http://www.bayerhazard.com/history.htm

Bayer's history

Looking at Bayer's past it is hardly possible to imagine a worse company to entrust with the development and commercialisation of such an unwanted, unpredictable and
potentially dangerous technology as GM crops. Bayer has a history of corporate crimes that makes even old-school bio-tech baddies Monsanto seem like angels. Here are just a few of the skeletons in Bayer's cupboard:

In 1898 Bayer trademarked Heroin and in 1900 marketed it world-wide as a cough medicine.
In 1925 Bayer was one of the companies that merged to form IG Farben. During WWII IG Farben used forced labour in many of its factories including the Buna synthetic rubber plant at Monowitz - effectively a corporate concentration camp -
close to Auschwitz. IG Farben subsidiary Degesch manufactured and sold Zyklon B, the poison gas used in the gas chambers. Bayer AG was one of 4 companies to be formed out of the assets of IG Farben in 1951.
Bayer has been heavily implicated in the development of nerve agents used in chemical weapons including VX.
Bayer was one of the pharmaceutical companies who took the South African government to court for allowing the production of cheap generic versions of HIV drugs (see CW Newsletters 2 and 3 and articles on the website).
In the wake of the recent anthrax attacks in the US, Bayer is raking in millions of dollars as the sole US manufacturer of Cipro, the antibiotic used to treat the disease.
Earlier this year Bayer was forced to withdraw one of its leading pharmaceutical products - the anti cholesterol drug Baycol or Lipobay, which was linked to over 50 deaths.
In the early 1990's Bayer placed hundreds of UK patients at risk of potentially fatal infections by failing to disclose crucial safety information during a trial of the
antibiotic Ciproxin (the same Ciproxin that is being used to treat anthrax). Up to 650 people underwent surgery using Ciproxin without doctors being informed that studies (as early as 1989) showed the drug reacted badly with others, seriously impairing its ability to kill bacteria.
Bayer is currently facing a law suit in Peru brought by the parents of children killed in a pesticide poisoning incident in the Peruvian Andes. 24 children died and a further 18 were severely poisoned after drinking powdered milk accidentally mixed with a Bayer pesticide. The chemical methyl parathion (brand name Folidol), an odorless white powder that resembles powdered milk, was sold to farmers, mainly illiterate Quechua speakers, in small plastic bags with labels in Spanish and no
pictograms indicating danger or toxicity.
Bayer is also anxious to stifle criticism. It recently forced the excellent German based anti-Bayer campaign group BayerWatch to rename its web site and to relinquish all rights to the BayerWatch name.

References
CBGNetwork (BayerWatch) newletter 11
Bayer History  http://www.bayer.com/en/unternehmen/historie/index.html
CBG Network Portrait of Bayer  http://www.cbgnetwork.org/home/Portrait/portrait.html
Hoescht Company History  http://www.hoechst.com/historie/historie_en8.htm
'About Bayer´s Nazi-past' Philipp Mimkes
 http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/feature/humanrts/history/mimkes.html
Bayer History  http://www.bayer.com/en/unternehmen/historie/index.html
Bayer Watch Keycode Bayer #4 available on line at
 http://home.earthlink.net/~alto/bayer2.html
'War Profiteering: Bayer, Anthrax and International Trade' by Kavaljit Singh available on
line at  http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/issues/wto/featured/2001/ksingh.html
For an interesting conspiracy theory (or is it?) about Bayer, Aventis and Ciprol go to
 http://www.unknownnews.net/cipro.html
'Heart drug fiasco pushes Bayer into red' by Helen Slings in The Guardian 15.11.2001.
available online at  http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4299310,00.html
'Drug firm put patients at risk in hospital trials' By Paul Nuki, David Leppard, Gareth Walsh and Guy Dennis The Sunday Times 14.05.2000. available online at
 http://www.cbgnetwork.org/home/Newsletter_KCB/KCB__18/kcb__18.html
Pesticides Action Network press release available on line
 http://www.pan-uk.org/www.pan%2Duk.org/press/perupois.htm
 http://www.cbgnetwork.org/home/home.html