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Monsanto Leaks Suggest It Tried To Kill Cancer Research On Roundup Weed Killer (rt.com)
Danny Hakim reports via The New York Times (Warning: article may be paywalled; alternate source): Documents released Tuesday in a lawsuit against Monsanto raised new questions about the company's efforts to influence the news media and scientific research and revealed internal debate over the safety of its highest-profile product, the weed killer Roundup. The active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, is the most common weed killer in the world and is used by farmers on row crops and by home gardeners. While Roundup's relative safety has been upheld by most regulators, a case in federal court in San Francisco continues to raise questions about the company's practices and the product itself.
The documents underscore the lengths to which the agrochemical company goes to protect its image. Documents show that Henry I. Miller, an academic and a vocal proponent of genetically modified crops, asked Monsanto to draft an article for him that largely mirrored one that appeared under his name on Forbes's website in 2015. Mr. Miller could not be reached for comment. A similar issue appeared in academic research. An academic involved in writing research funded by Monsanto, John Acquavella, a former Monsanto employee, appeared to express discomfort with the process, writing in a 2015 email to a Monsanto executive, "I can't be part of deceptive authorship on a presentation or publication." He also said of the way the company was trying to present the authorship: "We call that ghost writing and it is unethical." Mr. Miller's 2015 article on Forbes's website was an attack on the findings of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization that had labeled glyphosate a probable carcinogen, a finding disputed by other regulatory bodies. In the email traffic, Monsanto asked Mr. Miller if he would be interested in writing an article on the topic, and he said, "I would be if I could start from a high-quality draft." The article appeared under Mr. Miller's name, and with the assertion that "opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own." The magazine did not mention any involvement by Monsanto in preparing the article.
The documents underscore the lengths to which the agrochemical company goes to protect its image. Documents show that Henry I. Miller, an academic and a vocal proponent of genetically modified crops, asked Monsanto to draft an article for him that largely mirrored one that appeared under his name on Forbes's website in 2015. Mr. Miller could not be reached for comment. A similar issue appeared in academic research. An academic involved in writing research funded by Monsanto, John Acquavella, a former Monsanto employee, appeared to express discomfort with the process, writing in a 2015 email to a Monsanto executive, "I can't be part of deceptive authorship on a presentation or publication." He also said of the way the company was trying to present the authorship: "We call that ghost writing and it is unethical." Mr. Miller's 2015 article on Forbes's website was an attack on the findings of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization that had labeled glyphosate a probable carcinogen, a finding disputed by other regulatory bodies. In the email traffic, Monsanto asked Mr. Miller if he would be interested in writing an article on the topic, and he said, "I would be if I could start from a high-quality draft." The article appeared under Mr. Miller's name, and with the assertion that "opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own." The magazine did not mention any involvement by Monsanto in preparing the article.
Company kills people for profit, then covers it up?
How is this news? It's called "capitalism".
Learn to love Alaska
Just for a bit of perspective:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Nitrates, which are found in pretty much any kind of meat or leafy vegetable
Nearly everything that comes out of the tailpipe of a car
An organic compound found in most essential oils and grapefruit juice
Rubber
The topical medicine used to kill lice
A compound formed when cooking any meat
An organic compound found in algae and kelp
A compound used to make synthetic glycerol used in medical applications
Ironically, some of the chemicals used to treat certain types of cancers
An antibiotic on the WHO's list of essential medications
Most steroids
One of the most popular drugs used to treat diabetes
Most fire retardants, including the one usually used in solar cells
The drink Mate
Pretty much anything that is fried
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
This is yet another technology where there is a clear need for strong regulation, IMO. Gene manipulation is a technology that has huge potential implications, both good and bad; it can - and probably will in the future - be used to improve crop yields and add disease resistance, and it is of course already being tried out in gene therapies for a number of serious conditions. We could produce many important chemicals - drugs and other - in a cheap and easy way by modifying a suitable micro organism. But as Monsanto and others have demonstrated, companies and individuals driven by short-sighted greed can potentially cause enormous harm, not the least of which is the damage to public trust in this technology. Maybe this is too radical, but I am probably in favour on a complete ban on the commercial exploitation on gene editing technology until we have a set of strong and clear, global regulations in place; all research into this should be publicly funded and published in open access journals.
I know there's negatives to round-up, but considering how much more efficient farmers are these days, was it a positive?
That depends on how you define positive.
Some may not see biodiversity going down as positive.
Some may not see glyphosate resistant weeds as positive.
And some may not see family farms closing down or being transformed to agricultural factories as positive.
You did claim that.
No, i really didn't.
The parent claimed Monsanto was KILLING AMERICAN CITIZENS. I merely wonder where the piles of dead people are. I suspect it is news to the AC that cancer in the U.S. has been declining steadily for a long time.
Or lock the farmers into having to buy their seeds from one certain manufacturer. Essentially, GMO allow a few companies to control the world's food supply.
And then there's lawsuits due to patent and other forms of IP issues. "Sorry, you're gonna starve now because you infringed our copyright."
The real problem is not discovering yet another corporation lying about how dangerous their product is. The real problem is nothing is being done about it. There's not a fucking thing that will come out of these latest "shocking" revelations. Never has. Never will.
You want to know how insane it is? If sanctions were actually taken against Monsanto for poisoning food crops and killing people, their lawyers would point to the tobacco industry and say, "Hey! No fair! How come they get to kill people and we can't?!?"
Greed N. Corruption runs capitalism today, and the lack of action taken against deadly corporations shows that it is sanctioned at the highest levels. The reason is quite simple; resource management is a responsibility held by every government, and population control is a key component of that responsibility.
Before you label that a conspiracy, take a good hard look at how many deadly products are legal today. Why would Greed ever want to cure cancer? There's trillions to be made treating it instead and it ensures deaths. Outlaw tobacco? Yeah right. That's another Win-Win industry.
Death is no longer merely a side-effect of life. It is now manufactured.
Family farms comprised 99% of U.S. farms in 2016, which is up from 97% in 2012.
Count acreage or stop.
Why? The claim was that family farms are being shut down or being turned into factories.
Nonetheless, family farms accounted for 88% of farmland in 2012, and 94% in 2016.