The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

90 the world according to monsantoFired for “Incompetence”Burroughs is a veterinarian with a degree from Cornell who started out witha private practice in New York, where his parents had a dairy herd. “I adorecows,” he said with a smile that lit up his sixty-year-old face. “That’s why Ichose this profession.” In 1979, he was hired by the FDA, which offeredhim training in toxicology. “I agreed to leave my hometown for Washington,because I felt it was essential.” Like almost everyone, he believed that anyproduct that had been approved in the United States would pose no problems.And the FDA was the agency that did the approving.Officially named the FDA in 1930 (although it has existed under differentnames since early in the century), the agency is charged with approving themarketing and sale of food and pharmaceutical products intended for humanor animal consumption. Its bible is the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act,signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1938. This restrictive law,from which the FDA derives its authority, was intended as a response to anational tragedy. A year earlier one hundred people had died after takingElixir Sulfanilamide, a medication made with a solvent that turned out to befatal. The new law required that in the future any product containing newsubstances be tested by the manufacturer and submitted to the FDA for approvalbefore being put on the market. In 1958, the “Delaney amendment”was added, providing that if a product presented the slightest carcinogenicrisk, it could not be approved.* It is important to note that the agency itselfdoes not conduct toxicological studies, such as animal testing, but merelyexamines the data supplied by manufacturers.So it was that Burroughs, who was working at the FDA’s Center for VeterinaryMedicine (CVM), was given the task of analyzing the request to approvefor sale a bovine growth hormone, bovine somatotropin (BST),manufactured by Monsanto through genetic manipulation and designed tobe injected in cows twice a month to increase their milk production by atleast 15 percent.† “For the CVM, it was a completely revolutionary prod-*Named after a Democratic representative from New York, James Delaney (1901–87), who wouldcertainly be spinning in his grave if he could read this.†In the 1970s, three other companies manufactured the transgenic hormone: Elanco, a subsidiaryof Eli Lilly; Upjohn; and American Cyanamid. But finally only Monsanto stayed in the running.