Natural News surveyed its readers asking which corporations they believed to be the most evil: Monsanto topped the list, followed by B.P., Halliburton, McDonald’s, Pfizer, Merck, Wal-Mart, and Nestlé. Natural News writer Mike Adams reported on the survey results, chiming in to agree and add his opinion that Monsanto is not only evil but psychotic and a number of other bad things.
I had heard such things in passing from some of my colleagues who are crunchy-granola-eating-nostalgic-for-the-1960s types, so I read the article to learn more. Why is Monsanto so evil? Adams offered four reasons.
1. Monsanto produces and markets genetically-modified seeds, and so, according to Adams, it is an “opponent of open-pollinated seeds.” My questions: What kind of opponent is Monsanto — scientific? economic? political? And why is it evil to be that kind of opponent? No answers in the article.
2. Monsanto, Adams says further, has acted against politicians who try to ban its products: “politicians in France and across Europe who found themselves being added to a ‘retaliatory target list’ that was assembled by the United States ambassador to France, working in conspiracy with the leaders of the GMO industry.” Is that obviously bad? Food production is unfortunately highly politicized, and politics is often rough and tumble. In this case, some European politicians, like some of their African colleagues, are against GMOs and have attempted to ban them. Why shouldn’t Monsanto and other GMO advocates fight back? And why is this a “conspiracy”? No answer.
3. “Monsanto’s GMO crops are now linked to roughly 200,000 suicides of farmers and farm workers in India.” The link in this case seems to be that India’s traditional, low-producing agriculture sector is being modernized, but the transition is slow-going and often ugly. New methods, including GMOs, are increasing crop yields, but some farmers are not making the transition well — for many reasons, including lack of credit markets, nasty politics and guerrilla warfare. So why exactly are the deaths being laid at Monsanto’s door? Unexplained.
4. Adams makes a passing reference of Monsanto as a threat to “planetary health.” But he offers no argument.*
So what exactly is bad about GMOs and Monsanto? And why the strong language?
Also odd are the article’s omissions. Adams does not raise any health concerns about GMO. Yet if GMO producers are evil, wouldn’t data showing their product to be a threat to health be important here? One suspects that the studies showing the safety of GMOs are being ignored by an ideologist.
Nor does he mention the increased yields or other benefits of GMOs. Intellectual honesty requires looking at the arguments on the other side, and this omission is also suspicious.
My Ph.D. is not in bio-tech, and I have not researched Monsanto and have no opinion about whether any of its actions are moral or immoral. But if GMOs really are dangerous and extreme language like evil is warranted, the evidence and arguments should be obvious and strong.
Feeding billions of people is important. Good science and engineering are important. Overcoming ignorant and power-hungry politicians is important. The stakes are high and quality journalism is essential to helping us all become informed.
On that score, I find Adams’ article to be irresponsibly badly argued and an excuse for ideological venting and name-calling.
[* And he missed a perfect chance here to mention Bolivian president Evo Morales’s relevant claim that GMOs cause baldness and homosexuality.]
[Disclaimer: I own no Monsanto stock but wish I had bought some a few years ago.]
Here is the evidence that was missing: the words they use have different meaning from the dictionary versions.
Monsanto is worse than BP therefore they need use more extreme words for their scale of values to feel “right”. It doesn’t matter whether they are “true” or not. They have to feel right.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_23076.cfm
ORGANIC CONSUMERS
Cap The Gene Spill – New Video Says GMO Contamination is Far Worse than Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
Mike Adams Natural News
April 24th, 2011
As part of an ongoing effort to warn the public about the dangers of runaway GMO pollution of our planet, the Institute for Responsible Technology executive director Jeffrey Smith has released a new video called Cap the Gene Spill.
The video is viewable in its entirety at: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=29315…
In it, Jeffrey compares the genetically modified contamination of the planet to the Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe. Except the genetic pollution of our planet is actually far worse than the Gulf spill because genetic pollution can’t be “cleaned up.” It persists in the environment… perhaps for the entire future of life on planet Earth.
Here’s some of what Jeffrey Smith says in this new video:
[GMO pollution causes] intense, insidious environmental degradation that may never be able to be cleaned up.
And just like the oil spill, you can trace it back to government incompetence and collusion, and industry manipulation — putting out technologies that are not safe long before the science is ready.
What about the self-propagating genetic pollution? Once it gets out, it then spreads, and cross pollinates… it becomes a self-propagating pollution that could outlast the effects of global warming or nuclear waste. This is an impossible thing to clean up, and we are bequeathing to all future generations the folly of this generation.
(P.S. I have taken the liberty to link to your post from my website which contains most of the missing evidence.)
It’s fashionable to hate Monsanto. It’s fashionable to hate Sarah Palin and BP. Ever notice it’s more fashionable to hate things than to love things? That’s a rather sad aspect of culture.
Of course Monsanto is evil. Monsanto exports US agricultural technology to other countries who compete with the US in global agricultural commodity exports. With no Monsanto GM cotton-seed in India production would be halved and the price of cotton on the world markets would be sky high and the US government (and taxpayers) would no longer need to give subsidies to US cotton farmers. And the same goes for soybean in Brazil: no Monsanto, lots more dollars for US farmers.
What is interesting is that Jeffrey Smith is trying to stop the US growing Monsanto’s GM crops. Hey, is Smith funded from Europe or India or Brazil? Sure looks that way as their exporters would cash in at US expense
With apologies to Voltaire, If there were no Monsanto, it would have been necessary for the anti-GMO movement to invent it. For whatever underlying reasons (too much Hollywood is my guess), a lot of people don’t like GMOs, however, the science on GMOs is pretty clear. They’re not going to hurt you, they work, they have cut pesticide use, they have decreased agriculture’s environmental impact, and some, like Golden Rice and BioCassava, have the potential to help millions of people. If you disagree with something, but are unable to provide evidence to back your beliefs, a conspiracy is the next best thing. If you have a fairly large, moderately powerful entity with a clear interest in the thing one opposes, that can be the nexus of the theory, and Monsanto fits that bill quite nicely.
Basically, to maintain the anti-GMO position, Monsanto being evil is a necessity, because now you can tie everything back to them. No evidence, evidence to the contrary, opposition by scientific consensus, people who ask tricky questions, the presence of hundreds of GMOs all over the world not developed by or related to Monsanto, now it all goes back to one thing: Monsanto. Previously it just meant you were simply wrong and should be big enough to admit it, but a conspiracy is an ultimate defense. Anything that disproves you is part of the conspiracy and therefore you are right, but anything that proves your point is, naturally, acceptable (regardless of the lack of quality typically seen in those ones), and therefore, you’re right again. Monsanto holds that all together. In a funny sort of way, the anti-GMO movement depends on Monsanto.
Why it is that they’re the ones on the top, that I wish I knew. Even if we take their evil as given, seems some other contenders deserve the spot more. Then again, if you really believe Monsanto is a real life Saturday morning cartoon villain, plotting a dastardly plan to poison their customers for some vaguely defined reason (mustache twirling is no doubt involved), well, I guess that is pretty evil.
As biotechnologist, i disagree totally with conception of evil in research. It seems that each action is guided by conspiracy, and opinions grew up without a clear idea. If you have access to annualrev, I suggest you this article: “Genetically Engineered Plants and Foods: A scientist’s analysis of the Issues” Peggy G.Lemaux
I agree with the poster who wrote that it is fashionable to hate Monsanto. I have relatives and friends who miss no opportunity to blame Monsanto for any and every wrong on the planet. They generally are also home schoolers, bread makers and gun toters, both women and men, and engage in a lot of conspiracy thinking. One is a former ER nurse who now teaches that essential oils can cure any ill that may befall humankind. The Doomsday Preppers come to mind. Don’t confuse them with facts though, especially on FB, because they will delete your comments and “shun” you.
Another factor to be considered is the undermining of local food producers by regulation. I don’t think exclusively local is good, but neither is undermining it. Have a friend who lives in a small Canadian town who bought home grown eggs from the woman who owned the local general store. I had one: you couldn’t buy eggs like that anywhere else, not even organic ones in health food stores: these were giant, brown, flecked, with almost orange yolks. One day my friend went to pick some up but was told they were no longer available: someone from the health department had come around and told her she would be liable to a $10,000 fine if she sold another egg. There’s a fair bit on mises.org about how the USDA has served to cartelize the food production industry on behalf of producers, keep prices high, and imports and competitors out.
Here’s a link to the trailer of a movie I haven’t seen, but raises issues I think are best answered by advocates of the free market – which, as Sheldon Richmond notes of today’s economic picture, has a perfect alibi: it doesn’t exist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eKYyD14d_0