E-Mail This Article to a Friend The Seventh Annual Muzzle Awards (continued)

Monsanto Company: Chemical giant tries to remove dairy’s label

Classic censorship has a simple definition: government suppression of a message that it deems objectionable. But we live in an era of immense corporate power, and it’s not enough to limit our thinking about free expression to what the government may or may not do. Last year, the Phoenix gave a Muzzle Award to the Crossgates Mall, near Albany, New York, for charging a man with trespassing after he refused to remove an anti-war T-shirt. Seven years ago, in the very first edition of the Muzzles, we singled out retail giant Wal-Mart for refusing to sell music and videos it deemed inappropriate.

This year Monsanto, a multi-billion-dollar chemical company based in St. Louis, joins the non-virtuous circle. In a case that drew the attention of both the New York Times and Time magazine, among other media outlets, Monsanto last July sued Oakhurst Dairy, a family-owned business with deep roots in Portland, Maine, and demanded that it stop labeling its products with an entirely truthful statement: OUR FARMERS’ PLEDGE: NO ARTIFICIAL GROWTH HORMONES.

The problem, you see, was that Monsanto is the manufacturer of Posilac, a type of recombinant bovine-growth hormone, or rBGH, that is used in an estimated one-third of the nation’s dairy cows in order to boost milk production. The federal Food and Drug Administration has found that rBGH causes no adverse health effects in humans, and that milk from cows injected with rBGH can’t even be distinguished from that produced by untreated cows. Yet consumers have remained wary of rBGH since its introduction, in 1994. Monsanto’s complaint was that Oakhurst’s label created the impression that milk from rBGH-treated cows was somehow less healthful, or of lower quality.

The issue here is free speech, not science. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to note that not everyone agrees with the FDA. Though the consensus of scientific opinion is that rBGH is indeed harmless, there is a small but persistent minority that insists milk from chemically enhanced cows might be associated with higher rates of cancer in humans. Some also think the hormone is at least possibly linked to earlier puberty in boys and girls. In addition, it’s pretty much beyond dispute that rBGH can be rough on the cows themselves, causing udder infections and other ills associated with the simple fact that they’re producing more milk. For that reason alone, consumers should be able to opt out of rBGH. But if companies such as Oakhurst aren’t allowed to label their products as being rBGH-free, there’s no way to make an informed decision.

Fortunately, Monsanto and Oakhurst reached a consumer-friendly compromise. In an out-of-court settlement, Oakhurst was allowed to keep its label as long as it adds a disclaimer in smaller type: FDA STATES: NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE IN MILK FROM COWS TREATED WITH ARTIFICIAL GROWTH HORMONE. As the Portland Press Herald said in an editorial, "So, Monsanto bullied an odd little disclaimer onto Oakhurst’s label and gained national disdain for its heavy-handed tactics."

What remains troubling is that Monsanto attempted to use its deep pockets to stop a much smaller company from making a factually accurate claim about its products. That Monsanto won only a fraction of what it sought is no cause for celebration — even though the outcome could have been much worse.

Patrick Lynch: RI’s top lawyer helps to cover up a death

A 49-year-old man mysteriously dies after being taken into police custody. At first, officials refuse to disclose so much as his name. Information dribbles out. We learn who he is, but a report released under a court order has the names of the officers involved in his arrest blacked out. We learn that he was charged with driving without a license, assaulting two cops, and resisting arrest — until, that is, we learn he wasn’t actually charged with anything. We learn, from a hospital spokeswoman, that he is in "very, very critical condition." No kidding: it turns out that he’d actually died 13 hours earlier.

Such is the strange, sad case of Bruce Chappell, who died of a burst brain aneurysm after he’d been stopped on suspicion of drunk driving this past February 9 by police in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. Though the local police, most definitely including Chief Steven Fage, have a lot to learn about their responsibility to be open with the public, the Muzzle goes to Rhode Island attorney general Patrick Lynch.

One of the attorney general’s most important roles is to force recalcitrant local officials to place public records before the public. Lynch, though, not only actively participated in the cover-up of Chappell’s death, but he coached North Kingstown Police on how to keep the details secret for as long as possible. There is no evidence that either Lynch or Fage was engaged in any nefarious behavior — Fage reportedly said after the case had been wrapped up that he’d always intended to release the records after the investigation was over. But when someone dies in police custody, it’s not up to local police and the state’s chief law-enforcement officer to decide what records to make public and what records to suppress.

"He would have served the public much better had he acted immediately to get the facts out, and let the investigation proceed," wrote Providence Journal columnist Edward Achorn on February 17. "It is hard to see and no one has explained how sharing basic information with citizens would have impeded such an investigation. And it presents a clear conflict for the attorney general to join police in keeping records secret, when he is the government official charged with enforcing the Open Records Law."

Chappell’s death appears to have been unrelated to the brief struggle he reportedly engaged in after his arrest. But what if police misconduct were involved, or even alleged? In that case, Lynch’s cover-up would be seen as something far more serious than merely an arrogant abuse of power aimed at allowing the investigation to proceed unimpeded by pesky questions from the press. For that matter, Lynch’s exoneration of the officers who were involved, though no doubt warranted by the facts, would not have been tainted by the secrecy that preceded that exoneration.

In an open, democratic society, there is no more serious business than what happens to someone who is taken into police custody. The investigation of Bruce Chappell’s death was what you would expect from a police state, not the state of Rhode Island. The last thing we need is to see John Ashcroft’s values percolate down to the local level.