Santo Domingo.-
The Academy of Sciences of the Dominican Republic is concerned about genetically
modified seeds being brought into the country by the multinacional Monsanto and
the Eurosuministros company. These products, they say, affect the island’s
genetic pool and create a monopoly that puts local farmers out of business.
“As
these organisms are modified they are not natural products. Biologically
speaking, any modified product has an unknown effect on the organisms of humans,
and of the animals that we eat,
which are fed on this genetically modified material”, said Academy president Milciades
Mejía.
The
Ministry of Agriculture has distanced itself from the trade in the seeds with
the brand name De Ruiter Seeds, stating it was an agreement between two private
companies, which need to fulfill phyto-sanitary requisites. A spokesman stressed
that the country has a ban on the importation of genetically modified products.
Monsanto, a
company founded in 1901, is the target of international criticisms and
conflicts for alleged crop damage, monopolistic practices and manufacture of toxic
product like the defoliant used during the Vietnam war.
Following
the 2010 Haiti earthquake, with the support of the US, the company began distributing
genetically modified seeds, provoking protests from farmers. Dominican farmers
have expressed disapproval of their representation in the country.
Source: diariolibre.com
Written by: abc200, 28 Dec 2011 7:18 AM
From: United Kingdom, Dominican Republic
Very good. Monsanto is a company that should have been put out of business a long time ago.
S.
Written by: riosm, 28 Dec 2011 7:30 AM
From: United States
With it a reduction in cancers.
Written by: antonio1, 28 Dec 2011 8:44 AM
From: Dominican Republic, Av Santa Rosa, La Romana
Any genetic modification which increases the supply of arroz, habichuela y platanos will be a blessing for our country. Worrying about a Chavez’s like cancer is a luxury which can now only be afforded by those living in rich countries.
From: United States, FREEPORT, Long Island.... (Look, beyond the words)
If GM plants pollinate with native plants, does that mean the owner of the GM strain owns the following crop?
Written by: antonio1, 28 Dec 2011 12:31 PM
From: Dominican Republic, Av Santa Rosa, La Romana
What are you trying to say Cowboy?....spell it out...
Written by: Mart1n, 28 Dec 2011 4:00 PM
From: Dominican Republic, North coast
Monsanto wants to experiment on all third world countries but they do not want to take responsibility for cleaning up the mistakes they make. No one knows what genetically modified seeds will do to the people who eat it, it might take years to find out. When everyone has a new ailment that they don't know where it came from Monsanto will have all it's experts lined up to keep it in court until all the people hurt by it are all dead
Written by: josean, 28 Dec 2011 4:49 PM
From: United States, Show your Love for DR Vote AGAINST the PLD!
Dark History of the Evil Monsanto Corporation
Monsanto is the world's leading producer of the herbicide “Roundup", as well as producing 90% of the world's genetically modified (GMO) seeds.
Over Monsanto's 110-year history (1901-2011), Monsanto Co (MON.N), the world's largest seed company, has evolved from primarily an industrial chemical concern into a pure agricultural products company. MON profited $2 billion dollars in 2009, but their record profits fell to only $1 billion in 2010 after activists exposed Monsanto for doing terribly evil acts like suing good farmers and feeding uranium to pregnant women. Below is a timeline of Monsanto's dark history.
Monsanto, best know today for its agricultural biotechnology GMO products, has a long and dirty history of polluting this country and others with some of the most toxic compounds known to humankind.
Continued:
Written by: josean, 28 Dec 2011 4:52 PM
From: United States, Show your Love for DR Vote AGAINST the PLD!
From PCBs to Agent Orange to Roundup, we have many reasons to question the motives of this evil corporation that claims to be working to reduce environmental destruction and feed the world with its genetically engineered GMO food crops. Monsanto has been repeatedly fined and ruled against for, among many things: mislabeling containers of Roundup, failing to report health data to EPA, plus chemical spills and improper chemical deposition.
The name Monsanto has since, for many around the world, come to symbolize the greed, arrogance, scandal and hardball business practices of many multinational corporations. A couple of historical factoids not generally known: Monsanto was heavily involved during WWII in the creation of the first nuclear bomb for the Manhattan Project via its facilities in Dayton Ohio and called the Dayton Project headed by Charlie Thomas, Director of Monsanto's Central Research Department (and later Monsanto President)
Continued:
Written by: josean, 28 Dec 2011 4:53 PM
From: United States, Show your Love for DR Vote AGAINST the PLD!
Written by: antonio1, 28 Dec 2011 5:20 PM
From: Dominican Republic, Av Santa Rosa, La Romana
Hard to swallow, that while you are eating veg and healthy in the grandiose US;;;you are trying lecture us about a luxury that can only be afforded by those living in rich countries like yours.
From: United States
reporting spam, please delete
Written by: RoyStone, 29 Dec 2011 4:41 AM
From: Australia
1) The objection to GM foods has nothing to do with health. There is no bio-medial evidence to support banning it. It has more to do with protecting EU farmers from international competition, and increases food output and pest-resistance significantly. Humans have been genetically modifying plants and animals for thousands of years through selective breeding and pollination practices.
2) Where is the evidence that Monsanto fed uranium to pregnant women?
3) Glyphosate (Roundup, Zero, etc.) is bio-degradable and has replaced many more toxic herbicides that can end up in water supplies.
4) The Manhattan Project killed thousands of Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but saved thousands more by bringing an abrupt end to the Pacific War. Arguably the doomsday-effect of nuclear weapons prevented the Cold War from developing into a real war.
5) I have found glowing in the dark useful for finding my keys, with the extra hand I have grown.
From: United States, FREEPORT, Long Island.... (Look, beyond the words)
You're smart enough to know.....
Here is a taste of what is to come, our government isn't educationally prepared for this fight.....
In May 2003, the Center for Food Safety embarked on a project to determine
the extent to which American farmers have been impacted by litigation arising
from the use of patented genetically engineered crops. After extensive
research and numerous interviews with farmers and lawyers, CFS found that
Monsanto, the world’s leading agricultural biotechnology company, has used
heavy-handed investigations and ruthless prosecutions that have fundamentally
changed the way many American farmers farm. The result has been nothing
less than an assault on the foundations of farming practices and traditions
that have endured for centuries in this country and millennia around the
world, including one of the oldest, the right to save and replant crop seed
From: United States, FREEPORT, Long Island.... (Look, beyond the words)
look at this one......
For some farmers, Monsanto’s investigation of them will lead to the
courtroom. To date, Monsanto has filed 90 lawsuits against American farmers.
The lawsuits involve 147 farmers and 39 small businesses or farm companies,
and have been directed at farmers residing in half of the states in the U.S. The
odds are clearly stacked against the farmer: Monsanto has an annual budget
of $10 million dollars and a staff of 75 devoted solely to investigating and
prosecuting farmers.
From: United States, FREEPORT, Long Island.... (Look, beyond the words)
A Farmers Story,
The most famous of all the Monsanto patent infringement cases involves Canadian canola farmer Percy Schmeiser. Monsanto’s genetically engineered canola was found on Schmeiser’s land, but it is undisputed that he neither purchased nor planted the company’s seed. For seven years Schmeiser fought to prove that the seed arrived on his land through genetic drift or from trucks carrying seed to grain elevators. Unfortunately, the lower courts were not concerned as to how the seed wound up on the land, only that Schmeiser knew he possessed Monsanto’s intellectual property and had not
paid for it. As Schmeiser’s attorney Terry Zakreski, explained: “Monsanto has a problem. It’s trying to own a piece of Mother Nature that naturally spreads itself around.”
Next
From: United States, FREEPORT, Long Island.... (Look, beyond the words)
Even the vice president for Monsanto Canada, Ray Mowling, concurs: “[Monsanto] acknowledges that some cross-pollination occurs, and acknowledges the awkwardness of prosecuting farmers who may
be inadvertently growing Monsanto seed through cross-pollination or via innocent trades with patent-violating neighbors..
The Supreme Court of Canada heard Schmeiser’s appeal of the lower courts’ decisions on January 20, 2004, and on May 21, 2004 publicly announced its decision. Schmeiser was found guilty of patent infringement yet not liable to pay Monsanto any damages.
We can assume that Schmeiser is just one of many farmers who has been targeted for possessing a technology he neither bought nor planted.
From: Dominican Republic
Sorry Roy but it's not about EU farmers, it's is about the ownership and the patents on foods. Can one company own a food? If they genetically change a seed do they then own it? What rights do farmers have if a neighbors GM seed then inter breeds with non GM seed and are then taken to court by a Monsanto? Now farmers with non GM seed are in the cold and pushed out of their farms to no fault of their own.. Farmers using GM seed have to buy each year new seed from Monsanto as the GM seed is sterile and can not be replanted...
No long term independent reach is in on cross breeding with GM seed with say a salmon gen and non GM seed will do to us..
A few years ago the US aid gave African countries GM seed to fight hunger and increase output but come the second season nothing grew as all the seed is sterile ... It may increase out put but helps Monsanto even more as each season you have to buy new seed...
Old saying ? Give a man a fish he will eat for a day..
From: United States, FREEPORT, Long Island.... (Look, beyond the words)
Monsanto has often been allowed, and even encouraged, by U.S. legislators, regulators and courts to use patent law as a weapon against the American farmer.
From: Dominican Republic
Ex Monsanto Lawyer Clarence Thomas is on the US supreme court and wrote the patent for round up ready soy beans for Monsanto.. Now helping Monsanto from the supreme court.
FDA announced that Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto executive, had joined the agency.
The list goes on, how Monsanto are weighting the system in their favor..
From: United States, FREEPORT, Long Island.... (Look, beyond the words)
And, the government wants this for its people.....
From: Canada
Monsanto ... BAD ... DR Farmer ... GOOD
From: United States, FREEPORT, Long Island.... (Look, beyond the words)
Ant,
are you with me on this one, its not about gold
Written by: josean, 29 Dec 2011 11:46 AM
From: United States, Show your Love for DR Vote AGAINST the PLD!
Public officials formerly employed by Monsanto
• Justice Clarence Thomas worked as an attorney for Monsanto in the 1970s. Thomas wrote the majority opinion in the 2001 Supreme Court decision J. E. M. Ag Supply, Inc. v. Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.|J. E. M. AG SUPPLY, INC. V. PIONEER HI-BREDINTERNATIONAL, INC.[120] which found that "newly developed plant breeds are patentable under the general utility patent laws of the United States." This case benefitted all companies which profit from genetically modified crops, of which Monsanto is the largest.[30][120][121]
• Michael R. Taylor was an assistant to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner before he left to work for a law firm on gaining FDA approval of Monsanto’s artificial growth hormone in the 1980s. Taylor then became deputy commissioner of the FDA from 1991 to 1994.[30] Taylor was later re-appointed to the FDA in August 2009 by President Barack Obama.[122]
Continued:
Written by: josean, 29 Dec 2011 11:53 AM
From: United States, Show your Love for DR Vote AGAINST the PLD!
• Dr. Michael A. Friedman was a deputy commissioner of the FDA before he was hired as a senior vice president of Monsanto.[30]
• Linda J. Fisher was an assistant administrator at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) before she was a vice president at Monsanto from 1995 to 2000. In 2001, Fisher became the deputy administrator of the EPA.[30]
• Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was chairman and chief executive officer of G. D. Searle & Co., which Monsanto purchased in 1985. Rumsfeld personally made at least $12 million USD from the transaction.[30]
"The Real Victor in Iraq: Monsanto"
"Five years of occupation, more than $558 billion spent, 4,182 U.S. soldiers and 655,000 Iraqi civilians dead, and it now looks like Monsanto (NYSE.MON - $71.95) is going to be the real victor in Iraq thanks to a postwar document known as Order 81."
continued:
Written by: josean, 29 Dec 2011 11:54 AM
From: United States, Show your Love for DR Vote AGAINST the PLD!
Written by: RoyStone, 29 Dec 2011 12:23 PM
From: Australia
Why shouldn't companies who invest millions of dollars in R&D protect their products with patents?
Were it not for such protection there would be almost no development of life-saving and life-enhancing drugs. Once the patent expires then anyone is free to make and sell the product.
Written by: josean, 29 Dec 2011 12:30 PM
From: United States, Show your Love for DR Vote AGAINST the PLD!
Roy, do you feel the same way when the SEED money, no pun intended, for the research and development is from taxes payer grants, and then company profits, many times excessively, when it sells back to the same taxpayers who have already paid for that in R &D grants?
From: Dominican Republic
Roy? I understand about protecting intellectual property and they have a right to but how can a farmer who's neighbor plants a gm crop be then forced to pay monsanto for breach of patents when he hasn't done nothing other than plant his fields? It's monsantos seeds that are cross dreading so shouldn't they be paying the non gm farmer for contaminating their crops? Well they have tried but have been out spent on the scales of justice........
From: United States, FREEPORT, Long Island.... (Look, beyond the words)
The GM crop MON 810 has been banned in Germany.
Written by: josean, 29 Dec 2011 2:45 PM
From: United States, Show your Love for DR Vote AGAINST the PLD!
Roy,
How the game is played:
Industry R&D risks and costs are often significantly reduced by taxpayer-funded research, which has helped launch the most medically important drugs in recent years and many of the best-selling drugs, including all of the top five sellers in one recent year surveyed (1995).
An internal National Institutes of Health (NIH) document, obtained by Public Citizen through the Freedom of Information Act, shows how crucial taxpayer-funded research is to top-selling drugs. According to the NIH, taxpayer-funded scientists conducted 55 percent of the research projects that led to the discovery and development of the top five selling drugs in 1995. (See Section III)
The industry fought, and won, a nine-year legal battle to keep congressional investigators from the General Accounting Office from seeing the industry’s complete R&D records. (See Section IV) Congress can subpoena the records but has failed to do so.
Continued:
Written by: josean, 29 Dec 2011 2:47 PM
From: United States, Show your Love for DR Vote AGAINST the PLD!
"That might owe to the fact that in 1999-2000 the drug industry spent $262 million on federal lobbying, campaign contributions and ads for candidates thinly disguised as "issue" ads. (See accompanying report, "The Other Drug War: Big Pharma’s 625 Washington Lobbyists")"
Read the rest:
Rx R&D Myths: The Case Against The Drug Industry’s R&D "Scare Card"
http://www.citizen.org/publications/publicationredirect.cfm?ID=7065Written by: abc200, 29 Dec 2011 3:19 PM
From: United Kingdom, Dominican Republic
It is all down to the criminal USA underworld.
The originators of pennicilin claimed not one cent from beficiaries of this wonder drug.
Countries such as DR shold just ban these corrupt criminal companies and impose long prison senctences on all who attempt to business with criminal US companies and others.
National banks should monitor transactions closely and anyone attempting to transfer money to criminal US companies should face big penalties.
S.
Written by: RoyStone, 31 Dec 2011 8:54 AM
From: Australia
stillhere,
I don't know the details of the case you site, and on the face of it, it seems unfair. However the general principal applies, if you gain and benefit from something that is not yours, even if you did not actively steal it, you have an obligation to return it. Not so easily done in this type of case. Regardless, win lose or draw, the lawyers always win, handsomely.
Written by: RoyStone, 31 Dec 2011 9:06 AM
From: Australia
abc200,
Who do you consider are "the originators of penicillin"?
Written by: abc200, 31 Dec 2011 12:15 PM
From: United Kingdom, Dominican Republic
Flemming, Florey, Chain... and others in Oxford...
Fleming never collected royalties on penicillin. In 1945 he received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine and toured the United States, where he was hailed as a hero. American chemical firms collected $100,000 and presented it to him in gratitude for his contribution to medical science. He refused to accept the money personally but used it for research at St. Mary's.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Sir_Alexander_Fleming.aspxS.
Written by: RoyStone, 31 Dec 2011 12:34 PM
From: Australia
The anti-biotic effects of penicillium mold on bread was known and practiced long before Fleming made his famous observation. Yes he made a contribution, and has received most of the credit (if not financial) for its discovery. However by far the greater work was in extracting and identifying the active component, and developing a way of producing usable quantities.
Had Flemming not made his observation, undoubtedly someone else (probably Florey) would have soon after. However without the potential financial gains, the necessary work and investment would never have happened, to the determent of the millions who have benefited from it.
Your idea that life-saving drugs can be developed for free is fanciful in the extreme, especially in this climate of predatory litigation.
Written by: abc200, 31 Dec 2011 1:41 PM
From: United Kingdom, Dominican Republic
Yes, they re-write history. But having spoken to the doctors that first treaded a patient with penicllen there is now doubt that Flemming and others were the first to argue with medical bueuacracy and actually treat patients.
You should also look into the hisory of of rifampicin etc. and discover that numerous unrewarded scientists helped discover/develop such drugs.
Not to forget that the first large scale batch of penicllin was produced in a US government lab with British and US saleried scientists working together....
a
i
From: Dominican Republic
However the general principal applies, if you gain and benefit from something that is not yours, even if you did not actively steal it, you have an obligation to return it?
Sorry but the non gm farmers are losing more than they gain... they lose their "organic certified grain", they lose their original seed strains, losing their markets of sales for non gm seed, they lose everything if it's found their seed is contaminated with the gm and a sued for patient breach by Monstanto.. How can you steal from something done by nature for million of years? Who is protecting the farmer and seed cleaner for doing the same thing they have for generation?
And in Australia...
http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/news_details.asp?ID=2962From: Dominican Republic
Maybe we should just Agree to disagree?
I come from farming, my uncle a wheat/wool farmer in SA and my father a sustainable farming practices teacher in Aust and East Africa. So I may have bias to what could happen to my uncle if his crops are gm contaminated by just being a farmer..
Written by: RoyStone, 2 Jan 2012 8:00 AM
From: Australia
ABC200, yes I understand that "Not to forget that the first large scale batch of penicllin was produced in a US government lab with British and US saleried scientists working together...."
This was driven by the WW2 effort. Maybe we should also credit Hitler with contributing to the accelerated development of Penicillin?
Written by: RoyStone, 2 Jan 2012 8:07 AM
From: Australia
Thanks for the link, Stillhere
"Charging farmers for contamination that they did not want and could not prevent is not acceptable business practise and clearly anti-competitive." said Julie Newman.
I could not agree more.
Monsanto has a right to protect their investment, but it is also their duty to do so by appropriate means, not using scum-of-the-earth lawyers and flawed legislation.
From: Dominican Republic
No thank you for taking the time to read it.. and it is all I am saying it is about the bully boy tactics used by Monsanto and other against farmers, seed cleaners and seed handlers/sellers..
Multinational corporate giants with millions to spend on lobbyists and lawyers against farmer Joe with price of end product v raising fuel, seed, equipment and maintenance costs to deal with...
Written by: RoyStone, 2 Jan 2012 11:58 AM
From: Australia
stillhere,
I'm of the view that properly done, tested and controlled, genetically-modified crops can have significant benefits. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
What's your view on this?
From: Dominican Republic
properly done, tested and controlled, genetically-modified crops... that's the problem it wasn't and still isn't properly done, tested and controlled... Interdependent testing was not done till after commercial release, GM fish escape, GM pollens drift with the wind and GM foods are placed for sale before and without notice to the public or even labeling. Long term testing on how gm cross contamination affects heirloom, non hybrids and even hybrid plants is not fully tested or complete by either the makers or independents. They are out their being grown and eaten .
Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. No lets not but we also have a right to know what is in our food or grown on our neighboring farms before sold? yes?
To many times has the world done things with out fully understanding the consequences, Lead in fuel, lead in paint, asbestos! will GMO's be the next? profit over health or needs...
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S.
Dark History of the Evil Monsanto Corporation
Monsanto is the world's leading producer of the herbicide “Roundup", as well as producing 90% of the world's genetically modified (GMO) seeds.
Over Monsanto's 110-year history (1901-2011), Monsanto Co (MON.N), the world's largest seed company, has evolved from primarily an industrial chemical concern into a pure agricultural products company. MON profited $2 billion dollars in 2009, but their record profits fell to only $1 billion in 2010 after activists exposed Monsanto for doing terribly evil acts like suing good farmers and feeding uranium to pregnant women. Below is a timeline of Monsanto's dark history.
Monsanto, best know today for its agricultural biotechnology GMO products, has a long and dirty history of polluting this country and others with some of the most toxic compounds known to humankind.
Continued:
From PCBs to Agent Orange to Roundup, we have many reasons to question the motives of this evil corporation that claims to be working to reduce environmental destruction and feed the world with its genetically engineered GMO food crops. Monsanto has been repeatedly fined and ruled against for, among many things: mislabeling containers of Roundup, failing to report health data to EPA, plus chemical spills and improper chemical deposition.
The name Monsanto has since, for many around the world, come to symbolize the greed, arrogance, scandal and hardball business practices of many multinational corporations. A couple of historical factoids not generally known: Monsanto was heavily involved during WWII in the creation of the first nuclear bomb for the Manhattan Project via its facilities in Dayton Ohio and called the Dayton Project headed by Charlie Thomas, Director of Monsanto's Central Research Department (and later Monsanto President)
Continued:
and it operated a nuclear facility for the federal government in Miamisburg, also in Ohio, called the Mound Project until the 80s.
Read the rest:
http://bestmeal.info/monsanto/company-history.shtml
2) Where is the evidence that Monsanto fed uranium to pregnant women?
3) Glyphosate (Roundup, Zero, etc.) is bio-degradable and has replaced many more toxic herbicides that can end up in water supplies.
4) The Manhattan Project killed thousands of Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but saved thousands more by bringing an abrupt end to the Pacific War. Arguably the doomsday-effect of nuclear weapons prevented the Cold War from developing into a real war.
5) I have found glowing in the dark useful for finding my keys, with the extra hand I have grown.
Here is a taste of what is to come, our government isn't educationally prepared for this fight.....
In May 2003, the Center for Food Safety embarked on a project to determine
the extent to which American farmers have been impacted by litigation arising
from the use of patented genetically engineered crops. After extensive
research and numerous interviews with farmers and lawyers, CFS found that
Monsanto, the world’s leading agricultural biotechnology company, has used
heavy-handed investigations and ruthless prosecutions that have fundamentally
changed the way many American farmers farm. The result has been nothing
less than an assault on the foundations of farming practices and traditions
that have endured for centuries in this country and millennia around the
world, including one of the oldest, the right to save and replant crop seed
For some farmers, Monsanto’s investigation of them will lead to the
courtroom. To date, Monsanto has filed 90 lawsuits against American farmers.
The lawsuits involve 147 farmers and 39 small businesses or farm companies,
and have been directed at farmers residing in half of the states in the U.S. The
odds are clearly stacked against the farmer: Monsanto has an annual budget
of $10 million dollars and a staff of 75 devoted solely to investigating and
prosecuting farmers.
The most famous of all the Monsanto patent infringement cases involves Canadian canola farmer Percy Schmeiser. Monsanto’s genetically engineered canola was found on Schmeiser’s land, but it is undisputed that he neither purchased nor planted the company’s seed. For seven years Schmeiser fought to prove that the seed arrived on his land through genetic drift or from trucks carrying seed to grain elevators. Unfortunately, the lower courts were not concerned as to how the seed wound up on the land, only that Schmeiser knew he possessed Monsanto’s intellectual property and had not
paid for it. As Schmeiser’s attorney Terry Zakreski, explained: “Monsanto has a problem. It’s trying to own a piece of Mother Nature that naturally spreads itself around.”
Next
Even the vice president for Monsanto Canada, Ray Mowling, concurs: “[Monsanto] acknowledges that some cross-pollination occurs, and acknowledges the awkwardness of prosecuting farmers who may
be inadvertently growing Monsanto seed through cross-pollination or via innocent trades with patent-violating neighbors..
The Supreme Court of Canada heard Schmeiser’s appeal of the lower courts’ decisions on January 20, 2004, and on May 21, 2004 publicly announced its decision. Schmeiser was found guilty of patent infringement yet not liable to pay Monsanto any damages.
We can assume that Schmeiser is just one of many farmers who has been targeted for possessing a technology he neither bought nor planted.
No long term independent reach is in on cross breeding with GM seed with say a salmon gen and non GM seed will do to us..
A few years ago the US aid gave African countries GM seed to fight hunger and increase output but come the second season nothing grew as all the seed is sterile ... It may increase out put but helps Monsanto even more as each season you have to buy new seed...
Old saying ? Give a man a fish he will eat for a day..
Monsanto has often been allowed, and even encouraged, by U.S. legislators, regulators and courts to use patent law as a weapon against the American farmer.
FDA announced that Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto executive, had joined the agency.
The list goes on, how Monsanto are weighting the system in their favor..
are you with me on this one, its not about gold
Public officials formerly employed by Monsanto
• Justice Clarence Thomas worked as an attorney for Monsanto in the 1970s. Thomas wrote the majority opinion in the 2001 Supreme Court decision J. E. M. Ag Supply, Inc. v. Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.|J. E. M. AG SUPPLY, INC. V. PIONEER HI-BREDINTERNATIONAL, INC.[120] which found that "newly developed plant breeds are patentable under the general utility patent laws of the United States." This case benefitted all companies which profit from genetically modified crops, of which Monsanto is the largest.[30][120][121]
• Michael R. Taylor was an assistant to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner before he left to work for a law firm on gaining FDA approval of Monsanto’s artificial growth hormone in the 1980s. Taylor then became deputy commissioner of the FDA from 1991 to 1994.[30] Taylor was later re-appointed to the FDA in August 2009 by President Barack Obama.[122]
Continued:
• Dr. Michael A. Friedman was a deputy commissioner of the FDA before he was hired as a senior vice president of Monsanto.[30]
• Linda J. Fisher was an assistant administrator at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) before she was a vice president at Monsanto from 1995 to 2000. In 2001, Fisher became the deputy administrator of the EPA.[30]
• Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was chairman and chief executive officer of G. D. Searle & Co., which Monsanto purchased in 1985. Rumsfeld personally made at least $12 million USD from the transaction.[30]
"The Real Victor in Iraq: Monsanto"
"Five years of occupation, more than $558 billion spent, 4,182 U.S. soldiers and 655,000 Iraqi civilians dead, and it now looks like Monsanto (NYSE.MON - $71.95) is going to be the real victor in Iraq thanks to a postwar document known as Order 81."
continued:
"Part of the infamous 100 Orders, Order 81 mandates that Iraq’s commercial-scale farmers must now purchase "registered” seeds. These are available through agribusiness giants like Monsanto, Cargill Corporation (a private company) and the World Wide Wheat Company (also private), but Monsanto is far and away the most significant player in the registered seed market."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto
http://www.thepanelist.net/opinio....-the-real-victor-in-iraq-monsanto
Were it not for such protection there would be almost no development of life-saving and life-enhancing drugs. Once the patent expires then anyone is free to make and sell the product.
Roy, do you feel the same way when the SEED money, no pun intended, for the research and development is from taxes payer grants, and then company profits, many times excessively, when it sells back to the same taxpayers who have already paid for that in R &D grants?
Roy,
How the game is played:
Industry R&D risks and costs are often significantly reduced by taxpayer-funded research, which has helped launch the most medically important drugs in recent years and many of the best-selling drugs, including all of the top five sellers in one recent year surveyed (1995).
An internal National Institutes of Health (NIH) document, obtained by Public Citizen through the Freedom of Information Act, shows how crucial taxpayer-funded research is to top-selling drugs. According to the NIH, taxpayer-funded scientists conducted 55 percent of the research projects that led to the discovery and development of the top five selling drugs in 1995. (See Section III)
The industry fought, and won, a nine-year legal battle to keep congressional investigators from the General Accounting Office from seeing the industry’s complete R&D records. (See Section IV) Congress can subpoena the records but has failed to do so.
Continued:
"That might owe to the fact that in 1999-2000 the drug industry spent $262 million on federal lobbying, campaign contributions and ads for candidates thinly disguised as "issue" ads. (See accompanying report, "The Other Drug War: Big Pharma’s 625 Washington Lobbyists")"
Read the rest:
Rx R&D Myths: The Case Against The Drug Industry’s R&D "Scare Card"
http://www.citizen.org/publications/publicationredirect.cfm?ID=7065
The originators of pennicilin claimed not one cent from beficiaries of this wonder drug.
Countries such as DR shold just ban these corrupt criminal companies and impose long prison senctences on all who attempt to business with criminal US companies and others.
National banks should monitor transactions closely and anyone attempting to transfer money to criminal US companies should face big penalties.
S.
I don't know the details of the case you site, and on the face of it, it seems unfair. However the general principal applies, if you gain and benefit from something that is not yours, even if you did not actively steal it, you have an obligation to return it. Not so easily done in this type of case. Regardless, win lose or draw, the lawyers always win, handsomely.
Who do you consider are "the originators of penicillin"?
Fleming never collected royalties on penicillin. In 1945 he received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine and toured the United States, where he was hailed as a hero. American chemical firms collected $100,000 and presented it to him in gratitude for his contribution to medical science. He refused to accept the money personally but used it for research at St. Mary's.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Sir_Alexander_Fleming.aspx
S.
Had Flemming not made his observation, undoubtedly someone else (probably Florey) would have soon after. However without the potential financial gains, the necessary work and investment would never have happened, to the determent of the millions who have benefited from it.
Your idea that life-saving drugs can be developed for free is fanciful in the extreme, especially in this climate of predatory litigation.
You should also look into the hisory of of rifampicin etc. and discover that numerous unrewarded scientists helped discover/develop such drugs.
Not to forget that the first large scale batch of penicllin was produced in a US government lab with British and US saleried scientists working together....
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Sorry but the non gm farmers are losing more than they gain... they lose their "organic certified grain", they lose their original seed strains, losing their markets of sales for non gm seed, they lose everything if it's found their seed is contaminated with the gm and a sued for patient breach by Monstanto.. How can you steal from something done by nature for million of years? Who is protecting the farmer and seed cleaner for doing the same thing they have for generation?
And in Australia...
http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/news_details.asp?ID=2962
I come from farming, my uncle a wheat/wool farmer in SA and my father a sustainable farming practices teacher in Aust and East Africa. So I may have bias to what could happen to my uncle if his crops are gm contaminated by just being a farmer..
This was driven by the WW2 effort. Maybe we should also credit Hitler with contributing to the accelerated development of Penicillin?
"Charging farmers for contamination that they did not want and could not prevent is not acceptable business practise and clearly anti-competitive." said Julie Newman.
I could not agree more.
Monsanto has a right to protect their investment, but it is also their duty to do so by appropriate means, not using scum-of-the-earth lawyers and flawed legislation.
Multinational corporate giants with millions to spend on lobbyists and lawyers against farmer Joe with price of end product v raising fuel, seed, equipment and maintenance costs to deal with...
I'm of the view that properly done, tested and controlled, genetically-modified crops can have significant benefits. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
What's your view on this?
Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. No lets not but we also have a right to know what is in our food or grown on our neighboring farms before sold? yes?
To many times has the world done things with out fully understanding the consequences, Lead in fuel, lead in paint, asbestos! will GMO's be the next? profit over health or needs...