The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

dioxin: manipulation and corruption 61Cancer, demonstrated that Missouri farmers who had used chlorinated herbicidessuch as 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D had an abnormally high rate of cancerof the lips, bones, nasal cavities, sinuses, and prostate as well as of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and myeloma. 30 These results were confirmed by similarresearch on Canadian farmers published the following year. 31Corruption: The Richard Doll AffairFaced with this avalanche of revelations produced by one of the country’smost prestigious military officers, the administration of George H.W. Bushcould only yield. On February 2, 1991, Congress passed a law (P.L. 102-4)requiring the National Academy of Sciences to draw up a list of illnessesattributable to dioxin exposure. Sixteen years later, that list included thirteenserious diseases: several types of cancer (some of which are very rare),type 2 diabetes, peripheral neuropathy (from which Alan Gibson, the veteranI met, was suffering), and chloracne. This evolving list enabled theDepartment of Veterans Affairs to compensate and provide medical carefor thousands of veterans, out of the 3.1 million soldiers who had servedduring the Vietnam War.This radical change of course also affected the EPA, which had to go backto the drawing board at a time when the international community was eagerlyawaiting a study of the initial health effects of the Seveso catastrophe.This study, conducted by Dr. Pier Alberto Bertazzi, confirmed unusual levelsof soft tissue sarcoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and myeloma among theexposed population. 32 This new study was “one more nail in the coffin fordioxin,” confidently declared Dr. Linda Birnbaum, head of the ExperimentalToxicology Division of the EPA, as she announced that the agency was in theprocess of reevaluating its classification of the substance, which was likelyto be shifted to category A (a human carcinogen) considering the “overwhelming”evidence. The crowning irony was that in support of her argument,Birnbaum cited four studies published by Swedish scientists between1979 and 1988 that previously had been deliberately ignored by the EPA, tothe great benefit of Monsanto, once again pulling strings in the background.The story is so incredible that it’s worth taking a second look at it, becauseit says so much about the company’s practices. Completely by chance, in1973 a young Swedish researcher named Lennart Hardell discovered the