06 February 2007 - You might blame the dog for eating your
homework, or a traffic jam for being late to work. But if
you ever find yourself facing a multimillion-dollar class
action lawsuit for contaminating the world's number one
food crop with an unapproved genetically engineered variety,
just do what biotech company Bayer does. Blame God!
Yes folks it seems that according to Bayer, God hasn't
been dealing with the big issues lately. Instead of answering
millions of prayers, stopping wars or ending famines, God
has left all the important things to gather dust in the
heavenly inbox whilst ensuring Bayer's unapproved variety
of genetically engineered (GE) rice goes forth and multiplies
around the world instead.
According to documents submitted to the court by Bayer,
last year's massive contamination of US rice with an unapproved,
experimental variety of rice called LL601 was due to 'acts
of God' or the rice farmers themselves.
Pushing the blame onto the rice farmers is no surprise
as the farmers are the ones suing Bayer for millions of
dollars of lost income. The price of US rice plummeted last
year, immediately following the discovery of the GE contamination
in rice exported to Europe and Japan, where consumer resistance
to Bayer's less-than-divine intervention in their food is
strong.
The LL601 rice was originally grown as an experimental
field trial all the way back in 1999-2001. The trial ended
with no approval for growing the strain commercially.
That should have been the end of LL601 for good. But five
years later, testing of US rice imports across Europe and
Japan showed the experimental LL601 very much alive and
contaminating.
"Bayer is aggressively pursuing commercial approvals
for its GE rice globally, including in Europe and Brazil,
yet refuses to accept responsibility for the major financial
damage its unauthorised GE rice has caused in the US and
elsewhere."
"Indeed, Bayer is blaming hardworking farmers or 'acts
of God' for these problems when all signs point to Bayer
being at fault," said Adam Levitt, a partner in the
law firm of Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz -
one of the law firms leading the prosecution of these cases
against Bayer.
Shifting the blame isn't new for big business trying to
avoid responsibility for their mistakes. But God as scapegoat?
That's probably a new low in the GE industry's pursuit of
the almighty dollar.
