The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

monsanto weaves its web, 1995–1999 187national in the affair. Tony Blair’s office had been pressured by the Americans,who thought our study would harm their biotechnology industry, andparticularly Monsanto.”This information was indeed confirmed by a former administrator of theRowett Institute, Professor Robert Orskov, who told the Daily Mail in 2003:“Phone calls went from Monsanto to Clinton. Clinton rang Blair and Blairrang James.” 20Robert Shapiro, the Guru of MonsantoThe affair may seem incredible. And yet we’ve already seen how Monsantowas capable of intervening at the highest levels of government or internationalorganizations to impose what it openly called in its activity report for1997 “Monsanto’s law.” 21 When it made this odd confession, a few monthsbefore the Rowett Institute went into an uproar, the company was headed byRobert B. Shapiro, who had succeeded Richard Mahoney in April 1995, andremained CEO until January 2001.Called “biotechnology’s chief evangelist,” 22 the “image-maker,” 23 and the“guru of Monsanto,” 24 this lawyer from a well-to-do family in Manhattan wasan exceptional figure in the history of the company: he was a Democrat andvery close to the Clinton administration. That is presumably why the companycontributed generously to the president’s reelection campaign in 1996and Clinton praised Monsanto in his State of the Union address on February4, 1997. Soon afterward, Shapiro was appointed to the President’s AdvisoryCommittee for Trade Policy and Negotiations, which worked closelywith Mickey Kantor, the trade representative and future Monsanto boardmember. In December 1998, Bill Clinton in person awarded the NationalMedal of Technology to Ernest Jaworski, Robert Fraley, Robert Horsch, andStephen Rogers, the four inventors of Roundup Ready soybeans.At the time, as former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman has testified,the Democratic administration was enthralled by Bob Shapiro’s talkabout the “promises of biotechnology” that would produce a “revolution inagriculture, food, and health.” 25 The Monsanto CEO painted in glowingterms the benefits of a technique that, according to him, was capable ofshifting the world into the post-industrial age for the good of humanity, witha strength of conviction that even his harshest opponents acknowledge. In