GMO And Related Stuff

[Hervé]

Truvia sweetener a powerful pesticide; scientists shocked as fruit flies die in less than a week from eating GMO-derived erythritol (http://www.naturalnews.com/045450_Truvia_erythritol_natural_pesticide.html)

http://www.naturalnews.com/gallery/640/Misc/Truvia-Sweeteners-Dead-Fruit-Flies.jpg


http://www.naturalnews.com/images/authors/MikeAdams.jpgby Mike Adams (https://plus.google.com/u/0/108002809946749848449?rel=author), the Health Ranger
Thursday, June 05, 2014

(NaturalNews) Truvia sweetener is made from about 99.5% erythritol (a sugar alcohol), and 0.5% rebiana, an extract from the stevia plant (but not at all the same thing as stevia). A shocking new study published in the journal PLOS ONE (1) has found that Truvia, an alternative sweetener manufactured by food giant Cargill, is a potent insecticide that kills fruit flies which consume it.

The study is titled, Erythritol, a Non-Nutritive Sugar Alcohol Sweetener and the Main Component of Truvia, Is a Palatable Ingested Insecticide.

The study found that while fruit flies normally live between 39 and 51 days, those that ate the Truvia ingredient erythritol died in less than a week.


Erythritol made from yeast fed genetically modified corn derivatives

Erythritol is often indirectly derived from genetically modified corn, by the way. Cargill was forced to settle a class action lawsuit last year (2) for labeling Truvia "natural" when it's actually made from a fermentation process whereby yeast are fed GM corn maltodextrin.

Cargill plays word games with this process, insisting that "erythritol is not derived from corn or dextrose feedstock; it is derived from the yeast organism."

Yeah, okay, but the yeast are fed GMOs. So they're playing mind games with their explanations.

There is a verified non-GMO erythritol available today, by the way, and it's made by Pyure Brands (http://www.pyuresweet.com/), based in Florida.

Pyure Brands offers alternative sweeteners for the health-conscious marketplace, and their product is USDA Organic certified and Non-GMO Project Verified.

Truvia a really amazing insecticide

This story on Truvia's insecticidal properties has really caught the attention of the public. Even CBS News (3), a mainstream media outlet that rarely covers the dangers of food additives, covered this story, reporting:

Erythritol, the main component of the sweetener Truvia (http://www.naturalnews.com/Truvia.html), has a new, unexpected application -- it may be used as an insecticide. ...Researchers found that fruit flies fed with food that included erythritol or the erythritol-containing sweetener Truvia died much sooner than flies fed with food containing other types of sweeteners.

"The more you get [fruit flies] to consume erythritol (http://www.naturalnews.com/erythritol.html), the faster they die," Sean O'Donnell, a professor of biology at Drexel University in Philadelphia, told CBS News.

"We are hoping to develop it into a human-safe insecticide," O'Donnell later says in the story.

The abstract of the published study concludes, "Here we show that Erythritol, a non-nutritive sugar alcohol, was toxic to the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster."

No other sweetener killed the fruit flies

Fruit flies were also subjected to feeding tests with sucrose and corn syrup, but those sweeteners didn't kill them. Only erythritol had this effect, as it shown in the chart below:


http://www.naturalnews.com/images/Comparing-Non-Nutritive-Sweetener-Effects-450.jpg


Erythritol also interfered with the flies' motor coordination, as stated in the study text:

...adult flies raised on food containing Truvia displayed aberrant motor control prior to death. We therefore assayed motor reflex behavior through climbing assays. Flies raised on food containing Truvia showed a significantly decreased ability to climb.

Researchers were also able to determine that stevia was not the cause of the problem. They also tested Purevia and found it was safe for fruit (http://www.naturalnews.com/fruit.html) flies. Only erythritol, the main component of Truvia, replicated the toxic effects on fruit flies.

Erythritol also exhibited a dose-dependent death response, meaning the more that was consumed by the flies, the more quickly they died.

What to make of Truvia's usefulness as a pesticide?

The FDA has declared Truvia to be safe for human consumption. Then again, the FDA has also declared aspartame to be safe for human consumption, so that doesn't carry any real credibility.

Sugar alcohols are widely consumed by millions of people, but that also isn't any guarantee of their safety because Vioxx was also widely consumed by millions of people (while killing tens of thousands of them via heart attacks).

Most people believe sugar alcohols are safe to consume, and perhaps they're right. But maybe there's some yet-unknown contaminant in erythritol that's causing these toxic effects. Or perhaps it's the GMO connection, since most erythritol comes from genetically modified corn. A really interesting study on this would test GMO-derived erythritol vs. non-GMO erythritol to determine if there's any difference.

Many scientists might also argue that perhaps erythritol is perfectly safe for humans and only selectively toxic to insects because of their different physiology. That would be the best-case scenario.

If true, it opens up a positive conclusion to all this: What if erythritol could be used as a natural pesticide (http://www.naturalnews.com/natural_pesticide.html) that replaces the toxic chemical pesticides sold by companies like Monsanto and DuPont?

Imagine, if you will, a natural, plant-based pesticide that could be sprayed on crops to kill insects, yet still eaten by humans in trace amounts with no ill effects. That's the hope of this discovery: maybe sugar alcohols can be sprayed on crops or used in organic food production.

By the way, the idea for this research came from a sixth-grader named Simon D. Kaschock-Marenda, once again proving that science is available to everyone, including children. This is why I have openly called for enhanced science education in America (http://www.naturalnews.com/045124_science_illiteracy_education_health_ranger.html) -- in the hope that more children can learn about scientific investigations and use their knowledge to help achieve a safer, less toxic world.

Sources for this article include:
(1) http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F... (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0098949)

(2) http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Regulation/... (http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Regulation/Cargill-to-settle-deceptive-marketing-lawsuit-alleging-Truvia-stevia-based-sweetener-is-not-natural)

(3) http://www.cbsnews.com/news/truvia-sweetener... (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/truvia-sweetener-is-toxic-to-fruit-flies-study-finds/)

[genevieve]

When ants invade my house every couple years, I sprinkle one of the fake sugars (found on every restaurant table in America) on their path.

Within one week I no longer have invading ants. And they don't come back for a couple years. No kidding. Been doing this for years.

If it's true that "they" are trying to get rid of us, what easier way is there than to give us something for FREE that's SWEET and LOW CALORIE? Vewwwy clever.

Peace Love Joy & Harmony,
genevieve

[Hervé]

Agricultural Pesticides Linked to Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/03/non-hodgkins-lymphoma-pesticides.aspx)

June 03, 2014 | 200,132 views
| http://articles.mercola.com/Themes/mercola/images/available-in-espanol.pngDisponible en Español (http://articulos.mercola.com/sitios/articulos/archivo/2014/06/16/linfoma-no-hodgkins-pesticidas.aspx)

By Dr. Mercola

The United States uses about 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides each year.1, 2 Worldwide pesticide use amounts to approximately 5.2 billion pounds annually. There's little doubt that the current pesticide load is taking a toll, as mounting research has linked pesticides to an array of serious health problems.

Processed foods form the basis of nearly everyone's diet, as 95 percent of the food Americans buy is processed. If this is you, then you can consider yourself in the highest risk category, as such fare tends to contain the greatest amounts of hidden genetically engineered (GE) ingredients, and hence the highest pesticide load.

Avoiding pesticide exposure – around your home, in your community, and via the food you eat – is important for reducing your risk for a number of chronic and devastating diseases, including Parkinson's (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/02/20/pesticide-exposure-parkinsons-disease.aspx) and DNA damage indicative of early-stage cancer.3, 4

Now, with the publication of a new meta-analysis,5 the evidence linking pesticides to cancer is stronger than ever. The analysis, which included 44 papers exploring the impacts of pesticide exposure on non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, concluded there appears to be a strong link between the two.

The study, which was done by a team at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in France, covering nearly three decades' worth of epidemiologic research, will likely be taken seriously worldwide.

Phenoxy Herbicides Linked to Lymphoma
Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), or sometimes simply referred to as lymphoma, is a type of blood cancer that originates in your lymphatic system. It's the sixth most common type of cancer in the US, with an estimated 69,000 Americans diagnosed each year. Worldwide, NHL accounts for an estimated 37 percent of all cancers.

According to the featured research,6 phenoxy herbicides, including 2,4-D and dicamba, are clearly associated with three distinct types of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Besides cancer, other documented health hazards associated with phenoxy herbicides include developmental and reproductive problems.

This is particularly chilling considering the fact that use of these herbicides have risen several-fold since the early 2000s, and their use will increase even further if 2,4-D and dicamba-tolerant crops are approved.

Carbamate insecticides, organophosphorus insecticides, and the active ingredient lindane—an organochlorine insecticide also used to treat head lice—were also positively associated with NHL. The strongest evidence however, is reported for glyphosate and B cell lymphoma. According to the authors:
"The United States Environmental Protection Agency defines pesticides as substances intended to prevent, destroy, repel, or mitigate a pest. Within this broad category, pesticides are often grouped according to the type of pests that they control; for example, fungicides are used to kill fungi, insecticides to kill insects, and herbicides to kill weeds and plants...

Because pesticides are thought to have different toxicologic and immunologic effects, identifying the chemicals and chemical groups that are most dangerous to humans and non-target living organisms is important. From a research perspective, the decision about what chemicals to investigate has implications for disease prevention...

Despite compelling evidence that NHL is associated with certain chemicals, this review indicates the need for investigations of a larger variety of pesticides...."

The Toxic Legacy of Our Most Widely Used Pesticides
If you've been regularly reading this newsletter you're already aware of the evidence building against glyphosate (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/05/14/glyphosate.aspx), the active ingredient in Monsanto's broad-spectrum herbicide Roundup, and other formulations.

For example, groundbreaking research7 published just last summer revealed a previously unknown mechanism of harm from glyphosate, prompting its authors to conclude that glyphosate residues—found in most processed foods in the Western diet courtesy of GE sugar beets, corn, and soy8 -- "enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease."

Evidence also suggests glyphosate may be a key player in Argentina's growing health problems (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/04/09/argentina-gmo-crops.aspx), where birth defects and cancer rates have skyrocketed among GE corn and soya farming communities.

In the province of Chaco, birth defects have quadrupled in the decade following the introduction of GE crops,9 and in the village of Malvinas Argentinas, which is surrounded by GE soy plantations, the rate of miscarriage is 100 times the national average. According to experts, rates of cancer, infertility and endocrine dysfunction could reach catastrophic levels in Argentina over the next 10-15 years.

A toxic combination of Roundup and fertilizers (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/04/08/roundup-fertilizer.aspx) has also been blamed for tens of thousands of deaths among farmers in Sri Lanka, India, and Central America's Pacific coastline (El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica).


Modern Agriculture Methods Have Turned Food Into Poison
While nearly one billion pounds of glyphosate alone is doused on both conventional and GE crops worldwide each year, genetically engineered (GE) crops receive the heaviest amounts. Farmers everywhere are also progressively increasing their usage of the chemical due to the proliferation of glyphosate-resistant weeds (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/12/13/monsanto-defeated-by-super-weeds.aspx)—a logical side-effect that pesticide makers said would be highly unlikely.

Farmers are also resorting to using multiple chemicals on their fields, and harsher varieties, in an effort to stay ahead of resistant weeds and pests. The phenoxy herbicide 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/02/12/dow-agrosciences-developed-new-genetically-modified-crops.aspx) (2,4-D) is one of them. This chemical, which Dow touts as a solution to the glyphosate-resistant weed problem, was actually one of the active ingredients in the now infamous Agent Orange, used during the Vietnam War.

Many veterans suffered permanent side effects from their exposure to this potent defoliant, and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese children have been born with serious birth defects as a result of its use during the war. Despite that, 2,4-D is still one of the most widely used herbicides in the world, and 2,4-D-resistant crops are now under development, which would increase its use even further. If that's not a frightening proposition, I don't know what is.

Part of the original rationale for using GE crops was that they could be sprayed with less toxic herbicides, such as Roundup—which was falsely marketed (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/21/France-Finds-Monsanto-Guilty-of-Lying.aspx) as "harmless" and "biodegradable."

Now, mounting research reveals that Roundup may actually be one of the most toxic chemicals ever to enter our food supply! Some scientists, like Dr. Don Huber, believe it may be even more toxic than DDT (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/01/15/dr-don-huber-interview-part-2.aspx). Mounting research also reveals how glyphosate and other pesticides destroy soil microbes (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/01/12/ge-crops-affect-soil-fertility.aspx), thereby inhibiting the fertility of the soil. This in turn means fewer nutrients in the food.


The Biological Effects of Glyphosate
Glyphosate, which systemically contaminates the plant and cannot be washed off, has been found to have a number of devastating biological effects, including the following:

Nutritional deficiencies (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/12/10/dr-don-huber-interview-part-1.aspx), as glyphosate immobilizes certain nutrients and alters the nutritional composition of the treated crop Disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids (these are essential amino acids not produced in your body that must be supplied via your diet) Increased toxin exposure (this includes high levels of glyphosate and formaldehyde in the food itself) Impairment of sulfate transport and sulfur metabolism; sulfate deficiency Systemic toxicity—a side effect of extreme disruption of microbial function throughout your body; beneficial microbes in particular, allowing for overgrowth of pathogens Gut dysbiosis (imbalances in gut bacteria, inflammation, leaky gut, and food allergies, such as gluten intolerance) Enhancement of damaging effects of other foodborne chemical residues and environmental toxins as a result of glyphosate shutting down the function of detoxifying enzymes Creation of ammonia (a byproduct created when certain microbes break down glyphosate), which can lead to brain inflammation associated with autism and Alzheimer's disease


Food Isn't the Only Source of Toxic Pesticides
While pesticide residues in food are certainly a primary health concern, you may also be unnecessarily exposed to these toxins while working in your own garden. Children and pregnant women are particularly vulnerable, and should be protected against any and all exposures. Unfortunately, according to a previous survey by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), many Americans fail to take proper precautions when it comes to these toxic chemicals:10


Almost half of all households with children under the age of five had at least one pesticide stored in an UNLOCKED cabinet less than four feet off the ground, which was within a child's reach.
Bathrooms and kitchens were cited as areas most likely to have improperly stored pesticides -- for example, common household pesticides such as roach spray, insect repellents, pet shampoo, and flea and tick products.

I strongly recommend eliminating pesticides from your home, as there are many non-toxic ways to address pests and weeds (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/12/26/prevail-against-pests-without-pesticides.aspx). Furthermore, a number of pesticides have been implicated in the mass death of critical pollinating insects like bees and the Monarch butterfly (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/05/19/monarch-butterfly-milkweed.aspx). In the case of bees, the die-offs are now happening at a scale that is threatening our food supply.

When planting your garden, please bear in mind that more than half of so-called "bee friendly" garden plants sold at Lowe's and other garden centers —i.e. plants that attract bees—have been pre-treated with pesticides (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/09/03/garden-plants-pesticides.aspx) that could be lethal to the bees. So be sure to ask whether the plants have been pre-treated, and please do not buy pre-treated varieties. Keep in mind that you also help protect the welfare of honey bees11 every time you shop organic. This way, you can actually "vote" for less pesticides and herbicides with each and every meal you make.


Pet Cancer Is Also on the Rise—and It Too Is Linked to Pesticide Exposure
To really bring home the importance of ridding your home and garden of pesticides, I also want to bring your attention to the compelling links between pesticide exposure and cancer in pets. One six-year long study conducted at Tufts University's Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine has linked lawn pesticides to canine malignant lymphoma (http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2012/07/11/lawn-pesticides-on-canine-lymphoma.aspx) (CML). The risk for CML increased by as much as 70 percent in some dogs.

Another study12 published last year found that dogs exposed to garden and lawn chemicals such as 2,4-D, dicamba, and 4-chloro-2-methylphenoxypropionic acid (MCPP), have higher incidence of bladder cancer. Breeds with a genetic predisposition for bladder cancer, including Beagles, Scottish Terriers, Shetland Sheepdogs, West Highland White Terriers, and Wire Hair Fox Terriers are at particularly high risk. According to lead study author Deborah Knapp of Purdue University's Department of Veterinary Clinical Services, in an interview with Discovery News:
"The routes of exposure that have been documented in experimental settings include ingestion, inhalation and transdermal exposures. In the case of dogs, they could directly ingest the chemicals from the plant, or they could lick their paws or fur and ingest chemicals that have been picked up on their feet, legs or body."
Needless to say, once your dog gets the chemicals on its coat and paws, it can spread them throughout your house, contaminating floors and furniture. You and your children can also be exposed by petting or holding your dog. Ideally, you'll want to avoid lawn chemicals if you have pets, and should your pet roam around on treated grass, make sure to bathe him as soon as possible.


How to Protect Yourself and Your Family from Toxic Pesticides
As you can see, pesticides are all around you. They may have been developed to kill certain bothersome insects or intrusive weeds, but we're now at a point where these chemicals are used in such massive quantities that they threaten human life on multiple fronts—through ingestion, topical exposure, pollinator die-offs, and the destruction of soil fertility! While you may not be able to eliminate exposure entirely, it would be sensible to take certain common-sense precautions to avoid the most common sources of exposure:


Stop using Roundup and other lawn and garden pesticides, as children and pets can come into contact with it simply by walking across the area.
Avoid commercial bug killers, such as mosquito, tick, and flea sprays. To learn how to repel such pests without hazardous chemicals, please see my previous article "How to Prevent and Treat Insect Bites Without Harsh Chemicals (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/07/22/insect-bite-treatment.aspx)." When it comes to head lice, avoid using the pesticide lindane. Instead, use an old-fashioned nit comb, plus the oils of anise and ylang ylang combined into a natural spray. This has been found to be highly effective in eliminating more than 90 percent of head lice. Coconut oil (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/04/18/coconut-oil-improve-hair-health.aspx) is another effective alternative.
Avoid processed foods, as they're typically loaded with GE ingredients, which are most heavily contaminated with pesticides and herbicides like glyphosate. Ideally, you'd be best off opting for products bearing the USDA 100% organic label (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/01/Which-Organic-Label-Should-You-Trust.aspx) when buying processed foods in order to avoid exposure to agricultural chemicals, which certainly are not limited to Roundup. Meats need to be grass-fed or pastured to make sure the animals were not fed GE corn or soy feed. That said, I urge you to consider boycotting every single product owned by members of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), including natural and organic brands. For more information on this historic boycott, please see my recent article, "When You Learn What They're Up to Now, You Too Will Want to Boycott Monsanto and GMA (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/05/27/gma-monsanto-gmo-labeling.aspx)."



Vote with Your Pocketbook, Every Day
The food companies on the left of this graphic spent tens of millions of dollars in the last two labeling campaigns—in California and Washington State–to prevent you from knowing what’s in your food. You can even the score by switching to the brands on the right; all of whom stood behind the I-522 Right to Know campaign. Voting with your pocketbook, at every meal, matters. It makes a huge difference. By boycotting GMA member Traitor Brands, you can help level the playing field, and help take back control of our food supply.


http://media.mercola.com/assets/images/I-522-poster.jpg (http://www.cornucopia.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/I-522.poster.1101.jpg)

I encourage you to continue educating yourself about genetically engineered foods, and to share what you’ve learned with family and friends. Remember, unless a food is certified organic, you can assume it contains GMO ingredients if it contains sugar from sugar beets, soy, or corn, or any of their derivatives.


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Sources and References

1 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/03/non-hodgkins-lymphoma-pesticides.aspx#_ednref1) National Pesticide Information Center (http://npic.orst.edu/ingred/stats.html#use)
2 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/03/non-hodgkins-lymphoma-pesticides.aspx#_ednref2) EPA.gov, World and US Pesticide Use Statistics 2007 (http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/pestsales/07pestsales/usage2007.htm#3_1)
3 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/03/non-hodgkins-lymphoma-pesticides.aspx#_ednref3) Mutation Research 543 (2003) 251-272 (PDF) (http://internat.martinique.free.fr/biblio/genotoxicity_of_pesticides.pdf)
4 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/03/non-hodgkins-lymphoma-pesticides.aspx#_ednref4) Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis 1999: 34(1); 52-56 (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291098-2280%281999%2934:1%3C52::AID-EM8%3E3.0.CO;2-A/full)
5 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/03/non-hodgkins-lymphoma-pesticides.aspx#_ednref5) Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2014 Apr 23;11(4):4449-527 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24762670)
6 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/03/non-hodgkins-lymphoma-pesticides.aspx#_ednref6) Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2014 Apr 23;11(4):4449-527 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24762670)
7 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/03/non-hodgkins-lymphoma-pesticides.aspx#_ednref7) Entropy 2013, 15(4), 1416-1463 (http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416)
8 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/03/non-hodgkins-lymphoma-pesticides.aspx#_ednref8) Mother Jones April 23, 2014 (http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/04/superweeds-arent-only-trouble-gmo-soy)
9 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/03/non-hodgkins-lymphoma-pesticides.aspx#_ednref9) AP The Big Story October 20, 2013 (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/argentines-link-health-problems-agrochemicals-2)
10 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/03/non-hodgkins-lymphoma-pesticides.aspx#_ednref10) Myssnews.com September 2005 (http://www.myssnews.com/news/2005/september/nt090905larryspradlin.html)
11 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/03/non-hodgkins-lymphoma-pesticides.aspx#_ednref11) Queen of the Bees, Take Action (http://www.queenofthesun.com/get-involved/)
12 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/03/non-hodgkins-lymphoma-pesticides.aspx#_ednref12) Science of the Total Environment, July 2013, pp 456-457 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23584031)

[Hervé]

Pesticides linked to honeybee decline are affecting other species, scientists say (http://rt.com/news/168108-pesticides-harm-bees-birds-fish/)

Published time: June 24, 2014 19:50
Get short URL (http://rt.com/news/168108-pesticides-harm-bees-birds-fish/)


http://img.rt.com/files/news/29/0a/c0/00/000_par7914710.si.jpg
AFP Photo / Denis Charlet


Neurotoxic pesticides blamed for the decline of honeybees is also harming butterflies, worms, fish, and birds, and contaminating habitats worldwide which are crucial for food production and wildlife, scientists have concluded after a four-year assessment.

Societal regulations have not stopped habitats from being poisoned, said the analysis, despite neurotoxic pesticides already being held responsible for the global collapse in the bee population.

“Undertaking a full analysis of all the available literature (800 peer reviewed reports) the Task Force on Systemic Pesticides – a group of global, independent scientists has found that there is “clear evidence of harm sufficient to trigger regulatory action,” a press release accompanying the report noted.

Twenty-nine scientists from four different continents conducted the study (http://www.tfsp.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/WIA-PR-REL.pdf), which found the unmistakable evidence (http://www.tfsp.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/WIA-MB.pdf) of the link.

“I think the only acceptable dose of this systemic pesticide is just nothing – zero,” said Dr. Jean Marc Bonmatin, a researcher at CNRS-CBM lab in France. “We are able, in this laboratory, to detect very, very small amounts of these neurotoxins. And as toxicologists, we are able to test these toxicants on drosophila – on bees – and so on. So we are able to see the effect of such tiny amounts of neurotoxins.”

The pesticides referred to in the report are neonicotinoids (neonics) and fipronil. Farmers spend some US$2.6 billion on neonicotinoids worldwide every year. They are used as a general practice rather than a response to a pest problem.

“The majority of the pesticide doesn't go into the crop at all,” said Professor Dave Goulson from the UK’s University of Sussex, who contributed to the study. “More than 90 percent of it goes elsewhere into the environment and they're really persistent in the environment.”

Goulson said that cumulatively, we as humans are “contaminating the global environment with highly toxic, highly persistent chemicals.”

“If all our soils are toxic, that should really worry us, as soil is crucial to food production,” he added.

Butterflies, bees, birds suffering...humans next?

In Marinduque, a province of the Philippines, the rural population practices butterfly farming to encourage the sustained pollination growth of local vegetation. “All the people here in the rural areas depend on the butterflies, and continued use of pesticides could destroy their livelihood,” said Elizabeth Lumawig-Heitzmann, director of Romeo Lumawig Memorial Museum.

In addition to butterflies, maintaining bee and insect populations are necessary for the pollination of crops. “These days many people are completely detached from nature – they buy their food in a supermarket, they live in a city...biodiversity is vitally important for us,” said Bonmatin.

Bees are affected because chemicals hurt their ability to both navigate and learn. Neonics can be 5,000 to 10,000 times more toxic to bees than DDT – which itself has been banned in agriculture.

“The classic measurements used to assess the toxicity of a pesticide (short‐term lab toxicity results) are not effective for systemic pesticides and conceal their true impact. They typically only measure direct acute effects rather than chronic effects via multiple routes of exposure,” the report found.

However, bees are not the only ones affected by the pesticides; birds and mammals which feed on the insects, as well as worms, are also harmed. Worms aerate soil, and chemicals can disrupt their ability to tunnel properly.

Because birds eat insects and worms, declines in their populations can also lead to a loss in the birds feeding on them. The report also postulates that even eating only a few contaminated seeds may kill birds directly.

Insecticides and pesticides seep into rivers and streams from the fields they are used on. "Microbes, fish and amphibians were found to be affected after high levels of or prolonged exposure," the report said.

“Overall, a compelling body of evidence has accumulated that clearly demonstrates that the wide-scale use of these persistent, water-soluble chemicals is having widespread, chronic impacts upon global biodiversity and is likely to be having major negative effects on ecosystem services such as pollination that are vital to food security,” the study concluded.

The report is part of a special edition of thepeer-reviewed journal 'Environmental Science and Pollution Research.'

The EU has already placed a three-year ban on using three neonicotinoids (clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiametoxam) on flowering crops which bees feed on. However, they can still be used on winter crops.

Pesticide manufacturers were critical of the study’s findings. “It is a selective review of existing studies which highlighted worst-case scenarios, largely produced under laboratory conditions,” said Nick von Westenholz, chief executive of the Crop Protection Association, before reiterating the need to “protect pollinator health.”

According to Goulson, the focus has so far only been on honeybees. “It’s clear that the impacts of neonics are more profound than that,” he said, adding that the story stretches beyond bees “to all wildlife that lives on farmland.”

[blake]

Great Thread, Amzer Zo. Instread of just talking about " sugar" making people sick and causing nasty diseases like cancer. the population needs to be talking about progressed food and what is in processed food that is causing all this disease that is on the rise.
Herbicides, pesticides.... yup..... if you go out to dinner you are probably eating them...buy a birthday cake from the delicious bakery and you are probably eating posions that is buiding up in your system just waiting to burst into cancer, eating frozen food, yup, you are probably eating the herbicide of round up too. The question is what is the reader's toxic load before cancer or some other nasty disease, surfaces and maybe the reader is already and sick with some dreaded disease like Lymphoma and don't know it. Lymphoma. Often people don't know they have it until they are in stage 3 or stage 4, that is how quiet of a cancer it is. And farmers and gardeners seem to get it even more than the rest of the population. Of course, it wasn't always that way, but now since they have been poisoning our food and environment for so long, the disease is rapidly showing up. Here is one quote that pretty much sums it up

"When the diagnosis is non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, though, researchers can offer only guesses. The incidence of the disease, which occurs when immune cells become malignant, has doubled since the beginning of the 1980s. Once relatively uncommon, non-Hodgkin’s is now the fifth leading cause of cancer in the United States.

That is thanks to poisoning the environment and our food!


So in the 1950 and 60s when one parent working could support the house hold and food was not making us sick. nasty diseases like lymphoma were a lot rarer than they are today. I don't know the statistics but I believe one doctor said 1 out of 2 people will get cancer now. So what happened? Our food was poisoned.


"When the diagnosis is non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, though, researchers can offer only guesses. The incidence of the disease, which occurs when immune cells become malignant, has doubled since the beginning of the 1980s. Once relatively uncommon, non-Hodgkin’s is now the fifth leading cause of cancer in the United States."

[Hervé]

Biosafety and the 'Seralini affair' - scientific and regulatory reform are essential (http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2452325/biosafety_and_the_seralini_affair_scientific_and_regulatory_reform_are_essential.html)

Gilles-Eric Séralini, Robin Mesnage, Nicolas Defarge & Joël Spiroux de Vendômois
25th June 2014

The forced retraction of a study that identified serious harm to rats fed on GMO maize and Monsanto's 'Roundup' reveals a deep and systemic corruption of science and regulation, writes Gilles-Eric Séralini. Urgent and far reaching reforms must now take place.


http://www.theecologist.org/siteimage/scale/300/2000/380231.jpg


Censorship on research into the risks of a technology so critically entwined with global food safety undermines the value and the credibility of science.There is an ongoing debate on the potential health risks of the consumption of genetically modified (GM) plants containing high levels of pesticide residues.

Currently, no regulatory authority requests mandatory chronic animal feeding studies to be performed for edible GMOs and formulated pesticides. This fact is at the origin of most of the controversies. Only studies consisting of 90-day rat feeding trials have been conducted by manufacturers for GMOs.

Statistical differences in the biochemistry of treated rats versus controls may represent the initial signs of long-term pathologies, possibly explained at least in part by pesticide residues in the GM feed.

This is why we studied the long-term toxicity of a Roundup-tolerant GM maize (NK603) and a whole Roundup pesticide formulation at environmentally relevant levels from 0.1 ppb.

We first published these results in Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT) on 19 September, 2012 after a careful and thorough peer review.

However, 1 year and 2 months later, in an unusual step, the editor-in-chief requested the retraction of our study, while conceding that the data were not incorrect and that there was no misconduct and no fraud or intentional misinterpretation.

According to him, some data were inconclusive, but for reasons already known at the time of submission of the paper. This artiocle summarises the debate resulting in this retraction - which in our view is a historic example of conflicts of interests in the scientific assessments of products commercialized worldwide.

The long-term toxicity study of the NK603 maize and Roundup
An initial study on NK603 maize was submitted by Monsanto Company in support of commercial authorization of the maize. NK603 maize was fed to 4 groups of 20 Sprague Dawley rats (2 doses of 11% and 33% in the diet of both sexes) for 90 days. The blood analyses were performed on 10 rats per group.

The re-analysis of the raw data resulted in a debate on the biological relevance of admitted statistical differences versus controls as the first signs of hepatorenal toxicities.

To solve the problem, a 2-year-long study was carried out using two hundred Sprague Dawley rats to which the following treatments were administered:


NK603 maize treated or not with Roundup at three different levels in their feed (11%, 22%, and 33% of the total diet)
and Roundup alone, administered via drinking water at three different concentrations, from the admitted residual level in regular tap water (0.1 ppb), to the maximum level authorized in GMOs (400 ppm), up to half of the agricultural dose (0.5%).


They were divided into ten groups, each containing ten males and ten females. No other long-term study has examined the effects of regular consumption of Roundup-tolerant GM maize and of a pesticide formulation, in any dilution, on blood parameters, sexual hormones, and multiple organs.

Statistically discriminant disturbances
We found that these products provoked statistically discriminant disturbances in biochemical markers of livers and kidneys in females at the 15th month, when most of the rats were still alive. At the same time, testosterone and estradiol levels were also disturbed.

At the end of the experiments, these disrupted biochemical markers corresponded to pathologies evidenced in a blinded manner: notably hepatorenal deficiencies, more severe in males, and female mammary tumors, which led to premature deaths.

For instance, after around 700 days, there were up to 3.25 more mammary tumors (the highest rate was observed in females consuming 0.1 ppb of Roundup in water). This could be associated with a 2.4-time increase in pituitary dysfunctions noticed by the end of the experiment (2 years).

Then the attacks began
These findings were immediately dismissed by persons involved in the products' authorizations, or in collaboration with biotech industries.

A number of them wrote to FCT to nourish a controversy, including Richard Goodman, a former Monsanto employee in charge of the immunotoxicity files of GMOs, and Paul Christou, a patent holder of the methods used to create transgenic plants.

This was rapidly followed by a coordination of national regulatory agencies organized by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), released on 4 October, 2012. The EFSA had previously assessed NK603, and glyphosate, the declared active principle of Roundup, as safe on the basis of regulatory data, which they never fully published.

The EFSA has since published Monsanto's safety data on NK603 maize, but not on glyphosate. The NK603 data are in a pdf format preventing an easy statistical re-analysis. However, there was no long-term toxicological assessment for NK603, or for Roundup.

Moreover, we demonstrated in several studies that Roundup is far more toxic than glyphosate because of non-inert adjuvants. On 10 October, 2012, the Monsanto Company also sent its criticisms to FCT but did not release its safety data, claiming commercial confidentiality.

Serious yet undisclosed conflicts of interest
Overall, the first wave of criticisms arrived within a week, mostly from plant biologists. We answered all criticisms in FCT on 9 November, 2012. The debate then encompassed scientific arguments.

A second wave of ad hominem and potentially libelous comments appeared in different journals [13-16]. Regrettably, there were no invitations to respond to these exacerbated attacks, which we discovered only by our literature survey. Some of the authors of these articles had serious yet undisclosed conflicts of interest.

The scientific remarks concentrated on the supposedly inadequate choice of the Sprague Dawley rat strain, which is, however, a classic model for toxicology. The Sprague Dawley strain was also used by Monsanto in its 90-day test on the same maize.

In addition, Monsanto measured biochemically the same number of rats per group as in our experiment. Thus, with regard to blood and urine biochemistry, Monsanto gathered data from the same number of rats that we did.

Unsubstantiated allegations of fraud or errors
Paul Christou, the lead author of Arjo et al., demanded that our paper be retracted and insulted us personally. He claimed first in a letter addressed to the editor-in-chief that the publication of our study "does not meet minimal acceptable standards of scientific rigor" and "will damage an entire scientific discipline due to flawed conclusion".

Then, he attacked us in an article published in the journal Transgenic Research on 20 December 2012.

The quantity of insults and defamations in this paper, authorized and co-authored by the editor-in-chief in a supposedly serious Journal, is excessive. They include:


"abject failure to treat the experimental animals in a humane manner",
"inability to formulate a valid hypothesis",
"media fanfare",
"fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements",
"unethical behavior",
"transparent attempt to discredit regulatory agencies",
"ammunition for extremists",
"flawed science",
"disingenuous or inept", and
"unjustified waste of animals" (while at the same time asking for more animals in the groups).


Christou and co-authors suggest that by practising "flawed science", we are working against "progress towards a better quality of life" and in fact are "actively working to make life worse". We were not invited to reply.

Christou - further undisclosed conflicts of interest
This behaviour can be explained, though not justified, by the undisclosed conflicts of interests. Christou is not only the editor-in-chief of Transgenic Research, the journal in which he published his article, but is also linked to Monsanto.

He is named as the inventor on several patents on GM crop technology, for most of which Monsanto owns the property rights. These include patents on the plant transformation process used to make glyphosate-tolerant transgenic corn plants.

He worked as a researcher at Agracetus Inc. (later acquired by Monsanto) for 12 years. Then, from 1994 to 2001, Christou worked at the John Innes Centre in the UK, which is heavily invested in GM crop technology. He thus has no mammalian toxicology background.

However, in his published article, Christou only gave as his affiliation his publicly funded position at a research institute.

Christou's failure to declare his current interests - his inventor status on patents concerning the company that developed the products we tested - could be considered grounds for retraction of a paper in a scientific journal, according to ethical guidelines for scientific publishing.

The Arjo et al article was co-authored by Wayne Parrott, an active member of the Biotechnology Committee at the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI).

ILSI is funded by multinational food, agribusiness, and biotechnology companies, including Monsanto and Syngenta. ILSI has proved highly controversial in North America and Europe due to its influence on risk assessment methodologies for chemicals, pesticides, and GM foods.

Wayne Parrott also has an inventor status in patents on materials and methods for selecting transgenic organisms and transformation vector systems.

False assertions, misrepresentations and defamation
In addition, Christou and his co-authors made numerous mistakes, false and unsubstantiated assertions, and misrepresentations of our data.

The title of Arjo et al's paper includes defamation and a misrepresentation of our research, implying that it is "pseudoscience" and alleging that it claimed Roundup Ready maize and Roundup herbicide caused "cancer" in rats - a claim we never made.

We did not even use the word 'cancer' in our paper although this argument was reiterated in the final letter of the editor-in-chief of FCT when explaining his decision to retract our paper. Tumors do not always lead to cancer, even if they can be more deleterious in a shorter time because of their size or body position, by hurting internal functions.

Arjo et al's paper begins with a false assertion that is not evidenced in the paper or in the cited source: "It started with a press conference in which journalists agreed not to engage in fact-checking". The authors made other false assertions about our study, for example, alleging that "the water consumption was not measured".

In fact, we measured both the water and food consumption, and the stability of the Roundup solution over time. This was indicated in the paper, in which we explained that all the data cannot be shown in one paper and that we concentrated on the most important data; these parameters were only part of a routine survey.

They also falsified the reporting of the data, compiling the mortality data only at the end of the experiment and ignoring the originality and the major findings of the differential chronological effects between treated rats and controls, which we established by measuring tumor size twice a week over 2 years.

Moreover, we respected legal requirements and ethical norms relating to animal experiments, and Arjo et al. present no evidence of the contrary, so their allegation of inhumane treatment of the rats is without substance.

Our responses were simply ignored
Importantly, we had already answered many of the criticisms of our paper made by Arjo et al in a paper that was published before that of Arjo et al.. Their publication was received on 20 December 2012, when our paper was published on 9 November 2012. Our published answers were simply ignored.

Christou and Parrott were not alone in failing to declare conflicts of interest in their criticism of our paper. Since we underlined that 75% of the comments addressed to FCT within a week after our study was published came from plant biologists, it was discovered that several had developed patents on GMOs.

Some authors were employees of Monsanto Company, which owns NK603 GM maize and sells Roundup herbicide. Other more recent papers, published by plant biologists and/or affiliates of the industry-funded group ILSI [15,16], repeated the arguments.

Forbes magazine - false and unsubstantiated fraud allegation
The author of a separate article criticizing our study expressed concern that our results could damage public opinion about GM crops - a sentiment that gives precedence to economic interests over public health. An article in Forbes magazine even alleged, without presenting any evidence, that we had committed fraud.

Surprisingly, even Monsanto authors declared that they had "no conflicts of interest" in their first draft published online on FCT website.

Investigative reports evidenced that many authors of these opinions had failed to disclose their conflicts of interest, including Henry Miller, Mark Tester, Chris Leaver, Bruce Chassy, Martina Newell-McGloughlin, Andrew Cockburn, L. Val Giddings, Sivramiah Shantharam, Lucia de Souza, Erio Barale-Thomas, and Marc Fellous.

The undisclosed conflicts of interest included links with biotechnology companies that develop GMOs and with industry-backed lobbying organizations.

Huge implications for public health
All of this has huge implications for public health. We observed an intense lobbying in parliaments, as well as proofs of conflicts of interests for persons involved in the regulatory decisions for the commercialization of these products.

A series of high-profile conflict-of-interest revelations (not restricted to GMOs and pesticides) led to the resignations of leading administrators involved in decisions affecting the assessment of these products - including:


the European Commissioner John Dalli;
and the former chair of the European Food Safety Authority's (EFSA) management board Diana Banati.


In February of 2013, a strange occurrence following the publication of our paper raised questions about the connections of industry to scientific publishing, described below.

Conflicts of interests in the editorial board
In February 2013, FCT acquired a new assistant editor for biotechnology, Richard E. Goodman. The editor-in-chief has admitted that Goodman was introduced into the editorial board after he sent a letter to FCT to complain about our study.

In his letter, Goodman appears worried about economic consequences but not so much about potential public health consequences. He wrote:
"The implications and the impacts of this uncontrolled study is having HUGE impacts, in international trade, in consumer confidence in all aspects of food safety, and certainly in US state referendums on labelling."
Further in his letter, Goodman asked for "an evaluation by an independent set of toxicologists". This is particularly why the Publishing Assistant for FCT asked for our raw data on 15 March 2013.

In fact, we can question the independence of this re-evaluation. After his appointment at FCT, Goodman was a member of the subcommittee that requested our raw data, until we complained to Elsevier publishing group.

Goodman is far from being independent. He previously worked for Monsanto for 7 years. He also has a long-standing affiliation with ILSI. Yet Goodman will now deal with all biotechnology papers submitted to FCT.

Another scientific paper on GMO risks was withdrawn from FCT, without explanation shortly after it had been accepted and published by the journal. The paper was immediately published by another journal according to the authors' initiative.

The retraction notice
We received a letter from the editor-in-chief of FCT, A. Wallace Hayes, asking us to retract our paper on 19 November 2013, more than 1 year after its publication.

In his retraction notice, the editor-in-chief certifies that "no evidence of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of the data" was found in the investigation, that the results are "not incorrect", "there was no misconduct", and that the sole reason for retraction is the "inconclusiveness" of the paper.

He argued that no conclusions could be drawn because we studied 10 rats per group over 2 years, because they were Sprague Dawley rats, and because we could not conclude on cancer. In fact, the Sprague Dawley is a standard choice for 2-year studies performed by industry and independent scientists alike.

We also measured 10 animals per sex per group according to OECD 452 guideline on chronic toxicity studies because our study is a chronic toxicity study that was never intended to be a carcinogenicity study.

A violation of official retraction guidelines
We wish to point out that Dr Hayes' decision is in violation of the retraction guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), of which FCT is a member. 'Inconclusiveness' is not a valid reason for a journal to retract a paper. Lack of conclusiveness (which can be discussed) and error are not synonymous.

COPE criteria for retraction included scientific misconduct / honest error, prior publication, plagiarism, or unethical research. None of these criteria applied to our study.

On the contrary, numerous published scientific papers contain inconclusive findings. It is for further studies to build on the reported findings and arrive at a more conclusive position.

In contrast with our study measuring toxicity, the Monsanto study reporting safety with the same number and the same strain of rats, but limited to 90 days, is not subject to the same controversy.

The data in the Monsanto study show statistically significant differences in multiple-organ functions between the GM and non-GM feeding groups - which the authors dismissed as not "biologically meaningful", using a set of questionable criteria.

The significant effects observed do not have to be linear to the dose to be taken into consideration; otherwise, endocrine effects will be dismissed. In addition, biochemical disturbances do not have to correlate simultaneously with organ lesions, in contrast to the claims of Doull et al in defence of Monsanto.

Concepts invalid for endocrine disruption
These outdated concepts coming from the toxicology of poisons, and are not valid for endocrine disruption. If 10 rats/sex/group are too few to demonstrate a toxic effect, then this number of rats is certainly too small to demonstrate safety.

Overall, in the current system of assessment, any toxic effect is first suspected to be a false positive, arising by chance, rather than questioning whether no evidence of effect is a false negative result. The Monsanto data as presented are thus inconclusive and should also be retracted.

Following the retraction of our paper, many letters were sent to the editor-in-chief of FCT. On 10 December 2013, he published a defence of the retraction, which raised many doubts as to his understanding of our data.

He claimed that we concluded on cancer, although ours was a long-term toxicity study with a detailed statistical analysis of blood and urine parameters.

He also defended the study done by Monsanto claiming that they used 20 rats/sex/group while we only used 10 rats/sex/group. In fact, despite the fact that the Monsanto study used twice our sample size, the Monsanto authors only analyzed blood and urine from half of the animals (10), the same number of sampled animals as in our study.

According to an editorial in Environmental Health Perspectives,
"the decision to retract a published scientific work by an editor, against the desires of the authors, because it is 'inconclusive' based on a post hoc analysis represents a dangerous erosion of the underpinnings of the peer-review process, and Elsevier should carefully reconsider this decision."
Confidentiality and censorship erode the value of science
Recent reviews of the GM food safety literature have found that research concluding that GM products were safe tended to come from industry and that research conducted by those with either financial or professional conflicts of interest was associated with outcomes favorable to the GM sector.

In fact, it appears in our case that consequences of conflicts of interests in science go beyond divergence in scientific interpretations and also rely on unscientific practices: confidentiality and censorship.

Transparency of, and access to, all the raw data obtained by companies and accepted by regulatory agencies (overall blood analyses of rats) as proof of safety for products, is an unavoidable first step to move forward in this debate. It is the only way in which the scientific community can enter the scientific discussion.

This is why we republish our paper in an open access way, together with its raw data allowing debate about our results.

This is not possible for the data used as a proof of safety for commercial authorizations. The Monsanto toxicological data on NK603 maize recently made public by EFSA is not in a statistically usable format and an agreement with Monsanto is requested before use.

Authorization data 'clearly inadequate'
Moreover, the data examined for Roundup authorizations are clearly inadequate.

For instance, ANSES (French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety), confirmed to us in writing (January 2013) that there were no 2-year studies of Roundup in its whole formulation on animals, adding that there are a few studies of acute toxicity (a few days up to 3 weeks) without any blood tests.

Instead, glyphosate, which is much less toxic than Roundup, is tested alone by Monsanto, in its reports to regulatory authorities.

We strongly emphasize that data with implications for public health are not related to manufacturing patents and should not be kept confidential.

A program of regulatory reform
Removal of confidentiality claims on biosafety data is necessary to adhere to standard scientific procedures of quality assurance, to increase transparency, to minimize impacts of conflicts of interests, and ultimately to improve public confidence in GMOs.

Moreover, in the regulatory assessment of GMOs, chemicals, and medicines, confidential tests are conducted by the applicant companies themselves, often in their own laboratories or in those of subcontractors.

So the second step must be the building of new experiments for new or the most important products, by laboratories independent of the companies. They will be recruited by public tender, with compulsory transparency of the results.

This public research will be funded by companies, at a level corresponding to their previous budget for regulatory testing, but managed independently of the companies. The protocols and results will be submitted to open and contradictory assessments. Thus, there will be no additional financial cost or time delay to the current system.

At stake: public health, the environment, and the scientific process itself
Such reforms will not only radically transform the understanding and knowledge of toxicology and science in general, but will radically reduce public health costs and promote trust in companies and science.

This will move the world towards a sustainable development of products with low, if any, impacts on health and environment.

The reason given to retract our paper - "inconclusiveness" - is unprecedented and violates the norms of scientific publishing. The decision to retract cannot be rationalized on any discernible scientific grounds.

Censorship on research into the risks of a technology so critically entwined with global food safety undermines the value and the credibility of science.


This article is a minimally edited version of the original paper published in the peer-reviewed, public access Journal Environmental Sciences Europe: 'Conflicts of interests, confidentiality and censorship in health risk assessment: the example of an herbicide and a GMO (http://www.enveurope.com/content/26/1/13)' by Gilles-Eric Séralini, Robin Mesnage, Nicolas Defarge and Joël Spiroux de Vendômois.

References: Please refer to the original article (http://www.enveurope.com/content/26/1/13) for references which have been removed from this version.

Also on The Ecologist:


Seralini republished: Roundup-ready GMO maize causes serious health damage (http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2451921/seralini_republished_roundupready_gmo_maize_causes_serious_health_damage.html).
Scientists pledge to boycott Elsevier (http://www.theecologist.org/Scientists%20pledge%20to%20boycott%20Elsevier)


This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

[Hervé]

GMO Insulin Causes Type 1 Diabetes in Type 2 Diabetics, Study Finds (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/gmo-insulin-causes-type-1-diabetes-type-2-diabetics-study-finds)

Posted on: Saturday, June 28th 2014 at 7:00 am
Written By: Sayer Ji, Founder (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/gmi-blogs/sayer%20ji)



http://cdn.greenmedinfo.com/sites/default/files/ckeditor/Sayer%20Ji/images/gmo_insulin_may_cause_type_1_diabetees.jpg


A groundbreaking new study finds synthetic (GMO) insulin is capable of rapidly producing type 1 diabetes in type 2 diabetics.


Last year, we reported on the dangers of insulin therapy for type 2 diabetics (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/insulin-doubles-death-rate-type-2-diabetics-study), following the publication of a study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23372169) comprised of almost 85,000 type 2 diabetic patients that found insulin monotherapy doubled their risk of all-cause mortality, in addition to significantly increasing their risk for diabetes-related complications (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/disease/diabetic-complications) and cancer. Insulin monotherapy resulted in:


2.0 times more myocardial infarctions.
1.7 time more major adverse cardiac events
1.4 time more strokes
3.5 times more renal complications
2.1 time more neuropathy
1.2 times more eye complications
1.4 times more cancer
2.2 times more deaths

Now, a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism titled, "Insulin administration may trigger type 1 diabetes in Japanese type 2 diabetes patients with type 1 diabetes high-risk HLA class II and the insulin gene VNTR genotype (http://press.endocrine.org/doi/abs/10.1210/jc.2014-1759)," is shedding light on a possible explanation for why insulin treatment may accelerate morbidity and mortality in type 2 diabetics. The study revealed that giving genetically susceptible type 2 diabetes patients recombinant insulin can trigger their bodies to target their own insulin producing cells for autoimmune destruction, effectively producing 'double diabetes': type 1 and type 2, as a result.

The Japanese study took 6 patients (4 men and 2 women) with type 2 diabetes, none of whom had previously received insulin therapy nor had markers for autoantibodies to their own insulin (e.g. GAD65). All patients were found to have the type 1 diabetes susceptibility gene known as type 1 diabetes high risk HLA class II (IDDM1), which is considered to play a role in up to 50% of type 1 diabetes cases, and the insulin gene VNTR genotype (IDDM2), believed to play a key role in susceptibility to type 2 diabetes.

After recombinant insulin administration their blood glucose control deteriorated, and their own insulin producing beta cells – as measured by declining C-peptide levels (a marker for the production of natural insulin) – decreased insulin production to a deficiency levels commonly found in type 1 diabetes patients. The average time it took for the patients to develop full blown type 1 diabetes was 7.7 months, with one patient developing the condition within 1.1 months.

Further tests revealed that the patients had antibodies against their own pancreatic islet cells (the cells responsible for producing insulin), insulin allergy or increased levels of insulin antibody. Additionally, 2 of 4 cases were found to have GAD-reactive and insulin peptide reactive Th1 cells, typical markers of autoimmunity induced type 1 diabetes (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/disease/diabetes-mellitus-type-1).

The researchers concluded from their findings:
"The findings suggest that insulin administration may have triggered TIDM in patients with T2DM. IDDM1 and IDDM 2 as well as autoreactive T cells may contribute to the development of T1DM. Developing insulin-triggered T1DM if a patient's blood glucose control acutely deteriorates after insulin administration should be carefully considered."
The researchers also pointed out that there are a number trials underway to produce vaccines containing insulin intended to induce a 'tolerogenic immune response' and therefore ameliorate autoimmune type 1 diabetes.[1] (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/gmo-insulin-causes-type-1-diabetes-type-2-diabetics-study-finds?page=2#_ftn1) Clearly, however, their findings run contrary to this expectation, revealing that it is possible that introducing exogenous forms of insulin may stimulate the opposite reaction and induced autoimmunity against the hormone, or the cells in the pancreas responsible for producing it.


Discussion: GMO Insulin Not the Same As Animal Derived Insulin
A possible explanation for these results lies in the difference between today's synthetic insulin and insulin purified from animals such as pigs (porcine insulin), which is no longer available in countries like the U.S.

Insulin was actually the first protein to be synthesized with recombinant DNA (GMO) technology in the late 1970s,[2] (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/gmo-insulin-causes-type-1-diabetes-type-2-diabetics-study-finds?page=2#_ftn2) and today, products like Lantus (insulin glargine [rDNA origin] injection) dominate the market. According to Sanofi, Lantus' manufacturer their form is produced "by recombinant DNA technology utilizing a non-pathogenic laboratory strain of Escherichia coli (K12) as the production organism." Synthetic insulin is classified as an insulin analog that differs significantly from human insulin in its primary amino acid structure: "Insulin glargine differs from human insulin in that the amino acid asparagine at position A21 is replaced by glycine and two arginines are added to the C-terminus of the B-chain." Lantus' formulation also contains various 'inactive ingredients,' such as:


hydrochloric acid
sodium hydroxide (lye)
zinc
m-cresol (a coal tar derivative)
glycerol
polysorbate 20

The simultaneous injection of these antigenic ingredients along with synthetic insulin could be responsible for hypersensitizing the immune system against insulin in the same way that inactive and adjuvant ingredients in vaccines (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/new-autoimmunity-syndrome-linked-aluminum-vaccines) induce exaggerated immune reactions against the 'active' vaccine antigen (e.g. the viral or bacterial antigen) which sometimes results in the immune system attacking self-structures (autoimmunity).

Furthermore, synthetic insulin does not have the same conformational state – i.e. it does not assume the same complex folded form – of natural human insulin, or more closely related pig insulin. This presents a 'recognition' problem from the perspective of the immune system which may identify the foreign protein as 'other' generating acute or sustained autoimmune reactions to it as a result.

http://cdn.greenmedinfo.com/sites/default/files/ckeditor/Sayer%20Ji/images/250px-InsulinMonomer.jpg


[The structure of insulin.The left side is a space-filling model of the insulin monomer. On the right side is a ribbon diagram of the insulin hexamer (6 insulin molecules conjoined), believed to be the stored form. Source: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin)]


According to a 1993 paper on recombinant human insulin (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/6071/1/Seissler_Jochen_6071.pdf), "Bacterially expressed proteins normally lack any secondary structure or post-translational modifications" – a highly significant fact, considering that complex proteins such as hormones actually have four levels of folding complexity: primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary, all of which together determine the protein's natural structure and therefore its function. In fact, this complexity is so immense that Levinthal's paradox states a fully folded protein (i.e., one that has attained its native conformation) must pass through such a large number of degrees of freedom to reach its native state that there is not enough time in the universe for it to move through all possible configurations to the one it was designed by nature to assume. Obviously, if synthetic insulin is not capable of obtaining the same 3-dimensional structure as natural insulin, nor is modified post-translationally through epigenetic regulatory processes, it cannot behave in the same way as natural insulin in the body, and would likely be identified as 'other' by the immune system, if not also cellular insulin receptors.

Research dating back to the early 1980s compared synthetic E. Coli derived insulin with porcine (pig) derived insulin in diabetic children and found that porcine insulin was more effective at lowering HbA1 values (a marker of damage associated with elevated blood sugar), superior at reducing fasting glucose concentrations, and less antibody reactive to insulin than synthetic insulin. [3] (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/gmo-insulin-causes-type-1-diabetes-type-2-diabetics-study-finds?page=1#_ftn3) While pig derived insulin has its limitations, especially considering there are limits to how much can be produced, clearly it is more appropriate than synthetic versions if it is true that the latter is incapable of reproducing the same therapeutic outcome for diabetics.

Natural Approaches To Diabetes Prevention and Treatment are the Future
In a previous article on natural interventions for type 1 diabetes, 10 Natural Substances That Could Help Cure Type 1 Diabetes (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/10-natural-substances-may-help-cure-type-1-diabetes), we focused on the biomedical literature supporting the role of beta cell (insulin producing cell) regenerating foods and natural substances in addressing one of the root causes of type 1 diabetes.

The future of medicine will look to identifying and removing the causes of conditions like diabetes, instead of employing patented synthetic drugs and synthetic replacement therapies (which feed the deficiency), palliatively -- especially considering the new research indicating they actually make the patient far worse. Also, diet is the #1 factor in the pathogenesis of most chronic conditions that afflict the modern world; more specifically, the consumption of foods or food-like products that deviate from our ancestral diets generate the physiological conditions that produce disease in the first place. Addressing the dietary causes and incompatibilities and many 'diseases' decelerate and may even regress.

For additional research on the topic of regenerative medicine and diabetes you can consult the articles 6 Bodily Tissues that Can Be Regenerated Through Nutrition (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/6-bodily-tissues-can-be-regenerated-through-nutrition) and Diabetes: An Entirely Preventable and Reversible Disease (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/diabetes-entirely-preventable-reversible-condition). Or, visit our Health Guide on Blood Sugar Disorders (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/guide/health-guide-blood-sugar-problems).

Also, if you missed the author's presentation on "What Medical Science Says About Reversing Diabetes" for the Reversing Diabetes World Summit (https://vj173.isrefer.com/go/27BM/sayerji/), the all access digital package is still available here (https://vj173.isrefer.com/go/27BM/sayerji/).


REFERENCES
[1] (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/gmo-insulin-causes-type-1-diabetes-type-2-diabetics-study-finds?page=1#_ftnref1) Harrison LC, et al Antigen-based vaccination and prevention of type 1 diabetes (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23888323). Curr Diab Rep . 2013;13:616–623.

[2] (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/gmo-insulin-causes-type-1-diabetes-type-2-diabetics-study-finds?page=1#_ftnref2) Beta Cell Biology Consortium, The Structure of Insulin (http://www.betacell.org/content/articleview/article_id/8/page/1/glossary/0/)

[3] (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/gmo-insulin-causes-type-1-diabetes-type-2-diabetics-study-finds?page=1#_ftnref3) N P Mann, et al Human insulin and porcine insulin in the treatment of diabetic children: comparison of metabolic control and insulin antibody production (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1549785/). Br Med J (Clin Res Ed). Nov 26, 1983; 287(6405): 1580–1582.

[Hervé]

The Gluten Intolerance Epidemic: Monsanto’s Hegelian Dialectic Dream Come True
(http://www.thedailysheeple.com/gluten-intolerance-epidemic-monsantos-hegelian-dialectic-dream-come-true_062014)
Melissa Melton
The Daily Sheeple (http://www.TheDailySheeple.com)
June 30th, 2014


http://www.thedailysheeple.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/gluten-intolerance-is-it-just-a-fad-or-is-todays-wheat-really-toxic_022014-1024x576.jpg (http://www.thedailysheeple.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/gluten-intolerance-is-it-just-a-fad-or-is-todays-wheat-really-toxic_022014.jpg)

Just last month, researchers published a new research paper (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0733521013001598) in the Journal of Cereal Science (tagline: “Cereal Science for Food Security, Nutrition and Sustainability”) all about how genetic engineering could save the millions of people suffering daily from gluten intolerance. Gluten-free foods have now become a $4 billion dollar industry.

More and more people are realizing every day that they aren’t as sick as they thought they were — that a reaction to the gluten from wheat found in thousands of products on their grocery store shelves is actually damaging the lining of their intestine, rendering them unable to absorb nutrients properly, which manifests all sorts of horrible health issues.

Gluten intolerance and celiac disease can actually present as over 200 different symptoms. For example, did you know that gluten sensitivities can show up as (http://blog.trueglutenfree.com/gluten-sensitivity-symptoms):


Abnormal Blurry Vision
Abdominal Pain and Distention
Abortion (Spontaneous)
Addison’s Disease
Adenocarcinoma of the Intestines
ADHD
Alopecia (hair loss)
Anemia (caused by nutrient deficiencies – Iron, Folate, B-12, B-6, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Copper)
Angina Pectoris (chest pain/ pressure)
Anorexia
Antiphospholipid Syndrome
Anxiety
Aortic Vasculitis
Apathy
Apthous Ulceers and Canker Sores
Arthritis – Juvenile Rheumatoid, Enteropathic, Psoriatic, Rheumatoid
Asthma
Ataxia
Atherosclerosis
Autism and other learning disorders
Autoimmune Hepatitis
Biliary Cirrhosis
Bitot’s Spots
Bleeding Gums
Blepharitis
Blood in the Stool
Bone Fractures
Bone Pain
Bronchiectasis
Bronchoalveolitis
Cachexia
Cataracts
Cardiomegaly
Cardiomyopathy
Cerebral Perfusion Abnormalities
CFS
Cheilosis
Cholangitis (gall bladder)
Chronic Constipation
Chorea
Coagulation Abnormalities
Coronary Artery Disease
Crohn’s Disease
Cutaneous Vasculitis
Cystic Fibrosis
Delayed Puberty
Dementia
Depression
Dermatitis
Dermatitis Herpetiformis
Dermatomyositis
Diabetes Mellitus Type 1
Diarrhea
Down Syndrome
Dysmenorrhea
Epilepsy
Erythema Nodosum
Failure to Thrive
Gastric Bloating
Glossitis
Grave’s Disease
Growth Retardation
H. Pylori Infection
Heartburn
Hives
Hypoglycemia
Hypogonadism
Hypospenism
Infertility
IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)
Impotence
Insomnia
Keratomalacia
Lactose Intolerance
Loss of Smell
Lymphoma
Malnutrition and Nutritional Deficiencies
Melanoma
Mental Retardation
Menopaus (early)
Migraine Headaches
Multiple Sclerosis
Muscle Wasting
Myopathy
NAFL
Non Hodgkin Lymphoma
Nose Bleeds (Spontaneous)
Obesity
Osteomalacia
Osteoporosis
Osteopenia
Pancreatic Insufficiency
Parkinson’s Disease
Parathyroid Carcinoma
PMS
Polyglandular Syndrome
Polymyositis
Psoriasis
Scleroderma
Secondary Food Allergy Response
Short Stature
Sjogren’s Syndrome
SLE
Small Cell Esophageal Cancer
Spina Bifida
Steatorrhea
Thrombocytopenia
Thyroiditis (Hypothyroidism)
Tremors
Ulceractive Colitis
UTI
Vaginitis
Vomiting
Vitiligo

And no, that’s sadly not all.

Due to gluten’s ability to render a sensitive person unable to properly absorb their nutrients, it’s also been tagged for a multitude of reproductive issues and cancer which is on the rise.

While organizations such as one in 133 (http://1in133.org/) have sprung up around this issue, figures show that at least 18 million Americans are sensitive to gluten (meaning they experience negative health symptoms when they eat it) and another 3 million suffer from full-blown Celiac’s Disease, which is an extreme form of gluten sensitivity that can be deadly (although all of it can ultimately be deadly).

Those numbers are conservative at the very best, however, considering

a) they are from 2011 and;

b) it’s a fact that some people don’t show any hardcore symptoms at all

... totally leading them to believe they suffer from something other than gluten intolerance and the resultant nutrient deficiency that follows.

Recently, research has come forward to suggest that it’s the main ingredient glyphosate in Big Agra giant Monsanto’s worldwide best-seller Roundup that is potentially behind the gluten intolerance (http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/study-monsantos-roundup-causes-gluten-intolerance/) epidemic we’re seeing today:

“Here, we propose that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide, Roundup®, is the most important causal factor in this epidemic.

“Fish exposed to glyphosate develop digestive problems that are reminiscent of celiac disease. Celiac disease is associated with imbalances in gut bacteria that can be fully explained by the known effects of glyphosate on gut bacteria.

“Characteristics of celiac disease point to impairment in many cytochrome P450 enzymes, which are involved with detoxifying environmental toxins, activating vitamin D3, catabolizing vitamin A, and maintaining bile acid production and sulfate supplies to the gut.

“Glyphosate is known to inhibit cytochrome P450 enzymes. Deficiencies in iron, cobalt, molybdenum, copper, and other rare metals associated with celiac disease can be attributed to glyphosate’s strong ability to chelate these elements…

“Glyphosate residues in wheat and other crops are likely increasing recently due to the growing practice of crop desiccation [drying] just prior to the harvest. We argue that the practice of “ripening” sugar cane with glyphosate may explain the recent surge in kidney failure among agricultural workers in Central America. We conclude with a plea to governments to reconsider policies regarding the safety of glyphosate residues in foods.” (source (http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/study-monsantos-roundup-causes-gluten-intolerance/)) Monsanto also began producing genetically modified glyphosate tolerant sorghum in the last decade, which is used in many of the gluten-free foods that make up that $4 billion gluten-free food market and which Monsanto mentions on its website (http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/sorghum-101.aspx) “is an excellent substitute for wheat for those who cannot tolerate gluten.” So what now?

Gluten sensitivities are spreading throughout modern society like cancer, and glyphosate is everywhere these days. We’re using more glyphosate now than at any other time since it was invented, and that figure is not set to lessen any time soon with the continued proliferation of Monsanto’s glyphosate-resistant crops all over the world.

Well, the “answer” the scientific community has come up with is…you guessed it…more GMO. One of the key components of the research paper first mentioned above is the creation of a transgenic approach:

Their report acknowledges that creating strains of wheat with reduced gluten toxicity is difficult using conventional breeding methods, and that genetic modification, in particular a technology called RNA interference (RNAi), hold the greatest promise in reducing or ‘silencing’ the gluten proteins in wheat and other cereals.

Such technology allows researchers to develop gluten-free wheat strains by adjusting the gluten fractions toxic to those with celiac disease. They acknowledge that their efforts could face resistance fueled by global concerns around genetically modified foods.

They also note that current and prior genetic modification efforts have not produced products with tangible benefits to the consumer. Rather, the main beneficiaries of such efforts have been large companies and/or farmers. (source (http://www.celiac.com/articles/23688/1/Is-Genetically-Modified-Wheat-the-Solution-to-Celiac-Disease/Page1.html)) So you see, we need genetic modification to save us from the burgeoning gluten intolerance issue! Well, who better to save us than global genetic modification giant Monsanto who is already in the process (http://rt.com/usa/monsanto-gmo-wheat-crop-648/) of testing a genetically modified strain of wheat as we speak?

Indeed, Monsanto has actually spent the better part of a decade-and-a-half researching GMO wheat. The company began field testing a variety starting in 1998, but suspended operations in 2005 after determining that a super-wheat strain wasn’t quite ready to be launched. See how that works?
Problem: glyphosate proliferation.
Reaction: widespread gluten-intolerance.
Solution: GMO wheat.

Diabolical, no?



Delivered by The Daily Sheeple (http://www.TheDailySheeple.com/)
Contributed by Melissa Melton of The Daily Sheeple (http://www.TheDailySheeple.com).

[Deborah (ahamkara)]

Thanks for the info on this thread. The GMO infiltration into the American diet is proceeding at an alarming rate. When communities try to put initiatives in place to label GMO foods, millions of dollars flood in from Monsanto et.al. to defeat labeling attempts. It is possible to avoid GMO foods but it takes diligence. It's nearly impossible to eat at restaurants, or while traveling. It is also awkward at friend's houses, barbecues, social functions, etc. I avoid ALL soy, corn, canola, wheat and non organic fruits and vegetables. I do not eat factory farmed (GMO fed) beef, chicken or pork as well as dairy or eggs from factory farmed animals.( I'm not a vegetarian). It takes a bit of time and energy, but the results in terms of health and well being are more than worth it. It is one battle that I think many of us can fight and win - keep talking and spreading information, such as on this thread and eventually, many (not all) people will recognize threat. Thanks.

[BlueMuffin]

Pesticides is hardly a problem that only extends to GMO's and processed food...

Take it from someone who has a legitimate Chemical sensitivity, I can no longer eat Organic food without an apparent reaction becoming obvious shortly thereafter. It was not always so even a few years ago.

I'm not sure what exactly they're spraying on the food, but it isn't much better than what's being sprayed on conventional crops. Interestingly enough, Big-agri. corps continually buy up all the Organic farms which I'm sure ties into the continued adulteration of what was once a much more preferable option. It is still preferable, but one questions how much it's worth with the extra price tag and continuing lessening of quality.

[Sidney]

It is becoming a reality that only those who are able to grow their own food will life a long prosperous life.

[Deborah (ahamkara)]

The control of food is one of the critical pillars of a controlled, global fascist society. Being healthy and clear is already a challenge - food, water, fluoride, chemtrails and electronic pollution all serve to dull and stupefy the population, leading to extreme apathy and depression. Add this to the media and screen time (just take a look at any public space, humans are unable to resist the urge to stare at their cell phones - which has become another form of mental enslavement). In the past, personal enlightenment was seen as a noble quest and understood to be a worthwhile goal. Now, I fear, simply being healthy and alert requires constant effort. I am glad to read hear that others are working to regain their natural birthright. My own natural vitality and energy as well as discernment is much higher when I control what I eat and consume. The next step, is indeed, my own personal garden, although in the northern climates this is a problem. Peace.

[onawah]

Why Monsanto Will Never Rule the Food World
http://nutiva.com/monsanto-will-never-rule-food-world/


published by THE NUTIVA TEAM on JUNE 26, 2014 ·
The Three-Prong Movement That’s Stopping the Beast in Its Tracks
by John W. Roulac

[Originally published in Green Money Journal]

john_lake-webThe issue of how we grow and process our food, while it’s always been important, is now a hot topic both at the kitchen table and on Wall Street. From the recent scandal about a chemical used in yoga mats being found in Subway bread to the rising awareness of GMOs and demands to label their presence in foods, the public is fast awakening to the need for safe, whole, natural nourishment.

In early May 2014, the stock price of Whole Foods Market (WFM) dropped about 20 percent in 24 hours, based largely on fears that Walmart and other grocery giants will overtake WFM’s share of organic food sales. The number of equity funds looking to invest in the next Annie’s or Clif Bar is astounding. Astute investors now understand that food impacts not just waistlines but bottom lines.

The elephant in the room is that agriculture, not transportation, is globally the greatest contributor to greenhouse gases—an issue that gets glossed over by Al Gore and 350.org alike. The media, whether in the recent New York Times food reportage or in the May 2014 National Geographic cover story on “The New Food Revolution,” all fail to mention the three most pressing food issues: the climate change connection; the vast subsidies to corn, soy, and wheat; and the massive increase in the use of Monsanto Roundup with its human health and ecosystem impacts.

Central to the conversation are the questions How do we grow our food in a more sustainable way? and Who decides? Should America lead the world in turning over our heritage of ancestral seeds to Monsanto or DuPont for them to patent as intellectual property? It’s becoming ever more widely known that each firm has a long history of making lethal war chemicals, creating toxic manufacturing sites that leak carcinogens into disadvantaged communities everywhere, and influencing the EPA, USDA, Congress, and the White House so that decisions made—such as the recently passed Farmer Assurance Provision (widely called by its critics the “Monsanto Protection Act”)—favor biotech.

The recent good news is that, on May 8, 2014, per a law signed by Governor Peter Shumlin, Vermont became the first U.S. state to mandate the labeling of foods made with genetically modified organisms. The Grocery Manufactures Association (GMA) has challenged the new law in court in what is expected to be an epic legal battle of the people vs. corporations. Supporting members of GMA include Starbucks, Kellogg’s, and General Mills.

The Three Ways That Monsanto Is Being Defeated

In spite of Monsanto’s death grip on the food system, important progress is being made in three key areas: (1) public education via social media, leading to (2) wiser food choices and(3) more sustainable investments.

All great movements begin at a grassroots level. Think of the civil rights sea change in the 1960s: the government acted to pass the civil rights bill only after the people had reached a tipping point about racial injustice. Having started in a similar grassroots fashion, the organic food movement is now well on its way to changing the food system worldwide.

Yet Monsanto and Big Ag are much better at crafting propaganda than were the bigots of the 1960s. The three biggest lies: that GMOs will feed the world, that organic agriculture can coexist with GMOs, and that Roundup-tainted GMO foods have been proven safe.

Although tens of millions of Americans might not understand all the complexities, they have a gut sense that something is very wrong with our food system, and little faith that Monsanto should be in charge of a baby’s nourishment. They can’t help but wonder how much Monsanto herbicide content in a mother’s breast milk is safe.

Cheerios Go Non-GMO
Cheerios Go Non-GMO

Some of the biggest news in the food industry this year is the General Mills conversion of Cheerios to a non-GMO cereal. This cultural milestone signals not only the swelling consumer exodus from industrial GMO foods, but also the rise in the use of social media by foodies to educate the public.

The Cheerios conversion is representative of a broad and radical trend in the entire North American food industry, as exemplified by last year’s announcement from Whole Foods Market that GMO foods and supplements must be labeled by 2018—a revelation that the non-GMO movement was becoming big business.

The GMO Inside coalition (of which I’m co-founder and co-chair) had begun to target Cheerios, in part because General Mills, was a big funder of “no” on California’s Prop 37, the failed right-to-know labeling campaign. In subsequent months, GMO Inside got 50 thousand anti-GMO comments placed on the Cheerios Facebook wall.

The startling General Mills announcement was the result of the strongest adverse media coverage in the history of GMOs. And in early 2014, Post Foods announced it was rolling out a non-GMO Grape-Nuts cereal.

Tens of millions are now realizing the stakes of turning over the food supply to a cabal of war-chemical giants that also includes Bayer and Syngenta. In the wake of the Cheerio’s changeover, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Smuckers Jam, Land O’Lakes, and even Starbucks lattes are caught up in an epic fight for public opinion, with Monsanto and friends on one side and the real food movement on the other.

Rain
How alarmingly efficient our industrialized food system has become! Roundup is now in the rainwater that falls from the heavens, and in the blood and urine of newborn babies. Not a moment too soon, our society is waking up, smelling the Roundup, and choose life-affirming foods grown in a way that honors all the generations to come.

The hippy roots of the nascent organic food movement in the 1970s and ’80s held a vision of a revitalized food system—one that devoutly honors the health of the soil. Today’s devoted organic farmers realize that a healthy society must start with healthy soils.

Americans vote at every meal for their preferred version of a food system. Cost is an issue, largely due to the giant subsidies paid to the GMO industrial-ag corn, soy, wheat, and sugar beets used for cheap junk foods.

GMO Inside’s latest campaign targets Starbucks’ “Monsanto Latte,” due to the fact that their milk is sourced from cows fed GMOs and injected with antibiotics on factory farms. GMO Insiders are also directing their efforts against the factory-farmed “Monsanto butter” produced by Land O’Lakes and Alta Dena Dairy.

Social media has become an effective tool in the creation of a better food system.

A Monsanto Stock Plunge

An Iowa-based group, Food Democracy Now, is calling for all citizens who invest in mutual foods to close their account if their fund is invested in Monsanto. More details at http://bit.ly/1ozgKJo.

“Already, the phone lines at Fidelity, Vanguard, and State Street have been ringing off the hook as thousands have reported calling their financial advisors and discovering that they have inadvertently owned shares of Monsanto’s stock,” comments Dave Murphy at Food Democracy Now. “Unfortunately, if you have a retirement fund, a 401K, or mutual funds you could be profiting from Monsanto’s toxic products.” The movement is aiming for an unprecedented stock plunge for Monsanto.


According to Murphy, Food Democracy Now’s prime reasons for targeting Monsanto include the following: “As the manufacturer of Agent Orange, DDT, PCPs, and dioxin, Monsanto’s toxic legacy of harm to the environment and human health is without parallel. Now Monsanto owns patents on life and is genetically engineering the food that we eat. In the past two years alone, Monsanto has helped fund massive misinformation campaigns to the tune of $70 million to defeat GMO labeling.”

Connecting Carbon, Climate Change, and Food

In our efforts to reduce carbon emissions, it’s vital that we reduce the demand for coal, oil, and fracking via wind and solar systems and plug-in hybrids. From the Tesla Company to First Solar, exciting work is being done.

What’s not well understood about climate change is how agriculture is both the number one problem and the number one solution. As we race past carbon dioxide concentrations of 380 parts per million, not only is our atmosphere being overloaded with CO2. The dirty little secret is that the oceans are becoming the carbon sink.

While people debate whether the planet is getting hotter or storms stronger due to climate change, we know for a fact that the oceans are getting very acidic. Not one scientist—not even one on the payroll of the Koch brothers—can refute the fact of the oceanic pH fall. Fast-forward another two or three decades and this will have led to a massive fish and coral reef die-off.

The solution is simple, and already at our fingertips. We need to become carbon farmers, or the customers of carbon farmers. This means ending the use of synthetic fertilizers and toxic pesticides and growing via the organic methods that build healthy soils. Mainly it means moving from CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) to pasture-based systems for raising chickens, pigs, and cows. In the process, we’ll lock the massive amounts of atmospheric carbon atoms into the top six inches of our planet’s soil.

This is no pipe dream, but it will require continuance of the major shift in consumer habits that’s already gaining speed. That is, choosing grass-fed meats, with their much healthier omega-3 levels, over CAFO meats. And reducing our overall meat consumption by 50 percent or more is vital. Already many meat eaters are cutting back their total consumption by half or two-thirds and choosing to eat only pastured meats. We need to keep moving away from the carbon-centric, GMO-based industrial farming that releases vast amounts of greenhouses gases into the environment.

The United States also needs to restore the domestic farming of hemp, which locks carbon from the air into its fibrous stalks. Hemp fiber can be grown for construction (it’s more energy-efficient in walls than are wood–based walls), auto parts (it’s lighter in weight than fiberglass, and thus more fuel-efficient), and many other uses.

Another resource is Biochar, a name for charcoal when it’s used for particular purposes, especially as a soil amendment and it also holds great promise as a new tool for carbon farmers. Biochar is being seen as a possible approach to carbon sequestration to produce negative carbon dioxide emissions.

Finally, I am including this link to a recent article from Judith Schwartz on Yale’s Environment 360 website “Soil as a Carbon Storehouse: A New Weapon in the Climate Fight?” It looks at the degradation of soils from unsustainable agriculture and other development, which has released billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere. But new research shows how effective land restoration could play a major role in sequestering CO2 and slowing climate change. Read more at http://bit.ly/1j4lTZv.

In closing, to secure and ensure a vital and livable world, we need to keep shifting from Monsanto-style industrialized farming to the wisdom and foresight of such positive approaches as Biochar. Central to the implementation of this new food system will be the crop rotation, soil-building practices, and pasture systems that are the basis of sustainable organic foods.

ABOUT JOHN
John W. Roulac founded Nutiva in 1999 to create a food system that nourishes people and the planet. As a challenger of the industrial food system, he is a strong advocate for hemp agriculture, GMO labeling, organic farming, and healthy food for all. Through his leadership, Nutiva has been named one of Inc. Magazine’s fastest-growing food companies in America for five consecutive years. He has founded four nonprofit groups, including GMO Inside and the Nutiva Nourish Foundation, which donates 1 percent of Nutiva’s sales to support sustainable agriculture and other environmental programs. John is the author of four books, including Backyard Composting and Hemp Horizons: The Comeback of the World’s Most Promising Plant.

[onawah]

Monsanto's Herbicide Linked to Fatal Kidney Disease Epidemic: Could It Topple the Company?
Truthout | News Analysis
Thursday, 10 July 2014
By Jeff Ritterman, M.D.,
http://truth-out.org/news/item/24876-monsantos-herbicide-linked-to-fatal-kidney-disease-epidemic-will-ckdu-topple-monsanto#.U79DEslBSek.facebook


Also see: Dahr Jamail |
Salvadoran Farmers Successfully Oppose the Use of Monsanto Seeds
Monsanto's herbicide Roundup has been linked to a mysterious fatal kidney disease epidemic that has appeared in Central America, Sri Lanka and India.
For years, scientists have been trying to unravel the mystery of a chronic kidney disease epidemic that has hit Central America, India and Sri Lanka. The disease occurs in poor peasant farmers who do hard physical work in hot climes. In each instance, the farmers have been exposed to herbicides and to heavy metals. The disease is known as CKDu, for Chronic Kidney Disease of unknown etiology. The "u" differentiates this illness from other chronic kidney diseases where the cause is known. Very few Western medical practitioners are even aware of CKDu, despite the terrible toll it has taken on poor farmers from El Salvador to South Asia.
Dr. Catharina Wesseling, the regional director for the Program on Work and Health (SALTRA) in Central America, which pioneered the initial studies of the region's unsolved outbreak, put it this way, "Nephrologists and public health professionals from wealthy countries are mostly either unfamiliar with the problem or skeptical whether it even exists."
Dr. Wesseling was being diplomatic. At a 2011 health summit in Mexico City, the United States beat back a proposal by Central American nations that would have listed CKDu as a top priority for the Americas.
David McQueen, a US delegate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who has since retired from the agency, explained the US position.
"The idea was to keep the focus on the key big risk factors that we could control and the major causes of death: heart disease, cancer and diabetes. And we felt, the position we were taking, that CKD was included."
The United States was wrong. The delegates from Central America were correct. CKDu is a new form of illness. This kidney ailment does not stem from diabetes, hypertension or other diet-related risk factors. Unlike the kidney disease found in diabetes or hypertension, the kidney tubules are a major site of injury in CKDu, suggesting a toxic etiology.

CKDu is now the second leading cause of mortality among men in El Salvador. This small, densely populated Central American country now has the highest overall mortality rate from kidney disease in the world. Neighboring Honduras and Nicaragua also have extremely high rates of kidney disease mortality. In El Salvador and Nicaragua, more men are dying from CKDu than from HIV/AIDS, diabetes, and leukemia combined. In one patch of rural Nicaragua, so many men have died that the community is called "The Island of the Widows."
In addition to Central America, India and Sri Lanka have been hit hard by the epidemic. In Sri Lanka, over 20,000 people have died from CKDu in the past two decades. In the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, more than 1,500 have been treated for the ailment since 2007. Given the rarity of dialysis and kidney transplantation in these regions, most who suffer from CKDu will die from their kidney disease.

In an investigation worthy of the great Sherlock Holmes, a scientific sleuth from Sri Lanka, Dr. Channa Jayasumana, and his two colleagues, Dr. Sarath Gunatilake and Dr. Priyantha Senanayake, have put forward a unifying hypothesis that could explain the origin of the disease. They reasoned that the offending agent had to have been introduced into Sri Lanka within the last 30 years, since the first cases appeared in the mid-1990s. The chemical also needed to be able to form stable complexes with the metals in hard water and to act as a shield, protecting those metals from metabolism by the liver. The compound would also need to act as a carrier and be able to deliver the metals to the kidney.
We know that political changes in Sri Lanka in the late 1970s led to the introduction of agrochemicals, especially in rice farming. The researchers looked for likely suspects. Everything pointed to glyphosate. This herbicide is used in abundance in Sri Lanka. Earlier studies had shown that once glyphosate binds with metals, the glyphosate-metal complex can last for decades in the soil.
Glyphosate was not originally designed for use as an herbicide. Patented by the Stauffer Chemical Company in 1964, it was introduced as a chelating agent. It avidly binds to metals. Glyphosate was first used as a descaling agent to clean out mineral deposits from the pipes in boilers and other hot water systems.
It is this chelating property that allows glyphosate to form complexes with the arsenic, cadmium and other heavy metals found in the groundwater and soil in Central America, India and Sri Lanka. The glyphosate-heavy metal complex can enter the human body in a variety of ways. The complex can be ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Glyphosate acts like a Trojan horse, allowing the bound heavy metal to avoid detection by the liver, since the glyphosate occupies the binding sites that the liver would normally latch onto. The glyphosate-heavy metal complex reaches the kidney tubules, where the high acidity allows the metal to break free of the glyphosate. The cadmium or arsenic then damages the kidney tubules and other parts of the kidneys, ultimately resulting in kidney failure and, most often, death.
At this point, this elegant theory advanced by Dr. Jayasumana and colleagues can only be considered hypothesis-generating. Further scientific studies will need to confirm the hypothesis that CKDu is indeed due to glyphosate-heavy metal toxicity to the kidney tubules. For the present, this may be the best explanation for the epidemic.
Another explanation is that heat stress may be the cause, or a combination of heat stress and chemical toxicity. Monsanto, of course, is standing behind glyphosate and disputing the claim that it plays any role whatsoever in the genesis of CKDu.
While the exact cause of CKDu has not been proven conclusively, both Sri Lanka and El Salvador have invoked the precautionary principle. El Salvador banned glyphosate in September 2013 and is currently looking for safer alternatives. Sri Lanka banned glyphosate in March of this year because of concerns about CKDu.

Glyphosate has had an interesting history. After its initial use as a descaling agent by Stauffer Chemical, scientists at Monsanto discovered its herbicidal qualities. Monsanto patented glyphosate as an herbicide in the 1970s, and has marketed it as "Roundup" since 1974. Monsanto retained exclusive rights until 2000, when the patent expired. By 2005, Monsanto's glyphosate products were registered in more than 130 countries for use in more than 100 crops. As of 2013, glyphosate was the world's largest selling herbicide.
Glyphosate's popularity has been due, in part, to the perception that it is extremely safe. The Monsanto website claims:
Glyphosate binds tightly to most types of soil so it is not available for uptake by roots of nearby plants. It works by disrupting a plant enzyme involved in the production of amino acids that are essential to plant growth. The enzyme, EPSP synthase, is not present in humans or animals, contributing to the low risk to human health from the use of glyphosate according to label directions.
Because of glyphosate's reputation for both safety and effectiveness, John Franz, who discovered glyphosate's usefulness as a herbicide, received the National Medal of Technology in 1987. Franz also received the American Chemical Society's Carothers Award in 1989, and the American Section of the Society of Chemical Industry's Perkins Medal in 1990. In 2007, he was inducted into the United States' Inventor's Hall of Fame for his work on the herbicide. Roundup was named one of the "Top 10 Products That Changed the Face of Agriculture" by the magazine Farm Chemicals in 1994.
Not everyone agrees with this perception of glyphosate's safety. The first "Roundup resistant" GMO crops, soybeans, were introduced by Monsanto in 1996. The same year, the first glyphosate resistant weeds began to emerge. Farmers responded by using increasingly toxic herbicides to deal with the new super weeds that had developed glyphosate resistance.
In addition to the concern about the emergence of super weeds, a study in rats demonstrated that low levels of glyphosate induced severe hormone-dependent mammary, hepatic, and kidney disturbances. Recently two activist groups, Moms Across America and Thinking Moms Revolution, asked the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to recall Monsanto's Roundup, citing a host of adverse health impacts in their children from the herbicide, including failure to thrive, leaky gut syndrome, autism and food allergies.
Glyphosate is no ordinary herbicide. Besides being the most used herbicide on earth, it is also the central pillar of Monsanto's temple. Most of Monsanto's seeds, including soy, corn, canola, alfalfa, cotton, sugar beets and sorghum, are glyphosate resistant. As of 2009, Monsanto's Roundup (glyphosate) products, which include its GMO seeds, represented about half of Monsanto's yearly revenue. This reliance on glyphosate products makes Monsanto extremely vulnerable to research challenging the herbicide's safety.
Glyphosate-resistant seeds are engineered to allow the farmer to drench his fields in the herbicide to kill off all of the weeds. The glyphosate resistant crop can then be harvested. But if the combination of glyphosate and the heavy metals found in the groundwater or the soil destroys the farmer's kidneys in the process, the whole house of cards falls apart. This may be what is happening now.
An ugly confrontation has been unfolding in El Salvador. The US government has been pressuring El Salvador to buy GMO seeds from Monsanto rather than indigenous seeds from their own farmers. The US has threatened to withhold almost $300 million in aid unless El Salvador purchases Monsanto's GMO seeds. The GMO seeds are more expensive. They are not adapted to the Salvadoran climate or soil.
The only "advantage" of Monsanto's GMO seeds is their glyphosate resistance. Now that glyphosate has been shown to be a possible, and perhaps likely, cause of CKDu, that "advantage" no longer exists.

What is the message from the United States to El Salvador exactly? Perhaps the kindest explanation is that the United States is unaware that glyphosate may be the cause of the fatal kidney disease epidemic in El Salvador and that the government sincerely believes that the GMO seeds will provide a better yield. If so, a sad mixture of ignorance and arrogance is at the heart of this foreign policy blunder. A less kind interpretation would suggest that the government puts Monsanto's profits above concerns about the economy, environment and health of the Salvadorans. This view would suggest that a tragic mix of greed and callous disregard for the Salvadorans is behind US policy.
Unfortunately, there is evidence to support the latter view. The United States seems to be completely behind Monsanto, regardless of any science questioning the safety of its products. Cables released by WikiLeaks show that US diplomats around the world are pushing GMO crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative. The cables also reveal instructions to punish any foreign countries trying to ban GMO crops.
Whatever the explanation, pressuring El Salvador, or any country, to buy GMO seeds from Monsanto is a tragic mistake. It is foreign policy not worthy of America. Let's change it. Let's base our foreign and domestic policies on human rights, environmental stewardship, health and equity.
Post script: After articles about the seed dispute appeared in the media, The New York Times reported that the United States has reversed its position and will stop pressuring El Salvador to buy Monsanto's seeds. Thus far, the aid money has not been released.
Copyright, Truthout.

[Sidney]

Ultimately.......MonSatan not monsanto. Nothing else makes sense.

[Hervé]

Monsanto/FDA: 2 crime families, trillion-dollar hustle (http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/monsantofda-2-crime-families-trillion-dollar-hustle/)

Jul22 (http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/monsantofda-2-crime-families-trillion-dollar-hustle/), 2014 by Jon Rappoport (http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/author/jonrappoport/)
www.nomorefakenews.com (http://www.nomorefakenews.com/)

“The propagandists who actually decide the content of mainstream news have done a bang-up job on Monsanto. They’ve made it seem that the science for and against GMO crops is a swamp of uncertainty no one can decipher. Therefore, leave it alone. Don’t step into it. This omits one stunning circumstance: exactly how GMO crops were permitted into the US food supply in the first place.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)Perhaps you remember the Just-Label-It campaign. A number of activist groups petitioned the FDA for a federal regulation that would make labeling GMO food mandatory all across America.

The petition amassed over a million signatures. But the FDA decided only 394 of these were legitimate, because all the others were electronically submitted in one document.

Infuriating? Of course. But that was nothing.

Imagine this. A killer is put on trial, and the jury, in a surprise verdict, finds him not guilty. Afterwards, reporters interview this killer. He says, “The jury freed me. It’s up to them. They decide. That’s what justice is all about.”

Then the press moves along to members of the jury, who say: Well, we had to take the defendant’s word. He said he was innocent, so that’s what we ruled.

That’s an exact description of the FDA and Monsanto partnership.

When you cut through the verbiage that surrounded the introduction of GMO food into America, you arrive at two key statements. One from Monsanto and one from the FDA, the agency responsible for overseeing, licensing, and certifying new food varieties as safe.

Quoted in the New York Times Magazine (October 25, 1998, “Playing God in the Garden”), Philip Angell, Monsanto’s director of corporate communications, famously stated: “Monsanto shouldn’t have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.”

From the Federal Register, Volume 57, No.104, “Statement of [FDA] Policy: Foods Derived from New Plant Varieties,” here is what the FDA had to say on this matter:


“Ultimately, it is the food producer who is responsible for assuring safety.”


The direct and irreconcilable clash of these two statements is no accident. It’s not a sign of incompetence or sloppy work or a mistake or a miscommunication. It’s a clear signal that the fix was in.

No real science. No deep investigation. No convincing evidence of safety. Passing the buck back and forth was the chilling and arrogant strategy through which Pandora’s Box was pried opened and GMO food was let into the US food supply.

In order for this titanic scam to work, the media had to cooperate. Reporters had to be a) idiots and b) sell-outs.

With few exceptions, reporters and their editors let the story rest there, as a “he said-he said” issue. No sane principled journalist would have cut bait at that point, but who said mainstream reporters are sane or principled?

Underneath the Monsanto-FDA buck-passing act, there was a conscious deal to give a free pass to GMO crops. This had nothing to do with science or health or “feeding the world.” It was about profits. It was also about establishing a new monopoly on food.

Not only would big agribusiness dominate the planet’s food supply as never before, it would strengthen its stranglehold through patents on novel types of seeds which were technologically engineered.

It’s very much like saying, “A cob of corn is not a plant, it’s a machine, and we own the rights to every one of those yellow machines.”

How was Monsanto able to gather so much clout?

There was one reason and one reason only. Putting the world’s food supply into fewer hands was, and is, a major item on the Globalist agenda. If it weren’t, the FDA-Monsanto scam would have been exposed in a matter of weeks or months.

Major newspapers and television networks would have attacked the obvious con job like packs of wild dogs and torn it to pieces.

But once the scam had been given a free pass, the primary corporate-government tactic was to accomplish a fait accompli, a series of events that was irreversible.

In this case, it was about gene drift. From the beginning, it was well known that GMO plants release genes that blow in the wind and spread from plant to plant, crop to crop, and field to field. There is no stopping it.

Along with convincing enough farmers to lock themselves into GMO-seed contracts, Monsanto bought up food-seed companies in order to engineer the seeds…and the gene-drift factor was the ace in the hole.

Sell enough GMO seeds, plant enough GMO crops, and you flood the world’s food crops with Monsanto genes.

Back in the 1990s, the prince of darkness, Michael Taylor, who has moved through the revolving door between the FDA and Monsanto several times, and is now the czar of food safety at the FDA—Taylor said, with great conviction, that the GMO revolution was unstoppable; within a decade or two, an overwhelming percentage of food grown on planet Earth would be GMO.

Taylor and others knew. They knew about gene drift, and they also knew that ownership of the world’s food, by a few companies, was a prime focus for Globalist kings who intended to feed the population through Central Planning and Distribution.

–“We feed these people; we hold back food from those people; we send food there; we don’t send food here.”–


Control food and water, and you hold the world in your hand.


Here is evidence that, even in earlier days, Monsanto knew about and pushed for the Globalist agenda. Quoted by J. Flint, in his 1998 “Agricultural Giants Moving Towards Genetic Monopolism,” Robert Fraley, head of Monsanto’s agri-division, stated:

“What you are seeing is not just a consolidation of [Monsanto-purchased] seed companies. It’s really a consolidation of the entire food chain.”And as for the power of the propaganda in that time period, I can think of no better statement than the one made on January 25th, 2001, by the outgoing US Secretary of Agriculture, Dan Glickman. As reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Glickman said:

“What I saw generically on the pro-biotech [GMO] side was the attitude that the technology was good and that it was almost immoral to say that it wasn’t good, because it was going to solve the problems of the human race and feed the hungry and clothe the naked. And there was a lot of money that had been invested in this, and if you’re against it, you’re Luddites, you’re stupid. There was rhetoric like that even here in this department [USDA]. You felt like you were almost an alien, disloyal, by trying to present an open-minded view on some of these issues being raised. So I pretty much spouted the rhetoric that everybody else around here spouted; it was written into my speeches.”Glickman reveals several things in these remarks: he was spineless; people at the Dept. of Agriculture were madly buying into the Monsanto cover story about feeding the world; and there had to be a significant degree of infiltration at his Agency.

The last point is key. This wasn’t left to chance. You don’t get a vocal majority of Dept. of Agriculture personnel spouting the Monsanto propaganda merely because the fairy tale about feeding the world sounds so good. No, there are people working on the inside to promote the “social cause” and make pariahs out of dissenters.

You need special background and training to pull that off. It isn’t an automatic walk in the park. This is professional psyop and intelligence work.

I’ve done some investigation of various groups on both the left and the right, and I’ve seen some pros in action. They’re good. They know how to leverage ideas and slogans and ideals. They know how to defame opponents and find the right words to sink them. They know how to turn high-flying but vague words about “humanity” into moral imperatives.

This isn’t rinky-dink stuff. To tune up bureaucrats and scientists, you have to have a background in manipulation. You have to know what you’re doing. You have to be able to build and sustain support, without giving your game away.

Truth be told, governments are full of these pros, who will take any number of causes and turn them into what falsely sounds like good science, good government, good morality, all the while knowing that, on the far shore, sits the real prize: control.

These psyop specialists are hired to help make overarching and planet-wide agendas come true, as populations are brought under sophisticated and pathological elites who care, for example, about feeding the world as much as a collector cares about paralyzing and pinning butterflies on a panel in a glass case.

Here is David Rockefeller, writing in his 2003 Memoirs:

“Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.” The Globalists play for keeps.

Owning the food of the world is part of their strike-force action plan, and Monsanto is the technocratic arm of that plan.

Meanwhile, the controlled press treats the whole sordid Monsanto/FDA story with its time-honored policy of “he said-he said.” This policy dictates that stories merely present both sides of a conflict without drawing conclusions.

It applies across the board—except when it doesn’t. For example, for reasons too complex to go into here, the Washington Post decided to suspend its policy in the Watergate case. Woodward and Bernstein were assigned to investigate what was going on behind White House denials and obfuscations.

The same thing could be done with Monsanto, and it would be far easier. The lies and crimes and cover-ups are everywhere. You could wear sunglasses and find them in the dark.

The NY Times and the Washington Post could sell millions more papers on the back of the Monsanto story alone. It would be a bonanza for them. But no. They don’t care. They’d rather keep declining and losing readers. They’d rather die.

Normally, a business doesn’t commit suicide, especially when it sees exactly how to resuscitate itself. But here we are dealing with an agenda which can’t be disturbed. Globalism, and its agri-techno partner, Monsanto, are creating a planetary future. Major media are part and parcel of that op. They are selling it.

Even as their bottom lines erode, these newspapers and television networks have to stay on their present course. By pretending they’re reporting the real news, they’re giving the impression that Monsanto and the FDA are home free.

Again, we aren’t talking about sloppy reporting or accidental omissions of fact or boggling incompetence or ignorance about science. We are talking about conscious intent to deceive.

Yes, now and then the controlled media will release a troubling piece about Monsanto. But placement and frequency are everything. How often do these stories run? Do they run as the lead or do we find them on page 7? Are reporters assigned to keep pounding on a basic story and reveal more and more crimes? Does the basic story gather steam over the course of weeks and months?

These are the decisions that make or break a story. In the case of Monsanto and the FDA, the decisions were made a long time ago.

Part of every reporter’s training in how the real world works, if he has any ideals at all, is marching into his editor’s office with his hair on fire demanding to be given an assignment to expose a crime. The editor, knowing the true agenda of his newspaper or television network, tells the reporter:

“We’ve already covered that.”

“It’s old news.”

“People aren’t interested in it.”

“It’s too complicated.”

“The evidence you’re showing me is thin.”

“You’ll never get to the bottom of it.”

“The people involved won’t talk to you.”

And if none of those lies work, the editor might say, “If you keep pushing this, it would be bad for your career. You’ll lose access for other stories. You’ll be thought of as weird…”

This is how the game works at ground level. But make no mistake about it, the hidden agenda is about protecting an elite’s op from exposure.

If NBC, for example, gave its golden boy, Brian Williams, the green light, he would become an expert on Monsanto in three days. He’d become a tiger. He’d affect a whole set of morally outraged poses and send Monsanto down into Hell.

Don’t misunderstand. Brian hasn’t been waiting to move in for the kill. But wind him up and point to a target and he’ll go there.

However, no one at NBC in the executive offices will point him at Monsanto or the FDA.

All the major reporters at news outlets and all the elite television anchors are really psyop specialists. It’s just that most of them don’t know it.

One outraged major reporter who woke up and got out of the business put it to me this way: When he was in the game, he looked at the news as a big public restroom. His one guiding principle was: Don’t piss on your shoes. Pissing on your shoes was covering a story that was considered out of bounds. If you walked into the boss’s office, he’d look you up and down and see the telltale sign. He’d say, “Hey, you pissed on your shoes. Get out of here. You’re fired.”

Jon Rappoport

[onawah]

Monsanto Ordered to Pay $93 Million to Small Town for Poisoning Citizens

http://naturalsociety.com/monsanto-ordered-pay-93-million-small-town-poisoned-herbicide/


Monsanto Ordered to Pay $93 Million to Small Town for Poisoning Citizens
by Christina Sarich
July 25th, 2014


Big wins can happen in small places. The West Virginia State Supreme Court finalized a big blow to the biotech giant Monsanto this month, finishing a settlement causing Monsanto to pay $93 million to the tiny town of Nitro, West Virginia for poisoning citizens with Agent Orange chemicals.

The settlement was approved last year, but details were worked out only weeks ago as to how the funds were to be spent.

The settlement will require Monsanto to do the following:



$9 million will be spent to clean dioxin contaminated dust from 4500 homes.
$21 million will be spent to test to see if people have been poisoned with dioxin.
Citizens will be monitored for such poisoning for 30 years, not just a few months.
An additional $63 million is to be allotted if additional tests for dioxin contamination testing is necessary.
Anyone who lived in the Nitro area between Jan. 1, 1948, and Sept. 3, 2010 will be tested for dioxin. Although they must show proof they lived in the area, they will be eligible for testing even if they no longer live in Nitro.
Former or present employees of Monsanto are not eligible for any of these benefits.
An office will be set up to organize testing for Nitro citizens. The registration of participants is to be overlooked by Charleston attorney Thomas Flaherty, who was appointed by the court.
Residents have a right to file individual suits against Monsanto if medical tests show they suffered physical harm due to dioxin exposure.
Monsanto Produced Toxic Chemicals in Nitro

Just how were Nitro citizens exposed to dioxin? Monsanto was producing the toxic herbicide Agent Orange in Nitro, and dioxin is a chemical byproduct of the substance. It is known to cause serious health conditions. The factory which produced Agent Orange was opened in Nitro in 1948 and remained in operation until 2004, even though usage of this herbicide in the past (in Vietnam and other Asian countries) was fatal to millions of citizens and the war veterans who were exposed to it.

“There is no doubt that during and after the war, many Vietnamese absorbed this very toxic material [dioxin]. It is our belief from toxicological research and epidemiologicalstudies from many countries that this dioxin probably resulted in significant health effects in Vietnam.” – Arnold Schecter and John Constable

“It’s been a real long haul,” attorney Stuart Calwell told The Charleston Gazette. Calwell represented Nitro area residents in a class action suit that prompted Monsanto to make the settlement.

“The politics of dioxin has been bitterly debated since the Vietnam War, but … we know that there is a health issue there and hopefully people will get their houses cleaned and the risk will come to an end and those exposed in the past will have the benefit of keeping an eye on their health.”

The people of Nitro still need to fill out a register to receive the benefits outlined in the settlement. Due to the pivotal nature of this landmark settlement, Nitro citizens need to participate as fully as possible to set a precedent for other class action suits that farmers and consumers of GMO foods around the world might wage against Monsanto in the future to finally take them down. If enough of us do it at once, then even their bloated coffers will finally be depleted, and we can enjoy a world without being poisoned to death.

While this case did not involve glyphosate, another deadly toxin used in Monsanto herbicides such as RoundUp, its time will come soon.



Other Popular Stories:
Monsanto Pays 93 Million to Victims In Settlement
Above the Law: Supreme Court Sides with Monsanto over Farmers in Patent Case
Brief History: Monsanto Has Been A Merchant of Death for Decades
Ingesting Poison – Dioxin Found to Cause Disease for over Three Generations
White House, US Courts & EPA Shaft Veterans to Protect Monsanto
Take Action: How to Deprive Monsanto of their $70 Million GMO Campaign Money


Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/monsanto-ordered-pay-93-million-small-town-poisoned-herbicide/#ixzz38dGO9kBW
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[Hervé]

U.S. Government To Pull Foreign Aid In El Salvador For Refusing Monsanto Seeds (http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/07/26/u-s-government-to-pull-foreign-aid-in-el-salvador-for-refusing-monsanto-seeds/)

July 26, 2014 by Arjun Walia (http://www.collective-evolution.com/author/arjun/).


http://cdn3.collective-evolution.com/assets/uploads/2014/07/fruit.jpeg


Governments do not dictate major policy, major multinational corporations do. We’ve seen this time and time again, and one of the best examples out there is Monsanto. This time, the United States government wants to force GMO seeds on El Salvadorian farmers.

Encouraged by the U.S. Embassy, the Millennium Challenge Corporation had “granted” El salvador 277 million dollars to “improve El Salvador’s competitiveness and productivity in international markets.” This, however, would not come without certain commitments and obligations, which included a commitment to ensure that the Ministry of Agriculture’s procurement of corn and bean seed would “be consistent with the provisions of the CAFTA-DR( Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement).” (1)

“We are asking the Government of EL Salvador to implement the procurement program for corn and bean seeds in a competitive, objective, and transparent manner that demonstrates to all stakeholders both EL Salvador’s commitment to the CAFTA-DR, as well as its commitment to good governance. Such principles are inherent in the provisions of the CAFTA-DR.” (1) (http://sansalvador.usembassy.gov/news/2014/06/19.html)
Again, without these specific economic reforms the U.S. government will not provide El Salvador with the 277 million dollars in aid money through the MCC. What is happening here? The U.S. is seeking to spark economic growth in El Salvador through various policy reforms created and set up by Washington.What will this lead to? More pollution? More environmental degradation?

Farmers across the country have united in order to stop this stipulation within this US aid package. Which again, indirectly requires the purchase of Monsanto genetically modified (GM) seeds.

“Transnational companies have been known to provide expired seeds that they weren’t able to distribute elsewhere. We would like the US embassy and the misinformed media outlets to know more about the reality of national producers and recognize the food sovereignty of the country.” - Juan Joaquin Luna Vides, 45 year old Salvadoran farmer (2) (http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/24811-el-salvadoran-farmers-successfully-oppose-the-use-of-monsanto-seeds)
Hundreds of other farmers have successfully produced high-quality seed that is adapted to the specific soil and climate conditions of their country. Using indigenous seeds simply makes more sense.

If you didn’t know, Monsanto controls the majority of seeds all over the world. In India alone, thousands of farmers lost their livelihoods, and many farmers all over the world have filed lawsuits against Monsanto.

“In defining seed as their creation and invention, corporations like Monsanto shape the Global Intellectual Property and Patent Laws so that they can prevent farmers from seed saving and sharing, forcing them into dependence on their patented GMO seeds.” - Dr. Vandana Shiva (source) (http://www.navdanya.org/news/360-monsantos-climate-resilient-plant-patent-rejected-by-indias-patent-office-rejection-upheld-by-the-intellectual-property-appellate-board)
The president of the El Salvadorian Center for Appropriate Technologies (CESTA) criticized the US negotiating position and says the country should back away from its demand.

CESTA President Ricardo Navarro said that:

“I would like to tell the U.S. Ambassador to stop pressuring the Government (of El Salvador) to buy ‘improved’ GM seeds. There is a harmful corporation on the planet called Monsanto…it is truly disturbing that the U.S. is trying to promote them.” (source) (http://rt.com/usa/165128-us-pressures-salvador-monsanto-gmo/)
El Salvador has been taking leaps that other countries in South America have been taking, in September of 2013 they completely banned glyphosate, a chemical used in Monsanto’s Roundup pesticides along with dozens of other agricultural chemicals. Sri Lanka also recently banned it after citing a link to a deadly kidney disease (you can read more about that HERE (http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/03/31/sri-lanka-bans-monsanto-herbicide-citing-deadly-link-to-kidney-disease/)). It’s also been linked to various diseases, including cancer. You can find out more about Glyphosate and links to studies HERE (http://www.collective-evolution.com/?s=glyphosate).

In 2013, a Washington, DC-based watchdog group called “Food & Water Watch” released a report detailing how the US State Department issued directives to US embassies to promote biotech products and to be responsive to the concerns of the biotech industry. The report said:

“Between 2007 and 2009, the State Department sent annual cables to ‘encourage the use of agricultural biotechnology,’ directing every diplomatic post worldwide to ‘pursue and active biotech agenda’ that promotes agricultural biotechnology, encourages the export of biotech crops and foods and advocated for pro-biotech policies and laws.” (source) (http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/reports/biotech-ambassadors/)
WikiLeaks Cables
Something like this might be considered economic warfare, it’s happened before. There are cables released by WikiLeaks that reveal the Bush administration developed ways to retaliate against Europe for refusing to use genetically modified seeds. (source 1 (http://rt.com/usa/wikileaks-monsanto-cables-report-273/)) (source 2) (http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/23/wikileaks_cables_reveal_us_sought_to) (source 3 (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/03/wikileaks-us-eu-gm-crops)) The US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style economic war against any European Union country that opposed GM crops.

“The United States has aggressively pursued foreign policies in food and agriculture that benefit the largest seed companies. The U.S. State Department has launched a concerted strategy to promote agricultural biotechnology, often over the opposition of the public and government, to the near exclusion of other more sustainable, more appropriate agricultural policy alternatives. The U.S. State Department has also lobbied foreign governments to adopt pro-agricultural biotechnology policies and laws, operated a rigorous public relations campaign to improve the image of biotechnology and challenged common sense biotechnology safeguards and rules – even including opposing laws requiring the labelling of genetically engineered (GE) foods.” (source) (http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/reports/biotech-ambassadors/) (referenced by wikileaks on twitter, see rt news link)
Final Comments
As you can see, it’s not just the studies coming out year after year indicating that GM foods can be harmful to human health, it’s shady politics and other meanderings that clearly indicate something is up here. It’s great to see the power of activism working, as multiple countries around the world have banned GMOs and the pesticides that go with them. The Marches Against Monsanto the past two years have seen millions gather all over the world to oppose the major biotech giant.

There are better ways to feed the world, organically. It’s possible and we have the resources to do so. Ask yourself, why aren’t we doing it?

For more on this story, please read THIS (http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/24811-el-salvadoran-farmers-successfully-oppose-the-use-of-monsanto-seeds) article, written by award winning investigative journalist Dahr Jamail from truth-out.org. (http://www.truth-out.org)

Sources:
(1)http://sansalvador.usembassy.gov/news/2014/06/19.html (http://sansalvador.usembassy.gov/news/2014/06/19.html)

(2)http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/24811-el-salvadoran-farmers-successfully-oppose-the-use-of-monsanto-seeds (http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/24811-el-salvadoran-farmers-successfully-oppose-the-use-of-monsanto-seeds)

http://rt.com/usa/165128-us-pressures-salvador-monsanto-gmo/

http://www.ibtimes.com/us-wants-force-gmo-seeds-salvadoran-farmers-theyre-resisting-report-1623064

All other sources are highlighted throughout the article.

[Hervé]

“Agri-terrorism”? Feds Shut Down Seed Library in Pennsylvania
(http://www.globalresearch.ca/agri-terrorism-feds-shut-down-seed-library-in-pennsylvania/5394750)
War on self-sufficiency intensifies
By Paul Joseph Watson (http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/paul-joseph-watson)
Global Research, August 04, 2014
InfoWars (http://www.infowars.com/agri-terrorism-feds-shut-down-seed-library-in-pennsylvania/)



http://www.globalresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/pennsylvania-seeds-library-shut-down-agri-terrorism-400x206.jpg


In yet another example of the federal government’s war on self-sufficiency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture shut down a seed library in Pennsylvania, claiming that a system whereby residents could borrow heirloom seeds and then replace them at harvest time was a violation of the 2004 Seed Act, while a commissioner warned that such behavior could lead to “agri-terrorism.”



When the Cumberland County Library System set up the facility at Mechanicsburg’s Joseph T. Simpson Public Library back in April, they thought it would be a useful way for locals to borrow seeds and replace them at the end of the growing season, encouraging residents to learn more about growing their own food and acquiring key self-sufficiency skills.



Following in the footsteps of similar initiatives across the state, the library system was careful to check that they were doing everything by the book and not breaking any laws as well as meeting with the county extension office.



However, the deadly threat posed by the seed library was soon made clear when the U.S. Department of Agriculture sent a letter telling the library system that they were in violation of the 2004 Seed Act, which regulates the selling of seeds (the library was not selling them), under the justification of preventing the growth of invasive plant species, cross-pollination and poisonous plants.



“The commissioners were equally flabbergasted by the change of events, as well as with how the agriculture department handled the investigation — sending a high-ranking official and lawyers to a meeting with the library,” reports the Cumberlink Sentinel (http://cumberlink.com/news/local/communities/carlisle/department-of-agriculture-cracks-down-on-seed-libraries/article_8b0323f4-18f6-11e4-b4c1-0019bb2963f4.html).



Feds told the library system that they would have to test each individual seed packet in order for the facility to continue, an impossible task, which meant that the seed library was shut down.



Cumberland County Library System Executive Director Jonelle Darr was told that the USDA would, “continue to crack down on seed libraries that have established themselves in the state.”



Cumberland County Commissioner Barbara Cross applauded the USDA’s decision, warning that allowing residents to borrow seeds could have led to acts of “agri-terrorism.”



The library has abandoned the seed system and instead can only promote events where residents are encouraged to directly swap seeds with each other.



“Gosh, this makes me wonder when they are going to crack down on all of those GMO fields, with their grave concerns about cross-pollination,” writes Daisy Luther (http://www.theorganicprepper.ca/dept-of-agri-shuts-down-cell-of-potential-agri-terrorists-seed-libraries-outlawed-in-pennsylvania-08032014). “Look out, Monsanto…oh, wait. This only applies to regular people growing vegetables. GMOs aren’t considered an invasive species.”

While the USDA is busy cracking down on local seed libraries in the name of preventing cross-pollination, many accuse the federal agency of being completely in the pocket of biotech giant Monsanto, which itself has been responsible for cross-pollinating farmers’ crops (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/12/gmo-wheat-lawsuit-idaho_n_3430961.html) with genetically modified seeds on an industrial scale.



Monsanto is also responsible for creating Agent Orange and PCBs, neither of which can be considered to have had a positive environmental impact.



David Swanson goes further (http://www.nationofchange.org/monsanto-has-taken-over-usda-1368111215), arguing that Monsanto is, “responsible for environmental disasters that have destroyed entire towns, and a driving force behind the international waves of suicides among farmers whose lives it has helped ruin,” and that the company, “has monopolized our food system largely by taking over regulatory agencies like the U.S. Department of Agriculture.”



The Obama administration has also appointed numerous former Monsanto executives to key roles within the USDA (http://grist.org/article/2009-09-24-usda-obama-monsanto-organic/), leading to accusations that the federal agency is merely a water carrier for Monsanto which acts to eliminate its competition, no matter how small scale.



It seems that while the U.S. government, via USAID, as well as huge corporations like DuPont and the Rockefeller Foundation, fund the creation of monolithic ‘doomsday’ seed vaults (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault) in the event of an environmental catastrophe, any attempt by ordinary Americans to become self-sufficient by obtaining their own heirloom seeds will be countered with the full legal force of the federal bureaucracy.



Paul Joseph Watson is the editor at large of Infowars.com (http://infowars.com/) and Prison Planet.com (http://prisonplanet.com/).

[Hervé]

Double barreled gun aimed at humanity's head: The pair GMO-Roundup/Glyphosate:



More from Dr. Seneff:

Meet the controversial MIT scientist who claims she discovered a cause of gluten intolerance (http://www.alternet.org/food/meet-controversial-mit-scientist-who-claims-have-discovered-cause-gluten-sensitivty?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark)

Ari LeVaux
Alternet (http://www.alternet.org/food/meet-controversial-mit-scientist-who-claims-have-discovered-cause-gluten-sensitivty?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark)

...
In recent months, Seneff co-authored two papers proposing a connection between the herbicide glyphosate and gluten sensitivity. I spoke with Seneff by phone about this hypothesis, her transition from computer science into biology, and her reputation in the scientific community.
~~~~~~~~~

Mel Fabregas has just posted an interview with Stephanie Seneff on Sanitas Radio: Glyphosate [Roundup]: The GMO Pathway to Disease & Cellular Death (Audio at this link) (http://www.sanitasradio.com/guests/2014/08aug/SR-140805-sseneff-p.php).

http://thepythoniccow.us/Stephanie_Seneff_Glycophosphate.jpg (http://www.sanitasradio.com/guests/2014/08aug/SR-140805-sseneff-p.php)
The (lengthy) description of the includes:




Celiac disease, and, more generally, gluten intolerance, is a growing problem worldwide, but especially in North America and Europe, where an estimated 5% of the population now suffers from it. Symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, skin rashes, macrocytic anemia and depression. It is a multifactorial disease associated with numerous nutritional deficiencies as well as reproductive issues and increased risk to thyroid disease, kidney failure and cancer. Here, we propose that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide, Roundup®, is the most important causal factor in this epidemic.

[Hervé]

Why Monsanto's 'Cure' For World Hunger Is Cursing The Global Food Supply (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-weed-killer-linked-vanishing-bees-3)

Posted on: Sunday, August 3rd 2014 at 11:15 am
Written By: Sayer Ji, Founder (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/gmi-blogs/sayer%20ji)


http://cdn.greenmedinfo.com/sites/default/files/ckeditor/Sayer%20Ji/images/preview.jpg


What if the very GM agricultural system that Monsanto claims will help to solve the problem of world hunger depends on a chemical that kills the very pollinator upon which approximately 70% of world's food supply now depends?

A new study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology titled, "Effects of field-realistic doses of glyphosate on honeybee appetitive behavior (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/adverse-effects-field-realistic-doses-glyphosate-honeybee-appetitive-behavior)," establishes a link between the world's most popular herbicide – aka Roundup – and the dramatic decline in honeybee (Apis mellifera) populations in North American and Europe that lead to the coining of the term 'colony collapse disorder (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/disease/bee-colony-collapse)' (CCD) in late 2006 to describe the phenomena.[1] (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-weed-killer-linked-vanishing-bees-3?page=2#_ftn1)

The researchers found that concentrations of glyphosate (GLY) consistent with the type of exposures associated with standard spraying practices in GM agricultural- and neighboring eco- systems reduced the honeybee's sensitivity to nectar reward and impaired their learning abilities – two behavioral consequences likely to adversely affect their survival abilities. Moreover, while sub-lethal doses were not found to overtly affect their foraging behavior, they hypothesized that because of their resilience, "..forager bees could become a source of constant inflow of nectar with GLY traces that could then be distributed among nest mates, stored in the hive and have long- term negative consequences on colony performance."

A Deeper Look at the New Study: Roundup Interferes with Bee Appetite and Learning
Roundup herbicide (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/toxic-ingredient/roundup-herbicide) is a ubiquitous toxicant, with an accumulating body of research now showing it is a common contaminant in our air (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-weedkiller-found-75-air-and-rain-samples-gov-study-finds), water (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/gmo-farming-poisoning-worlds-drinking-water), rain, soil (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/un-earthed-monsantos-glyphosate-destroying-soil) and food (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/epa-american-people-let-them-eat-monsantos-roundup-ready-cake), and in physiologically relevant concentrations (even the part-per-trillion concentration range (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/breaking-glyphosate-roundup-carcinogenic-parts-trillion-range)demonstrates endocrine disruptive and potentially carcinogenic properties) to microbial, insect, animal and human life.

When Roundup herbicide was first evaluated for toxicity to the honeybee, the focus was on acute toxicity of the 'active ingredient' and not sub-lethal and prolonged exposure effects; and certainly not the amplified toxicological synergies present in glyphosate formulations (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/toxic-ingredient/glyphosate-formulations) like Roundup, which when the so-called 'inert' adjuvant ingredients (e.g. surfactants) are taken into account, have been found to be at least 125 times more toxic than glyphosate alone (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-herbicide-125-times-more-toxic-regulators-say). By only taking into account acute toxicity – as measured by the so-called LD50 (lethal dose, 50%) – on the 'active' ingredient, government regulators approved glyphosate as relatively harmless to honeybees prematurely.

The researchers expanded on the topic:

"Glyphosate [GLY] toxicity tests on Apis mellifera for product approval did not consider sub-lethal nor prolonged exposure effects. Studies were only focused on obtaining LD50 (lethal dose, 50%) as a measure of the effect of an acute exposure, but nevertheless, they were carried out on the basis that honeybees might in fact be exposed to GLY in their natural environment, either through the consumption of contaminated resources or through a direct exposure as a result of inadvertent spraying (Giesy et al., 2000). Even though LD50 results seem to indicate that GLY is not harmful for honeybees, the fact that honeybees are potentially exposed to GLY motivated us to pursue further analysis and to address the lack of chronic studies." The authors of the new study set out to test whether doses of glyphosate bees would realistically encounter in the field (field-realistic doses) could affect their feeding behavior (appetitive behavior) in a deleterious manner.

They exposed honeybees to field-realistic doses of glyphosate chronically and acutely, and observed: "a reduced sensitivity to sucrose and learning performance for the groups chronically exposed to GLY concentrations within the range of recommended doses," as well as significant decrease in elemental learning, non-elemental associative learning, and short-term memory retention, when exposed to acute GLY doses.

Roundup Already Identified As Likely Cause of Colony Collapse Disorder
This latest study is not the first to link glyphosate to the vanishing honeybee.

Extensive research on the topic performed by Dr. Don D. Huber and summarized in an article published last year titled, "Is glyphosate a contributing cause of bee colony collapse disorder (CCD)? (http://www.gmoevidence.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/BeesYet_Another_Suspect_in_CCD_2_.pdf)," lead him to conclude that the 880 million pounds of glyphosate released into the environment worldwide has been contributing to the collapse of the honeybee. The paper revealed the following six ways that glyphosate could contribute to CCD:


Glyphosate chelates minerals, lowers nutrients in plants: In CCD, Malnutrition is universally present.



Glyphosate acts like an antibiotic to beneficial bacteria: In CCD, loss of Lactobacillus and other critical beneficial bacteria for digestion is commonly observed.



Glyphosate is a neurotoxin: In CCD, honeybees experience neurological changes associated with disorientation.



Gyphosate causes endocrine hormone & immune disruption: In CCD, immunity and other hormonal variables are altered or suppressed.



Glyphosate stimulates fungal overgrowth: In CCD, the fungal pathogen Nosema increases.



Glyphosate persists and accumulates: High environmental exposure, including glyphosate residues present in honey, nectar and other plant products, make honeybees susceptible to continual toxic challenge -- which is believed to be a primary underlying cause of CCD.

Other Factors Contributing to Colony Collapse
While it is now increasingly acknowledged that many agrochemicals pesticides -- especially neonicotinoids -- are toxic to honeybees, there are other factors that likely play a role as well:


Electromagnetic pollution (http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/06/30/bee.decline.mobile.phones/)
High fructose corn syrup (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/formation-hydroxymethylfurfural-domestic-high-fructose-corn-syrup-and-its)
GMO insecticidal proteins (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/does-cry1ab-protein-affect-learning-performances-honey-bee-apis-mellifera-l)[2] (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-weed-killer-linked-vanishing-bees-3?page=1#_ftn2)
Parasitic flies (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/new-threat-honey-bees-parasitic-phorid-fly-apocephalus-borealis)

It should be pointed out that the last factor listed – infectious organisms – are likely more a symptom than a cause of honeybee morbidity and mortality. In other words, following electromagnetic, agrochemical and dietary assault, the immune system of the honeybee – and the collective immunity of the hive – weakens, leading to greater susceptibility to opportunistic infections.

One USDA study published in 2013 discussed the role of fungicidal contaminants in pollen leading to increased probability of Nosema fungal infection in bees who consumed pollen with a higher fungicide load.[3] (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-weed-killer-linked-vanishing-bees-3?page=1#_ftn3)

This linkage between chemical exposure > immune suppression, > opportunistic infection, is especially poignant when it comes to Roundup herbicide, which profoundly alters the makeup of the beneficial flora in exposed organisms, leading to the overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-herbicide-linked-overgrowth-deadly-bacteria). A 2012 PloS study found that lactic acid bacteria living in the crop (the part of the bee's alimentary canal that stores food prior to digestion) of bees are vitally important for the health of honeybees, with some strains suggesting a history of association with bees stretching over 80,000,000 years ago. Various chemical are capable of damaging this vitally important locus for the honeybee's immunity and digestion, and are likely exerting their adverse effects through sublethal, hard to detect mechanisms.

Why Does Monsanto Own Beelogics, 'The Guardian of Bee Health Worldwide'?
On Sept. 28th, 2011, Monsanto announced that it was acquiring the company Beeologics, whose explicit goal is to become "the guardian of the bee health wordwide," including finding ways to address CCD.

Here is their mission statement (http://www.beeologics.com/about-us/):

"Beeologics LLC is an international firm dedicated to restoring bee health and protecting the future of honey bee pollination. Beeologics' mission is to become the guardian of bee health worldwide. Through continuous research, scientific innovation, and a focus on applicable solutions, Beeologics is developing a line of RNAi-based products to specifically address the long-term well being of honey bees, including the control of parasites and how they're involved in Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)." A classical problem-solution approach, Monsanto creates a problem – a systemic herbicide intended to 'save the world' from hunger as part of its GMO Roundup-ready proprietary production system that actually destroys the pollinators required to maintain our global food supply – and then capitalizes on a GM solution on the backend, with patented RNA interference 'solutions' intended to, again, 'save the world' from hunger.


[1] (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-weed-killer-linked-vanishing-bees-3?page=1#_ftnref1) Dennis vanEngelsdorp, Diana Cox-Foster, Maryann Frazier, Nancy Ostiguy, and Jerry Hayes (5 January 2006). "Colony Collapse Disorder Preliminary Report" (http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/us/ccd.pdf). Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium (MAAREC) – CCD Working Group. p. 22. Retrieved 2007-04-24.

[2] (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-weed-killer-linked-vanishing-bees-3?page=1#_ftnref2) Peng Han, Chang-Ying Niu, Antonio Biondi, Nicolas Desneux. Does transgenic Cry1Ac + CpTI cotton pollen affect hypopharyngeal gland development and midgut proteolytic enzyme activity in the honey bee Apis mellifera L. (Hymenoptera, Apidae)? (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/does-transgenic-cry1ac%C2%A0%C2%A0cpti-cotton-pollen-affect-hypopharyngeal-gland) Ecotoxicology. 2012 Nov ;21(8):2214-21. Epub 2012 Aug 7. PMID: 22868904 (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/does-transgenic-cry1ac%C2%A0%C2%A0cpti-cotton-pollen-affect-hypopharyngeal-gland)

[3] (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-weed-killer-linked-vanishing-bees-3?page=1#_ftnref3) Jeffery S Pettis, Elinor M Lichtenberg, Michael Andree, Jennie Stitzinger, Robyn Rose, Dennis Vanengelsdorp. Crop Pollination Exposes Honey Bees to Pesticides Which Alters Their Susceptibility to the Gut Pathogen Nosema ceranae. (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/crop-pollination-exposes-honey-bees-pesticides-which-alters-their) PLoS One. 2013 ;8(7):e70182. Epub 2013 Jul 24. PMID: 23894612 (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/crop-pollination-exposes-honey-bees-pesticides-which-alters-their)

[Hervé]

More Pesticides Coming to Our Food (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/08/19/gm-crops-pesticides-herbicides.aspx)

August 19, 2014
By Dr. Mercola


http://media.mercola.com/ImageServer/Public/2014/August/excessive-pesticide-use.jpg

One of the “benefits” of genetically modified (GM) crops is supposed to be a significant reduction in the use of chemicals, such as highly toxic herbicides and pesticides.

The idea, theoretically anyhow, was that herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant plants, which make up the majority of GM crops, would make it easier to kill weeds and diminish crop loss to harmful pests.

They would require farmers to use far less chemicals to control weeds and pests, so the pesticide companies, like Monsanto, assured us. In practice, however, this “promise” has been consistently broken.

In 2012, research showed that GM crops have led to a 404-million pound increase in overall pesticide use from the time they were introduced in 1996 through 2011. This equates to an increase of about 7 percent per year.

The excessive use of agrichemicals by farmers has now, in turn, led to herbicide resistance, both in weeds and pests, leaving farmers to struggle with an increasingly difficult situation. More than two dozen weed species are now resistant to glyphosate, the primary ingredient in Monsanto's broad-spectrum herbicide Roundup.

But instead of getting to the bottom of the weed-resistance problem, which is the GM crops at its foundation, US regulators are adding fuel to the fire and getting ready to approve more GM crops that, ironically, call for even more use of herbicides…

New GM Crops Target Weed Resistance with More Herbicides
In a draft "environmental impact statement" (EIS), the US Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has recommended that Monsanto’s new GM cotton and soybean plants should be approved.1 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/08/19/gm-crops-pesticides-herbicides.aspx#_edn1)

The so-called "Roundup Ready Xtend” crops are resistant to both glyphosate and the herbicide dicamba. Since millions of acres of weeds are now resistant to glyphosate, farmers will be able to douse crops with both glyphosate and dicamba. APHIS also issued a final EIS for Dow AgroSciences’ GM “Enlist” corn and soybeans, which are resistant to glyphosate and 2,4-D (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/10/20/ge-crops-increase-pesticide-use.aspx).

Charles Benbrook, a research professor at the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University, has already found rapidly increasing weed resistance is driving up the volume of herbicide needed by about 25 percent annually.

The new approvals could drive it up by another 50 percent, according to research published in Environmental Sciences Europe:2 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/08/19/gm-crops-pesticides-herbicides.aspx#_edn2)

"Contrary to often-repeated claims that today's genetically-engineered crops have, and are reducing pesticide use, the spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds in herbicide-resistant weed management systems has brought about substantial increases in the number and volume of herbicides applied.
If new genetically engineered forms of corn and soybeans tolerant of 2,4-D are approved, the volume of 2,4-D sprayed could drive herbicide usage upward by another approximate 50 percent.

The magnitude of increases in herbicide use on herbicide-resistant hectares has dwarfed the reduction in insecticide use on Bt crops over the past 16 years, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future."
The final decision won’t be made until after a 30-day public review period, but it unfortunately seems the die has been cast. The approvals would come despite intense opposition from consumer, environmental, and farmer groups, which have voiced valid concerns that the increased use of herbicides on the GM crops will only lead to increasing weed resistance in the long run.

Even APHIS acknowledged that Monsanto’s Xtend crops could increase the chance of dicamba-resistant weeds.3 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/08/19/gm-crops-pesticides-herbicides.aspx#_edn3) Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, senior scientist with the Pesticide Action Network North America, told Reuters:4 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/08/19/gm-crops-pesticides-herbicides.aspx#_edn4)

"We are outraged… Despite all of this public outcry, what these decisions show is that USDA is much more interested in working with Dow and Monsanto and getting their products to market than in protecting the public."
[...]

What’s the Big Deal About Glyphosate Residues in Your Food?
Glyphosate residues in the amount of “parts per million” might not seem like such a big issue, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. While Monsanto insists that Roundup is safe, a peer-reviewed report authored by Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant, and a long-time contributor to the Mercola.com Vital Votes Forum, and Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), reveals how glyphosate wrecks human health.7 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/08/19/gm-crops-pesticides-herbicides.aspx#_edn7)

They argue that glyphosate residues (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/04/15/glyphosate-health-effects.aspx), found in most commonly consumed foods in the Western diet courtesy of GM sugar, corn, soy, and wheat, “enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease.” Interestingly, your gut bacteria are a key component of glyphosate’s primary mechanism of harm.

Monsanto has steadfastly claimed that Roundup is harmless to animals and humans because the mechanism of action it uses (which allows it to kill weeds), called the shikimate pathway, is absent in all animals. However, the shikimate pathway IS present in bacteria, and that’s one key to understanding how it causes such widespread systemic harm in both humans and animals.

Now, with the impending approval of the new GM crops, you’re going to see increased exposure to even more herbicide residues, including the highly toxic dicamba and 2,4-D. If you eat processed foods, most of which are made with GM corn and soy ingredients, you’re consuming glyphosate residues, and will then be exposed to the forthcoming dicamba and 2,4-D residues as well, probably in each and every bite. Knowing this, and the fact that tests show people in 18 countries across Europe already have glyphosate in their bodies,8 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/08/19/gm-crops-pesticides-herbicides.aspx#_edn8) this should leave you very, very concerned…

[...]

Full article: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/08/19/gm-crops-pesticides-herbicides.aspx

[onawah]

How 'the New DDT' Wreaks Havoc on the Bottom of the Food Chain


“Neonics are 5,000 to 10,000 times more toxic than DDT,” said Jean-Marc Bonmatin of The National Centre for Scientific Research in France.

FYI: Rachel Carson must be “turning over in her grave.” Who will take up her call to action against the new DDTs (neonics & fipronil) that are impacting honey bees, butterflies, earthworms, song birds, and humans? It’s past time for action. Let’s terminate the USEPA and USDA folks who permitted this new scourge on the land and ban the use of these devastating pesticides…NOW! Otherwise, we won’t have to worry about global warming -- neonics and fipronil will kill us before its consequences "do us in."

How 'the New DDT' Wreaks Havoc on the Bottom of the Food Chain

By Stephen Leahy
Motherboard
June 24, 2014
URL: http://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/read/insecticides-are-causing-widespread-damage-at-the-bottom-of-the-food-chain

The same insecticide nerve poison that is contributing to the shocking declines in bees <http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/bees-get-blinded-by-polluted-scents-new-insights-into-colony-collapse-disorder> and other pollinators is also behind the sharp declines in many other insect species, along with insect-eating birds and bats. Even important creatures like earthworms, which keep our soils healthy, are being damaged by systemic insecticides called neonicotinoids (neonics) and fipronil, a new four-year international meta-analysis has found.

“It’s the new DDT but different,” said Ole Hendrickson, a former scientist at Environment Canada and member of the Task Force on Systemic Pesticides <http://www.tfsp.info/> that complete the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) analysis. It's the first examination of all the science on the topic—more than 800 studies. The task force is compromised of 50 independent scientists from all over the world who spent the last four years trying to figure out why so many bees, butterflies, and other insects are disappearing.

“Instead of wiping out the top of the food chain, killing hawks and eagles as DDT did, neonics are wiping out the bottom of the food chain,” Hendrickson told me. “Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson once said if we wipe out the world’s insects, we will soon follow them to extinction.”

Over the past 15 years, neonics have become the most widely used insecticides on the planet. They’re everywhere: in homes, gardens, farms, lakes, rivers and forests. The six main types of neonics in use are very, very good at destroying the nerve cells of anything that ingests them.

“Neonics are 5,000 to 10,000 times more toxic than DDT,” said Jean-Marc Bonmatin of The National Centre for Scientific Research in France.

Many corn, soy, and wheat seeds planted today are coated with neonics. If a bird eats a seed or two, they die. Clouds of toxic dust that are stirred up during planting are also dangerous to birds and insects in the vicinity. As the crops grow, they incorporate the neonic into their tissue, making them poisonous to any insect that nibbles on them. Pollen, nectar, sap and even dead leaves contain neonics. So does the soil, and because neonics readily mix with water, they're contaminating streams, ponds, rivers, and possibly coastal zones, the analysis found.

Neonics can last and build up in soil and water for more than year. “Even at extraordinarily low levels neonics have impacts on many species,” said Bonmatin, the lead author of the WIA analysis, which will be published as a series of articles in the peer-reviewed journal Environment Science and Pollution Research <http://www.springer.com/environment/journal/11356> .

At nonlethal levels, exposure to these nerve poisons can screw up nervous systems. The documented impacts include impaired sense of smell or memory; reduced fertility; altered feeding behaviour and reduced food intake; difficulty in flight and increased susceptibility to disease and altered tunnelling behaviour in earthworms. Hardest hit by all this is not bees, contrary to popular belief, but worms, and other invertebrates that live in the soil, the study found.

"These are the organisms that cycle nutrients and keep soil fertile. Without them farmers will have to add more chemical fertilizer," Bonmatin told me in an interview.

He said these toxic pesticides aren't even necessary—they're just "convenient." This is nothing like a farmer spraying when there is a pest problem; neonics are in the plant 24/7, from seed to harvest. "At least 90 percent of the time the neonics aren't even needed, according to our studies," he said. There are many effective, pre-existing alternatives for dealing with insect pests, including crop rotation, the analysis also shows.

Now there is some emerging evidence of neonics' potential impacts on human health.

"The insects are showing us to be very careful with neonics," Bonmatin said. “They're dangerous and probably should be banned." The official position of the Task Force is to ask governments to restrict their use.

Europe already placed a two-year moratorium <http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/apr/29/bee-harming-pesticides-banned-europe> on use of some neonics in April 2013 because of the impact on bees, and on June 20, just four days before the release of the WIA analysis, the Obama Administration told the Environmental Protection Agency <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/20/presidential-memorandum-creating-federal-strategy-promote-health-honey-b> (EPA) to review the impacts of neonics on bees and other pollinators. The EPA has 180 days to report.

"There is no question that neonics are behind colony collapse disorder," said Chensheng (Alex) Lu, associate professor of environmental exposure biology at Harvard School of Public Health. Lu recently replicated an early study <http://motherboard.vice.com/read/goddamnit-there-are-colony-collapse-disorder-deniers> showing low doses of neonics result in the loss of honey bee colonies known as colony collapse disorder (CCD).

The new study showed that only half of the colonies survived the winter when healthy bees were exposed to neonics. Lu believes neonics impair the bee's neurological functions. "The health situation of bees in the US is dire and getting worse," he said.

The EPA is "misreporting" what's happening to bees by claiming CCD losses have improved dramatically since 2008, Lu said. According to him, Ohio and nearby states lost up to 90% of their colonies last winter while the EPA reported losses of only 30% nationwide. The biggest losses of bees are in the midwest, where the highest levels of neonics are.

Lu criticized the EPA's strategy of spending millions on improving bee habitat in the midwest, which he said was pushed by the pesticide lobby, and also wondered why the USDA, the ultimate authority on the use of neonics, has been silent on a major study <http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/releases/130319.html> by the American Bird Conservancy in 2013 that clearly documented “massive impacts on American songbirds.” That report criticized the EPA for underestimating the risk and then failing to act when impacts were documented.

"This is a not a controversial problem," Lu said. "We know what to do."

[onawah]

Hillary gets it wrong (again)
Organic Consumer Assoc.


Just. Plain. Wrong.

https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/plBsUt3HvCnd63W9MrODILl1wPfvmCoMSueTHaptKLx2pWEB38N05CXMSpVqMCryTKPPF-g42Pe11-tYuosHUUjTuDpk-sfgmwP5EiHiIuJJmw=s0-d-e1-ft#http://www.organicconsumers.org/images/bytes/clinton-gmo.png

In her June 25 keynote address to the BIO International Convention in San Diego, Calif., Hillary Clinton voiced strong support for genetic engineering and genetically engineered crops. She earned a standing ovation that day by stating that the biotech industry suffers from a public perception problem and that it just needs “a better vocabulary” in order to persuade GMO skeptics who don’t understand “the facts” about genetic engineering.

And then Hillary proceeded to get the facts wrong.

Why does it matter what Hillary, who holds no public office and has not (yet) declared her candidacy for president, says or believes about genetic engineering and genetically modified crops and foods?

It doesn’t. Unless she throws her hat in the ring for the Democratic nomination. And then it matters not just what her position on GMOs is, not just how deep her financial ties with the biotech industry run, not just how much she distorts the facts about the “promise” of biotech crops.

It matters, deeply, to more than 90 percent of Americans, what her position is on GMO labeling laws.

If elected, will Hillary support consumers’ right to know? Or will she support the DARK Act, a bill introduced in Congress earlier this year, that would preempt state GMO labeling laws?

Hillary has been coy about announcing her candidacy. On clarifying her position on GMO labeling laws, she’s been dead silent.

As she soon heads to Iowa—the testing ground for presidential candidates—Hillary’s presidential aspirations will no doubt become more clear. If she runs, as the pundits predict, it will be up to the GMO labeling movement to demand that she take a stand on GMO labeling laws.

Meanwhile, here’s why Hillary’s speech to the BIO convention was just plain wrong.

Read the essay:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_30776.cfm


By Katherine Paul and Ronnie Cummins
Organic Consumers Association, August 28, 2014

For related articles and more information, please visit OCA's Millions Against Monsanto page and our Environment and Climate Resource Center page.



In her June 25 keynote address to the BIO International Convention in San Diego, Calif., Hillary Clinton voiced strong support for genetic engineering and genetically engineered crops. She earned a standing ovation that day by stating that the biotech industry suffers from a public perception problem and that it just needs “a better vocabulary” in order to persuade GMO skeptics who don’t understand “the facts” about genetic engineering.

And then Hillary proceeded to get the facts wrong.

Why does it matter what Hillary, who holds no public office and has not (yet) declared her candidacy for president, says or believes about genetic engineering and genetically modified crops and foods?

It doesn’t—unless she throws her hat in the ring for the Democratic nomination. And then it matters not just what her position is on GMOs, not just how deep her financial ties to the biotech industry run, not just how much she distorts the facts about the “promise” of biotech crops.

It matters, deeply, to more than 90 percent of Americans, what her position is on laws requiring mandatory labeling of GMOs in food and food products.

If elected, will Hillary support consumers’ right to know? Or will she support the DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act, a bill introduced in Congress earlier this year, which if passed, will preempt state GMO labeling laws?

Hillary has been coy about announcing her candidacy. But when it comes to clarifying her position on GMO labeling laws, she’s been dead silent.

As she soon heads to Iowa—the testing ground for presidential candidates—Hillary’s presidential aspirations will no doubt become more clear. If she runs, as the pundits predict, it will be up to the GMO labeling movement to demand that she take a stand on GMO labeling laws.

Meanwhile, here’s why Hillary’s speech to the BIO convention was just plain wrong.

Wrong on the science of genetic engineering

Hillary brought the BIO convention-goers to their feet with her call for “a better vocabulary” to win over consumers.

No wonder. After all, that’s the line Monsanto has been feeding the public ever since the public became wise to the lies and false promises of an industry known for its reckless disregard for public health. It’s part of an aggressive, widespread public relations campaign to sugar-coat the facts about genetically engineered foods and the toxic chemicals required to produce them.

As scientists release studies, each one more alarming than the next, revealing the devastating health and environmental hazards of the herbicides required to grow GMO crops—toxic chemicals such as glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, and Dow’s 2,4-D —consumers are connecting the dots between the rise of chronic illness and the unleashing of toxins into the environment (and onto our food).

No amount of “better vocabulary” will be able to counter the science behind the impact of toxic herbicides and pesticides on soil, on the environment, on human health.

But here’s where Hillary’s call for a “better vocabulary” really ran off the rails. Coverage of the convention included a video in which Hillary wrongly equated the age-old practice of seed hybridization with modern genetic engineering, in order to make the case that genetic engineering has been around since the beginning of farming.

Hillary would do well to go back to her science books. Here are the facts, as understood by every biologist. Seed hybridization occurs when the seeds of two compatible parent plants, within the same species, are crossed, either in a controlled environment or in nature. That process is in no way equivalent to genetic engineering, a process that requires human intervention, and consists of changing the genetic code of one organism by inserting into it the DNA from a completely different plant or animal.

Genetic engineering is an unnatural process that can take place only in a laboratory, aided by a human.

Wrong on genetic engineering and drought

In the same video from the June 25 conference, Hillary perpetuates industry claims that as global warming leads to more droughts, GMO crops will feed the world. She does this by focusing on GE drought-resistant seeds—as if engineering seeds for drought-resistance were a major focus on the biotech industry.

It’s not, of course. Drought-resistant seeds and crops make up a miniscule portion of the GMO crop market. Close to 98 percent of GE crops are corn, soy, alfalfa, canola and sugar beets, used to make biofuels, animal feed and processed food products, such as high fructose corn syrup. These crops are engineered to produce their own Bt toxins in every cell or else to withstand massive doses of herbicides, such as Monsanto’s Roundup, which are sold to farmers as companions to their GMO seeds. They have nothing to do with drought-resistance.

In fact, attempts to engineer seeds to thrive during droughts are still in the experimental stages and so far have largely failed. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, Monsanto’s DroughtGard, the only drought-resistant crop approved so far by the USDA, produces “only modest results, and only under moderate drought conditions.”

Yet to hear Hillary tell it, genetic engineering is all about saving farmers by providing them with magic seeds that thrive without water.

Wrong on genetic engineering and global warming

Toward the end of her video interview, Hillary switched gears to talk about climate change. She endorsed the Obama climate plan and called out the media for giving too much attention to climate-change skeptics.

Hillary believes we must address global warming. Good news.

But there’s just one problem.

A growing chorus of scientists warn that we cannot successfully address global warming unless we acknowledge the huge role that industrial agriculture, with its GMO mono-crop culture and massive use of chemicals, plays in cooking the planet.

If we’re truly serious about averting a global warming disaster, reducing carbon emissions isn’t enough. We have to acknowledge, and harness, potential of organic, regenerative agriculture to reverse global warming by sequestering carbon.

According to groups like the Rodale Institute, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and the Alliance for Food Sovereignty, a transition to sustainable, regenerative agriculture—not genetic engineering—is not only the only way we will feed the world, but absolutely essential if we want to slow global warming.

Hillary is just plain wrong if she thinks we can solve global warming while simultaneously promoting GMO agriculture, here in the U.S. and abroad. That’s why the Organic Consumers Association has launched a petition asking her to rethink her support for biotech, and commit to supporting a transition to a sustainable, organic food and farming system.

As consumers grow more knowledgeable about the link between food produced using toxic chemicals and the declining health of the U.S. population, they are looking more closely at those politicians who side with, and take money from, the biotech industry. Clinton’s ties to the biotech industry date back to the 1970s, when she was a partner in the Rose Law Firm which represented Monsanto.

A recent ABC News poll revealed that 52 percent of Americans believe food containing GMOs are unsafe, while 13 percent are “unsure.”

On mandatory GMO labeling laws, Americans are clear: 93 percent want labels.

Hillary, where do you stand?

Katherine Paul is associate director of the Organic Consumers Association.

Ronnie Cummins is the international director of the Organic Consumers Association and its Mexico affiliate Via Organica.

[Hervé]

Why the Use of Glyphosate in Wheat Has Radically Increased Celiac Disease (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/09/14/glyphosate-celiac-disease-connection.aspx?)

September 14, 2014 | 253,930 views

| http://articles.mercola.com/Themes/mercola/images/available-in-espanol.pngDisponible en Español (http://articulos.mercola.com/sitios/articulos/archivo/2014/09/14/conexion-entre-glifosato-y-la-enfermedad-celiaca.aspx)


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Click HERE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIC58VpYE4A&feature=youtu.be) to watch the full interview!



Download Interview Transcript (http://mercola.fileburst.com/PDF/ExpertInterviewTranscripts/SeneffGlyphosate-Transcript.pdf) Visit the Mercola Video Library (http://articles.mercola.com/videos.aspx)


By Dr. Mercola
The use of glyphosate, the active ingredient in the broad-spectrum herbicide Roundup, has dramatically risen over the past 15 years, right in step with the use of GE crops.

According to Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), glyphosate appears to be strongly correlated with the rise in celiac disease.

Dr. Anthony Samsel and Dr. Seneff produced some phenomenal research1 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/09/14/glyphosate-celiac-disease-connection.aspx?#_edn1) on this connection, which was published in December last year. Previously, she has investigated the relationship between glyphosate and the development of a wide array of modern diseases, including autism.

She believes that glyphosate may in fact act as a transporter for aluminum (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/05/08/heavy-metals-glyphosate-health-effects.aspx) (a common vaccine adjuvant) into the brain. It also appears to transport arsenic into the kidneys. For more in-depth information on this glyphosate-autism link, please listen to the full version of Dr. Seneff's interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIC58VpYE4A&feature=youtu.be).

Use of Roundup Matches Increased Use of GE Crops, and Rise in Chronic Diseases
Her initial findings were published in the journal Entropy2 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/09/14/glyphosate-celiac-disease-connection.aspx?#_edn2) last year, which was followed by a second paper,3 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/09/14/glyphosate-celiac-disease-connection.aspx?#_edn3) again co-authored with Dr. Samsel, which links glyphosate to celiac disease specifically.
"There's an extremely strong correlation between the use of Roundup on corn and soy over time and the increase in all these different diseases, and celiac disease is one of them," she says.

"We certainly have seen an explosive appearance of celiac disease almost overnight in the last five to 10 years... Now you have a growing section of gluten-free choices of various food products...

Lots of people are intolerant to gluten, of course. But people aren't thinking, 'Why is this now true? This didn't use to be true'... I was really puzzled because wheat is not a GE product... GMO wheat is not a product that's on the market."

So what's going on? Dr. Seneff's research reveals that when it comes to gluten intolerance and celiac disease, the problem actually doesn't stem from genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Rather it’s related to the use of glyphosate just before the harvesting of many of the non-organic wheat crops, in order to reduce the amount of residue that needs to be cleared and to get a head start on next year’s weeds.

Glyphosate-Treated Wheat Promotes Celiac Disease
Celiac disease is a severe reaction to gluten that primarily affects your gastrointestinal system. Glyphosate has been shown to severely damage your gut flora and cause chronic diseases rooted in gut dysfunction.

The use of glyphosate on wheat crops has risen in tandem with the rise in celiac disease. In fact, it correlates to a greater degree than glyphosate usage on corn and soy.

According to Dr. Seneff, desiccating4 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/09/14/glyphosate-celiac-disease-connection.aspx?#_edn4) non-organic wheat crops with glyphosate just before harvest came in vogue about 15 years ago. Interestingly enough, when you expose wheat to a toxic chemical like glyphosate, it actually releases more seeds. “It ‘goes to seed’ as it dies,” Dr. Seneff explains. “At its last gasp, it releases the seed.”

This results in slightly greater yield, and the glyphosate also kills rye grass, a major weed problem for wheat growers that is resistant to many other herbicides. What they're not taking into consideration is the fact that rye grass helps rebalance the soil, and from that perspective is a beneficial plant.

So, most of the non-organic wheat supply is now contaminated with glyphosate. A large percentage of processed foods are made from wheat, and this helps explain the explosion of celiac disease and other gut dysfunction.

What happens is that the villi in your gut get destroyed by the glyphosate, which reduces your ability to absorb vitamins and minerals. Also, wheat contains gliadin, which is difficult to break down. Normally, a reaction takes place that builds connections between different proteins in the wheat.

But glyphosate gets right in the middle of that process too, resulting in wheat that is highly indigestible. Dr. Seneff and her co-researcher Dr. Anthony Samsel believe the glyphosate may attach to the gliadin as a consequence of a chemical reaction. The end result is that your body develops an immune reaction. As noted in their study:5 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/09/14/glyphosate-celiac-disease-connection.aspx?#_edn5)
"[G]ut dysbiosis, brought on by exposure to glyphosate, plays a crucial role in the development of celiac disease. Many CYP enzymes are impaired in association with celiac disease, and we show that glyphosate's known suppression of CYP enzyme activity in plants and animals plausibly explains this effect in humans."

Glyphosate Disrupts Important Sulfate Pathway Implicated in Celiac Disease
Glyphosate causes gut dysbiosis (a condition of microbial imbalance in your intestines that can lead to gut inflammation and leaky gut) and an overgrowth of pathogens. Sulfur, and the sulfur pathway, plays in important part in optimal health, and when your gut is inflamed, your body’s ability to transport sulfate is impaired.

This is in part why Dr. Seneff recommends soaking in magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt) baths rather than taking a sulfur supplement (such as chondroitin sulfate, for example.) This way, it can bypass your gut mucosa. The sulfur pathway is also implicated in celiac disease, and this is the connection between glyphosate exposure and celiac:
"There are two classes of molecules that transport sulfate. One is the sterols: cholesterol, vitamin D, and all sex hormones – estrogen, testosterone, and DHEA. On the other side, you have all the neurotransmitters. This is the dopamine, melatonin, serotonin, and the adrenaline. All of those transport sulfate. They're all derived from this pathway that glyphosate disrupts," Dr. Seneff explains.

"Glyphosate disrupts the shikimate pathway, which is a biological pathway in plants and in microbes. That pathway produces the precursors to all those neurotransmitters. When you can't produce those precursors... because of the glyphosate, you become deficient.

This links directly to celiac disease because serotonin is very strongly implicated in celiac disease. In fact, you have an overproduction of serotonin whenever you have dietary tryptophan. In celiac, these cells are hypersensitized. They take in the tryptophan and make serotonin out of it [editor's note: the majority of serotonin is produced in your gut, not your brain].

Tryptophan is one of the products of this pathway that glyphosate disrupts. Your body is really eager to grab every bit of tryptophan it can find in the diet and immediately turn it into serotonin... But too much serotonin causes diarrhea. That's how you get a connection to the celiac disease behavior."

To summarize, most of the serotonin that's produced in your body is produced in your gut in response to tryptophan. Wheat is a good source of tryptophan, but when the wheat is contaminated with glyphosate, your gut cells go into overdrive and begin producing too much serotonin, which in turn produces many of the common symptoms of celiac disease, such as diarrhea.

Celiac Disease Comorbidities
According to Dr. Seneff, there are a number of comorbidities of celiac disease: diseases or conditions that are more common in people with celiac disease compared to the normal population. For example, they have a higher risk of producing children with disabilities and various birth defects. One example is anencephaly or microcephaly, which is a missing brain or small brain.

She notes that this exceptionally rare disorder, anencephaly, has become increasingly common in babies born in certain regions of Washington State. While this serious birth defect normally affects only one in the entire US population each year, there have been about 20 cases born in Washington State over the course of just two or three years.
"They looked at everything except at glyphosate," she notes. "They didn't look at glyphosate because they consider it to be harmless. They are using tons of it around the waterway...There have been papers written that have shown that glyphosate causes anencephaly in frogs—a clear connection there. I even know why. It's because of the excess retinoic acid, which is well-known to cause anencephaly... glyphosate also disrupts cytochrome p450 enzymes in the liver; it's a CYP enzyme that breaks down retinoic acid.

When you can't break it down... the retinoic acid builds up and becomes toxic to the embryo. It's very clear to me, that connection. And then, of course, the celiac disease is an indicator of glyphosate exposure. Celiac patients also have a very high risk of cancer. That's probably why they die prematurely. They typically live a shorter life. I think their life is reduced by three to five years."
Gastrointestinal (GI) cancer and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma are among the most common comorbidities among those with celiac disease. Here Dr. Seneff goes into a number of details relating to glyphosate's influence on cancer and its link tonon-Hodgkin's lymphoma. For those details, please listen to the full version Dr. Seneff's interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIC58VpYE4A&feature=youtu.be), or read through the transcript. It seems clear that if you have cancer or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, you'd be wise to switch to an all-organic diet in order to avoid any further exposure to glyphosate.

Dr. Seneff believes it's important to address sulfate deficiency whenever you're suffering with a chronic disease, including cancer and lymphoma. In her opinion, eating sulfur-rich foods is part and parcel of the solution. Garlic is a very good source of sulfur. Raw garlic is the most potent. According to Dr. Seneff, you don't need to concern yourself with the issue of sulfate transport because the garlic form of sulfur is very easy to transport. Your red blood cells oxidize it to sulfate, and it gets into your blood as sulforaphane.

Glyphosate Chelates Minerals and Promotes Deficiencies

Making sure you're getting enough trace minerals is also important, as glyphosate disrupts a wide variety of them, including manganese, iron, cobalt (cobalamin) and molybdenum, and copper, just to name a few. All of these minerals are affected because the glyphosate causes your body to mismanage them. It chelates the minerals in your gut, so the gut bacteria can't get to them. And your gut bacteria need minerals to work properly. For example, Lactobacillus depends on manganese. According to Dr. Seneff, these bacteria have an unusual mechanism to protect themselves from oxidative damage, which involves manganese. But they can't get at it because the manganese hides inside the glyphosate molecule...

The human body depends on minerals for a wide variety of functions, but it's important to get minerals in a bioavailable form. You can't take a mineral supplement. You need to get them through your diet so that your body can utilize them properly. Hence, an organic diet devoid of glyphosate is again the answer. Natural salt, such as sea salt or Himalayan salt is also a good addition to eating lots of vegetables.


Is There Hope for the Future?
The chemical technology industry controls most of our government agencies from the inside these days, which can easily make one despondent. Is there any hope for the future?
"There is hope," Dr. Seneff says. "I have hope through China and Russia, interestingly enough. Russia has made a pretty strong stand against GMO.Putin has been saying, 'You can go ahead and eat your GMO foods, but we don't want them.' The guy knows, which I love. And I just came back from a conference in Beijing put on by Professor Gu.

She brought in people from around the world... who are sounding the alarm about GMOs and Roundup. Don Huber (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/10/06/dr-huber-gmo-foods.aspx) was there, and Mae-Wan Ho... Jeffrey Smith (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/04/03/jeffrey-smith-interview.aspx)... and from Australia, there was Judy Carman (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/05/18/gmo-foods-inflammation.aspx), who studied the pigs...China will really have an impact if they simply refuse to import GMO soy. They're finding, by the way, that in step with the increased imports of GMO Roundup-Ready soy… they're finding tremendous increases in autism, Parkinson's disease, infertility, and all the same things we're seeing here.

...I just do not understand how the US government refuses to acknowledge that we're basically slowly poisoning and killing our population. We're going to have a huge autism problem in 10 or 15 years. Mothers rising up and saying 'I'm going to feed my child organic food only'—that's the only way we're going to stop it. We have to push the organic movement... In fact, one of the people at this conference was Zen Honeycutt, founder of Moms Across America, which is an organization of moms. Her son had autism. She fixed his autism by putting him on an organic diet."

Can You Detox Glyphosate?
It's important to understand that you cannot wash glyphosate off genetically engineered foods, as it is then incorporated into each cell of the plant. And when you're consuming processed foods, clearly you cannot rinse off any contamination—it's already been processed into the final product. So truly, the only way to eliminate it from your diet is to avoid conventionally grown foods and processed foods, and to eat as many organic foods as possible. Organic standards do not permit glyphosate. Do not confuse this with labels that say "natural" or "all-natural." These are not regulated, and are often GMO!

This is equally if not more important when it comes to meat and other animal products, as factory-farmed animals are typically raised on a GMO diet, and glyphosate bioaccumulates in the tissues. So what about detoxing? According to Dr. Seneff, they've had some success detoxing animals of glyphosate by feeding them charcoal and humus (the dark organic material in soils). The problem, again, is that glyphosate bioaccumulates throughout your body, and it can be difficult to get out. It's also unclear just how effective taking charcoal might be for humans.

In short, it's much harder to reverse the damage once it's done, so the answer is to avoid glyphosate from the start—especially in your child's diet. The only way to do that right now is to buy certified organic food, or food from a local farmer you know is not using glyphosate or other synthetic chemicals. Perhaps the best alternative is to grow your own. "I think there's going to be a run on organic once everybody wakes up," Dr. Seneff says. "If you're not growing your own, you won't have access. It would be very difficult."

Take Control of Your Health—Choose Your Foods Wisely
According to Dr. Seneff, a number of frightening revelations concerning GE foods themselves came out during the Beijing conference, which we did not have time to go over in this interview. But clearly, besides the potential hazards associated with GE foods—which includes heightened allergenicity—the issue of glyphosate contamination is a very important one. It appears to play an instrumental role not only in celiac disease, but also in autism, Alzheimer's, and cancer. In fact, Dr. Seneff's work suggests it may play a role in most chronic diseases.
"There are many, many reasons to avoid these processed foods that our government is encouraging us to eat," she says. "Taking complete ownership of your food by growing your own is the most special thing you can do, not just for yourself but for humanity and for the earth itself. Everyone who pitches in to contribute their piece of healthy grown food with developing healthy soil is so important to our future salvation because if we don't move fast with this, we're going to end up with a country that's so sick... we're going to spend all of our time and all of our money taking care of the sick and needy. We won't be able to do anything else.

We need to move quickly, and individually make ourselves healthy by eating healthy foods and by putting in the effort to cook and the effort to grow the food ourselves. Buy organic. Support the organic farmers. Don't worry about the fact that it's costing you a little more in food because it's going to save you a huge amount on healthcare down the road. It's going to totally pay for itself. If people can get into that mindset, we can make it happen as individuals. We don't need the government [to act]."

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I recently named the GMA “the most evil corporation on the planet (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/01/28/gma-evil-corporation.aspx),” considering the fact that it consists primarily of pesticide producers and junk food manufacturers who are going to great lengths to violate some of your most basic rights—just to ensure that subsidized, genetically engineered and chemical-dependent, highly processed junk food remains the status quo.

The insanity has gone far enough. It’s time to unite and fight back, which is why I encourage you to boycott every single product owned by members of the GMA, including natural and organic brands. To learn more about this boycott, and the traitor brands that are included, please visit TheBoycottList.org (http://www.theboycottlist.org/). I also encourage you to donate to the Organic Consumers Fund. Your donation will help fight the GMA lawsuit in Vermont, and also help win the GMO labeling ballot initiative in Oregon in November.


Voting with your pocketbook, at every meal, matters. It makes a huge difference. By boycotting GMA Member Traitor Brands, you can help level the playing field, and help take back control of our food supply. And as always, continue educating yourself about genetically engineered foods, and share what you’ve learned with family and friends.


[-] Sources and References


1 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/09/14/glyphosate-celiac-disease-connection.aspx?#_ednref1) Interdiscip Toxicol. Dec 2013; 6(4): 159–184. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945755/)



2 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/09/14/glyphosate-celiac-disease-connection.aspx?#_ednref2) Entropy 2013, 15(4), 1416-1463 (http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416)



3 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/09/14/glyphosate-celiac-disease-connection.aspx?#_ednref3) Interdiscip Toxicol. Dec 2013; 6(4): 159–184. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945755/)



4 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/09/14/glyphosate-celiac-disease-connection.aspx?#_ednref4) Agriculture and Rural Development, Desiccation or Pre-Harvest Glyphosate Application FAQ (http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/faq7206?opendocument)



5 (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/09/14/glyphosate-celiac-disease-connection.aspx?#_ednref5) Interdiscip Toxicol. Dec 2013; 6(4): 159–184 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945755/)

[onawah]

Pro-GMO Industries Increase Spending and Launch Attack to Discredit World-Famous Environmentalist Vandana Shiva in an Effort to Thwart GMO Labeling in the US
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/09/16/us-gmo-labeling-expenses.aspx?e_cid=20140916Z1_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20140916Z1&et_cid=DM55881&et_rid=660272692

By Dr. Mercola


Between 2012 and mid-2014, Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) successfully blocked GMO labeling legislation in over 30 states, at a price tag of more than $100 million.

These funds were received from the 300+ members of the GMA, which include chemical/pesticide, GE seed, and processed food industries.

Together, these industries are working in a symbiotic fashion to grow, subsidize, and manufacture foods that have been clearly linked to growing obesity and chronic disease epidemics.

According to the most recent analysis, opponents of GMO labeling spent more than $27 million on lobbying in the first six months of this year alone. This is about three times more than they spent during all of 2013, when they shelled out $9.3 million.

"The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and major food makers such as Coca-Cola Co and PepsiCo Inc and top biotech seed makers Monsanto Co and DuPont were among heavy spenders on GMO labeling-related lobbying, among other food issues, according to a report issued by the Environmental Working Group," Reuters1 reports.

Chemical Technology Industry Running Scared

Such a dramatic rise in expenditure to keep genetically engineered (GE) foods and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) hidden is probably understandable in light of the fact that one state—Vermont—successfully signed into law a mandatory labeling bill in May.

The law will require food manufacturers to label genetically engineered (GE) foods sold in Vermont, and prohibits them from labeling foods with GE ingredients as "natural" or "all natural."

In response, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) along with the Snack Food Association, International Dairy Foods Association, and the National Association of Manufacturers, sued Vermont in federal court2 the following month (June).

The GMA also sued the state of Washington last year after getting caught in a money laundering scheme during the state's GMO labeling campaign.3 Caught red handed, the GMA was forced to reveal the donors to their aggressive anti-labeling campaign.4

But rather than admitting its wrongdoing, the GMA sued Washington State, arguing the association should be allowed to hide their donors—which is a direct violation of state campaign disclosure laws—in order to "speak with one voice" for the interests of the food industry.5

As noted by Reuters,6 more than 20 other states are presently considering GMO labeling laws. Both Colorado and Oregon have GMO labeling on their November ballots. Two counties in Oregon have already voted to ban the growing of GE crops.

This escalating trend undoubtedly has the industry running scared that their jig might soon be up...

Clearly, as more states move forward on their labeling bills, keeping up the lawsuit strategy could turn into a major headache for the GMA, which is why it's pushing a Congressional bill called "The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 20147," (dubbed "DARK"—Denying Americans the Right to Know Act) that would simplypreempt all states from passing GMO labeling laws.8

To help Vermont defend its GMO labeling law against these multi-national giants, consider making a donation to the Organic Consumers Fund, which has been set up to raise funds for this purpose. The fund has also pledged $500,000 to help Oregon pass a GMO labeling initiative in November.



Coordinated Attack to Discredit Vandana Shiva

It's also quite clear that the pro-GMO cartel, which includes the GMA, Monsanto and other leading chemical technology companies, along with leading processed food companies, have begun a massive coordinated attack against Vandana Shiva.

She is perhaps one of the most vocal and most well-respected environmentalists and anti-GMO activists in the world. As recently noted by Counter Punch9 in an article titled "Gunning for Vandana Shiva:"

"Perhaps nothing symbolizes the decline of The New Yorker magazine more than the hatchet job on Vandana Shiva that appears in the latest issue.10

Written by Michael Specter, the author of 'Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress,' the article is a meretricious defense of genetically modified organisms (GMO) relying on one dodgy source after another.

This is the same magazine whose reputation was at its apex when Rachel Carson's groundbreaking articles on DDT appeared in 1962. If DDT was once a symbol of the destructive power of chemicals on the environment, GMO amounts to one of the biggest threats to food production today.

It threatens to enrich powerful multinational corporations while turning farmers into indentured servants through the use of patented seeds. Furthermore, it threatens to unleash potentially calamitous results in farmlands through unintended mutations."

Not surprisingly, Michael Specter turns to two well-oiled propaganda mouthpieces:Pamela Ronald and Mark Lynas, to defend GE crops and refute Shiva's warnings. I've discussed both in previous articles. For example, Ronald, a GMO advocate and scientist, recently had two of her scientific papers retracted due to sizeable scientific errors that rendered her findings null and void.

Vandana Responds to Her Critics

Vandana Shiva issued a response11 to Specter's article stating that "Specter's piece starts with inaccurate information, by design." She notes several of the discrepancies in his reporting, including his attempt to discredit her by claiming he could not find any evidence of her education. She writes:

"Specter has reduced my M.Sc. Honors in Physics to a B.Sc. for convenience. Mr. Specter and the Biotech Industry (and The New Yorker, by association) would like to identify the millions of people opposing GMOs as unscientific, romantic, outliers. My education is obviously a thorn in their side.

'When I asked if she had ever worked as a physicist, she suggested that I search for the answer on Google. I found nothing, and she doesn't list any such position in her biography.' Specter has twisted my words, to make it seem like I was avoiding his question. I had directed him to my official website... The Wikipedia page about me has been altered to make it look like I have never studied science. The Biotech Industry would like to erase my academic credentials...

Quantum theory taught me the four principles that have guided my work: everything is interconnected, everything is potential, everything is indeterminate, and there is no excluded middle. Every intellectual breakthrough I have made over the last 40 years has been to move from a mechanistic paradigm to an ecological one..."

Why Do So Many Indian Farmers Commit Suicide?

The introduction of genetically engineered seeds, and the coercion of Indian farmers to use them, has led to the largest wave of recorded suicides in human history. In India, it's been estimated that a farmer commits suicide every 30 minutes, typically by ingesting pesticide. But why? The short answer is crop failures, which leaves them in financial ruin.

What many fail to realize is that it's the genetically engineered (GE) seeds that fail (especially Bt cotton), and GE seeds must be repurchased every year. You're not allowed to save patented GE seeds, as has been done since the beginnings of agriculture. Bt cotton is much more expensive than traditional cotton seed, requires more water and pesticides, and has failed to produce the increased crop yields promised by Monsanto. A single failed crop combined with lack of financing options can therefore bankrupt a farmer. Others keep going, taking out more and more loans, until they simply cannot ever pay them back.

Michael Specter tries to make light of such statistics stating that the Indian suicide trend is similar to that in France. In my view, we should be horrified to realize that the business of growing food has gotten so financially challenging that even in a country like France a farmer commits suicide every two days12—again due to being financially ruined, just like the farmers in India. Interestingly, poisoning by pesticide has actually become the leading method of suicide around the world, according to the World Health Organization.13

GMO Promises Fall Flat Because They're Not Rooted in Truth

David Friedberg is the latest poster boy for Monsanto, as it tries to clean up its image. According to the St. Louis Business Journal:14 "Friedberg, a 34-year-old lifelong vegetarian, is emerging as 'an unlikely champion' of Monsanto and its genetically modified products... Friedberg, who formerly was a Google Inc. executive, oversees Monsanto's precision agriculture services... The Wall Street Journal reports that Friedberg's 'Silicon Valley pedigree' is helping open doors for him to advocate for Monsanto in a region that has been anti-GMO... Friedberg said he believes Monsanto's products help sustain food production for the world's growing population."

The claim that GE crops are "necessary" to feed a growing population is a popular mantra among those who do not have an understanding of the whole picture. It's actually 180 degrees from the truth, as what we really need is to focus on strategies that will promote soil health, and GE crops decimate soil fertility.

Also, besides killing critical soil microbes needed for plant health and nutrition, what many fail to take into account is that GE plants typically require more water, not less, and while many varieties are designed to produce their own internal pesticides, which was meant to reduce pesticide requirements, these plants actually require more pesticides too—just to keep up with the proliferation of resistant pests and weeds!

For example, earlier this summer Bloomberg15 reported that "BASF, the world's biggest chemical maker, plans to produce 50 percent more dicamba weedkiller in Texas to keep pace with anticipated demand from a new generation of genetically modified crops."

Dicamba is a weed killer linked to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. And Texas is gearing up to dump 50 percent more of it on its crops in the near future. How is this benefiting anyone's health and well-being? How are GE crops "saving the world" when they are poisoning the environment and the people eating the food? This is NOT a sensible solution to world hunger. The fact is that 30-50 percent of the four billion tons of food produced around the world each year never reaches a human mouth.Cutting food waste is a critical aspect of preventing hunger as the population grows.16

The list of failed GMO promises goes on and on... And countries that recognize these facts and risks are even being more or less blackmailed into accepting GE crops, especially if they're in need of aid. El Salvador is one such example.17 If saving the world was really that high on the list of priorities, the chemical technology industry, led by Monsanto, would hardly engage in the kind of mafia tactics they've become famous for...

GMOs Have Labeling Requirements in More Than 60 Countries, Why Not in the US?

The words, "Contain GMOs," are required on labels in 64 other countries around the world. It is truthful information, and just like added flavors must be labeled "natural or artificial," and juice must state if it is from concentrate, whether or not an ingredient is genetically engineered falls under truth in labeling. To take it a step further, it prevents fraud.

Free market principles require certain understandings. If you label a product "salmon," a buyer and seller understand what salmon is. If you splice eel genes into salmon, it is no longer plain, regular old salmon. If you continue to mislabel this eel-spliced fish as salmon, the seller is committing fraud. Labeling GMOs—transgenic plants and animals—is a truthful right of the consumer. We consider non-labeled transgenic products to be fraud that the federal government has allowed based on "substantial equivalence"—a term invented to monopolize and patent life between a few gigantic corporate interests.





I recently named the GMA “the most evil corporation on the planet,” considering the fact that it consists primarily of pesticide producers and junk food manufacturers who are going to great lengths to violate some of your most basic rights—just to ensure that subsidized, genetically engineered and chemical-dependent, highly processed junk food remains the status quo.

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The insanity has gone far enough. It’s time to unite and fight back, which is why I encourage you to boycott every single product owned by members of the GMA, including natural and organic brands. To learn more about this boycott, and the traitor brands that are included, please visit TheBoycottList.org. I also encourage you to donate to the Organic Consumers Fund. Your donation will help fight the GMA lawsuit in Vermont, and also help win the GMO labeling ballot initiative in Oregon in November.

[Hervé]

Monsanto's Roundup Linked to Cancer - Again (http://truth-out.org/news/item/26614-monsanto-s-roundup-linked-to-cancer)

Monday, 06 October 2014 09:19
By Jeff Ritterman, M.D. (http://truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/49779), Truthout (http://truth-out.org)

http://www.truth-out.org/images/images_2014_10/2014_1006mons_.jpg
(Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout (http://www.flickr.com/photos/truthout))

A brilliant and celebrated inventor, John Franz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_E._Franz), gave us an herbicide, Roundup, which has changed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_E._Franz) the face of agriculture. This herbicide has become the foundation for an entirely novel approach to farming - biotech agriculture - that has expanded rapidly throughout the globe.

Monsanto makes seeds for soy, corn, canola, cotton, alfalfa and sugar beets that are genetically engineered to be tolerant to Roundup (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Roundup_Ready_Crops). The seeds are marketed in 120 countries. Throughout the world, Roundup is sprayed heavily as a weed killer without fear of damaging the cash crops, which have been engineered to survive the herbicide's effects.


"The change in how agriculture is produced has brought, frankly, a change in the profile of diseases. We've gone from a pretty healthy population to one with a high rate of cancer, birth defects and illnesses seldom seen before." Roundup seemed, at first, to be the perfect herbicide. It blocks the ESPS synthase enzyme, which prevents the synthesis of amino acids that plants need for growth. Since animals don't have this enzyme, it was initially hypothesized that they would be safe from Roundup's effects.

Unfortunately, Roundup has now been shown to affect much more than the EPSP synthase enzyme. The herbicide has been proven to cause birth defects (http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/25122-exposing-monsanto-herbicide-linked-to-birth-defects-the-vitamin-a-connection) in vertebrates, including in humans, and it may also be the cause of a fatal kidney disease epidemic. (http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/24876-monsantos-herbicide-linked-to-fatal-kidney-disease-epidemic-will-ckdu-topple-monsanto)

An increasing number of studies are now linking the herbicide to cancer.

Roundup Linked to Increased Cancer in "Soy Republic"
Roundup is now heavily sprayed in what is known as the "Soy Republic (http://www.ucema.edu.ar/conferencias/download/2011/10.14CP.pdf)," an area of Latin America larger than the state of California. This region has undergone a profound transformation since genetically modified (GM) crops were first introduced in 1996. Some 125 million acres in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay are now devoted to GM soy production.

Doctors serving these areas have documented an alarming increase in cancers. A group of dedicated physicians formed an organization, Doctors of Fumigated Towns. They held a national conference (http://www.organicconsumers.org/documents/INGLES-Report-from-the-1st-National-Meeting-Of-Physicians-In-The-Crop-Sprayed-Towns.pdf) in August of 2010 in Córdoba, the center of Argentina's soy region. The Department of Medical Sciences of the National University at Córdoba sponsored the conference. An estimated 160 doctors from throughout the country attended.

Dr. Medardo Avila Vazquez, a pediatrician specializing in environmental health, explained his concerns (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/argentines-link-health-problems-agrochemicals-2):


"The change in how agriculture is produced has brought, frankly, a change in the profile of diseases. We've gone from a pretty healthy population to one with a high rate of cancer, birth defects and illnesses seldom seen before. What we have complained about for years was confirmed and especially what doctors say about the sprayed towns and areas affected by industrial agriculture. Cancer cases are multiplying as never before in areas with massive use of pesticides." Dr. Avila Vazquez blamed the biotech agricultural corporations for placing their profits over the public's health:


"The tobacco companies denied the link between smoking and cancer, and took decades to recognize the truth. The biotech and agrochemical corporations are the same as the tobacco industry; they lie and favor business over the health of the population."
It was the health of the population that concerned Dr. Damian Verzeñassi, professor of social and environmental health from the National University at Rosario. In 2010, he began a house-to-house epidemiological study of 65,000 people in Santa Fe, also in Argentina's soy region. He found cancer (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/20/argentina-pesticides-health-problems_n_4131825.html) rates two to four times higher than the national average, with increases in breast, prostate and lung cancers.

Dr. Verzeñassi commented on his findings: "Cancer has skyrocketed (http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2525411/cancer_deaths_double_in_argentinas_gmo_agribusiness_areas.html) in the last fifteen years."

Much the same was found in Chaco, Argentina's poorest province. In 2012, two villages were compared, the heavily sprayed farming village of Avia Terai and the non-sprayed ranching village of Charadai. In the farming village, 31 percent of residents had a family member with cancer while only 3 percent of residents in the ranching village had one.

Carlos Fria lives in Avia Terai. He has complained about glyphosate spraying in close proximity to his home:


"If the wind changes, the agrochemicals come into the house. My uncle just died of cancer. My wife too, passed away from cancer. Now many, many people are dying of cancer (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27373134). It didn't used to be like that. In my opinion, this has to do with the poison they put on the fields." Roundup Linked to Lymphoma
Research has also been done in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand investigating possible links between glyphosate, Roundup's active ingredient, and cancer. A large number of studies have focused on glyphosate's possible association with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Scientists from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) (http://www.iarc.fr/) have analyzed studies spanning almost three decades. The IARC is the branch of the World Health Organization that promotes cancer research. Scientists throughout the world with skills in epidemiology, laboratory sciences and biostatistics are brought together to identify the causes of cancer so that preventive measures may be instituted. The agency views cancers as linked, directly or indirectly, to environmental factors.


The research shows that Roundup is linked to a host of cancers in those living in the heavily sprayed regions of Latin America. It has also been linked to B cell lymphoma, and to brain cancer. In April of 2014, scientists at the IARC published their review of twenty-five years of research (http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/4/4449) on the relationship between pesticide exposure and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. They found a positive association between organo-phosphorus herbicides, like glyphosate, and this cancer. The B cell lymphoma sub-type, in particular, was strongly associated with glyphosate exposure.

Roundup Linked to Brain Cancer
The linkage to lymphoma is the most recent research raising concerns about glyphosate's connection to cancer. Scientists from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, (http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/) a branch of the US Department of Health and Human Services, specialize in illnesses caused by toxic substances. They published the results of the US Atlantic Coast Childhood Brain Cancer Study in 2009. Children with brain cancer (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2702394/) from Florida, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania were compared to age matched controls. The researchers found that if either parent had been exposed to Roundup during the two years before the child's birth, the chances of the child developing brain cancer doubled.

Roundup and Cancer: Human Observations Summarized
The research shows that Roundup is linked to a host of cancers in those living in the heavily sprayed regions of Latin America. It has also been linked to B cell lymphoma, and to brain cancer.

While the epidemiological studies show close correlation, they cannot prove causality. The gold standard for scientific proof is a randomized controlled trial, which would be unethical in this instance. You cannot ethically expose humans to an herbicide. Scientists therefore use a variety of experimental models to assess cancer risk.

Roundup Causes DNA Damage, Errors During Cell Division
Cancer risk can be evaluated by experiments that measure Roundup's ability to induce DNA damage.

One of the initial steps in the development of cancers is often damage to our DNA. Each of our cells gets its operating instructions from its DNA. If the DNA is damaged, the faulty operating instructions can re-program cells to divide rapidly and chaotically. When this happens, cells become transformed into cancers.

A number of experiments have been done using various animal models, all showing the same results: after exposure to Roundup, cells exhibited DNA damage. This was true in fruit fly (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7698107) larvae, in mice (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf9606518), in the blood cells of the European eel (http://mutage.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/5/523.abstract) and in the lymphocytes of cows (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16373198).

Another experimental model that has been used to judge glyphosate's cancer risk focuses on the herbicide's impact on cell division. Cells are vulnerable to being turned into cancers if an error is made during this delicate process. In the process of cell division, the DNA must be copied precisely. Each daughter cell must receive from its parent cell an identical copy of the DNA. If a mistake is made, the daughter cells will receive faulty DNA copies. Cells with damaged DNA can turn into cancers.

In a 2004 study done at the National Scientific Research Center and the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in France, Roundup caused significant errors (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15182708) in the cell division of sea urchin embryos. The scientists commented that these abnormalities are hallmarks of cancer and delivered a particularly chilling warning: The concentration of Roundup needed to cause these errors was 500 to 4,000 times lower than the dose to which humans may be exposed by aerial spraying or handling of the herbicide.

Roundup Damages Human DNA
The most worrisome of the DNA studies are the ones that show DNA damage in humans.

Dr. Fernando Manas, a biologist at the National University of Rio Cuarto in Argentina, has been investigating the effects of pesticides for years. He believes that glyphosate spraying is causing cancer (http://gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2014/15506-cancer-deaths-double-where-gm-crops-and-agro-chemicals-used) by inducing DNA damage. His research has documented genetic damage in those exposed. When Dr. Manas studied pesticide sprayers working in the soy industry in Córdoba, he found significantly more DNA damage in their lymphocytes than in those of an unexposed group of controls. Roundup was one of the most commonly used pesticides.


The pesticide sprayers in Córdoba, the Ecuadorians living in Sucumbíos, and the normal volunteers all developed Roundup-induced DNA damage in their lymphocytes.
Genetics researchers from the Pontifical Catholic University in Quito, Ecuador evaluated Ecuadorians living in the Sucumbíos district in northern Ecuador for evidence of DNA damage. This area was heavily sprayed with Roundup by the Colombian government to eradicate illicit crops. Those exposed to the herbicide developed a number of acute symptoms, including abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, heart palpitations, headaches, dizziness, numbness, insomnia, depression, shortness of breath, blurred vision, burning of eyes, blisters and rash. When compared to a control group, they also showed significantly more DNA damage. (http://www.scielo.br/pdf/gmb/v30n2/a26v30n2.pdf)
Interestingly, scientists have known since 1998 that when normal human lymphocytes were exposed to Roundup in a test tube, the lymphocytes developed DNA damage (http://www.researchgate.net/publication/13578408_Cytogenetic_damage_and_induction_of_pro-oxidant_state_in_human_lymphocytes_exposed_in_vitro_to_gliphosate_vinclozolin_atrazine_and_DPX-E9636).

The pesticide sprayers in Córdoba, the Ecuadorians living in Sucumbíos, and the normal volunteers all developed Roundup-induced DNA damage in their lymphocytes. A cancer of the lymphocytes is known as a "lymphoma," the very same type of cancer that the International Agency for Research on Cancer showed to be strongly associated with glyphosate exposure.

Roundup Boosts Cancer in Tissue Culture Studies
Another method that scientists have used to assess Roundup's cancer risk is to expose cells grown in "tissue culture" to the herbicide. Sheets of cells are grown on a small dish with nutrients. Glyphosate is added and its effects are observed.

In 2010, researchers in India exposed mouse skin cells grown in tissue culture to Roundup. When the herbicide was added, the cells became cancerous (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20045496).

Scientists in Thailand studied the impact of Roundup on human estrogen-responsive breast cancer cells in tissue culture. They published their results in 2013. Hormone-responsive breast cancer cells are known to grow when exposed to estrogen. Roundup also stimulated these cells to grow. The herbicide was able to bind to the cancer's estrogen receptors, thus mimicking the effects of estrogen and accelerating tumor growth.

Roundup Causes Cancer in Test Animals
Roundup's effects have been assessed in studies with a variety of test animals for more than three decades.

One of the earliest studies was done in 1979-1981, under the auspices of the United Nations Environmental Program, the International Labor Organization and the World Health Organization. Rats exposed to low levels of the herbicide developed testicular cancer. (http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc159.htm#SectionNumber:7.3) A larger dose did not produce the cancer. Unfortunately, at the time of the experiment, it was not understood that certain substances have more potent effects at lower doses than at higher doses. The evaluators erroneously dismissed the results showing the low-dose effect.

In a study from the Institute of Biology at the University of Caen in France, researchers studied glyphosate's effects on rats. Originally published in 2012, the resulting report was retracted after the biotech agriculture industry (http://www.enveurope.com/content/26/1/13) complained. After extensive review failed to show any fraud or problem with the data, the report was re-published in 2014. In this study, Roundup was shown to double the incidence of mammary gland tumors. These cancers (http://www.enveurope.com/content/26/1/14) developed much faster in rats exposed to Roundup than in controls. There was also an increase in cancers of the pituitary gland.

Rounding Up the Evidence
Epidemiological studies in humans, in the soy regions of Argentina and in Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have shown Roundup to be linked to an increase in cancer risk. There is a strong association between Roundup and B cell lymphoma, brain cancer and a variety of other cancers in those living in heavily sprayed areas.

In addition to these epidemiological observations, laboratory studies have shown that Roundup causes DNA damage, disturbs cell division, increases cancer growth in tissue culture and induces cancer when fed to test animals.

Proving Causality
Does the evidence linking Roundup to cancer prove causality? In the 1964 landmark Surgeon General's Report (http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/access/NNBBMQ.pdf), which for the very first time linked tobacco to cancer, Surgeon General Dr. Luther Terry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Terry) presented criteria for the establishment of a cause and effect relationship in a scientific study.

To meet Dr. Terry's criteria, an association must be strong, specific and consistent. Cause must precede effect. And the association must be biologically plausible.

Biotech agriculture's most powerful backer, it seems, is the government of the United States.
How well does the association between Roundup and cancer fit these criteria?

Roundup exposure is consistently and specifically associated with precancerous abnormalities in a wide variety of experimental settings. Epidemiological observations show a tight linkage between glyphosate and cancer. In the laboratory research, as well as in the epidemiological studies in the field, exposure to the herbicide precedes the development of the abnormalities. There are plausible biological mechanisms that explain how glyphosate can transform cells into cancers.

In citing the Surgeon General's report, Drs. Wild and Seber, in their highly regarded statistics textbook, Chance Encounters, provide an example of a strong association. (http://learnandteachstatistics.wordpress.com/about/) If an "illness is four times as likely among people exposed to a possible cause as it is for those who are not exposed," the association is considered strong.

Most of the glyphosate exposure experiments and epidemiological observations show a doubling of cancer risk. This leaves some room for doubt.

But who, given the science, would want to expose their loved ones to Roundup?

The State of the Science vs. the Science of the State
Roundup has now been conclusively proven to cause birth defects and to be closely linked to cancer. If we do not want this herbicide to accumulate in our water (http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2909#.VCW4COfXCBw), land, and food, we need to stop using it.


In the final sad irony, when the cancer cells reach their growth peak, they kill their host and die in the process. The science is clear, but powerful economic interests have, thus far, prevailed. The executives of the biotech agricultural corporations and their backers have ignored or denied (http://earthopensource.org/index.php/reports/roundup-and-birth-defects-is-the-public-being-kept-in-the-dark) the science documenting Roundup's harm.

Biotech agriculture's most powerful backer, it seems, is the government of the United States.

This official policy was explained in a 2010 US State Department cable (http://cables.mrkva.eu/cable.php?id=237291) from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:


"Our biotech outreach objectives for 2010 are to increase access to, and markets for, biotech as a means to help address the underlying causes of the food crisis, and to promote agricultural technology's role in mitigating climate change and increasing biofuel production." The US government has been willing to exercise its muscle in support of the biotech agricultural corporations.

In El Salvador, for example, the United States recently pressured the government to buy Monsanto's GM seeds or risk losing $277 million in development aid. El Salvador refused and stood firm, preferring to buy the seeds from its own struggling farmers.

Cancer's Lessons
There is a disturbing parallel between the exponential growth of biotech agriculture and the spread of a cancer in the human body.

Cancers are cells that reproduce rapidly and haphazardly with no regard for the greater good of the organism. Cancer cells consume valuable energy, starving out normal cells. They grow so wildly and so quickly that they crowd out their neighbors. They send off emissaries to start new cancer colonies. They make harmful substances that damage healthy cells. They spread relentlessly. In the final sad irony, when the cancer cells reach their growth peak, they kill their host and die in the process.

Like a cancer, biotech agriculture has crowded out its neighbors and is spreading relentlessly. Also like a cancer, it makes harmful substances. Roundup is one of them. As more acreage comes under GM cultivation, we can expect Roundup use to continue to increase.

Roundup kills plants, causes birth defects in vertebrates, and is linked to cancer. Can a living planet withstand the continuous assault from this poison any more than the human body can withstand the attack from an aggressive cancer?

Do we need to fight biotech agriculture with the same persistence, commitment and force that we bring to bear in battling cancers?

The author thanks Vivien Feyer for contributions to this article.


Related Stories

Roundup Ready Alfalfa Damages US Seed Industry (http://truth-out.org/news/item/4113)
By Phillip Geertson, Activist Post (http://www.activistpost.com/2011/10/roundup-ready-alfalfa-damages-us-seed.html) | Report

Monsanto Found Guilty of Chemical Poisoning in France (http://truth-out.org/news/item/6794)
By Anthony Gucciardi, Natural Society (http://naturalsociety.com/breaking-monsanto-found-guilty-of-chemical-poisoning-in-france/#ixzz1mWaLXtuI) | Report

Monsanto and Big Food Losing the GMO and "Natural" Food Fight (http://truth-out.org/news/item/23151)
By Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_29781.cfm) | News Analysis

[onawah]

Billion-dollar lawsuits claim GMO corn 'destroyed' US exports to China :clap2:
Published time: October 06, 2014 19:05
http://rt.com/usa/193612-china-lawsuits-gmo-corn/

Three class-action lawsuits filed Friday claim that agribusiness power Syngenta is to blame for depressed corn exports to China since the seed company released a genetically-engineered variant of the crop before it was approved by Beijing.

At issue is Syngenta’s 2009 release and distribution of its MIR162 genetically-modified corn known as Agrisure Viptera, which is engineered to fend off certain insects known to decimate corn crops. While approved for use in the United States, Chinese regulators have yet to sanction the export of Viptera.

Syngenta is responsible for “destroy[ing] the export of US corn to China,” which led to “depressed prices for all domestic corn,” according to Volnek Farms, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit filed in an Omaha, Nebraska federal court. Volnek and others are claiming $1 billion in compensation.

The two other suits were filed in Iowa and Illinois federal courts, according to Courthouse News. In addition to monetary claims, the Nebraska and Iowa suits seek to enjoin Syngenta from cultivating and marketing MIR162, or Viptera.

In addition to alleging the destruction of the US corn export market to China, Iowa plaintiffs Cronin Inc. and Jim Ruba Jr., who say they do not even plant genetically-modified corn, claim that Syngenta offered “materially misleading statements relating to the approval status of MIR162 in China and the impact the lack of approval would have on the market.”

“Syngenta's widespread contamination of the US corn and corn seed supply with MIR162, which will continue to foreclose the US export market to China in future years and will continue to lead to lower corn prices per bushel in the US market, as a result,” the Iowa plaintiffs added.

China’s importation of US corn is expected to rise, Nebraska plaintiff Volnek said, citing the US Department of Agriculture. But China ceased importing US corn after detecting MIR162 in shipments, Volnek and company added.

Though Viptera has been planted on only about three percent of US farm acreage, it is difficult to say for sure "that any shipments of US corn will not be contaminated with trace amounts of MIR162," the Nebraska plaintiffs said.

The commingling of corn from various sources at corn distribution centers is “essentially impossible," according to the Iowa complaint, which cites other major grain companies Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill, which do not accept Viptera.

Syngenta has been encouraged by the National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA) to stop selling Viptera, according to the Iowa claim. The NGFA has estimated that actions taken in China against US corn have caused prices to drop by 11 cents per bushel.

The Iowa suit alleges that the release of Syngenta’s Viptera caused the US-to-China corn export market to fall by 85 percent.

Syngenta has claimed that "the vast majority of corn produced in the US is used domestically," and that exports are not as important, though the USDA says 20 percent of corn produced in the US is exported. These conflicting accounts led to accusations by Iowa plaintiffs that Syngenta has engaged in willful misrepresentation.

Nebraska plaintiffs allege "reckless disregard" for the commodity market.

"Syngenta's decision to bring Viptera to the market crippled the 2013-14 corn export market to China," they said.

In 2011, Syngenta requested in federal court that a grain elevator firm, Bunge North America, remove signs that said it would not accept Viptera-variety corn. The request was denied.

In April, the NGFA, a trade organization for grain elevators, reported that China had barred nearly 1.45 million tons of corn shipments since 2013, resulting in about $427 million in lost sales. China first halted shipments of American corn in November, as RT previously reported.

Concern over the safety of genetically engineered food may have played a role in a recent decision by Chinese officials to move away from GE production of the nation’s own. In August, China’s Ministry of Agriculture announced it would not continue with a program that developed genetically-modified rice and corn.

[heyokah]

Hillary gets it wrong (again)
Organic Consumer Assoc.


Just. Plain. Wrong.

https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/plBsUt3HvCnd63W9MrODILl1wPfvmCoMSueTHaptKLx2pWEB38 N05CXMSpVqMCryTKPPF-g42Pe11-tYuosHUUjTuDpk-sfgmwP5EiHiIuJJmw=s0-d-e1-ft#http://www.organicconsumers.org/images/bytes/clinton-gmo.png

In her June 25 keynote address to the BIO International Convention in San Diego, Calif., Hillary Clinton voiced strong support for genetic engineering and genetically engineered crops. She earned a standing ovation that day by stating that the biotech industry suffers from a public perception problem and that it just needs “a better vocabulary” in order to persuade GMO skeptics who don’t understand “the facts” about genetic engineering.

And then Hillary proceeded to get the facts wrong.

Why does it matter what Hillary, who holds no public office and has not (yet) declared her candidacy for president, says or believes about genetic engineering and genetically modified crops and foods?

It doesn’t. Unless she throws her hat in the ring for the Democratic nomination. And then it matters not just what her position on GMOs is, not just how deep her financial ties with the biotech industry run, not just how much she distorts the facts about the “promise” of biotech crops.

It matters, deeply, to more than 90 percent of Americans, what her position is on GMO labeling laws.

If elected, will Hillary support consumers’ right to know? Or will she support the DARK Act, a bill introduced in Congress earlier this year, that would preempt state GMO labeling laws?

Hillary has been coy about announcing her candidacy. On clarifying her position on GMO labeling laws, she’s been dead silent.

As she soon heads to Iowa—the testing ground for presidential candidates—Hillary’s presidential aspirations will no doubt become more clear. If she runs, as the pundits predict, it will be up to the GMO labeling movement to demand that she take a stand on GMO labeling laws.

Meanwhile, here’s why Hillary’s speech to the BIO convention was just plain wrong.

Read the essay:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_30776.cfm


By Katherine Paul and Ronnie Cummins
Organic Consumers Association, August 28, 2014

For related articles and more information, please visit OCA's Millions Against Monsanto page and our Environment and Climate Resource Center page.



In her June 25 keynote address to the BIO International Convention in San Diego, Calif., Hillary Clinton voiced strong support for genetic engineering and genetically engineered crops. She earned a standing ovation that day by stating that the biotech industry suffers from a public perception problem and that it just needs “a better vocabulary” in order to persuade GMO skeptics who don’t understand “the facts” about genetic engineering.

And then Hillary proceeded to get the facts wrong.

Why does it matter what Hillary, who holds no public office and has not (yet) declared her candidacy for president, says or believes about genetic engineering and genetically modified crops and foods?

It doesn’t—unless she throws her hat in the ring for the Democratic nomination. And then it matters not just what her position is on GMOs, not just how deep her financial ties to the biotech industry run, not just how much she distorts the facts about the “promise” of biotech crops.

It matters, deeply, to more than 90 percent of Americans, what her position is on laws requiring mandatory labeling of GMOs in food and food products.

If elected, will Hillary support consumers’ right to know? Or will she support the DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act, a bill introduced in Congress earlier this year, which if passed, will preempt state GMO labeling laws?

Hillary has been coy about announcing her candidacy. But when it comes to clarifying her position on GMO labeling laws, she’s been dead silent.

As she soon heads to Iowa—the testing ground for presidential candidates—Hillary’s presidential aspirations will no doubt become more clear. If she runs, as the pundits predict, it will be up to the GMO labeling movement to demand that she take a stand on GMO labeling laws.

Meanwhile, here’s why Hillary’s speech to the BIO convention was just plain wrong.

Wrong on the science of genetic engineering

Hillary brought the BIO convention-goers to their feet with her call for “a better vocabulary” to win over consumers.

No wonder. After all, that’s the line Monsanto has been feeding the public ever since the public became wise to the lies and false promises of an industry known for its reckless disregard for public health. It’s part of an aggressive, widespread public relations campaign to sugar-coat the facts about genetically engineered foods and the toxic chemicals required to produce them.

As scientists release studies, each one more alarming than the next, revealing the devastating health and environmental hazards of the herbicides required to grow GMO crops—toxic chemicals such as glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, and Dow’s 2,4-D —consumers are connecting the dots between the rise of chronic illness and the unleashing of toxins into the environment (and onto our food).

No amount of “better vocabulary” will be able to counter the science behind the impact of toxic herbicides and pesticides on soil, on the environment, on human health.

But here’s where Hillary’s call for a “better vocabulary” really ran off the rails. Coverage of the convention included a video in which Hillary wrongly equated the age-old practice of seed hybridization with modern genetic engineering, in order to make the case that genetic engineering has been around since the beginning of farming.

Hillary would do well to go back to her science books. Here are the facts, as understood by every biologist. Seed hybridization occurs when the seeds of two compatible parent plants, within the same species, are crossed, either in a controlled environment or in nature. That process is in no way equivalent to genetic engineering, a process that requires human intervention, and consists of changing the genetic code of one organism by inserting into it the DNA from a completely different plant or animal.

Genetic engineering is an unnatural process that can take place only in a laboratory, aided by a human.

Wrong on genetic engineering and drought

In the same video from the June 25 conference, Hillary perpetuates industry claims that as global warming leads to more droughts, GMO crops will feed the world. She does this by focusing on GE drought-resistant seeds—as if engineering seeds for drought-resistance were a major focus on the biotech industry.

It’s not, of course. Drought-resistant seeds and crops make up a miniscule portion of the GMO crop market. Close to 98 percent of GE crops are corn, soy, alfalfa, canola and sugar beets, used to make biofuels, animal feed and processed food products, such as high fructose corn syrup. These crops are engineered to produce their own Bt toxins in every cell or else to withstand massive doses of herbicides, such as Monsanto’s Roundup, which are sold to farmers as companions to their GMO seeds. They have nothing to do with drought-resistance.

In fact, attempts to engineer seeds to thrive during droughts are still in the experimental stages and so far have largely failed. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, Monsanto’s DroughtGard, the only drought-resistant crop approved so far by the USDA, produces “only modest results, and only under moderate drought conditions.”

Yet to hear Hillary tell it, genetic engineering is all about saving farmers by providing them with magic seeds that thrive without water.

Wrong on genetic engineering and global warming

Toward the end of her video interview, Hillary switched gears to talk about climate change. She endorsed the Obama climate plan and called out the media for giving too much attention to climate-change skeptics.

Hillary believes we must address global warming. Good news.

But there’s just one problem.

A growing chorus of scientists warn that we cannot successfully address global warming unless we acknowledge the huge role that industrial agriculture, with its GMO mono-crop culture and massive use of chemicals, plays in cooking the planet.

If we’re truly serious about averting a global warming disaster, reducing carbon emissions isn’t enough. We have to acknowledge, and harness, potential of organic, regenerative agriculture to reverse global warming by sequestering carbon.

According to groups like the Rodale Institute, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and the Alliance for Food Sovereignty, a transition to sustainable, regenerative agriculture—not genetic engineering—is not only the only way we will feed the world, but absolutely essential if we want to slow global warming.

Hillary is just plain wrong if she thinks we can solve global warming while simultaneously promoting GMO agriculture, here in the U.S. and abroad. That’s why the Organic Consumers Association has launched a petition asking her to rethink her support for biotech, and commit to supporting a transition to a sustainable, organic food and farming system.

As consumers grow more knowledgeable about the link between food produced using toxic chemicals and the declining health of the U.S. population, they are looking more closely at those politicians who side with, and take money from, the biotech industry. Clinton’s ties to the biotech industry date back to the 1970s, when she was a partner in the Rose Law Firm which represented Monsanto.

A recent ABC News poll revealed that 52 percent of Americans believe food containing GMOs are unsafe, while 13 percent are “unsure.”

On mandatory GMO labeling laws, Americans are clear: 93 percent want labels.

Hillary, where do you stand?

Katherine Paul is associate director of the Organic Consumers Association.

Ronnie Cummins is the international director of the Organic Consumers Association and its Mexico affiliate Via Organica.


Here's Hillary Rodham Clinton on GMO crops:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJaic2ek8aY

[East Sun]

Why would anyone listen to a known pathological liar.

[East Sun]

[/COLOR]For the most part people do not change. In case you did not know or remember here is a character insight from history:


In Case Y'all Forgot!!!!
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-J01Rxjrmros/U6HjXiWIzBI/AAAAAAAAA0c/w27kxuF-qYg/s1600/HillaryFired.jpg

[Hervé]

Official records show massive spraying of restricted pesticides on Kauai (http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/official-records-show-massive-spraying-of-restricted-pesticides-on-kauai/)

Nov 26 (http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/official-records-show-massive-spraying-of-restricted-pesticides-on-kauai/), 2014 by Jon Rappoport (http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/author/jonrappoport/)
NoMoreFakeNews.com (http://nomorefakenews.com/)

I don’t know whether this is the complete record of dangerous pesticides sprayed on Kauai, but it is an enormous list. The category “restricted use” means “even the authorities admit significant toxicity.”

Here’s the link:

“Kaua’i Agricultural Good Neighbor Program RUP Use Reporting: Aggregate usage of Restricted Use Pesticides as reported through the Kaua’i Agricultural Good Neighbor Program.”

https://data.hawaii.gov/Health/Kaua-i-Agricultural-Good-Neighbor-Program-RUP-Use-/9pud-c8q5

(Hat tip to reader “Rita1″ for passing this information along).

Jon Rappoport

----------------------------------------------------------------

My, is it ever a VERY long list!

[onawah]

DNA from GMOs can pass directly into humans, study confirms
http://livefreelivenatural.com/dna-gmos-can-pass-directly-humans-study-confirms/
This info hit home for me. I bought a free range turkey from my local health food store but didn't realize until after I had cooked it and eaten some that it was not GMO free. I didn't feel well after eating it, and I thought at first it might have been because I am primarily vegetarian and haven't eaten flesh in a long time. I got the turkey because I had been reading in Dr. Mercola's newsletter about how good bone broth is for bones and I have some health issues on that score, so I had resolved to make broth as well as a medicinal turkey vegetable soup, so as not to be wasteful. But when my body gave me negative signals, I checked further into the source of my turkey and discovered that "free range" did not mean GMO free. After reading this article, I think I am going to throw the whole GMO infected mess away...:yuck:


Posted on June 24, 2014 by Cecil Iscool in Health

(Via NaturalNews | Jonathan Benson) The idea that DNA from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is broken down in the digestive tract and rendered innocuous, a common industry claim, is patently false. A recent study published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE found that large, meal-derived DNA fragments from GMOs are fully capable of transferring their genes directly into the bloodstream, deconstructing the myth that transgenic foods act on the body in the same way as natural foods.

A combined analysis of four other independent studies involving more than 1,000 human samples and a team of researchers from universities in Hungary, Denmark and the U.S. looked at the assimilation process for GMOs as they are currently consumed throughout the world. This includes derivatives of GM crops such as high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) from GM corn, for instance, and soy protein from GM soybeans, as well as meat derived from animals fed a GM-based diet.

After looking at the data on how the human body processes these and other forms of GMOs, the team discovered that DNA from GMOs is not completely broken down by the body during the digestion process. What would normally be degraded into smaller constituents like amino acids and nucleic acids was found to remain whole. Not only this, but these larger DNA fragments were found to pass directly into the circulatory system, sometimes at a level higher than actual human DNA.

“[B]ased on the analysis of over 1000 human samples from four independent studies, we report evidence that meal-derived DNA fragments which are large enough to carry complete genes can avoid degradation and through an unknown mechanism enter the human circulation system,” explained the authors in their study abstract.

“In one of the blood samples the relative concentration of plant DNA is higher than the human DNA.”

Genes from GMOs transfer into small intestine, alter composition of beneficial bacteria

This is an astounding discovery that proves false claims made by Monsanto and others that GMOs are no different from non-GMOs as far as the body is concerned. Monsanto even claims on its “Food Safety” page for GMOs that the DNA from GMOs is “extensively digested” and “present[s] no hazards,” both of which have now been shown to be lies.

Based on this latest analysis of how food genes are transferred from the digestive tract into the bloodstream, it is now apparent that the genes of GMOs pass into the bloodstream whole. Their presence is also associated with major inflammatory conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, adenoma and colorectal cancer.

The presence of transgenic genes in the small intestine was also found to affect the composition of beneficial bacteria, which are responsible for protecting the gut against foreign invaders and helping the body absorb nutrients from food. Individuals with ileostomies, or perforations in their abdominal walls as a result of surgery, were found to literally be harboring full DNA sequences from GMOs in their intestinal tracts.



None of this is really all that surprising, of course, as the biological activities behind how GMOs are processed by the human body have never been legitimately studied. Biotechnology companies have always just claimed that GMOs are the same as real food, without any evidence to back this up, and this has been enough for the government to keep them on the market for nearly 20 years.

“One small mutation in a human being can determine so much, the point is when you move a gene, one gene, one tiny gene out of an organism into a different one you completely change its context,” said David Suzuki, co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. “There is no way to predict how it’s going to behave and what the outcome will be.”

Sources for this article include:

http://www.realfarmacy.com

http://www.plosone.org

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

http://science.naturalnews.com

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com
- See more at: http://livefreelivenatural.com/dna-gmos-can-pass-directly-humans-study-confirms/#sthash.IgqmjCNK.dpuf

[onawah]

Dramatic Correlation Shown Between GMOs and 22 Diseases
http://www.nationofchange.org/2014/11/19/use-gmos-crops-glyphosate-rise-critical-diseases/

[QUOTE]Millions of people have marched against Monsanto and the national consensus is in favor of labeling. Why hasn't the U.S. government responded?

Published: November 19, 2014 | Authors: Kevin Zeese Margaret Flowers | Popular Resistance | News Report
There is a growing movement for labeling of GMO crops, and many would go further and ban GMOs completely. Currently there is a close vote in Oregon on a GMO labeling initiative, with advocates for labeling 0.3% behind and raising money to check ballots (we urge your support). Those who profit from GMOs spent $20 million to prevent labeling in Oregon. Several states in the Northeast have put in place laws that will require labeling.

Vermont is about to be sued to prevent GMO labeling. GMO profiteers have an unusual marketing strategy. While most companies brag about their product, the GMO industry spends hundreds of millions to hide their product. The US does not require labeling of GMOs despite the fact that 64 countries around the world label GMO foods.

Millions have marched against Monsanto urging labeling or the banning of GMO products. There is a national consensus in favor of labeling but the government has been unable to respond. Indeed, President Obama’s food czar is a former Monsanto executive. The deep corruption of government is putting the health of the American people at serious risk.
The research highlighted below, “Genetically engineered crops, glyphosate and the deterioration of health in the United States of America,” was published in The Journal of Organic Systems this September and links GMOs to 22 diseases with very high correlation. We reprinted many of the graphs from the study that show an incredible correlation between the rise of GMO crops that use the herbicide glyphosate and a wide range of diseases.

Glyphosate was introduced to the marketplace in 1974 but data on its use is only available since 1990. Monsanto has genetically modified foods so that they are resistant to glyphosate, a herbicide Monsanto sells, resulting in a dramatic increase in the use of glyphosate. The study points out that research has shown that “glyphosate disrupts the ability of animals, including humans, to detoxify xenobiotics. This means that exposures to the numerous chemicals in food and the environment, such as endocrine disrupting chemicals and carcinogens, could be causing levels of damage that would not occur if the body were able to detoxify them.”

Correlation is not proof of causation. But the authors point out “we have data for 22 diseases, all with a high degree of correlation and very high significance. It seems highly unlikely that all of these can be random coincidence.” They point out that according to “the American Academy of Environmental Medicine’s position paper on genetically modified (GM) foods: ‘[S]everal animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system.’”

The conclusions of the study are:

“These data show very strong and highly significant correlations between the increasing use of glyphosate, GE crop growth and the increase in a multitude of diseases. Many of the graphs show sudden increases in the rates of diseases in the mid-1990s that coincide with the commercial production of GE crops. The large increase in glyphosate use in the US is mostly due to the increase in glyphosate-resistant GE crops.

“The probabilities in the graphs and tables show that it is highly unlikely that the correlations are a coincidence. The strength of the correlations shows that there is a very strong probability that they are linked somehow. The number of graphs with similar data trends also indicates a strong probability that there is a link. Although correlation does not necessarily mean causation, when correlation coefficients of over 0.95 (with p-value significance levels less than 0.00001) are calculated for a list of diseases that can be directly linked to glyphosate, via its known biological effects, it would be imprudent not to consider causation as a plausible explanation.

“We do not imply that all of these diseases have a single cause as there are many toxic substances and pathogens that can contribute to chronic disease. However, no toxic substance has increased in ubiquity in the last 20 years as glyphosate has. . . . Another critical issue is that glyphosate is an endocrine disruptor and it has been argued that there are no safe levels of endocrine disruptors. This would imply that the current permitted residue levels in food could be causing multiple health problems that have been documented in the scientific literature to be caused by endocrine disrupting chemicals.” [Citations omitted]
A root cause of the problem is that United States’ regulatory structure is backward, making people into guinea pigs instead of protecting them. As the researchers write:

“… the regulatory approach in the US is reactionary rather than precautionary. Instead of taking preventive action when uncertainty exists about the potential harm a chemical or other environmental contaminant may cause, a hazard must be incontrovertibly demonstrated before action is initiated. Instead of requiring industry to prove the safety of their devices or chemical products, the public bears the burden of proving that a given environmental exposure is harmful.”

As to next steps, the researchers urge independent scientific research (sadly, too much research is funded by corporations that profit from GMO crops]. They write:

“The data presented in this paper highlight the need for independent scientific research to be conducted, especially in the areas of the endocrine disruption, cancer precursor, oxidative stress, gut microbiome and the Cytochrome P450 pathways. It is our hope that, in addition to more basic research in the form of toxicology and carcinogenic studies, epidemiology studies will be undertaken by experts in each of these disease categories.”

In the meantime, people need to continue to take political action to require labeling, urge a new regulatory structure that applies the precautionary principle and urge the banning of GMO crops now that correlation to disease is being shown. There are a few things you can do to protect yourself from GMO foods: (1) Buy organic, (2) Look for the Non-GMO seal, (3) Avoid crops where GMO’s are common.

The eight GM food crops are Corn, Soybeans, Canola, Cottonseed, Sugar Beets, Hawaiian Papaya (most) and a small amount of Zucchini and Yellow Squash. Sugar is likely to contain GMO beets unless it is labeled as pure cane sugar. Dairy is also likely to be GMO unless it is labeled No rBGH, rBST, or artificial hormones. Here’s a non-GMO shopping guide for further assistance.

Below are some of the key charts from the Journal of Organic Systems study.

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Adoption-of-GMO-crops-in-US.jpg

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liver-cancer-and-GMOs-e1416237650532.jpg

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Urinary-and-bladder-cancer-and-GMO-e1416237835647.jpg

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Thyroid-cancer-and-GMOs-e1416237905447.jpg

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Thyroid-cancer-and-GMOs-e1416237905447.jpg

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Hypertension-and-GMOs-e1416238016712.jpg

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Stroke-and-GMOs-e1416238105492.jpg

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Obesity-and-GMOs-e1416238303376.jpg

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Diabetes-and-GMOs-e1416238397803.jpg

continued

[onawah]

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Diabetes-prevalence-and-GMOs-e1416238529788.jpg
Adoption of GMO crops in US

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Lipoprotein-Disorder-Deaths-and-GMOs-e1416238613199.jpg


https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Renal-disease-deaths-and-GMOs-e1416238715551.jpg

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Inflamatory-bowell-disease-and-GMOs-e1416238808991.jpg

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Intestinal-infection-and-GMOs.jpg

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Autism-and-GMOs.jpg

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Senile-Dementia-and-GMOs-e1416239083639.jpg

http://https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Alzheimers-and-GMOs-e1416239168898.jpg

https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Parkinsons-and-GMOs.jpg
Liver cancer and GMOs

Kidney Cancer and GMOs

Urinary and bladder cancer and GMO

Thyroid cancer and GMOs

Hypertension and GMOs

Stroke and GMOs

Obesity and GMOs

Diabetes and GMOs

Diabetes prevalence and GMOs

Lipoprotein Disorder Deaths and GMOs

Renal disease deaths and GMOs

Inflamatory bowell disease and GMOs

Intestinal infection and GMOs

Autism and GMOs

Senile Dementia and GMOs

Alzheimer's and GMOs

Parkinson's and GMOs



For more information visit the Organic Consumers Association Millions Against MonsantoCampaign.

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers co-direct Popular Resistance which provides daily movement news and resources. Sign up for their daily newsletter; and follow them on twitter, @PopResistance.[/QUOTE]

[onawah]

Autism Bomb: Bayer Herbicide Causes Autism, Even at Trace Levels
Read more at http://expandedconsciousness.com/2014/12/04/autism-bomb-bayer-herbicide-causes-autism-even-trace-levels/#7WcdWOWGhBI9q531.99
http://expandedconsciousness.com/2014/12/04/autism-bomb-bayer-herbicide-causes-autism-even-trace-levels/

By Christina Sarich
Bayer’s Liberty Link GMO crops made to withstand glufosinate ammonium (GLA) herbicide are linked directly to autism-like symptoms, according to a new study. Even in low doses, both pre and post-natal exposure to GLA caused symptoms in laboratory mice.
Published in Frontiers of Behavioral Neuroscience, the study outlines how GLA, one of the most widely used herbicides in agriculture is harming neurological health.
Pointing to the findings of previous research linking herbicides and autism, as well as with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, the study explains that pesticide and herbicide exposure weakens the basic structure of the brain.
The developmental impact of GLA was examined by exposing female mice to low dose GLA during both pre- and postnatal periods and analyzed potential developmental and behavioral changes of the offspring during infancy and adulthood.
A host of neurobehavioral tests revealed some unsettling results:
“. . .significant effects of GLA maternal exposure on early reflex development, pup communication, affiliative behaviors, and preference for social olfactory cues, but emotional reactivity and emotional memory remained unaltered. These behavioral alterations showed a striking resemblance to changes seen in animal models of Autistic Spectrum Disorders. At the brain level, GLA maternal exposure caused some increase in relative brain weight of the offspring. In addition, reduced expression of Pten and Peg3 – two genes implicated in autism-like deficits – was observed in the brain of GLA-exposed pups at postnatal day 15.
Our work thus provides new data on the link between pre- and postnatal exposure to the herbicide GLA and the onset of autism-like symptoms later in life. It also raises fundamental concerns about the ability of current safety testing to assess risks of pesticide exposure during critical developmental periods.”

Bayer Crop Science will tell you:
“High-performance LibertyLink traits are widely available across crops – canola, cotton, corn and soybeans – including leading brands such as FiberMax® and Stoneville® cotton, InVigor®canola and more than 100 brands of corn and soybeans, including HBK soybeans.”
This means that GLA is in use on thousands of acres of crops across the United States and in Canada.
The Institute for Responsible Technology has stated that:
“Twice the number of chickens died when fed Liberty Link corn. The death rate for chickens fed Chardon LL GM corn for 42 days was 7%, compared to 3.5% for controls. GM-fed chickens also had more erratic body weight and food intake, and less weight gain overall. But these results were dismissed without follow-up.”
Were the results of this study ignored like so many other GMO tests because the makers were already well aware that GLA was toxic and deathly?
Bayer is working to defeat GMO labeling as well.
How convenient for Bayer, since it makes pharmaceuticals which also ‘treat’ neurological impairment like Alzheimer’s disease. It’s also convenient for Titan pharmaceuticals, which makes drugs to treat Parkinson’s. A new appointee to the board at Titan includes one former Bayer executive. And of course, Bayer makes drugs like selective seratonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) that ‘treat’ autism as well.
It’s a tangled web.
Additional Sources:
Eco Watch
This post was originally featured on Global Research:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/autism-bomb-bayer-herbicide-causes-autism-even-at-trace-levels/5417852

Read more at http://expandedconsciousness.com/2014/12/04/autism-bomb-bayer-herbicide-causes-autism-even-trace-levels/#7WcdWOWGhBI9q531.99

[Hervé]

A summary and interpretation of the graphs posted above (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?72043-GMO-And-Related-Stuff&p=906830&viewfull=1#post906830) by onawah:

Study finds: "Very Strong" correlation between GMOs and two dozen diseases (http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/01/17/new-study-finds-a-very-strong-correlation-between-gmos-and-two-dozen-diseases/)

Arjun Walia
collective-evolution.com (http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/01/17/new-study-finds-a-very-strong-correlation-between-gmos-and-two-dozen-diseases/)
Sat, 17 Jan 2015 02:45 CET


http://www.sott.net/image/s11/225093/large/gmo_634x400.jpg (http://www.sott.net/image/s11/225093/full/gmo_634x400.jpg)


It's no secret that we are living in a time where chronic disease continues to rise at an exponential rate, especially within the past couple of decades. New evidence continues to mount suggesting that Genetically Modified Organisms (more specifically GM food) might have played, and do play a key role in those statistics.

A new study recently published in the Journal of Organic Systems last September examined US government databases, researchers searched for GE (Genetically Engineered) crop data, glyphosate application data, and disease epidemiological data while performing a "correlation analysis" on a total of 22 different diseases.

Researchers reached an alarming conclusion:

"These data show very strong and highly significant correlations between the increasing use of glyphosate, GE crop growth and the increase in a multitude of diseases. Many of the graphs show sudden increases in the rates of diseases in the mid-1990s that coincide with the commercial production of GE crops. The probabilities in the graphs and tables show that it is highly unlikely that the correlations are a coincidence. The strength of the correlations shows that there is a very strong probability that they are linked somehow." (1 (http://www.organic-systems.org/journal/92/JOS_Volume-9_Number-2_Nov_2014-Swanson-et-al.pdf)) If you're thinking causation doesn't mean correlation [sic], you are right, but it's important to consider taking into account the multitude of studies that clearly indicate the potential dangers associated with ingesting genetically modified foods. There is a lot of information out there, and our lack of support for GE foods comes from examining a multitude of information instead of just "a study." It's always important to look at a wide variety of data and evidence when trying to make the best possible decisions for you and your family when it comes to GE foods. The science suggesting that they should not be deemed completely safe for consumption is quite large, and goes beyond the correlation analysis that was performed in this study.

If you take glyphosate, for example, it was introduced in 1974 and its use is accelerating at an alarming rate. Over the decades, strong scientific evidence has shown how glyphosate disrupts the endocrine system and the balance of gut bacteria, that it damages DNA and encourages cell mutations that can lead to cancer (http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/06/14/groundbreaking-study-links-monsantos-glyphosate-to-cancer/). It's also been linked to autism (http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/12/20/what-parents-need-to-know-about-monsanto-by-2025-one-in-two-children-will-be-autistic/), Alzheimer's disease (http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/05/10/new-study-links-monsantos-roundup-to-autism-parkinsons-and-alzheimers/), Parkinson's disease (http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/05/10/new-study-links-monsantos-roundup-to-autism-parkinsons-and-alzheimers/) and various other detrimental human health ailments. This fact alone gives more credence to the main study mentioned in this article.

The actual study contains more information and visuals for anybody who reads it, you can access it within the sources.

With all of the information and science that's now been published, more specifically with regards to glyphosate, it's absolutely absurd, dangerous and irresponsible for any biotech corporation who manufactures these substances to tell the world that they are completely safe and harmless, yet they do. Don't you think? How could a corporation like Monsanto (a corporation charged with regulating our global food supply) claim that glyphosate is safe despite all of the evidence that confirms that it's not?

"It is commonly believed that Roundup is among the safest pesticides... Despite its reputation, Roundup was by far the most toxic among the herbicides and insecticides tested. This inconsistency between scientific fact and industrial claim may be attributed to huge economic interests, which have been found to falsify health risk assessments and delay health policy decisions."

- R. Mesnage et al., Biomed Research International, Volume 2014 (2014) article ID 179691 Keep in mind that the use of glyphosate rose 1500% from 1995 to 2005, and that 100 million pounds of glyphosate is used every year on more than a billion acres. (Cherry B. GM crops increase herbicide use in the United States. Science in Society 45, 44-46, 2010)(source (http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/glyphosate/Groton_Seneff.pdf))

Source: http://www.organic-systems.org/journal/92/JOS_Volume-9_Number-2_Nov_2014-Swanson-et-al.pdf

SOTT Comment: (http://www.sott.net/article/291856-Study-finds-Very-Strong-correlation-between-GMOs-and-two-dozen-diseases) More strong scientific evidence 'showing how glyphosate disrupts the endocrine system, the balance of gut bacteria, damage to DNA and encourages cell mutations that can lead to cancer.'

Research: Roundup Diluted by 450-Fold is Still Toxic to DNA (http://www.sott.net/article/241613-Research-Roundup-Diluted-by-450-Fold-is-Still-Toxic-to-DNA)
Roundup Herbicide Linked To Parkinson's-Related Brain Damage (http://www.sott.net/article/244244-Roundup-Herbicide-Linked-To-Parkinsons-Related-Brain-Damage)
Scientist Says Flawed Science of GMOs Jeopardizing Future Generations (http://www.sott.net/article/243115-Scientist-Says-Flawed-Science-of-GMOs-Jeopardizing-Future-Generations)
Gut-Wrenching: New studies reveal the insidious effects of Glyphosate (http://www.sott.net/article/276718-Gut-Wrenching-New-studies-reveal-the-insidious-effects-of-Glyphosate)
GMO's & Neurological Disease: ADHD, Autism, Alzheimer's, Schizophrenia, Bipolar (http://www.sott.net/article/267227-GMOs-Neurological-Disease-ADHD-Autism-Alzheimers-Schizophrenia-Bipolar)

[onawah]

Seedy Business
What Big Food Is Hiding with Its Slick PR Campaign on GMOs
February 10, 2015
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/02/10/gmo-seedy-business.aspx?e_cid=20150210Z1_DNL_B_art_2&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art2&utm_campaign=20150210Z1_DNL_B&et_cid=DM69177&et_rid=837076910

By Gary Ruskin
Co-Founder and Executive Director, U.S. Right to Know

U.S. Right to Know – a new nonprofit organization — released a new report on Big Food’s PR campaign to defend GMOs: how it manipulated the media, public opinion and politics with sleazy tactics, bought science and PR spin.

Since 2012, the agrichemical and food industries have mounted a complex, multifaceted public relations, advertising, lobbying and political campaign in the United States, costing more than $100 million, to defend genetically engineered food and crops and the pesticides that accompany them.

The purpose of this campaign is to deceive the public, to deflect efforts to win the right to know what is in our food via labeling that is already required in 64 countries, and ultimately, to extend their profit stream for as long as possible.

This campaign has greatly influenced how U.S. media covers GMOs. The industry’s PR firm, Ketchum, even boasted that “positive media coverage has doubled” on GMOs. The report outlines fifteen things that Big Food is hiding with its artful PR campaign on GMOs.

#1: The agrichemical companies have a history of concealing health risks from the public. Time and again, the companies that produce GMOs have hidden from consumers and workers the truth about the dangers of their products and operations. So how can we trust them to tell us the truth about their GMOs?

#2: The FDA does not test whether GMOs are safe. It merely reviews information submitted by the agrichemical companies.

#3: Our nation’s lax policy on GMOs is the work of former Vice President Dan Quayle’s anti-regulatory crusade. It was designed and delivered as a political favor to Monsanto.

#4: What the agrichemical and tobacco industries have in common: PR firms, operatives, tactics. The agrichemical industry’s recent PR campaign is similar in some ways to the most infamous industry PR campaign ever – the tobacco industry’s effort to evade responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans each year.

#5: Russia’s PR firm runs the agrichemical industry’s big PR salvo on GMOs. We don’t trust the PR firm Ketchum when it spins for Russia and President Putin. Why should we trust its spin on GMOs?

#6: The agrichemical industry’s key front groups and shills aren’t trustworthy. Many of the industry’s leading advocates have records of defending the indefensible, or other scandals and conduct that inspires no confidence.

#7: The agrichemical companies have employed repugnant PR tactics. These tactics include attacks on scientists and journalists, and brainwashing children.

#8: The agrichemical companies have a potent, sleazy political machine. They have allies in high places, and employ their power vigorously – and sometimes corruptly — to protect and expand their markets and their profits from GMOs.

#9: Half of the Big Six agrichemical firms can’t even grow their GMOs in their own home countries. Because of the health and environmental risks of GMOs, citizens of Germany and Switzerland won’t allow farming of BASF, Bayer, and Syngenta’s GMO seeds.

#10: Monsanto supported GMO labeling in the UK but opposes it in the USA. Although Monsanto is based in St. Louis, Missouri, Monsanto believes that British citizens deserve stronger consumer rights than Americans do.

#11: The pesticide treadmill breeds profits, so it will likely intensify. It is in the financial interest of the agrichemical companies to promote the evolution and spread of the most pestilential superweeds and superpests, because these will spur the sale of the greatest quantities of the most expensive pesticides.

#12: GMO science is for sale. Science can be swayed, bought or biased by the agrichemical industry in many ways, such as suppressing adverse findings, harming the careers of scientists who produce such findings, controlling the funding that shapes what research is conducted, the lack of independent U.S.-based testing of health and environmental risks of GMOs, and tainting scientific reviews of GMOs by conflicts of interest.

#13: There are nearly no consumer benefits of GMOs. The GMOs that Americans eat are not healthier, safer or more nutritious than conventional foods. They do not look better, nor do they taste better. By any measure that consumers actually care about, they are not in any way an improvement. Profits from GMOs accrue to the agrichemical companies, while health risks are borne by consumers.

#14: The FDA and food companies have been wrong before: they have assured us of the safety of products that were not safe. Many drugs and food additives that the FDA allowed on the market have subsequently been banned because they were toxic or dangerous.

#15: A few other things the agrichemical industry doesn’t want you to know about them: crimes, scandals, and other wrongdoing. The agrichemical industry’s six major firms — Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow, DuPont, Bayer, and BASF — have been involved in so many reprehensible activities that documenting them would require at least an entire book.

U.S. Right to Know is a new nonprofit food organization. We expose what food companies don’t want us to know about our food. We stand up for the right to know what’s in our food. We bring accountability to Big Food and its compliant politicians. For more information, please see our website at usrtk.org.

Gary Ruskin is the co-founder and executive director of nonprofit organization U.S. Right to Know. In 2012, Gary was campaign manager for California Right to Know (Proposition 37), a statewide ballot initiative for labeling of genetically engineered food in California.

For 14 years, he directed the Congressional Accountability Project, which opposed corruption in the U.S. Congress. For nine years, he was executive director and co-founder of Commercial Alert, which opposed the commercialization of every nook and cranny of our lives and culture. Gary was also director of the Center for Corporate Policy.

He has often been quoted in major newspapers across the country and has appeared scores of times on national TV news programs. He received his undergraduate degree in religion from Carleton College, and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

[onawah]

GMO Food Alert: Scientific Truths Revealed
Free audio show today only at the link, or hopefully one of the Mods can record and embed this.
http://www.naturalhealth365.com/talkhourshow.html

Our Guest - Robert Kremer, Ph.D. is a Professor of Soil Microbiology at the University of Missouri and recently retired after a 32-year career as a research microbiologist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service. The public needs to know: The vast majority of our corn and soy crops are genetically engineered and finding their way into more foods than you can imagine. This show sounds the alarm about the health dangers associated with genetically manipulated foods. You’ll learn how serious this issue is and, hopefully, share this information with your family and friends. It’s an urgent message!
Now Playing! Sun. Mar. 1, 2015
Available 9:00 am – 9:00 pm (EST)
- See more at: http://www.naturalhealth365.com/talkhourshow.html#sthash.bfWIZEbR.dpuf

[Bill Ryan]

GMO Food Alert: Scientific Truths Revealed
Free audio show today only at the link, or hopefully one of the Mods can record and embed this.
http://www.naturalhealth365.com/talkhourshow.html

Our Guest - Robert Kremer, Ph.D. is a Professor of Soil Microbiology at the University of Missouri and recently retired after a 32-year career as a research microbiologist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service. The public needs to know: The vast majority of our corn and soy crops are genetically engineered and finding their way into more foods than you can imagine. This show sounds the alarm about the health dangers associated with genetically manipulated foods. You’ll learn how serious this issue is and, hopefully, share this information with your family and friends. It’s an urgent message!
Now Playing! Sun. Mar. 1, 2015
Available 9:00 am – 9:00 pm (EST)




Done. :)

http://projectavalon.net/GMO_Food_Alert_Scientific_Truths_Revealed_Dr_Robert_Kremer_1_March_2015.mp3
(17 Mb, 41 mins, permanently on the Avalon server now)

[onawah]

View Documentary "Bought" free until March 6th.
It's a lot of ground to cover in one documentary, but it should help connect a lot of dots!

http://www.boughtmovie.net/free-viewing/

ABOUT THE BOUGHT FILM:
You're about to see how Wall Street has literally "BOUGHT" your and your family's health.

The food, vaccine, drug, insurance and health industry are a multi-BILLION dollar enterprise... focused more on profits than human lives.
The BOUGHT documentary takes viewers deep "inside the guts" of this despicable conspiracy...

Featuring exclusive interviews with the world's most acclaimed experts in research, medicine, holistic care and natural health... Bought exposes the hidden (and deadly) story behind it all.

[onawah]

Dr. Stephanie Seneff presentation on harmful effects of glyphosate
This is from 2013, but still recommended. Skip the first 18 minutes

MqWwhggnbyw

[onawah]

New US Patents Could Signal The End Of Pesticides & GMOs
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/02/28/new-us-patents-could-signal-the-end-of-pesticides-gmos/


Humanity is facing a a major crisis: our immediate environment is being riddled with pesticides, making us unhealthy faster than we can study the effects. In addition, these pesticides are contributing to a massive reduction in our bee population and a general decline in soil health.

The companies that profit from making these pesticides have made it clear they won’t stop, and our petitions to the EPA and FDA are mostly ignored due to revolving door leadership between pesticide makers and government regulators. Is there an answer? Yes there is!

SMART Pesticides
Paul Stamets, the world’s leading mycologist, filed a patent in 2001 that was intentionally given little attention. In the words of pesticide industry executives, this patent represents “The most disruptive technology that we have ever witnessed.” The biopesticides described in the patent reveals a near permanent, safe solution for over 200,000 species of insects, and it all comes from a mushroom. After what is called “sporulation” of a select entomopathogenic fungi (fungi that kill insects), the area becomes unsuitable for whatever insect(s) the fungi are coded for. Additionally, extracts of the entomopathogenic fungi can steer insects in different directions.

This is literally a complete paradigm shift away from the entire idea of pesticides. Instead of aiming to kill all problematic insects, a farmer could simply disperse a solution of pre-sporulation fungi among his or her crops. The insects would then simply live their lives around the crops, paying no attention to them. This simple idea flies in the face of the current, poorly thought out practice of spraying ever-increasing amounts of pesticides on resistant bugs. Going further, this biopesticide would also eliminate the need for round-up ready GMO seeds and BT seeds that grow the pesticides in the crop and which needlessly endanger us, the consumer, in the process. Perhaps the most enticing element of this biopesticide fungi is that it’s essentially free. According to the patent, it can be “cultivated on agricultural waste.” We are looking at a 100% safe, natural technology that literally can end all GMO and pesticide manufacturers overnight with a new class of SMART Pesticides.

“The matrix of pre-sporulating fungi can optionally be dried, freeze-dried, cooled and/or pelletized and packaged and reactivated for use as an effective insect attractant and/or biopesticide.” – Paul Stamets Patent for Mycoattractants and Mycopesticides
Optimism Empowers
Even if we stop pesticide spraying now, scores of new research is confirming that our environment, food, soil, and bodies already carry traces of the chemicals. If the chemicals are so bad for us, there would be signs by now, right? These is a common rebuttal from pesticide companies and individuals who don’t care to do their research. Well, there just happens to be a patent to help with those issues as well. The US patent filed in 2003, once again from Paul Stamets, describes the utilization of a fungal delivery system for the purpose of

“ecological rehabilitation and restoration, preservation and improvement of habitats, bioremediation of toxic wastes and polluted sites, filtration of agricultural, mine and urban runoff, improvement of agricultural yields and control of biological organisms.”
In addition, many people out there are currently providing solutions to remove/detox any potential pesticide chemicals from the human body. Strategies like community gardens, urban forests, and the resurgence of permaculture are springing up rapidly to pave the way towards a steadily growing number of pesticide-free dinner tables and families.

Time to Make History
On a larger scale, GMO food and pesticides are merely symptoms of an opposing consciousness that is rapidly changing. Put another way, these symptoms are the unwanted gifts from out of control corporations that, by definition, have no empathy towards the needs, health, or life of The People. As Neil Young mentioned in his Starbucks Boycott, pesticide companies like Monsanto are, for the most part, not public-facing companies. As we are witnessing now with GMO brands, a boycott can severely damage their bottom line (lifeblood) but will not eliminate their business model. Due to the fact that they spend untold millions lobbying (purchasing) our politicians and regularly operate revolving doors between public and private positions, only a paradigm shift will eliminate the entire industry. At that moment, which is approaching, pesticide manufacturers can decide if they would like to cease being the problem and assist in the solution.

The good news is that whatever decision they choose won’t matter. A shift in consciousness around pesticide and GMO use eliminates their influence and knocks them off their fictitious monetary pedestals they believe to be sitting on.

References:

Paul Stamet’s Patent: Pesticide & GMO Solution
Paul Stamet’s Patent: Agricultural Waste Solution
6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save The World TED Talk
Neil Young Starbucks Boycott Statement Organic Food Demand Exploding

[onawah]

Jane Goodall and Steven Druker Expose US Government Fraud over GMOs
http://sustainablepulse.com/2015/03/04/jane-goodall-steven-druker-expose-us-government-fraud-gmos/#.VPchA9LF_To
Mar 4 2015

In an acclaimed new book being launched Wednesday in London, American public interest attorney Steven Druker reveals how the US government and leading scientific institutions have systematically misrepresented the facts about GMOs and the scientific research that casts doubt on their safety.The book, Altered Genes, Twisted Truth, features a foreword by the renowned primatologist Dame Jane Goodall, hailing it as “without doubt one of the most important books of the last 50 years”.

The book’s revelations come at a crucial time when some European countries are considering the commercial planting of GM crops following the European Parliament’s decision to allow member states to opt out of the blockade that has barred them from the EU until now. Based on the evidence presented in the book, Druker and Goodall will assert that it would be foolhardy to push forward with a technology that is unacceptably risky and should never have been allowed on the market in the first place.

The book is the result of more than 15 years of intensive research and investigation by Druker, who came to prominence for initiating a lawsuit against the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that forced it to divulge its files on GM foods. Those files revealed that GM foods first achieved commercialisation in 1992 only because the FDA:

• Covered up the extensive warnings of its own scientists about their dangers.
• Lied about the facts.
• And then violated federal food safety law by permitting these foods to be marketed without having been proven safe through standard testing.

The book points out that if the FDA had heeded its own experts’ advice and publicly acknowledged their warnings that GM foods entailed higher risks than their conventional counterparts, the GM food venture would have imploded and never gained traction anywhere.

It also reveals:

• Many well-placed scientists have repeatedly issued misleading statements about GM foods, and so have leading scientific institutions such as the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the UK’s Royal Society.
• Consequently, most people are unaware of the risks these foods entail and the manifold problems they have caused.
• Contrary to the claims of biotech advocates, humans have indeed been harmed by consuming the output of genetic engineering. In fact, the technology’s first ingestible product (a food supplement of the essential amino acid, L-tryptophan) caused dozens of deaths and seriously sickened thousands of people (permanently disabling many of them). Moreover, the evidence points to the genetic alteration as the most likely cause of the unusual contamination that rendered the supplement toxic.
• Laboratory animals have also suffered from eating products of genetic engineering, and well-conducted tests with GM crops have yielded many troubling results, including intestinal abnormalities, liver disturbances, and impaired immune systems.
• Numerous scientists (including those on the FDA’s Biotechnology Task Force) have concluded that the process of creating genetically modified food radically differs from conventional breeding and entails greater risk.
• There has never been a consensus within the scientific community that GM foods are safe, and many eminent experts have issued cautions – as have respected scientific organizations such as the Royal Society of Canada and the Public Health Association of Australia.

Druker says: “Contrary to the assertions of its proponents, the massive enterprise to reconfigure the genetic core of the world’s food supply is not based on sound science but on the systematic subversion of science – and it would collapse if subjected to an open airing of the facts.”

At their upcoming press conference, he and Jane Goodall intend to challenge the Royal Society to confront the facts, apologize for the misleading statements that it and several of its prominent members have issued, and take earnest steps to set the record straight.

In her foreword to Altered Genes, Twisted Truth , Goodall commends it for countering the disinformation and providing much-needed clarity. She states: “I shall urge everyone I know who cares about life on earth, and the future of their children, and children’s children, to read it. It will go a long way toward dispelling the confusion and delusion that has been created regarding the genetic engineering process and the foods it produces. . . . Steven Druker is a hero. He deserves at least a Nobel Prize.”

Pat Thomas, Director of UK campaigning group Beyond GM, which is facilitating the press launch, says: “Under pressure from new legislation and the ongoing TTIP negotiations, the UK and the rest of Europe are on the precipice of making sweeping changes to their historical stance on GMOs. Much of our regulatory framework has been informed by foundations laid down in America in the early 1990s, and the belief that they got it right in terms of understanding the science of genetic modification. Steven Druker’s investigation into the history of fraud and deceit that ushered in the era of GMOs deserves serious consideration before we take actions that will irreversibly alter the European food supply”.

About Steven Druker

Steven Druker is an American public interest attorney and executive director of the Alliance for Bio-Integrity, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit he initiated against the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that gained worldwide attention by exposing how the agency had enabled the commercialisation of GM foods through a colossal fraud.

About the book:

Altered Genes, Twisted Truth – How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public
By Steven M. Druker
Foreword by Jane Goodall
Published March 2015

Praise for Altered Genes, Twisted Truth
http://sustainablepulse.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/steven-druker-644x363.gif

“A fascinating book: highly informative, eminently readable, and most enjoyable. It’s a real page-turner and an eye-opener.” Richard C. Jennings, PhD Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge

“This incisive and insightful book is truly outstanding. Not only is it well-reasoned and scientifically solid, it’s a pleasure to read – and a must-read. Through its masterful marshaling of facts, it dispels the cloud of disinformation that has misled people into believing that GE foods have been adequately tested and don’t entail abnormal risk.” David Schubert, PhD molecular biologist and Head of Cellular Neurobiology, Salk Institute for Biological Studies

“A great book. The evidence is comprehensive, clear, and compelling. No one has documented other cases of irresponsible behavior by government regulators and the scientific establishment nearly as well as Druker documents this one. His book should be widely read and thoroughly heeded.” John Ikerd, PhD Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics, University of Missouri

“Steven Druker’s meticulously documented, well-crafted, and spellbinding narrative should serve as a clarion call to all of us. In particular, his chapter detailing the deadly epidemic of 1989-90 that was linked with a genetically engineered food supplement is especially significant. . . . Overall his discussion of this tragic event, as well as its ominous implications, is the most comprehensive, evenly-balanced and accurate account that I have read.” Stephen Naylor, PhD Professor of Biochemistry, Mayo Clinic (1991-2001)

“A landmark. It should be required reading in every university biology course.” Joseph Cummins, PhD Professor Emeritus of Genetics, Western University, Ontario

[Hervé]

San Diego Sues Monsanto for Polluting Bay With Banned Carcinogenic Chemicals (http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/03/17/san-diego-sues-monsanto-polluting-bay-banned-carcinogenic-chemicals)

Tuesday, March 17, 2015 by Common Dreams (http://www.commondreams.org)

Lawsuit says toxins manufactured by agrochemical giant 'have been found in Bay sediments and water and have been identified in tissues of fish, lobsters, and other marine life'
by Sarah Lazare, staff writer (http://www.commondreams.org/author/sarah-lazare-staff-writer)


http://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_large/public/headlines/san_diego.jpg?itok=ie-7r1m8
The San Diego Coronado Bay Bridge. (Photo: Eileen Maher (http://www.flickr.com/photos/portofsandiego/4743093276)/flickr/cc)


San Diego authorities filed a lawsuit on Monday against the agrochemical giant Monsanto, accusing the corporation of polluting the city's bay with carcinogenic chemicals that are so dangerous to human health they were banned in the U.S. more than 30 years ago.

The lawsuit was filed (http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/03/16/san-diego-bay.htm) in federal court by City of San Diego and San Diego Unified Port District and focuses on Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs). "PCBs manufactured by Monsanto have been found in bay sediments and water and have been identified in tissues of fish, lobsters, and other marine life in the Bay," the complaint reads.

"PCB contamination in and around the Bay affects all San Diegans and visitors who enjoy the Bay, who reasonably would be disturbed by the presence of a hazardous, banned substance in the sediment, water, and wildlife," the document continues.

As the San Diego Reader notes (http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2015/mar/16/ticker-monsanto-pay-damaging-san-diego/#), the city's lawsuit charges that "the risks did not deter Monsanto from trying to protect profits and prolong the use of PCB compounds such as Aroclor, as shown in a report from an ad hoc committee that Monsanto formed in 1969."

This is despite the fact that, according to (http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/tsd/pcbs/about.htm) the Environmental Protection Agency, PCBs "have been demonstrated to cause cancer, as well as a variety of other adverse health effects on the immune system, reproductive system, nervous system, and endocrine system." Dangers to human health led to a domestic ban on the domestic manufacture of PCBs in 1979.

By that time, however, PCBs had already spread through ecosystems, where they have remained to the present-day.

Monsanto was responsible for 99 percent of U.S. production of this dangerous chemical, according to a report (http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/MonsantoReport.pdf) from Food & Water Watch.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

[Hervé]

What’s Your “Daily Value” of Glyphosate? (http://www.activistpost.com/2015/03/whats-your-daily-value-of-glyphosate.html)

Activist Post (http://www.activistpost.com/2015/03/whats-your-daily-value-of-glyphosate.html)


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X_XFwX-CJyo/VQ7hiIlEMRI/AAAAAAAAl9Y/t0qylWDRouU/s1600/Monsanto-Roundup-Dees.jpg (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X_XFwX-CJyo/VQ7hiIlEMRI/AAAAAAAAl9Y/t0qylWDRouU/s1600/Monsanto-Roundup-Dees.jpg)
Dees Illustration (http://www.dees2.com/) Catherine J. Frompovich


Do readers know what glyphosate is? Or, what the Daily Value (DV) is? Are you aware that there are glyphosate residues present in almost every food or edible product U.S. consumers eat? However, as yet, there are no minimum or maximum Daily Values for dietary intake guidelines designated by the U.S. FDA or any other federal health agency for glyphosate—a toxic herbicide in foods—intake, as there are for “Guidance for Industry: A Food Labeling Guide (14. Appendix F: Calculate the Percent Daily Value for the Appropriate Nutrients).” (http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm064928.htm) Maybe there ought to be such guidelines, since U.S. consumers are eating glyphosate residues in incalculable amounts in just about 85 to 90 percent of all processed foods!

It is my understanding that no one’s figured out how much glyphosate we consume on a daily basis as yet.

Why should we know how much glyphosate we are ingesting?

Well, on March 20, 2015 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) produced a monograph, “Evaluation of five organophosphate insecticides and herbicides,” (http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/MonographVolume112.pdf) wherein as a result of IARC’s research, the herbicide glyphosate [the major component in Monsanto’s Roundup®] has been “classified as probably carcinogenic to humans (Group A).”

According to IARC’s monograph,

For the herbicide glyphosate, there was limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The evidence in humans is from studies of exposures, mostly agricultural, in the USA, Canada, and Sweden published since 2001. In addition, there is convincing evidence that glyphosate also can cause cancer in laboratory animals. On the basis of tumours in mice, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) originally classified glyphosate as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group C) in 1985. After a re- evaluation of that mouse study, the US EPA changed its classification to evidence of non- carcinogenicity in humans (Group E) in 1991. The US EPA Scientific Advisory Panel noted that the re-evaluated glyphosate results were still significant using two statistical tests recommended in the IARC Preamble. The IARC Working Group that conducted the evaluation considered the significant findings from the US EPA report and several more recent positive results in concluding that there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. Glyphosate also caused DNA and chromosomal damage in human cells, although it gave negative results in tests using bacteria. One study in community residents reported increases in blood markers of chromosomal damage (micronuclei) after glyphosate formulations were sprayed nearby. [pg. 1] [CJF emphasis added] And,

Glyphosate currently has the highest global production volume of all herbicides. The largest use worldwide is in agriculture. The agricultural use of glyphosate has increased sharply since the development of crops that have been genetically modified to make them resistant to glyphosate. Glyphosate is also used in forestry, urban, and home applications. Glyphosate has been detected in the air during spraying, in water, and in food. The general population is exposed primarily through residence near sprayed areas, home use, and diet, and the level that has been observed is generally low. [pg.2] [CJF emphasis added] Question: So, how does glyphosate get into both human and animal diets?

Answer: As residues remaining on genetically modified food crops, then eaten as fresh food or prepared packaged foods, which typically have many other processing ingredients added that contain additional glyphosate residues from such staples as soy, corn, sugar beets, or canola oil. Those four crops, in some form, are ubiquitous in packaged foods. They are used for all sorts of production reasons from seasonings to taste enhancers to being components of food processing chemicals, additives and/or preservatives.


https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5nLmWzKFs60/URRNIOJzCiI/AAAAAAAAUEc/HqENLf1jZeM/s250/BANNER150.jpg (http://activistpost.net/organics.html)


Just to give readers an idea of some other chemicals used in the manufacture of processed foods, I’ve included the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s “Food Additives/Food Processing” [1] in the Reference section at the end. Those chemicals add to, and compound, the total chemical loads found in processed food.

Genetically modified or genetically engineered food crops have the ability to withstand excessive applications of the herbicide Roundup®, especially since Monsanto’s Roundup Ready® GMO seeds allow crops to resist glyphosate, the toxic ingredient in Roundup, which is sprayed to kill weeds during growing season, but also sprayed on some cereal/grain/legume crops [wheat, feed barley, oats, canola, flax, peas, lentils, dry beans, and soy] at the end of their growing season, and before harvest, to act as a desiccant. [2, 8]

Keith Lewis, a wheat farmer, has this to say about preharvest glyphosate spraying:


I have been a wheat farmer for 50 yrs and one wheat production practice that is very common is applying the herbicide Roundup (glyposate) [sic] just prior to harvest. Roundup is licensed for preharvest weed control. Monsanto, the manufacturer of Roundup claims that application to plants at over 30% kernel moisture result in roundup uptake by the plant into the kernels.

Farmers like this practice because Roundup kills the wheat plant allowing an earlier harvest.

A wheat field often ripens unevenly, thus applying Roundup preharvest evens up the greener parts of the field with the more mature. The result is on the less mature areas Roundup is translocated into the kernels and eventually harvested as such.

This practice is not licensed. Farmers mistakenly call it “dessication.” [sic] Consumers eating products made from wheat flour are undoubtedly consuming minute amounts of Roundup. An interesting aside, malt barley which is made into beer is not acceptable in the marketplace if it has been sprayed with preharvest Roundup. Lentils and peas are not accepted in the market place if it was sprayed with preharvest roundup….. but wheat is ok.. This farming practice greatly concerns me and it should further concern consumers of wheat products. [7]So, now you can understand the importance of purchasing organically-grown cereals, vegetables, grains, and produce—and all food in general. Animals that are sources of food – meats, dairy products, and eggs – are fed GMO grains and alfalfa, plus antibiotics, hormones, and growth enhancer chemicals in their feed, some of which ends up in you. Readers may want to check out organic animal feeds here (http://www.grainmillers.com/feed_ingredients.aspz).


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9zKbEBO_qIw/VQ7i7ZkeYCI/AAAAAAAAl9k/AOmVCTxYO_s/s1600/graph%2B1.png (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9zKbEBO_qIw/VQ7i7ZkeYCI/AAAAAAAAl9k/AOmVCTxYO_s/s1600/graph%2B1.png)

Worldwide, 8 GMO crops have been approved for commercial production; soy, cotton, corn, canola, sugarbeet, papaya, squash or yellow zucchini, and alfalfa, and the biotech industry is in the process of pushing forward additionally modified foods such as rice, apples, and salmon. The four major crops that account for virtually all of the biotech output are soy, cotton, corn, and canola. The remaining GMO crops are exclusively grown in the United States with the exception being papaya which is grown in China in addition to US cultivation. Source (http://gmoinside.org/gmos-in-animal-%09%09%09feed/)



According to Grace Communications Foundation,

The use of low doses of antibiotics by the modern food animal industry is responsible for drug- resistant bacteria emerging on farms which reach the general population through human or animal carriers, and through the food consumers eat. [3] However, in India, GMO crops have become an enormous agricultural problem, since “Indian Farmers are Committing Suicide because of Monsanto’s costly GMO crops.” (http://www.seattleorganicrestaurants.com/vegan-whole-foods/indian-farmers-committing-suicide-monsanto-gm-crops/)

The London Daily Mail reported,

When Prince Charles claimed thousands of Indian farmers were killing themselves after using GM crops, he was branded a scaremonger. In fact, as this chilling dispatch reveals, it's even WORSE than he feared. [4]According to Global Research, “American Farmers Abandoning Genetically Modified Seeds: Non-GMO Crops are more Productive and Profitable,” (http://www.globalresearch.ca/american-farmers-abandoning-genetically-modified-seeds-non-gmo-crops-are-more-productive-and-profitable/5366365) since farmers realize they can get more money for conventionally-grown corn than for GMO corn!

Furthermore, herbicide use has increased 26 percent between 2001 and 2010 due to the spread of herbicide-resistant weeds. Also, there’s real concern that herbicides are killing off pollinator insects, especially bees. Genetic engineering agriculture also reduces the amount of bee forage plants. Here’s an interesting site about bees and GMOs (http://scientificbeekeeping.com/sick-bees-part-18e-colony-collapse-revisited-genetically-modified-plants/).


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_qLAIskTQXUc/TaemSUAq8EI/AAAAAAAAIOw/3dsETxRGYhY/ad3.jpg (http://activistpost.net/aquaponics4you.html)


So, how much glyphosate is sprayed on crop acreage? Well, “Understanding Glyphosate to Increase Performance,” (https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/gwc/gwc-2.pdf) Purdue Knowledge to Go (resource://skype_ff_extension-at-jetpack/skype_ff_extension/data/call_skype_logo.png1-888-EXT-INFO FREE) provides some information. Probably the exact glyphosate use is difficult to define since there are numerous parameters and measures involved, e.g., desired volume and the percentages of glyphosate [1/2%, 1%, 1 ½ %, 2%, 5%, and 10%], depending upon the number of gallons of water used as the carrier/spray.

According to Monsanto’s 2013 Annual Report (http://www.monsanto.com/investors/documents/annual%20report/2013/monsanto-2013-annual-report.pdf), it had net sales totaling $14,861Million with net sales for GMO seeds and Genomics Segment coming in at $10,340Milllion. That Annual Report ended with this quotation, “The first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind.” Adequate? Shouldn’t consumers expect healthful, nutritious, and not super-saturated with chemicals?

Basically, there are ten companies [5] that control the world’s seed supply.

They include:


Monsanto, the largest producer in the world
Dupont Pioneer, U.S. company
Syngenta, a Swiss-based company
Groupe Limagrain, a French company
Land O’ Lakes
KWS AG, a German company
Bayer Crop Science, a German company
Sakata, a Japanese company
Takii, a Japanese company
DLF-Trifolium, a Danish company

Probably, savvy consumers already know that many of the organic brands are owned by big food processors, who want to get in on the “hot” organic food market and sales. Here’s who owns the organic brands:


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JlHCwTxH7HQ/VQ7kS4n6wUI/AAAAAAAAl9w/Okuk_Z625TU/s1600/organic_industry.png (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JlHCwTxH7HQ/VQ7kS4n6wUI/AAAAAAAAl9w/Okuk_Z625TU/s1600/organic_industry.png)
Source: The Cornucopia Institute (http://www.cornucopia.org/who-owns-organic/)


If readers go to the Cornucopia website, then double click on the above chart that’s there, it should increase in clarity and readability.

The last issue I’d like to fly by readers is this: Do you believe the advertising spin about glyphosate that it’s harmless? Well, there is some concern that glyphosate and gluten intolerance are associated. Martin Michener, PhD, explains the relationship in “Gluten Intolerance and the Herbicide Glyphosate: A National Epidemic.” (http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/gluten-intolerance-and-the-herbicide-glyphosate-a-national-epidemic/) Several medical doctors have weighed in on the association with glyphosate and celiac disease [9], poor gastrointestinal health [10], and gastroparesis [11].

Additionally, I think a similar connection can be made regarding canola oil, since many people I know experience gastrointestinal distress after eating that highly-touted oil. The Cornucopia Institute’s “Gut-Wrenching: New Studies Reveal the Insidious Effects of Glyphosate” (http://www.cornucopia.org/2014/03/gut-wrenching-new-studies-reveal-insidious-effects-glyphosate/) is something every person ought to read and seriously consider, I think. And, believe it or not, but glyphosate has been found in human urine (http://www.cornucopia.org/2012/07/glyphosate-found-in-human-urine/)!


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-CyyYjmU7duI/U25jSDOwFNI/AAAAAAAAAoM/APTZG8PlPY0/s250/ecoverbig.png (http://activistpost.net/beekeeping.html)


Wouldn’t it be ironic, though, if some federal health/food agency were to establish a Daily Value for glyphosate, since it’s apparently being used as if it were compost?

However and unbelievably, in 2013, the U.S. EPA increased the allowable limits of glyphosate in food crops from 200 ppm to 6,000 ppm—a 30-fold increase from its original allowable limits! [6] What does that tell you?

What’s in your food? Do you really want to know? Then, here’s a just-published-book, Altered Genes Twisted Truth: How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public (http://www.amazon.com/Altered-Genes-Twisted-Truth-Systematically/dp/0985616903?tag=permacultucom-20&linkCode=w13&linkID=&ref_=assoc_res_sw_cr_dka_cra_t0_result_1&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Factivistpost.net%2Fbanners%2Famazon.htm). Please READ it!

References:
[1] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/212615/food-additive/50533/Antimicrobials

[2] Preharvest Staging Guide (http://roundup.ca/_uploads/documents/MON-Preharvest%20Staging%20Guide.pdf)

[3] http://www.sustainabletable.org/257/antibiotics

[4] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082559/The-GM-genocide-Thousands-Indian-farmers-committing-suicide-using-genetically-modified-crops.html

[5] http://www.nationofchange.org/10-companies-controlling-world-s-seed-supply-1382363748

[6] http://rt.com/usa/monsanto-glyphosate-roundup-epa-483/

[7] http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2012/01/a-wheat-farmer-weighs-in-on-wheat-belly/

[8] http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/11/roundup-dumped-crops-right-harvest.html

[9] http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/09/14/glyphosate-celiac-disease-connection.aspx

[10] http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2014/04/gastrointestinal-recovery-after-the-wheat-battle-is-won/

[11] http://www.bioportfolio.com/search/glyphosate-and-gastroparesis.html


Resources:
Antibiotic Resistance and The Case for Organic Meat and Poultry
http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/content/infections/art3435.html

Good Questions: Einkorn, Spelt, Emmer, Farro and Heirloom Wheat
http://nourishedkitchen.com/good-questions-einkorn-spelt-heirloom-wheat-ancient-grains/

By ‘Editing’ Plant Genes, Companies Avoid Regulation
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/02/business/energy-environment/a-gray-area-in-regulation-of-genetically-modified-crops.html?emc=edit_th_20150102&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=8115964&_r=0

Catherine retired from researching and writing, but felt compelled to write this article.

Catherine J Frompovich (website (http://www.catherinejfrompovich.com/)) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.

[Hervé]

Glyphosate: One of 3 Herbicides Causing Antibiotic Resistance (http://www.activistpost.com/2015/04/glyphosate-one-of-3-herbicides-causing.html)

Heather Callaghan Activist Post (http://www.activistpost.com/2015/04/glyphosate-one-of-3-herbicides-causing.html)



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/Antibiotic_sensitvity_and_resistance.JPG/512px-Antibiotic_sensitvity_and_resistance.JPG (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAntibiotic_sensitvity_and_resistance.JPG)
This image shows antibiotic resistance in action - the petri-dish on the right shows useless antibiotic pills surrounded by resistant bacteria.


The overuse of antibiotics, 80 percent of which are foisted on factory farm animals, is a part of modern day antibiotic resistance. That is, an environment that allows surviving bacteria to mount a strong defense against antibiotics, making them useless against infection. Other factors like inattentive "sick care" contribute too - when antibiotics are handed out like cough drops or when lack of self-care leads to the constant request for them at the doctor's office or ER.

In recent years, both patients and the medical community have been blamed for the influx of antibiotic resistance. This is unfair, when not only were these methods approved as safe, but also consider their comfortable use for so many decades. (And again, most antibiotics are used in farming.) So what could explain the unbreakable and aggressive new strains of bacteria?

Scientists now think that another unfortunate part of corporate industrial farming has led to the rapid and exponential increase of antibiotic resistance.

"Biocides" like herbicides are tested individually for their toxicity levels but not for where it counts, such as at their sublethal effects at the microbe level. Researchers from New Zealand and Mexico discovered that (http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2812827/glyphosate_24d_dicamba_herbicides_cause_antibiotic_resistance.html) glyphosate (aka Monsanto's Roundup), dicamba (Kamba, propietery to Monsanto), and 2,4-D play a role in antibiotic resistance. They tested their theory on e.coli and salmonella bacteria which cause potentially dangerous food poisoning and are sometimes found on factory farmed foods.



The bacteria were treated with common antibiotics like tetracycline, Ciprofloxacin, chloramphenicol, ampicillin and kanamycin. Most of the time, low levels of the herbicides created antibiotic resistance before the antibiotics had a chance to work. Their work was just published in mBio (http://mbio.asm.org/content/6/2/e00009-15.full.pdf+html).

The researchers emphasize that the problem is on-farm, not in the food itself.

They say:

The effects found are relevant wherever people or animals are exposed to herbicides at the range of concentrations achieved where they are applied.

This may include, for example, farm animals and pollinators in rural areas and potentially children and pets in urban areas. The effects were detectable only at herbicide concentrations that were above currently allowed residue levels on food.Farmworkers, rodents and honeybees exposed to drifts were thought to be most at risk for the consequences. They have a hunch that the combination of the herbicides produces more deleterious effects.

They warn:

New antibiotics are hard to find and can take decades to become available. Effects of chemicals such as herbicides could conflict with measures taken to slow the spread of antibiotic resistance.Last Fall, the government approved and registered Dow's "Enlist Duo" maize, genetically engineered to withstand even stronger applications of herbicides (six states so far). This coincides with the approval of the Enlist Duo (http://www.naturalblaze.com/2014/10/its-official-new-pesticide-for-gm-crops.html) herbicide (glyphosate and 2,4-D) which was ironically created to combat glyphosate resistance. Likewise, Monsanto is applying for approval (http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2516340/last_chance_to_stop_usda_approval_of_24d_gmo_crops.html) for new GE crops that will withstand its new concoction - glyphosate and dicamba.

These are just more examples of how regulatory agencies do not cater to the consumer, but rather protect corporate interests much to everyone's degrading health. Aside from taking extra care of oneself, especially where diet is concerned, anyone reading this might also want to educate themselves with The Cornucopia's "Gut-Wrenching"report on glyphosate (http://www.cornucopia.org/2014/03/gut-wrenching-new-studies-reveal-insidious-effects-glyphosate/). It's an eye-opener for sure...


NSG06a2M5Uo

Heather Callaghan (http://www.naturalblaze.com/search/label/Heather-Callaghan) is a natural health blogger and food freedom activist. You can see her work at NaturalBlaze.com (http://naturalblaze.com/) and ActivistPost.com (http://activistpost.com/). Like at Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Natural-Blaze/228076017338034).


Recent posts by Heather Callaghan (http://www.activistpost.com/search/label/Heather%20Callaghan):


Fish Oil Fatty Acids Are So Protective, They Resist Chemotherapy (http://www.activistpost.com/2015/04/fish-oil-fatty-acids-are-so-protective.html)
No, Really, Monsanto Has a "Discredit Bureau" (http://www.activistpost.com/2015/04/no-really-monsanto-has-discredit-bureau.html)
Homework Gives Kids Answer to Question: Are GMO Vaccines Safe to Eat? (http://www.activistpost.com/2015/03/homework-gives-kids-answer-to-question.html)
Eloquent 4th Grader Brings Crowd To Its Feet After She Rebukes Govt School Testing (http://www.activistpost.com/2015/03/eloquent-4th-grader-brings-crowd-to-its.html)

[Hervé]

US Agribusiness, GMOs and The Plundering Of The Planet
(http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-agribusiness-gmos-and-the-plundering-of-the-planet/5441568)
By Colin Todhunter (http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/colin-todhunter)
Global Research, April 09, 2015



http://www.globalresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Agricultural-Engineer-On-Field-Examining-Ripe-Ears-Of-Grain-GMO-Test-Crop-400x225.jpg

Small family/peasant farms produce most of the world’s food. They form the bedrock of global food production (http://www.grain.org/article/entries/4929-hungry-for-land-small-farmers-feed-the-world-with-less-than-a-quarter-of-all-farmland). Yet they are being squeezed onto less than a quarter of the planet’s farmland. The world is fast losing farms and farmers through the concentration of land into the hands of rich and powerful land speculators and agribusiness corporations.

By definition, peasant agriculture prioritises food production for local and national markets as well as for farmers’ own families. Big agritech corporations on the other hand take over scarce fertile land and prioritise commodities or export crops for profit and foreign markets that tend to cater for the needs of the urban affluent. This process displaces farmers from their land and brings about food insecurity, poverty and hunger.

What big agribusiness with its industrial model of globalised agriculture claims to be doing – addressing global hunger and food shortages – is doing nothing of the sort. There is enough evidence to show that its activities actually lead to hunger and poverty (http://climateandcapitalism.com/2008/04/29/food-crisis-world-hunger-agribusiness-and-the-food-sovereignty-alternative-part-two/) - something that the likes of GMO-agribusiness-neoliberal apologists might like to consider when they propagandize about choice, democracy and hunger: issues that they seem unable to grasp, at least beyond a self-serving superficial level.

Small farmers are being criminalised, taken to court and even made to disappear when it comes to the struggle for land. They are constantly exposed to systematic expulsion (http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2267255/gm_crops_are_driving_genocide_and_ecocide_keep_them_out_of_the_eu.html) from their land by foreign corporations. The Oakland Institute (http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/OI_Report_Down_on_the_Farm.pdf) has stated that now a new generation of institutional investors, including hedge funds, private equity and pension funds, is eager to capitalise on global farmland as a new and highly desirable asset class. Financial returns are what matter to these entities, not ensuring food security.

Consider Ukraine, for example. Small farmers operate 16% of agricultural land, but provide 55% of agricultural output, including: 97% of potatoes, 97% of honey, 88% of vegetables, 83% of fruits and berries and 80% of milk. It is clear that Ukraine (http://www.grain.org/article/entries/4929-hungry-for-land-small-farmers-feed-the-world-with-less-than-a-quarter-of-all-farmland)’s small farms are delivering impressive outputs (http://www.grain.org/article/entries/4929-hungry-for-land-small-farmers-feed-the-world-with-less-than-a-quarter-of-all-farmland).

However, The US-backed toppling of that country’s government seems likely to change this with the installed puppet regime handing over agriculture to US agribusiness. Current ‘aid’ packages are contingent on the plundering of the economy under the guise of ‘austerity’ reforms and will have a devastating impact (http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/walking-west-side-world-bank-and-imf-ukraine-conflict) on Ukrainians’ standard of living and increase poverty in the country.

Reforms mandated by the EU-backed loan include agricultural deregulation that is intended to benefit foreign agribusiness corporations. Natural resource and land policy shifts are intended to facilitate the foreign corporate takeover of enormous tracts of land. (From 2016, foreign private investors will no longer be prohibited from buying land.) Moreover, the EU Association Agreement (http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/ukraine/eu_ukraine/association_agreement/index_en.htm) includes a clause requiring both parties to cooperate to extend the use of biotechnology, including GMOs.

In other words, events in Ukraine are helping (and were designed to help) the likes of Monsanto to gain a firm hold over the country’s agriculture.

Frederic Mousseau, Policy Director of the Oakland Institute last year stated that the World Bank and IMF are intent on opening up foreign markets to Western corporations and that the high stakes around control of Ukraine’s vast agricultural sector (http://www.care2.com/news/member/597720583/3805086), the world’s third largest exporter of corn and fifth largest exporter of wheat, constitute an oft-overlooked critical factor. He added that in recent years, foreign corporations have acquired more than 1.6 million hectares of Ukrainian land.

Western agribusiness had been coveting Ukraine’s agriculture sector for quite some time, long before the coup. It after all contains one third of all arable land in Europe.

An article posted on Oriental Review (http://orientalreview.org/2015/04/06/land-grab-in-ukraine-is-monsantos-backdoor-to-the-eu/) notes that since the mid-90s the Ukrainian-Americans at the helm of the US-Ukraine Business Council had been instrumental in encouraging the foreign control of Ukrainian agriculture.

In November 2013, the Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation drafted a legal amendment that would benefit global agribusiness producers by allowing the widespread use of genetically modified seeds. Oriental Review notes that when GMO crops were legally introduced onto the Ukrainian market in 2013, they were planted in up to 70% of all soybean fields, 10-20% of cornfields, and over 10% of all sunflower fields, according to various estimates (or 3% of the country’s total farmland).

According to Oriental Review, “within two to three years, as the relevant provisions of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU go into effect, Monsanto’s lobbying efforts will transform the Ukrainian market into an oligopoly consisting of American corporations.”

It amounts to little more than the start of the US colonisation of Ukraine’s seed and agriculture sector. This corporate power grab will be assisted by local banks. Apparently these banks will only offer favourable credit terms to those farmers who agree to use certified herbicides: those that are manufactured by Monsanto.

Interestingly, the investment fund Siguler Guff &amp; Co has recently acquired (http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/press-release/252516.html)a 50% stake (http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/press-release/252516.html) in the Ukrainian Port of Illichivsk, which specialises in agricultural exports.

We need look no further than to Ukraine’s immediate neighbour Poland to see the devastating impact on farmers that Western agribusiness concerns are having there. Land grabs by foreign capital and the threat to traditional (often organic) agriculture have sparked mass protests (http://www.trueactivist.com/anti-gmo-protests-rock-poland-as-farmers-demand-food-sovereignty-rights/) as big agribusiness seeks to monopolise the food supply from field to plate. The writing is on the wall for Ukraine.

The situation is not unique to Poland, though; the impact of policies that favour big agribusiness and foreign capital are causing hardship, impacting health and destroying traditional agriculture across the world, from India (http://www.globalresearch.ca/menace-on-the-menu-development-and-the-globalization-of-servitude/5416488) and Argentina (http://www.globalresearch.ca/argentina-cancer-deaths-well-above-the-national-average-in-heavily-gmo-planted-areas/5402289) to Brazil (http://naturalsociety.com/brazils-farmers-rise-protest-big-ag-policies/) and Mexico (http://www.globalresearch.ca/fast-food-nations-selling-out-to-junk-food-illness-and-food-insecurity/5434888) and beyond.

In an article by Christina Sarich (http://naturalsociety.com/hundreds-of-farmers-block-roads-in-protest-of-monsantos-gmo-crops/), Hilliary Martin, a farmer from Vermont in the US, encapsulates the situation by saying:



“We are here at the [US-Canadian] border to demonstrate the global solidarity of farmers in the face of globalization. The corporate takeover of agriculture has impoverished farmers, starved communities and force-fed us genetically-engineered crops, only to line the pockets of a handful of multinational corporations like Monsanto at the expense of farmers who are struggling for land and livelihood around the world.” The US has since 1945 used agriculture as a tool with which to control countries (http://michael-hudson.com/2014/10/think-tank-memories/). And today what is happening in Ukraine is part of the wider US geopolitical plan to drive a wedge between Ukraine and Russia and to subjugate the country.

While the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-transatlantic-trade-and-investment-partnership-ttip-a-brief-history-of-an-agenda-for-corporate-plunder/5407780) (TTIP) is intended to integrate the wider EU region with the US economy (again ‘subjugate’ may be a more apt word), by introducing GMOs into Ukraine and striving to eventually incorporate the country into the EU (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/25/us-ukraine-crisis-president-idUSKCN0HK0OL20140925) the hope is that under the banner of ‘free trade’ Monsanto’s aim of getting this technology into the EU and onto the plates of Europeans will become that much easier.

Colin Todhunter is an extensively published independent writer and former social policy reader.

[Hervé]

Ukraine a Vector for GMO Poison’s Spread Through EU (http://journal-neo.org/2015/04/17/ukraine-a-vector-for-gmo-poison-s-spread-through-eu/)





http://journal-neo.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Ukraine-agriculture-300x169.jpg (http://journal-neo.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Ukraine-agriculture.jpg)


When the Washington Post chooses to pen an insulting, condescending editorial targeting entire nations speaking up against Western impropriety, one can just as well assume the precise opposite of whatever narrative the Post is trying to push forward is true.

Regarding American biotech companies and their attempts to infest the planet with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and in particular their attempts to corrupt the whole of Europe with their unwanted poison through a backdoor (Ukraine), has prompted Russia to speak up for their Eastern European neighbor. Up until the armed coup in 2013-2014, also known as the “Euromaidan,” Ukraine had adamantly rejected GMOs.

With an obedient client regime now installed in Kiev, a series of political, economic and military decisions have been made that have more or less extinguished Ukraine as a sovereign nation state. Along with its extinguished sovereignty comes a complete lack of desire for self-preservation, and so, sowing one’s fields with genetically tainted, unsafe (http://journal-neo.org/2015/01/26/mit-states-that-half-of-all-children-may-be-autistic-by-2025/), literal poison goes from being adamantly avoided, to being openly embraced.

This brings us back to the Washington Post and a recent editorial it has published. Titled, “Russia says Western investment in Ukraine’s farms is a plot to take over the world (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/15/russia-says-western-investment-in-ukraines-farms-is-a-plot-to-take-over-the-world/),” it first attempts to make Russia’s accusations that Monsanto is now moving in on Ukraine with plans to institute GMOs nationwide sound unfounded. That is until the Post itself admits that is precisely what Monsanto is doing. The pieces claims:
Ukraine has long tried to sell itself to Europe as the once-and-future breadbasket of the continent, promising that Western investment is the key to making its under-exploited black earth bloom.

But official Russia would like you to know that all this agricultural development talk is really just a secret plot to help companies like Monsanto take over the world.
Then the Post openly admits:
Genetically-modified cultivation was long banned in Ukraine – as was the sale of farmland.
Then admits:
But the association agreement signed between the European Union and Ukraine last year may have created new space for the potential introduction of genetically-modified crops in Ukraine.
Finally, the Post mentions Monsanto:
Monsanto – perhaps the most recognizable corporate name in genetically modified products – did express interest in investing in Ukraine last year. (It’s worth noting that the company operates in Russia as well, though not with GMOs, just as it has operated in Ukraine.)
Since Monsanto already operates in Ukraine, what else would it be investing in additionally that it hasn’t had the opportunity to before besides GMOs? Ukraine would serve as the perfect victim to host Monsanto and other biotech corporations’ GMO-infected products in the heart of Europe.

With the EU itself relaxing some of its regulations regarding GMOs, likely without the consent of a population increasingly conscious of the risks and actively seeking organic alternatives, biotech conglomerates hope to make GMO products spread from what will be the completely unregulated fields of Ukraine, into Europe and to become as ubiquitous and unavoidable as they are in America.

Elsewhere around the world, big-agriculture has attempted to use other backdoors to bring their products into regions they are wholly rejected, including Asia where “Golden Rice” has been proposed (http://journal-neo.org/2014/08/09/gmo-golden-rice-the-scourge-of-asia/) as the answer to fighting “vitamin A deficiency,” even when simply planting some carrots would accomplish this goal more easily, cheaper and without the threat of tainting Asia’s rice crops with a strain consumers would reject out of hand.

In other instances, conquering Western interests, like in Afghanistan (http://journal-neo.org/2014/04/12/the-corporate-colonization-of-afghanistan/), have used “aid” as a backdoor to bring big-agriculture and GMOs into the region.

So by the Post’s own admission and by simply looking at what Monsanto and its counterparts have done all over the world already, they themselves couldn’t agree more with the Russian Federation regarding Monsanto’s obvious intentions in Ukraine and for the rest of Europe.

The Post, like many papers across America and Europe, has long-served the interests of the monied elite, with biotech and big-agriculture counted prominently among them. The Post and others will spin and obfuscate Monsanto’s intentions until it is too late to overturn the genetic corruption their crops will inflict on the once well-protected, sovereign fields of Ukraine.

Like many other things in Ukraine, the so-called “Euromaiden” that was allegedly spurred for freedom and self-determination has clearly stripped Ukraine of both its freedom and its ability to determine what is best for itself. From a military set upon its own people, to an economy looted by foreign interests, to a government directed literally by foreigners who chair it, to now fields to be sown with genetically altered poison, the ruination of Ukraine is nearly complete and a lasting testament to what the West truly means when it says “democratization.”


No One Will Buy GMO-Tainted Crops
Included in Russia’s comments regarding the impending despoilment of Ukraine’s agricultural industry by Monsanto and others, the Post would report:
Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev told a meeting of his counterparts in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on Tuesday that the West plans to grown “genetically modified crops” in Ukraine. And it’s a fool’s errand too, he suggested, because, “to put it mildly, Europe will not approve of such products.”
The Post, in its role as associate lobbyist for big-agriculture, attempts to downplay this fact. However, reported elsewhere, even within the Western media itself, are reports that the agricultural powerhouse that is the United States is now importing organic corn because consumers refuse to eat tainted GMO products grown within the States.

Bloomberg in its report “U.S. Forced to Import Corn as Shoppers Demand Organic Food (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-15/romanian-corn-imports-to-u-s-surge-as-shoppers-demand-organic)” would claim:
A growing demand for organics, and the near-total reliance by U.S. farmers on genetically modified corn and soybeans, is driving a surge in imports from other nations where crops largely are free of bioengineering.

Imports such as corn from Romania and soybeans from India are booming, according to an analysis of U.S. trade data released Wednesday by the Organic Trade Association and Pennsylvania State University.
The humiliation of a nation historically self-reliant agriculturally having to import something as basic as corn because everything grown domestically is poisoned is a lesson any Ukrainian seeking to preserve what is left of not only their dignity, but their sense of self-preservation should take note of. Even as the “miracle” of GMO evaporates amid an increasingly astute market in the United States, US corporations are buying off Ukraine’s infinitely servile regime to place Ukraine’s neck into the same noose.

However, in a way the Post is right. Russia is crazy to think Monsanto is taking over the world. The corporation, despite untold of billions pumped into lobbying, propaganda, bribes and other forms of mass persuasion, is failing miserably to convince people to ingest their poison, even in the nation their headquarters is located in. However, Russia shedding light on what Monsanto is trying to do in Ukraine, against the obvious best interests of Ukraine itself, is yet another illustration of how the “Euromaiden” putsch had nothing to do with freedom, and everything to do with Washington and Wall Street hijacking yet another nation and its resources out from under its own people under the guise of “democracy.”

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook (http://journal-neo.org/)”.

First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/04/17/ukraine-a-vector-for-gmo-poison-s-spread-through-eu/

[Hervé]

Victory: German Retail Giant Removes Glyphosate from 350 Stores (http://naturalsociety.com/victory-german-retail-giant-removes-glyphosate-from-350-stores/)

http://naturalsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/userphoto/24.thumbnail.jpg by Christina Sarich (http://naturalsociety.com/author/christina/) Posted on May 12, 2015

Now US stores just need to follow


http://i2.wp.com/naturalsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/pesticides_roundup_bottles_735_350.jpg?resize=735%2C350


I recently snapped a photo from an advertising circular that was delivered to my home, proudly promoting Monsanto’s ‘probably carcinogenic’ Round Up, on sale no less, at a local hardware store. While US garden and DIY stores are still selling cancer-causing poison in a jug, a German retail giant will no longer carry glyphosate-containing products as of September 30, 2015

More than 350 ‘toom Baumarkt DIY’ stores belonging to the REWE Group are removing any product that contains this endocrine disrupting chemical concoction, and as of today, no such products can be re-ordered from their stores.

The company told the world about this new policy just recently in a press release (http://www.rewe-group.com/de/newsroom/pressemitteilungen/1422.html) (in German).

However, by the end of 2013, toom Baumarkt had begun to remove this product and approximately 60 percent of glyphosate-containing products were removed from their shelves.

Instead, Toom Baumarkt offers its customers alternative, environmentally acceptable products. As the EU determines whether or not to ban glyphosate (http://naturalsociety.com/experts-ask-world-to-help-ban-monsantos-cancer-linked-glyphosate/), the store will likely see sales soar, as people around the world are becoming educated about just how problematic glyphosate can be to humans, animals and the ecosystem.


http://i0.wp.com/naturalsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/roundup_store_ad.jpg?resize=640%2C640


In a statement, Dominique Rotondi, General Purchasing Manager for toom Baumarkt said:

“As a responsible company, it is important to regularly review our entire range and seek to protect the environment and nature with alternative and more sustainable options. Toom Baumarkt is constantly and consistently developing a more sustainable portfolio of products.” Customers of toom Baumarkt DIY stores are given much more sustainable alternatives to fighting garden pests, fungus and other plant diseases, and can even speak with staff members about specific alternative plant products which are not based in harmful biotech chemical science. Further information about alternative plant protection can be found here. (http://www.toom-baumarkt.de/ueber-toom-baumarkt/nachhaltigkeit/gruene-produkte)

Although an EU ban would send a huge message to Monsanto, the makers of Round Up, we need not wait for our governments to make these decisions. Retailers will feel the burn when there are no longer customers buying their toxic products.

Let’s hope, just as the demand for organic food increases (http://naturalsociety.com/sorry-monsanto-organic-food-demand-absolutely-exploding/), the boycott of these toxic chemicals is amplified also. You can help by passing along the positive actions of companies like toom Baumarkt DIY.

Support natural health: checkout the new Natural Society Natural Health Clothing Line (http://naturalsociety.com/shop) today and fund the message of organic living through our exclusive new designs!
About Christina Sarich:

Christina Sarich is a humanitarian and freelance writer helping you to Wake up Your Sleepy Little Head, and See the Big Picture. Her blog is Yoga for the New World. Her latest book is Pharma Sutra: Healing the Body And Mind Through the Art of Yoga.


Other Popular Stories:
Experts Slam German Report Deeming Monsanto’s RoundUp, Glyphosate ‘Safe’ (http://naturalsociety.com/experts-slam-german-glyphosate-risk-assessment/)
Another Victory: Poultry Industry Giant Goes GMO-Free (http://naturalsociety.com/another-victory-poultry-industry-giant-goes-gmo-free/)
Researchers Discover Glyphosate Herbicide in Honey, Soy Sauce (http://naturalsociety.com/researchers-discover-glyphosate-herbicide-honey-soy-sauce/)
Dr. Oz Slams Glyphosate, Monsanto, and Regulators Allowing its Release (http://naturalsociety.com/dr-oz-slams-glyphosate-monsanto-and-regulators-allowing-its-release/)
Lab Sees 3400% Increase in Testing Food for Monsanto’s Toxic Glyphosate (http://naturalsociety.com/independent-lab-sees-3400-increase-in-requests-to-test-for-toxic-glyphosate/)
30,000 Doctors in Argentina Demand that Glyphosate be Banned (http://naturalsociety.com/30000-doctors-in-argentina-demand-that-glyphosate-be-banned/)

[Hervé]

Doctors demand immediate ban on glyphosate herbicides (http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2015-articles/16167-doctors-demand-immediate-ban-on-glyphosate-herbicides)

By Claire Robinson, GMWatch (http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2015-articles/16167-doctors-demand-immediate-ban-on-glyphosate-herbicides) on 15 May 2015.

Move necessary to protect health of Europeans
The International Society of Doctors for the Environment (ISDE) has written to officials of the EU Parliament and Commission asking for an immediate ban on glyphosate herbicides and four insecticides judged by the World Health Organisation’s cancer agency, IARC, to be probable carcinogens.

The letter states that glyphosate herbicides are associated with health problems such as birth defects, infertility, damage to the nervous system, Parkinson’s disease and several forms of cancer.

The letter adds, “for safeguarding the health of European populations, ISDE states that the rational basis is already strong enough” to justify an immediate and permanent ban.

The ISDE’s Board includes doctors from Europe, North and South America, Pakistan, and Kenya. ISDE has national and regional member organisations in over 25 different countries.

The European Commission, for its part, has formally asked the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to give its opinion on IARC’s verdict on glyphosate herbicides, according to an article in EU Food Policy (available by subscription only).

EU Food Policy says that the full IARC monograph study on which the conclusion is based will not be published until 2016, but the IARC has agreed to provide to EFSA a list of all the studies it used this month.

Ladislav Miko, the acting director general of the Commission health division, DG SANTE, told EU Food Policy, “Furthermore, EFSA should establish to which extent IARC's assessment was based on information on the active substance glyphosate versus on formulated plant protection products containing glyphosate and co-formulants.”

This is a good question, as the complete herbicide formulations are well established to be more toxic than the isolated active ingredient glyphosate.

However, there are signs that Mr Miko is also asking the wrong questions to protect public health. According to EU Food Policy, he wants EFSA to consider whether "firm causality" has been established between the health effects observed in IARC's assessment and the application of glyphosate herbicides, consistent with good practice and having regard to "realistic conditions of use".

In the wording of this question, Mr Miko has given far too much wriggle room to industry. It is difficult to see how “firm causality” could ever be established between ill health effects and the use of any pesticide, let alone how it could be proved that any health effects seen resulted from good practice and realistic conditions of use.

EU Food Policy notes that EFSA is already peer reviewing conclusions on glyphosate with a deadline of August as part of the renewal of the EU authorisation procedure. The Commission wants it to deliver its analysis of the IARC findings by that date.

The open letter from the ISDE is here:
http://www.isde.org/Appeal_glyphosate_IARC.pdf

You can subscribe to EU Food Policy here:
http://www.eufoodpolicy.com/


Related:

Russia bans GMOs; why does the U.S. keep approving them? (http://www.sott.net/article/289592-Russia-bans-GMOs-why-does-the-US-keep-approving-them)

Study confirms: DNA from GMOs can pass directly into humans (http://www.sott.net/article/289618-Study-confirms-DNA-from-GMOs-can-pass-directly-into-humans)

Doctors: Avoid Genetically Modified Food and GMOs (http://www.sott.net/article/185771-Doctors-Avoid-Genetically-Modified-Food-and-GMOs)

[Hervé]

Monsanto's Worst Fear May Be Coming True (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/monsantos-worst-fear-may-be-coming-true-1?page=2)

Posted on: Monday, May 18th 2015 at 7:45 am
Posted By: Jonathan Latham, PhD (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/gmi-blogs/jrlatham)
Originally published on Independent Science News (http://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/monsantos-worst-fear-may-be-coming-true/).


http://cdn.greenmedinfo.com/sites/default/files/ckeditor/lrossi/images/monsanto_worst_fear_gmo_greenmedinfo.jpg


The tide is turning against the globalization of GMO-based agriculture and forced feeding with consumers leading the charge from the bottom up demanding informed consent (e.g. labeling, independent science) and organic alternatives.

The decision (http://ir.chipotle.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=194775&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2040322) of the Chipotle restaurant chain to make its product lines GMO-free is not most people's idea of a world-historic event. Especially since Chipotle, by US standards, is not a huge operation. A clear sign that the move is significant, however, is that Chipotle's decision was met with a tidal-wave of establishment media abuse. Chipotle has been called irresponsible, anti-science, irrational, and much more by the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/burrito-bunkum/2015/04/29/a4cd8382-ed18-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html), Time Magazine (http://time.com/money/3842097/chipotle-gmo/), the Chicago Tribune (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-chipotle-gmo-genetically-modified-food-restaurant-edit-0501-jm-20150430-story.html), the LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0430-sexton-chipotle-gmo-ban-20150430-story.html), and many others. A business deciding to give consumers what they want was surely never so contentious.

The media lynching of Chipotle has an explanation that is important to the future of GMOs (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/guide/health-guide-gmo-research). The cause of it is that there has long been an incipient crack in the solid public front that the food industry has presented on the GMO issue. The crack originates from the fact that while agribusiness sees GMOs as central to their business future, the brand-oriented and customer-sensitive ends of the food supply chain do not.


http://www.independentsciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Chipotle-Mexican-Grill-300x225.jpg


The brands who sell to the public, such as Nestle, Coca-Cola, Kraft, etc., are therefore much less committed to GMOs. They have gone along with their use, probably because they wish to maintain good relations with agribusiness, who are their allies and their suppliers. Possibly also they see a potential for novel products in a GMO future.

However, over the last five years, as the reputation of GMOs has come under increasing pressure in the US, the cost to food brands of ignoring the growing consumer demand for GMO-free products has increased (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/monsantos-losing-battle-against-gmo-labeling). They might not say so in public, but the sellers of top brands have little incentive to take the flack for selling GMOs.

From this perspective, the significance of the Chipotle move becomes clear. If Chipotle can gain market share and prestige, or charge higher prices, from selling non-GMO products and give (especially young) consumers what they want, it puts traditional vendors of fast and processed food products in an invidious position. Kraft and McDonald's, and their traditional rivals can hardly be left on the sidelines selling outmoded products to a shrinking market. They will not last long.

MacDonald's already appears to be in trouble (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-09/mcdonald-s-u-s-sales-declined-more-than-projected-in-february), and it too sees the solution as moving to more up-market and healthier products. For these much bigger players, a race to match Chipotle and get GMOs out of their product lines, is a strong possibility. That may not be so easy, in the short term, but for agribusiness titans who have backed GMOs, like Monsanto (http://tv.greenmedinfo.com/the-shocking-monsanto-master-plan-revealed/), Dupont, Bayer and Syngenta; a race to be GMO-free is the ultimate nightmare scenario.

Until Chipotle's announcement, such considerations were all behind the scenes. But all of a sudden this split has spilled out into the food media. On May 8th, Hain Celestial (http://www.hain-celestial.com/) told The Food Navigator (http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Manufacturers/New-wave-of-conventional-retailers-wants-natural-organic-non-GMO) that:

"We sell organic products...gluten-free products and...natural products. where the big, big demand is, is GMO-free."

According to the article, unlike Heinz, Kraft, and many others, Hain Celestial is actively seeking to meet this demand. Within the food industry, important decisions, for and against GMOs, are taking place.

Why the pressure to remove GMOs will grow
The other factor in all this turmoil is that the GMO technology wheel has not stopped turning. New GMO products are coming on stream that will likely make crop biotechnology even less popular than it is now. This will further ramp up the pressure on brands and stores to go GMO-free. There are several contributory factors.

The first issue follows from the recent US approvals of GMO crops resistant to the herbicides 2,4-D and Dicamba. These traits are billed as replacements for Roundup-resistant traits whose effectiveness has declined due to the spread of weeds resistant to Roundup (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/toxic-ingredient/roundup-herbicide) (Glyphosate (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/glyphosate-roundup-linked-cancer-lymph-tissue-new-study)).

The causes of the problem, however, lie in the technology itself. The introduction of Roundup-resistant traits in corn and soybeans led to increasing Roundup use by farmers (Benbrook 2012 (http://www.bioscienceresource.org/2013/02/impacts-of-ge-crops-on-pesticide-use-in-the-u-s/)). Increasing Roundup use led to weed resistance, which led to further Roundup use, as farmers increased applications and dosages. This translated into escalated ecological damage and increasing residue levels in food. Roundup is now found in GMO soybeans intended for food use at levels that even Monsanto used to call "extreme (http://www.independentsciencenews.org/news/how-extreme-levels-of-roundup-in-food-became-the-industry-norm/)" (Bøhn et al. 2014 (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308814613019201)).

The two new herbicide-resistance traits are set to recapitulate this same story of increasing agrochemical use. But they will also amplify it significantly.

The specifics are worth considering. First, the spraying of 2,4-D and Dicamba on the newer herbicide-resistant crops will not eliminate the need for Roundup, whose use will not decline (see Figure).


http://www.independentsciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/herbicide375-300x206.jpg
PREDICTED HERBICIDE USE TO 2025 (MORTENSEN ET AL 2012)


That is because, unlike Roundup, neither 2,4-D nor Dicamba are broad-spectrum herbicides. They will have to be sprayed together with Roundup, or with each other (or all of them together) to kill all weeds. This vital fact has not been widely appreciated.

Confirmation comes from the companies themselves. Monsanto is stacking (i.e. combining) Dicamba resistance with Roundup resistance in its Xtend (http://www.monsanto.com/products/pages/roundup-ready-xtend-crop-system.aspx) crops and Dow is stacking (http://extension.psu.edu/plants/crops/news/2014/03/incoming-herbicide-resistant-crops-what2019s-next) 2,4-D resistance with Roundup resistance in its Enlist range. (Notably, resistance to other herbicides, such as glufosinate, are being stacked in all these GMO crops too.)

The second issue is that the combined spraying of 2,4-D and Dicamba and Roundup, will only temporarily ease the weed resistance issues faced by farmers. In the medium and longer terms, they will compound the problems (http://news.psu.edu/story/165056/2010/09/14/growing-roundup-resistant-weed-problem-must-be-dealt-expert-says). That is because new herbicide-resistant weeds will surely evolve. In fact, Dicamba-resistant and 2,4-D-resistant weeds already exist. Their spread, and the evolution of new ones, can be guaranteed (Mortensen et al 2012 (http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/62/1/75.full)). This will bring greater profits for herbicide manufacturers, but it will also bring greater PR problems for GMOs and the food industry. GMO soybeans (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/monsantos-gmo-soybeans-found-illegally-growing-belize-1) and corn will likely soon have "extreme levels" of at least three different herbicides, all of them with dubious safety records (Schinasi and Leon 2014 (http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/4/4449/htm)).

The first time round, Monsanto and Syngenta's PR snow-jobs successfully obscured this, not just from the general public, but even within agronomy. But it is unlikely they will be able to do so a second time. 2,4-D and Dicamba-resistant GMOs are thus a PR disaster waiting to happen.

A pipeline full of problems: risk and perception
The longer term problem for GMOs is that, despite extravagant claims, their product pipeline is not bulging with promising ideas (http://www.independentsciencenews.org/science-media/fakethrough-gmos-and-the-capitulation-of-science-journalism/). Mostly, it is more of the same: herbicide resistance and insect resistance (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-herbicide-linked-overgrowth-deadly-bacteria).

The most revolutionary and innovative part of that pipeline is a technology and not a trait. Many products in the GMO pipeline are made using RNA interference technologies that rely on double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs). dsRNA is a technology with two problems. One is that products made with it (such as the "Arctic" Apple, the "Innate" Potato, and Monsanto's "Vistive Gold" Soybeans) are unproven in the field. Like its vanguard, a Brazilian virus-resistant bean, they may never work (http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2015-articles/16124) under actual farming conditions.

But if they do work, there is a clear problem with their safety which is explained in detail here (pdf) (http://www.bioscienceresource.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/RNAi-Biosafety-DraftPaper-2015-LathamWilson.pdf).

In outline, the problem is this: the long dsRNA molecules needed for RNA interference were rejected long ago as being too hazardous for routine medical use (Anonymous, 1969). The scientific literature even calls them "toxins", as in this paper title from 1969: Absher M., and Stinebring W. (1969) Toxic properties of a synthetic double-stranded RNA. Nature 223: 715-717. (not online)

As further evidence of this, long dsRNAs are now used in medicine to cause autoimmune disorders in mice, in order to study these disorders (Okada et al 2005 (http://www.nature.com/icb/journal/v83/n3/full/icb200528a.html)).

The Absher and Stinebring paper comes from a body of research built up many years ago, but its essential findings have been confirmed and extended by more modern research. We now know why dsRNAs cause harm. They trigger destructive anti-viral defence pathways in mammals and other vertebrates and there is a field of specialist research devoted to showing precisely how this damages individual cells, whole tissues, and results in auto-immune disease in mice (Karpala et al. 2005 (http://www.nature.com/icb/journal/v83/n3/full/icb200528a.html)).

The conclusion therefore, is that dsRNAs that are apparently indistinguishable from those produced in, for example, the Arctic apple and Monsanto's Vistive Gold Soybean, have strong negative effects on vertebrate animals (but not plants). These vertebrate effects are found even at low doses. Consumers are vertebrate animals. They may not appreciate the thought that their healthy fats and forever apples also contain proven toxins. And on a business front, consumer brands will not relish defending dsRNA technology once they understand the reality. They may not wish to find themselves defending the indefensible (http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-12640-muzzled-by-monsanto.html).

The bottom line is this. Either dsRNAs will sicken or kill people, or, they will give opponents of biotechnology plenty of ammunition. The scientific evidence, as it currently stands, suggests they will do both. dsRNAs, therefore, are a potentially huge liability.

The last pipeline problem stems from the first two. The agbiotech industry has long held out the prospect of "consumer benefits" from GMOs. Consumer benefits (in the case of food) are most likely to be health benefits (improved nutrition, altered fat composition, etc.). The problem is that the demographic of health-conscious consumers no doubt overlaps significantly with the demographic of those most wary of GMOs. Show a consumer a "healthy GMO" and they are likely to show you an oxymoron. The health market in the US for customers willing to pay more for a GMO has probably evaporated in the last few years as GMOs have become a hot public issue.

The end-game for GMOs?

The traditional chemical industry approach to such a problem is a familiar repertoire of intimidation and public relations. Fifty years ago, the chemical industry outwitted and out-manoeuvered environmentalists after the death of Rachel Carson (see the books Toxic Sludge is Good for You (http://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Sludge-Good-For-You/dp/1567510604) and Trust Us We're Experts (http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Us-Were-Experts-Manipulates/dp/1585421391)). But that was before email, open access scientific publication, and the internet. Monsanto and its allies have steadily lost ground in a world of peer-to-peer communication. GMOs have become a liability, despite their best efforts.

The historic situation is this: in any country, public acceptance of GMOs has always been based on lack of awareness of their existence. Once that ignorance evaporates and the scientific and social realities start to be discussed, ignorance cannot be reinstated. From then on the situation moves into a different, and much more difficult phase for the defenders of GMOs.

Nevertheless, in the US, those defenders have not yet given up. Anyone who keeps up with GMOs in the media knows that the public is being subjected to an unrelenting and concerted global blitzkrieg.

Pro-GMO advocates and paid-for journalists, presumably financed by the life-science industry, sometimes fronted by non-profits such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are being given acres of prominent space to make their case. Liberal media outlets such as the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/us/on-hawaii-a-lonely-quest-for-facts-about-gmos.html?_r=0), the National Geographic (http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2015-articles/16155-national-geographic-gets-it-spectacularly-wrong-on-gm), The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/25/seeds-of-doubt), Grist magazine, (http://grist.org/food/would-you-like-some-criticism-on-your-gmo-free-chipotle-burrito/?utm_campaign=daily_feed&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter) the Observer newspaper (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/16/gm-crops-world-food-famine-starvation), and any others who will have them (which is most) have been deployed to spread its memes. Cornell University has meanwhile received a $5.6 million grant (http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/08/new-cornell-alliance-science-gets-56-million-grant) by the Gates Foundation to "depolarize" negative GMO publicity.

But so far there is little sign that the growth of anti-GMO sentiment (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/think-anti-gmo-movement-unscientific-think-again) in Monsanto's home (US) market can be halted. The decision by Chipotle is certainly not an indication of faith that it can.

For Monsanto and GMOs the situation suddenly looks ominous. Chipotle may well represent the beginnings of a market swing of historic proportions. GMOs may be relegated to cattle-feed status, or even oblivion, in the USA. And if GMOs fail in the US, they are likely to fail elsewhere.

GMO roll-outs in other countries have relied on three things: the deep pockets of agribusinesses based in the United States, their political connections (http://rt.com/usa/wikileaks-monsanto-cables-report-273/), and the notion that GMOs represent "progress". If those three disappear in the United States, the power to force open foreign markets will disappear too. The GMO era might suddenly be over.

[B]References
Anonymous (1969) Interferon inducers with side effects. Nature 223: 666-667.

Bøhn, T., Cuhra, M., Traavik, T., Sanden, M., Fagan, J. and Primicerio, R. 2014. Compositional differences in soybeans on the market: Glyphosate accumulates in Roundup Ready GM soybeans (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308814613019201). Food Chemistry 153: 207-215.

Okada C., Akbar S.M.F., Horiike N., and Onji M. (2005) Early development of primary biliary cirrhosis in female C57BL/6 mice because of poly I:C administration (http://www.nature.com/icb/journal/v83/n3/full/icb200528a.html). Liver International 25: 595-603.

Karpala A.J., Doran T.J., and Bean A.G.D. (2005) Immune responses to dsRNA: Implications for gene silencing technologies (http://www.nature.com/icb/journal/v83/n3/full/icb200528a.html). Immunology and cell biology 83: 211–216.

Mortensen, David A., J. Franklin Egan, Bruce D. Maxwell, Matthew R. Ryan and Richard G. Smith (2012) Navigating a Critical Juncture for Sustainable Weed Management (http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/62/1/75.full). BioScience 62: 75-84.

Schinasi L and Maria E. Leon ME (2014) Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and Occupational Exposure to Agricultural Pesticide Chemical Groups and Active Ingredients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/4/4449/htm). Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 11: 4449-4527.

http://cdn.greenmedinfo.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/author_byline/writer/113a004.jpg (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/gmi-blogs/jrlatham)
Jonathan Latham is co-founder and Executive Director of the Bioscience Resource Project (http://www.bioscienceresource.org/) and also Editor of the Independent Science News (http://independentsciencenews.org/) website. Dr. Latham holds a Masters degree in Crop Genetics and a PhD in Virology.

[East Sun]

I asked this question before and maybe a lawyer could answer it. Is there a way that a group of ordinary citizens could sue a big corporation without it costing a fortune? People around the world, who are concerned about the 'crimes' of Monsanto, could, in groups or collectively sue Monsanto.

Also in the USA we could sue main stream media for lies through omission--not doing their job and deception of the people.
And while we're at it sue deceptive politicians.

Well, at least the first one for a start.

[Hervé]

Sri Lanka’s Newly Elected President Bans Glyphosate Effective Immediately (http://naturalsociety.com/sri-lankas-newly-elected-president-bans-glyphosate-effective-immediately/)



http://i2.wp.com/naturalsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/pesticides_blue_735_250.png?resize=723%2C250


http://naturalsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/userphoto/24.thumbnail.jpg by Christina Sarich (http://naturalsociety.com/author/christina/) Posted on May 26, 2015


As glyphosate spikes deadly chronic kidney disease 5-fold

As the US government comes up with ever more creative stall tactics, Sri Lanka’s newly elected president, Maithripala Sirisena, has announced that the import of Monsanto’s favorite killing-tool, glyphosate, will no longer be allowed in the country.

Sirisena is a farmer and ex health minister, and blames glyphosate for rising rates of chronic kidney disease (CKD) throughout the Sri Lankan farming community.

Not only has the Sri Lankan president banned glyphosate herbicide, but stocks of already-imported Roundup will be stopped (http://sustainablepulse.com/2015/05/25/sri-lankas-new-president-puts-immediate-ban-on-glyphosate-herbicides/#.VWNmqqYzek0).

CKD has already affected 15% of people working in the northern part of Sri Lanka which amounts to around 400,000 patients and a death count, directly related to Monsanto’s chemicals, of 20,000.

This may seem shocking, but these numbers simply relay a truth that another study previously stated: that kidney disease is five times higher (http://naturalsociety.com/chronic-kidney-failure-5-times-higher-glyphosate-areas/) in countries that are over-run with glyphosate chemicals. Though this is due in part to the fact that farmers in these countries often where very little in the way of protection when they are spraying Roundup on their rice fields, there is no excuse for such an abominable number of preventable deaths.

If you aren’t convinced of the reality of this problem, there are two short documentaries: “Mystery in the Fields (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBuA6M-hB3w)” and “Cycle of Death (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c3kNNqfBDQ),” both of which can shed light on this unfortunate phenomenon happening throughout the world.

Sri Lanka decided to ban glyphosate, not after the World Health Organization announced that the chemical was ‘probably carcinogenic, (http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2015/03/20/popular-weed-killer-deemed-probable-carcinogen-by-un)‘ but after seeing the results of two scientific studies (http://www.gmoevidence.com/dr-jayasumana-glyphosate-leads-to-5-fold-increase-in-deadly-kidney-disease-risk/) led by Dr. Jayasumana. These detail how drinking water from abandoned wells, where concentrations of glyphosate and metals are higher, along with spraying farms with glyphosate, increased the risk of the deadly chronic kidney disease (CKDu) by up to 5-fold. Sri Lanka has already banned the sale of glyphosate (http://naturalsociety.com/breaking-sri-lanka-first-country-ban-monsantos-glyphosate-due-study-chronic-kidney-disease/) herbicides in March of 2014, but the decision was overturned in May 2014 after a review.

The decision by Sri Lanka’s new president to ban glyphosate this time around is expected to stand.

Sri Lanka now becomes the second country to fully ban the sale of glyphosate herbicides. Bermuda has also issued a temporary ban on glyphosate imports (http://naturalsociety.com/bermuda-suspends-glyphosate-ridden-roundup-indefinitely/) and is holding a review to determine whether or not to make it permanent.

[3(C)+me]

I go eat at Chipotle at least once a week to show my support, hit them where it hurts, the pocketbook.
Monstanto it appears is going down...Good, the sooner the better.

Surveys repeatedly show that 80 percent to 95 percent of people want foods that contain genetically modified organisms to be labeled (in the least). Here is a simple breakdown of some reported polls on consumer demand for GMO labeling:

The New York Times: 93% found to be in support of labeling GMOs
MSNBC: 96% in support
Reuters/NPR: 93% in support of full labeling
Washington Post: 95% in support of full labeling
Consumer Reports: 95% agree GM animals should be labeled
ABC News: 93% want federal GM labeling mandate

[Hervé]

Scientist Who Discovered GMOs Cause Tumors in Rats Wins Landmark Defamation Lawsuit in Paris (http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/scientist-who-discovered-gmos-cause-tumors-in-rats-wins-landmark-defamation-lawsuit-in-paris/)

By Nick Meyer (http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/author/mamstaff/) On November 30, 2015 ·


http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/seralini-team.jpg (http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/seralini-team.jpg)
Seralini and his team in Normandie, France in 2013. Via: GMOSeralini.org


Was French Prof. Gilles-Eric Séralini correct when he discovered that scientific feeding experiments past 90 days with GMO food and rats can cause serious health problems including tumors?

The answer to that question has been debated ever since the initial publication of his study, culminating in a republication of the study (http://www.gmoseralini.org/republication-seralini-study-science-speaks/) in another peer-reviewed journal that wasn’t nearly as well covered as the initial retraction was by the mainstream media.

Now, Prof. Séralini is in the news again – this time for winning a major court victory (http://www.gmoseralini.org/seralinis-team-wins-defamation-and-forgery-court-cases-on-gmo-and-pesticide-research/) in a libel trial that represents the second court victory for Séralini and his team in less than a month.

On November 25, the High Court in Paris indicted Marc Fallous, the former chairman of France’s Biomolecular Engineering Commission, for “forgery” and the “use of forgery.” The details of the case have not been officially released.

But according to this article (http://www.gmoseralini.org/seralinis-team-wins-defamation-and-forgery-court-cases-on-gmo-and-pesticide-research/) from the Séralini website, Fallous used or copied the signature of a scientist whose name was used, without his agreement, to argue that Séralini and his co-workers were wrong in their studies on Monsanto products, including GM corn.

A sentencing for Fallous is expected in June 2016.


Second Court Victory Reached
This was the second such court victory for the professor’s team, following a November 6 victory in a defamation lawsuit over an article in the French Marianne magazine which categorized the Séralini team research as “scientific fraud (you can read more about the case here (http://www.gmoseralini.org/seralinis-team-wins-defamation-and-forgery-court-cases-on-gmo-and-pesticide-research/)).”

What few people realize about the original Séralini study on GMOs is that it was only retracted after a serious PR offensive from Monsanto and the Biotech industry (https://www.rt.com/op-edge/monsanto-gmo-studies-reports-588/), one that included the creation of a whole new position on the original Food and Toxicology journal: Associate Editor for Biotechnology.

The new position was actually filled by a former Monsanto employee (https://www.rt.com/op-edge/monsanto-gmo-studies-reports-588/)who helped convince the journal’s author to retract the study.

Now more than 2 years later, these are the facts: Séralini and his team’s original study has been republished (http://www.gmoseralini.org/republication-seralini-study-science-speaks/) in a different peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Sciences Europe; they have won two key lawsuits against those who have attempted to ruin their reputations; and a recent peer-reviewed letter even asserted that Séralini and his team may have been right after al (http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/new-peer-reviewed-papers-bold-statement-seralini-study-on-gmos-tumors-was-right-after-all/)l on their discovery showing tumors in lab rats fed GMOs.

In other words, the jury is still out on GMO safety to say the very least, just as countless independent scientists (http://www.gmofreeusa.org/research/gmo-science-research/)have warned, and Séralini’s study stands as yet another cause for concern with the ongoing GMO experiment. It also shows the lengths that the Biotech industry will go to in order to discredit any independent science that clashes with their own version of science.

For more on Séralini and his studies, check out the team’s website by clicking on this link (http://www.gmoseralini.org/).

[Hervé]

Court Finds Monsanto Responsible for Poisoning French Farmer (http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/12/14/court-finds-monsanto-responsible-poisoning-french-farmer/)

Alex Pietrowski (http://www.wakingtimes.com/contributors/alex-pietrowski/), Staff Waking Times (http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/12/14/court-finds-monsanto-responsible-poisoning-french-farmer/)

http://www.wakingtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/monsanto-fail.jpg (http://www.wakingtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/monsanto-fail.jpg)

The court of appeals in Lyon, France, has found agribusiness giant Monsanto (http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/06/20/complete-history-monsanto-worlds-evil-corporation/) guilty of poisoning a man named Paul François. François is a farmer who claimed that he suffered a multitude of ailments, including headaches, memory loss, neurological problems and stammering, after he unintentionally inhaled Monsanto’s herbicide, Lasso.

François used Lasso for over 15 years, and in 2004 accidentally inhaled the product. After the incident, the farmer began getting severe headaches and experienced moments of mental absence and an inability to speak.

The chemical’s effects on François were so severe that he fainted, was hospitalized and fell into a coma. François was diagnosed with monochlorobenzene poisoning by his doctors, who found that the chemical permanently damaged his brain. Monochlorobenzene makes up 50% of the herbicide Lasso.

It is worth noting that the herbicide was prohibited in France and the rest of the European Union in 2007, and at the time of the incident, it was already banned in Canada (since 1985), Great Britain and Belgium (since 1992).

During the court hearing, Monsanto’s attorneys repeatedly claimed that the herbicide Lasso was not dangerous. François claimed that the company was aware of the toxic nature of the herbicide but failed to adequately warn about the potential health risks.

The Appeals Court in Lyon upheld the original 2012 decision and ruled that the biotech giant, notorious for what some believe is a toxic combination of GMOs and Roundup herbicide, (http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/06/02/new-study-shows-roundup-herbicide-glyphosate-banned/) was “responsible” for the poisoning and must “fully compensate” François for damaging his health. Monsanto has stated that it will appeal the ruling at the French Supreme Court.

Monsanto attorney Jean-Daniel Bretzner, made a statement regarding François potential compensation, should the ruling be upheld by the highest court:

“We are speaking about modest sums of money or even nonexistent. He already received indemnities (by insurers) and there is a fundamental rule that says that one does not compensate twice for a loss, if any.” (Source: Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-monsanto-court-idUSKCN0RA1UM20150911#zr5136dVY5861A7s.97)) Yet, regardless of the fine, François’ win against Monsanto would set an important precedent for others who suffer from ailments due to herbicide and pesticide exposure.

“It is a historic decision in so far as it is the first time that a (pesticide) maker is found guilty of such a poisoning.” – François Lafforgue, François’ lawyer (Source: Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-monsanto-court-idUSKCN0RA1UM20150911#zr5136dVY5861A7s.97)) This case could be a significant game changer for Monsanto, who sells many potentially-dangerous chemical products, many of which are used on food crops. For example, another common ingredient in Monsanto’s products is alachlor, which “has the potential to cause damage to the liver, kidney, spleen, nasal mucosa and eye from long-term exposure,” as stated by the EPA (http://www.epa.gov/safewater/pdfs/factsheets/soc/alachlor.pdf). Monsanto is also well-known for its glyphosate products (http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/07/10/monsanto-has-known-since-1981-that-glyphosate-promotes-cancer/) such as Roundup. Glyphosate has been identified by the World Health Organization as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” a claim that Monsanto is insisting is based on pseudo-science and should be withdrawn.

Below is a news summary of the case from France 24:

HTc8OBag4EA

[Hervé]

Taiwan investing in futures:

Taiwan Just Banned GMOs in School Cafeteria Lunches
(http://www.naturalblaze.com/2015/12/taiwan-just-banned-gmos-in-school-cafeteria-lunches.html)
By Heather Callaghan (http://www.naturalblaze.com/tag/Heather-Callaghan) Posted on December 14, 2015 (http://www.naturalblaze.com/2015/12/taiwan-just-banned-gmos-in-school-cafeteria-lunches.html)



http://www.naturalblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/girls-623890_960_7201.jpg (http://www.naturalblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/girls-623890_960_7201.jpg)


Today in Taiwan, the Legislature effectively banned the use of genetically modified food ingredients – or processed food with such ingredients – in school meals. Some amendments were made to the School Health Act by the amendment sponsors that would halt the use of GMOs in food prepared for students.

The Central News Agency in tandem with Focus Taiwan (http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201512140031.aspx) announced the report on December 14th, citing health concerns as a reason for officials sponsoring a bill that altered the Act, and calling the consumption of GMOs a “hidden food safety crisis.”

One of the amendments’ sponsors, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Shu-fen said that Taiwan imports more than 2.3 million tons of soybean each year and that 90 percent is either GMO or “animal feed” products. He echoes the health and safety concern over untested GM products on children saying most genetically engineered crops are grown using chemical herbicides and are “shipped through a procedure fit for animal feed.” He argued that if such crops were used in food for schoolchildren “it would have a huge impact on their physical and psychological health.

Legislator Lu Shiow-yen of the Kuomintang is quoted as saying,

If young students consume foods that are made from genetically modified primary ingredients, it is tantamount to a hidden food safety crisis because they are exposed to unnecessary risks. Essentially, the best way to ensure the future of student health and protect their safety in their opinion – was to simply rid the schools of GMOs and scrap them altogether.


http://www.naturalblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/201512140031t0001.jpg (http://www.naturalblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/201512140031t0001.jpg)
Credit: CNA News Taiwan (http://www.cna.com.tw/)


Focus Taiwan reports: (http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201512140031.aspx)

While the amendments were being debated at the Legislature, Education Minister Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) said the government was very concerned about students’ health and had encouraged schools to prioritize the use of locally grown farm produce and food ingredients.

Taipei’s Department of Education said 103 of the city’s 235 schools had already opted against GM food ingredients. For the other 132 schools, changing their policies as required by the new provisions to the act will force them to spend an additional NT$2 to NT$3 for each meal. Unfortunately, even in Taiwan, when the GMO-free meals finally become available next semester, the prices are expected to go up. There should not be a fine to eat GMO-free food.

Believe it or not, the Taiwanese government is willing to spend the extra millions to subsidize the necessary amount of meals for Taiwan’s poverty-stricken students. With hope, the funds are available and do not pinch Taiwan’s people much more until their market is running on GMO-free imports.

Regardless, the above attitude is quite a different attitude than that pushed by the U.S. media and the biotech industry – that GMOs should be forced on the poor (and public school children, nursing homes, hospitals and prisons) in order to “feed the world” – as though the poor are lower-class human beings. “Eat it or starve” is the industry line, despite the world’s people pushing their plates away and paying more for wholesome food.

Taiwanese officials are at least behaving thoughtfully – they are going the extra mile when it comes to untested foods given to children.

This article (Taiwan Just Banned GMOs in School Cafeteria Lunches (http://www.naturalblaze.com/2015/12/taiwan-just-banned-gmos-in-school-cafeteria-lunches.html)) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) license with attribution to Heather Callaghan (http://www.naturalblaze.com/tag/Heather-Callaghan) and Natural Blaze.com (http://naturalblaze.com/).

[Hervé]

Yep, Monsanto losing ground:

Documents reveal Canadian teenager target of GMO lobby (http://globalnews.ca/news/2414720/documents-reveal-canadian-teenager-the-target-of-gmo-lobby/)

https://shawglobalnews.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/allison-vuchnich_crop1.jpg?quality=60&strip=all&w=55&h=55&crop=1 (http://globalnews.ca/author/allison-vuchnich/) By Allison Vuchnich (http://globalnews.ca/author/allison-vuchnich/) Network Correspondent Global News


http://i0.wp.com/media.globalnews.ca/videostatic/225/967/GN151221VOOSHY_848x480_589728835720.jpg?w=670&quality=70&strip=all
http://globalnews.ca/video/2414569/young-gmo-labeling-campaigner-targeted-for-activism
WATCH ABOVE: Documents reveal a Canadian teenager and her activism on the issue of GMO labelling were the subject of emails strategizing how her message could be countered. Allison Vuchnich reports.


At the time, Rachel Parent was 14 years old and had a growing social media following. Her message to label genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food was attracting attention – including from those who promote GMOs in the U.S. Their internal emails reveal they were discussing how they could counter her message.

“To think at this point, I was on their radar and I had no clue,” Parent said.

The strategizing was revealed in emails, along with thousands of other pages of documents released in a freedom of information request by US Right to Know (http://usrtk.org/) (USRTK), a non-profit advocacy group funded by the Organic Consumers Association concerned with the safety of GMOs.

The documents shed light into the increasingly nasty and divisive public relations war over GMOs.

“It’s mostly scientists that they attack, but Rachel is a standout. The agrichemical industry is plainly quite threatened by this teenage schoolgirl, so that’s why they’re after her,” Gary Ruskin, the co-director of USRTK said.

The documents show that professors and academics were contacted by companies like Monsanto and the industry trade association’s public relations firm to provide expert opinion and offer credibility in a complicated debate.

But not all the academics revealed their connection to Monsanto or the agrichemical industry.

One professor at a renowned American university volunteered as a science expert to help spread a pro-GMO message. His name is Kevin Folta, chairman of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida.

But to understand why Kevin Folta focussed on Rachel Parent, is to understand his relationship with Monsanto and the agrichemical industry.

Folta began corresponding with Monsanto in 2013, according to emails released by USRTK. From there a relationship began with Monsanto, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), and Ketchum, a public relations firm hired by the trade association, the Council for Biotechnology Information (CBI).

“I’m glad to sign on to whatever you like, or write whatever you like….I’d be happy to write the op-ed on making decisions on facts,” Folta wrote in an email in October 2014 to Monsanto.

“He’s literally a mouthpiece for them…Monsanto says jump, and Kevin Folta says ‘how high’?” said Ruskin.

When asked, USRTK also said third-party academics were enlisted by the pro-GMO labelling side.

The documents show Folta wrote articles, blog posts, contributed to industry website GMOAnswers.com (https://gmoanswers.com/), attended public hearings, forums and events to explain and defend GMO technology; he also lobbied Congress and other government agencies.

During these appearances and in his writings Folta has repeatedly referred to himself as an “independent scientist.”

The documents reveal that Monsanto, the Biotechnology Industry Organization and Ketchum reimbursed Folta’s travel costs. After the emails were released, Folta admitted as much in his blog posts.

In August 2014, Monsanto also gave Folta an unrestricted $25,000 grant telling him in a letter it “may be used at your discretion in support of your research and outreach projects.”

Folta wrote in a blog post that he planned to use the grant for an “outreach program, which covered the costs for me to travel and teach scientists how to talk about science.”

“Kevin Folta is one of the principal attack dogs of the agrichemical industry. He maintains extremely tight communications with Monsanto and the agrichemical industry’s PR firm Ketchum,” said Ruskin.

Folta vehemently denies these claims, telling Global News in an email, he is not an agribusiness GMO advocate. He said he speaks publically, writes, and joined the public relations campaign to defend GMO technology which he believes is safe, reiterating he speaks freely expressing his own scientific opinions.

“I don’t care about the companies. They don’t sponsor my work, I never received anything from them personally, I don’t care about them,” he wrote.

“Because I am effective at communicating the science, activists have tried hard to connect me to being some sort of pawn of these companies. It is nonsense.”

Charla Lord of Monsanto told Global News in an email, “the relationships between the public and private sector are critical and have existed for decades,” said Lord. “We see public-private collaborations as essential to the advancement of science, as well as to educating and sometimes correcting misinformation the public has about plant biotechnology.”

Trish Jordan, also of Monsanto Canada told Global News that Monsanto does not ask academics to keep their relationships with the company under wraps.

“No, absolutely not. We fully understand that transparency is expected. It’s a goal of ours,” Jordan said.

“Holding Activists Accountable”
In a 2013 email, a Monsanto executive contacted scientists and professors from various universities suggesting topics. That email proposed Folta write about “Holding Activists Accountable.”

The email to Folta went on to say: “Demonstrate how activists’ messages and tactics regarding Genetically Modified (GM) crops and plant biotechnology undermine worldwide efforts to ensure a safe, nutritious, plentiful and affordable food supply using responsible and sustainable agricultural practices.”

“The key to success is participation by all of you – recognized experts and leaders with the knowledge, reputation and communication experience needed to communicate authoritatively to the target groups. You represent an elite group.”

The email also suggested Folta show how “activist campaigns… spread false information that goes unchallenged and results In further erosion of the public’s confidence in agricultural innovation.”

Video about Rachel Parent
Later that year, while attending a roundtable in Washington, D.C., Folta was asked by public relations firm Ketchum to make a video about Parent.

The email request to Folta read, “How do you agree/disagree with 14-yr old GMO Labeling activist Rachel Parent, who is, in her own words ‘not anti-science’ but ‘for responsible science and ethical progress?’”

But, the email added, “we try to refrain from personally attacking folks, so don’t worry too much about Rachel specifically.”

Nine days later, a video appeared online that was quite specific, entitled, “How do you agree/disagree with 14 year old GMO Activist?”

The video discussed Parent’s activism, her belief that all GMO food products should be labelled, and addressed her apparent lack of scientific knowledge.

“So when I think about answering Rachel Parent, who’s the activist child – well, young woman – who’s running the website ‘Kids Right to Know…The things I just adore about Rachel is that she’s clearly very articulate, clearly intelligent,” Folta said in the video.

“The problem that I have is when Rachel starts to let non-scientific thinking really kind of cloud her final decision-making process.”

Parent said she finds the tone of the video “almost degrading.”

She also defended the information on her organization’s website as scientifically sound.

“People can say whatever they want about me, but as long as I know what I am doing is right, their opinion doesn’t matter.”

Ketchum, the public relations firm for the industry trade association, said the question for the video about Parent was submitted by a user of GMO Answers.com. According to Ketchum, since 2013, GMO Answers has responded to “more than 1,000 questions by top experts in their field” from people submitting questions from around the world.

‘I have an idea. I can provide content’
Eleven months after the video was posted, Folta volunteered his own strategy to Ketchum: a website to counter Parent and her organization’s website, Kids Right to Know (http://www.kidsrighttoknow.com/), according to an email obtained by Global News.

“There was a discussion this morning about kidsrighttoknow.com, the junk information site piloted by Rachel Parent as a figurehead,” Folta wrote in an email to a Ketchum employee.

“Today, I purchased kidsrightotruth.com and want to populate this. I have no time, but I have an idea. I can provide content.”

“Can you see if ketchum might have some interest in actually hosting the site w/GMOanswers etc and maybe helping me with someone to do the design? I can provide content.”

The response from the Ketchum employee: “Kevin, I’ll kick this around to our team and see what they recommend!”

According to Ketchum, the website is not in development, “no, Ketchum is not working with Kevin Folta to design or host a website.”

“It was definitely eye opening,” said Parent. “On one hand I was really surprised and disappointed that a professor from a university would want to target and discredit our website, which is really dedicated to youth.”

“And on the other hand, I was pleased to know that Kids Right to Know is making an impact… so it was a bit of bitter sweet.”

Despite her age, now 16, Parent has become the face for the GMO labelling battle in Canada. A Consumers’ Association of Canada – Decima Poll shows close to 90 per cent of Canadians want mandatory GMO labelling.

Health Canada (http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/gmf-agm/fs-if/faq_1-eng.php) and U.S. health and agriculture (http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodScienceResearch/GEPlants/ucm461805.htm) officials say GMOs are safe and scientific studies back that up. Industry, however, is concerned consumers are making decision based on fear, not facts.

Opponents, including Parent, disagree and believe the scientific research government regulators rely on is often funded by the same companies that benefit from the sale of GMOs.

She argued there is science that proves GMOs do pose a health risk, so labelling is needed.

Folta spoke about the unfounded concerns about GMOs during an appearance on a Global News morning show in Winnipeg in 2014, saying they are “very safe and very effective.”

University of Florida
As for the University of Florida, U.S. colleges place great importance on the independence of their research.

The university said in an August statement (https://news.ifas.ufl.edu/2015/08/threats-prompt-reallocation-of-biotech-education-funds/) that “Folta has no relationship with Monsanto in research or teaching.”

As for the $25,000 grant given to Folta, Monsanto told Global News, “We were happy to support Dr. Folta’s outreach program to increase understanding of biotechnology….We funded Dr. Folta’s proposal through an unrestricted grant to the University of Florida. An unrestricted grant to a university is much like a gift: it can have no strings attached.”

According to the university’s statement, the funds were reallocated to “the campus food pantry (http://fieldandfork.ufl.edu/the-pantry/).”

The university said its decision to reallocate the $25,000 grant from Monsanto “came when his (Folta) home address and other personal information appeared among comments on Facebook. Obscene, inflammatory posts also appeared on Craigslist, presumably with the intent to incite local violent action.”

Folta also made a clear distinction that neither his research nor department was ever sponsored in his blog (http://kfolta.blogspot.ca/2015/09/what-are-deep-ties-to-monsanto.html).

“When people would ask me about Monsanto, I’d simply reply, “I don’t work with them,” or “They don’t sponsor my research,” wrote Folta. “Both statements are true. More importantly, both statements are the most telling questions a scientist can answer — Who are your collaborators? Who pays for your lab’s work?”

Folta admitted in a Sept. 2015 blog post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-folta/setting-a-new-standard-fo_b_8162818.html)there were “many things I could have done differently.”

He said many of the released emails and quotes have been taken out of context, and the focus is no longer on the science but on his actions. Folta has also stopped his blogging and curtailed his social media activity.

In the same post, he explains he has gone back into his records to provide a “complete accounting of my outreach and extension activities (http://www.scribd.com/doc/282375739/Folta-Total-Outreach3). You’ll find how much I was reimbursed for airfare, who paid for the rental car, and who bought the dinner. You’ll see how much was offered as an honorarium or speaker fee, and where that money went. The painstaking detail is necessary, and I think defines a new standard of transparency and a new tool to cultivate trust.”

As for Parent she continues her quest to get GMO ingredients in food labelled, and she knows she faces some serious opposition.

“We are still going strong with our message of right to know…we’re just appealing to simple transparency,” said Parent.

Global News requested an interview with Kevin Folta for this story, but was told by Folta the university denied the request.


Related:
Meet Rachel Parent — the teen fighting for GMO labelling in Canada (http://globalnews.ca/news/1600441/meet-rachel-parent-the-teen-fighting-for-gmo-labelling-in-canada/)
Genetically modified ‘Arctic Apple’ approved by Health Canada (http://globalnews.ca/news/1896260/okanagan-residents-react-to-arctic-apple-approval-by-health-canada/)

[Hervé]

Zika? Monsanto’s Roundup associated with smaller heads (https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2016/01/31/zika-monsantos-roundup-associated-with-smaller-heads/)

by Jon Rappoport (https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/author/jonrappoport/) Jan31 (https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2016/01/31/zika-monsantos-roundup-associated-with-smaller-heads/), 2016


This is my fourth article on the Zika scam (https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/category/zika/). A virus is being blamed for destruction that actually comes from other forces.

In a previous piece (https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/zika-freakout-the-hoax-and-the-covert-op-continue/), I listed the top six causes for what is happening in the center of the storm, Brazil, where babies are being born with smaller heads (microcephaly) and brain damage. One of those causes is pesticides/herbicides.

Here I’m presenting information from an animal study that implicates glyphosate, the central ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide, Roundup, in microcephaly and cranial malformations.

One of authors of this study is the late Argentine researcher, Andres Carrasco (http://sustainablepulse.com/2014/05/10/rip-prof-andres-carrasco-hero-independent-science-pesticides-passes-away/), who was subjected to scientific censorship and threats during his career.

The study was published on May 20, 2010 (Chem. Res. Toxicol.). It is titled:

“Glyphosate-Based Herbicides (GBH) Produce Teratogenic Effects on Vertebrates by Impairing Retinoic Acid Signalling.” (http://www.gmwatch.org/images/pdf/Carrasco_research_paper.pdf)

The study provoked a highly critical response from Monsanto, to which author Carrasco replied in kind, remarking that agenda-driven corporate-dominated research blankets the landscape, whereas truly independent inquiry gets short shrift.

The researchers in the study used xenopus laevis (frog) and chicken embryos. Administering glyphosate to chicken embryos produced “reduction of optic vesicles” and “microcephaly,” which is the key deformation in the so-called “Zika virus outbreak.”

The authors write,
“The direct effect of glyphosate [on the embryos]… opens concerns about the clinical findings from human offspring in populations exposed to GBH [glyphosate-based herbicides] in agricultural fields.” And if there is any doubt that the authors are talking about the birth defects now being (falsely) attributed to the Zika virus, they follow up with this comment:

“There is growing evidence raising concerns about the effects of GBH [glyphosate-based herbicides] on people living in areas where herbicides are intensely used. Women exposed during pregnancy to herbicides delivered offspring with congenital malformations, including microcephaly [small heads], anencephaly [missing major parts of brain and skull in embryos], and cranial malformations.”As I keep pointing out—and this is based on 30 years of investigation into phony epidemics (http://www.amazon.com/AIDS-Inc-Scandal-Century-Paperback/dp/B010EWMCRW/)—“the virus” is the best false cover story in the world. When researchers and government officials announce that so-and-so virus is loose, causing maiming and death, people automatically stand up and salute.

The cover story is used to obscure what is actually causing great harm, and when the cause is a major, major corporation, the propaganda effort to distract the population swings into high gear.

Monsanto knows how to protect itself. But the veneer is peeling from their operation. Millions upon millions of people now know what the company has been doing all these years.

In March 2015, the World Health Organization announced that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, is a probable human carcinogen (https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/roundup-cancer-link-30000-doctorshealth-professionals-agree/). A Swiss group, the International Society of Doctors for the Environment, sent out a demand “to immediately and permanently ban, with no exceptions, the production, trade and use in all the EU territory of glyphosate-based herbicides.” And nearly two years ago, Brazil’s Federal Public Prosecutor asked for a ban on all glyphosate use in the country (http://naturalsociety.com/brazils-federal-public-prosecutor-demands-ban-glyphosate-poisons/).

Now we have the birth-defect horror in Brazil.

That nation uses more pesticides than any country in the world (http://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-politics/brazil-is-largest-global-consumer-of-pesticides-shows-report/). Soy is planted on more acres than any other crop—a testament to the strength of Monsanto’s operation. Soy means Roundup use (http://www.i-sis.org.uk/SDILA.php).

Roundup means destruction.

Jon Rappoport

[3(C)+me]

New Evidence About the Dangers of Monsanto’s Roundup
Sharon Lerner

May 17 2016, 4:18 p.m.

John Sanders worked in the orange and grapefruit groves in Redlands, California, for more than 30 years. First as a ranch hand, then as a farm worker, he was responsible for keeping the weeds around the citrus trees in check. Roundup, the Monsanto weed killer, was his weapon of choice, and he sprayed it on the plants from a hand-held atomizer year-round.

Frank Tanner, who owned a landscaping business, is also a Californian and former Roundup user. Tanner relied on the herbicide starting in 1974, and between 2000 and 2006 sprayed between 50 and 70 gallons of it a year, sometimes from a backpack, other times from a 200-gallon drum that he rolled on a cart next to him.

The two men have other things in common, too: After being regularly exposed to Roundup, both developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a blood cancer that starts in the lymph cells. And, as of April, both are plaintiffs in a suit filed against Monsanto that marks a turning point in the pitched battle over the most widely used agricultural chemical in history.

Until recently, the fight over Roundup has mostly focused on its active ingredient, glyphosate. But mounting evidence, including one study published in February, shows it’s not only glyphosate that’s dangerous, but also chemicals listed as “inert ingredients” in some formulations of Roundup and other glyphosate-based weed killers. Though they have been in herbicides — and our environment — for decades, these chemicals have evaded scientific scrutiny and regulation in large part because the companies that make and use them have concealed their identity as trade secrets.

Now, as environmental scientists have begun to puzzle out the mysterious chemicals sold along with glyphosate, evidence that these so-called inert ingredients are harmful has begun to hit U.S. courts. In addition to Sanders and Tanner, at least four people who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after using Roundup have sued Monsanto in recent months, citing the dangers of both glyphosate and the co-formulants sold with it. As Tanner and Sanders’s complaint puts it: Monsanto “knew or should have known that Roundup is more toxic than glyphosate alone and that safety studies of Roundup, Roundup’s adjuvants and ‘inert’ ingredients” were necessary.

Research on these chemicals seems to have played a role in the stark disagreement over glyphosate’s safety that has played out on the international stage over the last year. In March 2015, using research on both glyphosate alone and the complete formulations of Roundup and other herbicides, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) declared glyphosate a probable human carcinogen. The IARC report noted an association between non-Hodgkin lymphoma and glyphosate, significant evidence that the chemical caused cancer in lab animals, and strong evidence that it damaged human DNA.

Meanwhile, in November the European Food Safety Authority issued a report concluding that the active ingredient in Roundup was “unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans.” The discrepancy might be explained by the fact that the EFSA report included only studies looking at the effects of glyphosate alone. Another reason the agencies may have differed, according to 94 environmental health experts from around the world, is that IARC considered only independent studies, while the EFSA report included data from unpublished industry-submitted studies, which were cited with redacted footnotes.

On Friday, April 29, the Environmental Protection Agency weighed in — briefly — when it posted a long-awaited report on the reregistration of glyphosate concluding that the herbicide is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” But the agency removed the report and 13 related documents from its website the following Monday, saying the publication had been an error. The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology is looking into the EPA’s “apparent mishandling” of the glyphosate report, and the EPA said it will release the reregistration materials by the end of this year.

In response to queries from The Intercept, a spokesperson for the EPA wrote that “the safety of all inert ingredients are considered” during the pesticide registration process, though an 87-page “Cancer Assessment Document,” which was among the documents accidentally released, contains no references to research conducted on the co-formulants.
round-up

Photo: Mike Mozart

Naming the Toxins

Some European governments have already begun taking action against one of these co-formulants, a chemical known as polyethoxylated tallowamine, or POEA, which is used in Monsanto’s Roundup Classic and Roundup Original formulations, among other weed killers, to aid in penetrating the waxy surface of plants.

Germany removed all herbicides containing POEA from the market in 2014, after a forestry worker who had been exposed to it developed toxic inflammation of the lungs. In early April, the French national health and safety agency known as ANSES took the first step toward banning products that combine glyphosate and POEA. A draft of the European Commission’s reregistration report on glyphosate proposed banning POEA. In April, the European Parliament passed a non-binding resolution that supported the POEA ban and also suggested requiring member states to compile a list of other co-formulants to be banned from herbicides. The European Commission’s final vote on glyphosate’s reregistration is expected later this month.

In response to inquiries about POEA, Charla Marie Lord of Monsanto referred The Intercept to the company’s April 8 blog post, which noted that Monsanto has “already been preparing for a gradual transition away from tallowamine to other types of surfactants for commercial reasons.” The post also said that “tallowamine-based products do not pose an imminent risk for human health when used according to instructions.”

Independent scientists have been reporting since at least 1991 that pesticides containing glyphosate along with other ingredients were more dangerous than glyphosate on its own. More recently, two papers — one published in 2002, the other in 2004 — showed that Roundup and other glyphosate-containing weed formulations were more likely to cause cell-cycle dysregulation, a hallmark of cancer, than glyphosate alone. In 2005, researchers showed that Roundup was more harmful to rats’ livers than its “active ingredient” by itself. And a 2009 study showed that four formulations of Roundup were more toxic to human umbilical, embryonic, and placental cells than glyphosate by itself.

But because manufacturers of weed killers are required to disclose only the chemical structures of their “active” ingredients — and can hide the identity of the rest as confidential business information — for many years no one knew exactly what other chemicals were in these products, let alone how they affected health.
Escaping Regulation

In 2012, Robin Mesnage decided to change that. A cellular and molecular toxicologist in London, Mesnage bought nine herbicides containing glyphosate, including five different formulations of Roundup, and reverse engineered some of the other components. After studying the chemicals’ patterns using mass spectrometry, Mesnage and his colleagues came up with a list of possible molecular structures and then compared them with available chemical samples.

“It took around one year and three people (a specialist in pesticide toxicology, a specialist of chemical mixtures, and a specialist in mass spectrometry) to unravel the secrets of Monsanto’s Roundup formulations,” Mesnage explained in an email. The hard work paid off. In 2013, his team was able not only to deduce the chemical structure of additives in six of the nine formulations but also to show that each of these supposedly inert ingredients was more toxic than glyphosate alone.

That breakthrough helped scientists know exactly which chemicals to study, though obtaining samples remains challenging. “We still can’t get them to make experiments,” said Nicolas Defarge, a molecular biologist based in Paris. Manufacturers of co-formulants are unwilling to “sell you anything if you are not a pesticide manufacturer, and even less if you are a scientist willing to assess their toxicity.”

So when Defarge, Mesnage, and five other scientists embarked on their most recent research, they had to be creative. They were able to buy six weed killers, including Roundup WeatherMax and Roundup Classic, at the store. But, finding pure samples of the co-formulants in them was trickier. The scientists got one from a farmer who mixes his own herbicide. For another, they went to a company that uses the chemical to make soap. “They were of course not aware that I was going to assess it for toxic and endocrine-disrupting effects,” said Defarge. András Székács, one of Defarge’s co-authors who is based in Hungary, provided samples of the other three co-formulants studied, but didn’t respond to inquiries about how he obtained them.

In February, the team published its findings, which showed that each of the five co-formulants affected the function of both the mitochondria in human placental cells and aromatase, an enzyme that affects sexual development. Not only did these chemicals, which aren’t named on herbicide labels, affect biological functions, they did so at levels far below the concentrations used in commercially available products. In fact, POEA — officially an “inert” ingredient — was between 1,200 and 2,000 times more toxic to cells than glyphosate, officially the “active” ingredient.

The paper highlights the folly of letting co-formulants fly under the regulatory radar. Although the general public is never exposed to pure glyphosate, government agencies set safe exposure levels for the declared active ingredient in Roundup and other herbicides without considering POEA or any of the other chemicals that are bottled with it. In February, the Food and Drug Administration announced plans to monitor food for glyphosate residue. But the agency has no plan to test food for POEA or other additives, according to FDA press officer Lauren Sucher. And the EPA hasn’t focused squarely on POEA because it isn’t officially an active ingredient.
Evidence of Toxicity

But the EPA has possessed evidence of POEA’s toxicity for years, including several reports of substantial risk to human health and the environment. One, submitted in 1998, noted that 1,000 fish died after 60 gallons of a mixture of chemicals including POEA spilled into a ditch, according to the company responsible for the spill, whose name is redacted in the document. Another report, filed by the chemical company BASF in 2013, noted that several rats that inhaled POEA in an experiment died. Researchers exposed rats to four different levels of the chemical, and at each level, at least some animals were killed. Even at the lowest level, 4 out of 10 rats died.

The EPA has also reviewed the long-term environmental effects of POEA, including its impact on frogs. In 2008, the agency reviewed the effects of both POEA-containing Roundup formulations and POEA itself on fish and amphibians, and showed that Roundup Original, which has 15 percent POEA, is moderately toxic to wood frogs and that POEA itself is “highly toxic” to rainbow trout.

As evidence of the harms of co-formulants has been building, the U.S. has increased the amount of glyphosate to which it is theoretically safe to be exposed, which has in turn also increased our actual exposure to the chemicals it is packaged with. Almost 300 million pounds of glyphosate was used on crops in the U.S. in 2013, up from approximately 16 million pounds in 1992, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

For the lawyers litigating the cases against Monsanto, the idea that POEA and the other ingredients contribute to the toxicity of Roundup is critical. “That’s one of the central theories of our case,” said David Wool, an attorney at Andrus Wagstaff, who is working on suits against Monsanto on behalf of four people who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after years of regularly using Roundup. “It’s not only that glyphosate is carcinogenic and dangerous,” said Wool. “Monsanto had every reason to know that, by including POEA, it increased the danger of all of these products.”

Robin Greenwald, the Weitz & Luxenberg attorney who filed Sanders and Tanner’s case, is confident that discovery, which will begin over the next few months, will show that Monsanto intentionally mislabeled dangerous co-formulants. “My assumption is that we will find documents in their files that show they had ample evidence that the surfactants were not inert and that they too had the potential to cause illness in people,” said Greenwald.

But for her client, John Sanders, who is now in remission after undergoing chemotherapy, it doesn’t really matter which chemical did what. When he was using Roundup, Sanders had no idea that anything in the liquid that sometimes dripped on his clothes and skin might cause cancer. “That was never in my wildest dreams,” he said recently. Now Sanders, who is 67, dreams about staying healthy. He is due for a CT scan next month to see if his cancer has returned.

When asked to comment on the lawsuits, Monsanto provided the following statement:

While we have sympathy for the plaintiffs, the science simply does not support the claims made in these lawsuits. The U.S. EPA and other pesticide regulators around the world have reviewed numerous long-term carcinogenicity studies and agree that there is no evidence that glyphosate causes cancer, even at very high doses. Surfactants such as tallowamines are soapy substances that help to reduce surface tension of the water and are found in many everyday products such as toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, detergent and many other cleaning products. Tallowamine-based products do not pose an imminent risk for human health when used according to instructions. In a 2009 review of toxicological data on tallowamine, the U.S. EPA found no evidence that tallowamines are neurotoxic, mutagenic or clastogenic.

https://theintercept.com/2016/05/17/new-evidence-about-the-dangers-of-monsantos-roundup/

[Tangri]

German drug company Bayer buys Monsanto

German drugs and crop chemicals group Bayer AG has offered to buy U.S. seeds company Monsanto for $62 billion in cash, defying some of its own shareholders in a bid to grab the top spot in a fast-consolidating farm supplies industry.

Monsanto Co's stock ended trading up 4.4 percent at $106 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, well below Bayer's $122 per share cash offer price, in a sign that it faces a tough task convincing the St. Louis-based company to sign off on the deal.

Monsanto has said it would review the proposal. Some analysts have suggested Bayer might still have to pay more.

"The price that has now been disclosed is at the upper limit and it is just about economical. Should it rise further, which is to be assumed, the takeover will become increasingly unattractive," said Markus Manns, a fund manager at Union Investment, Bayer's 14th biggest investor

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-monsanto-m-a-bayer-idUSKCN0YE0DZ

[giovonni]

German drug company Bayer buys Monsanto

German drugs and crop chemicals group Bayer AG has offered to buy U.S. seeds company Monsanto for $62 billion in cash, defying some of its own shareholders in a bid to grab the top spot in a fast-consolidating farm supplies industry.

Monsanto Co's stock ended trading up 4.4 percent at $106 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, well below Bayer's $122 per share cash offer price, in a sign that it faces a tough task convincing the St. Louis-based company to sign off on the deal.

Monsanto has said it would review the proposal. Some analysts have suggested Bayer might still have to pay more.

"The price that has now been disclosed is at the upper limit and it is just about economical. Should it rise further, which is to be assumed, the takeover will become increasingly unattractive," said Markus Manns, a fund manager at Union Investment, Bayer's 14th biggest investor

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-monsanto-m-a-bayer-idUSKCN0YE0DZ

Knowing Bayer's poisonest past history (of creating weapons employed during WWI) for producing disabling chemicals, such as tear gas and the severe mustard gas - to lethal agents like phosgene and chlorine ...
Seems like a sadistic no brainer deal made in hell.

[hardrock]

German drug company Bayer buys Monsanto

German drugs and crop chemicals group Bayer AG has offered to buy U.S. seeds company Monsanto for $62 billion in cash, defying some of its own shareholders in a bid to grab the top spot in a fast-consolidating farm supplies industry.

Monsanto Co's stock ended trading up 4.4 percent at $106 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, well below Bayer's $122 per share cash offer price, in a sign that it faces a tough task convincing the St. Louis-based company to sign off on the deal.

Monsanto has said it would review the proposal. Some analysts have suggested Bayer might still have to pay more.

"The price that has now been disclosed is at the upper limit and it is just about economical. Should it rise further, which is to be assumed, the takeover will become increasingly unattractive," said Markus Manns, a fund manager at Union Investment, Bayer's 14th biggest investor

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-monsanto-m-a-bayer-idUSKCN0YE0DZ

I think this is more about moving money out of the US than anything moralistic. Monsanto's name might change, but the wheel will keep spinning. All the profits will start to move back to a different set of zionists.

[giovonni]

will share this here ...


Here's the hellish backstory ...

The Empire Files: Monsanto, America's Monster

From Abby Martin

"Few corporations in the world are as loathed—and as sinister—as Monsanto. But the threat it poses to people and planet could be reaching new heights, as the World Health Organization has recently upgraded Monsanto's main product as carcinogenic to humans. With protests against the agrochemical giant held in over 40 countries in May, learn why the global movement against Monsanto is of critical importance to our future. In this episode of The Empire Files, Abby Martin issues a scathing expose on the corporate polluter, chronicling it's rise to power, the collusion of its crimes by the US government, and highlighting the serious danger it puts us in today."

Published on Jun 13, 2016


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTi0_ZQtPTY&feature=em-uploademail

[onawah]

The Jesuits and Monsanto
This whole video is definitely worth watching, but at 1 hour 48 minutes in, Leuren Moret begins speaking in depth about Monsanto and the connection to the Jesuits
oK0cTYui0is

[onawah]

Highway Robbery
Organic Consumers Association
Money being taken out of a safe
Late Thursday (July 7) night, 63 U.S. Senators voted to rob you of the right to know what’s in your food.

If you watched any of the Senate “debate” (limited to 30 hours) on the Roberts-Stabenow DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act, you heard one after another of these 63 Senators misrepresent this industry-written bill as a “uniform federal mandatory labeling solution.”

If you’ve been working on this issue with us for weeks, or months or years, you know that’s a lie.

The bill passed last night is intended to hide information (behind electronic codes) from consumers, not provide it—in plain English, on a label.

The bill passed last night is intended to exempt the vast majority of GMOs from even having to be hidden behind codes, much less labeled in plain sight.

The bill passed last night is voluntary—it contains no enforcement mechanism, no penalties for non-compliance.

The bill passed last night is an attack on democracy, an attack on states’ rights. It not only overturns Vermont’s carefully considered and fairly debated mandatory GMO labeling law, but as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) noted in his speech on the Senate floor, this bill overturns nearly 100 other state laws. (Sanders pushed hard to stop this bill).

The bill passed last night is a fraud, an affront to the nine out of 10 Americans who want what citizens in 64 countries already have—the basic right to know what’s in our food.

The 63 Senators who sided with (and took hundreds of millions of dollars from) Monsanto and Big Food, stole your right to know, and whatever shred of belief you might still have had in the democratic process.

But they did not steal your power to boycott any brand or company that refuses to label GMOs. They did not steal your determination to take back an unhealthy, toxic, corrupt corporate food and farming system.

On Wednesday (July 6), during the cloture vote (which assured that the Roberts-Stabenow bill would not be open for discussion or amendments), OCA led a protest on the Senate floor. That protest led to the arrest and detainment, for over 24 hours, of our political director, Alexis Baden-Mayer. We didn’t change the vote. But we took a stand.

The Roberts-Stabenow bill will now go back to the U.S. House, which in July 2015 passed its own version of the DARK Act. If the House and Senate reach an agreement, Congress will vote on a bill to keep you in the dark. That bill will then land on President Obama’s desk.

We will continue to fight it all the way. We hope you will, too.

Watch the OCA ‘money bomb’ protest:
https://www.facebook.com/organicconsumers/videos/10154009567789934/

[onawah]

Monsanto’s Dark Act ready for Obama’s signature
July19
by Jon Rappoport
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2016/07/19/monsantos-dark-act-ready-for-obamas-signature/

President Barack Obama: Monsanto’s man in Washington

By Jon Rappoport

“Let folks know when their food is genetically modified, because Americans have a right to know what they’re buying.” (Barack Obama, 2007)

Really?

In the last eight years, the global outcry against Monsanto and the other biotech giants has accelerated—but not a significant peep has emerged from the Obama White House.

And now, the bill dubbed The Dark Act is ready for Obama’s signature. It will make GMO labels on food an exclusively federal matter—and those labels will be confusing, weak, and therefore meaningless for the majority of Americans. The Dark Act is basically a free pass for Monsanto and the other biotech giants.

After his victory in the 2008 election, Obama filled key posts with Monsanto people, in federal agencies that wield tremendous force in GMO food issues—the USDA and the FDA:

At the USDA, as the director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Roger Beachy, former director of the Monsanto Danforth Center.

As deputy commissioner of the FDA, the new food-safety-issues czar, the infamous Michael Taylor, former vice-president for public policy for Monsanto. Taylor had been instrumental in getting approval for Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone.

As commissioner of the USDA, Iowa governor, Tom Vilsack. Vilsack had set up a national group, the Governors’ Biotechnology Partnership, and had been given a Governor of the Year Award by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, whose members include Monsanto.

As the Agriculture Trade Representative, who would push GMOs for export, Islam Siddiqui, a former Monsanto lobbyist.

As the counsel for the USDA, Ramona Romero, who had been corporate counsel for another biotech giant, DuPont.

As the head of the USAID, Rajiv Shah, who had previously worked in key positions for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a major funder of GMO agriculture research.

We should also remember that Obama’s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, once worked for the Rose law firm. That firm was counsel to Monsanto.

Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the US Supreme Court. Kagan, as federal solicitor general, had previously argued for Monsanto in the Monsanto v. Geertson seed case before the Supreme Court.

The deck was stacked. Obama hadn’t simply made honest mistakes. Obama hadn’t just failed to exercise proper oversight in selecting appointees. He was staking out territory on behalf of Monsanto and other GMO corporate giants.

And now let us look at what key Obama appointees have wrought for their true bosses. Let’s see what GMO crops have walked through the open door of the Obama presidency.

Monsanto GMO alfalfa.

Monsanto GMO sugar beets.

Monsanto GMO Bt soybean.

Syngenta GMO corn for ethanol.

Syngenta GMO stacked corn.

Pioneer GMO soybean.

Syngenta GMO Bt cotton.

Bayer GMO cotton.

ATryn, an anti-clotting agent from the milk of transgenic goats.

A GMO papaya strain.

Genetically engineered salmon.

This is an extraordinary parade.

Obama was, all along, a stealth operative on behalf of Monsanto, biotech, GMOs, and corporate control of the future of agriculture.

He didn’t make that many key political appointments and allow that many new GMO crops to enter the food chain through a lack of oversight.

Nor is it coincidental that two of the Obama’s biggest supporters, Bill Gates and George Soros, purchased 900,000 and 500,000 shares of Monsanto, respectively, in 2010.

Obama has been a covert agent since the beginning.

Imposter. Charlatan. These words fit Obama. He doesn’t care that GMO food is taking over the country and the world. He obviously wants it to happen.

The sitting president of the United States, and Monsanto, DuPont, and Dow, among others, are prepared to do whatever is necessary to make GMO food dominate America.

Obama is on board.

He is the GMO president.

[Hervé]

Regarding investments, insiders trading and why bills (like SB 277) get approved in spite of popular constituents disapproval, check this video from Lindsey Williams:


OzzHsQ34zko

... it removes a lot of the mysteries on "governments" workings...

[onawah]

Glyphosate Causes Changes to DNA Function Resulting in Chronic Disease, According to Study
(Beyond Pesticides July 18, 2016
http://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2016/07/glyphosate-causes-changes-dna-resulting-chronic-disease/


Glyphosate Causes Changes to DNA Function Resulting in Chronic Disease, According to Study
(Beyond Pesticides July 18, 2016) A review of the scientific literature links glyphosate, one of the most popular weed killers in the U.S. and the active ingredient in Roundup, to a wide range of diseases through a mechanism that modifies DNA functioning, adding a new even more troubling dimension to the herbicide’s cancer classification by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. According to the most recent review, Glyphosate pathways to modern disease V: Amino acid analogue of glycine in diverse proteins, conducted by independent scientists Anthony Samsel, Ph.D. and Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., a scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), glyphosate acts as a glycine analogue that incorporates into peptides during protein synthesis. In this process, it alters a number of proteins that depend on conserved glycine for proper function. According to the authors, glyphosate substitution for glycine correlates with several diseases, including diabetes, obesity, asthma, Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and Parkinson’s disease, among others.DNA

Glycine, the smallest amino acid commonly found in proteins, has unique properties that support flexibility and the ability to anchor to the plasma membrane or the cytoskeleton. This new direct biological evidence, taken together with correlational data, make a compelling case that glyphosate action as a glycine analogue accounts for much of glyphosate’s toxicity, according to the study. The authors find that glyphosate, as an amino acid analogue of glycine, may be incorporated into polypeptide chains during protein synthesis. In doing so, it has an impact on the structure and function of the proteins. Proteins fold up, and glycine is a small molecule that is often found at the folding places. Since glyphosate is much larger, it prevents the protein molecule from folding properly, leading to the disruption of function of many proteins with essential roles in metabolism and regulatory processes.

The article cites a number of ways that this affects humans and other organisms. According to the study, the consequences of this action can lead to impaired fatty acid release leading to obesity, impaired insulin receptor response leading to diabetes, impaired one-carbon metabolism leading to neural tube defects and autism, impaired cell cycle control during DNA synthesis, and disregulated phosphorylation cascades leading to cancer, lung disorders, and autoimmune diseases.

Stephen Frantz, Ph.D., a pathobiologist research scientist explains it like this: “When a cell is trying to form proteins, it may grab glyphosate instead of glycine to form a damaged, mis-folded protein. After that it’s medical chaos. Where glyphosate replaces glycine, the cell can no longer conduct business as usual causing unpredicted consequences with many diseases and disorders as a result.”

The release of this study comes on the heels of several other discussions and actions on glyphosate that have taken place over the past few weeks. Last month at a Congressional briefing sponsored by U.S Representative Ted Lieu, a delegation of independent scientists including this study’s authors, presented their findings, urging lawmakers to call on the EPA to ban RoundUp, Monsanto’s flagship herbicide. Beyond Pesticides participated on the panel, providing testimony on the impact of glyphosate on soil systems, as well as the unreasonable risk it poses to humans, animals, and the environment. Following the congressional briefing, scientists spoke at a closed meeting with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), explaining the biochemical and physiological reasons why exposure to glyphosate, the active ingredient in RoundUp, is linked to autism, Alzheimer’s, cancer, birth defects, obesity, and gluten intolerance, among other health issues. EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs’ Deputy Director and his staff met with the panelists and provided an overview of EPA’s registration process for glyphosate. EPA staff had some interest in the information presented, which was forwarded to relevant staffers. However, EPA indicated that much of the information provided may not impact their current risk assessment for glyphosate, which is expected sometime in 2017.

Glyphosate, created by Monsanto, is touted as a “low toxicity” chemical and “safer” than other chemicals by industry. But glyphosate has been shown to have detrimental impacts on humans and the environment. Given its widespread use on residential and agricultural sites, its toxicity is of increasing concern. In early 2015, glyphosate was classified by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of as a “probable human carcinogen.” Just a few months later, a study published in Environmental Health News found that chronic, low-dose exposure to glyphosate led to adverse effects on liver and kidney health. Roundup formulations can also induce a dose-dependent formation of DNA adducts (altered forms of DNA linked to chemical exposure, playing a key role in chemical carcinogenesis) in the kidneys and liver of mice. Human cell endocrine disruption on the androgen receptor, inhibition of transcriptional activities on estrogen receptors on HepG2, DNA damage and cytotoxic effects occurring at concentrations well below “acceptable” residues have all been observed.

Roundup also harms crops’ ability to capture carbon from the air, an important factor in fighting climate change. “Glyphosate negatively affects the soil microbiome,” said Frantz. “It is destroying the ability of soil to be a nutritive medium for producing crops. Organic or biological regenerative agriculture is the solution for the sustainable agricultural sector and will conserve soil, air and water quality, and sequester carbon that helps to mitigate the climate crisis. We call for a ban on glyphosate.”

Beyond Pesticides urges individuals concerned about glyphosate exposure to support organic systems that do not rely on hazardous carcinogenic pesticides. In agriculture, concerned consumers can buy food with the certified organic label, which not only disallows synthetic pesticides like glyphosate, but also the use of sewage sludge and genetically engineered ingredients. Beyond Pesticides also urges the adoption of organic lawn and landscape programs.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Research Gate, Huffington Post

[MorningSong]

I couldn't find this posted anywhere yet, so I hope it's OK to put it here:


President Obama Signed This GMO Labeling Bill

by Michal Addady

@michal_addady

July 31, 2016, 4:49 PM EDT

The majority of our food contains GMOs.

Soon all food packages sold in the U.S. will have to have the proper labeling.

On Friday President Obama signed bill S. 764 that puts into place a federal standard for foods that have been made with genetically modified organisms, ABC News reports. This move comes just about two weeks after Congress passed legislation to necessitate labeling on all food packages that indicates whether or not they contain GMO ingredients. “This measure will provide new opportunities for consumers to have access to information about their food,” Katie Hill, White House spokesperson, told the news outlet.

This didn’t win over all food-labeling advocates, however. One criticism is that the bill allowed companies to use QR codes or 1-800 numbers as a form of GMO labeling, forcing consumers to scan the code or make a call to get more information. That’s why some opponents are calling the bill the DARK Act, short for “Denying Americans the Right to Know,” and argue these alternative labels discriminate against low-income consumers who lack the technology to access off-label info. Others have criticized the bill because it isn’t as stringent as a piece of Vermont legislation that will now be superseded by the federal law. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was among the federal bill’s critics, and urged his Twitter followers to contact their senators about the bill earlier this month.

GMOs are estimated to be in the majority of our food, somewhere between 75% and 80%. The Food and Drug Administration has said that they are safe for consumption, but most consumers argue that, safe or not, they have the right to know exactly what is in their food. American companies say that it’s too expensive to add GMO labeling to their packaging, but former financial and food industry analyst Robyn O’Brien pointed to 64 countries where they are already required to include those labels.

The details of this new bill have yet to be worked out. That responsibility falls on the Department of Agriculture, which will have two years to write up the rules.


http://fortune.com/2016/07/31/gmo-labeling-bill/

[onawah]

Monsanto/Bayer merging
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-statement-on-monsanto-bayer-deal

WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement Wednesday after Monsanto agreed to a buyout offer from Bayer in a deal that would create the world’s largest supplier of seeds and farm chemicals:

“The attempted takeover of Monsanto by Bayer is a threat to all Americans. These mergers boost the profits of huge corporations and leave Americans paying even higher prices. Not only should this merger be blocked, but the Department of Justice should reopen its investigation of Monsanto’s monopoly over the seed and chemical market.”

[onawah]

Maybe the Monsanto/Bayer merger is not a done deal.
Message from SumOfUs.org today in their newsletter:
(I've deleted their appeals for donations)



Breaking news: agrochemical giant Bayer just announced it’s merging with the most hated company on the planet: Monsanto.

These two companies joining into one mega-corporation is truly the stuff of nightmares. Together they would be the biggest seed company AND the biggest pesticide company in the world with control over nearly everything we eat and grow. It means more bee-killing neonics in our fields, more toxic glyphosate on our plates, and more corporate control over our food supply.

But this fight is not over -- in fact it’s just beginning.

Bayer and Monsanto will have to get this merger past regulators in the U.S. and Europe -- and that’s where we come in. We’re already working with some of the world’s top legal minds to prove that the merger violates anti-trust law -- but to convince the regulators to step in, it will take a massive grassroots outcry as well.
Regulators can still stop this merger if they find it violates anti-trust law. But they’re already getting hammered by corporate lobbyists pressuring them to back off. That’s why they won’t intervene unless the grassroots speak out loud and clear. And we don’t have much time -- anti-trust regulators have a limited amount of time to take action, and the clock is already ticking.

If enough of us chip in, we could:

Initiate antitrust lawsuits in the European Union and in the United States
Mobilise farmers in US farming states to pressure their representatives
Commission opinion polls to show public opposition to the merger in German and in key election states in the US
Work with citizens in Bayer’s home country Germany, where political leaders are already under massive pressure because of our campaign to ban Monsanto’s glyphosate in Europe.

If we don't win this, the experts agree: it'll mean higher food prices for all of us, with less choice, and the scary possibility of a massive monoculture that could be wiped out with just one bad disease.

Since the announcement of the merger was made, over half a million people have joined the call to stop this merger from hell. Thanks to the SumOfUs community, we were able to get some of the world’s top legal minds to prove that the merger is a disaster, and simply can’t go ahead. We’ve published the legal results as a white paper and you have tweeted and emailed the European and US antitrust authorities in a massive public outcry against this deal. We’ve turned up at any public event Bayer and Monsanto are planning to protest this merger. We’ve even gotten celebrity support from Mark Ruffalo for our campaign.More information:

Bayer and Monsanto's Mega Merger, Atlantic, 14 September 2016
http://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/09/bayer-and-monsantos-mega-merger/499919/
Why Bayer's massive deal to buy Monsanto is so worrisome, Vox, 14 September 2016
http://www.vox.com/2016/9/14/12916344/monsanto-bayer-merger
Bayer-Monsanto Deal Would Forge New Agricultural Force, Wall Street Journal, 14 September 2016
http://www.wsj.com/articles/bayer-and-monsanto-expected-to-announce-takeover-1473839357

[Atlas]

Bayer CEO Werner Baumann and Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant Discuss Bayer’s Agreement to Acquire Monsanto
jCMuFXaXG5U

[onawah]

Largest-Ever GMO Crops Study Shows Massive Environmental Damage in US
http://sustainablepulse.com/2016/09/18/largest-ever-gmo-crops-study-shows-massive-environmental-damage-in-us/#.V-AAoYgrK1u


According to new research from University of Virginia in the U.S., widespread adoption of genetically modified (GM) crops has decreased the use of insecticides, but increased the use of weed-killing herbicides as weeds become more resistant, leading to serious environmental damage.
Economist Federico Ciliberto led the largest study of genetically modified crops and pesticide use to date, alongside Edward D. Perry of Kansas State University, David A. Hennessy of Michigan State University and GianCarlo Moschini of Iowa State University. The four economists studied annual data from more than 5,000 soybean and 5,000 maize farmers in the U.S. from 1998 to 2011, far exceeding previous studies that have been limited to one or two years of data.

Herbicide Use / Environmental Impact (EIQ)
http://sustainablepulse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/finalherbicide-360x243.jpg
“The fact that we have 14 years of farm-level data from farmers all over the U.S. makes this study very special,” Ciliberto said. “We have repeated observations of the same farmers and can see when they adopted genetically modified seeds and how that changed their use of chemicals.”

Since 2008, genetically engineered crops have accounted for more than 80 percent of maize and soybean crops planted in the U.S. Maize seeds are modified with two genes: one kills insects that eat the seed and one allows the seed to tolerate glyphosate, a herbicide commonly used in weed killers like Roundup. Soybeans are modified with just one glyphosate-resistant gene.

Unsurprisingly, maize farmers who used the insect-resistant seeds used significantly less insecticide – about 11.2 percent less – than farmers who did not use genetically modified maize. The maize farmers also used 1.3 percent less herbicide over the 13-year period.

Soybean crops, on the other hand, saw a significant increase in herbicide use, with adopters of genetically modified crops using 28 percent more herbicides than non-adopters.

Ciliberto attributes this increase to the proliferation of glyphosate-resistant weeds.

Commentators and other peer-reviewed studies have even stated that the rise in pesticide use on GM crops has gone up much further since the 1998-2011 data that was reviewed in this new University of Virginia study. The period from 2011-2016 is when glyphosate-resistant weeds have become a major economic problem for U.S. farmers based on the increase of use and thus money spent on pesticides cutting in to their bottom line.

THE GLYPHOSATE BOX

1o Things You Need to Know about Glyphosate

5 Things You Need to Know about Glyphosate Testing

Glyphosate in Numbers

“In the beginning, there was a reduction in herbicide use, but over time the use of chemicals increased because farmers were having to add new chemicals as weeds developed a resistance to glyphosate,” Ciliberto said.

Maize farmers, he said, have not yet had to address the same level of resistance, in part because they did not adopt genetically modified crops as quickly as their counterparts in the soy industry. However, the study did find evidence that both maize and soybean farmers increased herbicide use during the last five years of the study, indicating that weed resistance is a growing problem for both groups.

From 2006 to 2011, the percentage of hectares sprayed with only glyphosate shrunk from more than 70 percent to 41 percent for soybean farmers and from more than 40 percent to 19 percent for maize farmers. The decrease resulted from farmers having to resort to combining glyphosate herbicides with other chemicals as glyphosate-resistant weeds became more common.

“Evidence suggests that weeds are becoming more resistant and farmers are having to use additional chemicals, and more of them,” Ciliberto said.

Insects do not appear to have developed a similar resistance, in part because federal regulations require farmers to have a “safe haven” in their fields that is free of genetically modified crops. Insects and worms in those safe havens have no need to develop resistance, and because they interact and breed with insects in other parts of the field, they help prevent the development of resistant genes.

Despite the decrease in insecticide use, continued growth in herbicide use poses a significant environmental problem as large doses of the chemicals can harm biodiversity and increase water and air pollution.

Ciliberto and his colleagues measured the overall environmental impact of the changes in chemical use that have resulted from the adoption of genetically modified crops, using a measure called the environmental impact quotient, or EIQ, to account for chemicals’ impact on farmworkers, consumers and the environment. Comparing adopters to non-adopters, they found little change in the impact on farmworkers and consumers. However, the adoption of genetically modified soybeans correlated with a massive negative impact on the environment as increased herbicide use also increased contamination of local ecosystems.

Further investigation of the environmental impact quotient (EIQ) finding is now being called for by independent scientists in the U.S. and Europe using the even more accurate Pesticide Risk Tool (PRiME).

Overall, Ciliberto said he was surprised by the extent to which herbicide use had increased and concerned about the potential environmental impact.

“I did not expect to see such a strong pattern,” he concluded.

[Hervé]

Dr. Vandana Shiva: Monsanto's seeds of suicide (https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-seeds-of-suicide-how-monsanto-destroys-farming/5329947)

Dr. Vandana Shiva Global Research (https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-seeds-of-suicide-how-monsanto-destroys-farming/5329947)
Fri, 05 Apr 2013 12:32 UTC


https://www.sott.net/image/s22/459223/large/download_12.jpg (https://www.sott.net/image/s22/459223/full/download_12.jpg)

"Control the oil, and you control nations. Control the food, and you control the people."
- Henry Kissinger Monsanto's talk of 'technology' tries to hide its real objectives of control over seed through genetic engineering
"Monsanto is an agricultural company. ... We apply innovation and technology to help farmers around the world produce more while conserving more. ... Producing more, Conserving more, Improving farmers lives." These are the promises Monsanto India's website makes, alongside pictures of smiling, prosperous farmers from the state of Maharashtra. This is a desperate attempt by Monsanto and its PR machinery to delink the epidemic of farmers' suicides in India arising from the company's growing control over cotton seed (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/substance/seeds) supply - 95 per cent of India's cotton seed is now controlled by Monsanto.

Seed is the first link in the food chain because seed is the source of life. When a corporation controls seed, it controls life, especially the life of farmers.

Monsanto's concentrated control over the seed sector in India as well as across the world is very worrying. This is what connects farmers' suicides (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/disease/suicidal-behavior) in India to Monsanto vs. Percy Schmeiser in Canada, to Monsanto vs. Bowman in the US, and to farmers in Brazil suing Monsanto for $2.2 billion for unfair collection of royalty.

Through patents on seed, Monsanto has become the "Life Lord" of our planet, collecting rents for life's renewal from farmers, the original breeders.

Patents on seed are illegitimate because putting a toxic gene into a plant cell (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/anti-therapeutic-action/genetically-modified-organisms) is not "creating" or "inventing" a plant. These are seeds of deception - the deception that Monsanto is the creator of seeds and life; the deception that while Monsanto sues farmers and traps them in debt, it pretends to be working for farmers' welfare, and the deception that GMOs feed the world. GMOs are failing to control pests and weeds, and have instead led to the emergence of superpests and superweeds.

Altered Genes, Twisted Truth
The entry of Monsanto in the Indian seed sector was made possible with a 1988 Seed Policy imposed by the World Bank, requiring the Government of India to deregulate the seed sector. Five things changed with Monsanto's entry:

First, Indian companies were locked into joint-ventures and licensing arrangements, and concentration over the seed sector increased.

Second, seed which had been the farmers' common resource became the "intellectual property" of Monsanto, for which it started collecting royalties, thus raising the costs of seed.

Third, open pollinated cotton seeds were displaced by hybrids, including GMO hybrids. A renewable resource became a non-renewable, patented commodity.

Fourth, cotton which had earlier been grown as a mixture with food crops now had to be grown as a monoculture, with higher vulnerability to pests, disease, drought and crop failure.

Fifth, Monsanto started to subvert India's regulatory processes and, in fact, started to use public resources to push its non-renewable hybrids and GMOs through so-called public-private partnerships (PPP).

In 1995, Monsanto introduced its Bt technology in India through a joint-venture with the Indian company Mahyco. In 1997-98, Monsanto started open field trials of its GMO Bt cotton illegally and announced that it would be selling the seeds commercially the following year. India has rules for regulating GMOs since 1989, under the Environment Protection Act. It is mandatory to get approval from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee under the ministry of environment for GMO trials. The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology sued Monsanto in the Supreme Court of India and Monsanto could not start the commercial sales of its Bt cotton seeds until 2002.

And, after the damning report of India's parliamentary committee on Bt crops in August 2012, the panel of technical experts appointed by the Supreme Court recommended a 10-year moratorium on field trials of all GM food and termination of all ongoing trials of transgenic crops.

But it had changed Indian agriculture already.

Monsanto's seed monopolies, the destruction of alternatives, the collection of superprofits in the form of royalties, and the increasing vulnerability of monocultures has created a context for debt, suicides and agrarian distress which is driving the farmers' suicide epidemic in India. This systemic control has been intensified with Bt cotton. That is why most suicides are in the cotton belt.

An internal advisory by the agricultural ministry of India in 2012 had this to say to the cotton-growing states in India:
Cotton farmers are in a deep crisis since shifting to Bt cotton. The spate of farmer suicides in 2011-12 has been particularly severe among Bt cotton farmers. The highest acreage of Bt cotton is in Maharashtra and this is also where the highest farmer suicides are. Suicides increased after Bt cotton was introduced - Monsanto's royalty extraction, and the high costs of seed and chemicals have created a debt trap. According to Government of India data, nearly 75 per cent rural debt is due to purchase inputs. As Monsanto's profits grow, farmers' debt grows. It is in this systemic sense that Monsanto's seeds are seeds of suicide.

The ultimate seed of suicide is Monsanto's patented technology to create sterile seeds. Called "terminator technology" by the media, sterile seed technology is a type of Gene Use Restriction Technology, GRUT, in which seed produced by a crop will not grow - crops will not produce viable offspring seeds or will produce viable seeds with specific genes switched off. The Convention on Biological Diversity has banned its use, otherwise Monsanto would be collecting even higher profits from seed.

Monsanto's talk of "technology" tries to hide its real objectives of ownership and control over seed where genetic engineering is just a means to control seed and the food system through patents and intellectual property rights.
As part of the process, they portrayed the various concerns as merely the ignorant opinions of misinformed individuals - and derided them as not only unscientific, but anti-science. They then set to work to convince the public and government officials, through the dissemination of false information, that there was an overwhelming expert consensus, based on solid evidence, that GMOs were safe. - Jane Goodall, Altered Genes, Twisted Truth (http://amzn.to/2GYGkX2) A Monsanto representative admitted that they were "the patient's diagnostician, and physician all in one" in writing the patents on life-forms, from micro-organisms to plants, in the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Stopping farmers from saving seeds and exercising their seed sovereignty was the main objective. Monsanto is now extending its patents to conventionally bred seed, as in the case of broccoli (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/substance/broccoli) and capsicum, or the low gluten wheat (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/toxic-ingredient/wheat) it had pirated from India - which we challenged as a biopiracy case in the European Patent office.

That is why we have started Fibres of Freedom in the heart of Monsanto's Bt cotton/suicide belt in Vidharba. We have created community seed banks with indigenous seeds and helped farmers go organic (http://www.greenmedinfo.com/keyword/organic-versus-conventional). No GMO seeds, no debt, no suicides.

The beauty of seed is that out of one you can get millions. The beauty of the pollinator is that it turns that one into millions. And that's an economy of abundance. That's an economy of sharing. To me that's the real economics of growth - because life is growing. The economics and technology of hybridization, of genetic modification, is a deliberate creation of scarcity.

Genetic engineering has never been about saving the world, it's about controlling the world.

Why GMOs are a death knell to biodiversity and farming


o_r6tHdZdhI


About the author
Vandana Shiva (http://vandanashiva.com/) is a philosopher, environmental activist, and eco feminist. Shiva, currently based in Delhi, has authored more than 20 books and over 500 papers in leading scientific and technical journals. She was trained as a physicist and received her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Western Ontario, Canada. She was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1993. She is also the founder of Navdanya.org (http://www.navdanya.org/), an organization dedicated to the conservation of biodiversity.


Related:
GMO's: Setting the record straight (https://www.sott.net/article/291120-GMOs-Setting-the-record-straight)

Food poisoning on a global scale (https://www.sott.net/article/255596-Food-poisoning-on-a-global-scale)

Gunning for Vandana Shiva: The New Yorker, GMOs and chemical farming (https://www.sott.net/article/284382-Gunning-for-Vandana-Shiva-The-New-Yorker-GMOs-and-chemical-farming)

Economic growth obsession opposes life, justice and human dignity (https://www.sott.net/article/268345-Economic-growth-obsession-opposes-life-justice-and-human-dignity)

GM Seeds and the militarization of food - and everything else (https://www.sott.net/article/259354-GM-Seeds-and-the-militarization-of-food-and-everything-else)

[onawah]

Where Do the 2020 Presidential Candidates Stand on GMOs?
https://www.organicconsumers.org/blog/where-do-2020-presidential-candidates-stand-gmos?utm_medium=email&utm_source=engagingnetworks&utm_campaign=OB+651&utm_content=OB+651+Saturday
January 28, 2020
Organic Consumers Association
by Alexis Baden-Mayer

"Editor’s note: This information was compiled by Citizens Regeneration Lobby (CRL), the 501(c)(4) sister organization of Organic Consumers Association. CRL can endorse candidates and engage in political advocacy that is out-of-bounds for 501(c)(3) organizations. We can’t share CRL’s endorsements with you here. If you’d like to receive that information from CRL via email, please join CRL here.

About half of all American adults have one or more preventable, chronic, diet-related diseases.

Whether it’s factory-farm foods from animals raised on GMO feed, or sugary foods and drinks made with GMO sweeteners or foods fried in GMO fats, nearly all the foods making Americans fat and sick contain genetically engineered ingredients. This is how genetic engineers are “feeding the world,” as they like to say.

But what the genetic engineering industry is really interested in is how many billions of dollars they can make selling pesticides.

Fact: Genetic engineering has been used almost exclusively as a means to sell pesticides, especially the carcinogenic glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide that Monsanto created its genetically engineered crops to withstand. Today, 99 percent of GMOs grown around the world are engineered to withstand massive applications of glyphosate, an herbicide classified as “probably carcinogenic to humans” the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.

There’s no reason our food should be produced from crops that are genetically engineered to be soaked in carcinogens.

More than 14,000 certified organic farms and 3,900 producers finishing grassfed cattle in the U.S. today are proving that another food system is possible.

And they’re doing it with virtually no federal assistance compared with the massive subsidies lavished on the producers of GMO crops and factory farm animal products.

Through a Green New Deal, we could turn this situation around by supporting family farmers; by investing in regenerative organic farming and land use practices that sequester carbon; and by building a food system that ensures universal access to healthy food.

We’ve investigated each of the 2020 Presidential candidates to learn where they stand on GMOs by looking into who is funding their campaigns, what their records are as elected officials and what the candidates have said in their platforms and public statements.

We know where several of the Presidential candidates stand on GMOs because they were in the House or Senate in 2016. That was the year Congress removed labels from genetically engineered foods by passing a federal bill that took away states’ rights to label GMOs and instituted a federal “bioengineered disclosure” standard that has yet to result in any GMOs being labeled.

We’ve combed through data compiled by FEC.gov and OpenSecrets.org to find out who’s taken campaign contributions from the biggest companies in the food system, including the four multinational corporations, Bayer-Monsanto, Syngenta, BASF, and DowDuPont (now Corteva). These four companies control 75 percent of GMO plant breeding research, 60 percent of the commercial GMO seed market and 76 percent of pesticide sales globally.

Here’s what we know about where each of the presidential candidates stand on GMOs. We’ve listed every candidate currently in the race, beginning with the incumbent and his Republic challengers, followed by the Democratic hopefuls, in alphabetical order.

Our exhaustive research wasn’t able to uncover everything we’d like to know about every candidate. To learn how you can help get every presidential candidate on record, join Citizens Regeneration Lobby.

Donald Trump took $1 million from DowDuPont, then reversed Obama’s plan to ban chlorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to neurodevelopmental problems, reduced birth sizes and weights, lower I.Q.s, attention deficit and autism.

As President, Trump also issued an executive order to exempt GMOs from federal regulations. GMOs aren’t safety tested, labeled or monitored for impacts on human health or the environment. But GMOs are currently regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service as potential plant pests when they are herbicide-tolerant crops, by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency when they are crops or organisms that produce pesticides and by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration as “new animal drugs” when they are genetically engineered animals.

It’s not much, but these regulations have done two important things: 1) alerted the public to the existence of new GMOs; and 2) provided an opportunity for public comment before new GMOs enter our food system. Trump’s executive order threatens to wipe away our right to know if GMOs even exist! If that were to happen, companies like Monsanto could create new GMOs and release them into the environment and our food system without notifying anyone. The consequences could be disastrous and irreversible and it would be even more difficult than it is now to figure out what impact GMOs are having on our health.

Joe Walsh, when he was a Congressman, counted among his top contributors McDonald’s, a company with a huge carbon footprint (29 percent from factory farmed beef) that makes its money from child obesity and animal cruelty.

Bill Weld, former Governor of Massachusetts, between 2007 – 2011 worked as a registered lobbyist for international law firm McDermott, Will & Emery. He’s listed on reports for defense contractor Raytheon, CNX Gas Corporation, Sony Electronics and shoemaker New Balance. Weld is currently a member of lobbying firm ML Strategies. Weld is a corporate lobbyist, but there is no evidence that he has worked for Big Ag.

Michael Bennet, as a Senator, has taken money from the political action committees of BASF, Bayer, DowDuPont, Syngenta and CropLife (the GMO/pesticide companies’ trade association). His voting record reflects these campaign contributions. He voted for the 2016 Bioengineered Food Disclosure Law, which took away states’ rights to label GMOs but has yet to result in any federally required labels on genetically engineered food.

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign has taken campaign contributions from Erik Fyrwald, CEO of Syngenta, a Chinese-owned manufacturer of neonicotinoid pesticides blamed for the insect apocalypse hitting bees, butterflies and other pollinators. While in Congress, Biden never had the opportunity to vote on GMOs, but he made his views clear by refusing to cosponsor any of bills introduced by colleague Dennis Kucinich that would have required safety testing, labeling and contamination prevention for GMOs.

Mike Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman, has not made his views on genetic engineering known. In 2011, while he was Mayor of New York City, his Department of Health’s report on city pesticide use revealed that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup weed-killer was the city’s most heavily used liquid herbicide, but Bloomberg made no effort to reduce its use. [New York City is currently considering a bill that would make all of its parks pesticide-free.] That said, Bloomberg is a well-known anti-obesity crusader who has taken on the soda industry. Nearly all sodas are made with high-fructose corn syrup made from GMO corn, though his campaigns have never mentioned this.

Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign has taken campaign contributions from James Travis, Senior Director of International Government Affairs at Bayer, the company fighting thousands of cancer victims who claim Monsanto (now Bayer)’s Roundup weedkiller gave them non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

John Delaney, as a Congressman, voted for the 2016 Bioengineered Food Disclosure Law, which took away states’ rights to label GMOs but has yet to result in any labels on genetically engineered food.

Tulsi Gabbard, a Congresswoman from Hawaii where GMOs and related pesticides are field tested with disastrous consequences, has always been very vocal in her calls for common sense regulations of this industry, including labels on genetically engineered food.

Amy Klobuchar, as a Senator, has taken money from the political action committees of BASF, Bayer, DowDuPont, Monsanto, Syngenta and CropLife (the GMO/pesticide companies’ trade association). Her voting record reflects these campaign contributions. She voted for the 2016 Bioengineered Food Disclosure Law, which took away states’ rights to label GMOs but has yet to result in any federally required labels on genetically engineered food.

Deval Patrick has not made his views on genetic engineering known. He is a former governor of Massachusetts and a current executive at the investment firm Bain Capital. In his early career, he was a lawyer for the NAACP, but was later recruited to serve as general counsel for Texaco, a corporation he was monitoring for racial discrimination. He has also been corporate counsel to Coca-Cola, a company that has lobbied government regulators to shift the blame for obesity away from its GMO high-fructose-corn-syrup-sweetened beverages.

Bernie Sanders, a Senator from Vermont, the first state to require labels on genetically engineered food, has been one of Congress’s top advocates for GMO labels, forcing a floor vote on states’ rights to label GMOs in 2013, and fighting until the very end to prevent passage of the 2016 Bioengineered Food Disclosure Law, which took away states’ rights to label GMOs but has yet to result in any federally required labels on genetically engineered food.

Tom Steyer, a billionaire businessman, has not made his views on genetic engineering known. In 2018, his tweet celebrating the first Roundup-exposed cancer victim’s win against Bayer/Monsanto, was met with jeers raising the fact that his hedge fund Farallon Capital Management had $776 million invested in Monsanto.

Elizabeth Warren, as a Senator, has flip-flopped on GMO labeling. She voted against the 2013 Sanders amendment for states’ rights to label GMOs. She then supported a Food and Drug Administration guidance on voluntary GMO labels. Finally, she voted against the 2016 Bioengineered Food Disclosure Law, which took away states’ rights to label GMOs but has yet to result in any federally required labels on genetically engineered food.

Andrew Yang, an attorney and entrepreneur, has not made his views on genetic engineering known.

Alexis Baden-Mayer is political director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA). To keep up with OCA news and alerts, sign up for our newsletter."

[onawah]

Think New GMO Food Labeling Law Will Help You Avoid GMOs? Think Again.
01/21/22
By Dave Dickey
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/new-gmo-food-labeling-laws/?fbclid=IwAR0X_U2b9j2igy5Pjs4Vw_XojQpIzjc8Ai__AvIzKUup0-slXJWeJDhb6Ms

"The new federal labeling law for foods containing genetically modified organisms is sure to create confusion and make it burdensome for consumers to know if the foods they eat contain genetically modified ingredients. Will a lawsuit be able to change that?
Welcome to 2022 and the shiny new federal labeling rule that will require manufacturers to disclose when foods are bioengineered! Sort of …

The new law essentially replaces a patchwork of state regulations regarding the labeling of genetically modified foods and food products. Unfortunately, the law is sure to create confusion and make it burdensome for some consumers to know if the foods they eat contain genetically modified ingredients.

“Bioengineered” is the new term for genetically engineered (GE) ingredients and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Bioengineered plants or animals essentially have an inserted gene that comes from a laboratory. The idea is to make the host plant or animal more resistant to disease or pests or to increase nutritional value.Labels that declare “contains bioengineered food ingredients” mean at least one food ingredient includes DNA from a laboratory produced gene(s).

So … it should be simple right? People who wish to avoid eating GMO and GE products should just say no to bioengineered labeled products on their grocery shelves.

Except it ain’t that simple.

First off, food manufacturers don’t necessarily have to put “contains bioengineered food ingredients” on the label. In fact many probably won’t.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has decided an electronic QR code or a note to receive a text message will suffice. Small companies can stay on the right side of the law with either a website or phone number.

But that’s not the worst of it for those who want to avoid GMOs.

The USDA made “highly refined” ingredients exempt — things like high fructose corn syrup and soybean oil both of which are derived from — wait for it — GMO crops. And of course, apples, eggplants, papayas, pineapples, potatoes and salmon can contain GMOs.

And if that isn’t troublesome enough, other GMO labels — notably the USDA Organic and Non-GMO Project Verified — will remain.

And in case you are wondering, food service establishments and restaurants get a full pass on the new rules.

Yeah.

The debate of whether GMO foods are safe to eat has raged for decades. And even though the World Health Organization and American Medical Association concluded GMOs are safe, we should have empathy for those who prefer to avoid such foods.

And obviously, that’s where the law fails. Transparency is far less than 100%.

That’s in part the point of a lawsuit working its way through the federal courts filed by the Center for Food Safety (CFS). The CFS contends USDA in mandating labels with the word “bioengineered” and prohibiting use of GMO and GE labels will, at its root, confuse and make it difficult for consumers to make shopping decisions:

“Despite that instruction and the overwhelming support from stakeholders to allow continued use of the far more well-known ‘GE’/ ‘GMO’ terms, in its final rule USDA instead excluded ‘GE’ and ‘GMO,’ prohibiting them from use in the on-package text or symbol labeling, only allowing use of the term bioengineered.

“That decision was arbitrary and capricious, contrary to the Act’s plain language and the APA and failed to fulfill the Act’s fundamental purpose of informing consumers. It is antithetical to the Act’s purpose because it will confuse and mislead consumers.”

CFS also contends the new rules will discriminate against more than 100 million Americans without smartphones or cell service.

USDA must respond to the CFS claims by mid-February. After that, the United States Beet Sugar Association, the American Sugar Beet Growers Association and the American Farm Bureau Federation will weigh in on the debate.

Then it’s back to the CFS counter-reply due in late March.

It’s probably not likely the courts will rule that USDA will need to go back to the drawing board. But here’s hoping something can be tweaked to improve transparency for folk wishing to avoid GMOs."

Originally published on Investigate Midwest.

[onawah]

Dr. Seneff The Real Truth About Health
from: stephanieseneff.net <seneff@csail.mit.edu
4/12/22 at 3 p.m. EDT
FREE 17 Day Live Online Conference
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"I will be giving a free 1 1/2 hour lecture tomorrow, April 12, at 3 p.m. Eastern time during The Real Truth About Health Free 17 Day Live Online Conference that is taking place April 1 - 17, 2022, that will be followed by a half-hour Q&A period

Title: Glyphosate, Deuterium, Prions and Neurodegeneration.

I have been deeply researching into neurodegenerative diseases lately, and I believe I am making progress in understanding the role that deuterium plays in the disease process. Deuterium (heavy hydrogen) is a fascinating natural element, and organisms have learned how to manage it skillfully, but unfortunately via proteins that are highly sensitive to disruption by glyphosate.
REGISTER FOR FREE NOW https://therealtruthtalksabouthealth.uscreen.io/orders/customer_info?o=62037
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­I will also be participating in a panel discussion that should be stimulating and engaging:

GMO's, Chemicals, and The Food System and How They Directly Affect Your Health

Thursday, Apr 14, 2022, 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm EST
I will be joined by Jeffrey M. Smith, Julian Cribb, Andre Leu, Ronnie Cummins, and Joanna Malaczynski-Moore.

Hope to see you there!"
Dr. Stephanie Seneff

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https://stephanieseneff.net/

[onawah]

‘They Tried to Kill Me,’ Biologist Who Exposed Dangers of Roundup Weedkiller Tells RFK, Jr.
04/12/22
By Susan C. Olmstead
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/biologist-exposed-dangers-roundup-weedkiller-rfk-jr/?utm_source=salsa&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=870a8b13-8675-4d5b-a31a-402216440cdd
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/gilles-eric-seralini-rfk-jr-monsanto-feature-800x417.jpg

"In an interview on “RFK Jr. The Defender Podcast,” biologist Gilles-Éric Séralini talked with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. about the dangers of Roundup and GMO foods, and how Monsanto attacks scientists and deceives the public.
Kennedy described the findings:

“He [did] something nobody else dared to do, which is to take the exact same test [on rats] that Monsanto did for 90 days and do it for two years instead, which is the typical lifespan of a rat. And he found … 80% of the rats that consumed Roundup developed tumors compared to 30% in the control group.

“Not only that, but the tumors in the rats were 130% larger.”

Monsanto mounted a campaign to suppress and discredit Séralini’s research. The infamous Monsanto Papers revealed the company’s strategy.

Kennedy was co-counsel on the legal team of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, which acquired the papers.

When the Monsanto Papers — hundreds of thousands of documents — were unsealed, Kennedy said, “for the first time we saw Monsanto’s internal communications. We saw their strategy for destroying Professor Séralini’s reputation and getting his article retracted.”

Monsanto employed former intelligence agents and other “hitmen” to destroy the reputations of scientists and to get retractions from the journals, Kennedy said.

He added:

“[Monsanto] had a number of strategies. Each one of the strategies was designed to make sure that Monsanto — that Roundup — was not harmed by the science.

“One of the strategies was called ‘Let Nothing Go.’ Another one was called ‘Freedom to Operate’ or FTO. Another was called ‘Whack-a-Mole.’ Every time a scientist would pop his head over the barricades and publish a study that showed that Roundup was unsafe, they would whack him.”

“Project Spruce” was another example, Kennedy said. “And all of them were implemented by these black ops spies, including former members of the CIA and other intelligence agencies.”

Séralini, who said he is “just a researcher,” credited Kennedy with shedding “lots of light in our world.”

Commenting on his research, Séralini said:

“We discovered that [Monsanto] knew that they were [committing] crimes, that they were having toxic products with the Roundup the main herbicide of the world, [and with] GMOs that … were modified in order to contain this pesticide.”

Many people don’t understand that some GMO foods have been modified to be tolerant to Roundup, Séralini said.

Kennedy explained that originally, GMO companies claimed genetic modification would reduce the need for pesticides and produce better crops, telling the public, “You’re going to have bigger kernels of corn, larger strawberries, higher-quality food, more meat, more of everything … a cornucopia of the green revolution without chemicals.”

But, he said, GMOs have been used primarily to make crops that are tolerant of pesticides:

“You can saturate the landscapes from airplanes with this toxin. And the only thing on that landscape that will grow will be the Roundup-ready corn and Roundup-ready soy. Now they have Roundup-ready wheat and barley and sorghum.

“And they’ve actually dramatically increased the use of pesticides and the exposures to our children, rather than reduced them.”

“It’s really devastating to the environment,” said Séralini.

French biologist Gilles-Éric Séralini and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chairman and chief legal counsel of Children’s Health Defense have something in common: They’ve both devoted a portion of their careers to exposing the toxicity of Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller.

The two met for the first time on “RFK Jr. The Defender Podcast” where they discussed their work.

Séralini is a molecular biologist and an expert on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and pesticides. He is a professor at the University of Caen and president and chairman of the Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN).

Séralini also is the co-author — along with Jérôme Douzelet — of “The Whole Truth About the Monsanto Papers.”

The book details how Monsanto attacked Séralini and deceived the public after he published groundbreaking findings about Roundup herbicide.

Séralini’s findings were reported in a 2012 Food and Chemical Toxicology article, which the journal’s editor-in-chief, under pressure, retracted in 2013.

GMO foods survive with large quantities of toxic pesticides in them, and those pesticides are passed to the animals and humans who eat them, he said.

The consequences to public health include cancer risks — and harm to the immune system, the nervous system and the endocrine system.

“The thing is, people don’t know that when they use pesticides, they eat petroleum waste,” said Séralini. “It is very important … that we shed a new light on this.”

Kennedy and Séralini spoke of the tremendous political and legal might behind Monsanto and other big chemical companies.

“Some people linked to [Monsanto] tried to kill me … at least first scientifically, and then physically,” said Séralini. “I have the chance to survive all this system. … Many people didn’t survive.” "

Watch the podcast here:https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/biologist-exposed-dangers-roundup-weedkiller-rfk-jr/?utm_source=salsa&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=870a8b13-8675-4d5b-a31a-402216440cdd