Pulp Non-Fiction: The Ecologist Shredded

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

After 28 years of continuous publication, The Ecologist, England's leading
environmental magazine, is having a tough time finding its audience. 
	Perhaps that has something to do with the subject matter of the
current issue: Monsanto and genetic engineering. 
	Penwell, a small Cornwall-based company that has printed The
Ecologist for the past 26 years, decided late last month to shred all
14,000 copies of the September/October 1998 special Monsanto issue. 
	England's stringent libel laws apply not only to publishers but to
printers as well. 
	After the pulping of the Monsanto issue, the editors of The
Ecologist then found another printer who printed a second run of 16,000
copies. But now, the U.K.'s two major retailers are refusing to carry the
magazine on newsstands. 
	The Monsanto issue carries tough attacks on the St. Louis- based
biotech giant, including reviews of its links to major corporate disasters
involving Agent Orange, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), genetically
engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH), Round-Up herbicide, and the
terminator seed. (Get this: When you plant this seed, you get a plant and
sterile seeds. That way, farmers can't save the seed for the next planting
season -- they have to go back to Monsanto and buy more seed.) 
	Also included in the magazine is a broadside against genetically
engineered foods written by the Prince of Wales. 
	Monsanto says it had nothing to do with the shredding of the
magazine or with the fact that big retailers are refusing to carry it.
Monsanto says it did not contact the printer prior to the pulping of the
issue and that it has not contacted the retailers. 
	Yet, it is clear that Monsanto could not have been pleased with
the current issue of magazine. 
	Late last month, after sending the issue to the printer, Zac
Goldsmith, co-editor of the magazine, received a telephone call from
Penwell's. 
	"They were having doubts about whether or not they should release
it," Goldsmith said in an interview from his office in London. "I pointed
out to them that not only have we been with them for 26 years, but there
had never been any conflict of any sort at all prior to this issue. I
asked -- 'have you been approached by Monsanto?' They said 'no.'" 
	Reached at his office in Cornwall, Mike Ford, Penwell's commercial
director, said there was an article in the issue "that might have been
libelous." 
	When asked how he found out the article might have been libelous,
Ford said, "I'm not saying." 
	"You are not going to get me to say anything on that," Ford said.
"We were a bit worried about it and we checked it out with barristers in
London. They read through it and advised us not to distribute them." 
	Ford said he did not know whether the lawyers Penwell's consulted
had any contact with Monsanto. 
	Goldsmith believes that Monsanto contacted the printer before the
printer decided to pulp the issue. "I'm quite sure of it, but I have to
take the printer's word for it," he said. "I have no evidence to support
this. If they weren't contacted by Monsanto, then that is even more scary.
This company, through reputation alone, has managed to bring about what
is, as far as we are concerned, de facto censorship." 
	Monsanto's Dan Verakis denies talking with the printer about the
issue, although he knew about the issue from talking with Goldsmith two
weeks before it went to the printer. 
	"I told Goldsmith that we would be perfectly happy to respond to
questions or to offer comments about biotechnology if they were covering
it," Verakis said from his office in London. 
	He admits that it seems strange for a printer to destroy copies of
the magazine and he has no explanation for why it happened. 
	"Consider this," Verakis says. "We are being accused of putting
pressure on a printer in an effort to stop publication of his magazine. It
doesn't make a whole lot of sense for us to try to pressure a printer into
not printing a particular magazine when that magazine has their issue on
computer disks and can take it to any printer on earth for production." 
	"I can assure you, we have not put any pressure on a printer,"
Verakis said. "And what printer would listen to Monsanto on this when the
paper has been a client for 27 some years?" 
	When reminded that large corporations and their lawyers often send
threatening letters to even the smallest of publications in the United
States and that it is tougher for smaller publications in Britain because
of the more stringent libel laws there, Verakis professed ignorance. 
	"I didn't know that there was more leverage here," Verakis said. 
	When asked whether he had read the current issue of The Ecologist,
Verakis said "I thumbed through it quickly when I received it." 
	When asked whether Monsanto is contemplating legal action against
The Ecologist, Verakis said, "at this time, no." 

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Multinational Monitor.

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

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