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company description	{style:type=span|color=gray}<strong> Bayer AG is a German chemical and pharmaceutical company founded in Barmen, Germany in 1863. Today it is headquartered in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is well-known for its original brand of [aspirin>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirin]. Bayer is currently the third largest pharmaceutical company in the world. In order to separate operational and strategic management, Bayer AG was reorganized into a holding company in December 2003. The group's core businesses were transformed into limited companies, each controlled by Bayer AG. These companies are: Bayer CropScience AG; Bayer HealthCare AG; Bayer MaterialScience AG and Bayer Chemicals AG, and the three service limited companies Bayer Technology Services GmbH, Bayer Business Services GmbH and Bayer Industry Services GmbH & Co. OHG. </strong>{style}
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Their Record

Environmental concerns play an important part in their decision making process. However, we have yet to see if this plays out on a practical level.{style:type=span|class=theirrecord} More efforts should be applied to improve their disposal processes as they are worse than should be expected of any company.{style} Bayer CropScience is involved in a joint project with [Archer Daniels Midland Company>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_Daniels_Midland_Company] and [Daimler AG>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_Daniels_Midland_Company] to develop jatropha as a biofuel. Bayer USA Foundation supports education programs in Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Houston and Tyler to the principles of green chemistry. In 2005, Bayer CropScience was involved in a [lawsuit concerning the migration of contaminated groundwater>http://www.epa.gov/reg3wcmd/ca/wv/gwpdf/gw_wvd005005509.pdf]. {style:type=span|color=#003300}Bayer AG is involved in an ongoing controversy with{style}{style:type=span|color=#003300} French and Nova Scotian beekeepers over claimed pesticide kills of honeybees from its seed treatment [insecticide imidacloprid>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imidacloprid_effects_on_bee_population]. France has since issued a provisional ban on the use of Imidacloprid for corn seed treatment pending further action. A consortium of U.S. beekeepers has also filed a civil suit against Bayer CropScience for alleged losses. {style} {style:type=span|color=#003300}In August 2006, it became apparent that the United States{style}{style:type=span|color=#003300} rice crop had been contaminated with unapproved genetically engineered Bayer CropScience rice as undisclosed amounts were found in commercial rice supplies.<sup> </sup>According to [Greenpeace>http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/biorice.html], 63% of exports were affected by the contamination, and the illegal rice was found in over 30 countries.{style}

   

 

Their Record

This company has acted with a disregard for the fact their business has undermined the community in which they operate. The company's lack of community responsibility is not neglectful but abusive. Our research is what backs up the rating above. {style:type=span|color=#003333}Its anti-cholesterol drug, Baycol (also known as Lipobay and cerivastatin), has deadly side effects. FDA received reports of 31 US deaths due to rhabdomolysis, a potentially fatal adverse muscle reaction that results in muscle cell breakdown and release of the contents of muscle cells in the bloodstream. Bayer admitted that the drug might have killed 52 people already worldwide, with another 1,100 potentially crippled. Although Bayer voluntarily recalled the drug after a large number of deaths, Germany's health minister, on 25 August 2001, accused Bayer of sitting on research documenting Baycol's lethal side-effects for nearly two months before the government in Berlin was informed. There have been many individual and class action law suits, including one in Pennsylvania which cited 480 cases of Baycol-related illnesses. The number of Baycol related deaths has risen to almost 100.{style} Austrian journalist Klaus Werner alleged in his Black Book on Brand Companies, that the Bayer subsidiary HC Starck financed the civil war in the Congo by trading illegally with the mineral coltan. The allegations were also confirmed by a UN panel of experts. Bayer alleged that since 2001 it didn't trade any more with congolese coltan, but never proved where their resources came from. {style:type=span|color=#003333}In October 2001, Bayer was taken to court after 24 children in the remote Andean village of Tauccamarca were killed and 18 more severely poisoned when they drank a powdered milk substitute that had been contaminated with.{style} {style:type=span|color=#003333}The white powder that resembles powdered milk and has no strong chemical odour was packaged in small plastic bags that provide no protection to users and give no indication of the danger of the product within. The bags were labelled in Spanish only, and carried drawings of healthy carrots and potatoes but no pictograms indicating danger or toxicity.{style} {style:type=span|color=#003333}Bayer was given the lowest score (15 out of 100) of all rated companies in its category in the [2008 Coporate Equality Index>http://www.hrc.org/documents/HRC_Corporate_Equality_Index_2008.pdf], a measure of Gay and Lesbian workplace equality.{style}