Bayer’s buyout of the biotech giant will allow Monsanto to hide in the shadows. Action Alert!
Bayer, the German pharmaceutical company, is wrapping up a $63 billion dollar purchase of Monsanto, and has said that it will retire Monsanto’s name. It will become impossible to know which products are being sold by what was formerly Monsanto, because they will now be sold under Bayer’s name, or perhaps one of their many subsidiaries.
Dropping Monsanto’s name comes as no surprise: the seed company is one of the most hated companies in America and will no doubt benefit from being outside of the limelight.
Their reputation isn’t exactly unearned. Monsanto is responsible for some of the most horrific chemicals in our environment, things like Agent Orange, which caused 3 million people to have health effects and 150,000 children to be born with birth defects during the Vietnam War. We have Monsanto to thank for PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), which the EPA banned in 1979 due to the environmental contamination and severe health issues they caused. And let’s not forget glyphosate, the active ingredient in the Roundup herbicide, which has been linked to a number of serious health effects, including cancer
The problem is that, when a product was released under the Monsanto name, concerned members of the public knew to be wary of exposure to the product. Bayer does not have the same recognition, or the same reputation, as Monsanto, so if Monsanto products are now sold under the Bayer name, consumers will not apply the same scrutiny as they might have otherwise.
In truth, though, Bayer may deserve a spot in the “most hated companies in America” alongside Monsanto. We are in the midst of a calamitous decline in pollinator populations, with serious implications for the environment and life on this planet, and one of the chief suspects in this catastrophe are neonicotinoid pesticides—one of Bayer’s cash-cows.
The merged Bayer-Monsanto will control 25% of the world’s seeds and pesticides. We noted previously that Syngenta, which supplies one-fifth of the world’s pesticides and 10% of soybean seeds to US farmers, is set to merge with ChemChina, a state-owned Chinese company. Dow Chemical and DuPont are also merging. These mergers mean that three companies will control the lion’s share of the world’s agricultural services, from seed production, to the herbicide and pesticide sprays that go on them, to the biotechnology used to produce them all.
Monsanto/Bayer, Dow/DuPont, and Syngenta/ChemChina will sell 59% of the world’s seeds and 64% of the world’s pesticides.
The consolidation of the biotech industry means that consumers must be even more vigilant in the coming years for products that negatively impact human health and the environment. In the meantime, we still have known quantities, such as Roundup and glyphosate, that are dangerous and must be removed from the market—no matter what name appears on the bottle.
Action Alert! Write to Congress and the EPA and tell them to ban glyphosate. Please send your message immediately.
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Bayer was one of several companies that made up IG Farben in Nazi Germany during the war. IG Farben made the cyanide gas used to kill prisoners in the death camps and also worked the prisoners to death in the factories.
This is undoubtedly a case of ‘bait and switch’ We already know that Bayer’s neonicotonids are killing the bees, along with other insects and amphibians in the world.
We don’t have to be polite about Bayer’s notorious history during world war 2, and it would seem that chemicals have this malevolent effect on Germans, and they become indifferent to the effects. Seems as though Monsanto is the American heir of this legacy of spreading chemicals recklessly, causing both short and long term damage.
Jefferson said, ‘The price of freedom is eternal vigilance’ and that will be the byword as Monsanto’s crimes are absorbed by another chemical company with a criminal history.
It’s all part of the New World Order. What did Rothschild say about this year?
Blame our politicians who have sold themselves out to special interest groups such as Monsanto who have hid the threat to not only our health by eating many food products containing Monsanto’s roundup in our food but the poisoning of our land and rivers. Even installed former Monsanto employees in the FDA. It’s no wonder we have so many cancers and kids with autism and the number will only increase until people wake up.
Then suee Bayer. Do they think because they’re foreign they can evade responsiblity? We need to show them they’re dead wrong.
Is not poisoning the environment from which comes our food supply not a felony offense? These people ought not to merely be sued in civil court for monetary damages,but arrested and prosecuted for criminal activity. Time to talk with honest prosecutors.
Monsanto’s not “gone.”Their maiden name’s simply dropped via their marriage to the big bad (oui!) Bayer…right?
It’s shocking that Bayer doesn’t have as bad a reputation as Monsanto does, as they’re possibly even nastier. In addition to what others have already stated here, Bayer is also responsible for unleashing heroin on the world, inventing it in 1898. They’re not just your “friendly local aspirin makers”. I’d recommend boycotting aspirin.