Monsanto's Global Pollution Legacy

Do we really want to eat food created by Monsanto, and sprayed with Monsanto's chemicals? Before we take another bite, a bit of research is in order.

This is the first sentence of the Monsanto Pledge, taken from www.monsanto.com:

"We want to make the world a better place for future generations."

Really? This sounds so good. Environmentally responsible people looking out for the good of humanity. However, I believe that no matter what is said, we can judge the fruit of this company by its actions. Please read the following article from SourceWatch, and judge for yourself if Monsanto's" claim that "a healthy, sustainable environment is important to our business" is true, or just another Public Relations spin.

 

From SourceWatch

In the 1930's Monsanto bought the company that invented PCBs and became the source of all PCBs in the United States. [1] (PCBs) is the acronym for Polychlorinated biphenyls which are complex chlorinated compounds [2].

In the Washington Post article (Jan 1, 2002) "Monsanto Hid Decades Of Pollution PCBs Drenched Ala. Town, But No One Was Ever Told" a grim story of Monsanto's treacherous behavior in Anniston Alabama was revealed. It is summed up in this chilling paragraph: "They also know that for nearly 40 years, while producing the now-banned industrial coolants known as PCBs at a local factory, Monsanto Co. routinely discharged toxic waste into a west Anniston creek and dumped millions of pounds of PCBs into oozing open-pit landfills. And thousands of pages of Monsanto documents -- many emblazoned with warnings such as "CONFIDENTIAL: Read and Destroy" -- show that for decades, the corporate giant concealed what it did and what it knew." [3] [4]

"On the west side of Anniston, the poor side of Anniston, the people ate dirt. They called it "Alabama clay" and cooked it for extra flavor. They also grew berries in their gardens, raised hogs in their back yards, caught bass in the murky streams where their children swam and played and were baptized. They didn't know their dirt and yards and bass and kids -- along with the acrid air they breathed -- were all contaminated with chemicals. They didn't know they lived in one of the most polluted patches of America."

The article must have been a severe blow to Monsanto PR since it had previously stated in response to a 1994 Sierra magazine article [5] that "Monsanto has never concealed any hazard of PCBs" and "Claims of 'cover-ups' and 'sacrificing "life itself" to corporate profits' are untrue and out of touch with Monsanto's way of doing business" [6]. This comment makes sense in light of a 1969 Monsanto directive to "a committee the company formed to address controversies about PCBs", it was to have "only two formal objectives: 'Permit continued sales and profits' and 'protect image of . . . the corporation'" [7] (1). "We can't afford to lose one dollar of business" an internal memo concluded [8]. The next year Monsanto secretly agreed that "any written effluent level reports [on PCBs] would be held confidential by the Technical Staff and would not be available to the public until or unless Monsanto released it" [9]. And that was apparently the final word because nothing changed for decades. According to the WP article the public did not become fully aware of the problem until 1993 when, "after a local angler caught deformed largemouth bass [in a local creek] ... the first advisories against eating fish from the area" were issued. This was "27 years after Monsanto learned about those bluegills sliding out of their skins". Monsanto's PCB monopoly had been netting them $22 million dollars a year.

Over twenty thousand Anniston residents were part of the suit which resulted in a $700 million fine. On February 22, 2002, Monsanto was found guilty of "negligence, wantonness, suppression of truth, nuisance, trespass, and outrage." Under Alabama law, the rare claim of outrage requires conduct "so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society". The settlement of the case, however, included "no admissions of wrongdoing" by Monsanto [11].

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