Philip Angell
Philip Angell is the former Director of Corporate Communications (1997-1999) for Monsanto, who famously said, 'Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible.' [1].
He is said to have been 'one of the architects of Monsanto Co.'s (MTC) controversial campaign to win over Europeans to crop biotechnology' and to have been 'the architect of Monsanto's web sites in Britain and France' [2] These sites were designed and operated by Monsanto's internet PR firm The Bivings Group.
Angell, commenting on the company's failed European campaign to the Wall Street Journal, also said, 'Maybe we weren't aggressive enough... When you fight a forest fire, sometimes you have to light another fire.' (Wall Street Journal, May 11, 1999[3])
After leaving Monsanto, Angell went into partnership with Washington DC based PR firm The Bivings Group who represent Monsanto, in a business venture based around an online broadcasting service for US congressional hearings for subscribing lobbyists: hearingroom.com, launched in June 2000[4].
Angell also worked with Graydon Forrer and Jay Byrne, Monsanto's former chief internet strategist. Under Byrne, Monsanto engaged in an aggressive campaign of covert PR attacks on Monsanto's critics in coordination with The Bivings Group [5].
An article in Dow Jones described Angell as 'a long-time confidant of Monsanto director William D. Ruckelshaus, who is chairman of waste hauler Browning-Ferris Industries Inc. (BFI). Angell was chief of staff at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency when Mr. Ruckelshaus served as administrator in the mid-1980s.' [6]
Prior to working for Monsanto, Angell assisted Ruckelshaus at Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI). During this time BFI made use of the services Beckett Brown International (later called S2i), a private security company organized and managed by former Secret Service officers which employed controversial methods of "intelligence collection". "In 1996 and 1997 in northern California, where Browning-Ferris Industries was engaged in a battle over the future of a garbage dump, BBI conducted what its records labeled "covert monitoring" and "intelligence gathering" on the North Valley Coalition, a citizens group opposed to the Browning-Ferris project. In September 1997, BBI received a payment of $198,881.05 from BFI." [7]
