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It All Makes Sense Now: The US government's consistent backing of biotechnology and failure to regulate it makes sense when you see that the people who produce biotech switch in and out of job positions that are designated to regulate it. Research by the Edmonds Institute shows that the "revolving door"
between the biotech industry and government agencies includes the following
people, as of August 1998: Linda J. Fisher, Vice Pres. of Govt. and Public Affairs for Monsanto,
former Asst. Administrator of the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention,
Pesticides, and Toxic Substances. L. Val Gidings, Vice Pres. for Food and Agriculture of the Biotechnology
Industry Organization (BIO), former biotechnology regulator and (biosafety)
negotiator at the USDA/APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspections
Service) Marcia Hale, Director of International Govt. Affairs for Monsanto, former
assistant to the President of the United States and director for
intergovernmental affairs Michael (Mickey) Kantor), on the board of directors of Monsanto, former
Secty. of the US Dept. of Commerce and former Trade Rep.
of the US (i.e., Free Trade, etc.) William D. Ruckelhaus, member of the board of directors of Monsanto
for the past 12 years, former chief administrator of the EPA Josh King, director of global communications in Wash. DC office of Monsanto,
former director of production for White House events Terry Medley, Director of Regulatory and External Affairs of Dupont
Corp.'s Agricultural Enterprise, former administrator of the Animal and
Plant Health Inspections Service (APHIS) of the USDA, former chair
and vice-chair of the USDA Biotechnology Council, former member of the
FDA food advisory committee Margaret Miller, Deputy Director of Human Food Safety and Consultative
Services, New Animal Drug Evaluation Office, Center for Veterinary Medicine
in the FDA, former chemical laboratory supervisor for Monsanto Michael Taylor, former legal advisor to the FDA's Bureau of Medical
Devices and Bureau of Foods, later executive asst. to the Commissioner
of the FDA, later a partner at the law firm of King & Spaulding where
he supervised a nine-lawyer group whose clients included Monsanto Agricultural
Company, still later Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the FDA, and now
again with the law firm of King & Spaulding Lidia Watrud, working for EPA Environmental Effects Laboratory,
Western Ecology Division, former microbial biotechnology researcher at
Monsanto in St. Louis, MO Clayton K. Yeutter, a member of the board of directors of Mycogen Corp.,
whose majority owner is Dow AgroSciences, a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Dow Chemical Co., former Secty. of the USDA, former US Trade
Rep. (who led the US team in negotiating the US-Canada Free Trade
Agreement and helped launch the Uruguay Round of the GATT negations) Information about the job changes came from the US General Accounting
Office, "Who's Who, a variety of industry websites and US govt. directories,
and individual informants. Note: the list was originally distributed in August at the fifth meeting
of the Open-Ended Ad Hoc Working Group on Biosafety which met in Montreal
to negotiate an international biosafety protocol under the aegis of the
UN's Convention on Biological Diversity, a 170-member treaty organization
that came out of the Rio Summit. The US is one of the few countries that
are not members. But US representatives dominate the working group's proceedings.
This article was printed in the Berkeley Ecology Center's magazine Terrain, Winter 1998 issue, and written by Beth Burrows |
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