FOX News Whistleblowers

This is a very scary video of testimony by two reporters (Jane Akre and Steve Wilson) who say that FOX News tried to coerce them into dropping a highly damaging story about a sponsor, Monsanto. The report discussed Monsanto's use of bovine growth hormone to produce dairy products, and how Monsanto's own research indicated that this might have made the milk carcinogenic. Since, at the time, Monsanto owned G. D. Searle & Company, which in turned owned Nutrasweet, Metamucil, and Dramamine (frequent advertisers), Monsanto was able to use financial leverage to pressure FOX News into dropping the report. FOX of course caved like a sugar-addicted toddler being threatened with candy sanctions, and tried to pressure (and bribe) the reporters to drop the story.

I'll let you watch/read the rest, but here are some more delightful products Monsanto has owned or produced (besides killer milk and :

Celebrex: Sound familiar? It was the arthritis drug that had the unfortunate side-effect of, oh, death. Good thing the FDA caught... wait, never mind (to clarify the Pfizer aspect: Monsanto-owned Pharmacia developed the drug - shortly afterward Pfizer acquired Pharmacia (just go to the website for Pharmacia).

Ambien: for putting Americans everywhere to sleep. And doing all sorts of freaky stuff in the meantime.

Enovid, the first commercial oral contraceptive (aka "The Pill")

Disneyland Hall of Chemistry
And... drum roll, please,

Agent M---f----g Orange.

--YY

p.s. As a highly relevant aside, G. D. Searle & Company was the owner of Nutrasweet, and there was some amount of controversy over whether it should be allowed on the market despite tests that were of some concern. Fortunately for Searle, a capable leader was on-hand to make sure Nutrasweet got past all that pesky red tape: Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld later left the company once the acquisition by Monsanto was complete.

p.p.s. Here's a very recent article in New Scientist saying that Aspartame was "given the all clear". Read more closely and you'll see that all it says was that an earlier study that said it was dangerous was flawed, not that any subsequent studies indicated that it was safe. In other words, it's a temporary reprieve, not an all-clear. The study needs to be done again in a more controlled fashion.