In theory there should be nothing entertaining about watching an FBI case unfold that deals with potential poisoning of the general American public, price-fixing on lysine and High Fructose Corn Syrup, and a compulsive liar.
THE HUMOROUS TALE OF A CORPORATE WHISTLEBLOWER
Watching Mark Whitacre, an employee of Archer Daniels Midland, a heart-of-the-Midwest agricultural company, dig his own grave shouldn’t be funny—but oh, it is. Steven Soderbergh’s latest is a foray into white-color crime, price-fixing, and embezzlement.
In part one of a two-part interview, Booknotes host Brian Lamb talks with award-winning New York Times investigative reporter Kurt Eichenwald about his new book, The Informant, A True Story. His book is about one of the FBI's biggest secrets: a senior executive with America's most politically powerful corporation, Archer Daniels Midland, had become a confidential government witness, secretly recording a vast criminal conspiracy spanning five continents. Mark Whitacre, the promising golden boy of ADM, had put his career and family at risk to wear a wire and deceive his friends and colleagues. Using Whitacre and a small team of agents to tap into the secrets at ADM, the FBI discovered the company's scheme to steal millions of dollars from its own customers. But, as the FBI and federal prosecutors closed in on ADM, using stakeouts, wiretaps, and secret recordings of illegal meetings around the world, they suddenly found that everything was not all that it appeared. At the same time Whitacre was cooperating with the Feds while playing the role of loyal company man, he had his own agenda he kept hidden from everyone around him - his wife, his lawyer, even the FBI agents who had come to trust him with the case they had put their careers on the line for. Kurt Eichenwald has written about white-collar crime and corporate corruption for the NYT for more than a decade.
The Informant (Movie Tie-in Edition): A True Story (Random House Movie Tie-In Books) (Paperback)
"The FBI was ready to take down America's most politically powerful corporation. But there was one thing they didn't count on."
So reads the cover of this high-powered true crime story, an accurate teaser to a bizarre financial scandal with more plot twists than a John Grisham novel. In 1992 the FBI stumbled upon Mark Whitacre, a top executive at the Archer Daniels Midland corporation who was willing to act as a government witness to a vast international price-fixing conspiracy. ADM, which advertises itself as "The Supermarket to the World," processes grains and other farm staples into oils, flours, and fibers for products that fill America's shelves, from Jell-O pudding to StarKist tuna. The company's chairman and chief executive, Dwayne Andreas, was so influential that he introduced Ronald Reagan to Mikhail Gorbachev, and it was his maneuvering that ensured that high fructose corn syrup would replace sugar in most foods (ever wondered why Coke and Pepsi don't taste quite like they used to?). There were two mottoes at ADM: "The competitors are our friends, and the customers are our enemies" and "We know when we're lying." And lie they did. With the help of Whitacre, the FBI made hundreds of tapes and videos of ADM executives making price-fixing deals with their corrivals from Japan, Korea, and Canada, all while drinking coffee and laughing about their crimes. The tapes should have cinched the case, but there was one problem: Their star witness was manipulative, deceitful, and unstable. Nothing was as it seemed, and the investigation into one of the most astounding white-collar crime cases in history had only just begun.
Kurt Eichenwald, an investigative reporter, covered the story for The New York Times and interviewed more than 100 participants in the case. He methodically records the six-year investigation, leaving no plot twist or tape transcript unexplored. While his primary focus is on deconstructing the disturbed Whitacre and revealing the malleability of truth, the portrait of ADM (and even the Justice Department) is damning enough to make anyone a cynic. --Lesley Reed --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
New York Times investigative reporter Kurt Eichenwald reveals the shocking details of corporate corruption that led to the collapse of Enron as he reads from his new book "Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story" in this address to the City Club of San Diego.
The two products involved in ADM's troubles were lysine and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The latter substance has been linked to the increase in obesity in the United States.
Matt Damon's new film character is a kind of undercover agent, but he's a far cry from Jason Bourne. In "The Informant!," the actor plays Mark Whitacre, a real-life corporate whistle-blower who worked with the FBI in the 1990s to uncover a price-fixing scandal involving his employer, agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland. Slapped with a mega-fine and a class action suit, ADM eventually paid out $500 million. Several executives went to prison.
So it’s possible that this high-fructose corn syrup that’s, you know, partially responsible for the obesity epidemic in humans is also having a devastating effect on the bee population.
In part 2 of our bee podcast, we talk with May Berenbaum, entomologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and inspiration for the X Files fictional entomologist Bambi Berenbaum, about bees, other insects and how life history analysis can make us rest easy during scary sci-fi invasion movies. Plus, we’ll test your knowledge about some recent science in the news.
Podcast Transcription
Steve: Welcome to Science Talk, the weekly podcast of Scientific American posted on August 21st, 2009. I’m Steve Mirsky. This week more about bees and all manner of other insect with entomologist, May Berenbaum from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Now, last week I promised you that you’d also get a fellow named John Williams, the beekeeper at Darwin’s home in England; however I’m traveling, and I apparently neglected to bring along that audio file, but this problem is easily fixed because what was supposed to be a two-part podcast is now a three-part podcast. I plan to post the William’s chat on Tuesday the 25th of August, so look or listen for that. Meanwhile here’s more with May Berenbaum. Early in our conversation, she mentions Reed Johnson—you’ll recall from part 1 that Reed is her student working on genomes.
A while back (August 6, 09) I wrote some blogs about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Readers wrote in saying how HFCS is nutritionally very similar in composition to regular white sugar. What I want to clarify is that yes, this is true. But the problem is, white sugar is more obvious on a label to the consumer compared to HFCS. HFCS is more deceptive and hidden in places most people don’t even think to look and it has different names. Sure it’s obvious to find HFCS in a soda but I’ve seen it in juices, breads, cereals, energy bars, condiments, cough syrups, dairy foods (chocolate milk and yogurts), some dried fruits, some vegetable juices, salad dressings, soups and mixer drinks and of course generally processed foods.
A lot of people are looking for products that don't contain high-fructose corn syrup, and finding them difficult to locate. In response to Anna Carlton, who's looking for soft drinks with regular sugar, Dean B. Pomerantz and C. John Stark suggested she check Mexican markets. I've noticed that not all soft drinks sold in Mexican markets are made without the corn syrup, but Pomerantz recommended looking for small bottles of Coke and Pepsi in six-packs. "You can tell which ones they are because they have a nutrition/ingredient sticker on the bottles," Stark noted.
Scientists know that high fructose corn syrup makes it impossible for persons with diabetes to satisfactorily control their blood sugar. Diabetes leads to blindness, heart attacks, amputations, strokes and many other preventable problems, as well as early death.
What is high-fructose corn syrup? It is not the same thing as the natural, healthy fructose in honey and fruit. "High-fructose corn syrup" is a highly refined, artificial product. It is created through a complicated chemical process that transforms cornstarch into a thick, clear liquid. White sugar and "high-fructose corn syrup" are not the same. "High-fructose corn syrup" is worse than sugar.
Another Illinois industry is under siege. Demand for high-fructose corn syrup, the cheap sugar substitute that sweetens most of the nation's soft drinks and many of its foods, has been dropping fast amid suspicions about its health effects.
The sweetener has taken a beating in the media, with everyone from Michelle Obama to the American Heart Assn. badmouthing it.
"You start reading the labels, and you realize there's high-fructose corn syrup in everything we're eating," the organic-minded first lady complained in a magazine interview earlier this year. "Every jelly, every juice."
Actually, not so much anymore. Responding to consumer pressure, Kraft Foods Inc., Pizza Hut, Starbucks Corp., PepsiCo Inc. and others have switched to sugar in some or all of their products in recent months
According to the Washington Post, nearly half of the tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained measurable levels of mercury—mercury that makes its way into many popular name-brand foods and beverages, say a pair of U.S. studies, one published in the current issue of the journal Environmental Health, the other conducted by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
Four words--high fructose corn syrup--describe an alarmingly ubiquitous sweetener that has the potential to make you into one chubby, sick puppy. You can find it in supermarket convenience food, canned goods, soda, juice and fast food. HFCS does nothing good for your body. But it's sweet and it grabs you in its sticky clutches. The intake of HFCS and table sugar, which also contains fructose, has risen to an average of 145 pounds a year per person. And not surprisingly, in part because of the obesity epidemic in the United States, HFCS has recently been the subject of much scientific research.
In theory there should be nothing entertaining about watching an FBI case unfold that deals with potential poisoning of the general American public, price-fixing on lysine and High Fructose Corn Syrup, and a compulsive liar.
