monsanto good or evil :: essays research papers

ANNISTON, Ala. -- On the west ramp of Anniston, the poor side of Anniston, the people ate dirt. They called it "Alabama clay" and cooked it for extra flavor. They also grew berries in their gardens, raised hogs in their back yards, caught bass in the murky streams where their children swam and play and were baptized. They didnt know their dirt and yards and bass and kids -- along with the acrid air they disenfranchised -- were all contaminated with chemicals. They didnt know they lived in one of the most pollute patches of America.     Now they know. They also know that for nearly 40 years, while producing the now-banned industrial coolants known as PCBs at a local factory, Monsanto Co. routinely carry out toxic waste into a west Anniston creek and dumped cardinals of pounds of PCBs into oozing open-pit landfills. And thousands of pages of Monsanto documents -- umpteen emblazoned with warnings such as "CONFIDENTIAL Read and Destroy" -- show that for decades, the unified giant concealed what it did and what it knew.     In 1966, Monsanto managers discovered that fish submerged in that creek turned belly-up within 10 seconds, spurting kin and shedding skin as if dunked into boiling water. They told no one. In 1969, they install fish in another creek with 7,500 times the legal PCB levels. They clear-cut "there is little object in going to expensive extremes in limiting discharges." In 1975, a company study found that PCBs caused tumors in rats. They ordered its conclusion changed from "slightly tumorigenic" to "does not appear to be carcinogenic."          the environmental Protection Agency ordered General Electric Co. to spend $460 million to dredge PCBs it had dumped into the Hudson River in the past, perhaps the Bush administrations boldest environmental action to date. The ending was bitterly opposed by the company, but hailed by national preservation groups and many prominent and prosperous residents of the picturesque Hudson River Valley.          Anniston is not much of a model city anymore. The EPA dischargeicials who set up an Anniston satellite office to charter with the PCB problem are now alarmed about widespread virtuoso poisoning as well. The Army is building an incinerator here to burn 2,000 wads of deadly sarin and mustard gas. And the Anniston Star has been questioning Monsantos past hydrargyrum releases.     Officials at Solutia Inc., the name given to Monsantos chemical operations after they were spun off into a separate company in 1997, acknowledge that Monsanto made mistakes.