Monsanto busted for contempt of Advertising Authority in South Africa

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, when in fact it was and had been found to cause damage 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 among other false claims stated "no scientific or medically 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.

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 scientific or medically negative reactions to GM foods have ever been reported."

During the hearing, Monsanto attempted to distract the 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.

Covance USA's support of Monsanto is even more surprising given the fact that European researchers employed by Covance Laboratories (Europe) discovered and reported numerous biological effects on rats fed MON863, i.e. blood stream anomalies that varied by sex (increase in white blood cell levels and lymphocytes in males, decrease in new red blood cells in females, increase in female blood sugar levels, in addition to renal lesions (inflammations, kidney stones) and variations in kidney weight.

The ink on the judgement ordering the withdrawal of this false advert had hardly dried when, on 21 August 2007, Kobus Steenkamp, Marketing Manager for Monsanto, issued a statement headed: "ASA accepts Monsanto's 'GM Is Safe' advertisement." Steenkamp said, "The Advertising Standards Authority has now approved this advertisement and accepts that the facts have been verified by independent and reliable sources." He added, "The ASA has accepted the revised wording from Monsanto, which states, 'no substantiated scientific or medically negative reactions to GM foods have ever been reported.'"

According to an article published by The South African NGO net, the Advertising Standards Authority categorically denied Monsanto's statement. Monsanto however went ahead and published their advert with the same picture and wording, except for the added "No substantiated medical or scientific..." part.

Mark Wells, the organic farmer who was the successful applicant in the previous incident, once more challenged the advert. On 19 December 2007 Judge King of the ASA ruled that despite the amended wording not being exactly the same, the overall communication remains unchanged. A hypothetical reasonable person would interpret the claim to mean that tests were conducted in this regard and no negative reactions were found. The Respondent, Monsanto, is therefore found guilty of breaching the previous ruling. Mathaba