Dark History - 99: Monsanto Chemical Company: The Silent Killer - Agent Orange, Birth Defects and Toxic Cereal | Dark History with Bailey Sarian

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

Welcome to the Dark History podcast. In today’s episode, exposing the secrets behind the food we all buy at the grocery store. I’m talking about a company called Monsanto- and if you don’t know them, you should- because they changed the whole course of food history. There’s a lot to cover here, including blood-spitting fish, the deaths of thousands in Alabama, and Vietnam war weapons. Episode Advertisers Include: Zocdoc, Stitchfix, SquareSpace, and ShipStation. Learn more during the podcast about special offers!

What does the Vietnam War have in common with that old lettuce in your fridge? I mean, you're not going to eat that. They're both connected to what's some call the most controversial company in the world. This is a company that was supposed to represent the future of America. But instead, they help destroy the farming industry, poison children, and change the food we eat forever. This is a shocking story of Monsanto Chemical Corporation. Booh! Hi! Are you doing today? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. My name is Bailey Sarian and I like to welcome you to my podcast, Dark History. Ah! Yes, this is my podcast.

Don't mind the corn behind me or the farmer with the totally safe pesticide. That looks legit, huh? Why do you look like a dick? Okay. Oh, so hey, all you have to do is sit back, relax, and let's talk about that hot, juicy history. Ah!

It's really not goss though, because we're spinning facts here, okay? Look, so when you walk into a grocery store, there's always fruit right at the front, right? And then if you look around, I did this at the store the other day. I was like, look it around. You see on the walls, there's pictures of like jolly farmers

and sometimes driving a tractor, petting some chickens, right? It's just like, you and you're like, oh my god, farm, that's where my food comes from. And then get this. It's intentionally misleading. I mean, those pictures are there to subconsciously make us feel like what we're buying

is still hand-picked by that lovely farmer and farm fresh. But the reality is that farming has changed in a big way around the world, and this is thanks in part to a little company called Monsanto. Monsanto! Okay. So before we keep going, I just want to make it clear with you. Monsanto, they were acquired or like bought by a company called Bayer in 2018.

So now technically Monsanto is just... Bayer. I know. So like they don't go by Monsanto anymore, it's just Bayer, but most of their like shady stuff happened when they were still called Monsanto. So that's what I'm just going to call them moving forward. But it's under the Bayer, bear, they're shady. I trusted them for so long. I've seen those commercials bear.

They're like, take two of our aspirants and he won't have a heart attack and they've been pushing that down our throat since like 1982. So listen here, bear, we're onto you. It's not a threat, I'm just like point out facts. Okay, so picture, summer break. Picture it, okay?

But it's like back in the day and just being outside, just soaking up the sun, the vitamin D, fresh air, birds, no screens, okay? You're there laying on like a towel maybe and just downing like five of those rocket popsicles that you got from the truck Yeah, those things were the shit and you know exactly what I'm talking about So it's the best of times right we're outside. We're living life. It's happy. It's innocent. It's just nice, right now One of my told you all those years playing outside would actually kill you

I know I don't know well for thousands of people in Aniston, Alabama, this literally happened. Yeah, something in Aniston was making all sorts of people sick. Aniston is a town that sits at the end of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Where's that? That sounds pretty blue ridge. I'm into it. It seemed like one of those southern towns

from the movies where everyone like really knows each other. They all go to church together. It was very picturesque back in the day. And the 60s, the population of Aniston was around 33,000 people. So it was pretty, it was like a pretty small place. And over 42% of people in the state were living below with the poverty line. This was especially true on the west side of Aniston.

The people who lived there, they grew their own food, they raised pigs in their backyard, they caught fish in the streams, and in general like, you know, times were tough. A lot of the times, the people who lived there, which is take the work that was presented to them. But something, something a little weird was going on in Aniston. I mean, there were rumors swirling around about a guy who walked through a local Aniston landfill, and at the bottom of his shoes, they completely burned off, just clean off. Very Roger Rabbit.

Remember when he's melting the shoe? I had nightmares about that. Soon, it wasn't just rumors. I mean, there were dozens of Aniston residents sick with mysterious, horrible illnesses. And mean, there were dozens of innocent residents sick with mysterious, horrible illnesses and like people were starting to wonder like what the hell is going on. So I'm gonna tell you what the hell was going on. Okay, in 1935 a chemical company named Monsanto took over a local factory. So having a factory like this in town

was supposed to be great for the people who live there. I mean, it was gonna give them a lot of jobs was supposed to be great for the people who live there. I mean, it was gonna give them a lot of jobs, hopefully tons of people were gonna have study work. And Monsanto produced a lot of different chemicals, but mostly they focused on like pretty scary chemicals known as PCBs. Yeah, let me tell you what PCB is sure. For example, I'm gonna nail this, here I go.

Polychlorinated bifinals nailed it. It's a scary chemical, whatever is PCB. Okay, so these these chemicals, the PCBs, they were essentially used for creating like heavy machinery and electrical equipment. And every single day, the monsanto factory would pull a dupe pond. Do you remember Dupe pond season one? First episode, go back, it's great. But the monsanto factory would take all of their toxic waste and then they would dump it directly into the Aniston creeks and the landfills. So this is not great.

They just were literally dumping millions upon millions of pounds of these chemicals. I mean, like it was regular trash. In a way, because like they're putting in the creek, so I hope we're not dumping trash in the creek, but you get it. So this meant that the chemicals were're putting in the creeks, so I hope we're not dumping trash in the creek, but you get it. So this meant that the chemicals were in the water, that people, the community, they were drinking that water. It was the water that people swam in, and even like the water people baptized their children in.

Grace God, you know? In 1966, someone's Santa workers noticed that there was something like weird happening in the local creeks. So apparently, if fish were put in creeks near the factory, within 10 seconds, they would go belly up. Yeah, dead. And like the poor little fish would start spitting up blood like crazy, and I guess their skin would just shed right off. I don't think that's good, right? And it's like, what do the workers do

after they discover this? You're like, oh, that sucks, but they don't, that's good, right? And it's like, what do the workers do after they discover this? You're like, oh, that sucks, but they don't, nothing, nothing happens. A few years later, in 1969, workers discovered the fish in other Aniston creeks had 7,500 times the legal limit of that PCB chemical and it was all in their little fish bodies. 7,500 times the legal limit.

So I think that's a lot. Okay, but once again, like people are discovering this and like Monsanto's like, I'm gonna do anything, like leave us out of this. Pretty soon they started to get some serious heat Monsanto. Because the rumors about what was happening in town, they weren't rumors anymore, it was a reality.

Okay, so there's this article by a journalist named Harry at Washington. I'll link the article for you down below. And she highlights the shocking things that happen to the innocent community. People were suffering from terrifying things like sudden memory loss, confusion, autoimmune diseases, kidney failure. The list goes on. People who were like living near each other, they all got diagnosed with cancer around the same time, and that's called a cancer cluster, but it was odd, right? And they didn't know what was going on.

Nobody did. People were suddenly immobile with illnesses that seemed to come out of nowhere, and somewhere even having serious breathing problems. Now, the major problem was that there was no test being done on people to like find out what the heck was really going on. And this was probably on purpose. I mean, let's be real.

Instead of checking on the local Aniston people on San Toe ordered tests to be done on rats. Yeah. So they wanted to see like what would happen to the rats once they were exposed to the factory's PCB chemicals. So they're like, we're gonna test these rats and we'll let you know if it's toxic. And then when the results came back, it wasn't good,

okay, because it was a bad look for them, because the rats were covered in tumors. Yeah, gasporella. So when Monsanto received the rat test results, they, okay, they acknowledged the tumors, but then they ordered scientists to change the test results to say, quote, does not appear to be cancer causing." Without making sure it was actually true, they just straight up lied on their own tests to show the results that they wanted.

I mean, it's like every corporation we talk about here, they all do this shit. Why is it legal? The worst part, even if residents avoided the creeks filled with chemicals, the chemicals were also in the soil where people were growing their food. And even if you could find a way to avoid the water and the food grown in Aniston, the Monsanto factories was one of the main employers in town. So pretty much everyone got some type of exposure. It was like nobody could win. In 1971, after 36 years, the Monsanto factory ended up closing, but it was honestly too late because it was discovered that the PCB chemicals had seeped into everything, like literally everything,

and it was essentially part of their environment now. Monsanto's PCBs became known as brain thieves because it would literally wear down the systems in the brain and central nervous system. And you need that to operate. So brain thieves, I can see that. It was also ruining people's endocrine systems. In other words, the system that controls your hormones and releases them into the blood.

And when your endocrine system is messed up, In other words, like the system that controls your hormones and like releases them into the blood. And when your endocrine system is messed up, honestly, let everything go sideways. Your reproductive system, your mood, your physical development, and even your mental development is thrown off. And like this continued to happen all over Aniston, just all over, all of it. I mean, people were just falling apart. And Monsanto kept telling them that these PCB chemicals were fine in small amounts. Yeah, it's totally fine, but it's just like small amount.

But we all know that Spies, they're lying, we know it. It's like, of course, they're gonna give us some loophole excuse. In 2003, after thousands of lawsuits and years in court, Monsanto was found guilty of knowingly poisoning Aniston. So Aniston residents ended up receiving a settlement of like $43 million, which is like, yay, cool, good for them. But then like when the money got broken down, each of the adults had received an average of like $9,000 and 2000 per child,

which is a birth of a-big slap in the face because like many of these residents, many of these people had to deal with permanent disabilities. It was like, oh, links, well, Monsanto wasn't always this way though. I mean, the company actually started out as something innocent. Yeah.

A company that was supposed to be the face of American progress. I mean, a company that was supposed to be the face of American progress. A company that actually has some surprisingly sweet origins. Today's episode is brought to you by ZockDock. Now, if you don't know, ZockDock is a free app where you can find amazing doctors and book appointments online. We're talking about booking appointments with thousands of top-rated patient-review doctors and specialists. You can even like filter specifically for the ones who take your insurance are located near you and treat almost any condition you're searching for. Now these docs all have verified reviews from

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ZocDoc. ZocDoc. ZocDoc. today. That's zock-dock-z-o-c-d-o-c dot com slash dark history. Zock-dock dot com slash dark history. So we're going back. Back to the beginning. Okay, 1901. We're there. A man named John Queenie founded Monsanto. He was an executive who worked in the pharmaceutical industry. So like he knew how successful the world of chemicals

was gonna be, like it was the future. And he produced saccharin, which is an artificial sweetener. And honestly, the reason Monsanto took off the way they did is because they're saccharin. It brought them one of their most powerful clients in the whole world. Coca-Cola.

It was a match made in heaven. Sacran needed Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola needed Sacran. And they grew together and they took off and Coca-Cola became, what? Because of Monsanto's Sacran. You following? I mean, without Coca-Cola's business, Monsanto probably would not even be as big as they are.

In 1915, Monsanto made its first million dollars, and after just a few years, John had a multi-million dollar company, so he started producing products that were even bigger money makers, like caffeine and vanilla, which is like a vanilla extract. So things are going great for them. But then in 1928, John is diagnosed with cancer.

I know, bummer. He decides it's best to pass the reins of the company onto his son, Edgar. And Edgar, yeah, you had some big plans, okay? And he had things besides soda on his mind. In the first half of the 20th century, America relied on other countries to supply their chemicals.

I mean, they needed these chemicals to build supplies, which we're gonna be using the war, but also chemicals for common things, like packaging, appliances, toys, cars, you name it, there's a chemical in it. So it costs a lot to ship chemicals to the states, especially if America was feuding with the country and they decided to tax the shit out of us

to send a message. Yeah, so if there was like a big conflict going on like World War, it would be a big opportunity for a company like Monsanto. They decided to become the provider when it comes to chemicals. Within a few short years, Monsanto was making everything from plastic to dishwasher

detergent to medical supplies. They were expanding. And then they created a product that became key to America winning World War II. Styrane. Monomer. It's a good name, Styrane. Monomer. Come darling, Monomer. I guess it's a chemical. Yeah, so this chemical liquid is used to make rubber, latex and fiber glass. I know, I don't know how they did, like I did not pay attention to chemistry or biology. I don't know how, like what? It, I know.

So like these obviously are very important during a war. So they made things like the glass for the airplanes and things to really help with the war going on. And at this point, Monsanto sort of becomes the face of American innovation. I mean, if there was some kind of cutting-edge technology, Monsanto created it. I mean, they were trying to be the answer to everyone's problems. For example, in the 1950s, there was like a big, big, big boom. The population doubled in size in less than like 50 years.

I guess just the people were bored. Let them have it. There was a huge housing crisis, and like just not enough supplies or space to build the homes that were needed. And even if like enough materials or space was available, it was very difficult for the average person to afford it. Oh my god, it sounds like right now.

Same Z. And of course, here comes Monsanto with a solution. Everyone, listen up. Plastic. Hey, plastic was a game changer. Monsanto even had the idea to build houses out of plastic. In 1957, they created something called the House of the Future. And it was a home that was made almost entirely out of

Monsanto plastic, which could be built quickly and more affordably. And like Walt Disney, yeah, cameo, he loved this idea so much that he put the House of the Future prototype in Disneyland, and it was there for like 10 years. He's like jacking off to it every night or something. I don't know. He was stoked. This was so the average American could think of Monsanto as like the future of America. And really just, oh wow, they're so cool. Look, they're at Disneyland. Yeah, ah.

So at this time like Monsanto is crushing it and it has like a chokehold on America. People love them, no one's thinking about things about them. And especially after World world war two ended I mean the people came home and they were like we love Monsanto. They built our planes. We got all that they did everything for them Monsanto was the shit meanwhile Monsanto is raking in the cash and looking for it like more ways to expand our empire You know, so they were developing new products like fertilizers

So they were developing new products like fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, which is great. More things that Monsanto was saving our ass with, but Monsanto had some big plans for their innocent, little plant fertilizers. Global indelible. This is when something called Agent Orange enters the chat. And you guys have been asking me for a video about Agent Orange forever. Here it is, right here, it's in this section.

So whenever I hear the name Agent Orange, I honestly just think of the band, Monsanto, developed Agent Orange in the 1940s. And it was a cocktail of all like the super powerful weed killers that you could possibly have. It was the weed killer. The goal was to create a super powerful herbicide that would kill any living plants you wanted.

It turns out agent orange, not only destroyed every plant it touched, it was also extremely toxic to humans as well. Agent Orange was created, okay? And Monsanto saw a quote, adverse effect in the humans that were exposed to it. So this was like because the agent orange contained two very dangerous chemicals in them, dioxin and something called TCDD,

which is just a short name for like a long-ass chemical name that I'm not gonna embarrass myself with. So TCDD, but look, all you need to know is, is deadly, shit. So, TCDD, but look, all you need to know is, is deadly. And shit. So, direct human contact with the chemicals could cause immediate side effects to the nervous system. Like, you could trouble speaking, slower movements,

stiff muscles, tremors, all kinds of like scary nerve damage. But the worst part about Agent Orange was that, it wasn't necessarily what it did to in the moment. I mean, that was bad, but like the side effects, they would show up years later after you were exposed. So there was always like a surprise ending with Agent Orange. And Monsanto realized that the exposure to dioxin in particular was causing long-term effects like bladder cancer, leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, lymphoma, prostate cancer, lung cancer, cancer cancer, cancer, cancer, and even some tumors too. That's a lot, right? Okay, so you're probably thinking,

oh, Bailey, I know, they probably shut it down. They're like, we're not gonna use that ever again. That's dangerous. Instead, Monsanto took Agent Orange and used it as a weapon. So between 1962 and 1971 for almost 10 years, the US military, with Monsanto's help, they sprayed over 20 million gallons of Agent Orange all over Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Even after they knew what they knew about the know about the agent Orange, because they knew. They knew since 1949 that agent Orange was not good, so they did it anyways. So why were they using this known deadly chemical cocktail? Well, unlike other wars that the US has fought in, the landscape was very tropical, and it was like difficult to navigate

if you weren't from there. So when the US soldiers got to Vietnam, like they quickly realized that they didn't really have the upper hand when it came to combat. The Vietnam soldiers were hiding under like all the lush trees and the plants. So when the US people are flying over, like they can't see them,

because they're hiding in the plants. So the US soldiers didn't know like what to do. So the American government came up with a plan with a little help from on San Cho. Hey, August is here, welcome, which means it's still too hot for frickin' sweaters, okay? But it's time to start looking forward to what's to come. Fall.

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send it back, exchange it for something else, not worry about shipping. Hello, hi, a little too easy. Try Stitch Fix today at stitchfix.com slash dark history and you'll get 25% off when you keep everything in your fix. That's stitchfix.com slash dark history for 25% off today. Stitchfix.com slash dark history. The US soldiers would drop the chemical agent orange from a helicopter and destroy all of the greenery and trees that their enemy soldiers were using for cover.

This way they could force the soldiers out into the open, and that's exactly what they did, and it worked. But the thing is, agent orange wasn't just destroying the plant life. Little did they know, it was destroying the lives of millions of people too. The Red Cross estimates that in that 10 year period, Agent Orange killed over 400,000 people. And over three million Vietnamese people had lasting medical disabilities from exposure

to Agent Orange as well. And not all of these people were enemy soldiers in battle. I mean, plenty of them were US soldiers on the ground fighting and not to mention the Vietnamese citizens like the women and children who were just like mining their own business and became innocent victims in all of this. In the years after the war at least 150,000 children in Vietnam were born with serious birth abnormalities as a direct result of ancient orange. These are conditions like Sp spider bifida, congenital heart defects, missing limbs, brain spinal cord issues, hernias,

Down syndrome, and I mean, a ton of other disorders. Okay, it was just like lethal. It wrecked people. To this day, two million people in Vietnam are still dealing with the medical conditions and cancer that came from Monsanto. Agent Orange literally changed the victim's DNA. I mean, these health issues from the war decades ago

have been passed down from generation to generation. Like, it's nuts. It will still be passed down for generations to come. I mean, today, babies are still being born with all of those health issues we mentioned. And like, it's still a major problem. It's had a lasting effect for way too long. And internal reports showed that Monsanto, they knew about these medical concerns years before it was used in Vietnam. So in 1984, there were thousands of the United States Vietnam veterans. They ended up

suing the makers of Agent Orange. And this was like only after decades of struggling with health issues. And Monsanto, of course, they denied that they had anything to do with their health problems, and they eventually decided to settle, claiming that they wanted to quote, avoid years of legal litigation, but it ended up backfiring. Settling was seen as Monsanto admitting that they were guilty, like to the media. And in the settlement, Monsanto agreed to create a $180 million fund for the sick Vietnam vets. This was supposed to last long enough

to cover their legal costs and the legal costs of any of their unborn children who had lasting effects from Asian orange. And like, there was one man named Al Marcotte, who served in Vietnam, and he testified in the court against Monsanto, and he did this while wearing his special forces uniform and walking on crutches.

Al is a respected Green Beret, so he's tough as shit, and he's probably seen some shit. Al actually suffered from dioxin exposure and Vietnam that left him with a sphere, nerve-damaged situation, and like a very painful skin condition. And then after hearing about the Monsanto settlement, he said, quote, I don't think Monsanto should get off this easy. Yeah, we agree.

Even though the company has gone by so many different names, the Monsanto we know hasn't, you know, has never been shut down, they haven't been forced like, change their formulas or anything, or like been held accountable maybe, I think that's the biggest thing. Like yeah, they had that thing, that money, settlement, whatever, but it didn't really, they just did so much damage. They got a slap on the wrist and had to pay fines, but when you were one of the biggest chemical companies in the world, money is not an issue, really. And even though the US veterans had their medical fees covered, no Vietnamese citizens did.

So all those people who were like killed or got cancer or just left with whatever agent orange did to them, they never saw justice. They never got any help. In 2005, a group of Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange brought a case to the US court. It was rejected because they were American citizens. And this seems to be a common theme for Monsanto. It's just denying and walking away. You know?

Now, ever since it became clear to Monsanto that Agent Orange was too toxic to be used as a commercial weed killer. It seems like they were in the market to find something less lethal, but just as effective. So throughout the 50s and the 60s, they were looking for that secret sauce weed killer that would bring in the big books. I guess finally, they found it. Well, technically someone else did, but they found it. Back in 1950, there's a Swiss chemist. He discovered a chemical called glyphosate.

And the thing was, like, no one could figure out a good, pharmaceutical use for this thing. It was new, it was different, it was cool, but like, what do we do with it? And then glyphosate falls into the wrong hands, Monsanto. And after studying this chemical, they were like, what do we do with it? And then glyphosate falls into the wrong hands, monsanto. And after studying this chemical, they were like, wow, this is actually really good at killing stuff.

And this was great news for monsanto. I mean, they had been on the hunt for years for a chemical that could be used as a commercial top of the line weed killer. I mean, hey, just think about all those farmers in America who would buy it. And if you're a farmer growing food in America, weeds, they get in the way of a good crop,

which cuts profit. So having a good weed killer is a must have. The way glyphosate works is by being absorbed through a plant's leaves, and it essentially poisons the plant and chokes it until it dies. It's brute, bro, it's brute. Monsanto patented this chemical in 1974

and brought glyphosate to market under the trade name Roundup. You know Roundup. Paul loves Roundup. Paul, yeah, he's trying to poison me. People across the country immediately started buying Roundup. And from that moment on the farming industry was never the same. Roundup was like this magical product that just killed weeds. Okay boom. Poof gone. If farmers had more crops

than that meant more profit for them. So farmers were starting to see this Roundup product as like something it's a must have, right? In order to make any kind of good money, they need this product. And then soon like word spread, and next thing you know everyone was using it. I mean it worked, it was great, right? Still to this day, it killed shit.

And by 1987, around 8 million pounds of glyphosate were used by farmers and ranches. So it spread so much that by the year 1987, it was believed that 8 million pounds of glyphosate were being used around the country by farmers and at different ranches. Now Roundup wasn't the first herbicide created. I mean, not even close. But this formula was special for two reasons, two big reasons. One, it was cheap to make. Two, it worked really well.

Roundup is what scientists call a non-selective herbicide. That means it kills whatever planet touches. I mean, so that includes corn, cotton, tomato, soybeans. Everything that farmers and gardeners are trying to grow and protect, right? And this ended up becoming like one big-ass issue because people had to be very careful when they used Roundup and they had to spray it very carefully, you know, because they didn't want to ruin all of their crops. So customers, they were starting to get really frustrated and it was kind of becoming more of an issue

than it was like a helpful tool. The scientists at Monsanto were working day and night, allegedly, you know, trying to figure out how farmers could use Roundup without killing everything in sight. And then they had a billion dollar light bulb moment. Instead of like wasting all this time and money figuring out how to change Roundup,

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And when you're ready to launch, go to Squarespace.com slash dark history to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's Squarespace.com slash dark history to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Mon Santo decided to try and create a freakishly, strong plant like an elab, and the goal was, you know, they wanted to make plants that would be able to withstand the chemicals from roundup.

In 1996, Monsanto invented super seeds, and the way our food was grown was changed forever. These seeds were genetically modified and they were designed to be immune to the chemicals and round up. So it's like, these aren't even real seeds. It's like kind of like giving them an invisible force field. Round up would kill the weeds,

but it wouldn't kill the crops. Magic, right? And it was like, wow, it's magic, but really, it's just like more chemicals on chemicals to make it not be a chemical on the chemicals just a chemical shit show. In the end, they ended up solving a problem that they had created and honestly, it's congenious. And now they get to make double the money because they're selling the seeds and they're selling the roundup. And thanks to their new seeds,

the amount of roundup being used, I mean, it's skyrocketed. It increased by almost 2000%. By 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency, they had reported that farmers were using around 185 million pounds of glyphosate every year. But the thing about these seeds is that Monsanto created billions of them every year. And just like any other seeds, they could just spread wherever the wind took them.

Literally. These seeds were Monsanto's secret weapon. So of course, they're gonna look out for themselves first, and they were gonna do whatever they had to do to keep them secret. I mean, it cost millions of dollars to create them. We all think of a seed as like a thing, a noun, something you buy.

And once you do, you own it, right? You own this seed and you could just spread it somewhere, and water it, whatever. Just do whatever you want. You can eat it, raw dog it. I don't know. Well, that is not the case when you buy one santo's genetically modified seeds,

because it comes with some rules. These are some special seeds that are just not found in like nature. Monsanto owns the rights to all of these seeds. Let's say you used a Monsanto seed to make soybeans. You can't just like take a seed from the soybean that grew and like drop it into the ground the next season. Like farmers have been doing since farming was invented. Even though it's on your land, you don't own it. And using that seed would be considered stealing

from Monsanto because they believe they should get a cut. It's very weird. I mean, my first thought was, so how does Monsanto know if farmers are even doing this? Like just replanting their seeds. Well, they have their own version of a shady police force. And they were report from 2000, Leora Broydow, a journalist at Mother Jones. She revealed that

Monsanto admitted to using some super aggressive tactics to keep farmers from reusing their seeds. And Monsanto, they had hired private investigators who they called auditors. I know it's giving Scientology. And these auditors, they would drive out to different farms, out to the farmland, and they would secretly take samples from farmers crops and test them. I guess they were looking to see

if people were buying Lonsanto seeds like on the black market, or if they were quote, brown baggin' it. This was a phrase Bon Santo used for farmers who would save seeds from one growing season and use them in the next. Now these auditors thought they found any evidence of stealing. They'd bring the results back to Bon Santo and listen to this. Yeah, Bon Santo would then get their names. They would broadcast their names in

radio ads on local stations, like literally outing people like, oh very Jones on Hickory Street is selling the same soybeans as you, but here's a bang for them, go shame him. They were like sea-chaming. Very odd, right? So, Monsanto's petty. The company even set up like a phone number where farmers were urged to call in and snitch on their neighbors. They were turning people against one another. Meanwhile, they're just like,

we're over here with money. You guys fight over there. And like honestly, that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's court records that show that these auditors would secretly videotape and snap pictures of farmers and like sneak into community meetings. Their goal was just to spy on people and see what they were doing.

They would go into local towns and have groups of informants working for them so they could keep controlling the farmers by controlling their seeds and make sure no one was getting out of line. Yeah, they're so caught it. They're like a stalker ex-girlfriend. Like, this is insane to me because that same year in 2000,

Monsanto, they made $5.4 billion in profit. Like, bro, I think you're good, you guys. I think you're good. Like there's no reason to be this upset. It's around this time that Monsanto began tightening its choke holds on the American farmer. It's essentially got to the point where like farmers had to go buy Monsanto products or just go bankrupt. Those were all the only options. And like over the years, Monsanto has sued over 800 farmers. Yeah, so imagine being a farmer and trying to like go up

against this billion dollar company. So while all of this is happening, there was something people just weren't accounting for. So people used Roundup for decades, mainly because they thought it was less toxic than other herbicides, right? I mean, that's what they were told or so we thought. In 2015, the World Health Organization

and their agency for research on cancer said that glyphosate, the main roundup ingredient, can cause cancer, and is linked to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Over tens of millions of thousands of this stuff has been used on crops by farmers who had no idea what they were dealing with. So it's like, oh no, what kind of shit sandwich are we getting into, right? Like how the hell is Monsanto getting away with all these horrible things? They're making everybody sick.

But maybe that's their plan, you know? Well, way back in the 1970s, when the people were just starting to be concerned about Agent Orange, Monsanto sponsored or paid for studies to be done that would show that the long-term health effects of their ingredients, dioxin, you know, the age orange stuff, and like, it was not going to affect the health of the workers. And these studies, they were published in medical and scientific journals in the 80s, and this is like when Monsanto was already

neck deep in lawsuits, and they all magically said the same thing. Like, don't worry, you guys. Like, this is scientifically proven to not be bad for humans. For some reason, even though Monsanto paid for the study, it was still good enough evidence to get Monsanto out of hot water.

Cut to a few years later, when a woman named Kate Jenkins, a PhD chemist at the EPA, decides to double check these scientific studies that Monsanto paid for. Insure enough, she does her research and becomes convinced that Monsanto deliberately manipulated the studies to say that dioxin wasn't harmful. On February 23, 1990, Dr. Jenkins sent a memo to the board of the EPA called newly revealed fraud by Monsanto. But listen,

as soon as she put in the official request for the EPA to audit on Santo studies, Dr. Jenkins was pulled from her job. Yeah, she was like taking off all of her assignments. Dr. Jenkins was moved to a job at the EPA that was essentially like admin. She was being silenced, she was being punished, somebody was mad. So she ends up filing a complaint to the Department of Labor because hello, hi, she's just trying to do her job and prove that maybe this huge corporation

was hurting a lot of innocent people, you know? That's all I'm trying to do, you guys. The Labor Department was like, yeah, we totally hear you, Dr. Jenkins. This is really bad, but, you know, that's all I'm trying to do, you guys. The labor department was like, yeah, we totally hear you, Dr. Jenkins. This is really bad, but, you know, the EPA still refused to investigate Juan Santo. They just told her what she wanted to hear and never did anything about it. And then after a while, they just closed the investigation. Dr. Jenkins spent years having to deal with the consequences of calling

Juan Santo out. This week, I'm excited to deal with the consequences of calling on Santo Out. This week I'm excited to partner with Ship Station. I know I'm not alone in dreading doing chores, the dishes of laundry, you know, boo. For e-commerce business owners, shipping is no longer a tedious task with Ship Station. Save time automating your shipping and returns in the SHIP station dashboard while keeping costs down with industry leading discounts. You can manage every order from one simple dashboard. Print shipping labels you can easily compare rates and delivery times and automate delivery notifications. Whether you sell on Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Shopify,

ooh, and more, you can manage them all in one place. Love to say it. Spend more time growing your business when you automate shipping tasks with ShipStation. Go to shipstation.com and use code dark history today and sign up for your free 60-day trial. That's shipstation.com, code dark history today and sign up for your free 60 day trial. That's shipstation.com code dark history. But thankfully, it wasn't all for nothing. I mean, thanks to Dr. Jenkins, thousands of veterans ended up getting

medical care who wouldn't have gotten it otherwise. Her persistence in getting Monsanto investigated, quote, broke a roadblock that was stopping veterans from being heard. She was even awarded with a plaque for exemplary service to be an on veterans for it. I love her story because it shows us that David really can stand up to Goliath, huh? Even though she didn't win the battle, she won the war and got tons of people to help they needed.

In 2018, Juan Santo was acquired for 6363 billion. That's a lot of money. But someone paid that much and it was a German company called Bayer. Yeah, I didn't know they had that much money. It's just on hand. Good for them, I guess. Now Bayer became famous for introducing the world to things like aspirin and heroin. Yeah, they actually invented heroin as a substitute for morphine, but that's just called a good time. I'm just kidding. But I say we put a pen in it and do an episode on bear. I just don't want them to kill me because like they might. Not long after the bear Monsanto deal was completed, bear agreed to pay $10 billion to end 95,000 lawsuits about exposure to Roundup.

Now, call me crazy, but when 95,000 people are suing you, maybe you're the problem. That's a lot of people that will be suing you. Maybe you're doing something wrong, you know? And then the crazy thing is, even though they settled with like all those people, they are still gets to sell round up without adding a warning label. Okay, they said they'd stop selling it to quote residential customers, aka everyday people, and they said this in 2023. I don't know why I said it like that, 2023. 2023. They said that. It's like, oh, wow, a million years too late, but they're still gonna sell it. Okay, they said that. It's like, oh wow, a million years too late, but they're still gonna sell it. Okay, they sell it to big commercial farmers

that make our food. And to be fair, like Monsanto's scientific contributions to agriculture and farming has been impressive, right? We like, but that's where they're getting their money from. So it's like, of course, they want to fund and help them. But at the same time, all of that progress has come at the expense of hundreds of thousands of people. Hey, maybe if Bear took all the Monsanto tech and decided to use it for good instead of evil, I don't know. Like, maybe they could do the thing they wanted to do from the very beginning. Build a better future for everyone. Yeah.

Remember the Disney Walt Disney? What was that about? Can we go back to that? Okay. So where's Mon Santo now? Well, the interesting thing is if you try to visit their website. Yeah it's just abandoned. It's just blank. They know what they did. They are running because when bear acquired Mon Santo, it gave them a nice little safety umbrella, you know? And like now Mon Santo kind of just blends into the background. It's like a ghost. It's like a ghost and you can't sue a ghost if you can't really figure out where the ghost is at, right? I mean, you can, but it's so much harder.

And honestly, it kind of reminds me of the way Johnson and Johnson created all those shell companies to dodge lawsuits for like their biggest product, which is still being sold today. Baby powder, right? And this is just like baby powder. I mean, Roundup is still on the market, which is kind of a crazy thought, but here's something even crazy here. On Santos, patent on glyphosate expired in 2000, the year 2000. This meant that other companies were allowed to start using it and not just in herbicides, I mean in food too.

So by 2015, more than 750 products made with glyphosate were being sold in the US according to the National Pesticide Information Center. Here's a couple. Are they scrolling? Did they insert them? There's a few. It's everywhere, bitch.

The Environmental Working Group reported in 2019 that widespread glyphosate contamination affected oat products, pasta, cereal, crackers, chickpea, flour, pizza, lentils. I mean, list goes on and on pizza, lentils. I mean, lisco's on and on and nothing is safe. Get out now. But it's still allowed to be sold because like I said, Monsanto has paid for tons of studies to be done proving that it doesn't cause cancer. You guys, you're being so dramatic! The problem is, like we just learned, it's everywhere now. And as recently as 2018, Monsanto lost a lawsuit to a man and awarded him over $80 million because he was able to prove that Roundup had caused his cancer.

Good for him, but like damn. Miami, Portland, Maine, Austin and Los Angeles County have all banned or restricted glyphosate in like some way. And Germany even banned it like across the board, the whole country. It makes you wonder what other corporations have going on behind closed doors. I mean things we don't even know about yet.

These companies are great at removing their fingerprints from the crimes they've committed. So we gotta call them out when we can. Let's go. At the end of the day, no one has a crystal ball, right? Yeah, no, I don't know anyone. Well, there's a lady on my street who does, but I don't know what she's doing.

Anyways, but no one could have seen Roundup doing what it did, except for on Santa, right? Yeah, but the rest of us are fucked. At the end of the day, just remember, if it kills weeds, it's probably gonna kill us. Now, after all this research, I wondered if there were any other companies who had control over food supply. And sure, shit, I mean, there is.

And this is something most of us consume everyday, whether we like, no, it or not. It sold everywhere from McDonald's to your fancy, whole foods and their delicious. And if they would away tomorrow, it would bring down the American food supply crumble. We're talking about the country's best supplier of chicken. So tune in next week for an episode on Tyson Foods.

Don't forget to join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast, Ayers. And while you're there, you can also catch my murder, mystery, and makeup. Honestly, Monsanto could be on that end of things because they did murder a lot of people.

Tark history is an audio boom original. This podcast is executive produced by Bailey Sarian High, Junior McNeely from Three Arts, Kevin Grush, and Met Nlo from Maiden Network. A big thank you to our writers, Joie Scavuzzo, Katie Burris, Allison Floboz, and me, Bailey Surion. Production lead, Brian Jaggers.

Research provided by Zander Elmore and the Dark History Researcher team. Special thank you to our expert, Leland Glena, and I'm your host, Bailey Surion. And now I would love to hear your guys' reactions to today's story, so make sure to use the hashtag dark history over on social media, so I can see what you're saying. And also, maybe you might get a little social shout out, because that's what we're doing right now. Our first shout out here, Tori says, come for the history, stay for Jones costumes. Ah! Honestly, yeah, I get it now.

Like, she's really stepped up her game, but like, don't compliment her too much because she's, she's getting a little full of herself. Ah, ah, ah, you know? So just, Anna commented, something wild. Oh, tell me more. She said, quote, I first heard of Heart Island when I went down a Disney rabbit hole.

Bobby Driscoll, Peter Pan's model and voice actor is buried there. Child stars often live tragic lives, but his is among the saddest to me. I'm surprised there isn't a book or movie about his life. End quote. Honestly, same. I had no idea, and I agree. There should be a book or movie about this. I'm gonna go honestly, same. I had no idea and I agree there should be a book or movie about this.

I'm gonna go down a little rabbit hole when I go home. Okay, but that is sad. Honestly, Heart Island was just sad, wasn't it? Corn said, quote, this comment section is so weird. She shared a messed up history lesson and everyone is just complimenting Bailey. Thank you. I like to learn, but I also like to look good when I'm learning.

Hope you have a great day today. You make good choices, and I'll be talking to you next week. Goodbye. you