Former Exec Blows Whistle on Monsanto: Fake Data

by Heidi Stevenson

19 February 2010

A former managing director of Monsanto has blown the whistle on his former employer, claiming that faked scientific data was presented to India's government agencies. Tiruvadi Jagadisan stated that the agencies giving Monsanto approval for its herbicides depended on the phony data in the 1980s.

Jagadisan didn't spare his own country's credibility, saying:

The Central Insecticide Board was supposed to give these approvals based on the location and crop-specific data from India. But it simply accepted foreign data supplied by Monsanto. They did not even have a test tube to validate the data and, at times, the data itself was faked.

He further stated:

I retired from the company as I felt the management of Monsanto, USA, was exploiting our country," Jagadisan, 84, said from his home in Bangalore.

At that time, Monsanto was getting into the seed business and I had information that a 'terminator gene' was to be incorporated in the seeds being supplied by the firm. This meant that the farmer had to buy fresh seeds from Monsanto at heavy cost every time he planted the crop.

When confronted with Jagadisan's claims, Monsanto danced around the issue. Their spokesperson didn't deny the claims. Instead, he said:

We have full faith in the Indian regulatory system, which has its checks and measures in place to ensure accuracy and authenticity of data furnished to them.

He further stated that India's regulatory process is strict, and that "no biotech crops are allowed in the market until they undergo extensive and rigid crop safety assessments, following strict scientific protocols."

But he never stated that the data they'd submitted for approval was legitimate. He just avoided the issue—just as Monsanto has been doing to farmers' livelihoods and health, and to life on earth.

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