"Nature's Most Perfect Food ... "

organism could be extracted and recombined with those of another (using recombinant DNA, or rONA, technology) without either organism having to be of the same species. Second, removing the requirement for species reproductive compatibility, new genetic combinations could be produced in a highly accelerated way. The fateful Pandora's Box had indeed been opened. The fictional horrors of the "Andromeda Strain:' the unleashing of a biological catastrophe, was no longer the stuff of science fiction. The danger was real, and no one seemed to be overtly concerned.

Genetic engineering introduced a foreign organism into a plant in a process that was imprecise and unpredictable. The engineered products were no more "substantially equivalent" to the original than a tiny car hiding a Ferrari engine would be to a Fiat.

Ironically, while companies such as Monsanto argued for "substantial equivalence:' they also claimed patent rights for their genetically modified plants on the argument that their genetic engineering had created substantially new plants whose uniqueness had to be protected by exclusive patent protection. They saw no problem in having their cake and eating it too . . With the Bush Administration 1992 ruling, that was to be upheld by every successive Administration, the US Government treated GMO or bio-engineered foods as "natural food additives:' therefore not subjecting them to any special testing. If it wasn't necessary to test normal corn to see if it was healthy to eat, so went the argument, why should anyone have to bother to test the "substantially equivalent" GMcorn, soybean, or GM milk hormones produced by Monsanto and the other agribusiness companies?

In most cases, the Government regulatory agencies simply took the data provided to them by the GMO companies themselves in order to judge that a new product was fine. The US Government agencies never ruled against the gene giants.

"Nature's Most Perfect Food ... " first mass-marketed GMO food was milk containing a recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, known as rBGH. This was a genetic manipulation patented by Monsanto. The FDA declared

the genetically-engineered milk safe for human consumption before crucial information on how the GM milk might affect human health was available, diligently holding up to the doctrine of substantial equivalence.

The rBGH hormone constituted a huge temptation for struggling dairy farmers. Monsanto claimed that if injected regularly with rBGH, which it sold under the trade name Posilac, cows woUld typically produce up to thirty percent more milk. For the struggling farmer, a thirty percent jump in output per cow was astonishing and virtually irresistible. Monsanto advertised that farmers should "leave no cow untreated:' One state agriculture commissioner termed rBGH "crack for cows" because of its extraordinary stimulating effects on milk output.6

Monsanto's new Posilac rBGH hormone not only stimUlated the cow to produce more milk. In the process it stimUlated production of another hormone, IGF-l, which regUlated the cow's metabolism, in effect, stimulating the cell division within the animal and hindering cell death. This is where problems began to appear.

Various independent scientists spoke out, warning that Monsanto's rBGH hormone increased the levels of insulin-like growth factors, and had a possible link to cancer. One of the most vocal scientists on the matter was Dr. Samuel Epstein, from the University of Illinois's School of Public Health. Epstein, a recognized authority on carcinogens, warned of a growing body of scientific evidence that the InsUlin-like Growth Factor (IGF-l), was linked to the creation of human cancers, cancers which might not appear for years after initial exposure.7

Not surprisingly, hormone stimulation that got cows to pump 30% more milk had other effects. Farmers began to report their cows burned out by as much as two years sooner, and that many cows had serious hoof or udder infections as a by-product of the rBGH hormone treatment, meaning that some of them could not walk. In turn, the cows had to be injected with more antibiotics to treat those effects.

The FDA countered the growing criticism by using data provided by Monsanto, which, not surprisingly, severely criticized the

independent scientists. With Monsanto's chief rBGH scientist, Dr. Robert Collier, with tongue firmly in cheek, retorted that, "In fact the FDA has commented several times on this issue .... They have publicly restated human safety confidence ... this is not something knowledgeable people have concerns abouf'8 That was hardly reassuring for anyone aware of the relationship between Monsanto and the FDA leadership.

In 1991, a scientist at the University of Vermont leaked to the press that there was evidence of severe health problems affecting rBGH-treated cows, including mastitis, an inflammation of the udder, and deformed births. Monsanto had spent more than half a million dollars to fund the University of Vermont test trials of rBGH. The chief scientist of the project, in direct opposition to his alarmed researcher, had made numerous public statements asserting that rBGH cows had no abnormal levels of health problems compared with regular cows. The unexpected leak from the upstart whistleblower was embarrassing for both Monsanto and the University receiving Monsanto research dollars, to say the least.9

The US General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of the US Congress, was called in to investigate the allegations. Both the University of Vermont and Monsanto refused to cooperate with the GAO, which was finally forced to give up the investigation with no results. Only years later did the University finally release the data, which indeed showed the negative health effects of rBGH. By then, however, it was too late.

In 1991, the Food and Drug Administration created the new position of Deputy Commissioner for Policy to oversee agency policy on GMO foods. The agency named Michael R. Taylor to be its first head. Taylor caine to the job as a Washington lawyer. But not just any old garden variety of Washington lawyers. As·a food and drug law specialist with the Washington power firm, King & Spalding, Taylor had previously successfully represented Monsanto and other biotech companies in regulatory cases.10

Monsanto's chief scientist, Margaret Miller, also assumed a top post in the FDA as Deputy Director of Human Food Safety at the beginning of the 1990's. In this position, Dr. Miller, without an