Who is Michael R. Taylor?

Michael R. Taylor, Now Senior Advisor to the Commissioner Food and Drug Administration

Who is Michael R. Taylor?

GMOs – Already a $50,000,000,000 industry by the year 2000! Michael R. Taylor, Former Monsanto Lawyer & GMO Food Lobbyist, Placed in Charge of All US Food Agencies

Before joining the FDA Michael Taylor was a partner in a law firm named King and Spalding for 12 years. During which time Monsanto was not only a personal client of Michael Taylor’s (he worked directly on Monsanto legal matters) but he was also employed for 16 months as Vice President for Public Policy at Monsanto Company. Michael R. Taylor also served as co-chair of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee that issued the report Intentional Human Dosing Studies for EPA Regulatory Purposes: Scientific and Ethical Issues (2004) [citation]. Another of his personal client’s was The International Food Bio-Technology Coucil (IFBC). (Intentionally infecting humans with diseases and toxins is an ongoing and very real issue)

The FDA created a new position for Michael Taylor “Deputy Director for Policy at the FDA” where he held this position from 1991 to 1994. This was the exact same time that policy regarding GMOs were changed to allow them to pass without scrutiny.

Michael Taylor claims “It had nothing to do with GMOs, nothing at all to do with GMOs. I wasn’t the author of these policies, but that’s, they’re very, but that’s just false.”

However when Michael Taylor was a partner of the King and Spalding law firm he drafted for Monsanto and The International Food Bio-Technology Council (IFBC) a proposal for how they would like to genetically modified foods regulated.

In regards to that drafted proposal renowned expert in food safety and environmental health issues including mad cow disease, genetic engineering, and pesticide use, Michael Hansen, Ph.D. and Senior Staff Scientist of the Consumers Union says (complete bio PDF) “If you look at the proposal that was drafted for IFBC that was Michael Taylor’s with the one that was published (by the FDA), it was very, very similar – so if he didn’t write it, it looks like somebody took what he wrote and changed it slightly for the policy.”

James Maryanski, Ph.D. Biotechnology Coordinator at the FDA from 1985 to 2006 says Michael Taylor provided the leadership making sure that the project got done. This project included both how genetic engineering was dealt with as well as the use of Bovine Growth Hormones.

So where is Michael Taylor now that so many major health issues are rearing their ugly heads concerning GMOs and the pandemic of Hyper Toxic Skin Syndrome? Why isn’t the CDC looking seriously into this issue now that fears that people would get sick from genetically modified foods and bovine growth hormone use? Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) is a trans-genic growth hormone that’s injected into cows and which started being sold to dairy farmers in 1994 under the brand name Posilac. IGF-1 in milk is not denatured (inactivated) by pasteurization. The extent to which intact, pharmacologically active IGF-1 is absorbed through the human gastrointestinal tract remains uncertain (incomplete analysis of the science). The American Cancer Society (ACS) “encourages continued and expanded scientific research and independent, credible assessment of potential relationships between the use of this substance in cows and human cancer risk.” [citation] The American Cancer Society is not satisfied with their billions of dollars worth of research into cancer with the safety of genetically altered recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone – but lawyer (and now food expert) Michael R. Taylor is.

Where is Michael Taylor Now?

MICHAEL R. TAYLOR was named Deputy Commissioner for Foods at FDA is now Senior Adviser to the Commissioner at the Food and Drug Administration. He also acts as an adviser to the section of the CDC that deals with “Foodborne Diseases: Better Prevention with Better Public Health Information.” Nice to know that the CDC is taking the lead on GMOs from a man who says “there is no difference between GMOs and real food.”

At the same time, Michael R. Taylor co-wrote an article for “Issues Online in Science and Technology” that “The food safety system is, however, under serious stress, largely because of rapid change in the food system. Many of the cases of foodborne illness reported by the CDC are linked to new and emerging microbial pathogens, changing U.S. eating habits, and an aging population. The system is also challenged by new agricultural and food technologies, such as genetically engineered food crops” and that “There is growing support for the concept of a single food safety agency.” [citation]

BP Oil Cleanup Crews

So let’s get on to how Michael Taylor deals with food safety issues right now at this very moment. Over at the C&EN – Chemical & Engineering News web site on the topic of Health Risks in the Gulf and  the Gulf Oil spill and the use of Dispersants: “FDA also provided good news at the hearing, claiming that seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is safe as long as it is caught from an area open to fishing. FDA’s Taylor brushed off concerns about small fish ingesting dispersants, stating that dispersants contain water-soluble chemicals that are unlikely to bioaccumulate. But he added that researchers at NOAA are currently studying the ability of compounds in the dispersants to bioaccumulate. When asked whether shrimp from the Gulf is safe to eat, Taylor told lawmakers that because of NOAA’s aggressive action to close oil-stricken waters to fishing, he is confident that the seafood supply is safe. ” [citation]

“Unlikely”? “Confident”? and then finally “researchers at NOAA are currently studying the ability of compounds in dispersants to bioaccumulate”? in other words this is not someone who prefers to err on the side of caution, this is someone who makes decisions and statements based on personal opinion and not based on facts and research.

The fact is that in toxicology it’s quite often not the original compound that’s the toxic entity. According to Scientific American magazine (the most accurate and respected scientific journal in America written for the general public) phototoxicity occurs when sunlight falls on the dispersed oil and causes compounds in the oil act as a catalyst to transfer some of the sun’s energy creating new deadly compounds. Ocean dwelling fish and other wildlife ingest the dispersed oil which in turn is then broken down into more toxic by-products that no longer resemble the dispersants.

Unprecedented 700,000 gallons of Corexit® dispersants sprayed and pumped into the environment.

An unprecedented quantity of at least 700,000 gallons, Corexit® dispersants, produced by Nalco Energy Services, for example, were sprayed on the water surface or pumped below the surface in the 2010 oil leak catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. [citation]

All of this is still perfectly ok with Michael R. Taylor.

Liver and kidney failure has been linked to GMO corn, however. “In May, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine called for a moratorium on GM foods: ‘several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system.’” [citation][citation]

Which leaves us with not knowing what’s on our plates because the labels don’t say – and it’s not an FDA requirement and it is quite unlikely that it will ever be a requirement as long as there are enough people like Michael Taylor in the world.

Franken Strawberries, Franken Corn, Franken Fish, Franken Beans, Franken Milk... and all FDA Approved by Monsanto's Rubber Stamp.

Next on the agenda to be passed: GMO Salmon.

A genetically-modified AquAdvantage salmon, top, next to a control salmon of the same age.