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Dupont one of the world's worst polluters

On 29 Jan 2002, at 9:41, ngin wrote:

Norfolk Genetic Information Network (ngin),
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin
---
Some info on the character and tactics of Dupont which, like Syngenta,
has a multi-million pound alliance with the John Innes Centre and Plant
Bioscience Ltd to develop new genetically engineered wheat varieties and
wheat products with new agronomic, industrial, and food uses.

The Sainsbury Laboratory, located at the John Innes Centre is funded by
the current UK Minister of Science's private foundation, the Gatsby
Charitable Foundation.

Plant Bioscience is a technology interaction and intellectual property
management company joint-owned by the Gatsby Foundation and the John
Innes Centre.

The John Innes Centre is consulted by the UK government on key
regulatory issues.

For more on the JIC's chronic pattern of disinformation to the
government, the media, the public and to educators:
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/biospin.htm
---
DuPont: corporate profile

According to www.groundup.org - the genetics section of the ASEED Europe
website:

Dupont is the:

*Largest Chemical Company in the world
*Fifth Largest Agrochemical Company in the world

It has:

*165 manufacturing and processing facilities in 70 countries worldwide.

Via its acquisition of Pioneer-Hi-Bred it has gained control over:
<http://www.groundup.org/dupont/merger.htm>

The world's largest seed company and so:

Controls 42% of the US corn seed market alone (the next competitor holds
11%).

With Monsanto, Novartis, Dow, controls 69% of N.American seed corn
market.

Controls 16% of US soybean market alone (purchased seed). (PR newswire,
23/8/99)

With Monsanto, Novartis and Dow, controls ca. 47% of the commercial
soybean seed market.

With Dekalb (Monsanto subsidiary) and Cargill,controls almost 70% of the
Asian seed market  (Sources: RAFI, GRAIN, Bothai, MASIPAG, 1999)
---
DuPont is one of the world's worst polluters.
<http://www.groundup.org/dupont/pp.htm>

Dupont the Polluter

Number Two of the Superfund polluters
(Public Research Interest Groups 1999)

Dirty Five - the five biggest polluters in the US - that together spent
$6,523,677 over the period 1991-1998 US policy-makers.
(PIRG)

Among Top Ten Worst Corporations
(Multinational Monitor, 1995; 1991)

Among Worst Environmental Offenders in the US,
(1993 Council on Economic Priorities)

Largest Industrial Polluter in the US (1992, Mattera)
---
Agricultural Empire
http://www.groundup.org/dupont/ae.htm

The primary focus of Dupont's agricultural research and commercial
development is the output of genetically engineered food quality traits
for food processing and
livestock production.

Marketing Agreements for Optimum Quality Products: Archer Daniel
Midlands Co. (4th largest US food company) and Conagra (50th largest US
company and largest food company) for the international marketisation of
its `traditionally bred' High
Corn Oil. (Agreement June 1999). Cargill (largest US grain exporter) is
to market the Oil domestically.

Patents

The company owns more than 17,000 patents which are filed worldwide,
with more than 14,000 patent applications patents pending.

In 1998, DP was granted almost 400 U.S. patents and over 1,500
international patents.

The notorious Oncomouse project, conducted with Harvard University and
Du Pont was granted patentability in the US in 1988. The patent is
broad, covering all onco-mammals. The oncomouse is a laboratory mouse
'designed' to develop cancer for research purposes.

Patentability was also granted in Europe in 1992, but is currently under
challenge. On two occasions, the Canadian patent office has rejected the
patent, on the grounds that the mouse is not an invention.

Through acquisition of Pioneer Hi-Bred, DP has accessed a company with
one of the largest private 'patent estates'. PHI was issued more
GE-related patents in the US in 1998 than any other company, gaining a
total of 108 wholly-owned patents and 18 jointly owned patents. (By
comparison, Novartis was ranked 198th with 78 patents, and Monsanto
203th with 77 patents). As of August 31 1998, PHI held over 250 patents
in the US and 300 abroad, and 900 pending. (Intellectual Property Owners
Statistical Series No. 1, 1999).

Du Pont is developing "terminator" seed sterilisation technologies. It
holds two patents: US 5,364,780 (15 Nov 94) and US 5,608,14 (4 Mar 97)
RAFI.
http://www.groundup.org/dupont/fields.htm
---
Functional Foods
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/publications/GEBriefings/funcfoods.html

DuPont & Pioneer Hi-Bred... have a joint venture called Optimum Quality
Grains, LLC. They already produce several (non-GM) soybean oils, such as
LoSatSoy‘, which they claim are more healthy because they have lower
levels of trans-fatty acids. These products are then used for example in
products by DuPont subsidiary Protein Technologies International (PTI),
one of the world’s largest suppliers of soy. The joint venture and the
acquisition of PTI "are important steps in our life sciences strategy to
grow in the global food, feed and industrial markets with higher value
products derived through biotechnology", says Bill Kirk, vice president
of DuPont Agricultural Enterprise. He continues: "We have the most
complete pipeline to move ingredients from the farmer all the way to the
ultimate consumer; no other company can do that while bringing value to
each segment of the agribusiness market."
---
DuPont: Politics of Products, Politics in Production
http://www.groundup.org/dupont/pp.htm

Tetraethyl Lead (TEL), CFC's, Nylon Production in Goa, Lead Paint,
Hormone Disruption, Military, Workers.

Throughout its near two centuries of commercial activity, DP has been
one of the major industrial polluters in the US and worldwide.

Its product line has generated or provided for some of the most
environmentally destructive industrial practices of this century, among
them the manufacture of explosives and arms, oil exploitation, nuclear
energy and weaponry, mining, industrial agricultural inputs,
ozone-destroying substances such as CFCs, and the production of numerous
energy intensive, chemical-based synthetic fibres. Toxic waste from its
production facilities is routinely discharged into the oceans, soil and
atmosphere, not to mention the daily pollution that results from the use
of the end product. Now DP is shifting a substantial portion of its
economic and production to what is feared to be a new form of pollution
through the release into the environment of genetically engineered
organisms.

Sabotaging Environmental Protection and Policy Progress DP is not only a
polluting company. It is a company that has a history of dominating the
political and scientific agenda on the serious ecological problems
caused by its products. Inventor and market giant of ozone-destroying
CFCs, DP is among the chemical industry giants that have stonewalled the
degree of political commitment and regulation framework needed to
seriously address one of the most urgent ecological issues of our time.
---
Dupont Greenwash specialist

While involved in nuclear research, DuPont was allegedly represented by
the notorious public relations company, Burson-Marsteller (Carmelo Ruiz,
PR Watch, USA, July 1999)

DP has played a key role in the greenwashing of heavily polluting
industries. Developing the language of sustainability, such as the
company's latest pledge to build "a growing partnership with nature" as
it moves deeper into world food systems.

In September 1999, DP launched the latest of its umbrella PR campaigns.
The "to do list for the planet" is the first global level PR campaign.
The campaign has been designed by McCann Erickson. (The company has
represented Exxon for 87 years. General Motors for 69. Nestle for 59.)

Ross's M&R Gets Rebuffed Trying to Paint DuPont Green
(from www.prwatch.org)

DuPont, one of the world's worst polluters hires PR firms with green
credentials and access to environmental activists, firms such as Ecos in
Australia and M&R Strategic Services in the U.S. M&R is a PR/lobby
business begun and owned in part by Donald K. Ross, an advisor to
foundations who is on the board of the League of Conservation Voters.
Ross's PR firm M&R does business with dozens of major health and
environmental non-profits, many of them funded by the individuals and
foundations he advises. Recently M&R sent an urgent appeal to groups
asking them to sign a joint letter to President Bush calling for "a
major national initiative to end childhood lead poisoning."

However, M&R's appeal failed to reveal that M&R works for DuPont, a
company now named with others in forty-five government lawsuits
<http://www.aeclp.org/> to hold them accountable for contamination of
U.S. housing with lead paint. Advocacy
groups including the Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning have
rebuffed M&R and its client DuPont saying "their recommendations to the
President are incomplete and out of balance." These groups are now
circulating their own letter to the White House.