Monsanto busted for contempt of Advertising Authority in South Africa

[nosmokes]

Does anyone anywhere on the planet*not* see the irony of the USA subsidising this criminal corporation while at the same time the South African government is penalising it for false advertising? How did we get to this point?Is anyone else embarrassed and ashamed?
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original-mathaba

Monsanto busted for contempt of Advertising Authority in South Africa
Posted: 2007/12/23
From: Mathaba

By Trevor Wells

On 26 June 2006 Mathaba News published an article headlined "Monsanto tells a pack of lies in South Africa". That article exposed how Monsanto had told the South African Advertising Authority (ASA) that MON 863 was not their product. MON 863 was in fact their product and had been found to cause damage to to rats in independent trials in Europe. Monsanto had in fact made an application for this product to be released in South Africa. The ASA ordered Monsanto SA to withdraw its advert which depicted a mother with two children in a kitchen looking at a cake. Among other false claims the advert stated "no substantiated scientific or medical negative reactions to GM foods have ever been reported".

The advert also falsely claimed that genetically modified foods contained enhanced proteins, vitamins and anti-oxidants and removed allergens. Whilst there was an uproar from responsible parenting organisations and in fact proof that no commercial GM products had ever been commercially released with the enhanced claims, the ASA found it unnecessary to deal with those aspects. It ordered the removal of the advert based on the false claim that "No substantiated scientific or medical to GM foods have ever been reported."

During the hearing, Monsanto attempted to distract the worthy panel of arbitrators, headed by Justice King, a no non-sense judge who rose to fame as the doyen of "Corporate Governance", by arguing the merits of GM products as against the truthfulness of their claims. They produced a letter from Covance Laboratories in the USA, which claimed that they were an independent laboratory and which "praised the benefits of GM Corn." Justice King ruled that the benefits of GM corn had nothing to do with the case in front of them.

Covance Laboratories have a history of abuse and have been fined on several occasions in Europe and the USA for the appalling conditions under which experiments are conducted and for outright vicious treatment of laboratory animals. Their track record is second only to Monsanto's long history of convictions for racketeering, bribery and corruption. Monsanto clearly lives under the misconception that South African judges are stupid, because apart from the serious submissions mentioned above they would otherwise not have presented Covance Laboratories as an "independent" source in order to verify their safety claim.

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complete article here