Blamed for Bee Collapse, Monsanto Buys Leading Bee Research Firm

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8. No contest -- Monsanto has been responsible for far more death and suffering

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange

Agent Orange is the code name for one of the herbicides and defoliants used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. It was given its name from the color of the orange-striped 55 US gallon (208 litre) barrels in which it was shipped, and was by far the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides". A 50:50 mixture of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D, it was manufactured for the U.S. Department of Defense primarily by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical. The 2,4,5-T used to produce Agent Orange was later discovered to be contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin, an extremely toxic dioxin compound. Vietnam estimates 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth defects.


http://www.combat-monsanto.co.uk/spip.php?article228

The massive spraying of Agent Orange had long term effects, not only on the civilian population of Vietnam but also on the US soldiers who had been equally exposed to dioxin without precautions. What’s more, Monsanto had deliberately hidden from the army the fact that the military version of the weedkiller 2,4,5-T, or Agent Orange, contained a much stronger residual concentration of the dioxin TCDD than the usual agricultural version. A now-released internal document from the firm Dow Chemicals, dated 22 February 1965, discloses a secret meeting of the main suppliers of “Agent Orange”, including Monsanto, held to “discuss toxicological problems caused by the presence of certain highly toxic impurities” in the samples of 2,4,5-T supplied to the army. Dow wanted to consider an internal study showing that “rabbits exposed to dioxin developed severe liver lesions”. The question at issue for the suppliers of 2,4,5-T was to know whether they had to warn the government about the toxicity of Agent Orange. Gerson Smoger, the lawyer for many veterans of the Vietnam war, stated that “The meeting took place in the greatest secrecy […] The question was, whether they had to tell the government. As is proven by a letter of which I also have a copy, Monsanto reproached Dow for wanting to reveal the secret. And the secret was kept for at least four years, the years in which the spraying of Agent Orange reached its peak in Vietnam.


http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Drug_War/Monsanto_DrugWar.html

The US has sprayed tons of Roundup and Roundup Ultra (produced by the St. Louis-based chemical and biotechnology giant, Monsanto) during the 24-year-long drug war in Colombia. The use of these herbicides has consistently produced health complaints from people in the Colombian countryside. Those complaints have gone largely ignored by Washington and Monsanto.

A month before Wellstone was doused, Colombian indigenous leaders visited Congress to speak out against the fumigation. "The 12 indigenous peoples have been suffering under this plague as if it were a government decree to exterminate our culture and our very survival," said Jose Francisco Tenono, the only leader who was not afraid to use his real name. "Our only sustenance - manioc, banana, palms, sugar cane and corn - have been fumigated. Our sources of water, creeks, rivers, lakes, have been poisoned, killing our fish... Today, hunger is our daily bread. In the name of the Amazonian Indigenous people I ask that the fumigations be immediately suspended."