The World According to Monsanto

Title: The World According to Monsanto – Pollution, Politics and Power

Author: Marie-Monique Robin

Publisher: Tulika Books, 2010 (First published 2008)

ISBN: 978-81-89487-68-3

Pages: 329

A very peculiar book, to say the least. At the end of the day, when it was completely read I doubt whether it indeed can be called a book. Trust me, this is nothing but propaganda – a haphazard collection of unconvincing arguments bordering on ridiculousness and inconsistent facts ranging on attempts to misinformation. The author’s frothing vehemence to Monsanto is queer, as she takes other companies which also operate in genetically modified products with a gentle sweep. Robin calmly passes over European companies like Novartis or Syngenta, but when it comes to Monsanto, which also deal with the same type of products, the author bares the canine teeth. In a seething criticism which pervades the whole of the book, there is no tactic she has missed. The book is a translation from the French.

Monsanto was founded in 1901 for the manufacture of chemicals. It started operations by producing saccharine for Coca-Cola. Later, it diversified into electrical insulating liquids and engine lubricants, which contained PCB (poly-chlorinated biphenyls) like any other company which produced these. PCBs may cause cancer, but its adverse effects became apparent at a later stage and the company ended its production. The author however lists internal documents of the era which highlight that Monsanto was aware of the health risks involved in its handling and usage. Monsanto also produced weed-killing chemicals and herbicides for the Vietnam war. When U.S. troops were falling easy prey to communist Viet Cong guerillas operating under the cover of thick tropical forests, America resorted to aerial spraying of defoliants, specifically Agent Orange on a massive scale for ease of military operations. This caused serious health problems among the local population and also American soldiers stationed there. Associations of Vietnam war veterans later sued their government to claim damages. What is strange is the author’s accusing Monsanto of causing environmental harm. Any herbicide is designed to kill plants and if it is sprayed over forests, that too will wither. But who is guilty? The party which deliberately sprayed the chemical or the manufacturer of it? If the author’s absurd argument is accepted in a court of law, soon we may find suits against Ford or Honda for car accidents in our neighbourhoods.

The book is written in a partisan spirit, with the author not letting go any trick that could be effectively used against Monsanto. It lists out a long series of enquiries and fact-finding missions in which various authorities probed into the adverse health effects of chemicals manufactured by the company. She then accuses that “those who did not rule out the possibility of the chemicals having harmful effects had their scientific contributions denigrated and their reputations belittled” (p.62), but it was she who is actually doing it when she accuses Richard Doll in the very next paragraph. Doll, who was one of the greatest cancer specialists in the world had demonstrated the association between smoking and lung cancer and had proved himself to be an incorruptible person. The author then alleges that he was working for Monsanto 20 years previously and that had caused his submitting a report that some of the chemicals manufactured by the company was found to be only weakly carcinogenic in animal experiments (p.63).

In her all-out effort to give Monsanto nothing but the choicest abuses, the author fails to grasp the inconsistency and contrary approaches of the arguments themselves. In the chapter on rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone, which when injected on cows enhanced milk production significantly), the book concedes that 30% of cows in the U.S. has been administered the drug Posilac which imparts the hormone. No regulatory organisation has found any unhealthy ingredient in milk produced by these cows. Robin still accuses the drug of very harmful side effects like mastitis, which is an inflammation of udders. Readers who have not donned mental blinders ask the obvious question, “then why do a very large portion of the clientele use the drug, if it is so hazardous?”. Also, the author develops misinformation into an art in the chapter, “Monsanto weaves its web”, by citing scientific studies which ‘proved‘ genetically modified food can cause serious health issues in rats. Arpad Pusztai, a well known researcher did the experiment with transgenic potatoes and came up with results reporting harmful effects. Naturally, we expect the potatoes to have been produced by Monsanto. But no, they were produced by the researchers themselves which cleverly remained unemphasized. Robin then uses this result to claim that all GM food is hazardous.

The whining tone continues throughout the length of the book. Whether it is Roundup-ready Soybeans in Latin America or Bt Cotton in India, Monsanto is accused of rapid rise of Soybean cultivation, resultant drop in prices, low yield of Bt cotton, high price of seeds and contamination with organic varieties. Bt cotton is said to be four-times costlier than normal ones, but the yield is claimed to be up to 30% less. Anyone with common sense wont go for such a crop in the next season. But when we see that they do go for it, we can be sure of either of the two – that they are imbeciles who can’t decide for themselves or that the argument was a lie, pure and simple!

The work is not backed by serious research. Searching Google is not an alternative to research work, which the author has freely employed. The arguments she arrays against the company is her hit results in Google (see p.2 and p.6). The author alleges that Monsanto produced transformer oil which contained PCB, other harmful substances like 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D (dioxins), DDT and aspartame but conveniently forgets to mention that these were not banned chemicals at that time and their hazardous nature was established only later. On many occasions, the text assumes the parlance of a legal document extensively quoting irrelevant dates (what use is there for the reader to know the date on which the author interviewed her clients?) and the style is distinctly propaganda-like. To give credence to her unsubstantiated allegations, she even attacks well known protocols like peer review for articles submitted for publication in reputed science journals. She calls it the “damaged system” (p.56) only because a study conducted by Monsanto was published by the journal of American Medical Association refuting the author’s arguments.

Whether intentional or not, Robin falls into the trap of wrong interpretations of statistical data leading to false alarms. When talking about adverse effects of weedicide ‘Roundup’, she says “A Canadian study published in 2001 showed that men exposed to glyphosate more than 2 days a year had twice the risk of developing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma than men never exposed”. This statistics may be literally true, but won’t prove anything until the base is also revealed. If only 1 person in a sample size of 1000 is afflicted, while it is 2 in the other group, the risk rate is twice that of the former, but not statistically significant. For details of such pitfalls awaiting authors see the very enlightening The Tiger That Isn't, reviewed earlier in the blog. Robin even opposes free speech at some points. Anyone opining favourably to GM food is alleged to be either in Monsanto’s pay or under their influence. Interviews with such persons are disproportionately harsh with the author uncharitably commenting on their nervous blinking, fidgeting in chair and such mannerisms as if they were being interrogated for a malicious crime. These interviews are never intended to be the author’s quest for reaching the truth. They are solely packed there for underlining the same malicious argument against all biotechnology. Even Green Revolution, which wiped away hunger of most of the third-world is safe against the barbs of Robin.

The political leaning of the author is evident from the following quotes. “Ethics and morality are abstract concepts foreign to the logic of capitalism” (p.16). “At a time when globalization is impoverishing the rural North and South…” (p.5). “Combined with the rising power of the anti-globalization movement that denounced the control of multinationals….” (p.229). The saddest fact is that she could hitch some unsuspecting scholars from the third-world to her bandwagon. The case in point is that of Vandana Shiva from India. The country is a very poor one, with most of the population below the poverty line when it became independent in 1947. Luckily, the country soon adopted Green Revolution with an uncharacteristic rigor and became the second largest producer of wheat in a span of 15 years. This miracle fed the poor, but Vandana Shiva is furious that it wiped away low-yielding varieties, under the guise of biodiversity. Perhaps in the ivory towers of these arm-chair scholars, the call of hunger is not heard.

The book is a waste of time and not recommended.

Rating: 1 Star