So, it's Roundup herbicide
that's specially formulated for big jobs.
- That's the new one.
On this one it says: "Biodegradable".
- That's the old one.
It doesn't say biodegradable anymore,
so it must no longer be biodegradable.
It's the same product.
I imagine that they don't have the right to say it anymore.
It must not really be biodegradable.
- Careful not to spray it in my face!
I'm not a murderer.
Well, I'm sure these Roundup Ready soybeans
are ready to harvest today. They're probably about...
I'm gonna say about 11 and a half percent moisture,
so they're perfect for harvest.
I first heard about Roundup Ready soybeans
in a farm magazine about eight years ago
and it seemed like a neat innovation.
The soybean has a protein genetically inserted
into the plant and its resistance of Roundup.
The Roundup is sprayed on the plants.
There's some definite advantages.
If you look at our... my field here, you don't see weeds.
"When label directions
"are carefully followed,
"Roundup is not harmful to humans,
"animals or their environment."
"Copyright Monsanto,
made in Belgium."
If you see any snails,
don't spray them because they'll be inedible.
Watch the strawberries!
I'd encourage European farmers to take a look
at the Roundup Ready technology.
Frankly, it's very good for the environment.
It's a sustainable system.
So... give it a try!
Monsanto.
For twenty years I've traveled the globe
and everywhere
I've heard about this American multinational.
But what I've heard hasn't always been positive.
Wanting to know more, I surfed the Web for months
to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
On its Web site,
Monsanto positions itself
as an agricultural company that aims
"to help farmers produce healthier food,
"while reducing agriculture's impact
on our environment".
Its leading product is Roundup,
the world's best-selling herbicide
for the last 30 years.
[ Advertisement ]: "One shot. All it takes for weeds. Roundup."
Monsanto is also the world leader in biotechnology.
90% of the GMOs grown on the planet belong to them.
Most of them have been genetically modified
to resist the application of Roundup.
Like Roundup Ready soybeans.
Monsanto's GMOs have invaded the planet,
but no ag-industry product in history
has ever incited as much controversy and passion.
Why?
What's at stake with GMOs?
And, could the company's past shed some light
on what the company is,
or claims to be today?
Founded in Saint Louis, Missouri in 1901,
it was not always an agricultural company.
It was one of the largest chemical companies
of the 20th century.
"Chemistry is working for you.
"And very likely Monsanto is working for you.
"Monsanto,
"where creative chemistry works wonders for you."
The "wonders" boasted about in this commercial
made Monsanto one of the most controversial companies
in the industrial era.
These chemically-created oils,
used worldwide as coolants and lubricants
in electrical equipment, were the jewels
in Monsanto's crown for over 50 years.
They were called "Arochlor" in the United States,
"Pyralène" in France and "Clophen" in Germany,
until they were banned in the early 1980s.
"Monsanto PCB"...
A Washington Post article from 2002.
It happened in Anniston, Alabama.
- Terry was my baby brother.
He died in 1971
from a cancer of the brains, tumour of the brains,
cancer of the lungs,
and arteries of the heart. He was 16.
In the last three years,
I have lost most friends.
They died from illnesses:
cancer, sugar diabetes, hepatitis.
All these different illnesses that comes with PCBs
and have been related to PCBs.
This is Monsanto road.
This is all just a black area
of minorities that live in this area.
But every one of these homes was like contaminated.
They just cleaned that yard up, over there, to the right,
about six months ago.
These was all homes, these people lived here
and now, they had to move. I mean, the houses was torn down.
My brother fell dead right around the house.
This is the house I was raised in.
And see this grass right here? They buried PCBs over here.
Monsanto got permission to bury PCBs in Anniston.
This is Snow Creek right here,
where they put the cement in here.
It comes from the plant, discharging PCBs,
all the way down through here.
And it was poisoning... They never told anybody.
But they told the State. The State didn't tell us.
'PCB Monsanto knew'... But what exactly did they know?
An environmental organization in Washington D.C.,
headed by Ken Cook,
has put internal Monsanto files online.
Most of them are classified "Confidential"
"F.Y.I. and destroy".
1937: "Exposure to PCBs
"provokes systemic toxic effects"
and "acne-form skin eruption".
In 1961, two workers developed hepatitis symptoms
after a pipe broke
in a factory using PCBs.
In 1966 Monsanto scientists placed fish
in Snow Creek's water:
"All were dead in three and a half minutes."
Pollution:
A letter addressed to sales executives in 1970.
- This is the one that really tells you the story.
They're saying: "We can't afford
to lose one dollar of business".
Their neighbours in Anniston were not told
about the poisoning that they were inflicting upon them
because they didn't want to lose one dollar.
It was only when lawyers went to court
on behalf of people in Anniston
and forced the company, through the legal system,
to disclose these internal, secret documents,
that we knew what they knew.
They knew the truth from the very beginning.
They lied about it.
They hid the truth from their neighbours,
they hid the truth in many cases from the government authorities
and when they did share information
with government authorities,
that should have been acted upon,
the government authorities, instead of siding
with the people who were being poisoned,
sided with the company. They sided with Monsanto.
It was outrageous. Absolutely unforgivable!
This is all your medicine? - Yeah.
No, that ain't all of it. I got some more here.
How much you have in you? - 63.8.
In the blood. - In the blood.
If they took a fatty biopsy of him, now,
he'd probably would top the scales
at about 3,000 or 4,000 parts per billion, or more.
- And which is the level acceptable, I mean...?
Acceptable is two part per billion.
That's the standard all around the world.
But these people, we have more in our bloods
and in our bodies than actually anywhere else in the world.
- It's usual here
to speak about his PCB level?
We all talks about it
because it became a household word, now.
Kids used to run up to me: "Mr. Baker, I-- I got tested,
"I had 3 point part per billion in my blood.
How long you think I got?"
That's a horrible story.
But, what do scientists think about it?
On the Web, you can find numerous articles
concerning the effects of PCBs on human health.
David Carpenter is one
of the most qualified specialists in the field.
He carried out the testing for the Anniston residents.
- We all have PCBs in our bodies.
The polar bears and the penguins have PCBs.
And what has happened is, in the past,
there were a few sites where PCBs were released.
But over time, they've gone into the air,
they've gone into the water, they've transported,
so the whole world is now contaminated with PCBs.
The issue is that many diseases
are caused by PCB exposure.
The one everyone knows about is cancer.
My test results stated I've had 2-0-2.
Two hundred and two parts per billion in my system.
- Women that get pregnant
and have PCBs in their body
will have a child with a reduced IQ.
Twenty-nine point six.
PCBs cause reduced thyroid function.
Over 1,800.
PCBs interfere with sex hormones.
Pass away, just let me pass away,
pass away in peace.
He's gonna pay, I said then,
he's gonna pay for the way that he have done to us.
In 2001, 20,000 Anniston residents
filed two lawsuits against Monsanto.
Monsanto and its subsidiary, Solutia,
settled by paying 700 million dollars,
to compensate the victims, to clean up the site
and to build a specialized hospital.
But no Monsanto executive was ever sued.
... to do justice.
Under American law, in most instances,
it's very rare for executives or officials in these companies
to be held criminally responsible.
So, we have the civil system, the civil courts.
We make them pay. And the truth of the matter is,
in most instances,
the price these companies pay, decades later,
is a fraction of their profits.
And this is why it pays to keep these problems secret.
And it makes you wonder what they might be
keeping secret now.
I have to say we would never trust
a company like Monsanto to tell the truth
about a pollution problem or about a product.
We would never trust them.
Ken Cook says:
"We would never trust a company like Monsanto."
So, what about Roundup, the world's favourite herbicide
used by gardeners and farmers alike?
What is it exactly?
It's the brand name
Monsanto gave to glyphosate,
a so-called "non-selective" or "total" herbicide
because it destroys all plants.
First sold in 1974, it owes its great success
to Monsanto's unwavering claims that it is "biodegradable"
and "good for the environment".
"Roundup biodegradable"...
Ken Cook was right.
The company was found guilty
of false advertising... twice!
The first time was in New York in 1996,
and the second was in France just last year!
The judges found that the wording
"biodegradable," "leaves the soil clean,"
and "respects the environment" were "false advertising".
Especially since,
"according to tests performed by Monsanto itself,
only 2% of the product had broken down after 28 days".
That's why Monsanto recently removed
the word "biodegradable" from its containers.
But that's not all: many scientific studies
have shown that Roundup is highly toxic.
For example: "Roundup Provokes Cell Division Dysfunction".
A study by Professor Robert Bellé.
Professor Bellé works for the National Centre
for Scientific Research and the Pierre and Marie Curie
Institute in France.
He has studied the effects of Roundup
on fertilized sea urchin eggs.
- The big surprise
was that Roundup had an effect on cell division.
We saw very quickly that Roundup
affected a key process in cell division.
Not the cell division mechanisms themselves,
but those which control cell division.
You have to understand
how cells become cancerous.
In the beginning, all cells are benign and then,
at a certain point modifications take place in the cells
that make them unstable, from a genetic point of view.
This is the first malfunction that we observed with Roundup.
It is for that reason that we consider
that Roundup provokes
the first stages that lead to cancer.
We're careful not to say it "provokes cancer",
because, we won't see the cancers develop
for 30 or 40 years.
It was immediately clear how important
these findings were for product users.
Especially since the tested doses
were well below those which people normally use
and we said to ourselves: Gosh, we really have
to let the public know about the dangers
as quickly as we can.
And I thought the best way to do that
was to talk to my administration.
But there, I was shocked,
very, very shocked,
because I was told,
- ordered rather - not to communicate our findings
due to the GMO question lurking in the background.
What an incredible account: Roundup's toxicity was hidden
to protect the development of GMOs.
So, let's go back to the creation of GMOs.
According to Monsanto's site, Roundup Ready Soybeans,
introduced in 1996, were the first bioengineered crop
to be approved in the United States.
Farmers using these seeds
belong to the American Soybean Association
whose address is on Monsanto's site.
John Hoffman is its Vice President
and an ardent biotechnology advocate.
- In the spring, I will go out
and spray one pass of Roundup to burn down
the weeds that are growing in the early spring.
And about six or seven weeks later,
I'll spray a second pass of Roundup,
and that controls the weeds for the year.
Before we had Roundup technology,
this field woulda had weeds. We woulda had to walk through
and pull the excess weeds by hand.
It was labour intensive.
So, the Roundup Ready system saves me time
and it saves me money.
It seems Monsanto's new "wonder"
has what it takes
to entice farmers.
But how does it work?
How can the soybean plants survive
being sprayed with Roundup?
This is a soybean cell.
The core of this cell contains its DNA
in which the bean's genetic structure is encoded.
In order to create its GMOs,
Monsanto breaks the species barrier,
using a Roundup resistant gene,
harvested from a bacterium.
This gene is placed on microscopic particles of gold,
which are fired into the soybean's cells
with a gene gun.
The gene penetrates the DNA and creates a protein,
making the plant resistant to Roundup.
When the herbicide is sprayed on the crop,
it kills all the weeds,
leaving the soybean plants intact.
One must admit that the process
is an incredible technological feat.
But these soybeans engineered to withstand
such a powerful herbicide
are destined for our dinner plates.
They must have been thoroughly tested
before being put on the market.
Who was the Secretary of Agriculture at the time?
Dan Glickman, Bill Clinton's Ag Secretary
from 1995 to 2000.
- What I found in the early years
I was involved in the regulation of biotechnology,
that there was a general feeling
in agro-business
and inside our government in the US
that if you weren't marching lock-step forward
in favour of rapid approvals of biotech products,
rapid approvals of GMO crops, then somehow,
you were anti-science and anti-progress.
Well, I think that, frankly,
there were a lot of folks
in industrial agriculture who didn't want as much analysis
as probably we should have had,
because they had made a huge amount of investments
in the product. And I mean, I think that...
And certainly when I became Secretary,
given the fact that I was in charge of the department
regulating agriculture, I had a lot of pressure on me
not to push the issue too far, so to speak.
But, I would say even when I opened my mouth
in the Clinton Administration, I got slapped around
a little bit by not only the industry,
but also some of the people even in the administration.
In fact, I made a speech once where...
saying that we needed to be... we needed to
more thoughtfully think through the regulatory issues on GMOs.
And I had some people within the Clinton Administration,
particularly in the US trade area,
that were very upset with me. They said: "How could you,
in agriculture, be questioning our regulatory regime?"
In a nutshell, in the United States,
the Secretary of Agriculture
doesn't stand a chance against the multinationals.
But, just how are GMOs regulated in the United States?
The most crucial policy on the subject
was published by the FDA,
the Food and Drug Administration,
which is legally responsible for regulating
the safety of food and medicine.
Title: Foods Derived from New Plant Varieties
Date: May 29, 1992
Principle 1: "Foods derived
"from genetic modification are regulated
"within the existing framework
that applied to foods developed by traditional plant breeding."
Obviously the FDA decided not to create
a special category for GMOs.
"For further information, contact James Maryanski,"
who headed the Biotechnology department at the time.
Basically, the government had taken a decision,
that it would not create new laws, that it felt
there were already sufficient laws in place
that had enough authority for the agencies
to deal with new technologies.
- That means the White House asked the agency
to write a policy where GMOs should not be submitted
to a specific regulatory regime?
But it's not based on scientific data.
It was a political decision?
Yes, it was a political decision.
It was a very broad decision that didn't apply to just foods.
It applied to all products of biotechnology.
Unbelievable!
James Maryanski admits that GMO regulation
was based on politics rather than science.
How exactly did they justify their decision?
Principle 2: "The components of food
"as a result of genetic modification of a plant
"will be the same as, or substantially similar to,
substances commonly found in food."
In other words, the FDA considers
that a genetically modified plant
is equivalent to its conventional counterpart.
What they call "the principle of substantial equivalence"
has been adopted around the world
and it's at the heart of the debate
between biotech supporters and GMO foes.
- How could the FDA decide that a GMO crop
is the same as a conventional plant?
What we do know, is that the genes that are being introduced,
currently, to date, using biotechnology,
produce proteins that are very similar
to proteins that we've consumed for many centuries.
That's the FDA's official position on the matter,
which was toppled by Jeffrey Smith,
author of several books on GMOs,
Michael Hansen, scientific expert
for the Consumer's Union of the United States,
and writer Jeremy Rifkin
who was the first to denounce
the Principle of Substantial Equivalence.
The reason why GM crops are here
is based on a deception that occurred in the FDA.
They said that these foods are not different.
They used the word "substantially equivalent",
they used the word
"not meaningfully or uniformly different"
and what that turned into was a terminology called
"Generally Recognized as Safe,"
or "G.R.A.S."
Typically, if something is to be considered
"Generally Recognized as Safe,"
it needs lots of peer-reviewed published studies
and an overwhelming consensus among the scientific community.
With GM crops, they had neither.
What FDA was saying was:
if you introduce a gene into a plant,
that gene is DNA, and we've consumed DNA,
we have a long history of consuming DNA,
and we can establish that that is "G.R.A.S."
We were trying to say that these things
should be considered "food additives".
When you want to put a new colouring agent in a food,
the tiniest bit of colouring agent,
or a preservative or some other tiny chemical,
that's considered a food additive
and you have to go through all these procedures
to show that it meets the criterion
of "reasonable certainty of no harm".
But when you genetically engineer a food,
which can cause untold differences in that plant,
they don't require anything!
Here in Washington,
if you were to have an evening and go out and get a drink
at one of the local haunts where all the lobbyists hang out,
everybody would laugh about this.
They all know this was a joke,
this "substantial equivalency". This was simply a way
to paper over the need for these companies,
especially Monsanto,
to move their products into the environment quickly
with the least amount of government interference.
And I should say they were very, very good
at getting their interest expressed.
I remember meetings that we had
where the Monsanto scientists
met with the FDA scientists
and they went through the kinds of modifications
that they were making, and how those were being done.
And basically, what they were also saying to FDA is:
"How will these products be regulated"?
I have never seen a situation
where one company
could have so much overwhelming influence
at the highest levels of regulatory decision making
as the example of Monsanto
with its GM food policy and the government.
Exceptional news footage actually shows
George Bush Senior visiting Monsanto's research facility
nine years before Roundup Ready Soybeans
were first sold.
When George Bush Senior toured the company's headquarters,
he was Ronald Reagan's Vice President and deregulation
was this Republican administration's watchword.
The intention was to boost industry by eliminating
what White House hardliners called "bureaucratic hurdles"
like health and environmental safety testing,
which were Monsanto's key problems.
In 1988, when George Bush Senior
was elected President of the United States,
Dan Quayle became the new Vice President.
Four years later, he announced the American policy
concerning GMOs, drafted just as Monsanto had wanted.
We are taking this step as part of the President's
'Regulatory Relief Initiative', now in its second phase.
The United States is already the world leader in biotechnology
and we want to keep it that way.
In 1991 alone, it was a four-billion-dollar industry.
It should reach at least 50 billion dollars
by the year 2000, as long as we resist
the spread of unnecessary regulation.
- Do you think it was really a conspiracy?
A "conspiracy" is a strong word.
From a corporate standpoint
it was a brilliantly executed takeover.
Early on, a gentleman by the name of Michael Taylor
became the Deputy Administrator
of the Food and Drug Administration,
right at the time that they were about to set out their policy.
Who is Michael Taylor? On the Internet
only a single image remains of the man
who once wielded his power so discreetly.
Today he heads a foundation
called "Resources for the Future".
Hello, Marie-Monique speaking.
- Hello, it's Mike Taylor.
My question's are about your role,
I mean when you were working at the FDA.
Before being hired by the FDA,
you worked as an attorney for Monsanto
during seven years, didn't you?
Well, I was a partner in a law firm
of which Monsanto was a client
and I worked on some Monsanto matters, yes...
- Uh huh. And apparently,
if I understood well what I read,
the FDA created a new position for you:
Deputy Commissioner for Policy? - Well...
Because there was a special need at that time at the FDA
because of the new GMOs?
It had nothing to do with GMOs,
nothing at all to do with GMOs...
I wasn't the author of these policies.
But, that's just, that's very...
That's just false.
- He moved over to the FDA in July of 1991.
Up until that time,
he was at a law firm called King and Spalding.
His personal clients included not only Monsanto,
but the International Food Biotechnology Council,
and he had drafted for them a proposal
for how they would like to see
genetically engineered foods regulated.
And if you look at the proposal
that was written for IFBC that was Michael Taylor's,
with the final one that was published,
it looks very, very similar.
So... if he didn't write it,
then it looks like somebody took what he wrote
and changed it slightly for the policy.
Mr. Taylor was the Deputy Commissioner at the time,
and he provided the leadership for the project
and served as the chief...
the sort of the lead... policy person,
in terms of making sure that the project got done.
So, Monsanto played that game very well.
Both the political game and the regulatory game.
They played a key role in Bovine Growth Hormone,
in getting that thing approved, and also
in how genetic engineering was dealt with.
Michael Hansen has just mentioned
Bovine Growth Hormone. What's that?
It's a transgenic hormone that's injected into cows,
increasing dairy production by 20%.
It would be an understatement to say that it had critics.
"The hormone threatens our health"...
"deadly poison"...
"manipulation"...
Called rBGH for recombinant bovine growth hormone,
Monsanto began selling it to dairy farmers
in 1994,
under the brand name Posilac.
Posilac is the single most tested new product in history.
You'll soon see the dramatic results Posilac can offer you!
In 1985, Monsanto submitted POSILAC to the FDA
for market approval. The experts
at the FDA's Centre for Veterinary Medicine
reviewed the studies that the company had carried out
on experimental herds.
At the FDA, the veterinarian in charge of reviewing the data
was Richard Burroughs. In an interview, he stated that
"agency officials had suppressed and manipulated data."
The data that they came in with
lacked a lot of insight into the dairy industry.
They didn't ask crucial questions about these diseases.
And that is mastitis, which is an infection
of the mammary gland and reproductive problems.
So, when the first data came in and that was missing,
I said: "All right, guys,
you need to go back and get information".
So that set it back probably two or three years.
- Did you warn the FDA about your concerns?
They pretty much just sidetracked me.
They pulled in... my boss pulled in other people
that were closer to him, and I saw less and less of the data.
Even the things I had asked for to be done, I didn't,
like the mastitis studies, I never really got to see
a lot of that. Because, they figured:
"Well, if you're in the way, we'll get you out of the way".
So, they sidetracked me.
Eventually, I was fired. One day,
I was escorted to the door and told that was it, I was done.
- Have you been threatened?
Yes, mainly by the lawyers from Monsanto,
because when I was going for my appeal,
they told my lawyer that if I went in
and revealed any company secrets in my defence,
that they would sue me.
In the end, the FDA was forced
to reinstate this conscientious veterinarian.
He eventually resigned, disheartened.
On the Internet, there is also talk about
"files that were stolen from the FDA
and sent to Dr. Samuel Epstein"
who heads the Cancer Prevention Coalition.
In 1990, Samuel Epstein published an article
in The Milkweed, the standard for dairy reporting,
edited by Pete Hardin.
The scoop was based on the secret documents
that the two men scrutinized.
One morning, I came, I think in October of that year,
I came into my office
and found a great big box of documents and...
It came from Washington, but no indication as to who sent it.
This was a box of files
of all Monsanto records,
which had been submitted to the FDA
on the veterinary tests
in the preceding six years or so.
Well, this was great fun!
Many of these documents are original documents.
And, as it says here: "Company confidential.
"It contains confidential information
"which may not be reproduced,
"revealed to unauthorized persons
or sent outside the company without proper authorization."
As an investigative journalist,
that's the kind of stuff I like to report.
Revealing this information made Monsanto
and FDA very, very angry,
because what we were able to establish
is that there were dramatic physiological changes
in the animals that received the shots,
the hormone shots, compared to their control group peers.
For example,
we see the ovaries of the cows
receiving the synthetic hormone
in the different treatment groups
were, for the right ovaries,
34% larger, 42% larger
and 44% larger.
Elsewhere in the stolen files,
it shows how there were severe problems
with the reproduction of these treated animals.
The data is conclusive, we provided the data,
the raw data and summary datas, peer-reviewed data,
not done by us, to support the submission.
Every health authority
who has looked at Bovine Somatotropin
has found that it is completely safe for consumers.
For Monsanto,
the hormone is not only safe,
it is actually beneficial for consumers.
"Because the chemical composition of the milk
"is not altered as a result of Posilac,
the manufacturing and taste properties do not change."
It's untrue, a lie, whatever the adjective you want to use...
Um, it's a very different product,
it's a very, very different product in many, many ways.
First of all,
as there is a high incidence of mastitis,
in the cows, there will be pus in the milk...
And then you'd find antibiotics,
given to the cows to treat the mastitis.
So, a wide range of antibiotics would be in the milk.
Apart from that, and very, very importantly,
very substantial increases
in levels of IGF-1,
of Insulin-like Growth Factor 1.
There have been a series of studies,
somewhere in the region of 60,
relating increased levels of IGF-1
and breast, colon and prostate cancers.
Absolutely incredible.
Are there other countries that have approved rBGH?
Apparently, the hormone was banned in Europe
and Canada. Canada?
That's strange because Health Canada
usually models its decisions on the FDA's.
"rBGH: Scandal at Health Canada."
"Monsanto Accused
of Attempt to Bribe Health Canada for rBGH."
In October 1998, three scientists
from Health Canada testified before a senate commission
in order to stop the approval of the transgenic hormone.
The scandal was made public by whistleblower Dr. Shiv Chopra.
... shall be the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth. So help me God.
My question to myself was:
what truth am I going to tell?
The one I know
or the one the Ministry is telling me to tell?
And that was my conflict...
- I would ask each one of you,
have any one of you been lobbied by Monsanto?
Any one of you?
- Dr. Haydon?
I did attend a meeting back
approximately about,
I believe, 1989, 1990
and Monsanto representatives
had met with myself
and my supervisor, Dr. Grenon
and my director Dr. Messier.
And, at that meeting, an offer of one to two million dollars
was made by the company.
And, I don't know anymore about what became of that,
but my director indicated after the meeting
that he was going to report it to his superiors.
- How did Monsanto react?
Well, Monsanto did not deny that they made the offer
of one to two million dollars at this meeting.
They later on tried to say:
"Oh, this was an offer of research
"in Canada to do some more studies
on cows in Canada or whatever..."
So anyway, that's what happened in Canada,
the drug was not approved.
So, the European Parliament, based on revelations in Canada,
banned it forever.
And then, all of a sudden,
we three: Margaret Haydon, Gérard Lambert and I
were dismissed for "disobedience".
- You mean "fired"? All three of us were fired.
And those fights are now in courts.
Bovine Growth Hormone...
The United States Congress also opened an investigation
at the request of rBGH opponents who opposed
the ban on labeling milk as "rBGH free".
Interestingly enough, the investigation
was never completed.
- Bovine Growth Hormone,
BGH, is a test of consumer acceptance
of genetic engineering.
- In the garbage, in the garbage!
[ Hollering ]
The cow hormone drug was simply
the first major application of biotechnology
to food production.
And Monsanto is a very powerful corporation
with many, many linkages to top level persons in government.
I think the prevailing ethic
at the federal government was
"biotechnology is so important
"that we can't let a few little questions
about cow safety or human safety get in the way."
The reason the FDA approved it
is it appeared to be that there was a lot of people
that used to work at and had key positions,
that had worked for Monsanto, came over to the FDA
and managed to get the FDA to approve it.
It's revolving doors that move up,
it's kind of like a double helix, it's a spiral.
Revolving door.
- Yes, revolving door.
The revolving door is not just in agriculture.
It tends to be in many, many areas.
- Donald Rumsfeld was the CEO of Searle,
which was a Monsanto subsidiary.
The former US Trade ambassador, Mickey Kantor,
ended up on Monsanto's board.
Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas
used to work for Monsanto.
"Monsanto, revolving doors."
The state of affairs in 1999 includes:
Linda Fisher moves from the Environmental Protection Agency
to Monsanto.
Michael Friedman from the FDA to Monsanto.
Marcia Hale and Josh King from the White House to Monsanto.
Margaret Miller from Monsanto to the FDA.
William Ruckelhaus, from the EPA to Monsanto
And let's not forget Michael Taylor,
who went back and forth several times.
- Once your mission was carried out by the FDA,
you became Monsanto's Vice President for Public Policy?
- Right...
So, there is no conflict of interest for you?
- No... The... No!
And, and again, the rules are the rules
and I played within the rules.
I think in terms of public acceptance,
it's been one blunder after another.
If you're trying to have a strategy
for having the public understand and accept a new technology,
having the first application of it be, uh,
have it be related to milk, which we already have
more than we need, it created, you know,
it helped create a climate of, of...
Suspicion? - Suspicion.
I think that the idea that... that companies are not required
in every case of a GMO
to submit the product to FDA,
such as is required in Europe, I think that,
from a public confidence, public acceptance standpoint,
that's not a sufficient system.
I personally have said that Congress should change the law.
Congress should create a mandatory notification system
that insures that every product is looked at by FDA
and that FDA make a safety judgment about every product.
That's some very compelling testimony.
It seems that Michael Taylor has qualms
about the policy he signed in 1992.
What about the FDA's own scientists?
Was there a consensus on the GMO regulations?
"FDA Documents Show They Ignored GMO
Safety Warnings from Their Own Scientists"
written by Steve Druker.
Lawyer Steven Druker
represents a coalition
of non-profit associations.
He sued the FDA,
forcing it to declassify its internal files on GMOs.
We received over 44,000 pages
from the FDA's own files.
And they revealed that the FDA has been lying to the world
since 1992, if not before.
But they continue to lie. They are still lying.
They claim that there's an overwhelming consensus
in the scientific community,
that genetically engineered foods are as safe
as their conventionally produced counterparts.
And, they claim that there has been sufficient data
to back up this consensus.
Both of those claims are blatant lies.
There are several examples, for instance,
Dr. Louis Pribyl
of the FDA's microbiology group wrote, quote:
"There's a profound difference between the types
"of unexpected effects from traditional breeding
and genetic engineering," unquote.
Then, Dr Pribyl added in his memo that
"some of the aspects of genetic engineering
may be more hazardous".
The concern expressed
by the FDA's various scientific experts
was so clear and unmistakable
that the FDA official whose job it was
to track and summarize the scientists' input,
Dr. Linda Kahl, wrote a memo
to the FDA biotechnology coordinator, Dr James Maryanski.
- According to the internal FDA's files,
which have been declassified now,
there were many in-house critics,
I mean, among the scientists of the FDA,
about the proposed policy...
I have for instance, a memorandum
sent to you by Linda Kahl... - Right...
She stated: "The processes of genetic engineering
"and traditional breeding are different...
- "...traditional breeding are different,
"and according to the technical experts in the agency...
- ...they lead to different risks."
- ...different risks."
The point was that we had many people
with many different views.
Linda Kahl of course, wrote that in her memo,
but in fact, when we finished the policy,
all the scientists agreed with the policy.
Now, FDA has, of course,
looked at the use of genetic engineering
and has no information
that simply the use of the techniques
creates products that differ in safety or quality...
Even before the consistent warnings in the memos
from the FDA's own scientists,
the FDA had very clear warning.
Because the very first genetically engineered
food supplement that came to market in the United States
caused a major epidemic.
- Do you remember what happened in '89
with L-tryptophan? Do you remember?
Yes.
- It was a bioengineered amino acid...
You know very well what's amino acid and...
Right...
- ...that killed dozens of people
and made hundreds and hundreds sick.
- It caused an epidemic of an unusual disease called EMS.
Right.
- And how many people died?
Right. But we have many... - Thirty-seven.
And more than a thousand people disabled, do you remember?
I do remember. - And you said...
according to FDA administrative record:
"We do not yet know the cause of EMS
nor can we rule out the engineering of the organism."
Did you say that? What I read. - Yes.
Amazing!
James Maryanski can't rule out the possibility
that it's the genetic manipulation itself
that triggers unexpected side effects.
But, he did nothing.
Have any independent scientists investigated this question
which is crucial for consumers?
Arpad Pusztai.
"World renowned scientist lost his job
when he warned about GE foods." 1998.
Arpad Pusztai worked
for the Rowett Institute in Scotland.
At the Ministry of Agriculture's request,
he led a study on genetically modified potatoes,
with a budget of over two million euros
and a staff of 30 researchers
to prepare the arrival of GMOs in Great Britain.
- We were all enthusiastic about it,
I was enthusiastic about it.
The Ministry thought that if we did this study,
looking at all aspects, then it would be an endorsement
of GM, and when they introduce it,
they will say that the foremost laboratory in Europe,
nutritional laboratory, had looked at them
and they'd found them alright.
Arpad Pusztai specializes in lectins.
These proteins function as an insecticide
protecting plants against aphids.
Rowett scientists had created potatoes
that were resistant to aphids and into which
they introduced a Snowdrop gene,
which produces the lectin in question.
Beforehand, they verified
that in their naturally occurring state,
lectins themselves do not pose a health risk.
The genetically modified potatoes
were tested on rats.
- It had a twofold effect. First it started
to increase
a proliferative response in the gut,
and that you don't like,
because this is possibly...
I'm not saying that it is cancerous,
but what it does-- it does--
it can have an adjuvant effect
on any chemical,
chemically induced tumour.
The other thing is, the immune system
was certainly in-- got into high gear,
and that was...
We don't know
whether it's good or bad or...
But it certainly did recognize the GM potatoes as "alien".
We were convinced that this insertion
is causing the problem and not the transgene.
As I said, the transgene,
when we did it in isolation,
even at 800-fold concentration,
didn't do any harm.
It was a very important point,
because the American FDA
is going on by a...
about a neutral technology.
And what we did say and what we did publish was,
actually corroborated, confirmed...
that it was NOT the transgene, which was the problem
but it was the technology.
While the first shipments of genetically modified soybeans
were arriving in Great Britain, Arpad Pusztai's superiors
authorized him to be interviewed by the BBC.
As a scientist actively working on the field,
I find that it's very,
very unfair
to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs.
They will never forgive me for that.
Monsanto did see the importance of our findings,
don't worry about it.
Even before the broadcast went out,
they already knew,
because the Scottish Crop Research Institute
did get a lot of money from Monsanto
and they were not slow
to understand the implications.
The day after the interview's broadcast,
Arpad Pusztai was fired and the research team dismantled.
Dr. Stanley Ewen
was in charge of evaluating the impact
of GM potatoes on the rats' internal organs.
He no longer has any illusions about scientific independence.
- I was extremely, well, angry
and very, very concerned,
I just... It's like your whole world
is disappearing under your feet.
What's going on?
- They start to discredit Stanley as well,
it's not just Arpad and me.
Stanley was made to retire
and he was discredited at the University.
- As well? - Yes, oh, yes...
It was very hard, indeed...
Monday, it was wonderful work.
Tuesday, it was rubbished.
I had one or two ideas
of what was happening, but a very imprecise idea,
until eight years ago, almost exactly,
I was at a dinner dance.
And, next to me, at the top table, was someone
from the Rowett called Dr. Roy, who happened to say, when I said:
"Isn't it awful what's happening to Arpad."
"Yes," he said, "and did you not know
"that there were not one but two phone calls
from Downing Street to the director?"
And then, of course, I saw clearly what was happening,
that this was something sort of "supranational," if you like,
some pressure being put on Tony Blair's office
to stop this work,
because it was perceived by the Americans
to be harming their industrial base,
the biotech industry in other words.
The Arpad Pusztai scandal
triggered a massive rejection of GMOs in Great Britain,
led by Greenpeace.
A year later, Robert Shapiro, Monsanto's CEO at the time,
agreed to participate in a teleconference
organized by the environmental organization.
This is the only existing video footage of the former CEO.
He was responsible
for moving the company into the biotechnology era
with its new slogan: "food, health and hope".
Monsanto made huge efforts to push its products
in every direction with the full support
of multi-national food manufacturers, retailers,
communications firms,
regulators, even governments.
You behave not as a company offering life and hope,
but as bullies trying to force your products on us.
- Um, I, if I'm a bully I don't feel that
I'm a very successful bully. [ Laughter ]
I want to start by emphasizing
that biotechnology is a tool.
Biotechnology in itself
is neither good nor bad,
It can be used well or it can be used badly.
The products that are on the market
have been reviewed through the regulatory processes
that society has established in order to assure
not only safety, but the environmental safety
of the products themselves.
After ten years on the market,
Roundup Ready Soybeans account for 90%
of all of the soybeans grown in the US.
In fact, 70% of the food in American stores
contains bioengineered elements.
Unlike Europe,
consumers cannot make an informed decision,
because GM labelling is forbidden,
a direct consequence of
"the principle of substantial equivalence".
And I've got a soybean in my hand, here
and I can eat this soybean. It's very safe, very safe.
I think the FDA is confident that the soybean,
in terms of food safety,
is as safe as other varieties of soybean.
- How is it the FDA confident about that?
It's based on all the data that the company provided
to FDA, that was reviewed by FDA scientists.
And so, it's,
it's not in a company's interest to try
to design a study in some way that would mask results.
How can James Maryanski be so sure?
If I type in:
"Monsanto falsified scientific studies,"
I get 174,000 hits!
Among them:
"A report from the EPA, of the United States.
"Monsanto accused of falsifying studies
concerning the carcinogenicity of dioxin."
The story began in Nitro,
in a Monsanto factory
that produced a powerful herbicide called 2-4-5 T.
In 1949, an explosion in the factory
provoked unexpected side effects:
228 workers developed
an extremely disfiguring illness
called chloracne.
It's caused by dioxin, which is a highly toxic
byproduct of 2-4-5-T.
2-4-5 T was the main ingredient in Agent Orange,
the defoliant used by the US army during the Vietnam War.
During the war, 40 million litres
of Agent Orange containing 400 kilograms of pure dioxin
were sprayed on trees in southern Vietnam.
Three million people were contaminated
including thousands of American soldiers.
Even some 40 years
after the end of the war, dioxin continues
to claim more victims: we know today that this poison
provokes cancer and serious genetic malfunctions.
[ Protestation Chants ]
In 1978, while American Vietnam veterans
were suing the makers of Agent Orange,
Monsanto sponsored studies
on the long-term effects of dioxin.
♪ We're the ones that are paying now ♪
The company paid scientists
to compare the health of workers who had been exposed
during the Nitro plant's accident
30 years prior, to the health of non-exposed workers.
There are two experts on the subject:
William Sanjour, who led the Toxic Waste Division
of the Environmental Protection Agency
and Gerson Smoger,
a lawyer who represents Vietnam Veterans.
In 1990, Dr. Cate Jenkins,
a colleague of mine at EPA
wrote a memorandum pointing out that allegations
had been made that those studies,
some of those studies that Monsanto had conducted
were flawed and if they were done correctly,
would have reached just the opposite result
that Monsanto had. The Monsanto studies showed
that dioxin was not a human carcinogen.
That means they had the data first
and then they manipulated how they were gonna look
at that data to come up with the conclusion they want.
It's absolutely...
You never do a study that way! Never!
And they did it absolutely wrong!
And they achieved what they wanted.
And it came out later that there were people
that had cancer, that in one of these two studies,
were listed as being exposed to dioxin,
and the same five people in another study
were listed as not being exposed.
And when you put all these cancers into the unexposed,
then it looked like the unexposed people
were getting as much cancer as the exposed, and they said:
"There's no difference. See, they're the same."
So then thousands and thousands of veterans
were disallowed benefits
because of exposure to Agent Orange.
So, all policy was affected by those studies
for seven to nine years in this country.
Being a good scientist
and a good EPA employee,
and someone, by the way, who's quite fearless,
Cate Jenkins wrote a memorandum
to the EPA Science Advisory Board
asking them to review these two studies
to see if they were correctly done.
The fact is there was no investigation of Monsanto.
It didn't exist.
Nobody investigated those, those studies.
Nobody, period!
What they investigated was Cate Jenkins, the whistleblower!
They made her life a hell.
They harassed her, they changed her jobs,
they persecuted the poor woman.
- If you think of Monsanto today,
they are telling that their GMOs,
for instance, are sound and safe?
Do you trust the company?
- I wouldn't believe a word that company says, nothing.
I might trust some independent source
who investigated their claims,
depending on who that independent source was,
and how good they are and how independent they are.
Precisely.
In order to prove the safety of Roundup Ready Soybeans,
Monsanto carried out a study, which was published in 1996
in a well-respected scientific journal.
The study was supposed to assess the effects
of GM soybeans on animal health, specifically on rats.
This study was thoroughly reviewed
by both a Danish scientist,
now deceased, and the Norwegian specialist
Ian Pryme.
- I'm afraid to say, I value this study very poorly indeed.
It's very disappointing, very disappointing.
Especially because this paper sort of served as a basis
for the whole principle
of "substantial equivalence".
I can just cite, which is again a bit surprising:
"Although the animal feeding studies
provide some reassurance that no major changes occurred".
Now...."some reassurance," now, that's not good enough.
I want 100% reassurance, not just "some",
"some reassurance".
They talk, for example about the...
on page 723.
"Except for the darker brown colour,
livers appeared normal at necropsy." I mean...
you can't do that without looking inside,
you have to look at the content inside the liver,
taking sections, showing under the microscope
that there is no difference.
They've used, for example, older... older rats.
Obviously, again, if you want to avoid any problems, okay,
use an adult.
But if you want to see if any changes are evident,
then you should use younger individuals, of course.
In some ways you could say it's bad science
because a lot of the data that they should have shown
isn't shown.
- Did you try, for instance, to get access to the raw data?
I didn't, a colleague of mine did,
and spent quite a frustrating length of time
going through different offices and so on,
but finally, the answer was... the answer was: "no".
If there was nothing to hide,
then there should be no problem.
You should be willing to distribute your material
for anybody to do work on.
And when it's... when you keep it,
keep it tight, then you suspect that it's...
why, why is this the case?
One thing is sure: thanks to this limited study,
Monsanto's GMOs have inundated the world,
principally in North and South America,
Asia and Australia.
After only 10 years,
transgenic crops now cover 250 million acres.
70% are Roundup resistant
and 30% have been genetically modified
to produce an insecticide called "BT".
Since 2001
the company has published a yearly document
titled "The Pledge Report," a kind of ethics statement
in which Monsanto tries to justify its business practices.
At the heart of the opposition to GMOs
is the subject of patents.
This is what Monsanto calls "their intellectual property,"
which are supposed to protect their investment.
In North America every farmer
who buys bioengineered seeds
must sign a "Technology Agreement"
in which the farmer promises to respect the company's patent
on the modified gene.
Biotech crops are protected by US patent law.
And so I may not in any way save seed
to replant the following year.
It's something that is a protection for the,
for Monsanto... for biotech companies.
Because they literally invest millions and millions of dollars
to produce this new technology.
- And how can Monsanto know
that someone, for instance, replants harvested seeds?
I'm not sure how, how to answer that, no...
How they would, how they would know
if someone replanted seed...
That's a good question for Monsanto.
The question is so touchy that Monsanto
prefers to circumvent it by making glorious promises.
"In cases of unintended appearance
"of our proprietary varieties on a farmer's field,
"we will surely work to resolve the matter
to the satisfaction of both the farmer and Monsanto."
The reality seems much less idyllic.
The Centre for Food Safety in Washington D.C.
published a study on farmers sued by Monsanto
for having not respected its seed patents.
It found "at least 100 lawsuits and many bankruptcies".
Among the victims: Troy Roush, an Indiana farmer.
- Our story starts back in 1999.
A gentleman, and I use that term loosely,
showed up at my mother and father's farm,
and he claimed to be a private investigator
hired by Monsanto.
And he was out investigating
farmers saving their own seed.
And asked us,
come out right and asked us
if we'd saved their seed,
and we told him no, we had not,
and offered up our herbicide purchases
and seed purchases, all the receipts and everything,
told him where everything was purchased
so he could go check it out for himself.
He declined that, that offer.
And what occurred is,
then, they, they sued us. Monsanto filed a lawsuit
against myself, my father, and my two brothers.
And Monsanto presented us with documents
that they claimed were samples taken from our farms.
To obtain those samples,
Monsanto had to have trespassed upon our land
without our permission and stole those samples.
That year, I recall, we had 492 acres
of Roundup Ready Soybeans. And they were,
they were grown under contract for a company for seed.
And the contract was very specific.
It spelled out the specific field, so...
It wasn't a problem in isolating those fields.
Everybody knew it.
- And why did you settle out of court with Monsanto?
Well, after two and a half years of this,
the family was just destroyed.
The stress involved in this, I mean...
They're, in essence, threatening five generations of work.
And, if they were to prevail on something like this,
it's all gone.
They take it all away, they take it all away.
Good morning. - 'Morning, sir.
How are you this morning, Troy?
I'm well. How are you, David? - Still surviving.
Good.
Troy Roush and David Runyon grow conventional soybeans.
They have been victims of the so-called "gene police."
Created by Monsanto to enforce its law in the fields,
the gene police sow fear in rural America,
where farmers denounce the totalitarian methods
used in a GMO-dominated world.
- I have some pictures here for you, Troy,
I'd like for you to look at. Here's what I have done, Troy,
to help prevent re-entry on my farm...
Anyone coming onto my farm...
Summer, it was in July of 2003.
And they came, it was the latter part of July,
they came to my house, it was like 7 p.m.
- Who came? Um,
Monsanto employees
and they presented me a business card.
And they asked me a few questions
about the kind of soybeans I plant, the kind of corn I plant,
where I market my crops.
And so, I said: "Okay, that's the end of the conversation."
Yeah. Patents have changed,
they've changed everything.
It revolves with a, with a relationship of trust
with neighbours, that is gone.
By myself, I probably only have two farmers that I talk to,
that are close to me.
- Are they really afraid, the farmers?
Of course, they're afraid.
You can't defend yourself against these people.
They've created a little industry that,
that serves no other purpose than to wreck farmers' lives.
Of course they're afraid.
- You're afraid, for instance, that a neighbour can snitch on you?
- Yes. - Yes?
Yes, all's you have to do is, is...
- Dial 1-800... Dial 1-800 MONSANTO,
Or no I'm sorry, 1-800 ROUNDUP.
I remember 'em encouraging farmers to call this,
this toll-free number and turn their neighbour in.
- And why does Monsanto do that?
Well, the reason they do it is control.
- Seeds? Yeah.
They wanna control the seed. They wanna own life.
I mean, this is the building blocks of food
we're talking about.
They are in the process
of owning food, all food.
Between 1995 and 2005, Monsanto acquired
over fifty seed companies throughout the world.
These companies produce corn, cotton,
wheat and soybean and also seeds
for tomatoes, potatoes and sorghum.
Everywhere people worry about Monsanto's monopoly,
which, in the long-term, threatens to wipe out
all non-transgenic varieties.
Monsanto doesn't agree and speaks only about
the benefits of biotechnology
especially in developing countries like India.
"Our products provide significant economic benefits
"to both large and small growers. In many cases,
"farmers are able to grow higher-quality
and better-yielding crops."
India is the world's third largest cotton producer.
In 1999, Monsanto acquired Mahyco,
the country's leading seed company.
Two years later, the Indian government
authorized the sale of BT Cotton
under the brand name Bollgard.
It is genetically modified to produce an insecticide,
which repels bollworms, a cotton parasite.
Since 2001, Kiran Sakhari and Abdul Gayum
have been closely following the transgenic cotton
grown by small farmers in the Warangal district.
Every year, the two agronomists publish a report
comparing bioengineered cotton with conventional cotton
in terms of yields and production costs.
In 2006, the harvest was ravaged by a disease
that affects transgenic cotton.
This is a Bollgard field.
We can see some of the Rhizoctonia
affecting the plants.
You see, if you remove the bark of a healthy plant
it won't be like this, like threads.
See, it's a classic example of Rhizoctonia infestation.
- The farmers all said they have never seen that.
When we were doing our study from 2001,
we noted the disease in very few samples
in the BT cotton only and, as the time passed,
the spread was seen more and more
in the BT fields as well as some non-BT fields also.
What I personally feel is that there may be some interaction,
undesirable interaction,
between the host plant where the gene was introduced
and the gene which is carrying the BT.
And that has introduced a weakness in the plant to...
not to resist this Rhizoctonia.
- I have seen on the Web site of Mahyco Monsanto,
"BT Cotton reduces 78% of pesticide application--
pesticide consumption-- and it gives 30% better yields."
But it's an utter flop.
After 70-90 days invariably you have to spray
for the bollworm even on BT cotton.
- How do you explain that so many farmers
are buying BT seeds?
You see presently, the option is very,
very narrow... is getting narrower and narrower for the farmer.
During the current season,
if even the farmer wanted to go for non-BT
there is no non-BT hybrid seed available in the market.
Today in India, Monsanto controls
nearly all of the cottonseed market.
Forcing the locals to buy its seeds,
at prices four times higher than conventional varieties.
Small farmers must turn to moneylenders
who charge high interest rates. If the harvest is poor,
it means bankruptcy.
A vicious circle, which is decimating Indian villages.
Tragedies like the one we've just witnessed
occur three times a day in the Vidharba region
where BT Cotton was introduced in 2005.
Of course, cotton farmers committing suicide
is not new in India, but the GM crops
are causing it to skyrocket.
However, in this battle
that pits David against Goliath, few dare to publicly denounce
this international scandal.
- This is Vidarbha's rice growing belt.
If you see, the minimum suicides are there.
But this is the cotton growing area.
The result of the BT Cotton is:
the first year: 600 suicides,
from June 2005 to June 2006.
Second year, till today,
within six months: 680 suicides.
So, it's a disaster.
It's a complete disaster yes.
All these technologies, either if it is GM
or biotechnology, they are actually
making the farmers completely dependent on the market.
Because not only that you have to pay more
for the seed procurement, but you have to fertilize,
and this very claim that no spraying is required,
no pesticide is required is also false.
- When Monsanto claims in advertising
that GM crops are adapted for small farmers,
what do you think? It's...
Our experience shows that it is completely false.
It's completely false, it's a lie!
On this day in December of 2006,
a revolt was brewing in the largest cotton market
in the state of Maharastra.
Three days later riots broke out
and dozens of small farmers, including Kishor Tiwari,
were arrested.
- 60,000 rupees of debt... 50,000 rupees of debt...
20,000 rupees of debt...
50,000 rupees of debt...
15,000 rupees of debt...
They don't want to go for the BT.
"Seeds of Suicide"
is the title of a book by physicist Vandana Shiva.
She won the Alternative Nobel Prize
and heads the Navdanya organization,
which aims to conserve traditional seeds.
In the beginning, Vandana Shiva's battle
was against the first green revolution,
which brought industrial agriculture to India
in the 1960s.
Today, she denounces what she calls
the second green revolution,
that of GMOs protected by patents.
The difference is that the first green revolution
was public sector driven.
It was driven by government agencies.
The government agencies controlled the research.
In the case of the second green revolution,
it is driven by Monsanto.
It is a Monsanto-driven revolution.
The second big difference is that
the first green revolution did have a hidden objective
of selling more chemicals,
but its first objective
was providing food. It was food security.
And yes, they grew less pulses, they grew less oil seed
but they did grow more rice and wheat and fed people.
The second green revolution
has nothing to do with food security.
It is not about food security.
It is about returns to Monsanto's profits.
That's all it is about.
They've always said genetic engineering
is the way to get to patenting.
But patenting is the real aim.
If you look at Monsanto's research agenda,
they are testing at this point
something like 20 crops with BT genes in them.
There is nothing they are leaving untouched,
the mustard, the ochra,
the brinjal, the rice,
the cauliflower.
Once they have established the norm
that seed can be owned as their property,
royalties can be collected,
we will depend on them for every seed we grow,
of every crop we grow. If they control seed,
they control food, they know it, it's strategic.
It's more powerful than bombs, it's more powerful than guns.
This is the best way to control the populations of the world.
Monsanto responds to Ms. Shiva's
persuasive argument by brandishing its pledge:
"integrity, dialogue, transparency and sharing."
We want to participate constructively in the process
by which societies around the world
try to develop good answers to those questions:
Are the products gonna be safe for the environment?
How are they gonna affect biodiversity?
How are they gonna affect other plants
and insects and birds?
What about outcrossing of genes?
What happens if genes do outcross into wild species?
To me that means, among other things,
listening carefully and respectfully
to all points of view.
Despite Robert Shapiro's placid demeanour,
he has just touched on a subject
that greatly troubles GMO opponents:
transgenic contamination,
which Monsanto prefers to call
an "adventitious presence,"
that is part of the "natural order".
According to a study led by Berkeley professor
Dr. Ignacio Chapela, GMOs
have already contaminated Mexican corn.
But when the scientific journal Nature
published the study's findings,
it triggered a violent controversy.
I had been working for 15 years
with indigenous communities in Oaxaca, in Mexico,
and they had been developing the capacity
to analyze their environment themselves.
One of my students went
to try and train people to detect transgenics.
We brought with ourselves a positive control,
that was a can of corn from the US
that we knew was transgenic
and we were looking for a negative control
and we thought the best negative control
is going to be corn from the local places,
because we all believed that it was the cleanest,
the most well-preserved source of corn in the world.
So, the surprise came
when we looked at these samples
and we discovered that the samples
that we all believed would be non-transgenic
had already transgenic DNA within them.
It was a very big surprise for us to discover
that these land races of corn
that were kept by people locally
and supposedly maintained over 10,000 years
had already been reached by transgenic contamination,
mostly from the US.
Mexico is the centre of origin for corn.
More that 150 local corn varieties
can be found in just the southern region of Oaxaca.
This extensive biodiversity is a treasure--
the world's genetic reservoir of corn.
Millions of Mexican farmers
had maintained it for thousands of years.
- This corn is for the family?
Yes, only for the family.
We use it to make tortillas.
This ear is a good size so we'll save it as seed
for next year's planting.
- You don't buy your seeds? No.
- You exchange them? Yes.
It's our ancient barter system.
To preserve its corn's diversity
Mexico has banned genetically modified crops.
However, due to the NAFTA free-trade agreement
it signed with the United States and Canada,
Mexico cannot stop
the massive importation of American corn,
40% of which is genetically modified.
This "industrial corn," as it's called in Mexico,
is highly subsidized by the US government.
So on local markets it costs
half as much as traditional Mexican corn.
- Do you always make your tortillas with local corn?
Yes.
It's natural and has a better yield.
Also it's more nourishing
because it comes from pure soil.
That's blue corn. In the past,
my ancestors only planted this kind of corn.
Today, we maintain it as well.
- It existed before the Spanish conquest?
Yes. There is another kind of conquest.
- What is the new conquest?
It's the transgenic conquest that wants to destroy everything
by making local corn disappear
so that their "industrial corn" can dominate.
If they succeed,
we'll be dependant on multinationals,
we'll be forced to buy the fertilizer and insecticides
they sell because without them
their corn won't grow.
Whereas, the local corn grows very well
without fertilizer or herbicide.
Look at it, it's very beautiful.
Ignacio Chapela's article
provoked a violent reaction in Mexico.
Since then, The National Ecology Institute
has confirmed the contamination of Mexican corn.
Roundup Ready and BT genes have been found
in corn from five regions of the country.
What would happen if bioengineered corn
crossed with traditional land races?
Dr. Alvarez Buylla
led a study using a local flower.
She inserted the same gene in several specimens
and then observed their growth.
We observed that two plants,
strictly identical from a genetic point of view--
in other words, they both have the same genome,
the same chromosomes and the same transgene,
the only difference is that the transgene
is located in different places.
And well, once they grew, these plants
presented a phenotype, that it to say flower shapes,
that were very different: some have flowers
that are identical to their natural counterparts, like here,
four petals with four sepals,
but others have abnormal flowers
with abnormal hair or strange petals.
In addition,
some are completely monstrous.
The only difference in all of these plants,
is the location of the transgene,
which was inserted randomly.
- Why is that worrisome?
In Mexico, once the transgenic corn seeds
have been released into the environment,
it's very likely that the transgenes
will insert themselves into the genomes
of the local Mexican varieties.
It's an unavoidable phenomenon,
because corn plants cross naturally by wind-blown pollen.
Given that, we fear
that the genetic resources
of traditional corn
will be uncontrollably affected.
Good morning! We invite you to attend a meeting
about the new diseases which are infecting our corn
because of transgenic contamination.
Aldo heads an organization
of indigenous people.
For two years, he's been leading
an information campaign in Oaxaca communities
where Elena Alvarez's fears have already been confirmed
in the fields.
I'm going to show you some photos
of some corn plants that we took
in our region of Sierra Juárez.
We'd like to know if you have already seen
this type of plant in your community.
You can see that some very strange things
are going on: this plant, for example,
has a branch here and another one there.
Normally, a corn plant is not like that.
There is always only one ear per leaf,
but look, here,
there are three ears coming out of the same leaf.
They are really monsters!
We sent a plant sample to a biotech lab
to see if maybe it contained
genetically modified genes.
Unfortunately, the test came out positive.
Usually, we see these types of plants along the roadside
or in people's yards.
It's possible that people buy corn in a shop
and they drop some kernels while walking.
Some kernels germinate.
This is how traditional corn
became contaminated.
From what you've said,
if we don't manage to stop their spread in our fields,
soon we'll be forced to buy our corn seed
because our own won't work anymore?
That's very troubling. What should we do?
First of all, if you find a strange plant,
you should immediately remove its stamen,
because that's where the pollen comes from.
In any case, you must be very vigilant
in monitoring your plants.
- Don't you think it's Monsanto's strategy?
What they couldn't achieve legally,
they're trying to force through contamination?
Yes, we end up wondering
if the contamination wasn't intentional.
If the centre of origin of corn becomes contaminated,
the rest of the planet could follow.
Contamination only benefits multinationals like Monsanto.
How did Monsanto react to Ignacio Chapela's study
on Mexican corn contamination?
"Monsanto's dirty tricks campaign
against fired Berkeley Professor Ignacio Chapela."
An article by Jonathan Matthews who heads GM Watch,
a GMO information service based in southern England.
According to Jonathan Matthews,
Ignacio Chapela was a victim of a campaign
launched on AgBioWorld, a pro-GMO Internet site.
On the eve of the article's publication in Nature,
a certain "Mary Murphy"
posted an e-mail
that AgBioWorld distributed
to thousands of scientists around the world.
She wrote:
"Activists will certainly run wild
"with news that Mexican corn has been 'contaminated'
by genes from GM corn."
The very next day, a certain Andura Smetacek
posted a second e-mail:
"Activists FIRST, scientist second."
It's totally a smear campaign.
And this is what happens over the first couple of days;
you get Murphy and Smetacek coming in.
Then others come in and they say:
"We have to campaign on this.
"We have to inundate Nature.
"We have to go to the editor of the journal
and we have to say this research isn't valid."
Smetacek and Murphy... We'd been tracking them
for some time, and trying to work out
who they were. In the case of Smetacek,
we could look at the technical headers
on the e-mail.
It says "received from"
and then we've got
an Internet Protocol Address.
If we go off to a Web site registration site,
now all we have to do
is just to copy that IP address.
"Organization Name: Monsanto Company
and based in St. Louis."
Then Mary Murphy
left behind details
that enabled us
to track who she was so...
If we look here,
the information that appeared, posted by Mary Murphy,
and then we get the IP Address:
bw6.bivwood.com
and we found that that was the original name
of a P.R. agency called The Bivings Group.
We quickly found out that on their client list
was Monsanto.
That this was an Internet P.R. firm for Monsanto.
- That means fake scientists!
What a dirty trick.
Yeah, no, no, we're talking very dirty tricks here, yeah.
I mean, there, there, there's no ethics at all in,
in what's going on here.
It shows an organization that is determined
to push its products into countries around the world
and it's determined to destroy the reputation
of anybody who stands in their way.
Jonathan Matthew's accusations
were covered in the British press,
but Monsanto chose to ignore them.
As it continues its unrelenting rise,
the company defends its vision of a transgenic world
"that will resolve the problems of famine
and the environment in perfect harmony."
"Practical experience clearly demonstrates
"that the coexistence of biotech,
"conventional and organic systems is not only possible,
but is peacefully occurring around the world."
[ ♫ What a Wonderful World ♫ ]
A transgenic world already exists in South America
where 100 million acres of Roundup Ready Soybeans
were planted in 2007.
Their conquest started 10 years ago in Argentina,
the only country to have officially authorized
transgenic crops.
Since then, GMOs have mysteriously spread
to neighbouring countries, like Brazil
and Paraguay seen here.
In 2005, Paraguay finally legalized
these smuggled crops
to save their soybean exports to Europe
where labelling GMOs is obligatory.
In reality, for the Ministry of Agriculture,
the deed had already been done.
We had to authorize GMO seeds
because they had already entered our country in a,
let's say, unorthodox way.
- Do we know how transgenic seeds entered the country?
Through the black market or smuggling?
We don't speak about the black market
but about "the blank sack,"
because these are the seed sacks
that have no official markings.
- Did Monsanto play a role in this seed contraband?
It is possible that the company, let's say,
promoted its varieties and its seeds and,
as I told you, the government had to react
after the fact to authorize
what was already a reality.
Whatever the origin,
contraband has been profitable for Monsanto:
as soon as the crops were legalized,
the company obtained the right to collect royalties
on each ton of soybeans the country produced.
Just like in Brazil.
Since then, there has been no let up
in Paraguay's deforestation
and the expulsion of many small farmers
who refuse to relinquish
their small plots of land.
Jorge Galeano leads a small farmers' organization,
which is fighting against the progression
of what he calls the "green desert".
What we have here is an example
of a GM extension of soybeans.
In fact, it's a monocrop
that destroys everything in its path.
Before, here, there were fields containing everything
that a family needed to live:
plants, trees, manioc, corn.
- Do you think that the GM crop can coexist
with the crops of the small farmers?
No, we are sure it can't. They are two
incompatible models that can't co-exist.
It's a silent war that eliminates communities
and families of small farmers. In addition,
it destroys the biodiversity of the countryside.
It brings death, poverty and illness
as well as the destruction of the natural resources
that help us live.
Today, Roundup is sprayed,
all over Paraguay
by plane or mechanical spreaders
driven by unprotected farm workers.
The herbicide is sprayed
right up to people's front doors
or near the subsistence crops of small farmers.
Every year, crops are destroyed
and thousands of people contaminated.
Like this family,
which is surrounded by Monsanto's GMOs.
The parents are worried about their son Pedro,
because everyday he has to cross the soybean fields
to sell his mother's homemade corn tortillas.
How long has he had that?
- It started 15 days ago.
It started on his foot
and then it spread.
That's how it starts.
- Does he have a headache?
- Is he eating? Very little...
Today he didn't want to eat what I had prepared for him.
He only drank a little fruit juice.
- And his brother?
He eats better, but it's difficult.
That's the way we live.
Recently we lost 60 ducks and geese.
They took a few steps
and then they fell down,
dead as doornails.
They spray deadly herbicide over there.
When it rains, the water streams down here
and since ducks live in water, that's the result.
In Paraguay, 70% of the farmland
is owned by only 2% of the population.
With GMOs, the concentration is increasing.
Three quarters of the soybean producers are foreigners
staking claims for this new green gold.
The ban on animal-based feed
after the Mad Cow epidemic
and the recent bio-fuel craze
have caused soy prices to soar,
triggering a rush to Roundup Ready crops.
According to the last census in Paraguay,
each year 100,000 people leave rural areas
to live in urban slums.
An estimated 70%
flee Monsanto's genetically modified soybeans,
which are destined to feed Europe's chickens,
cows and pigs.
We are going to talk
about the production model of GM soybeans
promoted by Monsanto.
It's a true multinational company,
it's everywhere in the world.
Its objective is to control
all of the world's food production
through farmerless farming.
The result is that Monsanto is depriving us
of our food sovereignty,
of our ability to feed ourselves,
without depending on anyone else.
That is why we say
that we must fight for our independence,
for our land,
we must defend our communities,
our families and our country.
In my case, my family lives in the city
but I don't want to go there.
In the city you have to buy everything, even food.
Here, whatever we grow is ours.
We can eat whatever we want, but in the city you can't.
If you don't have money,
you have to search for food in garbage cans.
I'd like to add that these families'
struggle to survive touches all of us.
In 2007,
Monsanto employed 18,000 workers
in 50 countries.
In 2007,
its stock prices continue to rise
and its profits have reached a billion dollars.
Its shareholders include not only
pension funds and banks
but also hundreds of thousands of small investors.
[ Dialing ]
[ Phone Ringing ]
- Chris Horner. Hello, Christopher Horner.
I'm Marie-Monique Robin from France.
- Yeah, we appreciate your persistence in...
in asking, but uh, you know
we've had several conversations internally about this
and uh, have not changed our position.
So, there's no reason for us to participate.
Our suspicion is that it would not be positive.
Um, so, you know...
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