Monsanto Hides Behind "Proprietary Information" to Conceal Damage done to English Public Health

Peter Rae, aka "Inspired", adds (7/2/99):

Since writing my last letter [see Genetic Engineering: Capitalism over the Edge], another very disturbing aspect has come to light in connection with GM and Monsanto : one of our respected Sunday papers established that for a number of years our government was persuaded by Monsanto to allow BST milk (which is genetically modified) to be distributed in total secrecy amongst our population. That substance is now considered to be potentially harmful, even by the limited criteria applied by current science.

And now comes the outrage : since this secret mass-experimentation has become known our current government is telling us that they can not release more information about these mass-trials without Monsanto's approval (as the information is proprietary)! This must raise the question in your, our and all countries' minds - who represents the interests of us the people if those we elect consider it quite normal, in total secrecy, to strike deals with narrow commercial interests, simply because they have the money to lobby consistently (all sides of the political spectrum), while the people are led through a charade of periodic elections, in between which they are not only totally ignored but are actively conspired against!

The reason why I avoid aggressive words like "greed" is because it puts the very people on the defensive who need to understand that we are all humans on a very tightly packed planet. Unless this understanding is developed, we are going to become even more schizophrenic than we are (and are assumed to be).

Let me unravel that last sentence - we, that is many of us, are schizophrenic because one moment we can be loving parents and pillars of our community, and next moment we are sitting in our corporate offices and in pursuit of the bottom line kill tens of thousands people through our commercial (or scientific) activities (which in our minds we justify as "good" for the corporation / for the shareholders / etc. although evidence and modern communications show us to be murderers). We must start developing the WinThree formula and get away from the short-sighted Win:Win formula still taught at Business School. The Third Party that needs to win in every situation is not always easy to spot, but is always there!

The second element in the sentence I am dissecting refers to a little known fact, which is that for our current economic system to work we have had to create an artificial human being, called "homo oeconomicus", only around whom our economics makes sense. The attributes this composite human has have been described as those associated with advanced cases of paranoiac schizophrenia! Is it little wonder that we are beginning to behave like the theoretical human being on which our economic system is based!

The issue of genetic engineering may well turn out to be the wake-up call the world has needed to re-examine the role of government and economics in our lives.

I am a hawk where it counts - certainly, for instance, I believe we should develop easier and faster mechanisms whereby, if a company is considered no longer relevant to the good of its community (global, national, or local) then we should close it down. Companies, like people, take on traits that can only be eliminated by rendering them harmless, i.e. closing them forthwith. We should ban lobbying and create a formal body representing every group-interest in a modern society and let this body openly argue its narrow interest cases versus that of us, the people.

With best regards

Peter B. Rae