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No More 'Miracles From Molecules': Monsanto's Name Is Being Retired (reuters.com)
Flexagon writes: Germany's Bayer announced today that in its link-up with Monsanto, it's retiring the "Monsanto" name, and with it the name of the company that originally sponsored Disneyland's "Adventure Thru Inner Space" attraction. The $63 billion takeover will wrap up on Thursday. "Bayer will remain the company name. Monsanto will no longer be a company name. The acquired products will retain their brand names and become part of the Bayer portfolio," it said.
The decision to retire the name is a smart business move. "These days Monsanto is shorthand for, as NPR's Dan Charles has put it, 'lots of things that some people love to hate': Genetically modified crops, which Monsanto invented," reports NPR. "Seed patents, which Monsanto has fought to defend. Herbicides such as Monsanto's Roundup, which protesters have sharply criticized for its possible health risks. Big agriculture in general, of which Monsanto was the reviled figurehead."
The decision to retire the name is a smart business move. "These days Monsanto is shorthand for, as NPR's Dan Charles has put it, 'lots of things that some people love to hate': Genetically modified crops, which Monsanto invented," reports NPR. "Seed patents, which Monsanto has fought to defend. Herbicides such as Monsanto's Roundup, which protesters have sharply criticized for its possible health risks. Big agriculture in general, of which Monsanto was the reviled figurehead."
It's a toxic brand: I'm surprised it took that long. I mean, Bayer isn't called "IG Farben" for good reason. Bayer associates with "aspirin", which is good, right!?!
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
"These days Monsanto is shorthand for, as NPR's Dan Charles has put it, 'lots of things that some people love to hate':"
MUCH better they are now called by the name of the company known for gassing Jews.
Monsanto name is gone, however their genetically modified crops that only grow with their products remains.
i.e. nothing has changed.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
No, no ethic problem here. If you get sick with 'monsanto' products, they will provide you with some aspirin :)
Bayer is now the biotechnology migraine headache of the 21st century.
Why is Snark Required?
These products are why rampant starvation is a thing of the past. Your statement is a REAL example of white privilege.
Forget it, Jake, it's Chi--er, an AC troll.
Zyklon B was Bayer.
Or I can look at year-over-year global GHI trends and--oh, look--they're all going down. Besides, three miles from my house are slums with the poorest Americans and rampant obesity.
Monsanto more or less single-handedly gave bio-engineering (in the widest sense, including genetic engineering / modification, molecular biology, agro sience) a bad name (they and the possibility to patent genes, I think). As a former bio-chemistry undergrad I'm far from a techno-phobe, I know where genetic engineering is used, what it can do (producing human insuline for example). But I know, the way Monsanto does / did genetic engineering, it brings farmer into their dependency. It's a total vendor lock-in.
As a German, I'm greatly dissappointed, Bayer bought into this totally evil brand (no, no quotes to make that adjective softer). Removing the old name will not help, the portfolio (and the methods) remain the same.
How can you patent a seed????
Syria isn't in Africa, and Germany didn't send U-Hauls to anyone. Arable land has been going up. Population has grown faster than arable land, but not nearly as fast as they productivity if that arable land. You need a better source for your talking points.
That's right: now do us a service by reminding everyone everywhere: Emerdata is the new Cambridge Analytica.
It's easy to memorize Emerdata, like the French merde. Shitty data or something.
"The decision to retire the name is a smart business move."
The decision is a smart business move only because you have enough idiots out there who fall for the sleight-of-name trick.
A company being forced to change it's name tends to say a lot about all of the immoral, unethical shit that piled up high and deep to justify such a change. In the end, little will change other than the name. All the shit that people were pissed off at Monsanto will continue for one reason; because it's profitable.
And the ignorant masses will fall for it, as they celebrate their "win." The evil Monsanto was defeated today.
What is hilarious is that the same people that constantly shout, "Science!" with respect to their causes that they find are supported by science, completely ignore the conspicuous lack of science to support their claims about GMO, Round Up, etc.
So...you do get that a very large percentage of these "Syrian refugees" aren't actually from the country of Syria right?
Yes I agree! How peoole can make any claims that GMOs are safe with respect to the wider ecosystem, with virtually no test data is ridiculous and anti-science BS
Is there a company, or organization or even a person that you can really point to and say this is truly a force for good?
We live in a world with trade-offs. We can't get what we want exactly how we want it. And what we need is different for every person, and changes all the time.
Having worked with many of these Evil corporations, and working with some of the organizations that people seem to call good. There isn't a super villain attitude of some guy trying to make lives difficult for people. But people who are trying to improve their own lives and their family as a priority as millions of years of evolution have conditioned us to do.
So the demand was for food, that is free of pests, and will not be less toxic. Monsanto did that.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
> All changing your name like that does is publicly admit that your reputation is impossible to salvage and you are trying to be sneaky.
What the heck are you talking about? Why in the world would the larger company, Bayer, change ITS name to the name of the smaller company it is acquiring? Of course Bayer is keeping their name.
What could be sneaky be if $bigcompany bought $smallcompany and then changed its name to $smallcompany. Keeping their name is what companies normally do when they make acquisitions.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yesterday, Monsanto was the source of hatred. Tomorrow, it will be Bayer. It's already getting there, in fact.
They could be from the moon for all I care. It's easily apparent they aren't from the parts of Africa with the worst famine.
What's Bayer's ethics like? Will we see any change in "evil" Monsanto?
Unfortunately the ethics of liberals has not changed. Monsanto's evil will just be globally replaced with "Bayer" on all those websites. The Hollywood stars that the left consults on science policy will start boycotting aspirin.
Yes I agree! How peoole can make any claims that non-GMOs are safe with respect to the wider ecosystem, with virtually no test data is ridiculous and anti-science BS
Here, have another cookie. Please tell me MORE
Aside from the stupid rhetorical reversal trick (employed exclusively by those without an argument), are you saying that a product subject to EPA regulations underwent NO testing what-so-ever?
How fucking stupid are you people?
The EPA considers glyphosate to have low toxicity when used at the recommended doses. “Risk estimates for glyphosate were well below the level of concern,” said EPA spokesman Dale Kemery. The EPA classifies glyphosate as a Group E chemical, which means there is strong evidence that it does not cause cancer in humans.
From fucking OBAMA'S EPA.
Do you think for one fucking second that they wouldn't ban this if they thought they had a case?
Holy Fucking Shit you people are God Damned Luddites.
Why in the world would the larger company, Bayer, change ITS name to the name of the smaller company it is acquiring?
See: AT&T
But seriously, huge companies do not usually use the parent company's name. How many products in the grocery aisle have you seen marked as Mondelez International? You see plenty of Kraft, Nabisco, Cadbury, etc.
Sure. A poison is just harmless. This is the kind of nonsense that makes you "science groupies" look no better than members of the American Family Association or the Taliban.
We have plenty of examples of things we once thought were harmless that didn't turn out to be so harmless later. We also have good examples of "science" driven by political and corporate agenda.
Anyone that's ever taken a stats course should be well aware of that great line attributed to Clemens & Disraeli.
Your blind faith is unwarranted and unbecoming anyone that understands science as a methodology rather than a body of unassailable doctrine.
It's ignorant of history too.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You also see Bayer in the supermarket, it's a brand.
As you said, Mondelez International isn't a big grocery brand (it's a new company) Nabisco and Kraft are major consumer brands. Of course if you're choosing between a major brand name and new name nobody has heard of, you keep using the successful brand.
Holy shit you are a fucking naive twit.
"Obama's EPA" was/is stacked with former Monsanto executives. And trumpy is mixing in former Big oil executives now and gutting regulations. Environmental "Protection" agency my ass.
Name a single thing that science once though was harmless that didn't turn out to be so and that also have been put through such an extensive number of studies and experiments as GMOs have. GMOs have been a thing for 35 years now, strange that all that harm have not emerged yet.
> These products are why rampant starvation is a thing of the past. Your statement is a REAL example of white privilege.
Quit swimming in the kool-aid. "Rampant starvation" ended well before the rise of Monsanto, their herbicide, or their franken-plants.
Their products mainly fuel the Western junk food industry. They don't "feed the world". They make your Coke and Twinkies cheaper.
The vast majority of nutrient dense foods are not GMO.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
And you do know that sometimes the people at government agencies make mistakes? Or are subject to pressures, either social, financial, or otherwise?
And how much of this work done at "Obama's EPA" is really just grandfathered in work from some previous administration? How are we to trust the work of the Trump EPA, when the President himself says things like "Global warming is a Chinese hoax" (https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/265895292191248385)?
Once the Trump administration is finally in the dustbin of history, how many mistakes will have been made that will be the status quo in the next, presumably Democratic, administration?
I do not have a signature
In related news, Oracle is changing its name to "Cuddly Bunny".
Table-ized A.I.
CO2, Tetraethyl lead and lead in general, CFCs, Thalidomide, and perhaps cigarettes. It's a short list, and doesn't actually refute overall point, but yes, there have been a few fairly serious scientific errors in the past.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
If you're not on the revisionist side of the argument, why don't you pipe down? Holocaust denial does not deserve some sort of rigorous disproof. Being shouted down in public is their least deserts; they're lucky that such speech isn't criminal.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Kinda like how Blackwater changed to Xe Services and currently is named Academi. Enough name changes and you can hit the reset button on a poor reputation.
Account -> Discussions -> Disable Sigs
Education.
So, I will start boycotting pharmaceuticals from Bayer then ...
Besides those brand containing "Bayer" in the name, they also own Adverio, AgraQuest, Agreva, AgrEvo, AlcaFleu, Athenix, Berlifarma, Berlimed, Berlipharm, Berlis, BGI, Biagro, Biogenetic Technologies, BlueRock Therapeutics, Casebia Therapeutics, Centrofarma, Chemdyes Pakistan, Chemion, Collaterial Therapeutics, Conceptus SAS, Cooksonia Opco, Cooper Land Company of New Jersey, Coppertone, CorporaciÃn Bonima, Covestro, CropScience NewCo, Currenta, Delinting and Seed Treating Company, (Kunmig) Dihon Pharmaceuticals, Dr Scholl, Farmaco, Flagship Ventures, GP Grenzach, Hild Samen, Hornbeck Seed Company, Imaxeon, Intendis, Intraserv, Jenapharm, KVP Pharma, Medipharm, Medrad, Menadier Heilmittel, MiraLAX, Myanmar Aventis CropScience, Nanjing Baijingyu Pharmaceutical Co, NippoNex, NOR-AM Agro, Numhems, Pallas Versicherung, Pandias, Productos QuÃmicos Naturales, Shering /Schering-Plough, Steigerwald Arzneimittelwerk, STWB, TecArena+, Tectrion, TravelBoard.
Gah. That was a longer list than I thought it would be. (From Bayer's web page)
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
...should all our lunar gopher complaints be addressed to now?
Check wikipedia
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Good strawman argument. OP points out that GMO are not fully tested with respect to how they'll affect the ecosystem, and you respond with a rant specifically about toxicity in humans.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Granted, Agent Orange was a long time ago, and Monsanto wasn't the only company producing the herbicide, but it was still a very, very nasty product that had severe consequences for the people of Vietnam and many US soldiers who fought there.
Sure. A poison is just harmless. This is the kind of nonsense that makes you "science groupies" look no better than members of the American Family
Actually yes, poison is harmless in most cases. No matter how much you may think that the food that you eat is "natural", "organic", "pure", "homeopathic", "in tune with Gaia", or whatever your fetish may or may not be, you're still going to end up with poison somewhere in the mix. I'm not setting it, it's just a fact.
The key thing that you're overlooking is that it's the dose that makes the poison, not the substance itself. Take meadow saffron for example; extremely deadly plant, eating a leaf will most likely cause an excruciatingly painful death, but eating a tiny fraction of the leaf relieves gout. And then there's always water; dinking too much of it at once will lead to an unpleasant death by hyponatremia.
Glyphosate is similar. Trace amounts on food won't do anything to you, neither long term nor short term. The main issue with glyphosate is that it is a skin irritant, but in concentrations a few hundred orders of magnitude above what your thinking. EPA bribe conspiracy theories notwithstanding, given there is so much hate towards it, I think some well funded hippie group would have found something in the 28 years that roundup has been a thing. That is, of course, if they can manage to pull it off without scientific fraud, because they're having a hard time doing it any other way for their other pet cause.
http://www.slate.com/articles/...
Unfortunately, the fraudulent "truth" is the only one they're willing to accept, it seems.
And here I though that LCHF and Atkins where since long dead. Shouldn't all you hipsters be Paleo by now? And if you didn't get it, no science have never said that sugar is healthy (nor is it bad unless you overeat).
Good luck with that one. Aspartame have been the focus for numerous studies for decades and have time and time again been shown to be safe for human consumption. What ever George W might have been involved in is not something that I know or care about, I'm not American and George W did nothing to put Aspartame past the FDA equivalent in my country.