Monsanto's Toxic Legacy

DECCAN HERALD (India), December 6, 1998

Monsanto & food for alarm

Human exposure to Monsanto`s herbicide glyphosphate (brand name Roundup)
has resulted in nausea, skin and eye inflammation, bronchial constriction
and nervous system disorders, says DAKSHA HATHI

''We believe food should be grown with less pesticide". Who is saying
this? It is Monsanto in one of its advertisements where
it also smugly claims to be a leading biotechnology company.

But Monsanto has made Roundup, its most successful herbicide. Human
exposure to Roundup has resulted in nausea, skin and
eye inflammation, bronchial constriction and nervous system disorders.
Alachlor, a pesticide, which the Environmental
Protection Agency considers a carcinogen, has caused lung, stomach and
nasal tumours in lab animals and has contaminated
over 46,000 US drinking water wells.

Monsanto invented polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and indeed, for years,
was one of the world`s sole manufacturers. PCBs
are such toxic chemicals that their production has been banned virtually
worldwide and according to EPA data, Monsanto
consistently ranks as one of the largest corporate generators of toxic
emissions into the US environment. Meawhile PCBs
continue to endanger the health of marine mammals, birds, humans and even
entire eco-systems.

Here are some interesting facts about the company listed in the book
Greenwash: The Reality Behind Corporate
Environmentalism by Jed Greer and Kenny Bruno.

1986 - a US District Court found Monsanto liable in the death of a Texas
employee from leukemia, allegedly caused by
exposure to the carcinogenic benzene. The plaintiff`s family said that
Monsanto had neglected to monitor benzene emissions at
the plant and had failed to instruct workers about the risks of handling
benzene-tainted compounds. The court awarded the
plaintiff`s family 108 million US dollars.

In 1988, Monsanto agreed to a 1.5 million US dollar settlement in a
chemical poisoning case filed by over 170 former
employees of the company`s Nitro, West Virginia facility.

In 1990, Monsanto paid 648,000 US dollars to settle charges that it
allegedly failed to report significant risk findings from
health studies to the EPA as required under the Toxic Substance Control Act.

In 1991, the Massachusetts Attorney General`s office fined Monsanto one
million US dollars for illegally discharging 200,000
gallons of acid-laden wastewater from a plant and failing to report the
release immediately.

The Mississippi River has suffered especially from the company`s pollution.
Its Illinois plant has discharged an estimated 34
million pounds of toxins annually into the river. Its Iowa plant which
produces alachlor and butachlor, releases at least 265,000
pounds of chemicals per year directly into the Mississippi.

But Monsanto has even more disturbing links. It is one of the
transnationals developing recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone
(rBGH) and promoting its use in developing countries. There are reports
from three US states that cows injected with rBGH
have suffered serious udder infections and even death which some farmers
say was caused by the drug.

At the recently concluded World Wilderness Congress in Bangalore, Dr
Michael W Fox, Chief Consultant, India Project for
Animals and Nature, had asked this question in his paper ''Who allowed
Monsanto into the Nilgiris? Was a full environmental
and socio-economic impact assessment done on the consequences of farmers
and plantation owners using Roundup?``

Dr Fox, commenting on Monsanto`s acquiring the 'Terminator` gene
technology, which makes its genetically engineered seeds
sterile, said that this was to stop farmers from saving the best seeds for
planting in the next season, forcing them to buy new
seeds every year from the company store. ''But the Terminator gene could
spread to other farmers` crops, making their natural
seed sterile. Wild grasses and other seeds could also be made sterile`` he
warned.

Dr Fox also reminds us that Monsanto brought to the world Agent Orange, a
highly toxic, cancer-causing herbicide used in the
Vietnam war. Veterans who were exposed to this herbicide have suffered
terrible consequences such as rare cancers, skin
diseases, multiple sclerosis, birth defects in their children and
psychological disorders.

But there is more about Monsanto`s herbicide glyphosphate (brand name
Roundup). According to an article in Third World
Resurgence, September 1998, in January last year the US Attorney-General`s
office forced Monsanto to withdraw its
advertisements which claimed that Roundup is biodegradable and friendly.
The patent for Roundup runs out in 2000, and
therefore Monsanto has now switched its activities to new crops genetically
engineered to resist glyphosphate.

Abroad at least, one legal condition that Monsanto imposes on purchasers of
genetically modified seeds is that the crops should
be treated only with Monsanto`s Roundup herbicide. Spraying them with
Roundup does not harm them but it destroys the
weeds around them.

Here are some facts about Monsanto that our farmers need to know before
getting too impressed with the company`s claims.
In recent years, seed companies have begun to use the intellectual property
laws to control farmers. The companies can
prevent them from saving or reselling 'proprietary` seeds. Thus it becomes
illegal for farmers to save or re-use patented seed.
Monsanto has made farmers sign a licencing agreement that strictly forbids
the farmer from saving the company`s patented,
transgenic seed. The agreement also allows Monsanto to breathe heavily down
farmers` necks, to inspect and monitor and
keep continuous tabs on them, to ensure that they neither save nor resell
the seeds to others.

According to a January 1998 article by Greg Hilyer in the US-based
Progressive Farmer magazine, Monsanto is
aggressively enforcing its patents on transgenic soybean seeds, and has
recently taken legal action against more than 100
soybean cultivators who have violated the licencing agreement.

However, the heartening news is that not everyone is ecstatic about
Monsanto and its rather odd 'Life Sciences` stance or its
other brothers in the field of biotech foods. In Ireland, GE beets grown by
Swiss biotech monster Novartis, were uprooted by
green activists and the 'test` site was effectively destroyed. Ireland also
had only one test plot of Monsanto sugar beet which
was dug up! The American supermarket giant Safeway recently announced that
it is working with European suppliers to use
only non-GE soya. The UK wholefood trade has announced that from September
21 it will not stock or produce foods
containing GE, proving that action can be taken. Companies that provide
school meals in one county have decided not to use
GE foods.

But in India and especially in Karnataka, which has recently become aware
of Monsanto, the full impact of its threat has not
been felt yet. Scientists and activists have been astonishingly silent on
the issue. The University of Agricultural Sciences has not
made a single public statement. All this compares poorly with the
marvellously forceful protests made abroad. The
Government`s response has been purely hot air. Isn`t this rather disturbing?