The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

scientists suppressed 171fined anywhere, nor has an exact definition been agreed by legislators. It isexactly this vagueness which makes the concept useful to industry but unacceptableto the consumer. Moreover, the reliance by policy makers on theconcept of substantial equivalence acts as a barrier to further research intothe possible risks of eating GM foods.” 32Monsanto used and abused the concept, and it had no qualms aboutrewriting its history to vindicate the safety of its GMOs by referring to theimprimatur of UN organizations, precisely the goal of the series of maneuversI have just recounted. “A basic principle in the regulation of foods andfeeds produced from plant biotechnology is a concept called ‘substantialequivalence,’” explains an April 1998 promotional document for RoundupReady soybeans addressed to farmers. “It was established in the early 1990sby the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO),theWorld Health Organization (WHO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperationand Development (OECD).” This unanswerable argument is frequentlyset forth in official company documents, usually along with anotherdesigned to contribute scientific backing to it: “To establish ‘substantialequivalence,’ the composition of Roundup Ready soybeans was compared toconventional varieties. . . . In total, more than 1,800 independent analyseswere conducted and conclusively demonstrated that the composition of RRsoybeans is equivalent to other soybeans on the market. . . . In addition,feeding studies performed across the zoological spectrum (broiler chickens,dairy cattle, catfish, and rats) demonstrate the nutritional equivalence ofRoundup Ready soybeans.”Thus began the final phase of the “action plan” developed, as I havenoted, in October 1986. Knowing that the launch of Roundup Ready soybeanshad to go off without a hitch, because it would blaze a trail for all subsequentGMOs, Monsanto decided to use the mechanism of “voluntaryconsultation,” provided for in the FDA policy statement. Roy Fuchs, Monsanto’sdirector of regulatory science and an assiduous attendee of UNworkshops, was asked to design two studies intended to provide scientificproof that the principle of substantial equivalence had a solid basis (whichconfirms that, at this stage, the documents of the FAO, the WHO, and theOECD were purely theoretical and were not based on any scientific data.The first study was designed to compare the organic composition ofRoundup Ready soybeans with that of conventional soybeans, particularly bymeasuring levels of protein, fat, fiber, carbohydrates, and isoflavones in the