The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

scientists suppressed 161to all anti-GMO activists. Established in 1978 by major food industrycorporations—the Heinz Foundation, Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, GeneralFoods, Kraft (owned by Philip Morris), and Procter and Gamble—ILSI callsitself a “non-governmental organization” and describes itself on its Web siteas “a global network of scientists devoted to enhancing the scientific basisfor public health decision-making.” 20 As the British daily The Guardian revealedin 2003, the organization was well connected in the World HealthOrganization and the Food and Agriculture Organization, two UN bodies itlobbied in favor of GMOs through a document published in 1990 by theIFBC. 21 And it was precisely this document, a statement of principles on theway GMOs should be regulated, entitled “Biotechnologies and Food: Assuringthe Safety of Foods Produced by Genetic Modification,” that Hansenhad just pulled out. 22“Remember that Michael Taylor came to the FDA in July 1991,” Hansenwent on. “Until then he’d been working at the law firm of King and Spalding.His clients included not only Monsanto but also the IFBC, the InternationalFood Biotechnology Council. He wrote this document setting out the waythe organization would like GMOs to be regulated. If you compare this proposalTaylor wrote for the IFBC and the policy statement published by theFDA, you can see they are very similar. If he didn’t write the statement, thensomeone took his proposal and changed it slightly before publishing it.” Theanonymous IFBC document, oddly unavailable on the Web, is in fact the firstreference cited in the appendix to the FDA policy statement. 23“Again, it’s false,” Taylor insisted. “I could not possibly have anything to dowith it because I’m not a scientist. So, again, this is why you need to be talkingto Dr. Maryanski and people who were actually involved in developing theFDA policy.” When I subsequently interviewed Maryanski, he found it hardto get rid of this new hot potato. “Mr. Taylor was the deputy commissionerat the time, and he provided leadership for the project and served as thechief, sort of the leader . . . policy person, in terms of making sure the projectgot done.”“Did you know that he used to work for Monsanto as an attorney?”“I think I knew that he had, you know, been at Monsanto, but, you know,we often have people come in and they’re appointed as commissioner ordeputy commissioner.”“What was the role of Monsanto in the FDA?”