ASTRAZENECA

“Responsibility is embedded in AstraZeneca’s business strategy because we consider it to be critical to our continued success."

Astrazeneca web site

Astrazeneca Headquarters:
15 Stanhope Gate
W1K 1LN
London, UK

Tel. +44 (0)20 7304 5000

Company Web site:
www.astrazeneca.com

Syngenta Headquarters:
Schwarzwaldallee 215
Basel, Basel-stadt 4002
Switzerland

Tel. +41 61 323 11 11

Company Web Site:
www.syngenta.com

Azko Nobel Headquarters:
Strawinskylaan 2555 1077 ZZ
Amsterdam
Postbus
75730
1070 AS
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Tel. +31 20 502 7555

Company Web Site:
www.azkonobel.com

Novartis Headquarters:
CH-4002 Basel Switzerland

Tel. +41 61 324 11 11

Company Web Site:
www.novartis.com

Astrazeneca CEO:
David Brennan

Syngenta CEO:
Michael Mack

Azko Nobel CEO:
Hans Wijers

Novartis CEO:
Daniel Vasella

COMPANY HIGHLIGHTS: (this is just a little glimpse)

*1993 Zeneca is formed from the de-merger of ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries). ICI is purchased by Dutch chemical company Azko Nobel in 2008.

ICI, a UK company, produced pesticides, paper, paints and plastics. Sued by federal and state agencies in 1990 for dumping DDT and PCBs into Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors and is thought to be the worst toxic polluter in UK history.

ICI developed Tamoxifen, one of the most prescribed breast cancer drugs in the world, which was later sold by AstraZeneca as Nolvadex. Tamoxifen was later listed as a human carcinogen in 1996 by the World Health Organization.

*1996 Business Week cover story uncovers widespread sexual harassment and other abuses at Astra USA Inc. On June 26, the parent company announced that it had fired Astra USA President and CEO Lars Bildman without severance pay. The investigation found that Bildman had "exhibited inappropriate behavior at company functions" and had "abused his power." He was also accused of misappropriation of funds, diverting them for personal expenses such as "lavish trips" and "extensive renovations for his home." Another suspended executive, George Roadman, was also fired, while a third, Edward Aarons, resigned. A senior executive in Sweden, Anders Lonner, was asked to resign for failing to report the misconduct to superiors, Astra says. Astra USA agreed to pay $9.85 million to settle a suit brought by at least 79 women and one man against the company. The suit accused Astra's former president and other executives of pressuring female employees for sex and replacing older workers with younger, more attractive women. It was the biggest sexual harassment settlement ever obtained by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Astra USA admitted that it allowed a hostile environment" including requests for sexual favors, replacing older female employees with younger women, and pressuring women into having sex. Bildman reportedly demanded that "eight hours of work be followed by eight hours of drinking and partying." In addition to firing Bildman and other top officials, Astra USA agreed to a sexual harassment policy and took action against 30 employees and Astra customers who had taken part in the harassment.

*1999 Astra AG (Sweden) and Zeneca Group of the UK (second biggest maker of cancer drugs behind Bristol-Meyers Squibb) merge to form AstraZeneca.

Zeneca is also maker of fungicides and herbicides (including the carcinogen acetochlor) and owns the third-largest source of cancer-causing pollution in the U.S. - a chemical plant in Perry, Ohio. In 1996 this facility emitted 53,000 pounds of recognized carcinogens into the air.

Zeneca was owner of the campaign "Breast Cancer Awareness Month," which is now controlled by AstraZeneca. All content and information disseminated by the campaign must be validated by the company.

*2000 Novartis and AstraZeneca merge their agribusinesses to create SYNGENTA.

*2000 UC Berkeley-Novartis agreement sparks controversy after the deal was uncovered to include an entire department rather than a single faculty member or small group of faculty. It granted Novartis first license negotiation rights for one-third of all departmental discoveries (including those funded by publicly funded entities); and it would allow Novartis scientists to earn adjunct status at the university.

*2000 Novartis develops and patents a method for 'switching off' the immune systems of plants. The newspaper The Observer suggested that Novartis hoped to use the 'switching off' gene in "barley, cucumber, tobacco, rice, chili, wheat, banana and tomatoes." The company listed more than 80 crops, including cereals, fruits, vegetables, tea and cotton.

*2001 Syngenta presents "Golden Rice", which they claimed would provide more Vitamin A than other varieties of rice. According to Vaijayanti Gupta, to get one's required supply of Vitamin A from Golden Rice (the genes to provide the vitamin A were transferred to the rice from daffodils and bacteria), one would have to consume 9 kg of cooked rice a day! Further, since Vitamin A is fat-soluble and requires fats and proteins to metabolize it, a malnourished child would not receive the intended benefit of consuming the Golden Rice. Syngenta allowed the rice to be used without a patent and is currently being pursued in China. It is not allowed for human consumption in Europe.

*2002 Tyrone Hayes, a professor and researcher at the University of Berkeley and leading scientist in his field, publishes study on effects of Syngenta's atrazine on frogs in Nature magazine. Study shows endocrine disrupting effects of the herbicide, disrupting hormones in male frogs causing them to develop female organs. The study was repeated independently with the same results in Canada, Japan and Illinois. Pr. Hayes had been hired by Syngenta to conduct testing on atrazine, but when the results showed hermaphroditism in frogs, the company wasn't happy. Hayes says he was offered 2 million dollars to continue his work privately. Syngenta denied the claims and says Syngenta scientists did not find similar results as Hayes. Atrazine is one of the most used herbicides in corn fields in America. The EPA did not ban the herbicide, the chairman of the agency's scientific advisory panel, Ron Kendall, worked for Syngenta and ran the lab that did Syngenta's testing.

*2003 Donna Harris, an Oregon housewife, leads a ballot initiative that would have forced companies to label genetically modified products sold in the state. She was concerned about the safety of crops that had been engineered to produce their own pesticides. Oregon's Measure 27 would have been the first law of its kind in the country, but a $5 million campaign, financed by, among others: BASF, Bayer, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta. From 1998-2002, these companies spent more than $53 million to lobby the federal government against these types of regulations.

*2003 Astrazeneca pleads guilty to a felony charge of health care fraud and agrees to pay $355 million in criminal and civil penalties. From 1993 to 1996, they sent thousands of free samples of the prostate cancer drug Zolodex to doctors, knowing the doctors would fraudulently bill Medicare, Medicaid and other federally funded health care programs.

The company provided doctors with free trips, educational grants and business assistance, according to the Justice Department, all to entice them to sell AstraZeneca's drugs, not their competitors'.

*2004 consumer group Public Citizen states that 29 patients who took AZ's controversial cholesterol drug Crestor developed kidney damage. The FDA delays licensing, but finally passes drug at lower dosages. A criminal probe to determine if AstraZeneca illegally delayed reporting potential side effects of Crestor commences. Records from Health Canada and health agencies in Britain show life threatening side effects even at low dosages.

*2004 consumers sue Astra-Zenecca for seeking to preserve their patent and market share of their heartburn drug Prilosec by developing Nexium, marketed as the successor to Prilosec. The two drug were found to be identical in biological action. Consumers sued AZ for misleading information.

*2006 About 300 activists invade Syngenta farm to protest that research on the farm of genetically modified soy and corn is illegal. The protestors stay until July, when Syngenta wins a court order to expel them.

*2006 Syngenta pays 1.5 million dollar fine to EPA for selling and distributing unapproved genetically altered corn seed, called Bt 10. It mixed the Bt 10 with a near-identical and approved corn seed called Bt 11. Use of unapproved seed became public when the scientific journal Nature published a story. Bt-11 maize has been genetically modified to produce a toxin which is naturally found only in bacteria. Its EU scientific risk assessment was undertaken according to outdated rules, and serious questions remain concerning both the quality of the data provided by Syngenta and the assessment of the EU's Scientific Committee on Foods.

*2007 Serious Fraud Office in the UK investigates AstraZeneca for its involvement in the discredited oil-for-food sanctions regime in Iraq. They are accused of paying bribes to Saddam Hussein's regime. The company denied "any allegation of unethical on our part in our trading relationships with Iraq."

*2007 Syngenta's armed security kills Valmir Mota de Oliveira, a regional activist, with two gunshots in the chest. Vladmir was one of two men killed after guards working for Syngenta clashed with activists. The activists were invading a genetically modified (GM) seed farm in Brazil.

Syngenta fined for planting transgenic seeds close to a protected nature reserve and has been involved in a legal fight to prevent the seizure of the farm by the state government.

*2007 Syngenta's weed killer Paraquat, the main ingredient in it's herbicide Gramoxone, is banned in the EU for not meeting health standards. The company's country of origin, Switzerland, had not approved the herbicide for use since 1989. It is banned or severely restricted in 11 countries. Syngenta continues to market paraquat in more than 100 countries despite its known health consequences, and has recently established a new paraquat factory in China.

*2008 Syngenta, Novartis, Ciba in Alsace region of France plants promise to clean up and pay for their toxic waste in the region, which has been going on since the 1950s. They were found to be emitting toxic chemicals into the air. Waste found to have also contaminated groundwater. To be continued.

*2008 Syngenta and Dupont will form a research and development alliance for "insect control technology in corn."

Want to know more?

"University Inc." by Jennifer Washburn.

"The Truth About Drug Companies," by Marcia Angell.

PUBLIC RELATION/LOBBYING: (this is just a little glance)

*1999 BASF, Bayer, Dow, Dupont, Monsanto and Syngenta formed the Council for Biotechnology Information with the slogan "good ideas are growing" to counter criticism of biotechnology. The Council launched a $50 million ad campaigns with powerful public relations firms. Dupont even airs a commercial that promises that biotechnology can "find food to fight breast cancer."

*Astrazeneca uses doctors such as Dr. Melina Carrington of Flinders University to promote AZ's cholesterol treatment. Used former cricket star Michael Slater in a public campaign for Australian Atherosclerosis that was launched with AZ. Recruits baseball star Jim Palmer to be a spokesperson for Nexium/Proilosec.

*2009 A story in The Independent states that Astrazeneca launched a campaign to get doctors to prescribe its best selling psychiatric drug Seroquel, for uses not approved by safety regulators. It is being sued by 16,000 patients in the US, after 230 internal documents supporting the illegal campaign were made public.