Food Additive Regulation is Politically Contaminated
President George Bush Jnr
Monsanto donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaign and that of a supporting cast of politicians likely to assist the chemical/GE industry during the Bush Presidency and it was a former Bush Snr appointee to the US Supreme Court bench, former Monsanto lawyer Clarence Thomas (see below), who made the landmark decision to ignore the Florida votes that would certainly have given the US Presidency to Al Gore in 2000.
Larry Combest (R-TX)
. . . chairman of the House of Representatives Agriculture Committee and thus in a powerful position to make sure the chemical/GE industry stays in control of US (and world) agriculture. He received cash from Monsanto during his campaign and has appointed another Monsanto beneficiary, Richard Pombo (see below) to head an important Agriculture sub-committee.
Mitch Daniels
... Director of the Federal Office of Management and Budget, was the vice president of corporate strategy at Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical Company. Eli Lilly and Monsanto developed the genetically engineered bovine growth hormone Posilac (rBGH/BST). Lilly "owns" the European "franchise" and stood to benefit if current Bush administration/WTO pressure on the European Union to admit beef and dairy hormones in the EU diet succeeded.
Linda J. Fisher
... former Assistant Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Pollution Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances between 1989 and 1993, more recently Vice President of Government and Public Affairs for Monsanto Corporation and from May 2001 top managerial and policy assistant to Christie Todd Whitman, head of the EPA.
Sounding off on Fisher and how the Whitman EPA was shaping up, Greenpeace's Rick Hind said ...
"Instead of just business as usual, this would be more business than usual."
(Greenpeace release 8.2.01),
Carol Tucker Foreman
... in recent years has been an outspoken lobbyist on behalf of Monsanto's rBGH/Posilac product, has returned to the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) to become director of a new Food Policy Institute for CFA. The CFA is a US consumer organisation lacking links with any credible citizen action groups over food safety, environment or agriculture reform. It basically acts as a front group for Big Business interests.
"Carol Tucker Foreman spent a decade and a half as a lobbyist running her own firm with big paying clients like Monsanto (Posilac) and Procter & Gamble (Olestra). Some people speculate the reason she has left her firm and moved back to CFA is that she can do the food industry a lot more good there while the growing trade fights unfold over beef hormones and biotech. Supposedly she is going to stay away from biotech issues, but that's a ruse at best - after all, which international food issues DON'T involve biotech?
"One of her real coups in the past was to convince groups like Center for Science in the Public Interest to not oppose rBGH and to stay out of the fight over biotech foods. It probably didn't take much convincing, since their top nutritionist is married to an FDA person whose job has been to oppose biotech labeling."
~John Stauber of PR Watch
Michael A. Friedman, M.D
. . . a 30-year-service federal medical adviser who was responsible for FDA approval of the problematic anthrax vaccine used during the Gulf War; former acting commissioner of the FDA from early 1997 until December 1998; then deputy commissioner till July 16, 1999; now senior vice-president for clinical affairs at G. D. Searle & Co., a pharmaceutical division of Monsanto/Pharmacia/ Pfizer.
Also ensured FDA approval of bovine growth hormones, and a long list of other potentially-hazardous chemicals and biotech developments as well as refusing further investigation of the notorious sweetener aspartame. It was with considerable irony that Dr. Jane Henney, as incoming FDA Commissioner, said of Friedman's leaving that "the nation [Monsanto?] owes an enormous debt of gratitude to Dr. Michael Friedman."
Along with his Searle/Pfizer commitment Friedman was also currently (July 2003) the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America's (PhRMA) Chief Medical Officer for Biomedical Preparedness, an industry/ US Dept of Health quango which emerged from Twin Towers paranoia.
L. Val Giddings
... former biotechnology regulator and (biosafety) negotiator at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA/APHIS), moved to Vice President for Food & Agriculture of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).
Chris Wheeler - August 2009