– Repulsive: Monsanto expands presence in Vietnam, 55 years after Agent Orange
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Agent Orange
The Chilling History of Monsanto’s Rise to Power
– The Chilling History of Monsanto’s Rise to Power:
By Dr. Mercola
In the featured video, journalist Abby Martin discusses Monsanto’s rise to power and how the company has managed to saturate the global environment with its toxic chemicals, largely through immoral means.
In May, the University of San Francisco (USF) revealed the results from a testing project that began in 2015. The tests, commissioned by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), found that 93 percent of Americans have detectable levels of the chemical glyphosate in their urine.1
Glyphosate is the most widely used agricultural chemical in the world, and it’s an active ingredient in Monsanto’s broad-spectrum herbicide Roundup. As noted by the Detox Project:2
The World According To Monsanto (Video)
Flashback.
04.04.2011
Description:
The World According to Monsanto is a 2008 documentary film directed by Marie-Monique Robin. Originally released in French as Le monde selon Monsanto, the film is based on Robin’s three-year long investigation into the US agricultural giant Monsanto corporation’s practices around the world.
The Complete History of Monsanto, ‘The World’s Most Evil Corporation’
– The Complete History of Monsanto, “The World’s Most Evil Corporation” (Global Research, May 20, 2015):
Published by GR in June 2014
Of all the mega-corps running amok, Monsanto has consistently outperformed its rivals, earning the crown as “most evil corporation on Earth!” Not content to simply rest upon its throne of destruction, it remains focused on newer, more scientifically innovative ways to harm the planet and its people.
1901: The company is founded by John Francis Queeny, a member of the Knights of Malta, a thirty year pharmaceutical veteran married to Olga Mendez Monsanto, for which Monsanto Chemical Works is named. The company’s first product is chemical saccharin, sold to Coca-Cola as an artificial sweetener.
Even then, the government knew saccharin was poisonous and sued to stop its manufacture but lost in court, thus opening the Monsanto Pandora’s Box to begin poisoning the world through the soft drink.
1920s: Monsanto expands into industrial chemicals and drugs, becoming the world’s largest maker of aspirin, acetylsalicyclic acid, (toxic of course). This is also the time when things began to go horribly wrong for the planet in a hurry with the introduction of their polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
Read moreThe Complete History of Monsanto, ‘The World’s Most Evil Corporation’
40 Years After Vietnam War, Prime Minister Decries ‘Barbarous Crimes’ of US
Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung speaks at a military parade as part of the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Vietnam, April 30, 2015. (Photo: Reuters/kham)
– 40 Years After Vietnam War, Prime Minister Decries ‘Barbarous Crimes’ of US (Common Dreams, April 30, 2015):
The US ’caused immeasurable losses and pain to our people and country,’ said Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung
At a ceremony on Thursday to mark the 40th anniversary of the end of what the Vietnamese call the War of American Aggression, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung sharply denounced the “barbarous crimes” committed by the United States.
“They [the U.S.] committed countless barbarous crimes, caused immeasurable losses and pain to our people and country,” Dung said to the crowd of state leaders, war veterans, and civilians gathered in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon.
Read more40 Years After Vietnam War, Prime Minister Decries ‘Barbarous Crimes’ of US
6 Ways Monsanto Is Destroying Humanity
– 6 Ways Monsanto Is Destroying Humanity (RINF, May 23, 2014):
Just in case you’ve been living under a rock (or absorbing the limited range of carefully selected and controlled news reports from the corporate media), Monsanto is a sinister multinational with headquarters in Creve Coeur, Missouri, and it is engaged in the production of seriously harmful chemicals and agricultural biotechnology.
It’s the largest manufacturer of products which include genetically engineered seed and the herbicide glyphosate.
Apart from the genetically produced seed, they have also been known to produce chemicals such as DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange and bovine growth hormone among others. It has been given the name merchant of death by many groups that inform the sleepwalking masses about the dangers of using Monsanto products.
So let’s take a look at just 6 ways Monsanto is destroying humanity:
Town Covers Up Agent Orange Scandal At Former Air Force Base (Video)
Added: Apr 2, 2014
Description:
Was Agent Orange, the notorious toxic defoliant used in the Vietnam War, buried improperly near the now-closed Chanute Air Force Base outside of Rantoul, Illinois? There are several whistleblowers and journalists that have been trying to bring the story to the public’s attention and implement the proper safety measures, but it seems several forces at work in the town and near the former base are less interested in containing the potential contamination that in maintaining the town’s reputation.
Read moreTown Covers Up Agent Orange Scandal At Former Air Force Base (Video)
EU Eco Groups Slam New ‘Agent Orange’ GM Crops
– EU Eco Groups Slam New ‘Agent Orange’ GM Crops (Sustainable Pulse, Jan 27, 2014):
Testbiotech, GeneWatch UK and the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe, have today published a detailed report on the herbicide 2,4-D. They warn that the growing of genetically engineered plants is likely to increase the spraying of the “agent orange herbicide” 2,4-D and that if approved, it could be imported into the EU as GM animal feed.
Several applications for the import into the EU of genetically engineered plants that are resistant to 2,4-D are currently pending. Some of these plants have been engineered to be resistant to several herbicides at once. Especially in the US these GM plants resistant to 2,4-D are close to being allowed for commercial cultivation.
“2,4-D is known from its use as a compound in Agent Orange in the Vietnam War. The most visible detrimental effects on human health at that time were caused by contaminations with dioxin, which can occur as a highly toxic byproduct. Dioxin is classified a human carcinogen and is also capable of causing reproductive problems and damaging the immune system. As this report shows, dioxin still can be found in some 2,4-D”, says Hans Muilerman from PAN Europe. “For the substance 2,4-D, additionally, academic studies show toxic effects on DNA, birth deformations and endocrine disrupting effects.”
Monsanto Timeline
(Click on image to enlarge.)
Source: Natural Independent
America’s Farmlands To Be Carpet-Bombed With Vietnam-Era Agent Orange Chemical If Dow Petition Approved
– America’s farmlands to be carpet-bombed with Vietnam-era Agent Orange chemical if Dow petition approved (Natural News, Dec. 27, 2011):
A key chemical of one of the most horrifying elements of the Vietnam War — Agent Orange — may soon be unleashed on America’s farmlands. Considered by world nations to be a “Weapon of Mass Destruction” (WMD), Agent Orange was dropped in the millions of gallons on civilian populations during the Vietnam War in order to destroy foliage and poison North Vietnamese soldiers. The former president of the Vietnamese Red Cross, Professor Nhan, described it as, “…a massive violation of human rights of the civilian population, and a weapon of mass destruction.”
A key chemical in that weapon — 2,4-D — is just months away from being dropped on agricultural land across the United States. Dow AgroSciences, which along with DuPont and Monsanto is heavily invested in genetically engineered crops, has petitioned the U.S. government to deregulate a variety of GE corn that’s resistant to 2,4-D, which comprises 50% of the recipe of Agent Orange.
Agent Orange Used to Clear the Amazon Rainforest
– Vietnam Era Weapon Being Used to Clear the Amazon (Tree Hugger):
Agent Orange is one of the most devastating weapons of modern warfare, a chemical which killed or injured an estimated 400,000 people during the Vietnam War — and now it’s being used against the Amazon rainforest. According to officials, ranchers in Brazil have begun spraying the highly toxic herbicide over patches of forest as a covert method to illegally clear foliage, more difficult to detect that chainsaws and tractors. In recent weeks, an aerial survey detected some 440 acres of rainforest that had been sprayed with the compound — poisoning thousands of trees and an untold number of animals, potentially for generations.
Officials from Brazil’s environmental agency IBAMA were first tipped to the illegal clearing by satellite images of the forest in Amazonia; a helicopter flyover in the region later revealed thousands of trees left ash-colored and defoliated by toxic chemicals. IBAMA says that Agent Orange was likely dispersed by aircraft by a yet unidentified rancher to clear the land for pasture because it is more difficult to detect than traditional operations that require chainsaws and tractors.
Last week, in another part of the Amazon, an investigation conducted by the agency uncovered approximately four tons of the highly toxic herbal pesticides hidden in the forest awaiting dispension. If released, the chemicals could have potentially decimated some 7,500 acres of rainforest, killing all the wildlife that resides there and contaminating groundwater. In this case, the individual responsible was identified and now faces fines nearing $1.3 million.
WWF In Bed With Monsanto, Destroying Nature (Documentary)
The documentary is in German.
WWF – Der Pakt mit dem Panda (1 of 2):
Added: 22.06.2011
WWF – Der Pakt mit dem Panda (2 of 2):
Added: 22.06.2011
Eine mutige WDR/SWR-Produktion über die Machenschaften des World Wildlife Fund.
America’s Legacy of Mutagenic War
Using depleted uranium is GENOCIDE:
– Iraq: Fallujah Doctors Report Dramatic Rise In Birth Defects (BBC News)
– Depleted Uranium Shells Worse Than Nuclear Weapons:
Inhaled or ingested DU particles are highly toxic, and DU has been classified as an illegal weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations.
“More than ten times the amount of radiation released during atmospheric testing [of nuclear bombs] has been released from DU weaponry since 1991,” said Leuren Moret, a U.S. nuclear scientist.
“The genetic future of the Iraqi people, for the most part, is destroyed. The environment now is completely radioactive.”
“Because DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, the Middle East will, for all practical purposes, be radioactive forever.”
The US is using depleted uranium in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Sounds like Seymour Hersh is right:
Israel used depleted uranium in Gaza and the US in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan
A series of disturbing reports from Iraq and Vietnam (backed up by a horrific collection of videos) have exposed a hidden legacy of war — weapons that continue to create victims years after the conflict has ended.
Thanks to the US military’s embrace of Mutagenic Weapons — technologies that can poison cell tissue and ransack the human DNA far into the future — babies and children have become the latest form of “collateral damage.” Today, in Vietnam and in Iraq (and in Kosovo and Afghanistan), children are being born with deadly cancers, grotesque tumors, twisted or missing limbs, freakishly enlarged heads, and a range of horrific mutations.
In Vietnam, the US sprayed an estimated 20 million gallons of chemical defoliants over the country to kill vegetation that provided cover for the insurgent armies. The Pentagon and the manufacturer (Dow Chemical) knew as early as the 1950s that Agent Orange contained dioxin, an intensely dangerous chemical that could poison the ground and water and kill animals and people long after application. Today, 35 years after the war’s end, three million Vietnamese live with compromised health and crippling deformities attributed to exposure to Dow’s long-lasting poisons. Every day, mothers give birth to deformed babies as the latest generation of Vietnamese children struggles to survive America’s legacy of Agent Orange.
Wounds of the Vietnam War
Toxic Legacy of the Vietnam War
In Iraq, Baghdad’s hospitals are filled with grieving families of children born with deformities and cancers. In Fallujah (the site of two devastating US attacks in 2004), children now suffer from cancer at rates greater than those experienced by the survivors of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima. In November 2004, Operation Phantom Fury destroyed 70 percent of the homes and shops in “the City of Mosques.” An Iraq Health Ministry official charged that US used “internationally banned weapons” in the assault — including napalm, phosphorous bombs, chemical weapons and shells containing depleted uranium.
US Ammunition Blamed for Iraqi Cancer Hike
In July 2010, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health published a report on cancer rates and infant mortality in Fallujah. An extensive survey of nearly 5,000 individuals revealed that survivors of the 2004 assault experienced a 12-fold increase in childhood cancers, a 10-fold jump in breast cancers and significant hikes in adult lymphoma and brain tumors. Fallujah has also seen an unprecedented 38-fold increase in leukemia. (By comparison, leukemia rates following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima increased 17-fold.) Infant mortality in Fallujah hit 80 per 1,000 births (compared to 9.7 percent in neighboring Kuwait) and the number of male births has plummeted — another sign of genetic damage.
Dr. Chris Busby, one of the report’s authors, concluded that the “congenital illness and birth defects” were likely linked to “very major mutagenic exposures [that] must have occurred… when the [US] attacks happened.” Noam Chomsky called the report “vastly more significant” than the disclosures in the “Afghan War Diaries” released by Wikileaks. Regrettably, the findings have received little to no coverage in the US media.
Once again, there is harrowing video evidence to support these conclusions. Warning: these videos are very disturbing but they must been seen — and shared. Here is the link:
Deformed Babies in Fallujah
These stories — along with many videos now circulating on the Internet — carry a powerful message to viewers around the world. Protestors in the Middle East once held aloft a banner that read: “America! Ask Why You Are Hated!” The answer is found in the images of these young victims, born with missing limbs, missing eyes and stolen lives.
We can never win a “war on terrorism” with more war. War and terrorism are mutually self-enforcing. The simple fact is: War IS terrorism. And now, in the name of “national security,” we are attacking tomorrow’s children.
Gar Smith is Editor Emeritus of Earth Island Journal and co-founder of Environmentalists Against War.
Gar Smith, Environmentalists Against War
Wednesday February 09, 2011
Source: The Berkeley Daily Planet
Traitor Bush and traitor Blair knew that there were NO WMDs in Iraq:
– Iraq inquiry: UK Government lied, ‘intentionally and substantially’ exaggerated WMD threat (Telegraph)
– Tony Blair Was Warned By All 27 Senior Government Lawyers That Iraq War Was Illegal (Daily Express)
– Tony Blair ‘knew Iraq did not have WMD before war started’ (Times)
– US and UK knew that Iraq Didn’t Have WMDs
– Dutch Inquiry: Iraq War Was Illegal, Had ‘No Basis In International Law’ (Guardian)
Monsanto GM Corn Causing Organ Failure In Rats: Study (Everything You Need To Know)
GM food alters your DNA, changes your brain waves, destroys your immune system, your organs and makes you infertile.
Don’t miss:
– Scientist: Monsanto’s herbicide could cause brain, intestinal and heart defects in foetuses
– Hawaii: GMO taro ban proposal goes to full council
– Monsanto to Charge as Much as 42 % More for New Seeds!
– Monsanto lobbyists to be placed in charge of food safety by Obama
– US Association of Physicians calls for Moratorium on GMO Foods
– Monsanto sues Germany over GM corn ban
– Germany bans Monsanto’s GM maize
– Greenpeace: No need for condoms – GE corn can do the job
– BIODIVERSITY: Privatisation Making Seeds Themselves Infertile
– At stake is no less than control of the world’s food supply.
– Exposed: the great GM crops myth:
“Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.”
Highly recommended videos:
– Life running out of control – Genetically Modified Organisms
– The World According to Monsanto – A documentary that Americans won’t ever see.
Three types of Monsanto genetically modified corn are under scrutiny in the wake of a new study published by the International Journal Of Biological Sciences which found that rats ingesting the corn were subject to statistically significant amounts of organ toxicity. These three types — Mon 863, insecticide-producing Mon 810, and Roundup® herbicide-absorbing NK 603 — have been approved for consumption in the US and several countries in Europe.
The finding that corn produced by one of the world’s agricultural giants could cause organ failure has been met with obvious concern by food activists and consumers alike. It’s not the first bout of negative publicity for Monsanto, which has been vilified for everything from producing Agent Orange, intimidating farmers, using aggressive tactics to squeeze out competition, pressuring farmers to be dependent on their products, and strongly promoting the use of genetically modified seeds here and abroad. It has been negatively portrayed in films such as “Food, Inc.” and “The World According To Monsanto”.
Read moreMonsanto GM Corn Causing Organ Failure In Rats: Study (Everything You Need To Know)
U.S.-Mexico Border: Plans to Spray Agent Orange-Like Chemical to Kill All Plant Life
(NaturalNews) The Border Patrol has temporarily postponed — but refused to cancel — plans to use helicopters to spray herbicide along the banks of the Rio Grande between the cities of Laredo, Texas and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, in order to kill a fast-growing river cane that provides cover for undocumented migrants, smugglers and other border crossers.
The controversial plan has drawn fire for its similarities to the U.S. government’s defoliation strategy during the Vietnam War, in which the government sprayed more than 21 million gallons of “Agent Orange” and other herbicides in order to eliminate hiding places for Vietnamese guerillas. An estimated 4.8 million Vietnamese citizens and thousands of U.S. soldiers were exposed to the dioxin-based chemical, resulting in more than 500,000 birth defects and 400,000 deaths and disabilities among adults.
The Border Patrol proposed to begin by defoliating 1.1 miles of the river, possibly eventually expanding the program to 130 miles and perhaps even to other parts of the border.
Local citizens and environmentalists on both sides of the border have widely criticized the plan. The Mexican government has objected that there is insufficient scientific data over the health risks of imazapyr, the herbicide to be used, and that it wants to conduct its own assessment. The Border Patrol has postponed the plan, but has not promised to await the results of further studies.
Read moreU.S.-Mexico Border: Plans to Spray Agent Orange-Like Chemical to Kill All Plant Life
The Weapon of Mass Destruction Is Cancer
Related articles:
– IRAQ: ‘Special Weapons’ Have a Fallout on Babies
– War-related birth defects in Fallujah
– Cheney can only call Iraq a success if he has a mindset like Hitler
– Wartime PTSD cases jumped roughly 50 pct. in 2007
– Soldier suicides could trump war tolls: US health official
In March, 2003 my sister, Army Captain Chaplain Fran E. Stuart was deployed to Iraq with the rest of her battalion, from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, the 101st Airborne. The uncharted desert would not only hold uncertainty for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, but if she survived during her one-year deployment, she would return to the U. S. forever changed.
Although the changes that would occur two years to the day from her return home were changes she never could have fathomed. Not only had the desert sand, gun blasts and heat penetrated the armor of her psyche, but a carcinogen did too. It made a home in her body, mixed between the Anthrax Vaccine, depleted uranium, crude oil smog, and contaminated water dished up with every meal. It would, in two years, become part of the wrapping around her inner organs like an Octopus, gathering its fuel from her central abdomen. The volleyball size tumor would become the pregnancy she never had — and the birth of cancer she’d never forget.
In March 2006, the 41-year-old captain was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive, stage IV Dysgerminoma cancer, the “germ cell” cancer usually only seen in pregnant women, or teenage girls. Captain Stuart was medevaced from her new tour in Germany to Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) in D.C. to undergo further testing and immediate surgery to remove the massive tumor, only to discover three more. It would take ten months of treatments to corral the cancer. After 35 rounds of chemotherapy and two more surgeries was she deemed in clinical remission.
While her family was supporting Captain Stuart at WRAMC, my exclusive access to WRAMC exposed cancer as a affliction suffered by many soldiers are returning from Iraq/Afghanistan, unknown to the public and unacknowledged by the military.
Although WRAMC Forrest Glen Fisher House provides housing exclusively for soldiers with cancer, undergoing surgeries, chemotherapy or radiation treatments at Walter Reed — the DoD hasn’t gone public with their findings. WRAMC has dedicated floors six and seven to the stricken soldiers arriving daily — their life may have been spared on the battlefield, but the savage beast within — cancer — had created its own war.
Soldiers face a more deadly and rapidly moving carcinogen that covertly infiltrates all ranks, ethnicities, gender and ages from 21-57. Developing different stages and forms of rare cancers within 4-24 months, a portion are medevaced to WRAMC from Iraq already ill. Others, like my sister, are diagnosed two years post-deployment. Since soldiers are uninformed about depleted uranium (DU), they are not wearing protective gear and are unknowingly inhaling and ingesting the toxic dust.
Vaccines and Medical Experiments on Children, Minorities, Woman and Inmates (1845 – 2007)
Think U.S. health authorities have never conducted outrageous medical experiments on children, women, minorities, homosexuals and inmates? Think again: This timeline, originally put together by Dani Veracity (a NaturalNews reporter), has been edited and updated with recent vaccination experimentation programs in Maryland and New Jersey. Here’s what’s really happening in the United States when it comes to exploiting the public for medical experimentation:
(1845 – 1849) J. Marion Sims, later hailed as the “father of gynecology,” performs medical experiments on enslaved African women without anesthesia. These women would usually die of infection soon after surgery. Based on his belief that the movement of newborns’ skull bones during protracted births causes trismus, he also uses a shoemaker’s awl, a pointed tool shoemakers use to make holes in leather, to practice moving the skull bones of babies born to enslaved mothers (Brinker).
(1895)
New York pediatrician Henry Heiman infects a 4-year-old boy whom he calls “an idiot with chronic epilepsy” with gonorrhea as part of a medical experiment (“Human Experimentation: Before the Nazi Era and After”).
(1896)
Dr. Arthur Wentworth turns 29 children at Boston’s Children’s Hospital into human guinea pigs when he performs spinal taps on them, just to test whether the procedure is harmful (Sharav).
(1906)
Harvard professor Dr. Richard Strong infects prisoners in the Philippines with cholera to study the disease; 13 of them die. He compensates survivors with cigars and cigarettes. During the Nuremberg Trials, Nazi doctors cite this study to justify their own medical experiments (Greger, Sharav).
(1911)
Dr. Hideyo Noguchi of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research publishes data on injecting an inactive syphilis preparation into the skin of 146 hospital patients and normal children in an attempt to develop a skin test for syphilis. Later, in 1913, several of these children’s parents sue Dr. Noguchi for allegedly infecting their children with syphilis (“Reviews and Notes: History of Medicine: Subjected to Science: Human Experimentation in America before the Second World War”).
(1913)
Medical experimenters “test” 15 children at the children’s home St. Vincent’s House in Philadelphia with tuberculin, resulting in permanent blindness in some of the children. Though the Pennsylvania House of Representatives records the incident, the researchers are not punished for the experiments (“Human Experimentation: Before the Nazi Era and After”).
(1915)
Dr. Joseph Goldberger, under order of the U.S. Public Health Office, produces Pellagra, a debilitating disease that affects the central nervous system, in 12 Mississippi inmates to try to find a cure for the disease. One test subject later says that he had been through “a thousand hells.” In 1935, after millions die from the disease, the director of the U.S Public Health Office would finally admit that officials had known that it was caused by a niacin deficiency for some time, but did nothing about it because it mostly affected poor African-Americans. During the Nuremberg Trials, Nazi doctors used this study to try to justify their medical experiments on concentration camp inmates (Greger; Cockburn and St. Clair, eds.).
Read moreVaccines and Medical Experiments on Children, Minorities, Woman and Inmates (1845 – 2007)
The World According to Monsanto – A documentary that Americans won’t ever see.
On March 11 a new documentary was aired on French television (ARTE – French-German cultural TV channel) by French journalist and film maker Marie-Monique Robin, The World According to Monsanto – A documentary that Americans won’t ever see. The gigantic biotech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years.
I highly recommend this video. This is so important.
Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear
Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics-ruthless legal battles against small farmers-is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.
No thanks: An anti-Monsanto crop circle made by farmers and volunteers in the Philippines.
By Melvyn Calderon/Greenpeace HO/A.P. Images.
Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his “old-time country store,” as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.
The Square Deal is a fixture in Eagleville, a place where farmers and townspeople can go for lightbulbs, greeting cards, hunting gear, ice cream, aspirin, and dozens of other small items without having to drive to a big-box store in Bethany, the county seat, 15 miles down Interstate 35.
Everyone knows Rinehart, who was born and raised in the area and runs one of Eagleville’s few surviving businesses. The stranger came up to the counter and asked for him by name.
“Well, that’s me,” said Rinehart.
As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto’s genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company’s patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him-or face the consequences.
Rinehart was incredulous, listening to the words as puzzled customers and employees looked on. Like many others in rural America, Rinehart knew of Monsanto’s fierce reputation for enforcing its patents and suing anyone who allegedly violated them. But Rinehart wasn’t a farmer. He wasn’t a seed dealer. He hadn’t planted any seeds or sold any seeds. He owned a small-a really small-country store in a town of 350 people. He was angry that somebody could just barge into the store and embarrass him in front of everyone. “It made me and my business look bad,” he says. Rinehart says he told the intruder, “You got the wrong guy.”
When the stranger persisted, Rinehart showed him the door. On the way out the man kept making threats. Rinehart says he can’t remember the exact words, but they were to the effect of: “Monsanto is big. You can’t win. We will get you. You will pay.”
‘Frankenfoods’ Giant Monsanto Plays Bully Over Consumer Labeling
Monsanto doesn’t want consumers to know the truth about the milk they’re drinking. The corporation’s monopoly is at stake.
“There are some corporations that clearly are operating at a level that are disastrous for the general public … And in fact I suppose one could argue that in many respects a corporation of that sort is the prototypical psychopath, at the corporate level instead of the individual level.”
–Dr. Robert Hare, The Corporation
Since 1901, Monsanto has brought us Agent Orange, PCBs, Terminator seeds and recombined milk, among other infamous products. But it’s currently obsessed with the milk, or, more importantly, the milk labels, particularly those that read “rBST-free” or “rBGH-free.” It’s not the “BST” or “BGH” that bothers them so much; after all, bovine somatrophin, also known as bovine growth hormone, isn’t exactly what the company is known for. Which is to say, it’s naturally occurring. No, the problem is the “r” denoting “recombined.” There’s nothing natural about it. In fact, the science is increasingly pointing to the possibility that recombined milk is — surprise! — not as good for you as the real thing.
“Consumption of dairy products from cows treated with rbGH raise a number of health issues,” explained Michael Hansen, a senior scientist for Consumers Union. “That includes increased antibiotic resistance, due to use of antibiotics to treat mastitis and other health problems, as well as increased levels of IGF-1, which has been linked to a range of cancers.”
Read more‘Frankenfoods’ Giant Monsanto Plays Bully Over Consumer Labeling