MONSANTO PLANS TO CONTROL WATER RESOURCES
Transnational giant Monsanto has identified a new business opportunity
because of the emerging water crisis and the funding available to make this
vital resource available to people.
As it states in its strategy paper: "First, we believe that discontinuities
(either major policy changes or major trendline breaks in resource quality
or quantity) are likely, particularly in the area of water, and we will be
well positioned via these businesses [owned by Monsanto and mentioned
earlier in the paper] to profit even more significantly when these
discontinu-ities occur.
"Second, we are exploring the potential of non-conventional financing
(NGOs, World Bank, USDA, etc.) that may lower our investment or provide
local country business-building resources."
Thus, the crisis of pollution and depletion of water resources is viewed by
Monsanto as a business opportunity. For Monsanto, "sustainable development"
means the conversion of an ecological crisis into a market of scarce
resources...
(Source: From an article by physicist Vandana Shiva, published in The
Hindu, New Delhi, India, I May 1999; posted at <www.greenbuilder.com>)
INDUSTRY-FUNDED ASPARTAME STUDIES FLAWED
Serious questions have been raised about the reliability of
industry-sponsored studies of the safety of synthetic chemi-cals. Aspartame
in particular has been the focus of significant ongoing controversy.
Studies of aspartame in the peer -reviewed medical literature were surveyed
for funding source and study outcome. Of the 166 studies felt to have
relevance for questions of human safety, 74 had
Nutrasweet®-industry-related funding and 92 were independently funded.
One hundred per cent of the industry -funded research attested to
aspartame's safety, whereas 92 per cent of the indepen-dently funded
research identified problems with aspartame.
A bibliography supplied by the Nutrasweetd® Company included many studies
of questionable validity and rele-vance, with multiple instances of the
same study being cited up to six times.
Source: Dr Ralph G. Walton, The Center for Behavioral Medicine, Northside
Medical Center, 500 Gypsy Lane, Youngstown, Ohio 44501, USA,
e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
