As we are seeing with vaccines, we haven't yet realized the truth regarding the efficacy of genetically modified organisms.
Two words: TERMINATOR GENE 🧬💉
We cannot be sure as to their safety; they were adopted mainly on the say-so of the companies' publicists, and with the blessings of former President George Herbert Walker Bush [aka ICEPICK ⛏]. Equivalence isn't EQUAL.
My advice, until proven otherwise, is to just say NO!
Monsanto, a Corporation of Death and Destruction, controls most of the food supply in the Corporation of the U.S. Research for yourself.. Come to your own conclusions...
Tonight is the big night!
Dr. Drew Pinsky lost his show on HeadLine News, so it's only fair that he gets to make a presentation on her health, in my opinion.
The profanity was part of the FB posting, just so you understand.
This is not going to turn into the Potty Mouth Picture Show.
Rehab facility has accepted me for treatment for the next two
weeks - it's a wonderful facility and now I have my laptop, so I can
clean up the spelling errors within).
You'll note (only if you are part of my FB family) that I was on a
bit of a tear for the last couple of days...and then I disappeared
rather abruptly last night.
I embarked on a Candy Crush marathon; waiting for lives to be
replenished at Level 28. Will go back to a couple of levels (now
37!).
So, I awaken this morning, and I put on the Ted Broer show. Ted
and his family runs Healthmasters.com
- this is an ultra high-end nutrition and wellness company. Ted is 62
and totally kick-ASS!
So imagine my surprise when the show begins, and it sounds as if
they are reading my postings of the last couple of days live!!!
WOW!
What an affirmation that I am doing the right thing!!!
Now, you could surmise that I'm utterly full of shite (one change
I have made is using the actual invective instead of FCUK...people
drop the F-bomb like girls drop a Beej - but that doesn't mean that a
liberal use of the word 'shite' without the 'e' is warranted), but I
have that posting archived and date stamped.
Anyone familiar with my work will actually gasp in astonishment -
just imagine that the show you're hearing is the show as always
performed by Ted and Austin Broer...but that the first fifteen
minutes have been scripted by yours truly.
Here's some of that data:
Okay...are
you ready for some information?
I
currently write a blog regarding the dangers of GMOs,and while I
haven't personally performed the experiments upon the FrankenFoods I
strive to avoid, I can follow along on the research performed by the
likes of Dr. Don Huber, Professor Stephanie Seneff, Anthony
Samsel and others.
One
of the methods used by their pesticides is chelation.
Chelation works by binding with vitamins and nutrients so that
organisms cannot absorb them.
(that
means US, as well). GMOs,
simply by nature of this function, cannot possibly provide the same
level of nutrition as conventional and/or organic crops.
There
are a line of products that go by the designation BT, and they have
been modified to create a toxin within their cells that explode the
stomach of the insects that ingest them. Two problems with this:
1.
Stomachs are stomachs. Why would one suppose that our stomachs aren't
affected by the BT toxin? Traces have been found in human intestines;
2.
These people cannot be serious scientists...how is it that one would
go in and change the functionality of a cell, and yet not expect that
some functionality not directly related to said function to be
affected?
Lastly,adaptation. Flora and fauna adapt, or they die.
We
now have superweeds and superbugs.
Thanks,
Monsanto.
(this
was typed on an iPhone with huge sausage-like fingers, so i hope you
appreciate this.)
To the scumbags and utter MOTHERFUCKERS of our world - I just want
you to know that you are now irrevocably and throroughly FUCKED...and
I mean porn-style, all orifices, money shot FUCKED!
I will NEVER GIVE UP on making our world a better place.
NEVER.
So, FUCK OFF right now to a coffin, get in that bitch, close the
lid and nail it shut from the inside, or, rest assured, I will be
there to take a hammer to your rotten skulls, and a 2x4 to your
holes.
I am not kidding, FUCKTARDS - the MOTHERFUCKING MAIN MAN HAS
DECLARED ALL-OUT WAR ON SHITHEADS, SCUMBAGS AND UTTER DOUCHEBAGGERY.
Feel that spiked glove across your cheek...that's the love tap
before the fisting...and I don't use lube.
(NaturalNews) U.S. presidential candidate and Texas senator Ted Cruz went all-in for Monsanto on the campaign trail in Iowa, parroting Monsanto's propaganda by proclaiming that GMOs are feeding the world while insulting health-conscious consumers by equating support of GMO labeling with "anti-science zealotry."
At the Iowa Agricultural Summit, Cruz revealed that he in effect fully supports the mass poisoning of the American people with hidden (unlabeled) GMOs, cancer-causing glyphosate herbicide, farmer suicides caused by GMO crop failures and the widespread genetic pollution unleashed by genetically modified crops. "[W]e shouldn’t let anti-science zealotry shutdown the ability to produce low-cost quality food for billions across the globe," he stated, invoking a false claim that's actually a widely disproven Monsanto talking point. (SOURCE)
For the record, my own book, Food Forensics, comes out this July and also covers GMOs and glyphosate.
The right to bear arms but not to read accurate food labels
In choosing Monsanto over the health and food freedom of the American people, Ted Cruz joins Hillary Clinton as a Frankenfood pusher who believes that Americans should not only be fed cancer-causing herbicide chemicals that are being banned all across the globe; he also apparently believes that the American people have no right to know whether they're even eating toxic GMOs.
As Natural News readers know very well, I am a supporter of the Second Amendment and believe that the right for law-abiding citizens to acquire firearms shall not be infringed by government. Ted Cruz agrees with this particular position, but he opposes the right of citizens to have access to honest food labels that describe the GMO content of the food they're buying. And in this, he is demonstrating his disturbing failure to think with consistency.
In effect, Ted Cruz believes that Americans have the right to buy a gun, but not to read a label. Apparently GMOs are far more dangerous than guns in the mind of Ted Cruz, because GMOs must be hidden from the public even as guns are readily accessible.
While people like Ted Cruz routinely invoke the right of self defense against violence as one justification for access to firearms, he simultaneously denies the right of self defense against chemical violence by failing to support the public's access to accurate GMO labels. (You can have a GUN, in other words, but you're not allowed to have a LABEL.)
Even worse, he insults all those Americans who share ever rising concerns over food pesticides, herbicides and chemical contaminants that the scientific literature overwhelmingly proves can cause cancer. If only guns could provide personal protection against pesticides, then Ted Cruz might find himself on the right side of this argument... but that's not how chemistry works. Chemicals are insidious, slow, invisible killers that commit violence on a cellular basis, day after day, meal after meal, until the victim is rendered diseased and ultimately dead. The primary defense against chemical violence is CHEMICAL AVOIDANCE. And that avoidance can only be achieved through the kind of honest food labeling that Ted Cruz opposes... even ridicules.
Here's a gun you can use to kill someone else, Cruz might say to a citizen. "But we offer you no defense against the chemicals in food that are killing YOU." Your right to self defense, in other words, ends where Monsanto's weedkiller profits begin.
Ted Cruz, it seems, is simultaneously opposed to criminal violence while wholly in support of chemical violence. This stance is self-contradictory. If you believe in the right of self defense, then you must believe in the right of Americans to exercise informed self defense against chemicals that cause harm, too. And the only way to exercise self defense against the chemical violence committed by the agrichemical giants is to have access to honest, accurate food labels that reveal the genetically engineered content inside those products. It is this access to accurate food labels that Ted Cruz inexplicably opposes... even insults... in precisely the same way the political left ridicules lawful gun owners who seek an effective means of self defense against criminal violence.
A violation of God and Biblical principles
Perhaps even worse than the betrayal of fundamental constitutional principles of liberty, by going all-in for Monsanto, Ted Cruz joins forces with the most evil corporate entity on planet Earth. Because Ted Cruz claims to be a supporter of Christianity, Biblical principles and God's creation, his betrayal on GMOs is far more than a political betrayal; it is spiritual treason against God.
Monsanto has taken a corn crop that was perfected through natural selective breeding by early humans, then turned it into a food POISON that damages the kidneys, liver and reproductive organs. This is a treasonous act against humanity, Mother Nature and even God.
By supporting Monsanto, Ted Cuz is openly encouraging a devious corporate entity that systematically violates the laws of Mother Nature and believes that Man's engineered (poisonous) seeds are superior to God's seeds that gave rise to nutritious corn via natural selection (humans working in harmony with nature to gradually shape phenotype genetic expression of food crops). The imperialist pushing of GM corn, for example, has led to theagricultural eugenics wipeout of diverse corn species across Mexico. See Mexican farmers fight to preserve 59 indigenous corn varieties against hostile GMO takeover. It has simultaneously collapsed the diversity of the seed supply in states like Texas, where seed diversity for home gardeners has plummeted as biotech corporate giants bought up seed companies and shut them down.
Not only does Monsanto seek to overthrow Mother Nature's seeds with its own genetically engineered seeds, it has aggressively sought to dominate the intellectual property of seeds that produce food for the entire nation, incessantly acquiring patent monopolies over many forms of food crops, food producing ranch animals and agricultural chemicals.
To put this into Ted Cruz's evangelical language, no servant of God can side with Monsatan without committing spiritual treason. By proclaiming his treacherous partnership with Monsanto and the biotech industry, Ted Cruz aligns himself more with the Devil than with God. The Devil seeks power and domination over Man... and so does Monsanto. The Devil operates out of deviousness and deceit... and so does Monsanto. The Devil wields power by fear, intimidation and threats... and so does Monsanto. If this is Ted Cruz's partner in his quest for the highest position of power in America, he is adamantly unqualified to lead any man or nation into anything other than darkness and destruction.
Ted Cruz abandons constitutional liberty and joins the totalitarian agricultural establishment
Beyond the spiritual and political implications of his siding with Monsanto, Ted Cruz has also abandoned his constitutional principles of American liberty in dismissing anti-GMO citizens who oppose deadly herbicides and seed monopolies.
To deny consumers an informed choice is to deny them liberty. And to deny them liberty is to entrap them in a corporate-run system of food deception and systemic chemical poisoning that can only accelerate the downfall of this nation from disease, suffering and medical debt. Ted Cruz's future for America is a future full of cancer, crop failures, starvation and disease, where corporations like Monsanto own all the intellectual property of seeds, placing farmers into de facto indentured servitude, all while the crony capitalist banksters pocket trillions in profits that are invisibly stolen from the working class via fiat currency money printing and fraudulent quantitative easing (currency debasement). It is a future wracked with poverty, suffering, disease and destitution, where America collapses into a third world nation of impoverished sheeple who are all systematically poisoned by insidious agriculture giants that serve as the new donor class for political power.
The corporate giants that dominate America's food supply today are nothing less than agricultural totalitarians, filled with hatred for health-conscious consumers, clean food and food transparency. Their enemies are food choice and truth in labeling, and they operate via violent character assassins and paid defamation mercenaries like Jon Entine, a devious liar and disinformation slinger who has ties to the American Enterprise Institute(AEI), the very same group of conservative thugs and haters of democracy who recently hosted a desperate, secret meeting among wealthy globalists to try to stop Donald Trumpfrom getting elected.
Ted Cruz now has ties to both Goldman Sachs and Monsanto, two of most destructive entities on the planet
No doubt the agricultural giants are now supporting Ted Cruz in precisely the same way the criminal central banksters do, too. Via his wife, Ted Cruz also has ties to Goldman Sachs, an entity that carries out global economic arson and unbridled destruction that rivals the agricultural and chemical destruction of Monsanto and the biotech industry.
With these allies in his corner, Ted Cruz has become the establishment he once claimed he would dismantle. He has become an enemy of truth and health and an ally of deception and death. He has sold his soul to Satan and demonstrated, for all the nation to see without question, that when the American people are dying from the very cancers that are caused by toxic glyphosate weedkiller and GMO crops, Ted Cruz will side with the agrichemical giants that are profiting from that poison.
Ted Cruz, it now seems, has become the Hillary Clinton of the right.
Here are the pictures of the GMO poisoned and glyphosate poisoned rats from the Seralini study:
Who's left to vote for? Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump!
With both Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz now totally sold out to Monsanto, there's only one choice remaining in each of the two dominant political parties in America.
Bernie Sanders is openly supportive of GMO labeling. It's his own state -- Vermont -- that passed the nation's only GMO labeling law that's set to become active in just a few months. Perhaps for this reason, Sanders has become a favorite among anti-GMO activists and clean food activists. (Sadly, they do not yet fully grasp the economic destruction caused by socialism, but that's another topic for another website...)
On the political right, Donald Trump supports organic food but hasn't yet made a public position statement on Monsanto and GMO labeling, so he's a wild card in that arena but appears to lean towards organic. (It's just one of his many seemingly centrist positions that could cross party lines and appeal to many democrats.)
Whoever you vote for in the primaries or the general election, don't let it be Hillary Clinton (the Bride of Frankenfood) or Ted Cruz (Monsatan's Preacher). If God won't forgive either of these two people for their betrayal of humanity... you shouldn't give them your vote, either.
Follow real-time breaking news headlines on Ted Cruz at FETCH.news
In the interests of full disclosure, I am voting for Republican candidate Donald J. Trump in November. You can join me on my Facebook page - http://facebook.com/DT3rdParty
I've been busy for a bit...but here's a little encouragement for us:
WOW: California School District Officially To Serve 100% GMO-free Lunches
Submitted by IWB, on September 9th, 2015
by Royce Christyn As children in California’s Sausalito Marin City District returned to school a few weeks ago, they became part of history. How? They are students from the first school district in the country to serve students 100% pure organic meals that are GMO free and sustainability sourced.
More than 500 students at Bayside MLK Jr. Academy in Marin City and Willow Creek Academy in Sausalito will eat fresh, local food year-round, thanks to a partnership with the Conscious Kitchen, a project of the environmental education nonprofit Turning Green.
“Students everywhere are vulnerable to pesticide residues and unsafe environmental toxins,” Turning Green founder Judi Shils said on Tuesday. “Not only does this program far exceed USDA nutritional standards, but it ties the health of our children to the health of our planet. It’s the first program to say that fundamentally, you cannot have one without the other.”
The organization says meals will be accompanied by nutrition and gardening education. The Conscious Kitchen previously served 156 students at Bayside MLK Jr. Academy, where it first tested the program starting in August 2013. Over the course of two years, the founders said, disciplinary cases decreased and attendance increased.
Moreover, the program will address the controversial issue of GMOs in school food. As environmental news outlet EcoWatch reports:
“This program is the first to take a stand against GMOs. While the long-term effects of GMOs are still uncertain, a growing body of evidence links them to a variety of health risks and environmental damage. An estimated 80 percent of items on most supermarket shelves contain GMOs, and they are ubiquitous in school food programs.”
Nutritional experts have long pointed out that food and beverages in schools have a long-term impact on children’s health and well-being. The 2010 Healthy and Hunger Free Kids Act required schools in the U.S. to update their meal provisions to meet new USDA nutritional standards and offer more whole wheat products, fresh fruits and vegetables, and lean proteins to children who receive subsidized school lunches.
But as the Berkeley-based nutritional nonprofit The Edible Schoolyard Project explains, it is equally important to prioritize food education.
“Schools that incorporate an integrated approach to edible education—combining local, seasonal food procurement strategies with hands-on lessons taught in the classroom, kitchen, and garden—are far more likely to sustain healthy school meal initiatives,” said Liza Siegler, the organization’s head of partnerships and engagement.
As Justin Everett, consulting chef with the Conscious Kitchen, explained on Tuesday, “By embracing fresh, local, organic, non-GMO food, this program successfully disrupts the cycle of unhealthy, pre-packaged, heat and serve meals that dominate school kitchens.”
Bernie Sanders Calls Out Media For Not Covering Obama's TPP Trade Deal: “The major television networks are not covering the TPP. Incredible as it may sound, this trade agreement - the largest trade agreement in the history of the United States of America - has received virtually no coverage, no coverage, on the major networks.” - U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. Why hasn't the TPP gotten any media coverage? Because the TPP would immensely benefit multinational corporations like Monsanto at the expense of people and the environment. And we all know how mainstream media loves to carry water for the agrichemical industry and their other advertisers.
Fast Track (formally known as Trade Promotion Authority) is a power given to the President by Congress that would allow the President to push the TPP deal through without any Congressional debate or public review. STOP FAST TRACK.
“Case 1:14-cv-00582-SOM-BMK Document 55 Filed 04/15/15: ORDER DENYING MOTION TO DISMISS ‘MIRROR-IMAGE’ CLAIMS ON RIPENESS GROUNDS AND CONTINUING HEARING ON MERITS OF THAT MOTION; ORDER ADOPTING AMENDED FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATION AND DENYING MOTION TO REMAND [the Atay Action to state court].”
V. CONCLUSION.
[snip]
The court adopts the Amended F&R and denies the Motion to Remand the Atay Action to state court, ECF No. 15.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: Honolulu, Hawaii, April 15, 2015.
/s/ Susan Oki Mollway Susan Oki Mollway Chief United States District
GMOs were purported to be the answer to world hunger. I guess we shouldn't count the over 300,000 Indian farmers who committed suicide because they were cajoled into switching to GMO crops that UTTERLY FAILED.
Many countries have actually burned GMO crops in order to stop the spread of their genes. I and many others have written about this.
The 'equivalence' claims are an obfuscation of facts. Think about the constant back-and-forth between the lobbyists and the legal department in regards to this end. How long did it take before one of these idiots came up with 'equivalence".
What they don't want you to ponder is that, using the same train of thought, a plastic piece of fruit is 'equivalent' to a real piece of fruit.
I would go so far as to say that the GMO has more 'equivalence' to the plastic replica than to real crops.
I've gone too far, right? Let me remind you that it is a fact that GMO crops do not have the same levels of nutrition contained in conventional/organic crops.
Period.
Monsanto and other biotechs claim that the nay-sayers are 'anti-science'; that's a huge load of bupkis. Shooting incompatible genes into an organism and thinking that invisible changes aren't taking place is ANTI-SCIENCE.
"Altered Genes, Twisted Truth will stand as a landmark. It should be required reading in every university biology course."—Joseph Cummins, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Genetics, Western University, London, Ontario
This book uncovers the biggest scientific fraud of our age. It tells the fascinating and frequently astounding story of how the massive enterprise to restructure the genetic core of the world’s food supply came into being, how it advanced by consistently violating the protocols of science, and how for more than three decades, hundreds of eminent biologists and esteemed institutions have systematically contorted the truth in order to conceal the unique risks of its products—and get them onto our dinner plates. Altered Genes, Twisted Truth gives a graphic account of how this elaborate fraud was crafted and how it not only deceived the general public, but Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Barack Obama and a host of other astute and influential individuals as well. The book also exposes how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was induced to become a key accomplice—and how it has broken the law and repeatedly lied in order to usher genetically engineered foods onto the market without the safety testing that’s required by federal statute. As a result, for fifteen years America’s families have been regularly ingesting a group of novel products that the FDA’s own scientific staff had previously determined to be unduly hazardous to human health.
By the time this gripping story comes to a close, it will be clear that the degradation of science it documents has not only been unsavory but unprecedented—and that in no other instance have so many scientists so seriously subverted the standards they were trained to uphold, misled so many people, and imposed such magnitude of risk on both human health and the health of the environment.
About the Author
Steven Druker
Steven M. Druker is a public interest attorney who, as executive director of the Alliance for Bio-Integrity, initiated a lawsuit that forced the FDA to divulge its files on genetically engineered foods. This revealed that politically appointed administrators had covered up the warnings of their own scientists about the unusual risks of these foods and then allowed them to be marketed illegally. In organizing the suit, he assembled an unprecedented coalition of eminent scientists and religious leaders to stand with his organization as co-plaintiffs -- the first time scientists had sued a federal administrative agency on the grounds that one ...View Steven's full profile page >
I've come to much of the same conclusions, and this can be verified by perusing my re-postings of my Room Eight pages. I had an idea that most, if not all of the approvals of GMOs were due to chicanery, but Steven Druker proves it all beyond a shadow of a doubt. From this point forward, everyone who cares about the health of the family and friends should contact their representatives and advise them that should a measure come up to eradicate GMOs from our food supply, and they do not support said measure, that they will lose your vote.
We need to be the vanguard in this cause. Too many people are paid to subvert your choice.
Guess what, purveyors of FrankenFoods and other crap...we're NOT "lovin it".
I will have more to say on the subject, but for now, I leave you with this re-post from Organic Consumers, and remember to support your local farmers and green markets!
"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food," said Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications. "Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job." - New York Times, Oct. 25, 1998 "[GMO] Labeling advocates say the issue is about transparency, not safety. Scott Faber, head of the national Just Label It campaign, testified that consumers want to know what they are buying and how the food was produced. He said advocates are not seeking a warning label, but a “factual, non-judgemental disclosure” on the back of all food packages that contain GMO ingredients.” Mary Clare Jalonic, Associated Press, December 14, 2014 “Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto's flagship herbicide, Roundup. 80% of GMO crops are engineered to withstand Roundup and GMO crops now make up 90% of the United State's corn, soy, sugar, canola, and cottonseed. Roundup is also used as a desiccant (drying agent) at harvest on 160 conventional crops. It is in our soil, in our food, and in our bodies.”GMO Free Lancaster County
“… Monsanto literature regarding Roundup encourages… farmers to apply… Roundup applications on many crops – including wheat, feed barley, oats, canola, flax, peas, lentils, and dry beans – right before harvest….” WashingtonsBlog, November 17, 2014
The technology of agricultural genetic engineering (GE) is the controversial practice of gene-splicing and disrupting the genetic blueprints of plants and trees in a lab, to produce patented seeds. The seeds are generally one of two types. One type, which includes Monsanto’s Roundup-resistant crops, produces plants that survive the spraying of poisons, while all the other plants around them die. The other type produces a plant that manufactures its own pest-killing poison, designed to target a specific pest.
Contrary to what some in the biotech industry and the media claim, genetic engineering of plants is not the same thing as selective breeding, or hybridization. Genetic modification involves inserting foreign genetic material (DNA) into an organism. Selective breeding does not.
For two decades, Monsanto and its cohorts (Syngenta, Dow, DuPont, Bayer, and BASF) have been randomly inserting the genes of one species into a non-related species, or genetically “interfering” with the instructions of an organism’s RNA—utilizing viruses, antibiotic-resistant genes and bacteria as vectors, markers and promoters—to create gene-spliced seeds and crops. Through clever marketing, they’ve captured the loyalty of North America’s (and many other nations’) chemical-intensive farmers, grain traders and Junk Food corporations. Fortunately, in the 28 member states of the European Union, where GMOs must be labeled and independently safety-tested, there are little or no GMO crops planted, and few GMO foods or food ingredients on supermarket shelves or restaurant menus.
Although Monsanto, industry scientists and corporate agribusiness claim that GMO crops and foods, and the chemicals that accompany them, are perfectly safe and therefore need no labeling or independent safety-testing, hundreds of independent scientists, that is, those not on the payroll of Monsanto or its minions, cite literally hundreds of studies showing that GMOs and their companion chemicals, such as Roundup, are extremely toxic.
Self-appointed GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) labeling “leaders” such as Scott Faber of the Just Label It campaign (a former lobbyist for the pro-GMO Grocery Manufacturers Association) need to stop repeating Monsanto and Big Food’s lies that there is no “evidence” that GMOs are dangerous for human health or the environment. As Faber stated at a Congressional Hearing on December 10, 2014:
“We do not oppose… genetically modified food ingredients. We think there are many promising applications of genetically modified food ingredients… I am optimistic that the promises that were made by the providers of this technology will ultimately be realized…that we will have traits that produce more nutritious food that will see significant yield…”
Given the current barrage of pro-GMO propaganda in the mass media, “GMO-Free” proponents need to put far greater emphasis on the fact that it isn’t just the imprecise and unpredictable nature of gene-splicing itself—a process that produces toxin and allergens, and shuts down essential gene functions—that threatens human health and the environment. The billions of pounds of systemic toxic pesticides (herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides), especially Roundup, that are used on GMO and so-called conventional crops, are equally, if not more, hazardous to human health and the environment.
These systemic agro-toxins, for the most part, cannot be washed off before eating. These biocides end up on our dinner plates and in our drinking water. They lodge in our bodies and in the bodies of our children, slowly but surely degrading our health and killing us. The world needs a food and farming system that is organic, climate-friendly and regenerative, one that is free of pesticides, animal drugs and chemical fertilizers—not one that is merely GMO-free. GMOs—Just as ‘safe’ as toxic ‘conventional’ foods
When Monsanto, the FDA, or the Biotechnology Industry Organization are asked whether GMO-tainted foods are safe, notice that they always say that GMOs as “just as safe” as “conventional” (i.e. chemical and drug-tainted) foods, and pose no “unique” risks to human health or the environment. In a twisted sense they are right, because both GMO and non-GMO chemical-intensive, factory-farmed crops and foods are dangerous. They all destroy public health, animal health, soil health, the environment and contribute to global warming.
GMOs and Roundup, neonicotinoids, 2,4 D, atrazine, glufosinate, and dicamba—and all the other chemicals being sprayed on the food that we eat, and ultimately running off into water that we drink—are poison. The major reason chronic diseases like cancer, autism, diabetes and obesity, along with reproductive, behavioral, endocrine and immune system disorders, are spiraling out of control is that our environment is toxic, and we are ingesting, from the womb, to the hospital, to the grave—poisoned, pesticide-laden food.
Certainly we want mandatory labeling of GMOs at the state level (the feds are obviously too corrupt to trust on GMO labeling). But the main reason we want labeling is to defend ourselves, our families and the environment from further assault—by boycotting and driving GMO food, animal feed (most GMOs go into animal feed and biofuels, not human food), and Roundup off the market. This means that organic and grass-fed or pasture-based foods must move from being 5 percent of the market to becoming the dominant force in U.S. food and farming, as soon as possible. To achieve this, we need to boycott not just GMO foods, but all chemically contaminated foods, including factory farmed GMO-fed meat and animal products, and foods from crops sprayed with Roundup “pre-harvest,” not just in the U.S., but globally as well.
Fifteen years ago I wrote a book with Ben Lilliston on the alarming hazards of genetically engineered foods and crops: Genetically Engineered Food: A Self-Defense Guide for Consumers. Even then, it was obvious that out-of-control agro-toxic corporations like Monsanto (producers of aspartame, Agent Orange, DDT, dioxin, and PCBs) were not really interested in increasing yields, producing healthier food or reducing pesticide use—even though they made, and continue to make, these fraudulent claims ad nauseum. What Monsanto was, and is, really up to is maximizing the sales, by any means possible, of their proprietary herbicides (Roundup, dicamba), insecticides (Bt), seeds (corn, soy, cotton, canola, sugar beets, alfalfa) and animal drugs (recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone or rBGH, now owned by Elanco).
Already in 1989, scores of consumers had been killed, and thousands permanently injured after they ingested a heretofore-safe over-the-counter nutritional supplement called L-tryptophan, which for the first time had been laced with genetically engineered enzymes. Although the FDA tried to cover up the deadly consequences of this first product of genetic engineering, the Japanese pharmaceutical company, Showa Denka, which manufactured the genetically engineered supplement, ended up paying out $2 billion to the consumers it had poisoned.
In 1994, Monsanto’s minions in the FDA (including Monsanto lawyer, and later Obama Food Czar, Michael Taylor) forced onto the market the controversial recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH). rBGH was marketed to dairy farmers who injected the hormone into dairy cows to force them to produce more milk. It was brought to market, despite mounting evidence of increased antibiotic resistance and cancer risks, and over the objections of the General Accounting Office (Congress’ watchdog agency), and the Consumers Union, the Cancer Prevention Coalition and the Pure Food Campaign. Although approved for sale in the U.S., rBGH was subsequently banned in Europe, Canada, and most industrialized nations.
A few years later, a gene-spliced soybean patented by Pioneer Hybrid, designed as an “improved” animal feed which would be planted on millions of acres, was pulled from production when scientists realized that it would set off deadly allergies in humans who unwittingly ingested the Brazil nut-spliced soybeans.
Also in 1996-98, as soon as Monsanto’s genetically engineered, “Roundup- Resistant,” soybeans, corn, canola and cotton hit the market—over the objections of independent scientists, environmentalists, and food safety experts—the use, contamination and residues on food of this toxic herbicide began to skyrocket. Pesticides and flawed, industry-manufactured ‘science
Genetic engineering corporations and their indentured journalists, scientists and government bureaucrats have proclaimed since 1992 that their mutant GMO foods and animal feeds—and the toxic chemicals used along with them—are perfectly safe, basing their claims on 1,700 (Monsanto’s current number) so-called “scientific studies.”
Of course the problem with these Monsanto-endorsed studies “proving” that GMOs and Roundup are safe is that they are typically industry-funded, distorted, short-term, typically non-peer-reviewed, and commonly omitting or hiding crucial data as “proprietary.” In addition to ignoring the hundreds of peer-reviewed articles in the public domain that clearly show damage from GMOs or Roundup, many of the 1700 studies purporting to prove the safety of GMOs actually do show harm.
When pro-GMO scientists look at the safety of GMO foods, 80 percent of which are heavily sprayed with Roundup, they typically look only narrowly at the “active” ingredient in Roundup, ignoring the chemical breakdown agent or metabolite AMPA, which is linked to liver disease, and the highly toxic “inert” ingredients in the herbicide, including: ammonium sulfate, benzisothiazolone, glycerine, isobutene, isopropylamine, polyethoxylated alkylamines, polyethoxilated, tallowamine, and POE-15.
As André Leu points out in his critically-acclaimed recent book, “The Myths of Safe Pesticides:”
“There are numerous studies that show that Roundup is more toxic than its active ingredient, glyphosate. These studies link the pesticide to a range of health problems such as cancer, placental cell damage, miscarriages, stillbirths, endocrine disruption, and damage to various organs such as the kidney and the liver… [inert ingredients in pesticides] amplify up to 1000 times the toxicity of their AP [active ingredient].” – “The Myths of Safe Pesticides,” p. 11, Acres USA, 2014).
In addition to ignoring the dangers of Roundup’s metabolites and “inert” ingredients, industry-sponsored scientists overlook the fact that multiple pesticide residues are routinely found on most (non-organic) GMO and “conventional” foods—and that these multiple-residue chemical cocktails are often far more toxic, even in tiny doses, than the pesticide being studied.
As Leu states:
“The ever increasing body of peer-reviewed science shows that the current methodology of only testing the active ingredient as a single agent and not testing common combinations is flawed and insufficient to determine the safety of chemical exposure in a real world situation where humans are exposed to daily cocktails of chemicals.” – “The Myths of Safe Pesticides,” p. 8).
In allowing supposedly safe “maximum residue limits” and “average daily intake” (ADI) levels of toxic poisons like Roundup in our food and water, government regulators are recklessly ignoring the fact that most (non-organic) foods today, GMO and non-GMO alike, are being sprayed with Roundup, either as an herbicide or a pre-harvest desiccant. The nearly omnipresent accumulation of these Roundup residues in produce, processed foods, meat and animal products (unless they are organic) is extremely hazardous, causing birth defects, gene mutations, chromosomal aberrations and cancer. They destroy our essential gastrointestinal biome (gut) health by killing off the beneficial microorganisms and bacteria in our stomach and promoting the “bad” microorganisms that can lead to gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, and Alzheimers. (“The Myths of Safe Pesticides,” pp.69-70).
Moreover Monsanto and the pesticide industry conveniently hide the fact that hormone receptors in human body cells often “misidentify” tiny parts-per-billion, or even parts-per-trillion, of pesticides as if they are human hormones, converting these pesticide residues into potent and deadly hormone disruptors. In other words, there really is no “safe limit” for Roundup or other pesticide residues in human food, animal feed, municipal drinking water or breast milk.
Even though the government claims that it is using sound science to determine “safe” residue levels of pesticides such as Monsanto’s Roundup, a USDA official recently admitted to a Reuters reporter that they are not even testing for glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup:
“As has been the case with past analyses, the USDA said it did not test this past year for residues of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide and the world's most widely used herbicide. A USDA spokesman who asked not to be quoted said that the test measures required for glyphosate are ‘extremely expensive... to do on a regular basis’...”
When the FDA sends out a letter to Monsanto (or Dow, Dupont, Syngenta or any other biotech company) approving the commercialization of a new GMO, they basically admit that they, the FDA, have not conducted their own independent studies on the GMO, but rather are accepting the studies submitted by the company as proof of efficacy and safety.
As Dr. Michael Hansen of the Consumers Union pointed out in his testimony to the American Medical Association on March 19, 2012:
“The lack of adequate safety testing can be seen in the letter FDA sends to the company after completion of a ‘safety consultation.’ For example, the letter sent to Monsanto on September 25, 1996, about one of their first Bt-corn varieties, MON810, states, ‘Based on the safety and nutritional assessment you have conducted, it is our understanding that Monsanto has concluded that corn, grain, and forage derived from the new variety are not materially different in composition, safety of other relevant parameters from corn, grain, and forage currently on the market, and that they do not raise issues that would require premarket review or approval by FDA.’ Note that FDA does not state its own opinion about the safety of this crop; it only states what the company believes. The letters for all 84 ‘safety consultations’ done since the Flavr Savr tomato [1994] contain basically the same language. This clearly shows that the FDA does not conduct safety assessments.”
Monsanto and the genetic engineering lobby have incessantly proclaimed, with little or no evidence whatsoever, that these controversial crops and foods will reduce pesticide use, eliminate world hunger, cure disease, mitigate climate change and vastly improve public health. However, a close look at their actual business practices, sales figures, political lobbying and bullying in court (suing hundreds of farmers for the “crime” of saving seeds) reveal Monsanto’s true goals: to monopolize the global market for seeds, foods and fiber, and to sell as many toxic herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides as possible.
An increasing number of scientists and consumer advocates warn that current gene-splicing techniques are crude, inexact and unpredictable, and that the toxic chemicals, especially Monsanto’s Roundup, sprayed on these genetically engineered seeds and plants are incredibly dangerous. In October 2013, more than 200 scientists, physicians, academics and experts from disciplines relevant to the scientific, legal, social and safety assessment GMOs issued a statement which said, “we strongly reject claims by GM seed developers and some scientists, commentators, and journalists that there is a ‘scientific consensus’ on GMO safety and that the debate on this topic is ‘over.'"
It is now blatantly obvious that GMOs are nothing more than patented Pesticide Delivery Systems (PDS) designed to increase sales of poisonous agrochemicals such as Roundup, glufosinate, Bt, 2,4 D and neonicotinoids. To claim that GMOs are perfectly safe is equivalent to saying that pesticides, herbicides and fungicides—systemically laced at ever-higher levels into GMO-tainted human food and animal feed—are perfectly safe. And to make matters worse, hundreds of millions of pounds of Monsanto’s Roundup, the most widely used herbicide in the world, are now routinely sprayed on 160 different crops, just before harvest, including wheat, potatoes, oats, canola, flax, peas and dried beans. In other words, just about every non-organic item in your supermarket, or every item on your restaurant menu (bread, potatoes, meat, milk,) is now tainted with Roundup.
A 12-point agenda for driving GMOs off the market
The anti-GMO and organic Movement has come a long way in the past two decades. But given the dangers posed by GMOs and Roundup, it’s time to move aggressively forward. Here are a dozen crucial steps we need to take in 2015 to drive GMOs and Roundup off the market.
1. Stop Congress from passing the Pompeo bill (HR #4432) in 2015, which would take away states rights to pass mandatory GMO food labeling bills, and make it legal for unscrupulous food and beverage companies to continue mislabeling GMO-tainted foods as “natural” or “all natural.”
2. Stop Congress from “fast-tracking” and passing secretly negotiated “Free Trade” agreements (the TPP-Trans-Pacific Partnership, and TTIP-Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) that would weaken consumer and states rights to label and safety test GMO and factory-farmed foods.
3. Pass more state laws requiring mandatory labels on GMOs.
4. Pass more bans on GMOs, neonicotinoids and pesticides at the township, city, and county levels.
5. Support Vermont, Maui (Hawaii), Jackson and Josephine counties (Oregon) in their federal and state legal battles to uphold their laws requiring labels and/or bans on GMOs.
6. Educate the public on the dangers and cruelty of GMO-fed, factory-farmed meat, dairy and egg products, and organize a “Great Boycott” of all factory-farmed foods.
7. Support mandatory state legislation to label dairy products and chain restaurant food coming from factory farms or CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations).
8. Pressure retail natural food stores and coops to follow the lead of Whole Foods Market and the Natural Grocer to label and/or ban all GMO-derived foods, including meat and animal products and deli foods, from their stores.
9. Pressure restaurants to follow the lead of organic/grass fed restaurants and ban, or at least label, all GMO ingredients.
10. Support consumer efforts to test for Roundup/glyphosate contamination in drinking water, human urine, breast milk, and in non-GMO food products such as wheat, potatoes, oats, peas, lentils and dry beans that are currently sprayed with Roundup before harvest.
11. Educate the public on the positive health, environmental, ethical and climate-friendly (greenhouse gas sequestering) attributes of organic, grass-fed, and pasture-raised food and farming.
12. Boycott the “Traitor Brand” products of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, International Dairy Foods Association, and the Snack Food Association.
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
