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MONSANTO RESPONDSOn May 21, 1998, Ms. Lisa Drake of Monsanto Company called our office to have a discussion about a letter we sent to Mr. Robert Shapiro, CEO of Monsanto. Ms. Drake, who is Monsanto's Director of Public Relations for Roundup, was responding to a letter we had written personally to Monsanto's CEO. When we asked why he did not respond himself, she said Mr. Shapiro was not even aware she was making the call. We would like to share the letter we wrote to Mr. Shapiro. This is why we feel it necessary to share what was supposed to be a private letter to Mr. Shapiro, copied to Mr. Tom Carrato (the Monsanto attorney that wrote to Vital Health Publishing). Perhaps not surprisingly, our letter to Mr. Shapiro (by Ms. Drake's account) was shared with 8 Monsanto employees (and untold others). In effect, our letter basically became public Monsanto information. We still have not heard from or received an answer from Mr. Shapiro or Mr. Carrato. Instead, we were called by Monsanto's public relations department. Since our private letter to Mr. Shapiro is being distributed freely to Monsanto's constituents to get their input, we now deem it appropriate to distribute it to you, our constituents. We do not have a company to share letters we receive or send; quite frankly, everyone in the public sector is our "company." If we represent a "product," it's your health and the health of the planet. So it's only fair that we share our letter to Mr. Shapiro with you. Here is the letter to Mr. Robert Shapiro that we wrote in response to Monsanto's attorney's letter to our now ex-publisher. If any of you are inclined, perhaps there is a public relations specialist out there, you may wish to call us or Monsanto and tell them how you feel about our relative positions. We can be reached at cetos@cetos.org or 707-884-1700. Monsanto can be reached at 1-800-332-3111 (customer service), or 1-800-221-9369 (media relations), or you can respond via the internet at: http://www.monsanto.com/Monsanto/Contact/default.html DEAR MR. SHAPIRO, Mr. Robert Shapiro, CEO Monsanto Corporation 800 North Lindburg Boulevard St Louis, Missouri 63167 Dear Mr. Shapiro We are writing to protest your Company's actions which have led to termination of a contract to publish our book with Vital Health Publishing of West Chicago, Illinois. You may be unaware that Mr. Tom Carrato, your Assistant General Counsel, wrote our publisher on March 26, 1998 putting him on notice that our writing was allegedly defamatory and potentially libelous of Roundup herbicide. The material he attacked was published in Coast Magazine over five months ago and comprised a 2,500 word piece excerpted from various sections of an 80,000+ word book entitled Against the Grain. Your counsel's demand that none of the questioned material appear in the book prior to publication came exactly three days before the book was to leave the printer. Two weeks later, our publisher pulled the book, and abruptly cancelled the contract on the grounds that he now faced a substantial risk of litigation from Monsanto. Mr. Carrato also alleged we made numerous misstatements and errors regarding Roundup and Roundup Ready soybeans. He told our publisher that your staff had personally told us the difference between intentional and accidental ingestion and that we had intentionally disregarded these communications. Your counsel also admonished our publisher that we were completely wrong when we reported on findings, which if confirmed, might suggest that Roundup Ready soybeans might have altered levels of phytoestrogens. On this last point, we were advised to withdraw the statements on phytoestrogens, on the grounds that Monsanto had "unpublished studies" which showed that Roundup sprayed, genetically engineered soybeans had the same levels of phytoestrogens as did non-engineered soybeans. We are perhaps understandably concerned and upset. Contrary to Mr. Carrato's assertions to our publisher that we deliberately misrepresented data because "we have on numerous occasions given notice to the authors about the distinction between accidental exposure and deliberate ingestion", we have never received a written communication or telephone call from your staff on any of these issues. How can we accurately report on ingestion toxicity when employees of your company withhold the relevant data? When we asked Martin Lemon on April 2, 1997 about ingestion toxicity we were refused access to Monsanto's studies. We are left with a number of additional questions. Since none of Mr. Carrato's concerns deal with factual matter--they all appear to be focused on our emphasis--why does he represent to our publisher that we make serious misstatements? How can any author cite unpublished and unshared data? Why was this correspondence sent to our publisher and not to us? Why did Mr. Carrato wait until three days before publication to demand changes be made? Why did Mr. Carrato not ask to see the final book manuscript? Why does he attack our credentials as toxicologists (ML) or environmental policy persons (BB) on the basis of a popular article, and without benefit of updated materials? Most critically, Mr. Carrato must of necessity be completely unaware of the context of those statements in the actual book, since it has not yet been published In Against the Grain, we go to great lengths to present the relative toxicity of Roundup accurately and contrast it to a much more toxic product made by another chemical company. In the five months which elapsed between Mr. Carrato's reading our popular piece and bringing the book to final form, we chose to delete reference to glyphosate's isolated cancer findings. In the book, any statement to the effect that Roundup must be considered toxic is carefully circumscribed and presented in terms of Roundup's occupational toxicity and in terms of actual reports of human fatalities in suicide attempts or accidental ingestions. All our statements are amply documented. We think we understand your legal counsel's zeal in defending your product. Roundup is clearly among the least toxic pesticides in current use, and is relatively non-toxic--all points which Mr. Carrato might be surprised to find in our as yet unpublished book. Our major objection is to Roundup's expanded use in the context of biotechnology: We believe that too little testing on long-term effects has been done to permit the explosive and aggressive expansion of Roundup Ready technology to "solve the world's food problem". In that vein, we have been skeptical of the proposition that Roundup Ready crops serve as a panacea for the world food problem. Perhaps you will recall our conversations with your office on September 17, 1997 when we invited you to provide us with Monsanto's viewpoint on this and related issues. After detailing in writing our questions--and providing you with a list of our criticisms as requested by your secretary, Ms Scarlet Foster--you declined to speak to us. According to Ms Foster who called us on September 19, your reason for declining an interview was that it was "not in Monsanto's corporate interest". We understand this. It is your right to speak out or not on any particular issue. In fact, out of courtesy to you, we did not report this event in the book: we do not believe in ad hominem attacks. Clearly, your attorney is of a different mindset. His personal villification of our writing and misstatements about communications with your staff (e.g., we never had a discussion about suicides on Roundup) speak for themselves. Frankly, knowing of you and your high ethical standards as exemplified by your giving the Hastings Center (of which I am a Fellow) a very generous grant to study Ethics and Biotechnology, I have to believe that you were unaware of the zeal with which your legal team goes after people with opposing points of view. In this case, your attorney's heavy-handed actions have directly led to the suppression of publication of our book, literally within days of its going to binding. In doing so, you have placed the "rights" of your product above the rights of those who might wish to question the potential impacts on its users. We believe we have acted in good faith in writing this book. We think three facts undermine the likelihood that Mr. Carrato's letter was written in good faith: 1) he waited five months to write our publisher, literally within days of the book coming out in print, thereby precluding any changes prior to publication; 2) he knew or should have known many of your staff refused to respond to our requests for communication; and, 3) Mr. Carrato stated to our publisher that he anticipated the book would be found to have "more" errors. All of these observations, coupled with the fact of the letter itself, are out of line with legal integrity and with the spirit of mutual dialogue and support for opposing points of view which you have publicly espoused, as exemplified by the wording of your Hastings Center grant. In fact, your Attorney's actions have interfered with our expression of free speech, and in so doing, reduced the chances of an open debate on the very issues which you have prided Monsanto in defending. We firmly believe that our book presents a factually accurate and fair portrayal of the events and science of genetic biotechnology. Indeed, we have already addressed many of your Corpoate Counsel's concerns in the course of our own editing of the manuscript. We would have welcomed the kind of dialogue we initiated with you and your staff. That possibility has now been quashed by Monsanto's precipitate move to make this a legal issue. Given the untoward consequences of your Assistant General Counsel's actions, we believe you owe us an explanation and an apology. Sincerely, cc Mr. Tom Carrato; David Richard, Vital Health Publishing |