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    Default Re: GMO And Related Stuff

    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/
    Quote 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.
    Last edited by onawah; 1st March 2015 at 20:47.
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    Default Re: GMO And Related Stuff

    Dr. Stephanie Seneff presentation on harmful effects of glyphosate
    This is from 2013, but still recommended. Skip the first 18 minutes

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    Default Re: GMO And Related Stuff

    New US Patents Could Signal The End Of Pesticides & GMOs
    http://www.collective-evolution.com/...sticides-gmos/

    Quote 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
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    Default Re: GMO And Related Stuff

    Jane Goodall and Steven Druker Expose US Government Fraud over GMOs
    http://sustainablepulse.com/2015/03/.../#.VPchA9LF_To
    Mar 4 2015
    Quote 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


    “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
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    Default Re: GMO And Related Stuff

    San Diego Sues Monsanto for Polluting Bay With Banned Carcinogenic Chemicals

    Tuesday, March 17, 2015 by Common Dreams

    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


    The San Diego Coronado Bay Bridge. (Photo: Eileen Maher/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 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, 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 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 from Food & Water Watch.

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
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    Default Re: GMO And Related Stuff

    What’s Your “Daily Value” of Glyphosate?

    Activist Post


    Dees Illustration 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).” 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,” 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,
    Quote 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,
    Quote 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.



    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:
    Quote 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.


    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

    According to Grace Communications Foundation,
    Quote 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.”

    The London Daily Mail reported,
    Quote 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,” 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.



    So, how much glyphosate is sprayed on crop acreage?
    Well, “Understanding Glyphosate to Increase Performance,” Purdue Knowledge to Go ([IMG]resource://skype_ff_extension-at-jetpack/skype_ff_extension/data/call_skype_logo.png[/IMG]1-888-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, 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:
    1. Monsanto, the largest producer in the world
    2. Dupont Pioneer, U.S. company
    3. Syngenta, a Swiss-based company
    4. Groupe Limagrain, a French company
    5. Land O’ Lakes
    6. KWS AG, a German company
    7. Bayer Crop Science, a German company
    8. Sakata, a Japanese company
    9. Takii, a Japanese company
    10. 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:


    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.” 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” 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!



    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. Please READ it!

    References:
    [1] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...Antimicrobials

    [2] Preharvest Staging Guide

    [3] http://www.sustainabletable.org/257/antibiotics

    [4] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ied-crops.html

    [5] http://www.nationofchange.org/10-com...ply-1382363748

    [6] http://rt.com/usa/monsanto-glyphosate-roundup-epa-483/

    [7] http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2012/0...n-wheat-belly/

    [8] http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/...t-harvest.html

    [9] http://articles.mercola.com/sites/ar...onnection.aspx

    [10] http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2014/0...battle-is-won/

    [11] http://www.bioportfolio.com/search/g...roparesis.html


    Resources:
    Antibiotic Resistance and The Case for Organic Meat and Poultry
    http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.co...s/art3435.html

    Good Questions: Einkorn, Spelt, Emmer, Farro and Heirloom Wheat
    http://nourishedkitchen.com/good-que...ncient-grains/

    By ‘Editing’ Plant Genes, Companies Avoid Regulation
    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/02/bu...d=8115964&_r=0

    Catherine retired from researching and writing, but felt compelled to write this article.

    Catherine J Frompovich (website) 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.
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    Glyphosate: One of 3 Herbicides Causing Antibiotic Resistance

    Heather Callaghan Activist Post



    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 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.

    The researchers emphasize that the problem is on-farm, not in the food itself.

    They say:
    Quote 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:
    Quote 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 herbicide (glyphosate and 2,4-D) which was ironically created to combat glyphosate resistance. Likewise, Monsanto is applying for approval 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. It's an eye-opener for sure...


    Heather Callaghan is a natural health blogger and food freedom activist. You can see her work at NaturalBlaze.com and ActivistPost.com. Like at Facebook.


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    US Agribusiness, GMOs and The Plundering Of The Planet

    By Colin Todhunter
    Global Research, April 09, 2015



    Small family/peasant farms produce most of the world’s food. They form the bedrock of global food production. 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 - 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 from their land by foreign corporations. The Oakland Institute 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’s small farms are delivering impressive outputs.

    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 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 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, 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 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 & Co has recently acquired a 50% stake 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 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 and Argentina to Brazil and Mexico and beyond.

    In an article by Christina Sarich, Hilliary Martin, a farmer from Vermont in the US, encapsulates the situation by saying:
    Quote “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. 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 (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 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.
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    Ukraine a Vector for GMO Poison’s Spread Through EU






    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, 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,” 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 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, 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” 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”.

    First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/04/17/uk...ad-through-eu/
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    Victory: German Retail Giant Removes Glyphosate from 350 Stores

    by Christina Sarich Posted on May 12, 2015

    Now US stores just need to follow



    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 (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, 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.



    In a statement, Dominique Rotondi, General Purchasing Manager for toom Baumarkt said:
    Quote “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.

    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, 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 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.


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    30,000 Doctors in Argentina Demand that Glyphosate be Banned
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    Doctors demand immediate ban on glyphosate herbicides

    By Claire Robinson, GMWatch 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?

    Study confirms: DNA from GMOs can pass directly into humans

    Doctors: Avoid Genetically Modified Food and GMOs
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    Monsanto's Worst Fear May Be Coming True

    Posted on: Monday, May 18th 2015 at 7:45 am
    Posted By: Jonathan Latham, PhD
    Originally published on Independent Science News.



    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 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, Time Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, 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. 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.



    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. 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, 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, 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 told The Food Navigator that:

    "We sell organic products...gluten-free products and...natural products. [But] 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 (Glyphosate).

    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). 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" (Bøhn et al. 2014).

    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).


    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 crops and Dow is stacking 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. 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). This will bring greater profits for herbicide manufacturers, but it will also bring greater PR problems for GMOs and the food industry. GMO soybeans 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).

    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. Mostly, it is more of the same: herbicide resistance and insect resistance.

    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 under actual farming conditions.

    But if they do work, there is a clear problem with their safety which is explained in detail here (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).

    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).

    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.

    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 and Trust Us We're Experts). 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, the National Geographic, The New Yorker, Grist magazine, the Observer newspaper, 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 by the Gates Foundation to "depolarize" negative GMO publicity.

    But so far there is little sign that the growth of anti-GMO sentiment 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, 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.

    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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 11: 4449-4527.


    Jonathan Latham is co-founder and Executive Director of the Bioscience Resource Project and also Editor of the Independent Science News website. Dr. Latham holds a Masters degree in Crop Genetics and a PhD in Virology.
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    Default Re: GMO And Related Stuff

    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.
    Question Everything, always speak truth... Make the best of today, for there may not be a tomorrow!!! But, that's OK because tomorrow never comes, so we have nothing to worry about!!!

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    Sri Lanka’s Newly Elected President Bans Glyphosate Effective Immediately




    by Christina Sarich 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.

    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 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” and “Cycle of Death,” 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,‘ but after seeing the results of two scientific studies 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 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 and is holding a review to determine whether or not to make it permanent.
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    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
    Last edited by 3(C)+me; 29th July 2015 at 00:39.

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    Scientist Who Discovered GMOs Cause Tumors in Rats Wins Landmark Defamation Lawsuit in Paris

    By Nick Meyer On November 30, 2015 ·


    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 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 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 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).”

    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, 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 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 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 all 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 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.
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    Court Finds Monsanto Responsible for Poisoning French Farmer

    Alex Pietrowski, Staff Waking Times



    The court of appeals in Lyon, France, has found agribusiness giant Monsanto 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, 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:
    QuoteWe 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)
    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.
    Quote “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)
    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. Monsanto is also well-known for its glyphosate products 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:
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    Default Re: GMO And Related Stuff

    Taiwan investing in futures:

    Taiwan Just Banned GMOs in School Cafeteria Lunches

    By Heather Callaghan Posted on December 14, 2015




    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 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,
    Quote 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.


    Focus Taiwan reports:
    Quote 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) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Heather Callaghan and Natural Blaze.com.
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    Default Re: GMO And Related Stuff

    Yep, Monsanto losing ground:

    Documents reveal Canadian teenager target of GMO lobby

    By Allison Vuchnich Network Correspondent Global News

    http://globalnews.ca/video/2414569/y...d-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 (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, 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, 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 and U.S. health and agriculture 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 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.”

    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.

    “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 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. 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
    Genetically modified ‘Arctic Apple’ approved by Health Canada
    "La réalité est un rêve que l'on fait atterrir" San Antonio AKA F. Dard

    Troll-hood motto: Never, ever, however, whatsoever, to anyone, a point concede.

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    Default Re: GMO And Related Stuff

    Zika? Monsanto’s Roundup associated with smaller heads

    by Jon Rappoport Jan31, 2016


    This is my fourth article on the Zika scam. A virus is being blamed for destruction that actually comes from other forces.

    In a previous piece, 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, 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.”

    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,
    Quote “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:
    Quote “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—“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. 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.

    Now we have the birth-defect horror in Brazil.

    That nation uses more pesticides than any country in the world. Soy is planted on more acres than any other crop—a testament to the strength of Monsanto’s operation. Soy means Roundup use.

    Roundup means destruction.

    Jon Rappoport
    "La réalité est un rêve que l'on fait atterrir" San Antonio AKA F. Dard

    Troll-hood motto: Never, ever, however, whatsoever, to anyone, a point concede.

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