Notable Quotes
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto
'Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the F.D.A.'s job' - Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications. 'Playing God in the Garden' New York Times Magazine, October 25, 1998.
'Ultimately, it is the food producer who is responsible for assuring safety' - FDA, 'Statement of Policy: Foods Derived from New Plant Varieties' (GMO Policy), Federal Register, Vol. 57, No. 104 (1992), p. 229
'What you are seeing is not just a consolidation of seed companies, it's really a consolidation of the entire food chain' - Robert Fraley, co-president of Monsanto's agricultural sector 1996, in the Farm Journal. Quoted in: Flint J. (1998) Agricultural industry giants moving towards genetic monopolism. Telepolis, Heise.
'People will have Roundup Ready soya whether they like it or not' - Ann Foster, spokesperson for Monsanto in Britian, as quoted in The Nation magazine from article 'The Politics of Food' [49] by Maria Margaronis December 27, 1999 issue.
''It's important for countries around the world to adopt a uniform standard' of acceptable levels of contamination' - Biotechnology Industry Association's Lisa Dry [50]
'The hope of the industry is that over time the market is so flooded [with GMOs] that there's nothing you can do about it. You just sort of surrender' - Don Westfall, biotech industry consultant and vice-president of Promar International, in the Toronto Star, January 9 2001.
'The total acreage devoted to GM crops around the world is expanding. That may be what eventually brings the debate to an end. It's a hell of a thing to say that the way we win is don't give the consumer a choice, but that might be it' - Dale Adolphe, biotech booster and President of the Canadian Seed Growers Association and previous president of the Canola Council of Canada (Western Producer, 4/4/02).
'I recognized my two selves: a crusading idealist and a cold, granitic believer in the law of the jungle' - Edgar Monsanto Queeny, Monsanto chairman, 1943-63, 'The Spirit of Enterprise', 1934.
'Genetically engineered food constitutes a massive experiment on the planet, with potentially devastating effects on human health and the global environment' - Adam Kapp, Columnist for the Penn State Digital Collegian, Nov. 7, 2002.
'Stark denials in the face of documented evidence to the contrary have been corporate policy at Monsanto and GE for decades' - Eric Francis author of Conspiracy of Silence [51]
'For years, these guys said PCBs were safe, too. But there's obviously a corporate culture of deceiving the public' - Mike Casey of the Environmental Working Group
'The thing I'm most proud of is the industry's impeccable environmental and safety record' - Robert Fraley, Monsanto's technology chief [52]
'That is what drives a lot of people crazy. The scope of the fraud, if you will--I know that's a harsh word--the scope of the fraud that's being sold to the American public about this technology is almost unprecedented' - Interview with Dr. Charles Benbrook on GMOs
'I'm not a religious person, but I think there's something just inherently wrong with this-that they can take different species and combine 'em the way they wanna combine 'em' - Phil Geertson, who runs a small seed business in Idaho [53].
'I have the feeling that science has transgressed a barrier that should have remained inviolate' - Dr Erwin Chargaff, biochemist and the father of molecular biology in his autobiography
'Genetic Power's the most awesome force the planet's ever seen, but you wield it like a kid who's found his dad's gun.... and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunch box, and now you're selling it, you want to sell it' Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park