The 1999 Journal

December 12th

Presented by:   J S Chiappalone

Internet Address: www.cia.com.au/annwn

Our Motto: Take it or Leave it!

Copyright 1999 (c) by J.S. Chiappalone



FURTHER EXPOSURE OF ZIONISM

Monsanto - Zionist owned and controlled - is here exposed in its vile evilness. It has manipulated markets and attempted to illegally monopolise them; it has contaminated and poisoned the world, people and animals with its weed-killers, pet food additives, synthetic Growth Hormones, etc,.

This exposure, long overdue, confirms the prophecy made about Zionist exposure everywhere, in preparation for its elimination.

From http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/klubkonformist

The Konformist KN4M 12 October 1999
Guardian Specials on GM
How Monsanto's mind was changed

In spring the US giant was sure its GM technology was unbeatable. Then one man convinced the organisation that the game was up GM food: special report John Vidal Guardian (London) Saturday October 9, 1999 On July 14 a group of powerful Americans met secretly at the Willard hotel near the White House to listen to an English academic who had spent much of his life working in developing countries with peasant farmers.

The nine members of the Monsanto board of directors have serious political clout. Apart from Robert Shapiro, the visionary head of the $12bn a year corporation, and senior bankers and Harvard academics, it includes Mickey Kantor, former head of the US commerce department, and the former heads of the US social security department and the US environmental protection agency.

They were there to meet Gordon Conway, the president of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, whose remit is to help the world's disadvantaged. Mr Shapiro, who vows he is working for the world's poor with GM foods, had invited Professor Conway, formerly vice chancellor of Sussex university, to address the board as part of the corporation's commitment to consult more widely following the GM furore in Europe sparked by the so-called Terminator gene.

Because Rockefeller had put more than $100m into public research into GM crops, Prof Conway was thought to be an ally; he was expected to make a friendly, gentlemanly speech, perhaps with some mild advice, that would go no further than the four walls of the Willard.

But privately, Prof Conway, along with increasing sections of the US intellectual community, deplored the corporation's style and global strategy.

Meltdown of confidence In Europe it had alienated millions, he believed, and was threatening a trade war and long term damage to the prospects of the poor. The corporation with a reputation for arrogance and secrecy was seen to be responsible for a meltdown of confidence in science and big business and a backlash against US agriculture. Moreover, Monsanto's effective ownership of Terminator technology would allow the corporation, the second biggest agribusiness in the world, to develop plants that bore sterile seeds - a move that had angered farmers in the developing world.

Prof Conway had given Monsanto little warning, even when he had visited the company's St Louis HQ a few weeks earlier. But at the Willard he went straight for Monsanto's guts. For more than a hour, the professor lectured the board: change tack, or bring the wrath of the scientific, political, and global community down on them.

"Admit that you do not have all the answers," he said. "Commit yourselves to prompt, full, and honest sharing of data. This is not the time for a new PR offensive but for a new relationship based on honesty, full disclosure, and a very uncertain shared future."

Prof Conway argued that the possible adverse consequences for billions of developing world farmers outweighed any social benefits in protecting the Terminator technology. What the Terminator gene did, he said, was effectively kill the process that let farmers sow their own seeds, and subsistence farmers were too poor to buy new seed. The possible consequences were terrible. In short, he told them, Monsanto was socially irresponsible and the public was alienated. He urged a "global public dialogue" that would air all sides of the issues.

Terse statement - The board were shocked. But they did not suspect that Prof Conway had warned the press what he intended to say. Within hours Rockefeller had issued seven challenges to Monsanto. "It was like a boil had been lanced, a milestone," said one person who was party to the talks. "Someone in authority had for the first time held this monolithic corporation up to public accountability." Monsanto was furious, and issued a terse statement: "The meeting was frank and productive. We will continue to reach out to people like Prof Conway to discuss the challenges and opportunities of biotechnology applications in agriculture."

The Conway meeting was seminal. Until then, about the only genuine "reaching out" the company had done was to its lawyers, publicists, lobbyists, and friends in governments. It had dismissed the social and ethical critiques of environment, church, and consumers groups, and in July was hoping to ride out the storm. Mr Shapiro was confident: for the six months of 1999, the company earned $476m, up 5% on 1998, and its income had grown 28%. In particular, it had no intention of backing down on Terminator. Its only retreat was to admit it had misunderstood European sensibilities and been "naive" in trying to win fast approval.

Until the spring Monsanto had broad support in the US. Wall Street and the White House still favoured the company, whose shares were priced at $47 each, and analysts were saying it was primed for success. Mr Shapiro could tell shareholders that the flooding of the US market with GM crops had been the most "successful launch of any technology ever, including the plough". He anticipated a 300% expansion in the two years to a staggering 183m acres. Nor was Europe a problem: "Eventually, scientific proof should win over reluctant and skeptical consumers," he said. But, since the spring, little had gone right. In April a manufacturer of veggie burgers stopped using GM soybeans. The Wall Street Journal then reported that the GM controversy was "beginning to be felt in the US". Some farmers started to avoid GM crops, and the powerful US grain industry was saying it had nearly stopped shipping to Europe - a $200m market .

By the summer, the first GM crops were being destroyed by US activists and the press had begun to widely report global disillusionment. Europe was deteriorating even further, with supermarkets disavowing GM products and activists digging up crops. Meanwhile, the Clinton administration was reportedly "dreading starting a trade war over GM because public sentiment is so strongly against".

And in poor countries, Terminator was becoming a political issue. India and Zimbabwe had effectively banned the use of the technology, and the world's largest group of agricultural research organisations had condemned it. By May, observers noted a definite cooling by Dan Glickman, the US agriculture secretary, who was warning of "profound consequences" if the GM situation did not improve. For the first time, he encouraged US firms to voluntarily label products. Monsanto was reportedly furious.

Told to keep quiet Mr Glickman then upped the stakes, warning GM could hurt small farmers. He reportedly said that Mr Shapiro should keep quiet "because every time he opens his mouth, US agriculture loses millions more bushels of agriculture exports".

By the summer, US corn exports to the EU were reported to have dropped 96% in a year. To Monsanto's horror, farmers were beginning to choose traditional seeds rather than risk the new. One giant processor announced it would pay extra for traditional soybeans. Within weeks, Monsanto was further exposed: the British AstraZeneca GM company said it would not commercialise its own Terminator-type technology.

By August Mr Shapiro was on the ropes. Mr Glickman said he would investigate whether the US agriculture department was too close to companies like Monsanto, and the message was picked up on Wall Street. Deutsche, the largest European bank, had in May recommended institutional investors to sell Monsanto shares - within days the price had dropped; when Deutsche repeated the advice in September, other analysts joined in. Monsanto stock had lost 35% of its value in a year, while Wall Street as a whole went up 30%.

The Conway message finally got through. After heated debate in the company, Monsanto's president, Hendrik Ver faillie, went 10 days ago to the US senate to say that it "would now act to meet concerns". He then travelled secretly to Britain to talk to the Soil Association and others, promising to help farmers with traditional cross-breeding.

On Monday, Mr Shapiro wrote to Prof Conway to say the company would no longer pursue research into the Terminator technology. On Tuesday he was due in Britain at the Greenpeace business conference but pulled out. But his interactive video link showed how much Mr Shapiro had changed. Instead of a beam and a twinkle, the screen showed a pale and drawn man: "We forgot to listen", he said. "We have irritated and antagonised more people than we have persuaded our confidence in biotechnology has been widely seen as arogance and condecension." He promised wide consultation and to listen carefully. The questions remain, but, said Prof Conway, "it's a start".

We forgot to listen, says Monsanto
GM company chief takes blame for public relations failures and pledges to answer safety concerns
GM food: special report John Vidal Guardian (London) Thursday October 7, 1999

Bob Shapiro, head of the embattled GM company Monsanto, yesterday took personal blame for the meltdown in global public opinion over biotechnology and promised a new dialogue with society.

Looking drawn and troubled, with an important meeting with reportedly upset shareholders ahead of him, Mr Shapiro was conciliatory: "We started with the conviction that biotechnology was useful and valuable but we have tended to see it as our task to convince people that we were right and that people with different points of view were wrong", he told the Greenpeace business conference in London, attended by captains of industry, other GM companies and eco-activists.

"We have irritated and antagonised more people than we have persuaded. Our confidence in biotechnology has been widely seen as arrogance and condescension because we thought it was our job to persuade. But too often we forgot to listen."

Mr Shapiro said Monsanto did not have the answers to the public's concerns about safety, genetic pollution, ethics and the power of corporations, but was now committed to engaging in dialogue with society to find solutions. He said: "None of these concerns is trivial. Each is valid and needs examination. We want to participate constructively in the process. It means listening carefully."

Mr Shapiro said Monsanto sought common ground with his critics: "We are listening, and will seek it whenever its available, and will seek solutions that work for a wide range of people."

He added that the company was prepared, as new products were developed, to engage in consultation with people "at an earlier level than we have been doing in the past".

But Greenpeace's director, Lord Melchett, accused Mr Shapiro of being a bully. Monsanto, he said, had fundamentally misunderstood the changes taking place in society and people's changing priorities. "The vast majority are not anti science, or Luddite. But they are increasingly aware and mistrustful of the combination of big science and big business. Your vision promotes false promises of easy alternatives via short term technical fixes and increases the imbalance of power between multinational corporations and farmers in the developing world.

"People are becoming more confident in their understanding of what is at stake and more resolute in their ability to resist. There has been an unprecedented, permanent and irreversible shift in the political landscape," he said.

Mr Shapiro said that US polls consistently showed that opposition to biotechnology came from the poor and uneducated, whereas university-educated people and those most familiar with the science were most supportive.

Don't expect Monsanto to have learned anything from this exposure. It will attempt to be as surreptitious and as evil as ever, but it cannot go anywhere. Everything it will now do will cause more problems for itself and a dying world.

***

Evil is an Octopus involving all the archons

Monsanto & Government
Regulatory Agency Employees
Are The Same People!!

From Peter Khaled <[email protected]>
http://www.purefood.org/Monsanto/revolvedoor.cfm
12-9-99

David W. Beier . . .former head of Government Affairs for Genentech, Inc., . . .now chief domestic policy advisor to Al Gore, Vice President of the United States.

Linda J. Fisher . . .former Assistant Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Pollution Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, . . .now Vice President of Government and Public Affairs for Monsanto Corporation.

Michael A. Friedman, M.D. . . former acting commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Department of Health and Human Services . . .now senior vice-president for clinical affairs at G. D. Searle & Co., a pharmaceutical division of Monsanto Corporation.

L. Val Giddings . . . former biotechnology regulator and (biosafety) negotiator at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA/APHIS), . . .now Vice President for Food & Agriculture of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).

Marcia Hale . . . former assistant to the President of the United States and director for intergovernmental affairs, . . .now Director of International Government Affairs for Monsanto Corporation.

Michael (Mickey) Kantor. . . former Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce and former Trade Representative of the United States, . . .now member of the board of directors of Monsanto Corporation.

Josh King . . . former director of production for White House events, . . . now director of global communication in the Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.

Terry Medley . . . former administrator of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture, former chair and vice-chair of the United States Department of Agriculture Biotechnology Council, former member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) food advisory committee, . . . and now Director of Regulatory and External Affairs of Dupont Corporation's Agricultural Enterprise.

Margaret Miller . . . former chemical laboratory supervisor for Monsanto, . . .now Deputy Director of Human Food Safety and Consultative Services, New Animal Drug Evaluation Office, Center for Veterinary Medicine in the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).*

Michael Phillips . . . recently with the National Academy of Science Board on Agriculture . . . now head of regulatory affairs for the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

William D. Ruckelshaus . . . former chief administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), . . .now (and for the past 12 years) a member of the board of directors of Monsanto Corporation.

Michael Taylor . . . former legal advisor to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s Bureau of Medical Devices and Bureau of Foods, later executive assistant to the Commissioner of the FDA, . . . still later a partner at the law firm of King & Spaulding where he supervised a nine-lawyer group whose clients included Monsanto Agricultural Company, . . . still later Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the United States Food and Drug Administration, . . . and later with the law firm of King & Spaulding. . . . now head of the Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.*

Lidia Watrud . . . former microbial biotechnology researcher at Monsanto Corporation in St. Louis, Missouri, . . .now with the United States Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Effects Laboratory, Western Ecology Division.

Jack Watson. . .former chief of staff to the President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, . . .now a staff lawyer with Monsanto Corporation in Washington, D.C.

Clayton K. Yeutter . . . former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, former U.S. Trade Representative (who led the U.S. team in negotiating the U.S. Canada Free Trade Agreement and helped launch the Uruguay Round of the GATT negotiations), now a member of the board of directors of Mycogen Corporation, whose majority owner is Dow AgroSciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company.

Larry Zeph . . . former biologist in the Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, . . . now Regulatory Science Manager at Pioneer Hi-Bred International.

*Margaret Miller, Michael Taylor, and Suzanne Sechen (an FDA "primary reviewer for all rbST and other dairy drug production applications" ) were the subjects of a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation in 1994 for their role in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's approval of Posilac, Monsanto Corporation's formulation of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbST or rBGH). The GAO Office found "no conflicting financial interests with respect to the drug's approval" and only "one minor deviation from now superseded FDA regulations". (Quotations are from the 1994 GAO report).

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