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By Root 1260 0

to promote this otherwise problematic product. Public relations firms working for Monsanto engaged in the usual sorts of lobbying activities in support of rBGH approval but also sent “secret agents and spies” to infiltrate citizen’s groups opposed to use of the hormone.18 As a member of the FDA Food Advisory Committee, I attended hearings on rBGH prior to its approval. The FDA had invited interested companies to provide one witness each. Monsanto sent nine, some of them supposedly “independent” witnesses (one was a pregnant dairy farmer from upstate New York) whose connections to the company emerged only when FDA officials required them to declare who paid for their travel to the meeting. The company took full advantage of its connections in government, enlisting an influential former Congressman—to whom the secretary of agriculture owed his appointment—to discourage federal studies of the economic effects of rBGH.19

Monsanto wielded other kinds of influence. It withheld consent to publish a peer-reviewed article by independent researchers who used the company’s data to measure amounts of white blood cells—an indicator of mastitis—in rBGH milk. Monsanto reserved the right to publish its own data first but delayed doing so for several years; this delay effectively prevented the FDA from considering the independent analysis during the rBGH approval process. Monsanto researchers argued that mastitis white cell counts depend on how much milk is produced, whether or not the cow is treated with rBGH. In contrast, the independent investigators found milk from rBGH-treated cows to contain more white cells, although they could not say whether the higher counts were due to the drug itself or to the higher milk yield. Eventually, they published the results and revealed the dispute.20

In another incident, Monsanto lawyers pressured Fox Television to refuse a four-part series on rBGH commissioned by one of its Florida stations from two staff investigative reporters. The station suspended the reporters and did not air the series. The reporters documented sales of rBGH-milk by Florida grocers who had pledged not to sell it, and inadequacies in state screening methods for antibiotics in the treated milk. They also said that Monsanto had offered as much as $2 million to Canadian regulators who were considering approval of rBGH, and had made large gifts to universities whose researchers provided data in support of FDA approval. They established a Web site to describe their side of the story and filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against the television station. The case went to trial in mid-2000; it resulted in a clear win for the reporters. The jury agreed that Fox “acted intentionally and deliberately to falsify or distort the plaintiffs’ news reporting on BGH,” and awarded a judgment of $425,000 in damages.21 These incidents were only the most public—and documented—of Monsanto’s actions, most of which took place behind closed doors in Congress, at the FDA, and (as rumored) at newspapers planning to run stories on the possible hazards of rBGH.

Monsanto’s Campaign against Labeling. Monsanto steadfastly resisted demands for labeling of rBGH milk and recruited dairy industry executives to persuade the FDA to establish favorable labeling guidelines. The company hired two Washington law firms to monitor dairies for advertising and labeling violations and to instigate legal action against milk processors who had “inappropriately” misled customers through labeling practices.22 The FDA asked the Food Advisory Committee to hear testimony on the labeling issue. A Monsanto official explained the company’s position. Because its surveys indicated that 60% of consumers thought that rBGH labeling implied a safety or contamination risk, mandatory labeling would violate the spirit and intent of the labeling laws and would also “diminish the credibility of the food label and would represent a clear step backward from the wonderful progress that has been achieved.”23 Because the FDA seemed already to have decided the issue and the Advisory Committee’s role