"It's a boycott against THE POWER and against a way of life represented by all the gigantic multinational corporations, which every day extend their control over the planet.... Poisons, you might say, are their life." Jon Rappoport

Today, a handful of companies produce most of the worlds pesticides, genetically engineered food seeds, and toxic chemicals. They also control a frightening share of the world's seed market. For years, their money has bought influence with government agencies trusted to regulate food safety, the environment, and the health of the world's people. Even worse, they have industrialized academic medicine. Very few researchers and universities can manage without their money. These corporations have formed and funded front groups that pose as food safety organizations, which promote genetic engineering, pesticides, and other big agribusiness agenda. They have bought mouthpieces at major universities who salt the mainstream media with propaganda for these forces.

Some activists have figured out that these corporations carry out all these activities with consumer money. They have refused to fund them any more.

The Great Boycott

The Great Boycott was founded by Jon Rappoport, author, radio commentator, activist, whose journalism in a wide range of media earned him a Pulitzer Prize nomination. As Rappoport wrote about diverse occurrences of environmental pollution, food safety issues, and injustice over time in various places, a common element, corporate influence, emerged as a contributing or causative factor. As soon as he scratched the surface, he exposed the grimace of corporate greed behind such diverse offenses as dumping of pesticides; arrest, torture, or murder of labor organizers and political dissidents; or suppression of alternative health practices.

Rappoport pointed out that justice requires government and regulatory systems working for the benefit of the people they govern, and alerted his readers to the influence of affected industries on government regulators. He underscored the limitations of national regulations in addressing such issues as toxic hazards. "Incestuous," he called the revolving door between government regulatory agencies such as the FDA and companies they were charged to govern. He ran for Congress on a platform committed to health freedom and end to corruption.

With demonstrations, petitions, and letter writing campaigns, Rappoport and other activists tried to address the government with their demands for health, environmental, and economic justice. The powerful, booming corporate voices that drowned them out demands convinced Rappoport and some other activists that addressing these issues on a government level failed to attack problems at the source. "Giant multinational corporations deny justice to the American public by buying influence of government leaders, feeding former staff members into the regulatory agencies, and enticing government regulators into their corporations with lucrative offers," he explained. "At the expense of the world's people, the globalization of the economy, fueled by international treaties governing trade, is concentrating money and power into a shrinking number of multinational corporations whose interests dictate government policies worldwide."

Rappoport saw multinational corporations tightening their grip on global politics and food supplies unless consumers said "ENOUGH!" Consumers provided the funds used to buy influence. Corporations used their money to develop products that conferred no benefits on consumers, but boosted corporate profits and extended corporate control. They have since formed bogus "food safety" groups to push the agenda of big agribusiness. Having noted what economic boycotts had accomplished in addressing issues such as Apartheid in South Africa, Rappoport decided to demonstrate that ordinary people could attack corporate injustice directly at its source.

Rappoport identified the leading multinational producers of pesticides, genetically engineered (GE) food seeds, toxic pharmaceutical, and industrial chemicals. Byproducts of each included megatons of toxic wastes they unloaded on the planet daily. Murderous and indiscriminant, the toxic pollution from their products and wastes robbed all people of choice.

Selected companies were Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, Rhone Poulenc, Bayer, Hoechst, CIBA-Geigy, Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). They have since merged or regrouped to become or include Novartis, Aventis, Autra-Zeneca, Sygenta and Agro-Evo. Well-chosen, these companies appear on every pesticide and genetic engineering "dirty dozen" list. Here are just a few examples.

In 1997, Agrow World Crop Protection News listed the top sellers of pesticides and other agrochemicals. Boycotted companies accounted for the top eight. 1. Novartis ( formed by merger of Ciba Geigy and Sandoz), 2. Monsanto, 3. Zeneca (the arm of ICI that produces pesticides and GE seeds), 4. AgrEvo (a partnership of Hoescht and Schering, which recently included Rhone Poulenc in a venture called Aventis), 5. DuPont, 6. Bayer, 7. Rhone-Poulenc, 8. DowElanco (A Dow partnership with Ely Lilly).

In its September, 1999 issue, CONSUMER REPORTS identified the six companies that dominate research and development in plant genetic engineering as Monsanto, DuPont, Novartis (created by merger of Ciba Geigy and Sandoz), Austra-Zeneca (Zeneca is the pesticide-producing arm of ICI), and Aventis (formed by the merger of Rhone poulenc with the shareholders of AgrEvo: Hoechst and Schering). Rather than insert genetic traits intended to benefit consumers, these companies first boosted their herbicide sales by engineering tolerance of specific broad-spectrum herbicides manufactured by the company engineering the seeds. According to Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI), the same companies account for 60% of the global pesticide market and 23% of the global seed market. Monsanto has multiplied its share of the seed market by aggressively gobbling up seed companies, including the international seed operations of the seed giant, Cargill.

The Foundation for Advancement in Science and Education (FASE) monitors shipments of pesticides that are banned or severely restricted in the United States to countries where they are often used with abandon without warnings, and administered by children without protective clothing or precautions. In 1993, on FASE'S list of the eight principle exporters of unidentified pesticides, six were boycotted companies.

These corporations fund most of the scientific studies on GE crops, and the strings they attach extend their control over published findings--which are supposed to be objective and devoted to scientific truth. (See "IS FDA BIASED ON GENETIC ISSUE? by Barbara Keeler and Steve Urow, DAILY BREEZE, 8/13/99, p B5; "{BIAS IN THE SEARCH}," by Barbara Keeler and Steve Urow, Copley News Service, August 25, www.copleynews.com, and "{GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS: POTENTIAL IMPACT ON HEALTH}, by Shirley Watson, DC and Barbara Keeler, NUTRITIONAL PERSPECTIVES: Journal of the Council on Nutrition of the American Chiropractic Association, October, 1999)

According to REVOLT AGAINST THE EMPIRE: WELCOME TO THE GREAT BOYCOTT, by Jon Rappoport, seven of the eight corporations had major ties to the Nazi cartel, IG Farben, which supported Hitler and his war machine, and used concentration camp inmates as slave labor. When inmates became too weak to work they were killed using the Farben product Zyklon B gas.

Many of these corporations' activities are unrecognized because of their countless subsidiaries. Stock ownerships, partnerships, and joint ventures with other corporation have extended both their influence and their transgressions.

Beyond those in the above lists, examples include Monsanto's joint venture with Cargill, with byproducts that include fluorosilicic acid, a hazardous waste deemed too toxic for landfills and sewer systems, which Cargill unloads by selling it to cities for water fluoridation. Dupont is swallowing Pioneer Hi-Bred, another prominent genetic engineer. Dow will soon acquire Union Carbide, (the company who brought industrial disaster to Bhopal, India) and with it more toxic karma.

Launching the boycott

On February 16, 1996, Rappoport announced the Great Boycott to activists in Santa Monica. Crammed into aisles, spilling out the door, and overflowing into an adjacent patio, the audience listened as he explained how the disproportionate power and wealth of a few multinational corporations impacts politics at all levels, the quality of food and other goods available, and the toxins in global ecosystems. He offered the Great Boycott as a strategy to discourage use of toxic substances and weaken the grip of multinational corporations on international politics. "By flushing the designated companies, the Great Boycott will inspire people to take back the power they hand corporate tyrants at the cash register."

The answer to a monopoly of power and wealth, Rappoport said, was to "boycott it and lay down real alternatives to the needs it pretends to fill." He offered the following strategy for flushing the boycotted corporations:

refuse to buy their products; refuse to work for them; refuse to invest in their stock; demand that others, including institutions, sell their stock in these companies; find a way to pass on the word personally.

Rappoport introduced the Great Boycott, not as an organization, but an international effort to be supported by individuals worldwide. "The Great Boycott is not run as an organization with a single leader and a cadre of assistants. It is being run by YOU." For outreach and a place to connect, different supporters set up a web site, answer and manages a telephone line, handle a post office box and coordinate local meetings.

People around the world support the boycott in various ways. A few ask store owners not to stock boycotted products. Some send boycott info to stock brokers advising them to avoid boycotted stocks. Others pass flyers at conferences, health food stores, book stores, and produce markets, or send information to their e-mail lists or fax trees. One creative supporter stuffs flyers into the pre-paid response envelopes that arrive in junk mail. Rappoport suggested putting flyers inside books about health and the environment in bookstores and libraries.

Networking with sympathetic groups, supporters have met with some success spreading the word and discouraging purchase of the products. The web site http://home.earthlink.net/~alto/index.html, was selected as a Links2Go "Key Resource" in the Environmental Issues topic, at http://www.links2go.com/topic/Environmental_Issues.

THE MISDEEDS

Rappoport distributed a publication, REVOLT AGAINST THE EMPIRE: WELCOME TO THE GREAT BOYCOTT (RAE), which explains, in riveting, horrifying detail, the histories, products, and global health impact of the targeted companies. It is available on the web site here.

The bills of particulars would fill several volumes. Below is a brief summary profile of Monsanto, representative of the other boycotted companies, followed by a few highlights of the other boycotted corporations' rap sheets.

Monsanto

"Everybody over here hates us," Dan Verakis, Monsanto PR spokesman told the London Observer. Worldwide, Monsanto has earned rancor for its leadership in the production and promotion of GE crop seeds. Farmers in India torched Monsanto's cotton crops. Citizens in Ireland and France ripped up Monsanto's GE food crops and destroyed GE seeds. Even in California, groups called Lodi Loppers and the Cropistas ravaged its test crops. Its Roundup Ready soybeans, engineered by Monsanto to tolerate its OWN herbicide, Roundup, which kills soybeans not so engineered, now account for between 35% and 50% of the US soybean crop, by various estimates. Roundup is the world's largest selling herbicide.

Monsanto has been the target of other boycotts for its GE Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH), and its suits to prevent labels declaring dairy products free of rBGH. On Monsanto's behalf, US leaders threatened to enlist World Trade Organization muscle to strong-arm the European Union (EU) for banning foods from rBGH-treated cows. Their case unraveled after the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the U.N. Food Safety Agency representing 101 nations worldwide, examined data from the Canadian equivalent of FDA, and EU's Scientific Veterinary Committee. Between them, they presented evidence of potential cancer hazards: rats absorbed rBGH, developed immunological reactions, and formed cysts in their thyroids and prostate abnormalities; and milk contained increased levels of the hormone IGF-1, which is linked to cancer. A minority of US dairy farmers still inject cows with rBGH.

Other boycotts target Monsanto for their production of Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal). A nightmare litany of adverse effects have been reported for aspartame, and the research is so flawed that it prompted government investigations. Details, including names of staff who have hopped between the FDA and Monsanto, are available from Mission Possible
International 770/242-2599
bettym19@mindspring.com
http://www.dorway.com/possible.html.

On 2/7/86 the Wall Street Journal reported a probe by Senate investigators of two former US prosecutors who were assigned to prosecute Searle, now a Monsanto subsidiary, for submitting fraudulent tests on NutraSweet. They switched sides to join the defense lawyers and the case died when the statute of limitations expired. After FDA Commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes approved NutraSweet and ignored the contrary recommendations of his own Task Force, he became a consultant to Burston Marsteller, the public relations firm that represented Searle and much of the biotech industry.

The revolving door between Monsanto and the FDA is well- documented. The incestuous relationship between Monsanto and FDA during the rBGH approval process was investigated by The Government Accounting Office. (See the 1999 Truth Seeker book, THE OWNERSHIP OF ALL LIFE, by Jon Rappoport, pp 8, 19-25) Involved in the process was Michael R. Taylor, a former Monsanto attorney who became deputy FDA commissioner. Taylor recently came full circle by taking a position with Monsanto. Boycott supporters ask if he ever really left. Mission Possible International has details.

Bill Lambrecht, of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, lists Monsanto recruits from other government agencies in his December 27, 1998 article, "WORLD RECOILS AT MONSANTO'S BRAVE NEW CROPS: The St. Louis company's political clout has turned the president and Cabinet secretaries into pitchmen."

Lambrecht lists Marcia Hale, the president's director of intergovernmental affairs; Toby Moffett, a former Democratic congressman from Connecticut; board member Mickey Kantor, a former U.S. trade representative and chairman of Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign; and Linda Fisher, who mapped pesticide policy in the Bush administration EPA.

In his article in THE ECOLOGIST, Brian Tokar reveals that Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro sits on the President's Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations and served a term as a member of the White House Domestic Policy Review.

Monsanto once planned to acquire the company that holds a patent, jointly with the USDA, for terminator seeds--seeds programmed to produce deadly proteins late in their cycle, so they cannot germinate, forcing farmers to buy new seeds each year from the GE seed company. (see OAL pp 34, 52-53). The technology, which confers no benefits on farmers or consumers, was developed in part with public funds. According to RAFI, the latest version of Monsanto's gene use restriction technology is seeds that won't germinate unless exposed to a specific Monsanto chemical.

Never permanently approved by the EPA, Monsanto's herbicide Butachlor can be found in the US food supply, according to Multinational Monitor (MM). Marketed abroad as Machete and Lambast, it is widely used on foods imported to the United States. Adverse effects include weight loss, weight changes in internal organs, and reduced brain size, and lesions.

According to RAE, Monsanto kept Lasso, another large-selling herbicide, on the market through extreme pressure on the EPA. Widely used on corn and soybeans, Lasso had been called "a probable carcinogen" by the EPA.

The only US producer of the notorious PCBs, (polychlorinated biphenyls) since 1929, Monsanto is the primary donor of the PCBs that pollute America's land, water and human and animal bodies. Although Monsanto was forced to stop making this carcinogen in 1977, RAE reports that by 1990, in the Great Lakes, every trout and salmon more than a foot long was contaminated with PCBs.

Only after a thunder of protest did Monsanto and Dow stop selling their leftovers from the Vietnam War--stocks of the defoliant Agent Orange, containing dioxin (the molecule which causes cancer, birth defects and immune suppression, and is called by scientists the most poisonous small molecule on the planet). RAE reports that Monsanto was exposed for having rigged a dioxin study in its favor.

DUPONT

DuPont is covered thoroughly in Gerard Colby'S book, DuPont Dynasty: Behind the Nylon Curtain (1984 Lyle Stuart), Colby writes, "the long arm of DuPont can also be found in Washington, D.C. DuPont family members have represented Delaware in both houses of Congress. In the last 40 years DuPont Lieutenants have served as representatives, senators, U.S. Attorney General, secretaries of Defense, Directors of the CIA and even Supreme Court Justices." As for the home state, Colby says 60% of the Delaware's work force is employed by a DuPont asset.

In "DuPont's Disgraceful Deeds," (MM, October 1991) Jack Doyle writes "DuPont is the single largest corporate polluter in the United States." DuPont's wastes include byproducts from its nuclear power plants. Thus, DuPont has committed thousands of future generations to storing radioactive wastes. Over the years, DuPont has poisoned not only the environment but its workers, exposing them repeatedly and knowingly to hazards. (See OAL, P 9)

Ten growers obtained court approval this spring to press racketeering charges against DuPont for allegedly withholding, covering up, or destroying evidence that its fungicide Benlate ruined crops [see www.dupontsucks.com]. In December 1995, MM reported charges by a family that their use of the home fungicide Benlate caused their son to be born without eyes.

DOW

Toxics Watch 1995 report of Inform, Inc. U.S. ranks Dow sixth in "production-related toxic chemical wastes, carcinogens and ozone depleting chemicals...."

Susan Cooper of the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides told MM that at least half the pesticide complaints called in to her office concern Dursban. In January 1998, the National Institutes of Health publication, Environmental Health Perspectives, published a study that found children at particular risk of exposure to dangerous levels of chlorpyrifos, the organophosphate Dow sells as Dursban and Lorsban.

RAE reports that the Dow pesticide DBCP contaminated ground water for several thousand square miles in California and caused sterility in agricultural workers. After the EPA ordered DBCP phased out, Dow sold it to Dole Corporation, which used it on banana plantations in Costa Rica. Four other EPA- banned Dow agricultural chemicals, Gallant, Verdict, Gauntlet, and Tridal, have turned up in Africa, Latin America, Central America, Asia and Europe. Dow also manufactures the carcinogen, benzene.

When Dow Corning was sued over their destructive silicone breast implants, its parent Dow moved to deny victims justice by cutting Dow Corning off like a diseased limb. As a result, women with their health and lives in shreds spent years seeking compensation. Individual women piled up millions of dollars in medical bills during the litigation. [From the Great Boycott web, link to Women in Health Home Page]

NOVARTIS

In 1997, Novartis led the world in pesticide sales. A major producer of GE food seeds, it has terminator technology in the pipeline, and a $25 million dollar contract with plant geneticists at UC Berkeley. Outraged at the industrialization of academic research, a group calling themselves Croppers brought the spirit of the Boston Tea party back to the United States when they pulled up a GE corn test crop on Thanksgiving.

Before Ciba Geigy became Novartis, it exponentially expanded the market for its ADD drug ritalin by funding CHADD, a "support group" that aggressively promotes ritalin for ADD. For the shameful details see Truth Seeker position paper WHY DID THEY DO IT? by Jon Rappoport.

In laboratories analyzes of common beverages, the highest fluoride levels--more than three times the "optimum" levels the LA Department of Water and Power achieves with fluoridation, were found in Graduate Berry Punch and white grape juice made by Novartis subsidiary Gerber. According to the EPA, municipal water with fluoride at these levels can cause dental fluorosis in children.

BAYER

One of the original companies forming the infamous cartel, IG Farben, Bayer is the target of a class-action suit filed on behalf of Nazi death camp survivors, alleging Bayer "monitored and supervised" cruel medical experiments by Dr. Josef Mengele. Allegedly, some Bayer drugs resulted from these experiments. In 1963 Bayer appointed as Chairman of the Supervisory Board Dr. Fritz ter Meer, one of twelve Farben executives sentenced for mass murder and slavery at the Nuremberg trials.

HOECHST

Hoechst is part of Aventis, which topped Novartis in pesticide production on RAFI'S 1998 list. Partnership for poison continues a tradition established as one of three companies forming the infamous Nazi-supporting cartel, IG Farben. Aventis gave the world Starlink, the corn that was denied approval for human consumption because of potential allergic reactions, then turned up in dozens of corn products worldwide.

RHONE POULENC

Like Hoechst, Rhone Poulenc is part of Aventis, number one in pesticide production in 1998. On its own, it was one of the pioneers in development of genetically engineer food seeds.

IMPERIAL CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES

Through a network of subsidiaries, ICI manufactures a variety of toxic chemicals, including refrigerants, chlorine-based chemicals, acrylic coatings such as Lucite, and surfectants for a variety of uses, including cleaning and cosmetic products. The subsidiary Quest offers food ingredients such as stabilizers & shelf-life extenders, fat replacement systems, artificial flavors, and meat flavors.

The ICI subsidiary Zeneca, a leading producer of pesticides and GE seeds, began its corporate existence as the world's biggest producer of paraquat, an acutely toxic herbicide banned, severely restricted, or unregistered in ten countries. The Pesticide Action Network labels paraquat one of the "Dirty Dozen." Zeneca sells it in 130 countries. Zeneca is developing GE seeds for plants that will be stunted and deformed without periodic application of Zeneca chemicals.

The ICI web has a press release responding to an announcement by Environment Agency in Wales about its Prosecutions List. The press release makes light of three incidents of toxic pollution in 1997. The web site http://www.mcspotlight.org/debate/multis/messages/54.html is full of letters from UK activists about toxic discharge into the Teesside Estuary, ICI indoctrination in Teesside Primary Schools, and testing on animals.

North American activists write of an unsuccessful ICI push for permission to discharge nearly a billion gallons of their waste into the St. Clair river.

Boycott information is incomplete and boycott supporters in Los Angeles have reached out to supporters worldwide for as much information as possible about the subsidiaries and DBAs of the boycotted companies. They need more information about consumer products to boycott, particularly for the companies based outside the United States and products sold under different names in foreign markets. (Readers are invited to send information to alto@earthlink.net.)

At Boycott meeting, speakers and members from varied allied groups discuss the connection between the boycott and their causes. Examples include protesters of nuclear waste dumps and food irradiation, survivors of silicon implants, opponents of Aspartame and rBGH, critics of GE foods, and environmentalists who object to toxic chemicals and industrial w astes. World hunger activists condemn the economic effects on the poor as these companies gain money and power. Peace activists note Dupont's key role in fueling the war machine and developing the first weapons of mass destruction, as well as the Napalm manufactured by Dow.

Says former meeting coordinator Paul Borraccia, "We attract a diverse group because the Boycott ties in to so many health, environmental, social, humanitarian, and political issues. By consciously deciding where we will spend our money, we take our own power back."

To contact The Great Boycott or attend meetings call 310) 281-1927 or write Great Boycott at PO Box 24825. To receive updates, action alerts, and form letters, send your e-mail to Robalini@aol.com or call with fax # To receive updates, action alerts, and form letters, send your e-mail to Robalini@aol.com or call with fax number. For a printed copy of Revolt Against the Empire, send a check to Robert Sterling, Los Angeles, California, 90024-0825, USA. Feel free to download or copy it, and sell it or distribute it free. The Great Boycott is not an organization, so readers wishing to contribute should make out the checks to one of the named individuals, or simply use their money to make flyers and distribute them.

For much more information, check the web site, which offers an impressive number of valuable links, a few of which Women in Health, Pesticide Action Network, UC Davis Sustainable Agriculture and Education Program, Corporate Watch, and Campaign for Food Safety and Organic Consumers Action (wealth of info on GE food). For an overview of GE food, read GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS: Are they safe? by Laura and Robin Ticciati (Keats, 1998).

A Partial List of Products to Boycott

DOW
Ziploc bags, Fantastik cleaner, Handi-Wrap, Saran Wrap, Spray 'n Wash, Dow Bathroom Cleaner, Glass Plus Multisurface Cleaner, Dow Antibacerial Cleaner, Smart Scrub, Ultra Yes Laundry Detergent, Vivid Bleach, Style and Permasoft hair products, Styrofoam labeled plastic products, Starane, Spike, Verdict, Trefflan (herbicides), Dursban (insecticide), Cepacol, Gly-oxide, Gaviscon, Citrucel, Oscal (over the counter preparations.).

DUPONT
Health Source brand groceries; Comforel pillows and mattress pads; the fibers Lycra, Dacron, Nomex, Coran; Teflon; refined petroleum products sold under the brands Conoco, Jet and Seca; the fungicides Benlate and Benomyl; Fishing lines sold under the brand names High Impact, Magnum, Prime Plus, and Stren; DuPont brand name paints, cement and lacquers

MONSANTO
All Ortho and GreenSweep garden products; BGH (aka rBGH, rBST and Posilac); Simplesse (an artificial butter fat); Simple Pleasures Frozen Desserts; Astroturf; garden herbicides Roundup and Dimension; agricultural chemicals?Lasso, Harness Plus, Far Go, Machete, Bronco, Bullet, Freedom, Landmaster BW, Ram Rod, Accord, Lariat, Rodeo; Monsanto GE plants.

NOVARTIS
All Gerber products, Funk Seeds Products, SoftColor and Vision Care contact lenses, Nupercainal Ointment, Privine Nasal Spray, Doan's Pills, Fiberall Laxative, Sunkist Vitamins, Acutrim, Ten-K, Ciba eye care products: Hypo-Tears, Aosept, Aodisc, Eye-Scrub, Mira Flow, Clomacalm (dog antidepressant.)

BAYER
Aleve, Alkaseltzer, One-A-Day Vitamin or Herbal Supplements (Tension & Mood, Memory & Concentration, Prostate Health), Flintstone Chewable Vitamins, SOS Scouring Pads, Bugs Bunny Vitamins, Cutter insect repellent, all Bayer aspirin products, Midol PMS, Actron, Domeboro Solution, Phillips Milk of Magnesia, Glucometer, Glucofilm Strips, Diastix, Ketostix, Keto-Diastix.