Posted on May 15, 1012 by Marivel Guzman

The scientific evidence is clear: GMOs are hazardous. You have the right to know if your food contains GMOs. But you don’t. Not yet. Because Monsanto has bought off the politicians and the regulatory agencies.

WHO IS MONSANTO?

Monsanto Company History

Monsanto was founded in 1901 by John Francis Queeny. During its early years, Monsanto produced such things as saccharin (an artificial sweetener), aspirin, and rubber.

In the 1930, Monsanto acquired the Swann Chemical Company and began producing PCBs under the trade name Aroclor. Despite growing public controversy and mounting scientific evidence of PCBs’ toxicity, Monsanto would continue producing PCBs well into the 1970s, before the chemicals were finally banned by the EPA in 1979.

By the mid-20th century, Monsanto had become one of the largest chemical companies in the United States, producing a number of controversial products, including:

• DDT – an artificial pesticide mostly banned in the US in 1972
• Agent Orange – a toxic herbicide used during the Vietnam War

Around the turn of the century, Monsanto began changing the focus of its operations from chemical production to biotechnology. Starting in the 1990s, the company introduced several strains of genetically modified seeds. These genetically modified seeds have been the subject of much environmental controversy and have also been the focus of several lawsuits filed by Monsanto against family farmers it accused of violating its patents.

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