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[bacasper]

Monsanto 'faked' data for approvals claims its ex-chief

Dinesh C. Sharma
New Delhi, February 9, 2010

The debate on genetically modified (GM) brinjal variety continues to generate heat. Former managing director of Monsanto India, Tiruvadi Jagadisan, is the latest to join the critics of Bt brinjal, perhaps the first industry insider to do so.

Jagadisan, who worked with Monsanto for nearly two decades, including eight years as the managing director of India operations, spoke against the new variety during the public consultation held in Bangalore on Saturday.

On Monday, he elaborated by saying the company "used to fake scientific data" submitted to government regulatory agencies to get commercial approvals for its products in India.

The former Monsanto boss said government regulatory agencies with which the company used to deal with in the 1980s simply depended on data supplied by the company while giving approvals to herbicides.

"The Central Insecticide Board was supposed to give these approvals based on the location and crop-specific data from India. But it simply accepted foreign data supplied by Monsanto. They did not even have a test tube to validate the data and, at times, the data itself was faked," Jagadisan said.

"I retired from the company as I felt the management of Monsanto, USA, was exploiting our country," Jagadisan, 84, said from his home in Bangalore.

"At that time, Monsanto was getting into the seed business and I had information that a 'terminator gene' was to be incorporated in the seeds being supplied by the firm. This meant that the farmer had to buy fresh seeds from Monsanto at heavy cost every time he planted the crop," he said.

Jagadisan said the parent company also retracted from the assurance given to then minister for chemicals and fertilisers, Vasant Sathe, on setting up a manufacturing unit in collaboration with Hindustan Insecticides for the herbicide butachlor.

"The negotiations went on for over a year and in the meantime, Monsanto imported and sold large quantities of the product and made huge profits," he said.

Asked to comment on Jagadisan's allegations, a Monsanto spokesperson said: "We have full faith in the Indian regulatory system, which has its checks and measures in place to ensure accuracy and authenticity of data furnished to them." On approval of GM crops, the spokesperson said the regulatory process was stringent and "no biotech crops are allowed in the market until they undergo extensive and rigid crop safety assessments, following strict scientific protocols".

[visitorq]

Monsanto = most evil company ever.

[djsmnc]

Definitely not a surprise. Doesn't matter what they do, they have so much legal and financial backing that something like this won't come close to bringing them down.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I'm just glad Monsanto can't use its billions in profits to contribute to political campaigns. That would be a disaster, considering their corporate ethical culture allows them to fake data... Oh, wait. They can.

Never mind.

[HalfJapanese]

I had never heard about the evil crimes against humanity that the Monsanto corporation has committed until I started listening to Alex Jones. He brings up the topic of the Monsanto Company quite often and how their actions are tied in with the New World Order to make the people of the world sterilized/cancerous as a way to reduce the global population.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Not to defend Monsanto, but Alex Jones? Good lord.
New World Order? Christ on a cracker.

[visitorq]

[Fox]

[visitorq]

Monsanto is a perfect example of a criminal enterprise empowered by government collusion and corruption. The FDA approves pretty well every product Monsanto puts out, nearly all of which are detrimental to life itself. Everything from Agent Orange, to aspartame (a toxic food additive containing methanol), to bovine growth hormones, to toxic chemical pesticides used all over the world, and GMO crops that cause organ failure in the test mammals they feed it to. Despite this, they get government approval through regulation, fooling the public into believing Monsanto products are good and safe, while at the same time labeling requirements for GMO foods are next to nil.

Meanwhile, when Monsanto's mutant crops spread into neighboring fields (carried by the wind), the farmers who own the land are sued by Monsanto lawyers (they own the patent on the genetic code of these crops) and the courts rules in their favor, forcing these farmers to pay ruinous damages or switch over to Monsanto seeds.

After they've bullied most farmers into switching to their products, new "terminator seeds" that can only be planted once (genetically programmed to be sterile), need to be purchased each season from Monsanto. The legality of this is all upheld by the courts and the government, and Monsanto even receives loads of taxpayer money from the government in the form of corn subsidies and ethanol mandates (gotta love corporate welfare)...

Then there's the fairly well-known fact that Donald Rumsfeld was the CEO of G.D. Searle and Co. (Monsanto owned subsidiary, producer of Nutrasweet) before entering the Bush administration. Surely just a coincidence. But no need worry anyway, since Obama's come to the rescue. Your man will put things right, won't he Ya-ta? Right??