by Brandon Turbeville
December 2, 2011
from
ActivistPost Website
Brandon Turbeville
is an author out of Mullins, South Carolina. He has a
Bachelor's Degree from Francis Marion University where
he earned the Pee Dee Electric Scholar's Award as an
undergraduate.
He has had numerous
articles published dealing with a wide variety of
subjects including health, economics, and civil
liberties. He also the author of Codex Alimentarius -
The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies and Five
Sense Solutions. |
In several past articles, I have discussed the production of
rBGH, its dangers to human health,
and its direct relation to animal cruelty.
In addition, the process by which rBGH
came to be approved deserves some discussion as well. However, it is
first important to name some of the major players involved in the
approval process and, in particular, their blatant conflicts of
interest.
The approval of rBGH by the United States was yet another prime
example of the revolving door between
Monsanto,
Big Pharma, and
the FDA.
In fact, the obvious conflict of
interest among many of the FDA's employees who were involved in the
approval process actually prompted a GAO investigation in 1994.
Michael Taylor
One of the employees,
Michael Taylor, began his
career in 1976 with the FDA as an attorney. In 1981, he left the
agency and took up a position with the law firm King & Spalding
where one of his clients was Monsanto.[1]
Over his approximately seven years
as a lawyer for the corporation, it was found that he had
drafted a memo as to the constitutionality of the states'
ability to create laws regarding labeling of rBGH.
This memo was part of what was essentially an internal
discussion as to whether or not Monsanto could sue states or
companies that wished to label their products as free of rBGH.[2]
Later, the issue would arise in
reality when many businesses decided to do just that.
In the end, Taylor was hired was hired by Monsanto through King
and Spalding to draft a plan that he would later be integral in
implementing as an employee of the FDA.
It is also noteworthy that as of July 2009, Taylor was appointed
by the Obama administration to the position of senior advisor to
the commissioner of the FDA. Riddled with ties to Monsanto, one
of the major players in the approval of rBGH is now the American
food safety czar.[3]
One can read a much more detailed
expose' of Michael Taylor in the article, "Monsanto's
Leading Soldier in the War on Raw Milk."
Indeed, Mr. Taylor's treachery goes a bit further than just the
approval of rBGH in the 1990s. Taylor was also instrumental in
the devastating "Green Revolutions" in Asia and Latin America.
He is also now involved in the
development of the guidelines being used by the FDA for the
purpose of enforcing the nightmarish
Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010 (S.
510), one of the bills
being used to SWAT team and terrorize Amish and organic farmers
today.
Margaret Miller
Another major player in the rBGH
game was
Margaret Miller.
Miller was a former employee of
Monsanto who, during the course of her employment, was
responsible for coordinating animal safety studies regarding
rBGH.
In 1989 she left her job at Monsanto
and went directly to the FDA where she was promoted to the
position of director of the toxicology and environmental
sciences division.
This was the division that was
directly responsible for the technical review of the safety of
rBGH. [4]
Dr. Suzanne Sechen
Dr.
Suzanne Sechen was also
investigated by the GAO.
As is documented by Lisa Nicole
Mills in
Science and Social Context - The
Regulation of Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, both
Sechen and Miller were openly compromised by their prior
affiliations with Monsanto.
Mills writes:
The GAO did, however, identify
several articles authored or co-authored by Dr. Sechen and
Dr. Miller, some of which had been written with the FDA
listed as their address, ‘whose publication may have been
contrary to FDA's requirements for prior approval of outside
activities.'
Articles written by Dr. Miller
had been co-authored with Monsanto scientists; articles
authored by Dr. Sechen had been co-authored with, among
others, Professor Dale Bauman at Cornell University, who was
principal investigator of clinical trials of Posilac
conducted at Cornell.
Sechen performed a substantial
amount of work on rBGH, as well as publishing articles on the
hormone in outside journals that were based on her research
[5] at Cornell University where she performed several rBGH
related studies
supported by Monsanto's funding.
At Cornell, Sechen's faculty advisor was a consultant for
Monsanto, and much of the research she conducted was a result of
an agreement between Monsanto and her advisor.[6]
Another example of welfare science,
a condition that plagues academia and universities the world
over, Sechen received her funding from a large corporation,
which no doubt would have cut off the money had her conclusions
not been to their satisfaction.
While at the FDA, Sechen was also responsible for evaluating
some of the same articles she had published as a Monsanto-funded
researcher at Cornell.[7]
The connections that all three of
these individuals had to Monsanto before they took their
positions with the FDA and/or conducted their research were
obviously enough to be considered, at the very least, a conflict of
interest.
However, such a revolving door policy is
now both common knowledge and common practice in the world of
corporations and their government "regulators."
It is important for any consumer to look at the names of the players
involved in the "regulation" of their food, and whether those who
are heavily involved are employed by the FDA, USDA, or any other
government agency.
Citizens will have to make connections between any links that person
may have had to the corporation they are allegedly regulating at the
moment and determine for themselves if these individuals are doing
the job they have been tasked with by the public trust, or whether
they are merely serving their corporate masters.
Unfortunately, the latter is almost always the case.
Taylor, Miller, and Sechen are obviously
not lone rangers when it comes to regulatory corruption...
Notes
[1] Ferrara, Jennifer. "Revolving
Doors: Monsanto and the Regulators." The Ecologist,
Vol. 28, No. 5, September/October 1998.
[2] Smith, Jeffrey. "You're
Appointing Who? Please Obama, Say It's Not So!" July
23, 2009.
[3] Ibid.
[4] "rBGH
- How Artificial Hormones Damage the Dairy Industry and And
Endanger Public Health." Foodandwaterwatch.org. June,
2009.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ferrara, Jennifer. "Revolving Doors: Monsanto and the
Regulators." The Ecologist, Vol. 28, No. 5, September/October
1998.
[7] "rBGH - How Artificial Hormones Damage the Dairy Industry
and And Endanger Public Health." Foodandwaterwatch.org. June,
2009.
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