Monsanto is a new company. No longer a chemical company, the new Monsanto is an agricultural company, a leader in biotech and GMO technology. Their pledge begins with these words:

We want to make the world a better place for future generations. As an agricultural company, Monsanto can do this best by providing value through the products and systems we offer to farmers.”

• Click here to read part I
• Click here to read part III
• Click here to read part IV

Sustainable Yield Initiative

Monsanto states its goal is to increase yields while maintaining or reducing inputs of energy and pesticides through the use of genetically modified crops. Monsanto’s Sustainable Yield Initiative puts forth a goal to double crop yields in corn, soy, and cotton by the year 2030, from the baseline year, 2000. “That’s in countries that have bio-technology, that have adapted that,” says Brad Mitchell, Director of Public Affairs. “And do that using 1/3 less inputs, so nitrogen, water, etcetera… And by doubling those yields we will improve farmer’s lives because more yield means more money in their pockets, and profitability increases.”

Mitchell brags that their biotech is “…skill neutral technology. A farmer in the middle of Iowa will use it and then you can also have a farmer in Argentina use it and it will yield pretty well. It’s something that both can use on their farm no matter how much–if he has 500 acres or 5 acres, they both benefit.”

Monsanto’s biotech seeds are patented. Farmers are not allowed to retain patented seeds from a crop. Each season they are required to purchase new seeds. For this, Monsanto has come under attack, with critics claiming this practice to be unnatural and unsustainable. Mitchell says, “… a lot of people make a big deal about Monsanto patentingseeds, and how this is going to lead to control over the seed supply and that sort of thing. I have two responses to that. One is, first, patenting of seeds is not new and it’s not unique to either Monsanto or biotech. And if you don’t believe me, go google raspberry and patents and see what you come up with. There are plenty of patent varieties of raspberries out there, and everything from asparagus to zucchini. Basically if people Genetic Modification didn’t have the ability to patent the result of their breeding, there would be no incentive for them to do so.”

Mitchell continues, “The other part of it that I find a little bit amusing and a little bit disheartening is that when people say, ‘Oh well, you can’t save patented seeds. This is the end of the world.’ Well, we’ve had hybrid seeds in production and available to farmers for just about 70 years. And with the vast majority of hybrid seeds, you can’t save those either. And nobody’s made a big deal about that. And the reason you can’t save hybrids, some of them are patented, but more importantly, the offspring seed doesn’t have the genetic consistency of the parent, so no farmer will ever save a hybrid seed because they are not going to know what they are getting. Farmers who have had hybrid seed available for over 70 years they choose them because namely because they give better yields. Some of them have some other traits that they appreciate.”

Due to patent protection and patent infringement investigations, Monsanto employs a number of investigators. Mr. Mitchell could not tell us the exact number, but he estimates the number to be around 40. “And those aren’t all full time, doing this for us, they’re private investigator firms, so a good part of the year they’re not doing save-seed stuff, they’re doing other whatever else investigators do. These are private firms.”

Lawsuits Against Farmers

In films that criticize Monsanto and their relationship with farmers, Monsanto is accused of using their investigators and lawsuits to harass and intimidate. Mitchell says that out of half a million customers, Monsanto has filed 138 lawsuits for patent infringement and nine went to trial; the others settled out of court.

“Now, we kind of have to do this for three reasons,” Mitchell says. “One is we’re not going to make any money if people aren’t buying our products. I mean there’s the patent infringement issue. Two is we owe it to our stockholders, because they invest in this. And a good part of it is, you know, frankly, we put ten percent of our money into research and development, so the third part of this is really if people are getting this technology without paying for it, we’re not going to be able to do that. And we’re not going to see the state of technology today…probably a lot of your readership would like that but not necessarily a lot of the farmers out there.”

“So we’ve got about half a dozen people who have claimed that we have committed these misdeeds. I don’t see it. I was actually outat a farm the other day and we had a seed patent investigation in the neighborhood, and he goes, ‘You know, my neighbor is really upset with you guys. He’s furious with how you handledthis seed patent infringement case.’ (Against the farmer we had a case against and we settled.)’ And I said,’Uh-oh. What’s his problem? And he said, ‘He doesn’t think you went after enough.’ So what we typically hear from farmers is, “Look, I gotta pay for it. Yeah, I’d rather not pay for it and I’d rather not pay for gasoline or my taxes either, but if I’m going to do it, the other guy better, too, because it’s not fair.” Farmers who have
settled cases with Monsanto have said they cannot discuss the terms of the settlements, that Monsanto insisted on non-disclosure clauses. Mitchell insists the opposite is true, that the farmers were the ones who asked for the non-disclosures. “Unfortunately what’s happened is that people have turned that against us and said, ‘Well, Monsanto requested these.’ We don’t request nondisclosure and we never have. We, in the past, have agreed to it, but we don’t do it anymore for that very reason.”    The money from all of the settlements has been donated to agricultural charities and scholarships. “The ones that actually went through full trial [9 cases], we do retain that, mainly because trials are expensive.”

Human Rights

Hugh Grant, Monsanto Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, is quoted on Monsanto’s website. He states, “As an agricultural and technology company committed to human rights, we have a unique opportunity to protect and advance human rights. We have a responsibility to consider not only how our business can benefit consumers, farmers, and food processors, but how it can protect the human rights of both Monsanto’s employees and our business partners’ employees.”

Monsanto identifies nine elements in its human rights policy: child labor, forced labor, compensation, working hours, harassment and violence, discrimination, safety, freedom of association, and legal compliance.

Forced, indentured, or bonded labor is unacceptable to Monsanto and Monsanto rejects corporal punishment of any type. Compensation is to meet or exceed minimum wage standards, regardless of performance measures. Monsanto states they will comply with all laws and industry standards with regard to working hours. Harassment, violence, and discrimination will never be tolerated. Monsanto is committed to safety, to the rights of workers to join or not join organizations of their choosing, to associate
freely and bargain collectively. And last but not least, Monsanto states that it “will comply with all applicable local, state and national laws regarding human rights and workers’ rights where the company does business.”

While Monsanto supports young people working within the agricultural business, it wants to ensure that all applicable local, state, and national laws are followed and that none of its business partners practice exploitive child labor practices. To this end, in India Monsanto has added “no child labor” clauses into farmer and third party contracts, has instigated a massive farmer awareness campaign with posters, door to door visits, leaflets, postcards, field audits 10-12 times during the 45-60 pay pollination period (auditors conducted more than 10,000 field visits in 2007), and written farm attendance reports.

Monsanto has also employed incentive/disincentive schemes, paying farmers an incentive if they employ only adult labor. If a farmer is found to be in violation, the child(ren) are removed from the field, the farmer becomes ineligible for incentives, and Monsanto discontinues production with the farmer the following year. The Monsanto Fund, established in 1964, gives funds to communities in the United States and around the world in the company’s areas of  operations, including a residential learning center for child laborers, in a further effort to stop the practice of using child labor.

In 2007, The Monsanto Fund pledged 12.6 million to numerous causes around the world.

In our final report on Monsanto, we will discuss seed monopolies, Indian farmer suicides, conflicting reports on crop yields, Roundup safety, and bans on GM crops.

Click here to read part III

Recommended Reading:

• Understanding and Detoxifying Genetically Modified Foods
• Monsanto part I
• Monsanto part III
• Monsanto part IV

1. Conventional doctors are egotistical, brainwashed drug pushers who know nothing about health.
Yes, there are some good doctors out there, but unfortunately doctors typically don’t know anything about health. Their expertise lies in disease management and whatever the drug companies have told them.

2. Alternative health doctors and practitioners with their potions, herbs, creams, and supplements are typically no better than conventional doctors.

You may think that OLM is all about the alternative medicine practitioners. While we do feel that the best doctors in the world practice alternative medicine, we prefer a holistic naturopath who understands how the whole body works together. You can’t fix one symptom and/or one organ while ignoring a toxic lifestyle and expect the body to work right. The biggest problem with doctors of both the conventional and alternative varieties is that they tend to think that their one area of expertise, be it drugs, surgery, herbs, or chiropractic, is the answer to everything. First and foremost, if you want to be healthy, you need to adopt a natural, healthy lifestyle. And if your doctor doesn’t address this, he or she’s not the doctor for you. It should be noted that most doctors who say they take a holistic approach do not, and they still have a lot to learn about what really is a healthy lifestyle. You’d be surprised to know how many doctors don’t even know what essential fatty acids are (they think they do, but they don’t).
3. Complementary alternative medicine is for people who can’t make up their minds.

In most cases of complementary alternative medicine, the “alternative” part is so weak and’ half-assed” that there would be no positive results without the conventional medicine. However, with the conventional medicine, it’s extremely hard to get anywhere with alternative medicine because you are too busy adding chemicals to your body.

4. Medicine is very rarely used to restore health.

Whether it be alternative or conventional, medicine is typically used to cover up symptoms so that one can go about a toxic lifestyle unhampered.

5. Health and fitness are not the same thing.

Look at Lance Armstrong! While he is a remarkable man, and a hero in many respects by most standards, he had to be in extremely poor health to get cancer. Health and fitness can go very well together, but they are not synonymous. Powerbars, gelpacks, protein powders, creatine, Gatorade, and caffeine are not healthy.

6. Healthcare in America and most of our modern societies is all about illness –
not about health.

It’s about treating and managing illness. The goal is to make patients feel good enough
to carry their illness through their toxic lifestyles. When is the last time you heard of the
modern medical establishment coming up with a cure for anything?

7. The majority of supplements sold are ineffective.

Synthetic vitamins, fillers, undigestible minerals; the list goes on. Forget buying quality supplements at your local drug store, GNC, multi-level marketing sources, or even at most health food stores. At best, most supplements are weak and ineffective. At worst, supplements are toxic and actually cause deficiencies.
8. Vaccines do more damage than good.

This article is not here to argue whether or not vaccines can eradicate disease. But there are too many vaccines, they contain toxic ingredients, and they are damaging the health of our children. It’s out of control! Why more people don’t see this is absolutely amazing!

9. Pharmacies are the unhealthiest places to be.

There isn’t anything healthy at a pharmacy!

10. There is a cure for cancer, diabetes, and most of the other illnesses plaguing us today.

The cure is a natural, healthy lifestyle. Raymond Francis says it best, “There is only one disease, cell malfunction. There are two causes, toxicity and deficiency.”

11. You and only you are responsible for your own health.

The easy part is accepting this. The hard part is undoing the brainwashing most people have had. Health is much simpler than we make it out to be. Eat mostly raw, nutrient dense foods as free of toxins as you can find. If most of your diet consists of raw fresh fruits and vegetables that have been grown properly (in rich soil), you will prevent almost every disease plaguing man today, and eradicate most as well.

12. Ignore the top disclaimer. That’s only for us not to get sued.

Note: Please remember, the entire list, including number 12 is what we would say only if we had no concern of lawsuits, but we do.

Recently, a couple of federal budget analysts from Washington, D.C., wondered about the profits in pharmaceutical drugs and came up with some interesting figures. Turns out that to purchase the active ingredients for many drugs is often pennies, while a hundred dollar plus price tag is passed on to consumers.

They found that 100 tablets of 20 mg Prozac costs the consumer about $247.47, while the active ingredients only cost $0.11. Yes, that’s right: eleven cents for all one hundred tablets. It’s a 224,973 percent mark-up, a profit margin most business owners dream of – but could never get away with.

Even more profitable, Xanax customers regularly pay $136.79 for a hundred 1 mg tablets, while the active ingredients cost just under three cents. The mark-up is an unbelievable 569,958 percent.

Of course, the active ingredients aren’t the only expense in making these chemical concoctions. Drug companies regularly pay more than a million dollars per drug to their regulators, the FDA, in order to put their drug on the market. Exorbitant fees, which all too often beg the question about any real regulation taking place when the regulatory agency is funded by those it’s supposed to be regulating.

If you were regulating the person writing your paychecks, how hard would you be on them? Maybe, perhaps, you’d cater to them? Catering is exactly what a group of FDA scientists told Congress was happening at the drug approval agency in a letter last October.

In connection to the letter the New York Times reported, “The scientists have documentary evidence that senior agency managers ‘corrupted the scientific review of medical devices’ by ordering experts to change their opinions and conclusions in violation of the law.”

Wow, change their opinions and conclusions. Could this be done in the name of profits, not protection or health? And if this is done at the FDA, the regulatory agency, how credible are studies funded directly by drug companies and their paid researchers, on staff or university bound?

Then, of course, there’s the advertising expense.

A 2008 study found that pharmaceutical companies spend about 24 percent of their sales dollars on advertising and promotion, in contrast to just 13.4 percent on research and development. This promotional expense includes direct to consumer advertising and the continual wooing and “educating” of doctors – their front line sales force.

solution to anything that ails the body. They’re being hit with the message in-person, from drug reps, about 5 times each working day.

Combine that with the fact that drug companies are funding professors at medical schools, the universities themselves, and university bound researchers, and you’ll get an even clearer picture of why medical doctors think drugs are the only viable avenue in health care.

At Harvard Medical School, about 1,600 professors and lecturers confessed earlier this year that they or a family member were taking pharmaceutical dollars. They admitted this after being required to, upon pressure from students protesting the undue role of the drug companies in their education.

Of course, these dollars play a large role in determining what is taught and studied, what is not, and exactly how the findings are presented. UCSF researchers took a look at 192 published studies comparing different drugs and determined that the source of funding for a drug trial greatly influenced the outcome. They found that if the results favored a drug it was “about 20 times more likely” to have been funded by the manufacturer of that drug.

Now, factor into the equation that the pharmaceutical industry spends more to lobby government officials than any other sector, and it’s all too clear why drugs are the dominant health care solution promoted today.

A 2005 investigation by the Center for Public Integrity found that in the seven years prior, the pharmaceutical and health products industry spent more than $675 million to lobby for the influence of public officials, saying it’s lobbying operation is “the biggest in the nation” and that “no other industry has spent more money to sway public policy in that period.” When you combine campaign contributions with those lobbying costs, the drug industry was outdone only by the insurance industry, with which it has close connections.

So if you were wondering where all of those excessive drug profits were going, now you know. They’re buying influence with the FDA, media, doctors, medical schools, professors, researchers and last but not least, politicians. They’re all on the payroll with plenty of extra money to go around. Wonder what each of those influential sources will prescribe for you?

Resources:

Obscene Drug Mark Ups

• -Prescription Drug User Fee Rates for Fiscal Year 2009
• -F.D.A. Scientists Accuse Agency Officials of Misconduct
• -Big Pharma Spends More On Advertising Than Research And Development, Study Finds
• -Beyond Advertising: The Pharmaceutical Industry’s Hidden Marketing Tactics
• -Pitching Doctors
• -Drug Lobby Second to None
• -Pharmaceutical Giants Establish Fund for Animal Research
• -Drug Company Funding Of Drug Trials Greatly Influences Outcome
• -Harvard Medical School in Ethics Quandary

Reprinted with permission from NaturalNews.com

The miracle berry or miracle fruit is a little red berry that changes the way our taste buds respond to acids. When a berry is chewed, the tongue becomes coated with a protein called miraculin. Miraculin alters the taste buds for 30 minutes to two hours causing lemon juice to taste sweet and goat cheese tastes like cheesecake. Even Tabasco sauce tastes like a sugar glaze.

Miracle fruit is not new. West African tribes have been eating these berries for hundreds of years and they have been known by the West for nearly 300 years.

In the 1970s the Miralin Company tried to bring miracle fruit products to the U.S. market. Initial conversations with the FDA were favorable for approving miracle fruit under the GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) Category, the category used by the FDA for foods that have a long history of being eaten with no deleterious side effects. Since miracle berries had been eaten for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, they clearly met the requirements for this approval. But as the time neared for the FDA’s final ruling, strange events occurred. Miralin employees reported they were followed home by strange cars. Their offices were photographed. Files were stolen in a break-in. Anonymous articles were printed in a Jamaican newspaper (where the company owned berry farms) bashing the company and the product. Within weeks Miralin’s request for GRAS status was denied. The Miralin Company never did succeed in bringing miracle fruit products to market. Due to the FDA ruling, the company folded. The FDA denies the claim that pressure from the artificial sweetener companies or the sugar industry led to their unfavorable ruling.

Today the miracle berry is once again gaining attention. Freeze dried tablets and fresh berries can be purchased through the Internet. Fresh berries sell for $2.00-$2.50 each and have a short shelf life. Freeze dried tables sell for around $15.00 for a pack of 18.

If these prices are too steep, consider growing your own. Miracle berry plants are an attractive leafy evergreen with shiny leaves, which can be grown in frost-free climates as well as indoors. If planted in the right soil and carefully tended, they will bear fruit within three years.

So, if you’re interested in taste-tripping, include miracle berries and a taste-treat buffet for your next party.

Since you’re reading this magazine right now, you probably either consider yourself healthy, or you are looking to become healthy. It’s time for some hard truth. If you are taking drugs, whether it be one or sixteen, over the counter or prescription, for prevention or a major illness, YOU ARE NOT HEALTHY!

There is a great misconception in America (and in many other countries) that drugs have something to do with health. They do not. In most cases, drugs are used by people who are looking for a way to make themselves feel better without actually having to change any of their habits. You see this if you ever pay attention to drug commercials. For instance, in a recent commercial for a blood glucose monitor, they talk about how to make diabetes treatment fit into their lifestyle. What about changing your lifestyle?

If you truly want to be healthy, I mean vibrant, no aches and pains, never a headache, hardly ever yawning, etc., you will have to get off of any and all drugs. But please note, there are many prescription drugs that are so dangerous, so addictive, that if you quit cold turkey, and/or without the assistance of a doctor, you may hurt yourself or others. I’ve seen this before. In fact, if you follow scientology and the many headlines scientologists make, you see what happens when people who know very little about drugs try to “cure” someone of their need for prescription drugs. Drugs are dangerous and in many cases getting off of drugs can be even more dangerous.

This magazine is about education. I’m not telling you to “get off of prescription drugs”. But I am saying that you can’t reach a level of optimum health if you are taking drugs. Do your own research. Take steps, baby steps, one step at a time, and start cleaning up your lifestyle. Or not. But don’t kid yourself.

If ever there was a company that stands for everything Organic Lifestyle Magazine stands against, it’s Monsanto. To us they are the villain, a company that embodies virtually everything we at OLM believe to be wrong with big business today. We would be hard pressed to find a company whose products have done more to harm our planet.

• Click here to read part II
• Click here to read part III
• Click here to read part IV

Many argue that Monsanto’s potential to devastate life as we know it is second only to producers of atomic bombs. Ironically, Monsanto was also heavily involved in the Manhattan Project and the creation of the world’s first nuclear bomb.

Monsanto started in 1901 as a chemical company. Their first product was saccharine, a coal tar product, which has had a controversial history. You may know it as Sweet‘N Low, the artificial sweetener sold in little pink packages.

Though saccharin was their first, Monsanto is also well known for many other chemical and chemically based products including Agent Orange, Bovine Growth Hormone, Polychlorinated biphenyl (commonly known as PCBs), Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane (DDT), and RoundUp.

Today, Monsanto is a leader in the bio-tech industry selling RoundUp ready GMO seeds. Its main crops are soy, cotton, sugar beets, and canola. Its controversial bovine growth hormone, rBST, was sold to the Eli Lilly Company earlier this year.

We asked Brad Mitchell, Director of Public Affairs for Monsanto if we were dealing with a new Monsanto since our take on Monsanto’s reputation is one of deception, corruption, bribery, and environmental degradation, a company that made significantly bad choices.

“I think more than anything, it’s a new age,” he said. “…I think you’re holding the Monsanto of the middle part of the 20th century against the standards of today. So, for instance, if you look at PCBs we all know today that what Monsanto did there was wrong. It shouldn’t have been done. Did we, Monsanto, or society as a whole know in the 60s or the 50s that that was wrong? I don’t think that we were as environmentally sophisticated as we are today.

“…I’m not saying that we’re not liable, that we shouldn’t have done it, and all that, but you know, when you make these kind[s] of statements about how Monsanto obviously disregarded human health and public safety and the environment for profit, I wasn’t there. I can’t tell you what was in people’s hearts and minds. I do believe, however, that to some extent we’re being held against today’s standards for actions that occurred half a century ago.”

Perhaps we could agree that these actions occurred half a century ago if Monsanto had voluntarily embarked on a clean-up of PCB contamination in Anniston, Alabama, in any decade following the 50s or 60s. If they had, perhaps we could believe the corporation has grown a conscience. According to The Washington Post, it was February 2002 when Monsanto was held liable by an Alabama jury for all six counts it considered: negligence, wantonness, suppression of the truth, nuisance, trespass and outrage. The Post quotes the legal definition of outrage under Alabama law as 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 Center for Food Safety maintains a website, www.monsantowatch.org. On this site they report, “In August, 2003, Monsanto and its former chemical subsidiary, Solutia, Inc. (now owned by Pharmacia Corp.), agreed to pay $600 million to settle claims brought by more than 20,000 residents of Anniston, AL, over the severe contamination of ground and water by tons of PCBs dumped in the area from the 1930s until the 1970s. Court documents revealed that Monsanto was aware of the contamination decades earlier.”

History tells us Monsanto was well aware of the damage their silence and lack of action brought Anniston as The Center for Food Safety also reports,

The world’s center of PCB manufacturing was Monsanto’s plant on the outskirts of East St. Louis, Illinois, which has the highest rate of fetal death and immature births in the state. By 1982, nearby Times Beach, Missouri, was found to be so thoroughly contaminated with dioxin, a by-product of PCB manufacturing, that the government ordered it evacuated.”

Monsanto can, however, claim the Monsanto of today is not the Monsanto of yesteryear. According to Wikipedia, the Monsanto of 1901-2000 and the current business are now two legally separate corporations, though they share the same name as well as many of the same executives and workers. The “new” Monsanto is an agricultural company (as opposed to a chemical company).

Are Monsanto’s misdeeds a thing of the past? In 2005, BBC News reported that Monsanto agreed to pay a $1.5 million dollar fine for bribing an Indonesian official “to avoid environmental impact studies being conducted on its [bio-tech] cotton.” Monsanto said it accepted full responsibility for its “improper activities” and agreed to three years of close monitoring of its business practices by American authorities.

GMO seeds were approved by the FDA under the GRAS designation—generally recognized as safe. As such, Monsanto’s bio-tech seeds were granted exemption from premarket approval by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Due to this ruling, the onus to ensure the safety of genetically altered food created by Monsanto rests with Monsanto, a company whose actions have revealed an unparalleled disregard for human life and environmental safety.

Opponents of GMOs often quote a cavalier statement made by Phil Angell, Monsanto’s former director of corporate communications to author Michael Pollan. In Pollan’s article, Playing God in the Garden, published in the New York Times Magazine in 1998, Angell is quoted as saying,

Monsanto should not have to vouch for the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.”

We asked Brad Mitchell, Director of Public Affairs for Monsanto if we were dealing with a new Monsanto since our take on Monsanto’s reputation is one of deception, corruption, bribery, and environmental degradation, a company that made significantly bad choices.   “I think more than anything, it’s a new age,” he said. “…I think you’re holding the Monsanto of the middle part of the 20th century against the standards of today. So, for instance, if you look at PCBs we all know today that what Monsanto did there was wrong. It shouldn’t have been done. Did we, Monsanto, or society as a whole know in the 60s or the 50s that that was wrong? I don’t think that we were as environmentally sophisticated as we are today.

…I’m not saying that we’re not liable, that we shouldn’t have done it, and all that, but you know, when you make these kind[s] of statements about how Monsanto obviously disregarded human health and public safety and the environment for profit, I wasn’t there. I can’t tell you what was in people’s hearts and minds. I do believe, however, that to some extent we’re being held against today’s standards for actions that occurred half a century ago.”

Perhaps we could agree that these actions occurred half a century ago if Monsanto had voluntarily embarked on a clean-up of PCB contamination in Anniston, Alabama, in any decade following the 50s or 60s. If they had, perhaps we could believe the corporation has grown a conscience. According to The Washington Post, it was February 2002 when Monsanto was held liable by an Alabama jury for all six counts it considered: negligence, wantonness, suppression of the truth, nuisance, trespass and outrage. The Post quotes the legal definition of outrage under Alabama law as 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 Center for Food Safety maintains a website, www.monsantowatch.org. On this site they report, “In August, 2003, Monsanto and its former chemical subsidiary, Solutia, Inc. (now owned by Pharmacia Corp.), agreed to pay $600 million to settle claims brought by more than 20,000 residents of Anniston, AL, over the severe contamination of ground and water by tons of PCBs dumped in the area from the 1930s until the 1970s. Court documents revealed that Monsanto was aware of the contamination decades earlier.”

History tells us Monsanto was well aware of the damage their silence and lack of action brought Anniston as The Center for Food Safety also reports,

The world’s center of PCB manufacturing was Monsanto’s plant on the outskirts of East St. Louis, Illinois, which has the highest rate of fetal death and immature births in the state. By 1982, nearby Times Beach, Missouri, was found to be so thoroughly contaminated with dioxin, a by-product of PCB manufacturing, that the government ordered it evacuated.”

Monsanto can, however, claim the Monsanto of today is not the Monsanto of yesteryear. According to Wikipedia, the Monsanto of 1901-2000 and the current business are now two legally separate corporations, though they share the same name as well as many of the same executives and workers.  The “new” Monsanto is an agricultural company (as opposed to a chemical company).

Are Monsanto’s misdeeds a thing of the past? In 2005, BBC News reported that Monsanto agreed to pay a $1.5 million dollar fine for bribing an Indonesian official “to avoid environmental impact studies being conducted on its [bio-tech] cotton.”  Monsanto said it accepted full responsibility for its “improper activities” and agreed to three years of close monitoring of its business practices by American authorities.

GMO seeds were approved by the FDA under the GRAS designation—generally recognized as safe. As such, Monsanto’s bio-tech seeds were granted exemption from premarket approval by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Due to this ruling, the onus to ensure the safety of genetically altered food created by Monsanto rests with Monsanto, a company whose actions have revealed an unparalleled disregard for human life and environmental safety.

Opponents of GMOs often quote a cavalier statement made by Phil Angell, Monsanto’s former director of corporate communications to author Michael Pollan. In Pollan’s article, Playing God in the Garden, published in the New York Times Magazine in 1998, Angell is quoted as saying,

Monsanto should not have to vouch for the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.”

When we asked Mr. Mitchell if he was familiar with this statement, he said he thought the statement had been made by a Monsanto foreman and that it was taken out of context. “I don’t know the gentleman, but I do know the general feeling here. There is nobody here at Monsanto that I know that says, ‘Screw safety, that’s not our problem, it’s FDA’s.’ I think what the gentleman quoted is referring to is that when it comes down to it, the law, by the law, it’s FDA’s responsibility. I don’t know a single person at Monsanto who does not believe that we have the responsibility. But if you want to look at the law, the final say on this, and the final arbiter, and the people legally charged with safely stating whether it’s safe or not is not Monsanto, it’s FDA.”

Mitchell tells us he and Monsanto’s scientific team have never seen a study that shows any significant risk associated with GMO foods.

I’ve worked with our scientific affairs team, so when studies come out to do analysis and that sort of thing, we have yet to see a study which we think shows us any significant risk with these things. So, those studies are best addressed on a one-on-one basis, and I would say that there are just as many studies, independent as well, that show (chuckles) that there are not risks with them [GMOs].”

He argues that the oft referenced study by Árpád Pusztai showing GMO potatoes was flawed. “My understanding is that there were only six animals in each control group, so statistical significance is pretty weak there.” In addition, he states that Pusztai did not go through the basic safety processes. “The premise of biotech safety in virtually every country that allows these things is something called substantial equivalence. You compare a genetically modified potato to a non-genetically modified potato against a whole bunch of parameters on stuff they contain. And essentially if it doesn’t cause any physiological or physiochemical differences in the potato, they’re deemed to be substantively equivalent, which means that they are pretty much the same with the exception of the protein that’s expressed in the genetically modified one. …Now the ironic part is that Pusztai, when he did his test, never analyzed the potatoes for substantial equivalence. And in fact there is very good evidence that snowdrop lectin [used in the study] will actually—the protein itself, will change the physiology of that potato where it would not meet the standards of substantial equivalence. So he’s testing a GM product that was never commercialized, that has never even been even through the most basic level of safety, with a poor study, that basically shows and basically came to the conclusion that all genetically modified crops have risks, when he hasn’t even done the basic tests that genetically modified crops go through before being approved.”

In 1997, Steve Wilson and Jane Akre were hired by Fox Television as the researchers and stars of a new investigative news show, called The Investigators. Akre says they were told, “Do any stories you want. Ask tough questions and get answers.”  One of the first stories they proposed was an expose on Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone, rBST, also known as Posilac. Their investigation revealed that Canada refused to approve Posilac, citing health concerns, that Posilac was linked to cancer, and that the FDA had rubberstamped the product without proper testing.

While Monsanto’s publicity stated, “Posilac is the single most tested new product in history,” Wilson and Akre’s investigation revealed that the longest test Monsanto had done for human toxicity was for 90 days on 30 rats.

Legal threats from Monsanto prompted Fox to kill the story and set in motion a chain of events that resulting in Fox firing Steve Wilson and Jane Akre for insubordination after several attempts failed to convince them to kill the story, re-write the story, or out and out lie about its contents.  Fox even attempted to bribe the pair, offering them the rest of a year’s salary in exchange for their silence about the story and Fox’s part in it.

Brad Mitchell stated, “We would still contend that Monsanto [rBST] is a safe product. The FDA would support us on that. It’s still being used, albeit by a different company.”

Mitchell also tells us recent Internet rumors that Monsanto was opposed to or tried to prevent the labeling of milk as rBST free were absolutely untrue.

What we were trying to prevent was misleading labeling of milk as being rBST free. And many of the milk companies out there who were labeling it were doing so in a way that was in violation of FDA guidelines and made it basically sound like our product wasn’t safe, and the scientific consensus, at least in this country, was that it is.

“You know, we obviously would prefer that it wasn’t labeled that way, but our gripe was not against people who were labeling milk as rBST free; our real concern was people who were labeling it in opposition to what FDA guidelines set. And the vast majority of the state legislation and the things you saw really were just forcing milk labelers to label in accordance to those guidelines.

“I’ll give you an example, where some milk labels said it’s hormone free. Well, no milk is hormone free. It’s just misleading to say so. Now, if you want to say it’s rBST free, that’s better. What the FDA suggested was that it says this milk comes from cows not treated with rBST. Obviously we would prefer that people didn’t put that in writing and that people didn’t see a problem with our products. But if they were labeling milk accurately, we would not have had an issue with them.”

This company Highlight is continued in our next issue. Click to read Monsanto Company Profile Part II, Monsanto’s Turn. We will discuss Monsanto’s stand on patent infringement lawsuits and high yield potentials of GM crops, Europe’s attitude toward GMOs, and more.

Recommended Reading:

• Understanding and Detoxifying Genetically Modified Foods
• Monsanto part II
• Monsanto part III
• Monsanto part IV

Originally I trashed this response to my article The Psychology of Vaccine Awareness because it was so uninformed and poorly conceived. On further consideration, I realized that the author pretends to harbor many misconceptions similar to many of the general public who have never really looked at the vaccine issue beyond what they are told in the glossy magazines, popular media and from the evening newsreaders. Following standard propaganda in this way, having no information on the underlying science, low- end copy like this email will result. Which is OK as long as the individual is the only one who loses. But it is for the children of the people this misinformed that I will try to respond to these confused comments and try to set the record straight.

I class this type of response in the Hand Holding category, which I usually don’t do. It means that these issues are set straight very clearly and incontrovertibly in the new 2009 edition of the book The Sanctity of Human Blood. Even though this book is very short and very reader friendly, I realize most people will not take the time to absorb the minimal information it contains before they make one of the most important decision they will ever make for their child.

The author of the email attacking my article comes up with nothing new- no new ideas, no fresh insight, no worthwhile assertions. His comments are a very average-level parroting of standard media propaganda which has formed the public perception of vaccines for the past 200 years. The same phrases, the same mantras, the same disregard for scientific fact, physiological processes and actual historical events. So Average Parrot here has put no special effort into researching the areas on which he is holding forth; merely repeating back the same timeworn phrases he has passively absorbed during a lifetime of standard conditioning through popular media. It’s all rhetoric, all chatter, notable for its complete lack of supporting references. This is one of the hallmarks of mundane propaganda – no documentation.

In his opening paragraph Average Parrot makes the same charge at me about unsupported assertions, etc. The ideas in the article in question The Psychology of Vaccine Injury Awareness are excerpted from the book The Sanctity of Human Blood, 13th edition, which contains over 350 medical, legal and scientific references covering every single fact and statistic stated not only in the book but in this short article as well. To that list then do I direct any reader looking for documentation of the position I represent.
    The first chattering about how mercury is gone from vaccines sets the tone of the letter.  It’s going to be the usual line, mercury is gone now from vaccines so everything’s fine, etc. So let’s get this straight: mercury is not gone from vaccines. Either I’m right about this or Average Parrot is right.  We can’t both be right. One of us is wrong.  Clear?  On the 2009 CDC website we see that there are currently 19 flu shots mandated before age 18.  In the 2008 PDR the manufacturers of the influenza vaccines tell us that thimerosal (50% mercury) is added.  They also state that thimerosal is put into Twinvax.  On the FDA website in 2008 mercury levels permitted in current vaccines read as follows:

In addition to all this, remember that mercury was never made illegal, nor will it ever be. Vaccines never expire, so all those millions of old stockpiled doses of mercury vaccines may still be given out, any time any place. Which they are, every day all over the country. The other fact Average Parrot glosses over is that it wasn’t 7 years ago that manufacturers started to try to cover their tracks. Until 2004 thimerosal was still being admitted as a preservative in 4 different vaccines on the mandated schedule.

All these facts are just the tip of the thimerosal iceberg. What about the Kennedy Report, what about the secret meeting in Simpsonwood Georgia, what about the Institutes of Medicine report…? But all this is even a smokescreen– mercury isn’t the only problem with vaccines– it’s not the only thing that makes vaccines suppress the immune systems of children. At least let’s not pretend that the problem has been taken care of when thousands of kids in the US every day are still loading up with the third most toxic substance known to man: mercury in vaccines.

The debate about mercury is dead, Average Parrot is correct. What he missed is that his side lost. The etiology between mercury and autism is incontrovertible. He just never did the research. Guess it never came up on Oprah.

All these references are listed in the 13 edition of the new book.

Next, with respect to the community I discovered with the abnormally high rates of autism, Average Parrot is right. No one can prove that was a vaccine hot lot I witnessed up there, and indeed no one will ever gather the real statistics of autism incidence in that isolated community. Because studies like that would take huge money and the only one with money like that is the drug industry. And this is the exact reason why legitimate estimates of the true number of autistics in this country not only have never been undertaken, but have been routinely blocked and prevented by every possible method. But don’t worry, you’re safe Mr AP. Those backwoods people didn’t get it, they never understood what Haley and Yazbak and I were talking about so no one will ever follow up on that lead. As far as vaccine hot lots, you are correct again — bad lots are dispersed geographically for that exact reason — to protect the vaccine manufacturers from liability. But remember — they only re-distribute lots after there is a problem: an abnormally high incidence of deaths and reactions. Then they redistribute. All I was suggesting is that we may have been observing that first outbreak in a new lot, before redistribution.

Considering that in this location the injuries all did come up in the same age group within the same very short time period, that is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis. But again don’t worry, Mr AP. No one will ever follow up, and your autistic population is guaranteed never to go after your employers. The locals did report it so that it could be studied, but all that Washington did was to send them another Average Parrot like yourself, who literally ran out of the meeting room when the crowd became upset at the condescending mantras he was offering them about why their kids were now permanent defectives. Same rhetoric as you’re chanting here. Perhaps you’d like to take a shot at explaining things to these ordinary people yourself. Sure, you should try it. As long as you have no aversion to tar and feathers.

We see how narrow is the scope of Average Parrot’s academic purview by pretending that the only studies ever showing a connection between mercury and vaccines damage came from Dr Mark Geier’s work. Again this is typical in the world of propaganda– take one reference out of hundreds and pretend like that summarizes the whole field of enquiry. My statement about the overwhelming scientific evidence for neurological damage as a potential result of vaccines stands, and will always stand. But the individual has to be capable of looking a little beyond the texts that are written by his employers, the drug companies. He must look into mainstream scientific literature and be willing to go wherever the data leads. Average Parrot won’t do that. He’s not allowed.

Surprisingly Average Parrot admits the 1700% increase in autism in the past decade, but then predictably ascribes it to the same boring explanation E.L. Bernays media has been using during that whole period: we’re better at diagnosing it now. More autistics now because we’re better at diagnosing it now, right? This impotent dismissal is easily refuted: as Dr Yazbak and others ask, then where are the 40 year old autistics?

Dr Wakefield explained long ago how the diagnostic criteria for autism had not changed as the numbers skyrocketed.

You people really need some new material. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, stop saying it.

As far as deliberate misdirection and misstatement of fact, Average Parrot really goes over the line when he states that there have been no changes in the number of vaccines since 9/11. Is this a joke? What country was he living in during this period? Anyone paying the slightest attention to the Mandated Schedule of childhood vaccines in the past 2 decades saw the increase:

This is not really subject to a difference of opinion. These are the numbers of vaccines we gave our kids during those years.  No amount of double-talk by Average Parrots or even good parrots can change the fact that the number of autistics and the number of vaccines have risen sharply since 9/11. Don’t even need my book for that. This is what I mean about these pedestrian-level would-be pedagogues and their education.  They don’t even try and follow historical events. Average Parrot here wants to read one article by Geier and pretend to understand the argument, and make all these unwarranted pronouncements about this and that,  but is frightened to death to be confronted with a review of the literature known all over the world that holds more than 350 references, which taken together are irrefutable.

The epitome of the academic ivory tower: the difference between seeking the truth and preventing the truth from being known.

Average Parrot’s comment about lack of scientific evidence linking vaccines and diabetes really tips his hand about his own education. In the 13th edition there are abundant clinical studies since the 1980s showing a strong connection between vaccines and infant diabetes. But again, one must take the time to actually read the studies. Much easier to say there aren’t any such studies, because the 2 minute google search they might have done didn’t turn up any.

Just a few of the researchers who have documented the connection between diabetes and vaccines:

– Robert Mendelsohn MD in his 1985 book showing how diabetes was an effect of the new MMR vaccine

– all the 1997 peer reviewed journal articles in the US, UK and in Finland showing the connection between the new HiB vaccine and infant diabetes, as cited in the 13th edition.

– Bart Classen MD has an entire website showing scientific connection between diabetes and vaccines www.nccn.net

Indeed it was the high incidence of diabetes from the HiB vaccines which banned the shot forever from Finland. We still give 4 doses to our kids. And what is the incidence of childhood diabetes in the US in the last 10 years?

There was virtually no such thing as childhood diabetes before 1960. That was when vaccines began doubling and redoubling. At least it is suspicious as a risk factor alone.

The amount of documentation connecting vaccines with diabetes is overwhelming, but one must actually look at it.

Currently there is a vaccine in the developmental pipeline for diabetes!

We have run to the end of my allotted hand holding time. Except one final comment to unmask Average Parrot and show whom he represents.

Epidemiologists are part of one of the new pseudo-sciences that have popped up in recent years pretending some scientific veneer, but beneath it all found to be just shills for the drug companies, or having some specific political agenda. These would include sociology, social science, psychiatry and several other non-sciences. What they share in common is a dependence on a very structured though unfounded rhetoric, sloganeering, and simplistic phrase-mongering.

In the new book, there is a whole section explaining this new phenomenon which is trying to pass itself off as scientific, using epidemiological studies. Here is the excerpt:

“Epidemiological studies also called population studies, are the poor cousin of true clinical trials. They are not controlled studies done under set scientific conditions, but rather attempts at verifying a hypothesis just by counting the incidence of a certain disease or condition within a certain population. The problem is that results from epidemiological studies are subject to widespread interpretation, depending on who’s doing the counting, who decides the criteria for what gets counted, who’s paying for the study, who publishes the results, etc. For this reason, epidemiological studies can be used to “prove” two opposite hypotheses.

In the exploding vaccine industry today, epidemiological studies are quickly becoming the standard to validate our need for more vaccines, because they’re faster, cheaper, and capable of supporting practically any required outcome.”

For this reason we can see why Average Parrot is threatened by the article The Psychology of Vaccine Awareness and especially by the new vaccine book, which he will certainly never read, being beyond his permitted scope. Even though I have directed some comments in this response to Average Parrot, I’m really addressing it to the average educated parents who are struggling with the idea of vaccines today and trying to make up their minds whether or not there is anything to all this noise they hear about problems with vaccine risks and dangers.

To those parents I’m saying yes, follow your instincts, it’s not as simple as your pediatrician and as Average Parrot here would pretend. The issue is not who wins the argument or who is the cleverest at word games like this. The outcome affects your child and his chances of developing a normal immune system. In the modern world today with its Clintons and Bushes and Roves and Obamas, it’s about protection — protecting ourselves from propaganda and the science of lying, protecting the blood of our children from processed foods, contaminated air and water, and specifically from experimental vaccines being shot into their formative immune systems during infancy. It is for them that the parent owes a little investigation — from sources other than those making a living off the selling of vaccines. If the parents have a lot of time they can do their own research. If they want to save months of time they can look at the new book: the 13th edition The Sanctity of Human Blood: Vaccination Is Not Immunization. Don’t believe the book, believe the references. And believe in your child’s future.