Monsanto paid American Council on Science and Health front group to hide evidence

Dr. Joseph Mercola
Mercola.com

Monsanto's new owner, Bayer, has been slammed with judgments in the first three Roundup lawsuits to go to trial. The verdicts, which have sided with plaintiffs in all cases so far, have found not only that Roundup herbicide caused the plaintiffs' cancers but also that Monsanto engaged in malice, oppression or fraud in their attempts to cover up Roundup's toxicity.¹

Some of the evidence brought to light during the trials has been particularly eye-opening, including internal emails showing that Monsanto paid an industry front group for the favor of publishing pro-glyphosate media, right around the time the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) determined it to be a probable carcinogen.²
 

Monsanto paid front group for glyphosate-favorable content

The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) is a nonprofit organization that claims to be a "pro-science consumer advocacy organization" with the focus of publically supporting "evidence-based science and medicine." Their website states:³

We do not represent any industry. We were created to be the science alternative to "news" that is often little more than hype based on exaggerated findings. We help policymakers see past scaremongers and activist groups who have targeted GMOs, vaccines, conventional agriculture, nuclear power, natural gas, and 'chemicals,' while peddling health scares and fad diets. We fight back against activists who have attacked the credibility of the overwhelming consensus of academic and private sector scientists who dispute their claims, undermining the integrity of the scientific enterprise.

ACSH also claims to be funded mostly by readers, but their financial statements do not reveal who, exactly, their more than $1 million in yearly revenue comes from.⁴ In 2015, however, internal emails revealed that Monsanto contributed to ACSH, with impeccable timing, as IARC's glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup) was set to be released.

The emails were first revealed as evidence during Dewayne Johnson's Roundup lawsuit. The trial, the first to be heard, ended with Monsanto being ordered to pay $289 million in damages to Johnson, although the award was later reduced to $78 million.

The evidence made another appearance during the third Roundup case, in which a married couple, Alva and Alberta Pilliod, claimed they both developed Non-Hodgkin lymphoma after regular use of Roundup. The jury decided in the Pilliods' favor, ordering the chemical giant to pay $2 billion to its victims. 

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Bayer Apologises for Monsanto Collecting Personal Data Amid French Probe

Sputnik

The German giant acquired the US agrochemical firm in 2018 and inherited numerous problems, including lawsuits over the probable toxic effect of its weed killer Roundup. After shedding more than 30 billion euros from its market capitalisation, Bayer has had to deal with an investigation in France about data being collected on Monsanto’s critics.

German-based Bayer is commissioning an external law firm to investigate claims about its US agrochemical firm, Monsanto, assembling lists of influential journalists and lawmakers, criticising or making complaints about the company. 

The pharmaceutical giant purchased the weed killer producer for $63 billion in 2018 and recently announced the move after an internal probe into the allegations made by the outlet Le Monde, which has reportedly resulted in a preliminary investigation by French authorities.

Bayer has addressed the concerns raised over the practices of its subsidiary Monsanto in a statement. 

“This is not the way Bayer seeks dialogue with society and stakeholders. We apologise for this behavior”, the company stated, noting, however, that there was nothing illicit about the way Monsanto compiled such lists.

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Planting the Seeds of Regime Change: How GMO Seeds and Monsanto/Bayer’s “RoundUp” are Driving US Policy in Venezuela

Mint Press News

CARACAS, VENEZUELA — As the political crisis in Venezuela has unfolded, much has been said about the Trump administration’s clear interest in the privatization and exploitation of Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world, by American oil giants like Chevron and ExxonMobil.

 

Yet the influence of another notorious American company, Monsanto — now a subsidiary of Bayer — has gone largely unmentioned.

While numerous other Latin American nations have become a “free for all” for the biotech company and its affiliates, Venezuela has been one of the few countries to fight Monsanto and other international agrochemical giants and win. However, since that victory — which was won under Chavista rule — the U.S.-backed Venezuelan opposition has been working to undo it.

Now, with Juan Guaidó’s parallel government attempting to take power with the backing of the U.S., it is telling that the top political donors of those in the U.S. most fervently pushing regime change in Venezuela have close ties to Monsanto and major financial stakes in Bayer.

In recent months, Monsanto’s most controversial and notorious product — the pesticide glyphosate, branded as Roundup, and linked to cancer in recent U.S. court rulings — has threatened Bayer’s financial future as never before, with a litany of new court cases barking at Bayer’s door. It appears that many of the forces in the U.S. now seeking to overthrow the Venezuelan government are hoping that a new Guaidó-led government will provide Bayer with a fresh, much-needed market for its agrochemicals and transgenic seeds, particularly those products that now face bans in countries all over the world, including once-defoliated and still-poisoned Vietnam.

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New Monsanto documents expose cozy connection to Reuters reporter Kate Kelland

Carey Gillam
usrtk.org

We knew from previously released documents that Reuters reporter Kate Kelland was a key connection for Monsanto in its endeavor to undermine and discredit the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) scientists who classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen in 2015. Now we have additional evidence of the coziness of the connection.

Not only did Kelland write a 2017 story that Monsanto asked her to write in exactly the way Monsanto executive Sam Murphey asked her to write it, (without disclosing to readers that Monsanto was the source,) but now we see evidence that a draft of a separate story Kelland did about glyphosate was delivered to Monsanto before it was published, a practice typically frowned on by news outlets.

The emails shows the story written by Kelland was emailed before it was published to Murphey with the subject line "My draft, Confidential."

The story, headlined "New study on Monsanto weed killer to feed into crucial EU vote," was about preliminary findings of an unpublished study by an Italian scientist showing that experimental rats exposed to glyphosate at levels equivalent to those allowed in humans showed no initial adverse reaction. The final version was published on April 13, 2017.

And another newly released email details how Monsanto's fingerprints were on at least two other Kelland stories. The March 1, 2016 email speaks of the involvement of Monsanto's "Red Flag" campaign in an already published Reuters story that was critical of IARC and the desire to influence a second similar story Reuters was planning. Red Flag is a Dublin-based PR and lobbying firm that works to defend glyphosate safety and promote pro-glyphosate messaging via third parties such as farmer groups. According to the partly redacted email, "following engagement by Red Flag a number of months ago, the first piece was quite critical of IARC." The email goes on: "You may also be aware that Red Flag is in touch with Reuters regarding the second report in the series..."

A little over a month later, Reuters published Kelland's story headlined "Special Report: How the World Health Organization's cancer agency confuses consumers."  

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See also:  The International Agency for Research on Cancer is under fire for withholding 'carcinogenic glyphosate' documents

Glyphosate Worse Than We Could Imagine

F. William Engdahl
New Eastern Outlook

As new studies continue to point to a direct link between the widely-used glyphosate herbicide and various forms of cancer, the agribusiness lobby fights ferociously to ignore or discredit evidence of human and other damage. A second US court jury case just ruled that Monsanto, now a part of the German Bayer AG, must pay $ 81 million in damages to plaintiff Edwin Hardeman who contracted non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer. The ruling and a line-up of another 11,000 pending cases in US courts going after the effects of glyphosate, have hit Bayer AG hard with the company announcing several thousand layoffs as its stock price plunges. 

In a trial in San Francisco the jury was unanimous in their verdict that Monsanto Roundup weed-killer, based on glyphosate, had been responsible for Hardeman’s cancer. His attorneys stated, “It is clear from Monsanto’s actions that it does not care whether Roundup causes cancer, focusing instead on manipulating public opinion and undermining anyone who raises genuine and legitimate concerns about Roundup.” It is the second defeat for the lawyers of Monsanto after another jury ruled in 2018 that Glyphosate-based Roundup was responsible for the cancer illness of a California school grounds-keeper who contracted the same form of cancer after daily spraying school grounds with Roundup over years, unprotected. There a jury found Monsanto guilty of “malice and oppression” in that company executives, based on internal email discovery, knew that their glyphosate products could cause cancer and suppressed this information from the public.

New independent study shows that those with highest exposure to glyphosate have a 41% increased risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) cancer. A meta-analysis of six studies containing nearly 65,000 participants looked at links between glyphosate-based herbicides and immune-suppression, endocrine disruption and genetic alterations. The authors found “the same key finding: exposure to GBHs (glyphosate-based herbicides) are associated with an increased risk of NHL (Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma).” Further, they stated that glyphosate “alters the gut microbiome,” and that that could “impact the immune system, promote chronic inflammation, and contribute to the susceptibility of invading pathogens.” Glyphosate also ”may act as an endocrine disrupting chemical because it has been found recently to alter sex hormone production” in both male and female rats.

In a long-term animal study by French scientists under Gilles Eric Seralini, Michael Antoniou and associates, it was demonstrated that even ultra-low levels of glyphosate herbicides cause non-alcoholic liver disease. The levels the rats were exposed to, per kg of body weight, were far lower than what is allowed in our food supply. According to the Mayo Clinic, today, after four decades or more pervasive use of glyphosate pesticides, 100 million, or 1 out of 3 Americans now have liver disease. These diagnoses are in some as young as 8 years old.

But glyphosate is not only having alarming effects on human health. Soil scientists are beginning to realize the residues of glyphosate application are also having a possibly dramatic effect on soil health and nutrition, effects that can take years to restore.

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Roundup, Monsanto, cancer, golf courses, hidden secrets

Jon Rappoport

There are 34,000 golf courses in the world. They make beautiful pictures. But what keeps the grass of the fairways and greens so uniform and undisturbed by weeds?

Chemical herbicides. One of the herbicide is Roundup, manufactured by Monsanto, the giant corporation owned by Bayer.

It’s now common knowledge that a link has been drawn between Roundup and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. “The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer…decided in 2015 that glyphosate is ‘probably carcinogenic to humans’.” (Mother Jones, March 14, 2019)

The research on the Monsanto pesticide Roundup is far from a finished product. Is it possible that Roundup causes other forms of cancer—brain, colon, and blood, for example? It will be hard to prove, in part because Monsanto can produced a hundred studies that contradict each lone study that says Yes.

But where are the golfers who have cancer? Nowhere, correct? Let’s find out.

“After the death of his [golf-playing] father, from the blood cancer Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, filmmaker Andrew Nisker starts hunting for answers to his many questions about why this particular cancer, and where it came from. His search, to his surprise, takes him into the manicured world of golf. In this world of pearl white bunkers, and putting greens that look and feel like velvet, Andrew discovers that these ‘greenspaces’ are anything but. There’s a lot more than nature at work creating these perfect carpets. At a golf industry trade show he sees the array of chemicals on offer to achieve that championship perfection. To his surprise, he hears at the show that golfers have consistently shown resistance to caring about any health or environmental impacts of their sport.”

“Andrew forms a bond with a sportscaster in Pittsburgh who is blaming golf course pesticides for the cancer death of his own father, a golf course superintendent.”

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Bayer Ordered To Pay $80 Million After Losing Second Roundup Glyphosate Trial

Zero Hedge

Bayer AG has lost a second trial over claims that its Roundup weed killer causes cancer - and has been ordered by a San Fancisco jury to pay compensatory damages of $5.3 million and punitive damages of $75 million to a 70-year-old California man, Edwin Hardeman, who was diagnosed with cancer after spraying the herbicide on his property for decades. 

The plaintiff's attorneys said he developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma after 26 years of regularly using Roundup to tackle weeds and poison oak, according to the Wall Street Journal. The active ingredient in Roundup and Ranger Pro is glyphosate, a herbicide.

Wednesday's verdict follows a similar decision last August in which a former school groundskeeper was awarded $289 million after claiming that Roundup gave him non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. 

German Bayer AG acquired the Roundup brand of glyphosate weed killers in its $66 billion purchase of Monsanto in June of last year. 

Responding to the verdict, Bayer said in a statement "We are disappointed with the jury's decision, but this verdict does not change the weight of over four decades of extensive science and the conclusions of regulators worldwide that support the safety of our glyphosate-based herbicides and that they are not carcinogenic."

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Bayer facing second trial amid claims weed killer bought from Monsanto causes cancer

RT 

 

German chemicals and pharmaceuticals giant Bayer is set to face a second US trial over allegations that its glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup causes cancer.

This is six months after the company was rocked by a $289-million verdict by a California state court.

According to Reuters, a lawsuit by California resident Edwin Hardeman against Bayer was scheduled to begin on Monday in federal rather than state court. The trial is also a test case for a larger litigation. More than 760 of the 9,300 Roundup cases are consolidated in the federal court in San Francisco that is hearing Hardeman’s case.

The company denies all allegations that Roundup or glyphosate cause cancer, claiming that decades of independent studies have shown the world’s most widely used weed killer to be safe for human use. It also notes that regulators around the world have approved the product.

Under a January ruling by US District Judge Vince Chhabria, who presides over the federal litigation, jurors in Hardeman’s case will not initially hear all the evidence presented in last year’s California trial.

Chhabria has called evidence by plaintiffs that the company allegedly attempted to influence regulators and manipulate public opinion “a distraction” from the science in the cases. He said such evidence should only go before the jury in a second trial phase if they determined that Roundup caused Hardeman’s cancer.

Evidence of corporate misconduct was seen as playing a key role in the finding by a California state court jury in August that Roundup caused another man’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and that Bayer’s Monsanto unit failed to warn consumers about the weed killer’s cancer risks. That jury’s $289 million damages award was later reduced to $78 million. 

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Costco First Major Retailer to Stop Selling Monsanto’s Roundup Herbicide

The Most Revolutionary Act

In another major blow to Monsanto, Costco agrees to drop all herbicides containing glyphosate

The anti-GMO awareness group petitioned Costco, Lowes and Home Depot to stop selling the products after the recent Johnson vs. Monsanto-cancer verdict was upheld. The case set the precedent for thousands of other cases against Monsanto, all claiming exposure to Roundup caused non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

RELATED: Monsanto Stock Plummets After Cancer Rulings

The mom’s group gathered over 150,000 signatures on change.org, asking the three retailers to stop selling the toxic herbicide.

Costco is the first to respond, according to Moms Across America founder Zen Honeycutt:
“I called the headquarters, and after two days of messages and calls, I did finally confirm with three people that Costco was not ordering Roundup or any glyphosate-based herbicides for the incoming spring shipments,” she wrote on her website.

When she asked for an official statement, Honeycutt said she was told that Costco does not usually issue press releases about which items they have discontinued.

“One employee mentioned that they had looked into organic alternatives first and were happy with the results. More than one employee mentioned the lawsuit (Johnson V Monsanto) for part of the reasoning. They said they just felt like it was the right thing to do.”

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Monsanto/Bayer Moving to Genome Edit Fruits and More

F. William Engdahl 
 
Not surprising, Monsanto, today hidden behind the Bayer logo, as the world leader in patented GMO seeds and the probable carcinogenic Roundup herbicide with glyphosate, is attempting to quietly patent genetically modified or GMO varieties of fruits using controversial gene-editing. The “beauty” of this for Monsanto/Bayer is that in the USA, according to a recent ruling by the US Department of Agriculture, gene-edited agriculture needs no special independent testing. The developments are not good for human health or safety, nor will it do anything to give the world better nutrition.

The agrichemical and GMO giant Monsanto, which today tries to keep a lower profile inside the German agrichemical and GMO giant Bayer, is moving into the highly controversial domain of gene-editing of new crop varieties. In 2018 as the company was being deluged with lawsuits over its use of the probable carcinogen, Roundup, Monsanto invested $125 million in a gene-editing startup called Pairwise. The link is anything but casual.

Former Monsanto Vice President for Global Biotechnology, Tom Adams, has taken the post of CEO of Pairwise. In short, this is a Monsanto gene-editing project. In a press release, Pairwise says it is using the controversial CRISPR gene-editing technology to create genetically edited produce. Among their goals apparently is a super-sweet variety of strawberry or apples, just what our sugar-saturated population doesn’t need.

CRISPR gene-editing, a stealth attempt by the global agribusiness industry to promote artificial mutations of crops and, as the world was shocked recently to hear, even humans, as in China, is being advanced, much like GMO crops falsely were, as solution to world hunger. Pairwise founder, Keith Joung, told media that their CRISPR gene-edited fruits, “will speed innovation that is badly needed to feed a growing population amid challenging conditions created by a changing climate.” How sweeter genetically-edited strawberries will solve world hunger he leaves to the imagination. Pairwise also says that gene-edited fruits would somehow also cut down on food waste. One has to be also skeptical there as well, even if it makes nice promotion copy. In addition to super-sweet strawberries, Monsanto plans to use its work with Pairwise to develop new varieties of gene-edited corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and canola crops. And because the USDA unfortunately has given the green light, the new genetically modified foods will undergo no independent testing for health and safety.

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Bayer + Monsanto = A Match Made in Hell

Corbett Report

TRANSCRIPT AND MP3 AUDIO: https://www.corbettreport.com/bayer/ 

It is hardly surprising that the first thing Bayer did after completing their takeover of Monsanto earlier this month was to announce that they were dropping the Monsanto name, merging the two companies' agrichemical divisions under the Bayer Crop Science name. After all, as everyone knows, Monsanto is one of the most hated corporations in the world. But Bayer itself has an equally atrocious history of death and destruction. Together they are a match made in hell.

US approves merger of Bayer & Monsanto, paving way for world’s biggest agrochemical corporation

RT

The US Department of Justice has reached a settlement that would allow Bayer AG’s $66 billion takeover of Monsanto Co, requiring the German company to sell $9 billion in agricultural assets first. 

The merger as initially proposed would have harmed consumers and farmers by eliminating competition, the DOJ said. However, the Trump administration is satisfied with the terms of the settlement announced Tuesday.

“America’s farm system is of critical importance to our economy, to our food system, and to our way of life,” said Makan Delrahim, head of the DOJ’s antitrust division. “American farmers and consumers rely on head-to-head competition between Bayer and Monsanto.”

Last October, Bayer agreed to sell its Liberty herbicide brand, cotton and soybean seeds, and other seed capabilities to BASF SE, another German chemical corporation. That deal was worth €5.9 billion. Another sale to BASF was announced in April, with Bayer divesting of herbicides, wheat hybrids research and digital farming business that had combined sales amounting to €2.2 billion in 2017, according to Bloomberg.

EU regulators approved the merger in March.

Once combined, Bayer-Monsanto will be the world’s biggest agrochemical corporation, surpassing DowDuPont Inc. and China National, which acquired Syngenta AG last year.

Monsanto is the world’s leading producer of genetically modified (GMO) seeds, and has faced widespread criticism and protests over the effects its products have had on the environment and biodiversity. Roundup, Monsanto’s most popular herbicide, has been blamed for the collapse in the Monarch butterfly population as well as the “colony collapse disorder” decimating the honeybees in Europe and North America.

The company has also challenged scientific studies pointing to glyphosate, the neo-nicotinoid used in the Roundup family of herbicides, being a carcinogen.

Announcing the merger in 2016, Bayer CEO Werner Baumann said there was an opportunity for both companies to “get beyond this image and reputation thing” by rebranding Monsanto.

Landmark lawsuit claims Monsanto hid cancer danger of weedkiller for decades

Carey Gillam
The Guardian

In June, a California groundskeeper will make history by taking company to trial on claims it suppressed harm of Roundup

Monsanto has been accused of hiding the dangers of its popular Roundup products for decades, a claim the company denies. Photograph: Benoit Tessier/Reuters.

At the age of 46, DeWayne Johnson is not ready to die. But with cancer spread through most of his body, doctors say he probably has just months to live. Now Johnson, a husband and father of three in California, hopes to survive long enough to make Monsanto take the blame for his fate.

On 18 June, Johnson will become the first person to take the global seed and chemical company to trial on allegations that it has spent decades hiding the cancer-causing dangers of its popular Roundup herbicide products – and his case has just received a major boost.
Last week Judge Curtis Karnow issued an order clearing the way for jurors to consider not just scientific evidence related to what caused Johnson’s cancer, but allegations that Monsanto suppressed evidence of the risks of its weed killing products. Karnow ruled that the trial will proceed and a jury would be allowed to consider possible punitive damages.

“The internal correspondence noted by Johnson could support a jury finding that Monsanto has long been aware of the risk that its glyphosate-based herbicides are carcinogenic … but has continuously sought to influence the scientific literature to prevent its internal concerns from reaching the public sphere and to bolster its defenses in products liability actions,” Karnow wrote. “Thus there are triable issues of material fact.”

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Bt Cotton | Thanks Monsanto For Poisoning Our Food Supply!

Oye News

Monsanto are famous for their continual attempts at killing off all that lives on Planet Earth while getting paid by us to do it, from Agent Orange to Glyphosate Monsanto are the masters of toxic chemical creation and effective distribution.

The latest concerns being addressed are that of Monsanto’s BT Cotton, BT Cotton is genetically modified to express a toxin whose gene has been derived from a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis, and hence is commonly referred as Bt. The crop entered India initially back in the late 90’s without approval, the way in which this happened is in much debate, however many believe the contamination of indian crops with the GM seed was an intentional one by the Manufacturers themselves.

Later in 2002 Monsanto got approval for the Bt Cotton and now the majority of Cotton in India is of the Bt Cotton variant.

So is this BT Toxin in our food supply?

 

Although the industry will claim “No”, in reality this is purely because the testing for such things is not in place, Firstpost reports:

While the industry and the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR)-Nagpur reports claim that there are no Bt toxin in the oils, but are Bt toxins leaking into our food chain? The reality on the ground seems to be obfuscated.  The regulatory authority FSSAI, has no parameters in its guidelines nor has it placed any tests or requirements on the cottonseed oil industry or the edible oil industry to perform the required safety tests for the detections of the Bt toxins. They conveniently used the industries’ standards to declare the cottonseed oil safe. In simple terms, this is like trusting oil and automobile corporations on climate change or emissions.

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Humans to be Genetically Modified for the first time in Europe

Nick Meyer 
March Against Monsanto

The acceleration of human progress and knowledge about health has reached a breakneck pace, and it appears as though there are two distinct camps emerging: people who believe natural health is the answer to a long and healthy life, and those who would rather side with modern medicine.

At the end of the day, both methods have their benefits and drawbacks, and have been instrumental in increasing human lifespan even at a time when chronic diseases are out-of-control.

But now, mainstream medicine is entering into unchartered territory, and it could change the future of our species for good. Whether or not it ends up being a positive development, however, remains to be seen. 

First GMO Humans to Be Created in Europe

According to a new article posted on the website Technocracy News & Trends,the first-ever GMO humans will soon see the light of day in Europe after a new CRISPR DNA-splicing therapy was approved.  

The therapy will be used in an attempt to treat the destructive blood disorder known as beta thalassaemia, which is designed to reduce the product of hemoglobin and could potentially cure this disorder.

The scientists petitioning to use it do not believe that they are capable of making mistakes or causing unintended consequences according to the website, but many people are nonetheless skeptical because of a recent study showing that that CRISPR is capable of causing "hundreds of unintended mutations" within the target organism.

That paper was later retracted, but the underlying concerns still remain, especially because of the complex nature of this therapy and the ability scientists will be given to "play God" with target organisms and foods, including human beings.

Early trials hold promise according to the article, but it remains to be seen how the human body itself will actually react over the long term to having its DNA spliced. 

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Agrichemical Political Power in America and Europe

Evaggelos Vallianatos
greenmedinfo.com 

In November 2014, an open letter signed by about 57 million Americans reached European politicians urging them not to follow America’s genetic engineering path in food and agriculture. Don’t use genetic engineering to modify your crops, the letter said, because GM crops have served us pretty badly here in America. We are convinced the genetic modification of crops is a hazardous and failing technology. 

Genetic engineering for the hegemony of the world

Studies show that animals fed GM foods and / or the weed killer glyphosate become ill from damaged liver, kidneys, gut tissues and gut flora. These animals also suffer from immune system disruption, reproductive abnormalities and tumors. Do we want to eat this kind of food?

With this unsettling evidence from scientific studies, you would think, the letter said, the regulators of genetic engineering in America (Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration, and the Department of Agriculture) would be alarmed and ban any further fiddling with the nation’s food. On the contrary, these government regulators and the industry justify the modification of crops from studies funded by the biotech industry.

The letter from America went beyond warning that GM foods were not safe. It concluded that GM foods were much more than the application of genetics on food. Modifying crops was intensifying the biocidal effects of industrialized agriculture. It triggered the radical remaking of farming into a perpetual cash cow for agrichemical corporations. GM food was part of a strategy of corporate hegemony over farmers, food and the world.

The open letter put it this way:

Through our experience we have come to understand that the genetic engineering of food has never really been about public good, or feeding the hungry, or supporting our farmers. Nor is it about consumer choice. Instead it is about private, corporate control of the food system. Americans are reaping the detrimental impacts of this risky and unproven agricultural technology. EU [European Union] countries should take note: there are no benefits from GM crops great enough to offset these impacts [on human health and the environment]. Officials who continue to ignore this fact are guilty of gross dereliction of duty.

I observed the regulatory origins of this technology. It happened in the 1990s under the supervision of the Clinton administration.

EPA alone had a Biopesticides Division of about eighty scientists working feverishly on behalf of the biotech and agrichemical companies. Indeed, it was pesticide executives that invented agricultural genetic engineering. This was their scheme of extending the life of their best-selling chemicals, especially weed killers like glyphosate and 2,4-D. Naturally, duping and addicting farmers to the genetic modification of crops complemented the global ambition of giant corporations for the control of the world’s food.

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ORGANIC FARMER GROUP Dumps ORGANIC TRADE ASSOCIATION

OSGATA

 

By a unanimous vote of its Board of Directors, the organic farmer-controlled Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) has withdrawn its membership from the Organic Trade Association (OTA). OSGATA’s decision was prompted by OTA’s duplicity towards organic farmers and consumers when a small number of OTA board members endorsed a dangerous Senate bill that would immediately preempt existing strong state GMO Labeling laws that are widely supported by the Organic community and ninety percent of consumers.

Biotech giant Monsanto is universally recognized within the Organic community as organic’s greatest threat.  Recent revelations have made clear that the OTA has created numerous close partnerships with Monsanto including intensive lobbying efforts by the notorious biotech-linked lobbyist Podesta Group on behalf of the deal brokered by Senators Stabenow (D-MI) and Roberts (R-KS).  The Stabenow-Roberts (S.764) is a Senate bill - backed by industrial agriculture and large food conglomerates and whose primary intent are nullifying of historic mandatory GMO Labeling laws passed by huge margins in Vermont, Maine, Connecticut and Alaska legislatures and relieving multinational food companies of the requirement to clearly label products that were produced by genetic engineering.   OTA support for the Monsanto-backed bill proved essential for passage. Last week Stabenow-Roberts passed in the Senate by a narrow four-vote margin of victory on a vote of 63-30.

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The Complete History of Monsanto, “The World’s Most Evil Corporation”

E Hanzai
Waking Times

Of all the mega-corps running amok, Monsanto has consistently outperformed its rivals, earning the crown as “most evil corporation on Earth!” Not content to simply rest upon its throne of destruction, it remains focused on newer, more scientifically innovative ways to harm the planet and its people.

1901: The company is founded by John Francis Queeny, a member of the Knights of Malta, a thirty year pharmaceutical veteran married to Olga Mendez Monsanto, for which Monsanto Chemical Works is named. The company’s first product is chemical saccharin, sold to Coca-Cola as an artificial sweetener.

Even then, the government knew saccharin was poisonous and sued to stop its manufacture but lost in court, thus opening the Monsanto Pandora’s Box to begin poisoning the world through the soft drink.

1920s: Monsanto expands into industrial chemicals and drugs, becoming the world’s largest maker of  aspirin, acetylsalicyclic acid, (toxic of course). This is also the time when things began to go horribly wrong for the planet in a hurry with the introduction of  their polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

“PCBs were considered an industrial wonder chemical, an oil that wouldn’t burn, impervious to degradation and had almost limitless applications. Today PCBs are considered one of the gravest chemical threats on the planet. Widely used as lubricants, hydraulic fluids, cutting oils, waterproof coatings and liquid sealants, are potent carcinogens and have been implicated in reproductive, developmental and immune system disorders. The world’s center of PCB manufacturing was Monsanto’s plant on the outskirts of East St. Louis, Illinois, which has the highest rate of fetal death and immature births in the state.”(1)

Even though PCBs were eventually banned after fifty years for causing such devastation, it is still present in just about all animal and human blood and tissue cells across the globe. Documents introduced in court later showed Monsanto was fully aware of the deadly effects, but criminally hid them from the public to keep the PCB gravy-train going full speed!

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Why We’re So Unhealthy

Charles Hugh-Smith
PeakProsperity.com

Our system makes & keeps us sick

 

That America is in the throes of a systemic health crisis can no longer be denied. According to the U.S. Department of Health And Human Services, more than two-thirds (68.8 percent) of adults are overweight or obese.  (Overweight is typically defined as a body-mass index (BMI) of 25 or higher. A BMI of 24.9 is not exactly featherweight; I would have to add 30 pounds to reach a BMI of 24.9.).

The health risks of being overweight or obese include:

• type 2 diabetes
• heart disease
• high blood pressure
• nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (excess fat and inflammation in the liver of people who drink little or no alcohol)
• osteoarthritis (a health problem causing pain, swelling, and stiffness in one or more joints)
• some types of cancer: breast, colon, endometrial (related to the uterine lining), and kidney
• stroke

Since the early 1960s, the prevalence of obesity among adults more than doubled, increasing from 13.4 to 35.7 percent in U.S. adults age 20 and older.  (Source)

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported in 2015 that roughly half of all adult Americans are diabetic or prediabetic (also called metabolic syndrome).

If we add up everyone in America who is either suffering from or at risk of lifestyle-related diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and lifestyle-related types of cancer, it’s clear this is an unprecedented national health crisis that has no easy or cheap medical fix.

Why have we become so unhealthy? The answers come thick and fast: we are more sedentary as most work is now white-collar; the foods low-income people can afford are unhealthy; children now spend time playing digital games rather than playing outside; serving sizes of sodas and other high-calorie/low nutrition beverages have ballooned; people buy more convenience and fast foods and prepare fewer meals at home, and so on.

Two things are clear: there is no one solution to the epidemic of lifestyle-related diseases. Limiting sodas in schools and demanding better labeling of food are examples of reforms that are well-intended, but have so far had little effect on the expanding waistlines of Americans or their ill-health.

The second is expressed by the Chinese proverb: “Diseases enter through the mouth,” i.e. disease is a result of what we eat and drink. Since what we eat has an enormous impact on our health, if we want to tackle our health crisis in a manner that get results, we must start with what we eat and how our food is grown, processed and prepared.

Once we start examining our diet, we have to examine where our food comes from, how it is grown/raised and how it is processed for consumers.

A second Chinese proverb explains why we must start with diet: “When you’re thirsty, it’s too late to dig a well.”  If we want to avoid lifestyle illnesses, we must start pursuing a new way of growing and preparing food now, not after we’re already ill.

The long lists of contributory factors to our growing ill-health distract us from the real source of our national health crisis: our food/illness/healthcare system is sick, and so it’s no wonder we’re sick, too.  The only possible result of our unhealthy food/illness/healthcare care system is ill-health.

Understanding the Food / Illness / Healthcare System

 

To understand why this is so, we must start with the fact that we live in a highly centralized government/private-sector system that limits our choices to maximize the profits of corporate cartels: Big Agriculture, Big Oil/Ag Chemicals, Big GMO seeds (Monsanto et al.), Big Processed Foods, Big Supermarkets, Big Fast Food, Big Healthcare (what I have called sickcare for many years, because profits flow not from keeping us healthy via prevention but from keeping us alive when we’re suffering from chronic lifestyle illnesses) and last but not least Big Pharma, which is happy to provide medications that costs tens of thousands of dollars per patient per year to address the symptoms of lifestyle diseases rather than the causes, which trace back to what we eat and how we live.

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Epicyte: Contraceptive Corn and Seeds of Death: Unveiling the Lies of GMOs (Full Length) HD