Monsanto and PCBs

blamanj writes: "While this story isn't about the gadgetry that typically appeals to /.ers, it's worth a look. The Washington Post has acquired documents showing how a Monsanto Corp. PCB plant polluted a small town in Alabama with full knowledge of what it was doing. Their own tests showed that when fish were placed into a local stream, "Their skin would literally slough off." They showed no concern for the residents, only about potential expensive regulations or bad publicity. Why is this relevant? Well, Monsanto is currently one of biggest proponents of GM (genetically modified) foods." Very thorough investigative article about how a corporation reacts when a profitable business line is threatened, or a cautionary tale about wonder technologies, take your pick.

Comments

Re:Corporate...

[darkov]

My comments were aimed at the people making the decisions. They are the ones who should take responsibility, not people who just do what they are told.

The best way to punish corporate fuckwits is not to impose financial penalties. That can be factored in as an expense and risk factor. These people should be made to live in their own filth. We should show them complete disregard for their lives, just as they have for others.

Why is it that if I kill someone by accident, I'll go to jail (most probably). But if some corporate idiot kills tens or hundreds of people in a cimmunity, he'll still get his bonus?

Monsanto and The PCB's...

[TheSauce]

More interesting and relevant from the article is the premise that they were aware as early as the late 1930's that they were doing lasting damage--and worked very hard to keep that from surfacing--since they had a complete monopoly on PCB's period. And production continued until two years before PCB's were banned for good in 1979.
Good corporate citizenship it wasn't. Worse, at the level intimated in the article (if true,) that particular factory and its overseers were committing mass murder. One has to wonder about our corporate law structure on that note.
Are fines and clean-up measures a reasonable response?

Re:Guilt By Association, don't buy it

[TheAJofOZ]

To claim that GM foods are bad because a corporation that have done evil things is a proponent of it, is no more valid an argument than claiming that since Hitler claimed that 2+2=4, the real value must be something else.

A number of people have stated that this analogy is incorrect already, but none of them seem to be getting the point through to people, so let me try an analogy to show why these actions are in fact reason to question the GM production from Monsanto.

Let's say that you have a friend who you've known for a fair while and trust. You tell this friend a secret which is really important to you that it is kept secret and they break your trust by telling a whole bunch of people your secret with no reasonable justification for these actions. Needless to say you're pretty annoyed, you yell and scream etc, etc. Then you notice that your friend gets on really well with your girlfriend.

Now, there is no evidence to suggest that your friend is doing anything with your girlfriend and before this friend betrayed your trust you never would have even thought he would steal your girlfriend - but you never would have thought he'd breach your trust either. It's pretty clear in this situation that while you shouldn't jump to conclusions you probably shouldn't put blind faith into your friend who has clearly and blatantly betrayed your trust.

Now lets suppose that you know a corporation who makes weed killer and the weed killer works really well - you've been buying it for a fair while now. Suddenly you discover that in producing this weed killer the company has been dumping all kinds of dangerous chemicals into a river - affecting a significant number of people - with no good reason.

Then you notice that this corporation is producing genetically modified foods (which you regularly eat). Clearly it's not a time to go jumping to conclusions, but it's also not all that wise to continue to put your blind faith in the corporation.

Whether or not there is evidence that the GM foods produced by Monsanto are good, bad or indifferent is irrelevant. When a company shows this much flagrant disregard for the health and saftey of people, it is probably worth taking a closer look at their other areas of operation - not doing so is akin to burying your head in the sand.

Re:Corporate...

[Big Dogs Cock]

After a couple of well publicised incidents in the UK (Hatfield train crash etc.) the subject of "corporate mansluaghter" (manslaughter in the UK is, I think, similar to 2nd degree murder in the states). Obviously not popular with big companies because it could actually mean executives going to jail when their negilgence results in someone getting killed. It doesn't make a lot of sense that if you drive a car dangerously and kill someone, you go down; if you drive a company carelessly and kill someone, you might get a fine of 0.0000001% of your turnover.

One thing I've noticed in the UK, is since the privatisation of our railways, almost all incidents have been blamed on the driver - who is normally dead so can't fight back. This way nobody can sue the company. Hatfield was one of the first ones where they couldn't do that 'cos unless the driver stopped the train, got out, broke the rail himself, got back in, backed up to get some speed and then drove round the corner he couldn't possibly be at fault.

If corporations want the same rights as citizens, they should have the same responsibilities. Mind you, when they do send execs down (fraud or whatever), they get a nice open prison with full access to laptops, cellphones etc. so they can just carry on working. There is no justice.

Regulation Problem

[rlp]

Many (many) years ago I took a B-School class (Organizational Behavior) where I read a great article called "On the Folly of Rewarding A While Hoping for B" (still have it, it's by Steve Kerr if you want to read it). It gave numerous examples of skewed reward (or regulatory) systems and their consequences. One example was pollution regulation, where a simple calculation would show that it was to the companies benefit to risk the fine, rather than clean up the problem. Kerr's solution was to change the reward system as follows: The President of XYZ Corporation had to choose between a) spending $11 million dollars for anti-pollution equipment or b) incurring a fifty-fifty chance of going to jail for five years.

Re:Genetically modified food has existed for ages

[Dolly_Llama]

You have a valid, if simplistic, point. What you're missing however is that GM foods are a radical departure in the degree that an organism can be manipulated generation to generation. These new hybrids are introduced with minimal testing and as a large scale monoculture. This is bad.

In a larger sense, the tragedy of this industry is that the "science" that goes on loses much of its objectivity when research is results and profit driven, and not released for public scrutiny. We as the consuming public and we as educated people are forced to trust a faceless organization with limited liability and a very poor track record for honesty.