The Corporation Page #4

If I expose you

to some chemicals

which knowingly are

going to kill you

what difference is there?

The difference is that it

takes longer to kill you.

We are now in the midst

of a major cancer epidemic

and I have no doubt

and I have documented

the basis for this

that industry is

largely responsible

for this overwhelming

epidemic of cancer

in which one in every two men

get cancer in their lifetimes

and one in every three

women get cancer.

Towards the end

of 1989

a great box of documents

arrived at my office

without any indication

where they came from.

And I opened them

and found in it a complete

set of Monsanto files

dealing with toxicological

testing of cows

who'd been given RBGH.

BST trade name Posilac is

being used in more than

a quarter of the dairy herds

in the United States

according to Monsanto.

The milk is being drunk

by a large portion

of the American population

since the food and drug

administration declared it safe

for both cows and humans...

And at that the

Monsanto was saying

There's no

evidence whatsoever

of any adverse affects

We don't use antibiotics.

And this clearly showed

that they had lied

through their teeth.

The files described areas

of chronic inflammation

in the heart lungs

kidneys spleen

also reproductive effects

also a whole series

of other problems.

...the most comprehensive

independent assessment of the drug

"concludes that bust

results in un necessary pain

suffering and

distress for the cows.

This is not acceptable

for a drug designed simply

to increase milk production...

It is a silly product.

We have the industrial

world is a wash in milk.

We're over producing milk.

We actually have governments

around the world

who pay farmers not

to produce milk.

So the first product

Monsanto comes up with

is a product that produces

more of what we don't need.

Of course you'll want to inject

Posilac in every eligible cow

as each cow is not treated

is a lost income opportunity.

But the problem was

that use of

the artificial hormone

caused all sorts of

problems for the cows.

It caused something

called mastitis

which is a very painful

infection of the udders.

When you milk the cow

if the cow

has bad mastitis

some of the

and I don't know how to

say this in a you know

I hope people aren't

watching at dinnertime

but the pus from the

infection of the udders

ends up in the milk.

And the somatic cell

count they call it

the bacteria count

inside your

milk goes up.

There's accost to the cows.

The cows get sicker when

they're injected with RBGH.

They're injected

with antibiotics.

We know that people are

consuming antibiotics

through their food

and we know that

that's contributing

to antibiotic resistant

bacteria and diseases.

And we know we're at a

crisis when somebody can go

into a hospital and

get a staff infection

and it cant be

cured and they die.

That's a crisis.

Bad for the cow

Bad for the farmer

Bad potentially

for the consumer

The jury is out

we see a lot of

conflicting evidence

about potential

health risk.

And of course

as a consumer

my belief is why

should I take any risk?

Factory farm cows have not

been the only victims

of Monsanto products.

Large areas of Vietnam were

deforested by the us military

using Monsanto's agent orange.

The toxic herbicide

reportedly caused

over 50000 birth defects

and hundreds of thousands of cancers

in Vietnamese civilians and soldiers

and in former American troops

serving in South East Asia.

Unlike the Vietnamese victims

U.S. Vietnam war veterans

exposed to Agent Orange

were able to sue Monsanto

for causing their illnesses.

Monsanto settled

out of court

paying $80 million

in damages.

But it never

admitted guilt

Sleeping in a motel

in Brewer Maine one night

I woke up with

terrible hay fever

and my eyes were burning.

And I looked out

at the river

and there were great

mounds of white foam

going right

down the river.

And the next morning

I got up and I said

My God what was

that happening last night

He said "Oh that's

just the river".

And I said

"what do you mean?"

He said "Well look every

night the paper company sends

the stuff down the river."

And I said "What are

you talking about?"

And he said "Don't

you understand?"

"That show we get rid of the

effluent from the paper mills."

Well I knew at that time

I had been in the business.

I had sold oil

to the paper mills.

I knew all the owners.

I had been in politics.

I knew the people

in the towns.

I knew not one constituent

of the paper mills

wanted to have

the river polluted.

And yet here the river

was being polluted.

And it was more or less as

if we created a doom machine.

In our search for wealth

and for prosperity

we created something that's

going to destroy us.

The traders who are

involved in the market

are not guys

who are

whose moral fibre

when it comes to

environmental conditions

are going to be

rattled at all

They're seeing dollars

and they're making money.

Brokers don't stay away

from copper

because it violates

their religious beliefs

or your environmental

policies.

No.

There are times

when you think about it

but it's fleeting.

It really is

a fleeting moment.

It's like yeah

oh yeah yeah

well a town is being

polluted down there in Peru

but hey this guy

needs to buy some copper.

Im getting paid

a commission too.

Our information that we receive

does not include anything

about the environmental

conditions

because until

the environmental conditions

become a commodity

themselves or are being traded

then obviously we will not

have anything to do with that.

It doesn't come into

our psyche at all.

It's so far away and

it's you hardly hear

anything about it.

I mean keep in mind there are

things going on right in our

backyards for god sake.

We trade live hogs.

I mean there are so many pigs

in the state of Carolina

and they're

polluting the rivers

but how often do you

find out about that?

At Multinational Monitor

we've put together a list

of the top corporate

criminals of the 1990s.

We went back and looked at

all the criminal fines that

corporations had

paid in the decade.

Exxon pled guilty in connection

to federal criminal charges

with the Valdez spill and paid

$125 million in criminal fines.

General Electric

was guilty of defrauding

the federal government

and paid $9.5 million

in criminal fines.

Chevron was guilty of

environmental violations

and paid $6.5 million

in fines.

Mitsubishi was guilty

of anti-trust violations

and paid $1.8 million in fines.

IBM was guilty of

illegal exports and paid.

Eastman Kodak was guilty of

environmental violations.

Pfizer the drug manufacturer

was guilty of

antitrust violations.

Odwalla was guilty of food and

drug regulatory violations.

Sears was guilty of...

Damon Clinical Laboratories

was guilty of...

Blue Cross Blue

Shield was guilty of

Again and again we have

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