Monsanto facing another Schmeiser suit

HUMBOLDT, SASK. - Chemical giant Monsanto is facing a second legal rendez-vous with a Saskatchewan farm family that took a battle over genetically modified canola to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Louise Schmeiser has filed papers with a small claims court in Humboldt, Sask., seeking $140 in damages from Monsanto.

"Monsanto said that if anyone sprays Roundup on any plant and it doesn't die ... they will come and remove it," he said this week. "They failed to do it."

"The Supreme Court ruled Monsanto owns and controls the gene, so the liability issue now follows the flow of the gene," says Schmeiser. "Monsanto is totally liable for contamination and pollution of anybody's field now."

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/10/19/SchmeiserMonsanto_041019.html

If they want to own a living thing that spreads itself around, let them be entirely, expensively liable for the spread.

I love it. I hope this strategy works!

All it would take is a couple of larger farmers insisting that Monsanto has to remove all contamination (a tricky and expensive proposition) without otherwise affecting the farmer's uncontaminated crops and revenue and Monsanto would be paying out the nose.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander, or something like that.

Fleas of a thousand camels.

Hard to think of any that could be MORE evil, isn't it? AFAIC, they even rival the makers of zyklone.

Monsanto makes herbicides and crops that put food on the plates of millions of people.

IG-Farben manufactured hydrogen cyanide that murdered millions of people.

But, hey, who needs facts and science.

BURN THE WITCH!

Agent Orange.

Terminator technology.

Oh, and they "make crops," exactly what the evil bastards want you to believe. "We make 'em. You buy 'em. Or starve you ignorant savages."

Facts and science are wonderful. Monsanto has precious little of either. But large portions of imperialist, neofascist propaganda.

what's the big scary deal behind "terminator technology?"

And by bullshit, I don't mean fertilizer.

Only have a brief moment here, but the terminator technology is part Monsanto's strategy to monopolize seed markets and prevent indigenous and family farmers from practicing the age old, tried and true, methods of enhancing biodiversity, owning the seed of their crops, sharing and bartering in the marketplace.

He (she?) strikes me as someone who simply doesn't know what he's talking about this time. Be gentle. It happens to all of us.

I know I don't know everything. There are whole areas of knowledge I know nothing about.

My guess is that he is being a healthy sceptic. It's just turned in the wrong direction this time.

Because everytime I get into these arguments my opponents seem to display about as much knowledge in the science behind the debate as Creationists.

Are you sure that's backed up by fact and not just arrogance?

You aren't displaying any particular knowledge of botany and agriculture here today, yet you seem pretty sure that you know more than everyone else. You're even being a bit condescending about it.

Nobody here has said anything to deserve that condescension.

and I wasn't talking about this thread in particular, but the debate in general.

do you contribute any scientific knowledge to the great ignorant masses?

You have painted this picture of all of us who oppose Monsanto and GMOs, in general, being ignorant with youself being knowledgeable. If you know more than we do I'm sure we'd all like to hear it.

I mean, it would if Monsanto somehow tricked all the farmers into giving away their old seeds and didn't tell them the "terminator" gene crops couldn't reproduce. But farmers know what they're buying and they know if they want more again next year they'll have to buy it from Monsanto, and if they don't want to do that, then they don't have to buy from Monsanto.

The pollen from Monsanto's crops spreads and contaminates other people's fields. Farmers keep the seed from one crop to plant the next. That next crop is now contaminated too, and every year after that unless the farmers discover the contamination, destroy their crop, buy new uncontaminated seed and replant.

Yet Monsanto so far has no liability when all of this happens.

You are holding yourself to the firm belief that Monsanto contaminated crops only grow in places where people deliberately chose to grow those crops.

Terminator plants were designed to prevent that very thing. By their very nature they can't "spread and contaminate other people's fields."

so that they could not produce pollen or so the pollen was sterile then that would be fine.

But that isn't the case. I haven't heard that any appreciable amount of GMOs are designed to not reproduce. As a matter of fact, the Monstanto contracts are reported to include clauses prohibiting farmers from keeping seeds to replant. That would seem to be an open admission that the plants do and can reproduce.

Given that admission, I would need to see some proof that the plants cannot reproduce before I would believe it.

This is a bit simplified, of course, because there's always the possibility of a mutation that makes a plant fertile again, but I don't think science really knows how likely that is to happen.

OK then. What's next?

The evils of "Round-up Ready" crops?

You seem to be here to pick apart anything other people say without actually contributing anything.

Terminator technology is still a violation of nature, but at least it isn't self perpetuating.

"round-up ready crops" are crops that are genetically modified to be reproduce but are mutated to resist round-up herbicide. If they reproduce, and if the gene spreads to other crops through uncontrolled cross-pollenation then, YES, that would be a problem.

I don't want GMOs spreading in an uncontrolled fashion, and it's pure fantasy to think that the spread of pollen can be controlled.

Ah, now we get to the creationismesque, neo-luddite technophobia type argument. "violation of nature" isn't a valid argument or technically correct when homophobes use it, and it's not here either.

Anywho...

""round-up ready crops" are crops that are genetically modified to be reproduce but are mutated to resist round-up herbicide. If they reproduce, and if the gene spreads to other crops through uncontrolled cross-pollenation then, YES, that would be a problem. "

Ah, but many natural plants are already resistant to round-up. If such genetic drift were to occur, it could just as easily come from them. And even in the event that all the voracious weeds that harm farmers crops became resistant to Round-up, then you'd just be back to the place you were before Monsanto invented Round-up.

So that's still not a legitimate beef against Monsanto.

"You seem to be here to pick apart anything other people say without actually contributing anything."

Hey, somebody was going around talking how Monsanto was worse then Hitler. I'm just asking people to back that up, and so far they haven't.

If you have any questions about genetic engineering or anything like that I'd be happy to give it a whirl.

1. If nature changes something we aren't responsible, but if we change something we are responsible. I don't allow any company to abdicate responsibility simply because nature could, maybe, hypothetically do something similar.

So from an ethical standpoint your argument fails. Do you have an argument to justify science without ethics?


2. Also, GMOs are often created by taking genes from one plant or animal and putting them into the desired crop. Nature doesn't put fish genes into corn. We haven't studied what the concequences of this are (not just on the narrowest scope of plant viability but in terms of the environmental and ecological impact and long term health of people who eat it).


3. You are assuming that we are equal to nature in our ability to modify plants safely. Even if you avoid point #2, this isn't so.

If a plant naturally evolves a resistance it generally doesn't change anything else. Manually replacing sections of genetic code is the equivilent of doing the same thing with dynomite. Even the experts admit that we are at a crude stage of genetic manipulation because we only know what we're doing through trial and error. Again, we haven't studied what the concequences of this are.


4. A lot of those GMOs are designed to produce drugs, and in usable dosages. Nature does produce drugs naturally, but taking drugs from one type of plant and producing a refined form at a higher dose in another plant is different by an order of magnitude. Given that the pollen spreads in an uncontrolled fashion we risk changing entire staple crops and making those drugs unavoidable parts of people's diets.

Should we all end up eating high-insulin rice simply because it spread and got out of control? Where is the scientific justification for having that dangerous a product outside of the lab?


5. The hypothetical that nature might possibly, maybe do something doesn't in and of itself make it acceptable for us to do it. Nature might naturally warm up, melt the polar ice-caps and destroy a whole lot of coastal cities. That doesn't make it scientifically acceptable for us to do it. The idea that nature might do it so we can too is a morally and ethically bankrupt answer.


The comparison to the Holocaust is subjective. As a Jewish person I won't even go there. But I will do everything I can to prevent future holocausts of any kind, including the holocausts that could happen from irresponsible applications of unrestricted science.

That's not luddite philosophy. That's just basic common sense. You do what you can safely, and don't do more until you figure out the safety issues first.

You're taking medications that extend your life expectancy from 23 to 76. That's a violation of nature. You eat "organically grown" vegetables that have been genetically manipulated since the beginning of agriculturel. That's a "violation of nature." The failing argument is that something is bad or "pure evil", as somebody said, because it's a "violation of nature."

"Also, GMOs are often created by taking genes from one plant or animal and putting them into the desired crop. Nature doesn't put fish genes into corn."

More junk science. Genes can and do on a daily basis drift between species, classes, and even kingdoms. In fact, the process by which nature does it is how scientists figured out how to do it in the laboratory. Look, this is a complicated debate. Either read up on the basic science of it or stay out of it.

"If a plant naturally evolves a resistance it generally doesn't change anything else." Manually replacing sections of genetic code is the equivilent of doing the same thing with dynomite. Even the experts admit that we are at a crude stage of genetic manipulation because we only know what we're doing through trial and error."

Yes, and if a single plant gets fertilized by Round-up Ready pollen, it wouldn't "change anything else." It would propagate via natural selection, but it'd be just the same as with your hypothetical plant that gains resistance via mutation.

"Manually replacing sections of genetic code is the equivilent of doing the same thing with dynomite."

But it's a lot more accurate then the way nature does it, since it's done rationally and not randomly.

"Even the experts admit that we are at a crude stage of genetic manipulation because we only know what we're doing through trial and error."

Hardly "trial and error." But even if that broad statement were true it's still a call for more research.

Nice of you to imply that only you know science. If genes from fish routinely end up in corn, show an example. Any example of an animal gene in a plant would be nice. I'll happily concede that one point if you can.

The plant cross pollenated by the roundup resistant plant isn't necessarily only changed in that one way. Why the doubt? Because we don't know if Monsanto's plants have only been changed in that one way. And in fact, neither do they. That's half the issue. No long term studies have been done.

At least you admit that there's a call for more research. Maybe there's hope.

I don't claim that everything done by science is wrong. Far from it. You, however, seem to believe that everything done by science is inherently good, and that even questioning the ethics of science is bad.

You still haven't addressed the ethical issues except to blame one farmer. If you are the god of science you seem to think you are then I assume you sat (or slept) though an ethics course at some point. What's your defense for unrestricted, poorly controlled, science rushed to market for profit?

Anyone else drinking the beer at this party?

Edit: Oops. I was trying to put this at the bottom of the thread, not at the bottom of this part of the thread. I'll post.

--and gets into another wild plant's genome, then what?

Think about it for a bit.

See, there you go again.

You could have simply pointed out politely that a sterile plant is incapable of passing on it's genes. But you didn't. You had to be sarcastic.

Well, to play devil's advocate,

What if the gene only reduces fertility so that a low percentage of plants are fertile. You're then going to have random spread, just slower. Then the point is valid. What if that gene spreads?

Let's say Farmer Bob had half of his crop fertilized by pollen with reduced seed production by fifty percent. What percent of the seeds will be wild type after the first generation? The second? The third?

(that might make for a decent math class problem)

But this is getting to be a pretty moot argument. Monsanto discontinued its terminator gene program years ago.

A plant that is less likely to be fertile but is more hardy would not die out. There would be some amount of pollenation in each crop, and those crops would tend to survive by being hardier than other crops.

The spread would be slower, but hardier plants tend to survive.

The presence of round-up would tilt the balance in the GMOs favor. Even with a lower rate of successful pollenation, the GMO would surive in places where spraying has been done, where the competing plants are stunted by poison.

So, in theory you might think that selection would rule out the plant with the lower fertility, but that might not be true. It's only true if you assume that the rate of fertility is the only issue, but that ignores the whole point of these GMOs to begin with.

"What's the difference between theory and reality. In theory they are the same. In reality they aren't."

Corn? Nope, hybrid strains don't breed true-to-type and new seed must be purchased each year. Replanting the seed saved from hybrid crops would produce a field of wildly differing individual plants, drastically reducing crop yields.

This is the same with most major crop species grown in the US today. Hybrids (genetically engineered the old-fashioned way through selective breeding) have become the staple of our crop production way of farming. I should know, I grew up on a farm in central MN. The only crop I can remember growing from saved seed was oats, and that was only as a cover crop for alfalfa to protect it the first year as it established it's root system. Thus, high crop yields were only secondary to the true use of the planting. Everything else, such as soybeans, corn, alfalfa, sorgham (sp?, otherwise known as millet I believe), and barley, were all planted from purchased seed.

If you are concerned about genetically engineered crops contaminating farmer's fields, does that mean you support the Terminator crop project? The very reason it is called a Terminator crop is that any seed produced by the pollen of a Terminator crop is STERILE. A farmer couldn't plant contaminated crops even if he reused seed from the previous year, because that seed would be STERILE. Widespread employment of Terminator technology would make cross-contamination of non-GM fields impossible, and as I pointed out, would have little effect on the farmers growing the non-GM fields because, sterile or not, the grain still has just as much nutritional value and as high of yields as it normally would.

They are doing everything they can to leverage their size and influence to force genetically modified crops upon all of us.

They are doing their best to make farmers dependent upon them whether the farmers like it or not.

They are driving down biodiversty.

Sure they feed a lot of people. That just means that they own a lion's share of the agricultural industry. That doesn't mean that they are feeding people good food, or that they are doing business ethically.

I personally don't want to be forced to eat GMOs. I don't want Monsanto to succeed in driving everything else out of the fields and off the shelves. I don't think they should be allowed to leverage their size and power to force smaller farmers use their seed. And I certainly don't want small farmers to be forced to pay Monsanto because Monsanto's frankenseeds spread and contaminate their fields.

The Holocaust was another.

But you're right about that getting sued thing. I've got a whole bunch of mp3's and major motion pictures and expensive software that just happened to download itself onto my computer when I wasn't looking. The music, movie, and software companies have no right to sue me.

:eyes:

Between stuff you chose to download and pollen that blew in from the next field to contaminate your crops.

If you knew anything at all about Monsanto you'd know this has been a huge issue. Pollen can travel miles. If there's a crop of GMO anyplace within miles of your farm your crops could get pollenated. Monsanto now owns your crops and you owe them royalties whether you like it or not.

If you were growing organic food, it's not organic anymore and you can't sell it. Tough luck. Now you owe Monsanto AND the value of your crops just fell through the floor.

And, at least according to the Canadian Supreme Court, this guys claim that Round-up drifted onto his lawn is about as legitimate as my claim that the Doom 4 sourcecode mysteriously downloaded onto my computer.

The stuff DID drift over. He just didn't remove it and replant. That's what killed his case. After it drifted over he kept the seeds from the contaminated plant and replanted. That was his mistake.

His mistake doesn't invalidate the general claim that Monsanto is a predatory company that makes millions by ruthless, vicious and unethical means.

Somebody e-mailed me an attachement containing a number of bootleg mp3's.

I can either delete it, or open it and enjoy copyrighted music without paying for it.

The farmer decided he'd enjoy the music.

without looking at the wider issues and implecations.

Does the fact that this one farmer didn't destroy his crops mean that everything Monsanto does is okay?

Does the fact that this farmer didn't destroy his crops mean that it was okay for Monsanto to contaminate his field to begin with?

Your analogy is limited and flawed.

Noooo. But I'm pretty sure this one case of a farmer doesn't mean that Monsanto is pure evil and worse then Hitler. And that's sort of how this debate got started.

"Your analogy is limited and flawed."

OK, how so?

The best analogy to the farmer is this, instead of E-mail, how about a trojan or virus that then downloaded bootleg MP3s without your knowledge. Now, if you delete them then you are in the clear, the problem with the farmer is that he didn't delete them. However, it doesn't relieve the virus or trojan writer from responsibility either.

If the farmer immediately destroyed the crops and then sued Monsanto for damages, he would have been in the clear. However, in this particular case, BOTH are liable, one for the manufacturing of a plant that pollenates others, and the other for not destroying the cross-pollinated crops.

Spam would be a bit more appropriate. It's random, like the wind.

So lets say somebody randomly e-mailed an attachement with a bootleg movie. Instead of something that destroyed the whole computer/crop, it's something the farmer wanted, so he opened and enjoyed without paying the proper fees.

The farmer has no practical way to stop cross pollination without erecting an extremely fine net over the acres of land that he owns. Besides, life itself, whether designed or not, is naturally aggressive, regardless of the intent of the Creator of that life. Reproduction is a natural outgrowth of that, and therefor maliciousness isn't neccessary. Now if the farmer actually STOLE the seeds, from the other farm through overt action, then you may have an argument, but otherwise not.

Unlike him, you don't HAVE to download an attachment, there is no practical way for the farmer to protect his crops from cross pollination.

A movie isn't in and of itself harmless.

You are assuming that everything Monsanto does is similarly harmless. You are making the same mistake in the other direction. You seem to be making that prima facia argument of harmlessness without looking at the evidence to the contrary.

We are dealing with science that isn't well understood, is still in the very experimental stages, and hasn't been subject to long term, rigorous testing. We can accept that Monsanto may have good intentions for creating their products but we also need to look at the consequences. The drive for profit and a dominant place in their industry is not justification for ignoring health, saftey and ethics.

If you can't even ask the question you won't see the answer.

That's why the farmer kept it around and enjoyed it.

just that there is enough blame to go around. He chose to keep the seeds, but they did invade his property, if you want to put it bluntly. The fault of that was a design "flaw" of Monsanto's to allow these plants to reproduce in the first place. Was the farmer wrong, yes, but so was Monsanto.

Do you believe that Monsanto, the manufacturer of these crops, is not responsible for whatever cross pollination would occur in nature?

OK, this is a larger issue than this one farmer, to be honest, I'm NOT defending his actions, just looking at the larger picture.

A simple question, if the farmer, instead of keeping the crops and seeds, destroyed them instead, leading to a reduced crop yield, should Monsanto have compensated him for his losses?

The farmer might have seen a benefit to keeping this GMO, but that doesn't make it harmless. The farmer's perceptions and resulting actions have no bearing at all on weather or nor GMOs are safe. The farmer has no bearing on weather or not Monsanto is being unethical. The GMOs and Mansanto would be the same even if that farmer had never existed.

You are obscessing about the farmer again.

We're talking about GMOs in general. We are talking about Monstanto. Can you address Mansanto and GMOs without using the farmer as a diversion?

You keep coming back, compulsively to this one farmer.

Can you focus on Monsanto for a moment instead? Can you perhaps see the issues and implications of what they are doing?

You're like the person arguing against global warming by pointing repeatedly to one snow storm in utah back in 1989. (I made up that example.) The issue isn't the one local storm, it's the global weather. Similarly, the issue isn't just the one farmer, but Monsanto's actions and methods and how they affect all farmers (and all of us).

Maybe you are employed by Monsanto. Any conflicts of interest you should be telling us about?

I only brought him up again because you did.

OK, Monsanto. Give me good reasons why Monsanto is pure evil and worse than Hitler.

Not any of this "violation of Nature" "it makes God Cry" pseudoscientific creationist mumbo-jumbo. I've yet to hear a valid argument.

No, I do not work for Monsanto.

I don't really have a problem with GM crops or Genetic Engineering in general. I just believe that the consumer and public should be protected from abuses to this. The lack of Government oversight, and the idea of patenting genetic code that reproduces itself is rather powerful, and the Government should keep a careful eye on the Companies that are involved in this so abuses don't take place.

The thread is about Monsanto. The farmer was brought in as an example, not a change of subject.

I have not once said Monsanto is more evil than hitler. And I have not relied on the violation of nature bugaboo you keep bringing up.

I have not brought god into this even once, nor creationism.

Ethics is not mumbo jumbo. Concern for health and safety, and the presumption that the safety of a product needs to be proven, not assumed, isn't mumbo jumbo either.

There. That addresses all your absurd distractions and excuses.

Can you show where adequate measures have been taken to prove that GMOs are safe? And if not, then can you explain why Monsanto isn't responsible for the consequences of their creations?

You see, Monsanto had a history w/ Disney. Monsanto sponsered the HALL OF CHEMISTRY at Disneyland in the 50s and 60s. But its name became even MORE famous when, in 1967-1977, it sponsered ADVENTURE THRU INNER SPACE, part of the NEW TOMRROWLAND "A WORLD ON THE MOVE" in 1967. In this u rode in an "Atomobile" ( the OMNIMOVER, the forerunner of the Haunted Mansion Doombuggies and ALL ride systems at EPCOT CENTER), where u went into the Mighty Microscope and were shrunk down to go into a snowflake and see the inside of the snowflake and into the nucleaus. At the end, u return to normal size w/ a giant eye looking down on u. All this was narrated by the incomperable Paul Frees, who also voiced the Ghost Host in the Mansion among other Disney characters. When u exited u walked into a Monsanto exhibit, that promoted what Monsanto was doing to make this a better world. "MIRACLES FROM MOLECULES" as the song said.

THE Adventure Thru Inner Space site!

http://www.atommobiles.com/

was definitely anti-social behavior.

does it? As far back as 1928 to today, fascists through and through.

I'm far more concerned with what they're doing today.

The many small farmers in Mexico who are loosing their fields that used to contain irreplacable traditional breeds of corn. The Nation magazine did an awesome article about this last year. It's a permanent loss of biodiversity and some of that lost corn might be vitally important.

The loss of organic farms through no fault of their own.

The forced introduction of GMOs in a wide range of processed foods, without any real knowledge of the long term affects.

The posibility of the herbicide resistant genes tranfering to other plants (which I understand is not impossible or uncommon in plants). All we need is one predatory weed becoming resistant to herbicides and whole regions of farmland would quickly be in a lot of trouble.

And this is all before we even address the horrible issue of a company being allowed by law to own living things simply because of the genetic material they carry.

So aren't they just as Guilty of the Holocaust as IG Farben?

"I recognized my two selves: a crusading idealist
and a cold, granitic believer in the law of the jungle.
Edgar Monsanto Queeny, Monsanto chairman, 1943-63,
"The Spirit of Enterprise", 1934."

But I don't know enough to judge their history. So I don't. If you know enough to say that they participated in Genocide I'll take you at your word. I'll remember and when I have the opportunity I'll certainly look into what information is out there. My curiousity will lead me to it.

But until then I really have to restrain myself and keep the what I know. Their present is more than enough to convince me they're evil even without more knowledge of their past.

(Edit: Oops. You weren't responding to me. Sorry for butting in with my $0.02.) :)

I'm writing a novel about how the corporations succeeded in the coup against FDR in the 1930's. They include the largest companies in the world, from then and now, and includes quite a few notables, including said Monsanto company. The coup would have taken place if not for Smedley Butler, the former Marine General, who testified to the coup in front of Congress. It was downplayed in the media, even though the American Legion (500,000 troops), were involved, and several Fascist groups in the US, such as the Black Legion(GM run), and the Silver Shirts.

In my Novel, the conspirators never went to Butler (He fooled them into thinking he was on their side, played them for fools, especially considering that he wrote for Common Sense) to lead the American Legion, instead they went to Douglas McArthur, who was one of many Fascist Americans of the time that were famous.

and militaristic

MacArthur HATED the Civilian Government, and would have jumped at the chance to get rid of it. As far as my research says, Patton wouldn't lead such a coup, however he may follow the ones who did, after the coup, as long as "Americanism" is upheld.

You see, I did the research, and apparently, one of Roosevelt's cabinet members was a part of the plot, though I do not know who. The Congressional Record on this is sadly lacking in names, even though it confirms the coup attempt. The plot countinually thickens, and yet it never gets a mention in history books.

Look at these links:

http://www.webcom.com/ctka/pr399-fdr.html

http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/smedley.htm

http://www.corporatemofo.com/stories/030928warracket.htm

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1373/is_n11_v45/ai_17471772

because they stood to make a lot of money selling enough weedkiller to fumigate 20% or more of the entire country.

In this manner, they did damage to the environment and to democracy (both here and there).

Anyone else drinking the beer at this party?

I'm exagerating, of course. But the two of us do seem to be the most vocal people here. Come on people. Chip in. Have a beer on me.

:toast:

I'm going out for dinner. I'll be back to add to the damage in a little while. Cover for me. :P

And the beers on the house until I get back. :toast: