Monsanto accepted Bayer’s $66 billion takeover offer—the largest all-cash deal ever—on Wednesday morning. While anti-trust agencies around the world review the proposed mega-merger, environmental and consumer advocates roundly condemned the creation of what will be the largest pesticide and GMO corporation in the world. “This new mega corporation would be the world’s biggest seed maker and pesticide company, defying important antitrust protections …
David Dayen – Why Are Drug Monopolies Running Amok?
One of the biggest policy debates in America today concerns the unparalleled rise in prescription drug costs. Enormous pharmaceutical industry profit margins; tales of companies like Turing, Valeant, and Gilead Sciences jacking up the price of life-saving medicines; and a spate of industry mergers (the latest being a $150 billion deal between Pfizer and Allergan, designed mostly to lower their …
Obama Is Poised to Give GMO and Meat Companies Something They’ve Always Wanted -Tom Philpott
President Obama and his Senate GOP critics are locked in a long-simmering feud, but there’s one topic that has them clasping hands and singing kumbaya: global free-trade deals. The erstwhile foes are joining forces to push two massive ones: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would knock down trade barriers for a group of nations including the US, Canada, Chile, Peru, …