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In reply to the discussion: Defending GMOs on grounds that they are not poisonous is like defending manufacturers who exploit [View all]DFW
(54,378 posts)"Seeds of Reprisal" by J. Somerville Park. Good reading for those who might not yet have formed an opinion one way or the other.
Before Monsanto spun it off to Eastman chemical, they owned a chemical company they named "Solutia." Solutia used to make a hard plastic called Resinox. To make this stuff, their workers used to dump bags of asbestos into the goo as a hardening agent. Their workers used to get called "Santa Claus" by their kids when they came home because of all the asbestos fibers sticking to their faces.
The father of a good friend of ours was high up in the Navy during the Vietnam conflict. The navy swift boats that patrolled the Mekong River initially had an 84% casualty rate because the foliage along both sides of the river was so dense, it completely camouflaged VC snipers. The navigable river was in parts so narrow, the Swift Boats couldn't even do a U-turn. Monsanto came up with the defoliant Agent Orange, which proved very effective at killing plants. Monsanto assured our friend's father that it was perfectly safe to humans. This was important to him, not only because he was concerned for the lives of the people serving under him, but also because his son was serving on those boats. As the first Secretary of the Navy to allow women and blacks to become officers (he even allowed beards on men--horrors!), Nixon hated his guts and tried, unsuccessfully, to have SecDef fire him the night he resigned (Schlesinger refused). Our friend's brother, who served on the Mekong, like so many others who came in contact with Agent Orange, died a horrible death from cancer at an early age, and their dad never forgave himself for allowing Monsanto to convince him to use Agent Orange. None of this is some kind of National Secret. Our friend's name is Zumwalt, and her father's name was Elmo (after St. Elmo). Anyone can look him up.
There are people who claim to have reason to like and trust Monsanto. I am not one of them.