Bayer And Monsanto Should Pay Cleanup Costs For Toxic PCB Chemicals, Says German Environmental Group

Bayer And Monsanto Should Pay Cleanup Costs For Toxic PCB Chemicals, Says German Environmental Group

By Christopher Zara

on March 12 2014 4:45 PM

http://www.ibtimes.com/bayer-monsanto-should-pay-cleanup-costs-toxic-pcb-chemicals-says-german-environmental-group-1561073

The logo of Germany’s largest drug-maker Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals is pictured on the front of its building in Berlin April 28, 2011.  Reuters/Fabrizio Bensch

A number of German environmentalists think it’s high time chemical companies were held accountable for a now-banned pollutant that they were manufacturing for nearly half a century. And they’re speaking out against one of those companies at a place where its top executives are certain to hear it: an annual stockholders’ meeting.

The Coordination Gegen Bayer-Gefahren (Coalition Against Bayer Dangers) said Wednesday that Bayer AG (FWB:BAYN) should take responsibility for the “immense costs of cleanup and treatment” from polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a widely used family of chemicals first manufactured in the 1920s. PCBs have been banned in part of Europe and the United States since the 1970s, but they do not readily break down and can remain in the environment for decades. According to the EPA, the poisonous agents are known to cause cancer, and a multitude of harms to the immune, reproductive, nervous and endocrine systems.

The anti-Bayer coalition calls PCBs “among the most toxic substances ever produced by chlorine chemistry.” The group says Bayer AG, the German chemical and pharmaceutical giant, was the world’s second largest producer of the agents, accounting for some 160,000 metric tons of PCBs, or 12 percent of the world’s total production. Bayer sold PCBs under the trade name Clophen.

Monsanto

Sidley Austin LLP was the lobby firm for the Monsanto Company, and is the lobby firm for Bayer HealthCare.

Note: Bayer HealthCare is a subsidiary of Bayer AG.

Michelle Obama was a lawyer at Sidley Austin LLP.

Barack Obama was an intern at Sidley Austin LLP.

Newton N. Minow is a senior counsel at Sidley Austin LLP, and a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.

R. Eden Martin is counsel at Sidley Austin LLP, and the president of the Commercial Club of Chicago.

Valerie B. Jarrett is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, the senior adviser for the Barack Obama administration, and her great uncle is Vernon E. Jordan Jr.

Cyrus F. Freidheim Jr. is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, and an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank).

Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Brookings Institution (think tank).

George Soros was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.

Vernon E. Jordan Jr. is Valerie B. Jarrett’s great uncle, an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think tank), a senior counsel for Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP, and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).

Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP is the lobby firm for the Monsanto Company, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Klaus Kleinfeld is a trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), a director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a director at Bayer AG, a director at the American Council on Germany, a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg, and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).

Bayer AG

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

The Bayer company then became part of IG Farben, a German chemical company conglomerate. During World War II, the IG Farben used slave labor in factories attached to large slave labor camps, notably the sub-camps of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp.[3] IG Farben owned 42.5% of the company that manufactured Zyklon B,[4] a chemical used in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and other extermination camps. After World War II, the Allies broke up IG Farben and Bayer reappeared as an individual business. The Bayer executive Fritz ter Meer, sentenced to seven years in prison during the IG Farben Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, was made head of the supervisory board of Bayer in 1956, after his release.

Bayer Corporation is the North American subsidiary of Bayer AG.

Gregory S. Babe is the president & CEO for the Bayer Corporation, and was a director at the American Council on Germany.

Mayer Brown was the lobby firm for the Bayer Corporation.

Robert A. Helman is a partner at Mayer Brown, a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, and was an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank).

Cyrus F. Freidheim Jr. is an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), and a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.   

William M. Daley was a partner at Mayer Brown, the chief of staff for the Barack Obama administration, and is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.

William M. Daley 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Daley

Professional career 

Daley returned to the practice of law, as a partner with the firm Mayer Brown (then Mayer, Brown & Platt) from 1993 to 1997.

R. Eden Martin is the president of the Commercial Club of Chicago, and counsel at Sidley Austin LLP.

Newton N. Minow is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, and a senior counsel at Sidley Austin LLP.

Michelle Obama was a lawyer at Sidley Austin LLP.

Barack Obama was an intern at Sidley Austin LLP.

Sidley Austin LLP was the lobby firm for the Monsanto Company, and is the lobby firm for Bayer HealthCare.

Bayer HealthCare is a subsidiary of Bayer AG.

Bayer Corporation is the North American subsidiary of Bayer AG.

Do you know all the dangers of Aspirin?

http://the-health-gazette.com/157/do-you-know-all-the-dangers-of-aspirin