More shared talent at the FDA & Who stood up to Monsanto and said NO!

Taylor wasn’t the only talent Monsanto and the FDA shared.  Margaret Miller, a researcher at Monsanto, prepared a report requested by the FDA which was to present evidence that the growth hormone Posilac was safe.  Just prior to the submission of the report by Monsanto to the FDA Miller left Monsanto and was hired by the FDA as Deputy Director of the Office of New Animal Drugs where her first task was to approve or disapprove the report she had just put together at Monsanto.  She approved it.  (is that a conflict of interest? dishonest? mind-blowing?  Naw!  It’s all in a day’s work at your MonsanFDAto.)  And while Miller was in this position at the FDA she increased the allowable amount of antibiotics cows can be given by 100 times.  (The correlation between the use of synthetic hormones and antibiotics appeared in my post on Antibiotics in milk and bovine health, part 1, posted July 5^th) .  Other Monsanto transplants into the FDA were Susan Sechen and Nick Weber.
 

So the FDA with no mention of a conflict of interest (the revolving door between Monsanto and the agency) accepted Monsanto’s “evidence” (written at Monsanto, approved at the FDA, all by the same person- the writer and the "approver" were one and the same) as to the safety of its products over the objection of scientists.   I have a problem with that.

Scientists at Health Canada said they had grave misgivings over the safety of Posilac during hearings conducted there.  They stated that they were being pressured and coerced into giving the drug approval.  Dr. Margaret Haydon testified that Monsanto had made an offer of between $1 million and $2 million to Health Canada, which the scientists there interpreted as a bribe. Additionally she noted that notes and files critical of the data provided by Monsanto disappeared from a locked cabinet in her office.  (It could be noted here that Nick Weber, Margaret Miller’s direct underling at the FDA, passed to Monsanto the European Commission’s confidential documents outlining their misgivings about rBGH.  I believe he was terminated.)  Health Canada turned Monsanto away.  They were not persuaded of the safety of the drug, quite the contrary.

Additionally the World Health Organization, the United Nations Food Safety Agency which represents 101 nations worldwide, ruled unanimously in favor of the European moratorium on genetically engineered hormonal milk.  Their Codex Alimentarius, Latin for the Food Book, provides written guidelines and is the internationally recognized collection of food standards, guidelines and codes of practice to protect the health of consumers.  So I guess that leaves the U.S., Mexico and South Africa as the nations who have approved it.  Lonesome ain’t it?