company, most were

sued simply because transgenic seeds had drifted into their fields and

spread roots amid their crops.

 

The Washington Post and other major U.S. 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.

 

Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications told, The

New York Times that the corporation should not have to take

responsibility for the safety of its food products. " Our interest is

in selling as

much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job, " he said.

 

However, the U.S. government regulatory agencies seem to have given

Monsanto a long rope. The clout Monsanto enjoys in the U.S. government is

by no means incidental. According to the Organic Consumers Association,

Clarence Thomas, before being the Supreme Court Judge who put George W.

Bush in office (in his first term), was a Monsanto lawyer; Anne

Veneman, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, was on the board of

directors of

Monsanto's Calgene Corporation; Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of

Defence, was on the board of directors of Monsanto's Searle

Pharmaceuticals;

Secretary of Health Tommy Thompson received $50,000 in donations from

Monsanto during his winning campaign for Wisconsin's governorship; and

the two Congressmen who received the most donations from Monsanto during

the last election were Larry Combest (Chairman of the House

Agricultural Committee) and John Ashcroft (the Attorney-General).

 

According to the Organic Consumers Association, for the FDA to

determine if Monsanto's growth hormones were safe or not, the MNC 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's submission, Miller left Monsanto and was hired by the FDA. Her

first job at the FDA was to determine whether or not to approve the

report

she wrote for Monsanto. In short, Monsanto approved its own report. In

January, Martha Scott, a former Director of Government Relations for

Monsanto, was appointed Staff Director for the U.S. Senate Committee on

Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.

 

Philip Mattera, in his extensively researched recent paper, " USDA Inc.:

How Agribusiness has Hijacked Regulatory Policy at the U.S. Department

of Agriculture " , (initiated by the U.S.-based Agribusiness

Accountability Initiative), concludes: " Big agribusinesses such as

Monsanto have

packed the USDA with people who have been working, lobbying or

researching for them. These appointees have helped to implement

policies that

undermine the regulatory mission in the interests of the MNCs, severely

compromising public health and livelihoods. " According to him, with the

deep-rooted and pervasive clout that MNCs have carefully built over the

years, they seem to get away with anything.

 

 

 

 

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