Part 3. What is the historical background of Monsanto and Bayer? (makers of GMO’s)

By Dr. Bruce Grandstaff of Ideal Health.

According to The Truth About Cancer, Monsanto had agreed to be sold to Bayer for $56.5 billion, a deal worth a total of $66 billion when Monsanto’s debt is taken into account. The combined company would be the world’s largest seller of both seeds and agrichemicals.

They go on – “Monsanto, arguably the most loathed GMO company on the face of the earth, has been the subject of heated discussions for decades, especially in recent days as their top-selling product (RoundUp) contains glyphosate, which has been linked to cancer, autism, and respiratory sickness.”

“Monsanto has lobbied widely and even filed lawsuits to prohibit labeling of GMO products and bury the World Health Organization’s report listing glyphosate as a probable carcinogen. If Monsanto joins forces with Bayer (one of the most hated Big Pharma companies in the world), the resulting “marriage made in hell” would be a drug-seed-pesticide company that controls almost 1/3 of the world's seed market and almost ¼ of the pesticide market. Many would argue that this would equate to a monopoly.”

“But this would not be the first time Monsanto and Bayer have teamed up. During the Vietnam War, both firms were involved in the development of Agent Orange. And both firms are currently involved in the GMO market today. I was watching the Fox News Channel a couple days ago and the “expert” being interviewed said that this was necessary in order to feed the world and that GMO foods are the only solution.”

“Apparently said “expert” is unfamiliar with the recent research, specifically the IAASTD Report which is the most comprehensive report on the future of food and agriculture (sponsored by the World Bank and the UN, written by over 400 scientists and endorsed by 59 countries).”

“In this report, they did not endorse GMOs as a solution to world hunger. In addition, genetic engineering has not significantly increased U.S. crop yields, according to the USDA and controlled comparative studies. As a matter of fact, many GMOs have lower yields than non-GMO crops.”

In an August 2024 E-mail from the Institute for Responsible Technology titled “Bad News for GMO Makers” they report that GMO corn is failing, non GMO soy footprint outshines GMOs, and nontoxic alternatives to RoundUp are on the rise. There’s an effort to ban high fructose Corn syrup, which is made from GMO corn.

GM Bt corn is failing in the US and yields are no better than non-GM corn, according to a report in the US’s mainstream agricultural press written by North Carolina State University professor and extension specialist, Dominic Reisig. Given the problem of pest resistance, the lack of a yield advantage, and the higher price, there appears to be no reason at all to plant GM Bt corn and every reason to favor non-GM corn 

They cite another study that found sustainable non-GMO soybean meal avert deforestation and has significantly reduced carbon footprint. This study was a talking point of the International Non-GMO Summit.

I downloaded and read a 123 page report from 2012 called “GMO Myths and Truths” - an evidence-based examination of the claims made for the safety and efficacy of genetically modified crops authored by Michael Antoniou PhD, Claire Robinson PhD, and John Fagen PhD from EarthOpenSource, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to assuring the sustainability. security, and safety of the global food system. In it they debunk the many myths about safety and efficacy the GMO companies used to get approval for their products. The Truth About Cancer gives us A brief history of Bayer:

*Founded in Barmen, Germany in 1863 by Friedrich Bayer and his partner Johann Friedrich Weskott.

*During World War I, Bayer turned its attention to the manufacture of chemical weapons including chlorine gas.

*In 1925, Bayer, BASF and Hoechst merged to form the massive German conglomerate Interessengengemeinschaft Farben (IG Farben) which was the biggest donor to Hitler’s election campaign.

*IG Farben built the concentration camps at Auschwitz to supply slave labor for the nearby IG Farben plant (also known as IG Auschwitz). Hitler eventually used these same camps in his megalomaniacal attempt to exterminate the Jewish race.

*In 1941, Otto Armbrust, the IG Farben board member responsible for IG Farben’s Auschwitz project, told his colleagues, “Our new friendship with the SS is a blessing. We have determined all measures integrating the concentration camps to benefit our company.”

*A subsidiary of IG Farben manufactured and supplied Zyklon B to the SS. This poisonous cyanide-based pesticide, on which IG Farben held the patent, was used during the Holocaust to annihilate more than 1,000,000 people in the concentration/extermination camps.

*IG Farben also supplied the SS with the Methanol used to burn the corpses. In 1946, the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal concluded that without IG Farben the Second World War would simply not have been possible.

*At Nuremberg, Fritz ter Meer (an executive of IG Farben was convicted of slavery, mass murder, and crimes against humanity. After serving 5 years in prison, he became Chairman of the Board at Bayer in 1956, a position which he held for almost a decade.

In 1962, just fifteen years after they were convicted in the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, Bayer, BASF and Hoechst were again the architects of the next major human rights offense when they established the Codex Alimentarius Commission.

*In the mid 1980s, Bayer was one of the companies which sold a product called Factor VIII concentrate to treat hemophilia. Factor VIII turned out to be infected with HIV. After learning that the product was contaminated, in order to save money, Bayer continued selling this infected product to Asia, and Latin America even though a safe product was available. Dr. Sidney M Wolfe, who investigated the scandal, commented, “These are the most incriminating internal pharmaceutical industry documents I have ever seen.” In the 1990s, the federal government launched an investigation on Bayer’s unethical billing practices on the Medicaid program and the Department of Justice found Bayer guilty of fraud. Bayer had to pay $14million to settle charges of causing inflated Medicaid claims.

*Bayer is sued by the mother of a daughter who collapsed and died from a birth control pill. Yas (approved by FDA in 2006) and Yasmin ((2001) were revolutionary birth control pills that use a synthetic hormone called drospirenone (DSP). Yaz or Yasmin have led to hundreds of deaths in young and healthy women.

*The drug Trasylol was banned in 2006 after it contributed to thousands of deaths in patients every single month for over a decade. After a 2006 study showed widespread deaths associated with Trasylol it took FDA and Bayer almost two years to take the drug off of the market. Later it was revealed that Bayer had buried the evidence of Trasylol’s severe side effects.

*In 2008, the German Coalition against Bayer brought a charge against the Bayer Board of Management, with the public prosecutor in Freiburg accusing Bayer of contributing to the mass death of bees all over the world through its aggressive pesticide marketing. Since then, the bee debacle has only grown worse, with thousands of hives collapsing after poisoning by the pesticide clothianidin, producing a worldwide crisis.

Monsanto’s Poisonous Past

*Monsanto was founded in 1901 in St. Louis, Missouri, by John Francis Queeny, a 30 year veteran of the pharmaceutical industry. Its first product was the artificial sweetener Saccharin, which Monsanto sold to the Coca Cola Company.

*In the 1920s, Monsanto Chemical Company was founded and incorporated the town of Monsanto, later renamed Sauget, Illinois. For years the Monsanto plant in Sauget was the nations largest producer of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which were banned in the 1970s. PCBs are potent carcinogens and have been implicated in reproductive development and immune system disorders. According to thousands of pages of released Monsanto documents (many of them emblazoned with warnings such as “confidential;

read and destroy”) they knew about the PCB dangers from early on, but

decided to conceal what they knew. One Monsanto memo explains their justification: We can’t afford to lose one dollar of business”.

*During World War II, Monsanto played a significant role in the Manhattan project to advance the atom bomb.

*In 1944 Monsanto began manufacturing DDT, which was banned in 1972.

*Following World War II, Monsanto championed the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture, and began manufacturing the herbicide 2,4,5-T which contains dioxin. During the Vietnam War, the US military initiated an herbicidal warfare program using Agent Orange (a mixture of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D and had very high concentrations of dioxin) as a defoliant.

Monsanto and Dow chemical were the two largest producers of Agent Orange, which has been linked to cancer and birth defects. According to the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 4,8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, plus 500,000 children born with birth defects, leading to calls for Monsanto to be prosecuted for war crimes. Internal Monsanto memos show that Monsanto knew of the problems of dioxin contamination of Agent Orange when it sold it to the US government for use in Vietnam. 

*In 1973 Monsanto developed and patented the glyphosate molecule and began manufacturing RoundUp. In 2015, the World Health Organization declared glyphosate to be a probable carcinogen. Despite this fact, RoundUp is still marketed as “safe.”

*In 1982, Monsanto genetically modified a plant cell for the first time.

*In the mid – 1980s Monsanto purchased G.D. Searl, the chemical company that held the patent to aspartame, the active ingredient in NutraSweet. Monsanto was apparently untroubled by aspartame’s clouded past, including a 1980 FDA Board of Inquiry, comprised of three independent scientists, which confirmed that it “might induce brain tumors.” The aspartame business became a separate Monsanto subsidiary, the NutraSweet Company. (Dr. Russel Blaylock, a noted neurosurgeon, calls aspartame a neurotoxin.) Aspartame is the common denominator for over 92 different health symptoms at the root of modern disease.

*In the late- 1980s and early – 1990s, Monsanto spent almost $500,000 to defeat Proposition 65 (California’s anti-toxics initiative which prohibited the discharge of chemicals known to cause cancer or birth defects into drinking water supplies) and Proposition 128 (California’s pesticide regulation initiative that would have phased out Monsanto’s product alachlor, which is linked to cancer). During the same time period, Monsanto also conducted the first field tests of genetically engineered (GMO) crops.

*In 1991 Monsanto was fined $1.2 million for trying to conceal discharge of contaminated wastewater into the Mystic River in Connecticut.

*In the mid – 1990s Monsanto developed their controversial cattle drug, recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST), which is produced through a genetically engineered E. coli bacteria.

*During the same time period, Monsanto was ranked 5th among U.S. corporations in EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory, having discharged 37 million pounds of toxic chemicals into the air, land, water and underground. Monsanto was ordered to pay $41.1 million to a waste management company in Texas due to concerns over hazardous waste dumping.

*In 1996, Monsanto introduced “Roundup Ready Soybeans” and “BT Cotton” then in 1998 “Roundup Ready Corn” was introduced.

*By 2007, Monsanto’s GMO seeds accounted for over 90% of the world’s supply.

*In 2010, former Monsanto lobbyist Michael R. Taylor was appointed as Deputy Commissioner of Food Safety at the FDA (the fox is guarding the hen house).

*Since 2012, Monsasnto has spent more than $25 million to fight state ballot initiatives to label GMOs and millions more to lobby Congress against mandatory GMO labeling.

Thanks to this website (http://bestmeal.info for much of the above information. This “hidden” history of Bayer and Monsanto indicates that both of these companies have consistently been involved with malevolent endeavors that wreaked havoc on humanity and caused sickness, pain, and death on a massive scale. This Bayer-Monsanto merger certainly threatens the world food supply with domination by GMOs and destructive, carcinogenic agrochemicals.

In June 2017, an international Tribunal consisting of five internationally acclaimed judges heard the testimonies of 30 witnesses and experts on five continents and found Monsanto guilty of crimes against humanity, violations of human rights, and ecocide..

They found that the company’s seed empire adversely affects the world’s access to food. They further state that by producing and distributing PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), glyphosate and similar substances, Monsanto has infringed on the public’s right to high standards of health.

Additionally, the tribunal found that Monsanto perverts scientific freedom. The company practices forms of intimidation, pressures governments, and discredits legitimate scientific research supporting public health and environment protection.

As the tribunal explains, Monsanto has been profiting from their creation of destructive and harmful compounds since the early 1900’s. These toxic products - PCBs, Agent Orange, Lasso, RoundUp, and others – have catastrophically damaged the environment and made an uncountable number oof people sick. Beyond spreading poisonous chemicals around the globe, Monsanto advocates and promotes damaging, unsustainable farming practices.

Isn’t it time we stop supporting evil companies and allowing them to destroy our health? Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” stated that “It is a moral sin to participate in our own self destruction”.