The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

102 the world according to monsantocourse, has been new outbreaks of diseases that the medical community hadthought were eradicated. Hence, as early as 1983, three hundred renownedscientists submitted a petition to the FDA asking that it ban the use of antibioticsin animal feeds. 16Since then, publications on the damaging effects of resistance to antibioticshave proliferated. In 1992, when the argument over rBGH was raging,two researchers wrote in Science: “After a century of decline in the UnitedStates, tuberculosis is increasing. . . . One third of the cases tested in a NewYork City survey in 1991 were resistant to one or more drugs.” 17 In the sameyear, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that 13,300 hospital patientsin the country had died from infections caused by bacteria resistant tothe antibiotics doctors had prescribed for them. 18Extreme PressureThis is the reason the GAO took the mastitis problem very seriously. 19 Havinglearned of a study by the University of Vermont, which had been paid byMonsanto to test the transgenic hormone on forty-six cows, the GAO askedfor the results, but according to them the scientists refused. Publicized bythe Vermont Public Interest Research Group, a consumer and environmentaladvocacy organization, the affair caused a stir, forcing the FDA to breakits silence. It was then discovered that 40 percent of the cows treated hadrequired treatment for mastitis, compared to less than 10 percent in thecontrol group.At the same time, Monsanto was involved in a dispute with five Britishscientists, including Professor Erik Millstone of the University of Sussex,who, unlike others, did not give up. The episode is worth looking at in somedetail because it clearly illustrates Monsanto’s attitude toward independentresearch. The seriousness of mastitis is measured by what is called somaticcell count (SCC): a high number of leukocytes (white cells) in a cow’s bloodmeans that there is inflammation of the udder and therefore there is pus inthe milk. It is also important to know that as the FDA was considering authorizingthe marketing of rBGH, Monsanto had submitted a similar requestto European countries. In this connection, the company had associated withtwenty-six international research centers to conduct tests on the hormone.