http://greenpeaceusa.org/media/publications/criminal.htm
Monsanto’s Criminal Record For Environmental Contamination Monsanto has been identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as being the "potentially responsible party" for no fewer than 93 contaminated sites (Superfund Sites) in the U.S. Monsanto has also admitted: "There are various other lawsuits, claims and proceedings that state agencies and others have asserted against the company seeking remediation of alleged environmental impairment". 1986 - A US District Court found Monsanto liable in the death of a Texas employee from leukemia caused by exposure to the carcinogen benzene. The plaintiff’s family contended that Monsanto had neglected to monitor benzene emissions at the plant and had failed to instruct workers about the risks of handling benzene-tainted compounds. The court awarded the plaintiff’s family $108 million. 1988 - Monsanto agreed to a $1.5 million settlement in a chemical poisoning case filed by over 170 former employees of the company’s Nitro, West Virginia facility. Six workers said they had been exposed to chemicals which gave them a rare form of bladder cancer. 1990 - Monsanto paid $648,000 to settle charges that it allegedly failed to report significant risk findings from health studies to the EPA as required under the Toxic Substance Control Act. 1991 - The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office fined Monsanto $1 million--the largest ever assessed in Massachusetts for violation of a state environmental law--for illegally discharging 200,000 gallons of acid-laden wastewater from a plant and failing to report the release immediately as well as understating the volume of the release. According to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, Monsanto, which paid a $35,000 fine in 1988 for failing to report an acid spill at the same facility, had a history of violating spill-reporting laws. 1992 - Monsanto agreed to pay $39 million of a $208 million Superfund settlement with 1700 Houston residents who claimed injuries as a result of living near a former toxic waste dump, labeled one of the worst such sites in Texas. Plaintiffs argued that Monsanto deposited 519 million pounds of hazardous compounds into unlined holes in the ground. Children in the area suffer health problems including immune deficiency disorders, cancer, and facial deformities allegedly due to exposure to toxins leaking from the site. 1996 - Monsanto agreed to pay $50,000 in legal costs and to alter advertising in New York after complaints from the state’s attorney general that advertisements for Monsanto’s Roundup brand herbicide were misleading. In their advertisements, Monsanto had claimed that Roundup was safer than table salt and "practically non-toxic" to mammals, birds and fish. New York had been challenging the ads since 1991. The Mississippi River The Mississippi River has suffered especially from Monsanto’s pollution. Monsanto’s Sauget, Illinois plant discharges an estimated 34 million pounds of toxins into the river. The facility is a major producer of chloronitrobenzenes, bioaccumulative teratogens detected at levels as high as 1000 parts per billion in fish over 100 miles downstream. Before they were banned in the 1970s, the Sauget plant was the world’s only manufacturer of PCBs. Besides being present at high levels in Mississippi fish, PCBs are ubiquitous in the global ecosystem. Monsanto’s Muscatine, Iowa plant, which produces alachlor, butachlor and other highly toxic compounds, releases at least 265,000 pounds of chemicals per year directly into the Mississippi. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service: "[T]he combined effect of the Monsanto discharge with other discharges may severely stress and degrade the [aquatic] habitat." Agricultural chemicals in the discharge were of particular concern. Monsanto's Pseudo Science Dioxin "There are numerous...flaws in the Monsanto health studies. Each of these misrepresentations and falsifications served to negate any conclusions of adverse health effects from dioxins." Dr. Cate Jenkins, US EPA Regulatory Development Branch, 1990. "There is a clear pattern of fraudulent misconduct in the dioxin science performed by the chemical industry and its indentured academics." Dr. Samuel Epstein, Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, University of Illinois, 1990. "For better or worse, we’re deeper into ‘dioxin[s]’ than anyone, even though the public links them more to Dow." Monsanto internal memo made public in 1987. *As the third largest US chemical company and the inventor of PCBs, Monsanto manufactures, uses, and disposes of vast quantities of chemicals associated with the generation and dispersal of dioxins. Dioxins are among the most notorious toxins ever made, and are present in the general population and widespread in the environment. *A 1991 study by the National Institute of Occupation Health and Safety (NIOSH) found a statistically significant increase in cancers in the workers at all sites when dioxin-exposed workers at Monsanto’s plant and elsewhere were examined as an aggregate group. That is, NIOSH indicated that dioxin exposure did increase the likelihood of cancer. Moreover, recent (1992-94) documents by the US EPA itself suggest that the weight of evidence indicates that dioxin can be considered a human carcinogen. EPA researchers have estimated that dioxin exposure currently poses cancer hazards which are 100 to 1000 times greater than the standard "acceptable" risk of one cancer per million. According to such risk estimates, dioxin would cause 350-3500 cancers annually in the US, or up to three percent of all cancers. Bovine Growth Hormone In 1991, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the company’s materials on BGH "go beyond the legitimate exchange of scientific information" and ordered Monsanto to stop making unsubstantiated claims about BGH. Butachlor Monsanto also produces butachlor (trade names Machete, Lambast), an herbicide which poses both acute and chronic health risks and can contaminate water supplies. Although Monsanto manufactures butachlor in Iowa, the herbicide has never been registered in the US or gained a food residue tolerance. In 1984, the EPA rejected Monsanto’s registration applications due to "environmental, residue, fish and wildlife, and toxicological concerns." Monsanto has refused to submit additional data requested by the EPA. Despite its recognized dangers, Monsanto sells butachlor abroad. Dozens of countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa use the product, primarily on the paddy rice which constitutes almost all of US rice imports. GREENPEACE, April 1997 1436 U St. NW, Washington DC 20009 |