Can we trust the maker of Agent Orange to genetically engineer our food?

The firm was a major producer of Agent Orange, the military term for a combination of herbicides which was available commercially throughout the 1950s and 1960s. More than one hundred million pounds were used to clear jungles during the Vietnam War. Soldiers exposed to Agent Orange who suffered severe health problems now blame the herbicide. Monsanto also manufactured pcbs-the chemicals which have been proven to cause cancer and birth defects.

Roundup non-selective herbicide, the most profitable product in the company's history, injects chemicals into the ecosystem. And its sugar substitute, NutraSweet, has been challenged by food activists who question the chemical's safety.

Yet, the product that is most responsible for Monsanto's controversial headline news during the past several years-and the one that best demonstrates the conflict inherent in Monsanto's vision-is the bovine growth hormone (bgh), the company's first biotech progeny. Also known as bovine somatotropin, or bst, the hormone is injected into a cow's pituitary gland every two weeks to replicate a naturally occurring hormone-increasing milk output by up to 25 percent.

The food and Drug Administration (fda) approved bst in November 1993, after nine years of government investigations and consumer scrutiny. The approval-and Monsanto's marketing of bst under the name Posilac-made milk the first food the government allowed to be made using genetically engineered techniques. Monsanto has diligently fought off all attempts to have the government require that milk from bst-injected cows be labelled. Monsanto also has used lawsuits and threats of lawsuits to prevent dairy farmers and retailers who want to identify their milk as bst-free. Dairies from a few states have done so, nonetheless. But they're prohibited by law from shipping milk with such labels across state lines.

According to Doug Groh, an analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York, Monsanto, whose 1994 revenues topped $8.27 billion, has invested more than $1 billion to develop Posilac. John Stauber, co-author of Toxic Sludge is Good For You and director of the Center for Media & Democracy in Madison, Wisconsin, says such a lofty investment can be justified by the fact the company considers Posilac the pioneer that will precede dozens of other genetically engineered agriculture products it plans to introduce in the years ahead.

But opponents have waged an intense campaign criticizing bst on two fronts. First, such groups as Jeremy Rifkin's Washington, D.C.-based Foundation on Economic Trends, continue to question the product's safety, both for cows and for humans, as well as its alleged benefits. Others claim that the hormones and increased milk supplies will lead to further reduced prices, and drive even more small family farmers out of business.

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Business Ethics Magazine