Leona Razdrih
9/23/2013

MONSANTO

I chose to write about Monsanto, they are a company who has sued and have been sued. I thought I would pick out and would choose one major lawsuit and write about that in my final paper. Now, I am going to give you a brief summary of the history of the company. Monsanto was founded by John Francis Queenie in 1901, in St. Louis Missouri. He named the company after his wifes Maiden name Monsanto , John was a 30 year veteran in the pharmaceutical business. He invented quite a few things One of his first products was artificial sweetener called saccharin. That was sold to Coca-Cola.
By the 1940’s the company was a major producer of plastics which included polystyrene and synthetic fibers. The scientists from Monsanto had a breakthrough research on catalytic asymmetric hydrogenation and they were the first company to mass produce LED lights.

Monsanto Company is headquartered in Missouri. It is a leading producer of genetically
Engineered seed and the herbicide glyphosate, which is marketed under the brand name of Round-up. This is what I’m generally concerned about, I use this product Roundup for my weeds and have heard that glyphosate is safe and non-toxic, from the research I have been doing that’s not the case. Glyphosate is an active ingredient in some common herbicides used in farming and gardening.
This chemical is sprayed on the roadside when people are driving, schoolyards and sports
Fields, exposing kids to drifts and residues. Agriculture specialists and Primary industry officers have been telling farmers that its ok not to wear protective clothing, that its not necessary. Unfortunately this is not the case, the facts show differently.Pure glyphosate has a low acute toxicity ( the amount needed to cause death) when sold as a commercial herbicide it is combined with surfactants, and other ingredients to make it more effective to kill plants.
Studies have shown that commercial products such as Roundup can be 3x’s more fatal than pure glyphosate. In California, there’s a mandatory system of reporting pesticide poisoning,
Glyphosate is the 3rd most common illness in farm workers and the most common reported in landscape gardeners. The Monsanto company also formerly manufactured controversial products such as: Agent Orange, recombinant bovine somatotropin, DDT and PCB’s. as of 2013
Monsantos new product line, is the Xtend crop system was undergoing review. This system will include seeds to be resistant to glyphosate and dicamba. One of the lawsuits I’d like to write about is the recent case in August 2013 infringement on the farmers.