Start planning your backyard garden now. Because you may have a hard time finding non-genetically modified (GM) foods on grocery store shelves in the future if chemical companies have their way. That’s because Bayer, one of the biggest chemical/pharma companies in the world, just bought the agro-giant Monsanto in September for a mere $66 billion.
Of course, Monsanto makes the toxic pesticide known as Roundup (glyphosate). It also makes genetically modified seeds engineered to withstand Roundup. In fact, today, 88 percent of corn and 93 percent of soybeans grown in the U.S. are genetically modified to withstand the toxic pesticide. And evidence shows the pesticide is toxic to non-GM plants, bees, butterflies, and the Earth’s ecology. Plus, it’s a direct threat to human health.
So this mega-merger will create a huge corporate monster that could eventually over-take natural food production worldwide. And artificial foods — made with their own brand-name toxic pesticides — could blight out every other living thing on the planet. So start digging your garden (or we may be digging our graves).
Bayer has a history of bad business
Bayer AG is a German company, founded in 1863. It is perhaps best known for making aspirin, which it trademarked from acetylsalicylic acid in 1899. Aspirin occurs naturally in the white willow tree (Salyx alba) and meadowsweet grass, which are both available as natural remedies.
But by 1900, Bayer’s business practices started to turn shady. That year, it trademarked heroin (diacetyl-morphine, a synthetic derivative of natural morphine). Of course, today, we know heroin as a dangerous, addicting “street drug” and illegal narcotic.
During WW I, Bayer turned to making chemical weapons, including the chlorine gas that had horrendous effects on battlefields. During this period, Bayer formed ties with other German chemical companies, including BASF (Bavarian Aniline Soda Factory) and Hoechst. In 1925 they merged to form the massive German manufacturer IG Farben. This new conglomerate became the single largest donor to Hitler’s National Socialist political campaigns during the 1930s.
During WW II, IG Farben worked closely with the Nazi government producing all the explosives for the German military. They also systematically looted the chemical industries of the countries they conquered in Europe. IG Farben also used slave labor in many of its factories and mines. And by 1944, they put more than 83,000 forced laborers to work at Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland. IG Farben’s Auschwitz plant was a massive industrial complex, using more electricity than the entire city of Berlin.
Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate author, arrived to Auschwitz in 1944 and was sent with his family to the IG Farben work camp at Buna-Werke. That same year, the author Primo Levi was also sent to the Buna-Werke work camp, ultimately one of only three survivors of his group.
IG Farben paid for some “research” by Dr. Josef Mengele, the Auschwitz “angel of death.” And Bayer supplied microbes and chemicals for his infamous experiments. IG Farben also supplied the poisonous cyanide-based pesticide, Zyklon B, to the SS for “extermination” in the concentration camps and supplied the methanol for burning of the corpses of the murdered in the infamous ovens.
In 1946, the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal concluded that without IG Farben, WW II simply would not have been possible. Chief Prosecutor Telford Taylor warned: “These companies, not the lunatic Nazi fanatics, are the main war criminals. If the guilt of these criminals is not brought to daylight and if they are not punished, they will pose a much greater threat to the future peace of the world than Hitler if he were still alive.”
He little imagined what Bayer and IG Farben would continue to do…
By the early 1950s, a number of men convicted of slavery, thievery, and mass murder were back at the helm of the reconstituted Bayer, BASF, and Hoechst corporations, formed out of IG Farben’s ashes and assets. On All Saints Day — November 1, 2006 — Bayer laid a wreath on the grave of one of these infamous WW II industrialists.
In the 1980s, Bayer grew to become the third largest big pharma company in the world. By then, it sold a product called Factor VIII to treat hemophilia. Factor VIII turned out to be infected with HIV. In the U.S. alone, it infected thousands of patients suffering from hemophilia, many of whom died. It was one of the worst drug-related medical disasters in modern history. But in 2003, it was discovered that Bayer had continued making and selling contaminated Factor VIII in Asia and Latin America even after 1984 when a safe product had become available in the U.S.
More modern scandals for Bayer
In 2001, Bayer had to recall its statin drug Baycol due to toxicity causing 100 deaths and 1,800 injuries. Of course, this was the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the toxicity of all statin drugs. But Bayer was the canary in the coal mine.
I vividly recall the class action suit against Bayer getting underway in Philadelphia during 2002-2003. As a potential expert witness, I went to meet a paralegal I knew, where the lawyers filing the class action had taken over an entire floor of one of the major law firms in a skyscraper downtown.
Today, Bayer is the world’s leading pesticide maker and seventh-largest seed maker. They are responsible for most of the studies of GM crops in Europe using its own “Liberty” pesticide, which is a controversial pesticide like Monsanto’s Roundup.
As I’ve reported previously, agriculture experts express widespread concerns that GM crops have permanently tainted natural crops of rice and maize worldwide. Of course, the combined Bayer-Monsanto conglomerate will have plenty of experience getting around these concerns. And the world experts at making and using poisons will be in charge of more and more of the world’s food supply.
If the planet survives this lunacy, future generations will look back and wonder why anyone ever thought using poisons to grow our foods was a good idea.
When buying your foods, stick to the outside aisles of the grocery store, or go to a natural foods store. Purchase only “organic” foods, which aren’t grown with pesticides or grown from GM seeds.
And when you have aches and pains, I suggest trying natural options first. You can learn about all of them in detail in my Arthritis Relief and Reversal online learning protocol. And if you must take a pain reliever, opt for a generic formulation. Not Bayer.