1.Bayer Fudged
2.Bayer 1 of 10 Worst Corporations of 2003
3.Potty Stotty
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1.Fudged
John Vidal, Eco Sounding
The Guardian , February 4, 2004

Paul Rylott, Bayer UK's top GM scientist, was last week queuing up for a meal after delivering a talk on predicting crisis in the food industry when he had a crisis of his own. One of the Biotic Baking Brigade (BBB) slapped a chocolate fudge cake in his face. Rylott's response was not recorded but the BBB, like Stotty (see below), rewrote Shakespeare:

"O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the pies of war."
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Here are Multinational Monitor's 10 Worst Corporations of 2003... [EXCERPT]
http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03december/dec03corp1.html
BAYER
Everyone Is Expected To Obey The Law
Bayer's got a headache, and aspirin ain't going to help.

Earlier this year, the company pled guilty to defrauding the federal government out of hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicare payments.  How did this crime come to light?

On February 9, 1999, George Couto, a Bayer Corporation marketing executive, attended a mandatory ethics training session at a Bayer office in Connecticut.

The training session was kicked off by a video address by Helge Wehmeier, the head of Bayer's entire U.S. operation.

"Everyone is expected to obey the law -- not only the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law as well," Wehmeier told the assembled Bayer executives. "You will never be alone to adhere to the high standards of the law. Should you feel prodded, speak with a lawyer, or call me. I'm serious about that."

The assembled employees in the room erupted into laughter.

But Couto had something on his mind. He knew that Bayer had engaged in an elaborate scheme to defraud the Medicaid program out of $100 million.

On February 11, 1999, two days after the ethics training class, he wrote his boss a one paragraph memo asking how the company reconciled the Medicaid scheme with the company's expectation to adhere to the spirit and letter of the law. No one ever got back to him.

So, Couto decided to pursue the matter elsewhere. He sought legal assistance from attorneys Neil Getnick, Lesley Skillen and Scott Tucker -- and filed a qui tam lawsuit against Bayer. That lawsuit was filed in early 2000.

He quit Bayer soon thereafter.

The case was filed under seal. In April 2002, Couto, age 39, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He knew he was going to die, but wanted to make sure that the case would not die with him.

So his lawyers, over the strenuous objections of Bayer's lawyers, demanded that Couto be deposed on videotape. In August 2002, he was deposed, and withstood a grueling cross-examination.

"In my view, all that cross-examination did was to underscore the strength of the case and demonstrate what an extraordinary person George was," says Getnick. "As a litigator, I came to the conclusion -- and I believe everyone in that room where the deposition was taken came to the same conclusion -- that no defendant company would ever have wanted that videotape played before a jury at trial."

Couto died in November 2002. But in April 2003, his wishes came true, as Bayer pled guilty to one federal criminal count and agreed to pay a $5.5 million criminal fine.

The company also agreed to pay $251 million to settle Couto's civil False Claims Act case.

Couto's estate will get a $34 million relator's fee. GlaxoSmithKline, which engaged in a similar fraud against Medicaid, will pay $87 million to settle its case.

Bayer was charged with knowingly providing Medicaid incorrect data regarding pricing of prescription drugs, preventing Medicaid from receiving discounts to which it was entitled.

And it's not just stealing with Bayer.

Check this out:

The Times of London reported earlier this year that the giant pharmaceutical company used students (John Vidal, Eco Sounding The Guardian , February 4, 2004) to test a "highly hazardous" pesticide linked to serious disorders.

Bayer CropScience, of Mannheim, Germany, paid the students, mostly from Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, about $450 each to consume the pesticide, according to the report by Times medical correspondent Lois Rogers. Experts are worried that cash-strapped students are vulnerable targets for researchers.

According to the report, Bayer is using the results of the study, conducted between 1998 and 2000, to argue that restrictions on pesticide use should be eased, because no immediate adverse effects were suffered.

In April, the company said it was trying to settle an additional 500 lawsuits brought over its anti-cholesterol drug Baycol. The company has already settled 400 of the cases. The announcement came after the New York Times ran a front-page article reporting that newly disclosed company documents indicate that some senior executives at Bayer were aware that their anti-cholesterol drug had serious problems long before the company pulled it from the market.

According to the Times, they include e-mail messages, memos and sworn depositions of executives that suggest that Bayer promoted the drug, Baycol, even as a company analysis found that patients on Baycol were falling ill or dying from a rare muscle condition much more often than patients on similar drugs.

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