Conscious Choice: The Washington Connection

September 1999

The Washington Connection

by Jim Hightower

These "biotech" companies have been able to foist their Frankenfoods on an unsuspecting American public because they have become adroit inside-the-beltway players. They spread campaign donations to both parties (doling out more than $2 million since 1997). They establish tight connections to key policy makers (Al Gore’s chief domestic policy advisor, for example, is the former head of lobbying for Genentech Inc.), and they even become Washington policy makers.

In this last category is the case of Monsanto’s mystery milk. The company makes the artificial sex hormone rBGH that is sold to dairies, which give it to their cows, forcing them to produce more milk. Problem is, not every mother wants her children drinking milk spiced with sex hormones, so Monsanto not only needed the product approved by the FDA, but also needed an O.K. for dairy processors not to have to label the milk as having been produced with Monsanto’s stimulant.

That’s where Michael Taylor came in. He worked for five years at the FDA and then joined a Washington lobbying and lawyering outfit, where one of his clients was Monsanto, which wanted the FDA’s O.K. to market its artificial milk hormone. Sure enough, Taylor got his former FDA colleagues to go along. But then the FDA had to decide whether the mystery milk would have to be labeled. No problem. By this time, Michael Taylor had returned to the FDA as deputy commissioner for policy and in 1994 decided the label issue in Monsanto’s favor.

According to the Edmonds Institute, others slipping in and out of government include:

Linda J. Fisher

THEN: Assistant Administrator of the EPA’s office of pollution prevention.

NOW: VP of government affairs for Monsanto.

Marcia Hale

THEN: Assistant to the President of the U.S. and White House director of intergovernmental affairs.

NOW: Director of intergovernmental affairs for Monsanto.

Mickey Kantor

THEN: Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign director, U.S. Trade Representative, and Commerce Secretary.

NOW: Board of directors of Monsanto.

Josh King

THEN: Director of production for White House events.

NOW: Director of global communication for Monsanto.

Margaret Miller

THEN: Laboratory Supervisor for Monsanto.

NOW: Deputy director of the FDA’s human food safety and consultative services.

William D. Ruckleshaus

THEN: EPA Administrator.

NOW: Board of Directors of Monsanto.

Lidia Watrud

THEN: Microbial biotechnology researcher for Monsanto.

NOW: At the EPA’s environmental effects laboratory.

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