From: "Barbara Herskovitz"
To: "Debi Hoggan", "Debbie O'Connor", "C. W. Gilbert", "Betty Martini",
"Betty Bridges", "Best, Mike", "Ang"
Cc: "Bill Barb Wilkie", "Ann Kraig", "Ann Morrow", "Anita", "Albert Donnay"

Subject: Dow, Du Pont, Monsanto'

Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 15:44:29 -0700
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3

REVOLT AGAINST THE EMPIRE

WELCOME TO THE GREAT BOYCOTT

JON RAPPOPORT

Table of Contents

* Introduction
* The Corporations
* Du Pont 
* Products to Boycott
* Dow
* Products to Boycott
* Monsanto
* NutraSweet
* BGH
* Poisons and Drugs
* Other Products to Boycott
* Bayer, Imperial Chemical Industries, Hoechst, Rhone
  Poulenc, Ciba-Geigy
* Products to Boycott

Introduction

This is a boycott against the eight biggest pesticide companies in the
world, but it is much more than that. It's a boycott against THE POWER and
against a way of life represented by all the gigantic multinational
corporations, which every day extend their control over the planet. By the
time you finish reading this material you'll realize how destructive their
power is, in detail. You'll understand more clearly why these simple stark
things need to be done:

* stop buying these corporations' products;
* don't buy their stock on whatever exchanges they're traded;
* demand that others including institutions sell their stock in these
  companies;
* don't work for these corporations;
* find a way to personally pass on the word.

This is definitely a PASS IT ON thing.

The eight corporations to be boycotted are:

* Dow
* Du Pont
* Monsanto
* Imperial Chemical Industries
* CIBA-Geigy
* Rhone Poulenc
* Bayer
* Hoechst

There is one overriding reason for going after these eight corporations.
They are all forwarding genetic projects to engineer food seeds
so that our food supply in the fields will accept much higher doses of
herbicides without curling up and dying. This will drench both the soil and
our bodies with corporate toxic chemicals and improve their profit
statements.

Of course, these mega-companies are up to their eyeballs in poisons.
Poisons, you might say, are their life.

These corporations and others like them stand for control of the planet, as
around us the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Huge multinationals, of course blur with governments, thereby availing
themselves of important political connections, intelligence agencies,
military links.

Despite protestations to the contrary, multinationals that destroy the
world's air, water, soil, trees and human/animal health don't consider life
the bottom line. Money and power are always the bottom line. Toxic
clean-ups and smokestack filters notwithstanding.


* Shall we passively go along with the redefinition of global life as
  'units produced' and 'number of android employees hypnotized into loving
  the cubicle, the factory line, the lab, the computer station'?
* Shall we say this is the highest and best expression of life on this
  planet?
* Shall we say we accept a planet seeping with chemical poisons?
* Shall we decide to create a pink fluff of "spirituality" around our
  heads and buffer ourselves off from the destruction of the natural world?
* Shall we pretend that electing people from one party or another to
  national office will unseat these corporate rulers?
* Shall we fake it entirely?
* Shall we imagine that growing a little organic garden in the backyard
  will completely stop the annual use in the U.S. of six trillion pounds of
  industrial chemicals?

We are dealing with monopolies. A monopoly will say or do anything to
dominate its chosen sphere. You throw out a monopoly by doing two things:

* boycotting the hell out of it as described above;
* and then developing real alternatives for their toxic products.

So, yes, the worldwide revolution in organic growing of food is a
tremendous alternative to pesticide mongers, but not without a powerful,
loud and ongoing boycott. These companies, if forced into lower production
of pesticides, will try ANYTHING to win. Hell, they'll sell the idea that
tons of their organophosphates should be released into outer space to kill
floating viruses! And you know what? Millions of brain-dead TV-watchers
would buy in.

If you think I'm exaggerating in estimating how far multinationals will go
in trying to peddle their toxins, meditate on the fact that the completely
discredited and horrible drug, Thalidomide, a sedative that caused massive
deformation in babies, is now being tested on people with AIDS.
Dow and Monsanto would still be selling their stocks of Agent Orange left
over from the Vietnam War if enough people hadn't kept up a thunder of
protest about dioxin, the molecule this defoliant contained which causes
cancer, birth defects and immune suppression, and is called by scientists
the most poisonous small molecule on the planet.

So the answer to a monopoly is: boycott it and lay down real alternatives
to the needs it pretends to fill.

The Great Boycott is not being run as an organization with a single leader
and a cadre of assistants. It is being run by YOU. On your own you'll find
new nasty multinationals to add to the list and you'll spell out the
reasons why. You'll discover good boycotts already underway sponsored by
people who have worked harder than any of us for years, decades. This
boycott if it succeeds will be run by small groups of people all over the
world using the Internet, faxes, home-grown articles, videos, audio tapes.
Using self published booklets, papers, info sheets, flyers. In LA we're going
to have monthly meetings to keep our participation moving out into wider circles.

The way things look, unless we launch a major effort our human societies in
the 21st Century are going to disappear up their own anuses. If that's too
graphic for you, take a look some time at Rocky Flats, Colorado, world
center for poisonous leaking chemicals; or look at a baby deformed by these
chemicals. That's what graphic really is. Steady state politeness and
niceness are not going to carry the day. Don't knuckle under. Don't believe
liars. Don't march off the cliff. Boycott!

The Corporations

Each of these eight corporations is at least four things: a pesticide
company, a pharmaceutical company, a genetic food seed company and a producer
of industrial chemicals.

Du Pont

Number one in chemical sales in the U.S. $35 billion. 141,000 employees.
Headquarters Wilmingon, Delaware.

The definitive text on this transnational has been written by Gerard Colby.
It is called Du Pont Dynasty: Behind the Nylon Curtain (1984 Lyle Stuart).
Colby and Ralph Nader agree that Du Pont owns Delaware. Sixty percent of
the state works for a Du Pont asset of some kind.

"Predictably", Colby writes,

"the long arm of Du Pont can also be found in Washington, D.C. Du Pont
family members have represented Delaware in both houses of Congress. In the
last 40 years Du Pont Lieutenants have served as representatives, senators,
U.S. Attorney General, secretaries of Defense, Directors of the CIA and
even Supreme Court Justices. With this power 'the armorers of the
Republic', as they like to call themselves, have helped drive America into
world wars, sabotaged world disarmament conferences ..."

Co-owner of the Salem nuclear power plant in the Delaware River, the Du
Pont asset Delmarva Power and Light has supported a facility literally
built on sand. The plant has had structural cracks, radioactive water leaks
and incidents of over-pressurization.

"The Du Ponts," writes Colby,

"have a big stake in nuclear power. Their chemical company helped make the
atomic and hydrogen bombs for the government, operates the nation's only
processor of heavy water, tritium, and weapons grade plutonium . . . For
years Du Pont has been one of the government's largest nuclear contractors,
and its recently acquired oil subsidiary Conoco (Continental Oil Company)
owns one of the largest uranium reserves and processing mills in the United
States."

Therefore, Du Pont is one of the major guilty parties in the nuclear
waste disposal problem -- which, of course, as any jackass can see by now,
is insoluble and sets up the planet for more and more radiation leaks and
spills.

Du Pont's Deepwater manufacturing complex in southern New Jersey consists
of over 400 buildings. It was first closed down, Colby states, in the
1920's by the U.S. Surgeon General,

"for poisoning its workers. deep within its bowels, embedded in plants and
buildings, uranium oxide residue left behind by Du Pont's involvement in
producing the first atomic bombs for the Manhattan Project slowly
penetrates the lives of thousands of workers, who are either unsuspecting
or to terrified of unemployment to allow themselves to wonder. Other
chemical poisonings of workers at Deepwater have already contributed to New
Jersey's Salem County's having the highest bladder cancer death rate in the
nation."

Du Pont owns the drug firm Endo Labs. Endo has sold a pain reliever
Dipyrone (Valpirone in Latin America). This drug, outlawed for most uses in
the United States, and all uses in Australia, can and does cause death by

altering blood composition and attacking the bone marrow. However, no heavy
warnings are displayed on the bottle in Latin America. Death is an
acceptable end result.

* Du Pont has fought health on all fronts when it's bad for business, and
  it frequently is.
* Du Pont objected to the EPA lowering lead content in gasoline. It
  was and is a major manufacturer of leaded gasoline, despite solid evidence
  that lead causes brain damage.
* It stonewalled widespread warnings about the danger of workers;
  exposure to low level radiation at its Savannah River nuclear plant, where
  they make all the weapons grade plutonium in the western hemisphere.
* It stonewalled evidence of the plant's radioactive contamination of the
  Tuscaloosa, south Carolina, aquifer.
* It denied the cancer causing effects of its Alpha-nepthylamine in
  dye and pigment manufacturing.
* It held back employee medical data to stop a federal investigation of a
  Du Pont plant at Belle, West Virginia, where the cancer rate was high.
* Its director of R&D, Dr. Ted Cairas, "successfully refuted" charges that
  the famous outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease actually came form leaks in
  the Bellvue Stafford Hotel's air-conditioning system -- which contained Du
  Pont's F-11 Fluorocarbon refrigerant. F-11, with a tiny amount of heat,
  breaks down into phosgene, a nerve gas.

In 1980 Du Pont issued a confidential book on manipulating its own
troublesome workers (and busting unions). This was part of its answer to
revelations

* that at its Chambers facility in Northern Delaware, carcinogens like
  chlorobenzene, toluene, and D-dichlorobenzene were being waffed into the
  atmosphere;
* that Du Pont's Newport pigments plant was poisoning the Potomac
  aquifer, "a major source of drinking water for Northern Delaware" (Colby);
* that Newport and Cherry Island and Tybouts Corner and Llangollen
  were all being cited by a Congressional Report as dangerous landfills used
  by Du Pont.

In 1992, ( the most recent year available for figures) Du Pont produced
three quarters of billion pounds of toxic and/or carcinogenic industrial
waste.

(Note: All these corporate industrial waste figures come from the
astonishing report Toxic Wastes '95 issued by Inform Inc., 120 Wall Street,
New York, New York 10005.)

Colby concludes that the inner-core of the Du Pont family -- about fifty
men and women -- own assets worth 211 billion dollars (as of 1984!).

Is there any field in which this super-rich empire of companies has not
caused toxic trouble? Colby writes:

"Du Pont in May 1977 confirmed that its own studies indicated 'excess
cancer incidents and cancer mortality among workers exposed to
Acrylonitrile at a Du Pont textile fibers and synthetic rubber, the
chemical was also suspected by the Food and Drug Administration of
migrating into beverages in plastic containers made with Acrylonitrile. The
FDA has already closed three Monsanto plants that made such plastic
bottles. Some 120,000 workers in the United States were exposed to
Acrylonitrile manufacturing. When the number of consumers who used plastic
bottles made with the chemical were also include, the figure ran into the
millions with incalculable long-term effects."

The Crimes have never stopped. A 1964 (!) internal memo form Du Pont
physiologist, G.J. Stoops, revealed that even then, sixteen years before Du
Pont would face a suit by six of its workers suffering from terminal lung
cancer -- asbestosis -- the company knew that its widespread use of
asbestos insulation was a major health hazard.

Du Pont is chemicalization of life in this world. There is hardly a field
of commercial toxicity in which Du Pont has not played a major role.

Although now, in 1996, we can try to say that all of Gerard Colby's
revelations are "history", in fact the long-term effects of chemical lunacy
live on. That is one of the points about chemical hazards -- they tend to
persist.

Du Pont in 1988 decided it would phase out its world leading production of
CFC's (chlorofluorocarbons), which are said to be the major source of
depletion in the ozone layer. Not only has it continued to stonewall the
issue while producing CFC's, it has put forward a likely successor to this
compound, HFC-134A is in part made out of CFC's and in addition produces
carbon tetrachloride, a poison, as a byproduct.

Karen Lohr, a spokesperson for Ozone Action, told reporter Beth Burrows in
her fall 1993 Boycott Quarterly article on Du Pont, ". . . Du Pont
announced on March 8, 1993, that they plan to continue to produce and
profit form ozone destroying chemicals until 2030. They will only do a
partial halt of manufacturing CFC's, having agreed only to end production
in developed countries." In a ten-year fiasco and tragedy (1985-1995), Du
Pont set out to build a nylon factory in Goa, India. Du Pont, to address
Bhopal-like concerns of local people, placed an ad in a Goa newspaper which
said, "We will not handle, use, sell, transport or dispose of a product
unless we can do it in a environ mentally sound manner."

Of course, Du Pont had already made an ironclad pact with its Indian
subsidiary that any damage claims resulting from a toxic incident at the Goa
plant would be settled entirely at the local level with no money drain on
the parent company.

Then Goa activists discovered a Du Pont memo form the U.S. to its Goan
company. The memo admitted that ground water around the new plant, waste
water form manufacturing, recycling processes and air quality were all
issues up for grabs -- safegauards were not up to proper standards.

Four months of confrontations at the plant with local police ensued. In
January 1995, the police fired into a crowd and killed a twenty-five year
old man.

Du Pont decided to move the plant. It chose a new site near Madras.
Opposition there is also building . . .

In the Multinational Monitor of October 1991, Jack Doyle writes in a story
title "Du Pont's Disgraceful Deeds":

"Du Pont is the single largest corporate polluter in the United States. In
1989, the latest year for which data are available form the U.S. EPA, Du
Pont and its subsidiaries reported discharging more than 348 million pounds
of pollutants to land, air and water...  Much of the company's current
waste is disposed of by deep-well injection. Du Pont leads all other
companies in the use of this technique, injecting 254.9 million pounds of
toxic wastes into underground geologic formations in 1989 . . . but
underground injection is an uncertain science at best . . . Thus far the
U.S. GAO reports there have been at least 23 cases in which drinking water
contamination is known to have been caused by deep well injected oil and
gas wastes.

"Du Pont has had operational problems with deep well injection . . . acid
waste corrosion of well casings and weldings has . . . been reported at
some of Du Pont's Ingleside Wells."

What other toxic products does Du Pont make? Their pharmaceutical operations
are replete with them.

* Du Pont Pharma Company manufactures several strong anti-cough medicines
  including Hycodan, a drug for the symptomatic relief of cough. The
  Physicians' Desk Reference (PDR) (note: all quotes on drug info are from
  the PDR) issues this warning: "may be habit-forming... can produce drug
  dependence of the morphine type." Adverse reactions include mental
  clouding, lethargy, dizziness, mood changes, vomiting, urethral spasm,
  respiratory depression.
* Percocet and Percodan are two well-known pain killers. They can
  "produce  dependence of the morphine type." Adverse reactions include
  dizziness and vomiting.
* Revia is used in the "treatment" of alcohol dependence. "Its use in
  patients with active liver disease must be carefully considered in light
  of its hepatoxic effects . . . Patients would be warned of the risk of
  hepatic injury and advised to stop the use of Revia and seek medical
  attention if they experience symptoms of acute hepatitis".
* Sinemet is used to treat Parkinson's disease (not a cure). Adverse
  reactions include involuntary movements, paranoid ideation, psychotic
  episodes, depression with or without development of suicidal tendencies,
  dementia, numbness, nightmares, abdominal pain, malignant melanoma, loss
  of hair, dark sweat, blurred vision, bizarre breathing patterns, and a
  life-threatening ne urologic syndrome called NMS.
* Symmetrel is used for the "prevention" and treatment of signs of
  infection by strains of influenza type A virus.
* Adverse reactions include suicide attempts, blurring of vision,
  sporadic incidents of the life-threatening NMS (neurologic) syndrome. Upon
  dose reduction or withdrawal of the drug, nausea, dizziness and insomnia
  can occur.

Du Pont and Merck are partners in pharmaceutical research. Other
researchers correctly linking these two megaliths may want to document the
toxicity of the major drug output of Merck.

Du Pont makes Comforel pillows, comforters and mattress pads; the fibers
Lycra, Dacron, Nomex and Tyvek; Teflon; refined petroleum products are sold
under the brand names Conoco, Jet and Seca; Remington firearms products. A
Du Pont fungicide Benlate destroyed wholesale growers ornamental plants in
1993. In August 1995, the case concluded. A federal judge determined that
Du Pont had kept vital soil testing info form the growers. The judges in
rendering a verdict against Du Pont to the tune of $115 million said, "Put
in laypersons' terms, Du Pont cheated, and it consciously, deliberately and
with purpose."

In April, 1996, a U.S. family will go to court against Du Pont charging
that their use of this same home fungicide Benlate caused their son to be
born without eyes (see Multinational Monitor, December 1995).

Earlier in October 1995, tow other Du Pont fungicides, Benomyl and
Cardazim, became the focus of a court case filed in Florida. The lawyers
representing families in Scotland are claiming extreme physical damage to
their clients from these fungicides' use.

Dow

Number two in chemical sales in the U.S. Employees: 58,000. Sales: $20
billion. Headquarters: Midland, Michigan, U.S.

Dow, the manufacturer of Napalm and Agent Orange during Vietnam War, and
now the target of a billion dollars worth of lawsuits over their highly
destructive silicone breast implants, is partners with the drug firm Ely
Lilly in Dow Elanco, a spinoff company that is the largest producer of
insecticides and fungicides in the U.S.
Dow must have a magnetic attraction for severe defoliants. Having distanced
itself from Agent Orange -- its partner Lilly now makes Tebuthiuron, an
herbicide that kills soil so that no plants can grow on it in the future.
Sounds like a weapon of war.

Of course Dow also tries to distance itself from dioxin (contained in its
Vietnam era Agent Orange), but Greenpeace reports that hugely produced
chlorine based Dow products -- pesticides, solvents and PVC plastics -- are
the single largest source in the world of dioxin today.

Dow owns Marion Merrell Dow (MMD), a major pharmaceutical house. Like all
drug companies, whether you know it or not, the commercial output of MMD is
chillingly toxic. Let's start there.

Examples:

* MMD's vaginal supository AVC cream is used to treat candida
  albicans. The  PDR states that there is no data available on the long term
  potential of  AVR for causing cancer of birth defects, but "deaths
  associated with  administration of oral sulfonamides (such as AVC) have
  reportedly occurred  form hypersensitivity reactions, agranulocytosis,
  aplastic anemia and other blood discrasias." . . . Comforting.
* Bentyl, Dow's drug for irritable bowel syndrome, also has in the PDR
  listing "no known data" for long term potential carcinogenicity or birth
  defects, but "psychosis has been reported in sensitive individuals."

There are also, the PDR says, reports of deaths from respiratory collapse.

* Cardizem, the Dow drug for hypetension and angina, carries the PDR
  caution: "Worsening of congestive heart failure has been reported in
  patients with pre-existing impairment of ventricular function."

Nothing could prepare a sane person for the PDR's description of Dow's
Clomid, a drug that attempts to produce ovulatory stimulation so that
pregnancy can occur in women for whom that would otherwise be unlikely.
Here is a partial list of Clomid's post-marketing adverse effects:

* seizure
* stroke
* psychosis
* cataracts
* posterior vitreous detachment
* arrhythmia
* tachycardia
* hepatitis
* liver and breast and pituitary and ovarian and kidney and tongue and
  bladder cancer
* brain abscess
* tubal pregnancy
* uterine hemorrhage
* ovaian hemorrhage

In the babies born to the mothers taking Clomid, there have occurred:

* neuroectodermal tumor
* thyroid tumor
* leukemia
* abnormal bone development including skeletal malformations of the
  skull, face, nasal passages, jaw, hand, limb and foot joints
* malformations of the anus, eye, lens, ear, lung, heart and genitalia
* dwarfism
* deafness
* mental retardation
* chromosomal disorders
* neural tube defects

Lorelco, Dow's drug aimed at lowering cholesterol, has this ominous PDR
caution: females should be warned not to become pregnant for at least six
months after discontinuing Lorelco. Lorelco's adverse effects?

* Gastrointestinal bleeding
* vomiting
* low hemoglobin
* fetid sweat
* impotency
* anorexia
* diminished sense of taste and smell.

Dow makes Norpramin, an antidepressant. The PDR states: "It is important
that this drug be dispensed in the least possible quantities to depressed
out patients since suicide has been accomplished with this class of drug."

Some of the effects of Norpramin are:

* both elevating and lowering of blood sugar levels
* heart block, myocardial infarction, stroke
* sudden death
* hallucinations, delusions
* tremors, ataxia, peripheral neuropathy, seizures
* dilation of urinary tract
* bone marrow depression
* vomiting, black tongue, hepatitis
* impotence, painful ejaculation, testicular swelling
* weight gain or loss.

(Note: In these drug summaries I don't even bother to comment about the
uniform unworkability of the drugs on the causes of the illnesses for which
they are prescribed nor will I comment on a further danger: the effects of
combining several drugs at once. Nor on the fact that OTHER non-toxic
remedies and approaches to health would eliminate the need for these drugs
and their poisonous effects.)

Dow makes Rifadin, a "semi-synthetic" antibiotic for the treatment of
tuberculosis. The PDR comments, "Rifadin has been shown to produce liver
dysfunction. Fatalities associated with jaundice have occurred in patients
with (previous) liver disease." The PDR further issues a bizarre warning
--"Rifadin can cause the urine, feces, saliva, sputum, sweat, and tears to
turn red-orange. "Permanent discolorization of soft contact lenses may occur."
The suggested Rifadin dosage for people with TB is 600mg a day for six to
nine months. Yet the PDR gives this warning: "High doses of Rifadin greater
than 600mg given once or twice a week have resulted in high incidence of
adverse reactions, including leukopenia (abnormal decrease in white blood
corpuscles), thrombocytopenia (abnormal decrease in blood platelets), acute
hemolytic anemia, shock, renal failure." Among Rifadin's other adverse
effects are anorexia, vomiting and menstrual disturbances.

I have tried in listing adverse effects to avoid dipping into the explicit
PDR category "rare" and the category, "has been found to occur in less that
1% of people taking drug and vanishes upon discontinuing drug." That leaves
the open categories of "general adverse effects" or "we don't really know
how many people on the drug suffer from these effects" or the "these

effects are reported to occur after drug is marketed to the public and
there is no way to prove the effects are caused by the drug." I have relied
for the most part on these three last categories.

Dow and Ely Lilly and Company of Indianapolis are partners in a corporation
called Dow Elanco, one of the largest producers of agricultural chemicals
in the world. As a 40 percent partner Lilly falls within the purview of Dow
and so I have justifiably include its drug products under the umbrella of
Dow in this section.

* Lilly manufactures Heparin sodium (derived form the intestinal
  mucosa of pigs), a blood anticoagulant used to prevent clotting. Says the
  PDR, "hemorrhage can occur at virtually any site in patients receiving
  Heparin. Patients on the drug can develop an "irreversible aggregation of
  (blood) platelets . . . (which) may lead to gangrene of the extremities...
  (and) amputation, mycardial infarction, pulmonary emoblism, stroke and
  possibly death."
* Lilly's Nalfon is an NSAID for (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug).
  Every year in the U.S. seven to eight thousand people die from the
  administration of NSAIDs and between 70,000 to 80,000 are hospitalized from
  their use.

* Lilly's Prozac is the widely popular "in" anti-depressant of the moment.
  Prior to its release, it was never tested on humans for longer than
  thirteen weeks. Prozac has been associated with suicidal and murderous
  behavior, and the dampening of sexual desire. Its other effects include
  insomnia, anxiety, and anorexia (in 9 percent of the patients in clinical
  trials). Fifteen percent of the 4,000 patients who received Prozac in
  pre-release clinical trials discontinued treatment due to "an adverse event."
* Diethylstilbestrol, a Lilly drug, is a synthetic estrogenic substance
  used for breast cancer and prostate cancer (as a palliative only). The PDR
  states, "WARNING: USE OF ESSTROGENS HAS BEEN REPORTED TO INCREASE THE RISK
  OF ENDOMETRIAL CARCINOMA. ESTROGENS SHOULD NOT BE USED DURING PREGNANCY.
  ITS USE MAY CAUSE SEVERE HARM TO THE FETUS. More PDR quotes on this drug:
* "A recent study reported a two to threefold increase in the risk of
  gall bladder disease occurring in women receiving post-menstrual
  estrogen therapy . . . "
* "In a large prospective clinical trial in men, large doses of
  estrogen . . . comparable to those used to treat cancer of the
  prostrate . . . have been shown to increase the risk of non-fatal
  myocardial infarction, pulmonary emoblism. . . "

Adverse reactions to diethylstilbestrol include breakthrough bleeding,
spotting and change in menstrual flow; vomiting; cholestatic jaundice;
hemorrhagic skin eruption; corneal curvature; and migraine.

All these effects for a cancer treatment that is admittedly only a
palliative?

(Note: The January 28, 1994, Congressional Quarterly in its report,
Regulating Pesticides, points out that pollutants in the environment are
being found to contain estrogenic substances. And that several researchers
have linked exposure to estrogens with cancer, including breast cancer.
(Now read the above section the drug diethlystilbestrol again and if you
mind isn't completely blown, check your breath on a mirror.)

The above list and description of medical drugs is certainly not meant to
be all-inclusive vis-a-vis Dow. It is just a bitter sample. If you find
yourself saying, "Well, even if these drugs have some horrible effects, the
doctors who prescribe them must know what they're doing", consider that
once people said exactly that about the U.S. corporations who were busy
spilling poisonous chemicals into the rivers of this land. "They must know
what they're doing. They would never . . ." But they did. And these
corporations are manufacturing the kinds of medical drugs I've just been
describing AND the industrial chemicals AND the pesticides. Wake up and
smell the poisons!

Who could present a complete and specific portrait of Dow's yearly
industrial wastes? Inform, Inc. (New York City) has done an analysis of
quantity in its Toxics Watch 1995 report. It culls the top twenty
corporations from a total of

10,840 parent companies in the U.S. Dow ranks sixth in "production-related
toxic chemical wastes, carcinogens and ozone depleting chemicals . . .".
How many pounds of waste are we talking about defecated by Dow into the
world? 517.5 million pounds for 1992! Half a billion pounds.

Susan Cooper of the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides
names Dow's pesticide Dursban as a serious creator of health problems:
nausea, headaches, behavioral changes in children. She told the
Multinational Monitor that at least one out of every two phone calls that
her office takes about pesticide complaints concerns Dursban. The Pesticide
Action Network states that Dow produced or sold three pesticides on their
"Dirty Dozen" list before 1980. One of these DBCP, ordered to be phased out
by the EPA, now shows up being sold by Dow to the Dole Corporation, which
has used it on its banana plantations in Costa Rica. DBCP contaminated
ground water for several thousand square miles in the California central
valley and caused sterility in agricultural workers. Four other Dow
agricultural chemicals, Gallant, Verdict, Gauntlet, and Tridal, banned by
the EPA, have shown up in Africa, Latin America, Central America, Asia and
Europe.

Beyond the products mentioned so far, what to boycott made by Dow?

* Styrofoam labeled plastic products, agricultural herbicides (Starane,
  Spike, Treflan), the soil fumigant Telone, and two insecticides, Dursban
  and Lorsban.

* It makes over-the-counter drugs: Norhistamine (cough), Cepacol,
  Gly-Oxide (antiseptic), Cepastat lozenges, Citrucel laxative, Delbrox (ear
  care), Gaviscon (antacid), the calcium supplement Os-Cal.

* Household products include Ziploc Bags, Fantastik Cleaner, Handi-Wrap,
  Saran Wrap, Spray 'N Wash, Dow Bathroom Cleaner, Glass Plus Multi-Surface
  Cleaner, Smart Scrub, Ultra Yes laundry detergent, Vivid bleach and Style
  and Perma Soft hair products.

It should also be noted that Dow manufactures benzene, widely acknowledged
as a carcinogen. Of course, all this information is faxed and internetted
around the world, people outside the U.S. will find the Dow subsidiaries in
their countries and the products they make. In the U.S. the reference text

The Directory of Multinationals is a good source for the names of these
subsidiary corporations.

So to this point, you have much more than sufficient evidence of massive
toxicity to justify a boycott of Dow. You can also see that boycotting
their products is in some cases awkward, because wholesalers and companies,
not individuals, are Dow's customers. More reason to press disinvestment,
making it unconscionable to hold stock of this company.

We welcome additions and more complete descriptions of products entered by
other researchers. But don't accept any softening of the boycott stance or
baloney about how Dow is improving its environmental responsibility.
Despite changes, these corporations are toxic from top to bottom. Do you
negotiate with them? Let other groups do that. This is a global educational
campaign to isolate the biggest chemical companies from the rest of us who
want a world we can live in. Expose the naked truth. Poison is poison.

Monsanto

Monsanto, head-quartered in St. Louis, Missouri, employs 45,000 people and
peddles over eight billion dollars a year in chemical products to the
planet. Its Roundup is the world's largest selling herbicide. Monsanto owns
the drug firm G.D. Searle and Company, a major phramceutical supplier. Add
to this branches which manufacture a whole range of fibers, plastics,
resins, rubber and metalized materials and you have a giant.

Monsanto has been under great heat for some time for their production of
NutraSweet and the genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone. Ongoing
American boycotts launched out of Atlanta and Hillsboro, Wisconsin, are
taking their toll. (Family farm Defenders, P.O. Box 581, Hillsboro,
Wisconsin, 54634, for BGH; and Betty Martini, 9270 9270 River Club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097, 770 242-2599, for NutraSweet.) Another Monsanto
boycott is being run by Pure Dairy Commission, RR 2, Box 191, New Auburn WI
54757.

The U.S. FDA, as of April 20, 1995, has reported 10,386 volunteered
consumer complaints stemming from NutraSweet, a.k.a. Equal (aspartame). Among
the symptoms listed are blindness seizures, memory loss, loss of limb
control, slurred speech, skin lesions, extremity numbness, depression, mood
swings, anxiety attacks, coma and death.

Aspartame is a food additive 180 to 200 times sweeter than sugar. Absorbed
very quickly into the bloodstream it metabolizes into six to eight
byproducts including methyl alcohol and the class A carcinogen,
formaldehyde. At least a hundred million Americans consume products
containing NutraSweet (e.g., certain Coca Cola and Pepsi drinks, Children's
Tylenol Chewable Tablets, Flintstones Complete Children's Chewable
Vitamins, Metamucil Sugarfree, Breath Savers, Wrigley's Extra Sugar Free
Gum, Kellogg's All Bran, Twin Labs Endurance Quick fix Powder, Calcilyte).

The early research history of aspartame was plagued with deception. Animal
studies were faked (S.O.P. for the drug industry), on top of the fact that
even real animal data would have had no provable crossover to humans. The
resulting FDA approval of aspartame paved the way for disaster.

H.J. Roberts, M.D., a diabetes specialist and member of the American
Diabetes Association, states that aspartame brings on clinical diabetes and
causes convulsions.

Ralph G. Walton's aspartame study published in Biological Psychiatry (1993
34:13-17), led him to conclude "individuals with mood disorders are
particularly sensitive to this artificial sweetener; its use in this
population should be discouraged." On another occasion Walton was much more
blunt: "I know it (aspartame) causes seizures. I'm convinced also that it
definitely causes behavioral changes. I'm very angry that this substance is
on the market. I personally question the reliability and validity of any
studies funded by the NutraSweet Company." A dozen airplane magazines,
including Flying Safety, published by the U.S. Air Force, have issued
warnings about seizures and vertigo among pilots ingesting aspartame.

And all this is just the tip of the iceberg on this product.

Monsanto's new growth hormone now injected into cows all over the U.S. to make
them produce more milk, is another debacle. 93 percent of the nations's dairy
farmers refuse to use the product. In Europe BGH is banned, at least until the
year 2000. Why? Because this hormone makes cows sick -- leading to treatment
with high levels of antibiotics which along with pus then find their way into
the milk supply. reports of serious health and reproductive problems among U.S.
cows have shot up since February 1995. Meanwhile Monsanto has tried to
intimidate all those who label their milk products BGH-free. The corporation has
actually brought lawsuits against such farmers and, through a related
organization, has sued the state of Vermont over its permissive attitude toward
BGH labeling. This obvious encroachement on the First Amendment is, of course,
outrageous, but the Department of Justice does nothing to stop it. Dr. Samuel
Epstein, a well known public health advocate and professor of environmental
medicine, states that "cell stimulating growth factors" such as BGH could lead
to breast cancer in humans and bring about premature growth in babies. Monsanto,
of course, cannot produce any safety data vis-a-vis humans because BGH is a
crapshoot using million of people as experimental subjects.

More toxicity in its products? Of course. In 1985, not long before Monsanto
would be exposed for having rigged a dioxin study in its favor (it made
Agent Orange), the Pesticide Action Network named Monsanto's insecticide
Parathion as one of the dirtiest dozen pesticides used around the world.
Multinational Monitor states that Parathion "may be responsible for half
the world's pesticide poisonings and 80 percent of those in central
America." Monsanto stopped making Parathion in 1986, claiming "market
considerations". Monsanto's herbicide Butachlor, marketed in forty
countries as Machete and Lambast, has never been permanently approved by
the EPA. Adverse effects of the chemical include weight loss, weight
changes in internal organs, reduced brain size together with lesions.

Butachlor, reports Multinational Monitor, can be found in the U.S. food
supply. It's used in Argentina, Brazil, China, India, the Philippines,
Taiwan, Thailand and Venezuela, which means that up to 97 percent of our
rice imports could contain it.

Monsanto Lasso is the largest selling herbicide in the U.S. Lasso is
everywhere on corn and soybeans. Only through extreme pressure on the EPA
was Monsanto able to keep the compound on the market. EPA had already
called Lasso "a probable carcinogen".

The only U.S. producer of the notorious PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls)
since 1929, Monsanto was forced to stop making this carcinogen in 1977
after having spread it (1.4 billion pounds) into every corner of America's
land, water and human and animal bodies. By 1990, every trout and salmon
over a foot long in the Great Lakes was contaminated with PCBs.

Monsanto is a leader in the biotech revolution that threatens to engineer
the genes of every food crop on the planet. This year (1996) Monsanto will
introduce its altered soybean to the world of commerce. The bean is altered
to withstand, without keeling over, higher levels of Monsanto's chemical
herbicide Roundup. You will ingest these higher levels of Roundup.

Monsanto now owns 49.9 percent of Calgene, the maker of the Flavr Savr
tomato engineered for longer shelf life. Soon to come from the parent
company? Varieties of canola, cotton, maize sugar beets and rapeseed oil,
all of which will also tolerate higher level of Roundup, and pass the
poison on to you.

The Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C. has placed Monsanto
at the top of its "dirty sixteen" companies and universities which are
trying to extend the legal patenting of life forms. In response to this
charge, an unruffled Monsanto spokesman said that the company puts 120
million dollars a year into biotech research and development, and there are
no problems.

As if all this weren't enough, Monsanto's drug company, G.D. Searle,
continues to turnout its share of toxic compounds for ingestion, as an
adjunct to eating Monsanto pesticide. Examples:

* Daypro, an NSAID for arthritis -- NSAIDS, as mentioned above, routinely
  cause 7,000 deaths a year in the U.S. and 70-80,000 hospitalizations.
* Demulen, an oral contraceptive, is an estrogenic compound. Very
  reassuring at a time when environmental scientists are linking estrogenic
  pollutants to breast cancer.
* Flagyl, an oral synthetic antiprotozoal and antibacterial, can cause
  convulsive seizures, peripheral neuropathy, a significant lessening of
  white blood corpuscles, and can make candida infections worse.
* Kerlone for "management of hypetension" can contribute to cardiac
  failure.
* Lomotil, the anti-diarrhea drug, has a number of adverse effects
  including tachycardia, vomiting, depression, numbness of extremities and
  pancreatitis.

A 1991 report by the Foundation for Advancements in Science and Education
indicates that Monsanto stands at the forefront of those companies who ship
hazardous and potentially carcinogenic pesticides out of the country. For
example, customs records for the period March to May 1990 reveal that a
large anonymous St. Louis shipper sent over 21 million pounds -- over 116
tons every day -- of these pesticides out of the U.S. There is only one
shipper of pesticides in St. Louis and that is Monsanto.

Beyond Searle's pharmaceuticals here is a list of Monsanto products to
boycott:

* NutraSweet, Equal, BGH (a.k.a rBGH, rBST, Posilac), Simplese (an
  artificial  butter fat), Simple Pleasures Frozen Dairy Desserts, Salad
  Dressing and  Mayonnaise;
* the artificial fibers Astroturf and Wear Dated Carpets;
* the garden herbicides Roundup and Dimension;
* agricultural chemicals: Lasso, Harness Plus, Far Go, Avauer, Machete,
  Bronco, Bullet, Cropstar GB, Freedom, Landmaster BW, Micro-Tech Partner,
  Ram Rod, Accord, Buckle, Fallow Master, Lariat, Rodeo;
* the feed supplement and preservative Alimet;
* the Flavr Savr tomato.

The Family Farm Defenders Monsanto Boycott says: "Be alert for dozens of
new Monsanto genetically engineered plants including corn, potatoes and
soybeans."

Clearly, as with all engineered foods, no long-term human studies will be
done. The US FDA will automatically assume the gene insertion is safe for
people and the subsequent migration of these genes into another plant
species will have no untoward effect on the environment. In other words,
the planet is a test tube.

Bayer, Imperial Chemical Industries, Hoechst, Rhone Poulenc, Ciba-Geigy

These are the European counterparts of the big three American chemical
poisoners described above. Bayer is the biggest of the eight. It is
established that Bayer, Rhone Poulenc, Hoechst, and Ciba do business in the
U.S. as pharmaceutical companies. They, of course, produce toxic drugs for
human consumption. That is a given, just as it is a given that
carcinogenicity can be found in industrial and agricultural chemicals.
(Example: In 1989 Ciba's epilepsy drug Tegretol was found to cause an
unexpectedly high rate of birth defects.) I have been able to put together
a partial list, beyond the pharmaceuticals, of products to be boycotted for
Bayer and Ciba-Geigy.

Bayer makes:

* Alka-seltzer
* One-A-Day Vitamins
* Flintstone Chewable Vitamins
* SOS Scouring Pads
* Bugs Bunny Vitamins
* Cutter insect repellent

Of course, there is Bayer aspirin too, which by arrangement is marketed by
another firm in the U.S., but it should also be boycotted.

Ciba in the U.S. sells:

* Funk Seeds Products
* Softcolor and Vision Care contact lenses
* Nupercaine Ointment
* Privine Nasal Spray
* Doan's Pills
* Fiberall Laxative
* Sunkist Vitamins
* the diet "aid" Accutrim and Ten-K, a potassium supplement.

From Los Angeles it's not possible to assemble a complete portrait of the
European companies. All have a chilling record of toxic output. That much is
clear. All are busy genetically engineering food crops to withstand higher
levels of pesticide and herbicide. I am hoping that circulating this case file
on the American big three, friends in Europe will use the info and supply us in
LA with their research on the other five megaliths.

Our goal as humans has to be a straightforward one. Through a long-term
publicity campaign, using all channels of info possible, isolate these
companies (and others like them) as pariahs, as criminals standing outside
community and civilization by any definition. Isolate these companies as
entities no one wants to do business with on any level. That is the only
lasting response to their toxic actions. If you think this is too strong
and impolite a campaign, talk to some of the women who are suing Dow for
promoting silicone implants as safe.

I'll close with two remarks: Boycotting television in your own home is a
great place to start in clearing up your head for this work.

And think about this story. It involves Bayer, the largest chemical company
in the world. Bayer and Hoechst were original members of the Nazi IG Farben
cartel. During the Second World War Farben built a rubber and oil plant
complex at the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The inmates worked
as slave labor for Farben. When they were too weak to work they were killed
in chambers -- where Zyklon B gas was used. Farben make Zyklon B. On July
29, 1948, sentences for mass murder and slavery were handed down at the
Nuremberg trials to twelve Farben executives. The longest sentence dealt
out was to Dr. Fritz ter Meer, a top executive and scientist on the Farben
managing board. Seven years. Seven years.

Flash forward to August 1, 1963. IG Farben, far from being chopped to
ribbons, had a new life in Germany as the three separate and giant
corporations which had once together formed its core: Bayer, Hoechst, and
BASF. On this August 1 date Bayer celebrated its 100th anniversary at the
Cologne fairgrounds -- a major event replete with philharmonic Handel and
Wagner. The opening speech was delivered by, yes, Dr. Fritz ter Meer, now
not only out of prison but -- a mass murderer -- elevated to the position
of Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Bayer.

Astonishing

Of course, several texts, in tracing IG Farben's worldwide corporate
connections at its high-water mark (1941), name seven of the eight
corporations on this boycott list (excepting Rhone-Poulenc, for the moment)
as having major ties to the Nazi cartel.

Wars come and wars go, but apparently destruction by toxicity remains and
it must be ended by world demand. The alternative is a wasting human
population, its numbers vastly reduced, and a further poisoned planet.

Authored by: Alto Date installed: 03-25-96 Last update: 03-25-96