The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

the bovine growth hormone affair, part one 107tion tailor-made for him. He remained there for three years, long enough tosupervise the drafting of basic documents concerning the regulation ofrBGH and beyond that of GMOs, then spending a brief period at the Departmentof Agriculture, and was then hired in the late 1990s as a vice presidentof Monsanto.When I finally tracked him down in July 2006, he was a senior fellowat Resources for the Future (RFF) and director of its Center for Risk Management.RFF is a “nonpartisan organization” based in Washington that“conducts independent research . . . on environmental, energy, and naturalresource issues.” Taylor never agreed to meet me, with or without a camera.But, oddly, he granted me a telephone interview, and I was able to record ourconversation. I remember that, in a fit of paranoia, I assumed that he haddone the same thing. At the time I was waiting for an answer from Monsantoabout interviews in St. Louis, and I knew that the company was investigatingme, conscientiously weighing the pros and cons.“The fact that you worked for seven years as an attorney for Monsanto andthat you later supervised the approval process for one of its most controversialproducts never raised an ethical issue for you?” I asked cautiously.“No, no. There are rules and I respected them.”“You don’t think there was a conflict of interest?”“Absolutely not. Besides, the GAO conducted a very detailed investigationand it totally cleared me.”In fact, much to the dismay of Jeremy Rifkin, the GAO investigationfound no conflict of interest. “Welcome to Washington!” Rifkin said ironically.“At their hearing, Michael Taylor and Margaret Miller claimed thatthey had voluntarily withdrawn from all meetings having to do with rBGH.So move on, there’s nothing here.”“The GAO investigation was a charade,” according to Samuel Epstein.“How could they accept that alibi at face value when it was Michael Taylorwho signed an FDA directive recommending not labeling natural milk as‘rBGH free’ or ‘hormone free’? You understand what that means? The agencyin charge of food safety published an absolutely unprecedented documentthat prevented consumers from choosing the milk they wanted to drink and,most important, allowed Monsanto to sue all the sellers of dairy productsthat publicly rejected milk with hormones. Don’t you think the country haslost its mind?” 22