Monsanto's Roundup Linked to Cancer - Again

Monday, 06 October 2014
 By Jeff Ritterman, M.D., Truthout

A brilliant and celebrated inventor, John Franz, gave us an herbicide, Roundup, which has changed the face of agriculture. This herbicide has become the foundation for an entirely novel approach to farming - biotech agriculture - that has expanded rapidly throughout the globe.

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

"The change in how agriculture is produced has brought, frankly, a change in the profile of diseases. We've gone from a pretty healthy population to one with a high rate of cancer, birth defects and illnesses seldom seen before."

Roundup seemed, at first, to be the perfect herbicide. It blocks the ESPS synthase enzyme, which prevents the synthesis of amino acids that plants need for growth. Since animals don't have this enzyme, it was initially hypothesized that they would be safe from Roundup's effects.

Unfortunately, Roundup has now been shown to affect much more than the EPSP synthase enzyme. The herbicide has been proven to cause birth defects in vertebrates, including in humans, and it may also be the cause of a fatal kidney disease epidemic.

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

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

Doctors serving these areas have documented an alarming increase in cancers. A group of dedicated physicians formed an organization, Doctors of Fumigated Towns. They held a national conference in August of 2010 in Córdoba, the center of Argentina's soy region. The Department of Medical Sciences of the National University at Córdoba sponsored the conference. An estimated 160 doctors from throughout the country attended.

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

Dr. Avila Vazquez blamed the biotech agricultural corporations for placing their profits over the public's health:

"The tobacco companies denied the link between smoking and cancer, and took decades to recognize the truth. The biotech and agrochemical corporations are the same as the tobacco industry; they lie and favor business over the health of the population."

It was the health of the population that concerned Dr. Damian Verzeñassi, professor of social and environmental health from the National University at Rosario. In 2010, he began a house-to-house epidemiological study of 65,000 people in Santa Fe, also in Argentina's soy region. He found cancer rates two to four times higher than the national average, with increases in breast, prostate and lung cancers.\

Dr. Verzeñassi commented on his findings: "Cancer has skyrocketed in the last fifteen years."

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

Carlos Fria lives in Avia Terai. He has complained about glyphosate spraying in close proximity to his home:
"If the wind changes, the agrochemicals come into the house. My uncle just died of cancer. My wife too, passed away from cancer. Now many, many people are dying of cancer. It didn't used to be like that. In my opinion, this has to do with the poison they put on the fields."

Roundup Linked to Lymphoma
Research has also been done in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand investigating possible links between glyphosate, Roundup's active ingredient, and cancer. A large number of studies have focused on glyphosate's possible association with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

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

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

In April of 2014, scientists at the IARC published their review of twenty-five years of research on the relationship between pesticide exposure and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. They found a positive association between organo-phosphorus herbicides, like glyphosate, and this cancer. The B cell lymphoma sub-type, in particular, was strongly associated with glyphosate exposure.
 
Roundup Linked to Brain Cancer
The linkage to lymphoma is the most recent research raising concerns about glyphosate's connection to cancer. Scientists from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a branch of the US Department of Health and Human Services, specialize in illnesses caused by toxic substances. They published the results of the US Atlantic Coast Childhood Brain Cancer Study in 2009. Children with brain cancer from Florida, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania were compared to age matched controls. The researchers found that if either parent had been exposed to Roundup during the two years before the child's birth, the chances of the child developing brain cancer doubled.

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

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

Roundup Causes DNA Damage,  Errors During Cell Division
Cancer risk can be evaluated by experiments that measure Roundup's ability to induce DNA damage.
One of the initial steps in the development of cancers is often damage to our DNA. Each of our cells gets its operating instructions from its DNA. If the DNA is damaged, the faulty operating instructions can re-program cells to divide rapidly and chaotically. When this happens, cells become transformed into cancers.

A number of experiments have been done using various animal models, all showing the same results: after exposure to Roundup, cells exhibited DNA damage. This was true in fruit fly larvae, in mice, in the blood cells of the European eel and in the lymphocytes of cows.

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

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

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

Dr. Fernando Manas, a biologist at the National University of Rio Cuarto in Argentina, has been investigating the effects of pesticides for years. He believes that glyphosate spraying is causing cancer by inducing DNA damage. His research has documented genetic damage in those exposed. When Dr. Manas studied pesticide sprayers working in the soy industry in Córdoba, he found significantly more DNA damage in their lymphocytes than in those of an unexposed group of controls. Roundup was one of the most commonly used pesticides.

The pesticide sprayers in Córdoba, the Ecuadorians living in Sucumbíos, and the normal volunteers all developed Roundup-induced DNA damage in their lymphocytes.

Genetics researchers from the Pontifical Catholic University in Quito, Ecuador evaluated Ecuadorians living in the Sucumbíos district in northern Ecuador for evidence of DNA damage. This area was heavily sprayed with Roundup by the Colombian government to eradicate illicit crops. Those exposed to the herbicide developed a number of acute symptoms, including abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, heart palpitations, headaches, dizziness, numbness, insomnia, depression, shortness of breath, blurred vision, burning of eyes, blisters and rash. When compared to a control group, they also showed significantly more DNA damage.

Interestingly, scientists have known since 1998 that when normal human lymphocytes were exposed to Roundup in a test tube, the lymphocytes developed DNA damage.

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

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

In 2010, researchers in India exposed mouse skin cells grown in tissue culture to Roundup. When the herbicide was added, the cells became cancerous.

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

Roundup's effects have been assessed in studies with a variety of test animals for more than three decades.
One of the earliest studies was done in 1979-1981, under the auspices of the United Nations Environmental Program, the International Labor Organization and the World Health Organization. Rats exposed to low levels of the herbicide developed testicular cancer. A larger dose did not produce the cancer. Unfortunately, at the time of the experiment, it was not understood that certain substances have more potent effects at lower doses than at higher doses. The evaluators erroneously dismissed the results showing the low-dose effect.

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

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

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

Proving Causality
Does the evidence linking Roundup to cancer prove causality? In the 1964 landmark Surgeon General's Report, which for the very first time linked tobacco to cancer, Surgeon General Dr. Luther Terry presented criteria for the establishment of a cause and effect relationship in a scientific study.

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

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

How well does the association between Roundup and cancer fit these criteria?

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

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

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

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

The State of the Science vs. the Science of the State
Roundup has now been conclusively proven to cause birth defects and to be closely linked to cancer. If we do not want this herbicide to accumulate in our water, land, and food, we need to stop using it.

In the final sad irony, when the cancer cells reach their growth peak, they kill their host and die in the process.

The science is clear, but powerful economic interests have, thus far, prevailed. The executives of the biotech agricultural corporations and their backers have ignored or denied the science documenting Roundup's harm.
Biotech agriculture's most powerful backer, it seems, is the government of the United States.

This official policy was explained in a 2010 US State Department cable from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

"Our biotech outreach objectives for 2010 are to increase access to, and markets for, biotech as a means to help address the underlying causes of the food crisis, and to promote agricultural technology's role in mitigating climate change and increasing biofuel production."

The US government has been willing to exercise its muscle in support of the biotech agricultural corporations.
In El Salvador, for example, the United States recently pressured the government to buy Monsanto's GM seeds or risk losing $277 million in development aid. El Salvador refused and stood firm, preferring to buy the seeds from its own struggling farmers.

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

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

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

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

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

GMOs: Ban Them or Label Them?

Sunday, March 9, 2014 by Common Dreams

by Ronnie Cummins

 

'With no real market for GMOs, EU farmers have refused to grow them. EU activists point out that if meat, eggs and dairy products derived from animals fed GMO grains had to be labeled, there would be no GMOs in Europe. Period.' (File)Since the controversial introduction in the mid-nineties of genetically engineered (GE) food and crops, and the subsequent fast-tracking of those crops by the federal government—with no independent safety-testing or labeling required—there has been a lively debate among activists, both inside and outside the U.S., about how to drive these unhealthy and environmentally destructive “Frankenfoods” off the market.

Some campaigners have called for an outright ban of GE crops. In fact, several dozen nations, thousands of local governments in the EU, and six counties in the U.S. (in California, Washington and Hawaii) have created GMO-free zones by passing bans.

Other activists argue that strict mandatory labeling laws, similar to those in the EU, are all we need in order to rid the world of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). Activists in this camp point out that very few products in countries that have mandatory GMO labeling laws contain GMOs, because once companies are required to label GMO ingredients, they reformulate their products to be GMO-free, rather than risk rejection by consumers.

Who’s right?

A review of two decades of anti-GMO campaigning in North America and Europe suggests that mandatory labeling and bans, or GMO-free zones, should be seen as complementary, rather than contradictory. And recent news about increased contamination of non-GMO crops by the growing number of USDA-approved GMO crops suggests that if we don’t implement labeling laws and bans sooner rather than later, we may run out of time to preserve organic and non-GMO farmers and their fields.

Bans and Mandatory Labeling Laws: Lessons from the EU

In the EU in the late-1990s, in what was the largest agricultural market in the world, anti-GMO campaigners, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, at first tried to establish a sweeping production and import ban on all GMOs. They were unsuccessful, largely because politicians and bureaucrats argued that an outright ban of GMOs in the EU would violate World Trade Organization agreements and bring on serious economic retaliation from the U.S. government.

Leading consumer, environmental and farm groups pushing for a ban were successful, however, in forcing EU authorities to adopt significant GMO safety-testing regulations.  All GMOs, under EU law, are considered "novel foods" and are subject to extensive, case-by-case, science-based food evaluation by European regulatory officials. These regulations, much to the chagrin of Monsanto and the Gene Giants, have kept most GMOs, with the exception of animal feeds, out of the country.

EU regulations also permit member nations to establish GMO-free zones.  As of 2012 there are 169 regions and 4,713 municipalities that have declared themselves GMO-free zones in the EU. In addition to these GMO-free zones in the EU, at least 26 nations, including Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Mexico, and Russia have banned GMOs entirely. Significant labeling and safety-testing procedures on GMOs have been put in place in approximately 60 countries.

Mandatory Labeling in the EU: The Crucial Blow to GMOs

Although EU grassroots forces failed to gain a continent-wide ban on the cultivation or import of GMOs, they were successful in pushing authorities to impose mandatory labeling of all genetically engineered foods, feeds and food ingredients in 1997. This, combined with strict pre-market safety-testing regulations, has marginalized or eliminated GMOs throughout the EU.

EU foods derived from animals raised on GMO feed, however—meat, eggs, and dairy products—do not have to be labeled in the EU. As a consequence, billions of dollars of GMO-tainted animal feeds, including corn, soybeans and canola, continue to be imported every year into the EU from the U.S., Canada, Brazil and Argentina. EU activists, in Germany and elsewhere, have now begun campaigning to eliminate this strategic loophole.

As the EU’s GMO food labeling law came into effect in 1997-98, activists switched gears, successfully pressuring many large supermarket chains, including Carrefour, Co-Op, Tesco, Waitrose  and Marks & Spencer, and food manufacturers, including Unilever and Nestlé, to pledge to remain GMO-free. Feeling the heat from grassroots campaigners and realizing that mandatory GMO labeling would be the “kiss of death” for their brand-name products and their reputations, every major EU supermarket, food manufacturing and restaurant chain, including U.S.-based multinationals such as General Mills, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s, Starbucks and Walmart, eliminated GMOs from their supply chains. As a consequence almost no GMO-derived foods, with the exception of meat and animal products, have been sold in EU retail stores or restaurants from 1997 until now.

With no real market for GMOs, EU farmers have refused to grow them. EU activists point out that if meat, eggs and dairy products derived from animals fed GMO grains had to be labeled, there would be no GMOs in Europe. Period.

Frankenfoods Fight Heats Up in the U.S.

In the U.S., the battle against GE foods and crops has been markedly more difficult. Since 1994, government regulatory agencies have refused to require labels on GMOs, or to require independent safety testing beyond the obviously biased research carried out by Monsanto and other genetic engineering companies themselves.

Despite government and industry opposition, and limited funding, a growing number of pro-organic and anti-GMO campaigners carried out a variety of public education, marketplace pressure and boycotts between 1994 and 2012 designed to either ban or label GMOs. Although GMO labeling bills, which according to numerous polls are supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans, were introduced in Congress over and over again during the past two decades, none have gathered more than nominal support from lawmakers And media coverage, at least until the California GMO labeling ballot initiative in 2012 (Proposition 37) and the Washington State ballot initiative in 2013 (I-522), has been generally sparse, with reporters routinely spouting industry propaganda that GMOs are safe, environmentally sustainable and necessary to feed a growing global population.

But the tide is beginning to turn. More farmers are rejecting GMO seeds, more consumers are demanding non-GMO foods, or at the least, labels on GMO foods. And the media is beginning to give the anti-GMO movement if not its fair share, at least substantially more ink than we’ve seen in decades.

Farmers Sound the Alarm about GMO Contamination

Between 1994-2012, the number of acres in the U.S. planted in GMO crops has grown significantly. Today, 169 million acres—almost half of all cultivated U.S. farmlands—are now growing GMO crops.

But despite the proliferation of GMO crops, we’re now seeing increased demand for non-GMO seeds. This is partly because farmers are growing frustrated with having to buy more and more pesticides and herbicides for GMO crops, as weeds and pests grow increasingly resistant to products like Monsanto’s Roundup.

But it’s also because organic and non-GMO farmers are speaking out about contamination of their crops by nearby GMO crops. Just this week, a new survey published by Food & Water Watch revealed that a third of U.S. organic farmers report problems with contamination from nearby GMO crops, and over half of the farmers surveyed said they’ve had grain shipments rejected because of contamination.

Consumers Demand non-GMO

Increasing demand for non-GMO crops also stems from consumers’ heightened concerns about health, which in turn is increasing demand for non-GMO and organic crops and foods. The turning point in the anti-GMO Movement in the U.S. came in 2012-13 when organic and anti-GE organizations, led by the Organic Consumers Association, Food Democracy Now, Center for Food Safety, Alliance for Natural Health and others, joined by a number of organic and natural health companies including Mercola.com, Dr. Bronner’s Soaps, Nature’s Path, Lundberg Family Farms, Natural News, and Nutiva, decided to bypass the federal government and launch high-profile, multi-million dollar state ballot initiative campaigns for mandatory labeling of GMOs in California and Washington State.

Although anti-GMO campaigners narrowly lost 51%-49% in both states, large genetic engineering and food corporations were forced to spend over $70 million ($12 million of which was illegally laundered by the Grocery Manufacturers Association in Washington). In addition GMA members, most of whom are high-profile food manufacturers, seriously damaged their brands and reputations by carrying out a misleading, dirty tricks advertising campaign that flooded the airwaves in California and Washington and antagonized millions of consumers—many of whom began boycotting their products and assailing their Facebook pages.

By 2012, thanks to the massive media coverage of the California GMO labeling initiative, organic foods and products reached $35 billion in sales, representing almost 5 percent of all grocery store sales, with non-GMO “natural” food sales reaching another $15 billion.

This growth in sales has not gone unnoticed by food manufacturers and retailers. Although 75-80 percent of all non-organic processed foods contain GMOs, General Mills, Kraft General Foods, Chipotle, Ben and Jerry’s and Whole Foods Market, responding to public concern and marketplace pressure, are now moving to eliminate GMOs from some or all of their brand name products.

Push for GMO Labeling Laws Continues

In the meantime, grassroots activists continue to push for mandatory labeling laws. In 2012-13, they lobbied legislators in 30 states, achieving partial success in Maine and Connecticut. In 2014 Vermont, Oregon and several others states appear poised to pass GMO labeling laws, while voters in five Oregon and California counties will attempt to pass GMO bans.

Frantically trying to head off the inevitable, the GMA and a powerful coalition of genetic engineering, industrial agriculture, restaurant, supermarket and junk food manufacturers have begun lobbying Congress to take away states’ rights to pass laws requiring GMO food labels. The GMA has also lobbied the FDA and Congress to allow the obviously fraudulent, though routine, industry practice of labeling or marketing GE-tainted foods as “natural.”

At the state level the GE Lobby, Big Food and the Farm Bureau are sponsoring bills to take away the right of counties and municipalities to pass laws banning GMOs or restricting hazardous industrial agriculture practices.

On the international front, genetic engineering, pharmaceutical and Big Food companies are attempting to subvert GMO labels or bans by “fast-tracking,” with no public input or discussion, transnational trade agreements such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA). These so-called Free Trade agreements would allow multinational corporations such as Monsanto, Bayer and Dupont to sue local, state or even national governments that interfere with their profits, by passing laws regulating or banning GMOs or other controversial agricultural practices.

Although these profoundly pro-corporate and anti-consumer and anti-environmental trade agreements in theory can stop GMO labeling laws and bans from coming into effect, in political terms they are perceived by the majority of the body politic and even many state and local officials as highly authoritarian and anti-democratic. Similarly TPP and TAFTA are correctly perceived by many national political, environmental and labor leaders as undermining national sovereignty, sustainability and economic justice.

Why Both Labeling and Bans Are Necessary

Once GMOs foods are labeled, informed consumers will move to protect themselves and their families by not buying them. Once enough consumers shun GMO-tainted and labeled foods, stores will stop selling them and food manufacturers will stop putting GMO food ingredients in their products. However as the EU experience shows, labeling must eventually be comprehensive, with a requirement for meat, eggs and dairy products to be labeled if the animals have been fed GMO feed.

But food labeling alone cannot protect the environment, or non-GMO and organic farmers from GE drift and seed contamination. This is why county and regional bans on GMO cultivation and the creation of regional GMO-free zones are important. More than 80 percent of farmers surveyed by Food & Water Watch said they were “concerned” about contamination, while 60 percent said they were “very concerned.” Farmers said a lax U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been excessively influenced by the biotech industry.

The Food & Water Watch report comes just as the USDA has extended its public comment period on “coexistence” between GMO and non-GMO agriculture.

In the U.S. the largest food fight in history will soon intensify. Throwing gasoline on the fire, GE companies are arrogantly and foolhardily attempting to introduce genetically engineered fish, apples and “Agent Orange” (2,4 D) herbicide-resistant corn and soy on the market, just at the time when human health and environmental concerns are escalating. These new Frankenfoods and crops will survive in the marketplace only if there are no mandatory labeling laws and no legitimate safety testing.

But this “no labels” scenario is unlikely to continue. State legislative battles in Vermont, Oregon, and other states will likely reach critical mass in 2014, forcing industry and the federal government to finally adopt EU-type regulations and practices on GMOs. Once labeling is in place (including labels on meat, fish dairy, and eggs) genetic engineering companies, led by Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, Syngenta, Bayer, and BASF will have no choice but to abandon GMOs and gene-splicing, in favor of less controversial hybrid seed/cross-breeding practices (which do not require labels) such as “marker assisted breeding.”

If industry and government on the other hand dig in their heels, stomping on consumer, state, municipal and community rights, telling us to “shut up and eat your Frankenfoods,” America’s food revolution may turn into a full-scale rebellion.

America’s organic consumers and natural health advocates invite you to join us in this decisive battle to drive GMOs off the market and make the great transition to healthy and sustainable food and farming. Click here to make a donation to this cause, the Food Fight of Our Lives.

Reasons Monsanto's "Science" Doesn't Add Up

Monday, 03 March 2014
By Katherine Paul and Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association 

 

To hear the pesticide and junk food marketers of the world tell it, anyone who questions the value, legitimacy or safety of GMO crops is naïve, anti-science and irrational to the point of hysteria.

But how long can Monsanto ignore the mounting actual scientific evidence that their technology is not only failing to live up to its promises, it’s putting public health at risk?

Jim Goodman, farmer, activist and member of the Organic Consumers Association policy advisory board, recently wrote about Monsanto’s deceptive use of the expression “sound science.”

But, ‘sound science’ has no scientific definition. It does not mean peer reviewed, or well documented research. ‘Sound science’ is only a term, an ideological term, used to support a particular point of view, policy statement or a technology. ‘Sound science’ is little more than the opinions of so-called “experts” representing corporate interests.

Simply put, ‘sound science’ always supports the position of industry over people, corporate profit over food safety, the environment and public health.

Here are five new reports and studies, published in the last two months, that blow huge holes in Monsanto’s “sound science” story. Reports of everything from Monsanto’s Roundup causing fatal, chronic kidney disease to how, contrary to industry claims, Roundup persists for years, contaminating soil, air and water. And oh-by-the-way, no, GMO crops will not feed the world, nor have they reduced the use of herbicides and pesticides.

1.   Monsanto’s Roundup linked to fatal, chronic kidney disease.
Article in Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, February 2014

What happens when you mix glyphosate, the key active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, with “hard” water? That is, water that contains metals, such as calcium, magnesium, strontium and iron, either found naturally in the soil, or resulting from the use of chemical fertilizers?

The glyphosate becomes “extremely toxic” to the kidneys.

That’s the theory put forth by researchers trying to uncover the mystery of thousands of deaths from chronic kidney disease among people in farming areas of Sri Lanka, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

2.   Monsanto’s Roundup persists in soil and water. U.S. Geological Survey report in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, February 2014

Monsanto has always insisted (despite evidence to the contrary) that its Roundup herbicide is benign, that its toxicity doesn’t persist.

But that’s only half the story, according to a study published this month in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Researchers now say that if you study only the key active ingredient, glyphosate, you might, as Monsanto claims, determine that Roundup is benign.

But there are other ingredients in Roundup, including one called Aminomethylphosphonic acid, or AMPA. The study, called "Pesticides in Mississippi air and rain: A comparison between 1995 and 2007," found that glyphosate and its still-toxic byproduct, AMPA, were found in over 75 percent of the air and rain samples tested from Mississippi in 2007.

What does that mean for you? According to one analysis, “if you were breathing in the sampled air you would be inhaling approximately 2.5 nanograms of glyphosate per cubic meter of air. It has been estimated the average adult inhales approximately 388 cubic feet or 11 cubic meters of air per day, which would equal to 27.5 nanograms (billionths of a gram) of glyphosate a day.” Gasp.

3.   GMO crops have led to an increase in use of pesticides and herbicides. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report, February 2014.

The USDA, which gauging from its track record has never met a GMO crop it didn’t like, published a report substantiating what responsible, independent scientists have been saying along. Genetic engineering does not result in increased yields (as industry would have us believe)—but it has led to the increased (not decreased, as industry claims) use of pesticides and herbicides.

To be fair, the report gives overall favorable reviews to GMO crops. Not surprising, given the agency’s cozy relationship with Monsanto. But that makes it all the more telling that the once staunch-defender of GMO crops is now raising questions about industry’s long-term, decidedly unproven and unscientific, claims that biotechnology is the best thing since sliced (GMO wheat) bread.

Sustainable Pulse does a good job of sifting through the USDA’s report to reveal the agency’s criticisms of GMO crops.

4.   Pesticides are more dangerous than we thought.  Article in BioMed Research International, February 2014

More bad news on pesticides. A study published in BioMed Research International this month says that it’s not just the toxic chemicals we need to worry about in pesticides. It’s the inert ingredients, and how they interact with the active, toxic ingredients.

Typically, studies conducted to determine the safety of pesticides focus exclusively on the active ingredients. But scientists at the University of Caen tested eight commercial products, including Roundup, and found that nine of them were hundreds of times more toxic than their active ingredient alone.

Which product won the “Most Toxic” award? Monsanto’s Roundup, which was found to be “by far the most toxic of the herbicides and insecticides tested,” according to the study.

5. Small-Scale, organic farming needed to feed the world. U.N. Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Wake Up Before It Is Too Late, December 2013

In December 2013, the U.N. Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released the results of a lengthy, in-depth study that blows a huge hole in one of Monsanto’s favorite claims, that we need GMOs to feed the world. The study, entitled Wake Up Before it is Too Late, concluded with this warning: Small-scale organic farming is the only way to feed the world.

According to an analysis by one of the report’s contributors, the report contains in-depth sections on the shift toward more sustainable, resilient agriculture; livestock production and climate change; the importance of research and extension; the role of land use; and the role of reforming global trade rules.

More than 60 experts from around the world contributed to the report.

Clearly the evidence—real, scientific evidence—against GMO crops is mounting, when five new anti-GMO studies and reports surface in a matter of a couple of months.

How much more will it take before the USDA, U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stop supporting an industry under attack from the scientific community? And start putting public health before corporate profits?

In December, more than 200 scientists, physicians, and experts from relevant fields, signed a statement declaring that the biotech industry is deceiving the public when it claims that GMOs are safe. There is, the group said, no “scientific consensus” to support industry’s claims that GMOs are safe.

But as new studies surface every day, it’s become increasingly clear that among credible physicians and scientists, the consensus is that we’d better wake up, soon, to the risks and threats posed by a reckless technology that has been allowed to dominate our food and farming systems, unchecked, for far too long.

The Fight for GMO-Free Food

Why Labeling is a Minimum Demand
by KARL GROSSMAN


Will New York State be the first state in the nation to require the labeling of food containing what has become known as GMO—genetically modified organisms?

More than 60 countries have enacted laws banning the use of GMO in producing food or requiring the labeling of food with ingredients that have utilized genetic modification or genetic engineering. But because of heavy pressure by the biotechnology industry, there are no such laws or regulations in the United States.

There was an attempt in California in November to pass a referendum—Proposition 37—requiring labeling of GMO food. But despite initial strong public support, it failed after an advertising blitz led by biotech giant Monsanto.

“There was a very well-funded misinformation campaign,” said Mark Kastel, co-director of the Cornucopia Institute. “Forty-six million”—the amount of dollars industry poured into the campaign against the proposition, five times as much as labeling supporters—“buys an awful lot of confusion and misunderstanding,” he commented.

Now political action on a state level for labeling genetically modified food has come to New York with a bill before its State Legislature requiring it.

“Consumers have a right to know what’s in their food, especially concerning products for which health and environmental concerns have been raised,” says the sponsor of the measure in the State Senate, Kenneth LaValle of Port Jefferson. A long-time educator and an attorney. he says: “My bill was introduced to give consumers the freedom to choose between GMOs and conventional products. Essentially, if a foodstuff is produced using genetic engineering, this must be indicated on its label.”

Kathleen Furey, education and media director of GMO Free NY—www.gmofreeny.net—has been busy criss-crossing Long Island, New York City and elsewhere in the state challenging GMOs and pressing for passage of the proposed law.

Crops using GMOs were introduced commercially in the United States in 1996. But “Americans are still dining in the dark,” said Ms. Furey in a recent presentation in Sag Harbor, New York. Ms. Furey, a graduate of Stony Brook University’s Sustainability Studies Department with a degree in environmental humanities, said that now in the U.S., 88% of corn, 90% of sugar beets and 94% of soybeans are grown using GMO. Some 80% of “bottled, boxed or canned foods in the U.S.” contain GMO ingredients. And livestock feed “is comprised mostly of GMO corn and soybeans.” GMOs “dominate the agricultural landscape” of America today, she said.

People have “the right to make informed choices about what we eat,” she emphasized. “We have the right to be protected from food health risks and the right to stop being used as guinea pigs.”

GMO technology is used to create “transgenic species” of plants and animals. Through it, genes from one often unrelated species are introduced into another.

The biotechnology industry insists GMO technology doesn’t harm people and is useful. It points to how, with genetic modification, plants resistant to some pests have been developed.

But GMO opponents hold it is harmful and various uses have backfired. Moreover, they charge that the U.S. government—including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the agency empowered to protect Americans from contaminants in their food—has been acting as a rubber stamp for the biotechnology industry, doing its bidding. And it’s not that inside of government there isn’t an awareness of the dangers of GMOs, noted Ms. Furey. She pointed to “internal memos from FDA scientists citing the risks of GMO safety and toxicity that were disregarded by their superiors.”

On pest resistance through GMOs, Ms. Furey spoke of how “superbugs resistant to pest-resistanct GMO crops have evolved and are destroying those crops.” Also, “superweeds resistant to herbicides sprayed on GMO crops have evolved and caused farmers to spray more herbicide per acre and resort to the use of even more-toxic herbicides.”

Ms. Furey and GMO Free NY are supported by national organizations.

The Institute for Responsible Technology—http://www.responsibletechnology.org—based in Iowa, describes genetically modified foods as “not safe.” Its literature stresses a report by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine citing studies finding “serious health risks associated” with GMO food including “infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging…and changes to major organs and the gastrointestinal system.”

Food & Water Watch—http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org—headquartered in Washington, D.C., is warning on its website about the Food and Drug Administration now “paving the way for genetically engineered salmon,” which it calls “frankenfish.” This, furthermore, “would open the floodgates” for genetically modified “cows and pigs which biotech companies are waiting in the wings to finally commercialize after years of research and development.”

Just last month, the U.S. Congress passed and President Barack Obama approved what GMO foes call the “Monsanto the devil Protection Act”—a measure to last initially six months stripping federal courts of the authority to halt the planting and sale of genetically modified crops if litigation is brought alleging health risks. Ms. Furey calls it “incredibly unconstitutional.”

The reach of the biotechnology industry extends into the U.S. Supreme Court. The court had before it in February a case involving Monsanto the devil and genetically engineered seeds, yet Justice Clarence Thomas, formerly a Monsanto the devil attorney, refused to recuse himself. He refused to recuse himself, too, in 2010 in another case involving Monsanto the devil and GMO seeds and joined in the decision favoring Monsanto the devil’s position. “It’s outrageous,” says Ms. Furey.

Overall, the biotechnology industry’s drive for GMOs has been incredibly undemocratic and the process is quite likely unhealthy. Labeling is a minimum—so people can at least know what food is genetically modified and choose what’s still GMO-free.

Monsanto the Devil's Legacy

Wednesday, April 3, 2013 by Common Dreams
Food & Water Watch highlights toxic 'corporatization and industrialization of our food supply'
- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer


Chemical disasters, Agent Orange, and the first genetically modified plant cell are among just some of the dark milestones belonging to the history of the biotech giant Monsanto the devil  highlighted in a new report released Wednesday by consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch.

The in-depth historical analysis Monsanto the devil: A Corporate Profile presents a corporation "steeped in heavy industrial chemical production," who only recently began marketing itself through an "environmentally friendly, feed-the-world image"—an image that is contradictory to a century of toxic chemical production and a food supply saturated with un-labeled GE crops, herbicides, and artificial growth hormones.

Monsanto the devil, as FWW shows, now holds vast "undue influence over lawmakers, regulators, and our food supply," and has caused great devastation to farmers around the world through its global seed monopoly.

“Despite its various marketing incarnations over the years, Monsanto the devil is a chemical company that got its start selling saccharin to Coca-Cola, then Agent Orange to the U.S. military, and, in recent years, seeds genetically engineered to contain and withstand massive amounts of Monsanto the devil herbicides and pesticides,” said Ronnie Cummins, executive director of Organic Consumers Association in response to the report. “Monsanto the devil has become synonymous with the corporatization and industrialization of our food supply.”

“Even though you won’t find the Monsanto the devil brand on a food or beverage container at your local grocery store, the company holds vast power over our food supply,” said Rebecca Spector, West Coast Director for the Center for Food Safety. “This power is largely responsible for something else we cannot find on our grocery store shelves — labels on genetically engineered food. Not only has Monsanto the devil’s and other agribusinesses’ efforts prevented the labeling of GMO foods, but they spend millions to block grassroots efforts like California’s Prop 37 in order to keep consumers in the dark.”

The report arrives after President Obama signed last week what has been dubbed the "Monsanto the devil Protection Act"—legislation critics say amounts to "corporate welfare" for biotechnology corporations like Monsanto the devil that puts both farmers and the environment in jeopardy.

The law will essentially "bar US federal courts from being able to halt the sale or planting of genetically modified (GMO) crops even if they failed to be approved by the government's own weak approval process and no matter what the health or environmental consequences might be," Greenpeace wrote last week.

"At the end of March, the American public saw first hand the unjustifiable power that Monsanto the devil holds over our elected officials when an unprecedented budget rider, dubbed the ‘Monsanto the devil Protection Act,’ was tacked onto the spending bill to fund the federal government,” Dave Murphy, founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now! stated following the release of Food & Water Watches new report. “This is an outrageous interference with our courts and separation of powers and we cannot sit back and allow our elected officials to continue to take orders from Monsanto the devil at the expense of family farmers and consumers.”


From Saccharin to GE Seed, Report Profiles Monsanto the devil’s History Peddling Chemicals for Food, Agriculture, War


Washington, D.C.—From its beginnings as a small chemical company in 1901, Monsanto the devil has grown into the largest biotechnology seed company in the world with net sales of $11.8 billion, 404 facilities in 66 countries across six continents and products grown on over 282 million acres worldwide. Today, the consumer advocacy nonprofit Food & Water Watch released its report, Monsanto the devil: A Corporate Profile.

“There is a growing movement of people around the country who want to take on Monsanto the devil’s undue influence over lawmakers, regulators and the food supply,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch and author of the book Foodopoly. “People need to know about Monsanto the devil’s history as a heavy industrial chemical manufacturer; a reality at odds with the environmentally friendly, feed-the-world image that the company spends millions trying to convey.”

“At the end of March, the American public saw first hand the unjustifiable power that Monsanto the devil holds over our elected officials when an unprecedented rider, dubbed the ‘Monsanto the devil Protection Act,’ was tacked onto the spending bill to fund the federal government,” said Dave Murphy, founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now! “This is an outrageous interference with our courts and separation of powers and we cannot sit back and allow our elected officials to continue to take orders from Monsanto the devil at the expense of family farmers and consumers.”

The report offers a timeline of milestones in the company’s history including chemical disasters, mergers and acquisitions, and the first genetically modified plant cell.


Monsanto the devil: A Corporate Profile can be downloaded here: http://fwwat.ch/MonsantoProfile

Secretive US Senate Amendment Would Weaken Biotech Oversight

Tuesday, March 19, 2013 by Inter Press Service by Carey L Biron


Food safety advocates, environmentalists and health professionals here are engaging in a fervent last-minute campaign to highlight a controversial legislative amendment they say would gut the ability of both the judiciary and the federal government to regulate genetically modified agricultural products.

The U.S. Senate is slated to vote early this week on amendments to a massive, “must pass” bill that would fund the U.S. government’s operations beyond Mar. 27 to the end of this fiscal year. That bill – a piece of stopgap legislation known as a continuing resolution – is so important that leaders in the U.S. Senate had previously suggested that they would not include any potentially controversial amendments.

Yet late last week, reports arose that a legislative “rider” had been anonymously proposed that would allow the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to overrule a judge’s decision to outlaw a genetically modified product. (The amendment can be found here, on page 80.)

As such, even if the courts were to rule that the USDA had illegally approved a particular genetically modified crop, the agency would be allowed to continue telling farmers to use the seed in question. Yet while this would seem to maintain at least the government’s oversight responsibilities, critics say the rider’s impact would go still farther.

“This provision also forces the hand of the USDA, forcing the agency to immediately approve any permits for deregulation of these crops,” Colin O’Neil, a researcher with the Center for Food Safety, a Washington advocacy group, told IPS. “Basically, it takes these oversight responsibilities away from the courts and government and gives them directly to the biotech companies themselves.”

In fact, almost identical language was used in an amendment proposed last year in the House of Representatives, likewise attached to a large, unrelated bill. That attempt, dubbed the “biotech rider”, failed at the time.

“Those behind these provisions have the interests of short-term profits at heart,” O’Neil continues. “We feel that based on the federal court decisions and government reports that have criticised the USDA’s approval of certain biotech products, we need to think long term about better safeguards that will adequately protect all farmers and the environment.”

This time around, critics were tipped off when Jon Tester, a Democratic senator, sounded an alarm on the floor of the Senate, strongly denouncing what he called a “corporate giveaway”.

“Its supporters are calling it the ‘farmer assurance’ provision, but all it really assures is a lack of corporate liability,” Tester stated.

“The provision says that when a judge finds that the USDA approved a crop illegally, the department must re-approve the crop and allow it to continue to be planted – regardless of what the judge says. Think about that.”

Tester is an organic farmer, described as one of the few in the U.S. Congress who continues to farm. He has now sponsored a counter-amendment that would strip away the “biotech rider”.

“These provisions are giveaways worth millions of dollars to a handful of the biggest corporations in this country and deserve no place in this bill,” he added.

“Not only does this ignore the Constitution’s idea of separation of powers, but it also lets genetically modified crops take hold across the country – even when a judge finds it violates the law … the ultimate loser will be our family farmers going about their business and feeding America the right way.”

Herbicide drift

The new rider could also harm U.S. farmers’ attempts to sell their products abroad. In January, for instance, the European Union temporarily froze the approvals process for new genetically modified foods, and dozens of other countries have similarly moved to more tightly regulate their markets.

Yet if the current legislation were to pass, the USDA would be hamstrung from preventing “contamination” of U.S. foodstocks by genetically modified products.

The continued appearance of the “biotech rider” is most likely a reaction to scepticism that has repeatedly been voiced by the federal courts over approval of genetically engineer crops, in addition to the prospect of a new, “next generation” of biotech crops.

The industry has experienced a number of setbacks, including findings that the use of genetically modified crops has increased the use of pesticides, as well as accusations that these crops pose an economic threat to organic and even conventional farmers.

Further, it has become increasingly apparent that genetically modified agricultural material does not necessarily stay on the farms where it is used. In this regard, environmentalists have expressed particular concern over genetically modified crops engineered to withstand stronger and stronger herbicides.

“‘Herbicide drift’ is one of many harms from industrial agriculture – farmers are experiencing economic loss when their crops are killed or damaged when herbicides become volatile and drift in from neighbouring farms,” the Center for Food Safety’s O’Neil says.

“We already have around 64 million acres infested with herbicide-resistant weeds in this country. Yet the next generation of these products appears to be simply moving towards genetically modified crops that are resistant to the older herbicides – what we call the ‘pesticide treadmill’.”

The federal government, he says, has been unable to make headway on the issue.

“So far, the USDA has failed to address issues like the proliferation of herbicide-resistant weeds,” O’Neil says. “We now worry that herbicide drift could be the next issue that the USDA fails to adequately address.”

Amendments to the continuing resolution were to be accepted until late Tuesday, with a vote on all riders expected thereafter. Senate leaders have said a vote would be held on the full bill by the end of the week.

Genetic Roulette - The Gamble of Our Lives

GMO AGo-Go

Monsanto the Devil vs. The People

Tuesday, January 15, 2013 by Al-Jazeera
by Charlotte Silver

Last week Monsanto the devil announced staggering profits from 2012 to celebratory shareholders while American farmers filed into Washington, DC to challenge the Biotech giant’s right to sue farmers whose fields have become contaminated with Monsanto the devil’s seeds. On January 10 oral arguments began before the U.S. Court of Appeals to decide whether to reverse the cases' dismissal last February.

Monsanto the devil has established a conveniently intimidating reputation as "a ruthless prosecutor of non-GMO farmers" whose fields have been "contaminated by their neighbours' genetically engineered crops".

Monsanto the devil's earnings nearly doubled analysts' projections and its total revenue reached $2.94bn at the end of 2012. The increased price of Roundup herbicide, continued market domination in the United States and, perhaps most significant, expanded markets in Latin America are all contributing factors to Monsanto the devil's booming business.

Exploiting their patent on GMO corn, soybean and cotton, Monsanto the devil asserts an insidious control of those agricultural industries in the US, effectively squeezing out conventional farmers (those using non-transgenic seeds) and eliminating their capacity to viably participate and compete on the market. (Until the end of 2012, Monsanto the devil was under investigation by the Department of Justice for violating anti-trust laws by practicing anticompetitive activities towards other biotech companies, but that investigation was quietly closed before the year's end.)

The seemingly modest objective of the current lawsuit, OSGATA et al v Monsanto the devil, originally filed in March 2011, is to acquire legal protection for organic and conventional farmers from Monsanto the devil's aggressive prosecution of inadvertent patent infringements. But the implications of the suit are momentous. If the DC Court of Appeal reverses the dismissal, a process of discovery will be instigated that could unveil a reservoir of information, access to which Monsanto the devil has withheld from public knowledge - both by not disclosing it and preventing independent research.

Monsanto the devil's abuse of patents

Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto the devil filed 144 lawsuits against family farmers and settled 700 cases out of court. Furthermore, food groups estimate that Monsanto the devil investigates hundreds of farmers each year as potential culprits of patent infringement.

Victims of Monsanto the devil's predatory lawsuits include farmers who used Monsanto the devil seed but violated the licensing agreement, as well as those farmers who never had any intention of growing GE plants. OSGATA et al v Monsanto the devil deals with the latter group and represents 31 farms and farmers, 13 seed-selling businesses, and 31 agricultural organizations that represent more than 300,000 individuals and 4,500 farms or farmers.

Plaintiffs requested a declaratory judgment that would ensure Monsanto the devil was not entitled to sue the plaintiffs for patent infringement.

Jim Gerritson, president of OSGATA (Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association) and lead plaintiff in the case, explained to me that organic and non-GMO farmers are a "Classic example of why Congress passed the Declaratory Judgment Act: if you have a group that fears being bullied by a large company, they can petition for protection from claims of patent infringement."

But the federal courts have always protected Monsanto the devil's rights to profit via a patenting system that increasingly impinges on individual and market freedom, allowing Monsanto the devil to abuse its patent rights. In a natural alliance, OSGATA is represented by attorney Dan Ravicher and Public Patent Foundation, an organization dedicated to creating a just patent system that balances individual freedom and the ethical issuing of patents.

Monsanto the devil has established a conveniently intimidating reputation as a ruthless prosecutor of non-GMO farmers whose fields have been contaminated by their neighbours' genetically engineered corn - either through cross-pollination or accidental seed mixing during harvest.

With these terrifying exemplars in mind, farmers have taken on the burden of preventing contamination by setting up buffer zones, conducting genetic testing and in some cases, giving up on planting the crop altogether.

Monopolizing effect

By detailing how many conventional farmers have given up trying to grow certain crops, OSGATA's motion to appeal emphasizes the monopolization that has resulted from Monsanto the devil's aggressive pursuit of patent infringement cases. It is estimated that 88 percent of corn and 93 percent of soybeans are genetically modified, most of them by Monsanto the devil. Bryce Stephens, an organic farmer in the northwest of Kansas, is one of those farmers who have decided to forgo growing corn and soybeans due to the inevitable contamination that will result.

"My fear of contamination by transgenic corn and soybeans and the resulting risk of being accused of patent infringement prevent me from growing corn and soybeans on my farm. There is no other reason why I do not grow those crops, and I would very much like to do so."

As Gerritson described to me, "Farmers have suffered economic loss because they've abandoned growing corn and soybeans because they are certain they will be contaminated. They cannot put their farms and families at risk of being sued for patent infringement."

Monsanto the devil knows that consumers won't voluntarily buy their products - a lesson they learned in Europe when GE foods there were required to be labelled as such. In America, the company and its allies have spent millions to defeat local labelling initiatives, most recently in California. But if the company successfully crowds out conventional farmers, Americans won't have a choice - with or without a label.

In spite of the creation of this dangerous monopoly, in February 2012, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald granted Monsanto the devil's request and dismissed the initial suit, casting the farmers' concerns as "overstated"; urging the plaintiffs to trust Monsanto the devil's (non-legally binding) promises to not exercise their patent rights over inadvertent acquisition of traces of GE plants; and insisting that farmers have created "a controversy where none exists".

If the farmers' case is allowed to go forward, the very least that will happen is of supreme importance: that is, through the process of discovery the public will gain access to a trove of information that Monsanto the devil has successfully stashed away. Ravicher believes that it can then be established that the products Monsanto the devil peddles are not healthy and, hence, are not for the good of society. Quoting a 150-year-old case, Ravicher reminds us that "an invention to poison the people is not patentable".

It's clear that the movement to defeat Monsanto the devil is growing. Win or lose this round, the people are not giving up on taking down this monster.

GMO Food Fight

Round Two
by RONNIE CUMMINS


On November 6, in the wake of one of the most expensive and scurrilous smear campaigns in history, six million voters scared the hell out of Monsanto the devil and Big Food Inc. by coming within a razor’s edge of passing the first statewide mandatory labeling law for genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Prop 37, a citizens’ ballot initiative that would have required the mandatory labeling of billions of dollars of genetically engineered (GE) foods and put an end to the routine industry practice of fraudulently marketing GE-tainted foods as “natural” or “all natural,” lost by a narrow margin of 48.6% to 51.4%. Opponents couldn’t claim anything close to a landslide, even though they outspent the pro-labeling campaign almost six to one.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) immediately put a happy face on the narrow victory, repeating its tired old propaganda in a public statement: “Proposition 37 was a deeply flawed measure that would have resulted in higher food costs, frivolous lawsuits and increased state bureaucracies. This is a big win for California consumers, taxpayers, business and farmers.”

But Jennifer Hatcher, senior vice president of government and public affairs for the Food Marketing Institute, came closer to expressing the real sentiments of the big guns who opposed Prop 37, a measure she had previously said “scared us to death,” in her official statement:

“This gives us hope that you can, with a well-funded, well-organized, well-executed campaign, defeat a ballot initiative and go directly to the voters. We hope we don’t have too many of them, because you can’t keep doing that over and over again . . .”.

Maybe they can’t. But we can. Unlike the Food Marketing Institute and its friends at the GMA, consumers can – and will – “keep doing that over and over again.” We can – and will – propose state laws and state ballot initiatives as often as we need, in as many states as we must, until we have what 61 other countries have: truth and transparency in the form of mandatory GMO labeling laws. Far from giving up, the alternative food and farming movement that was narrowly defeated in California has evolved into a battle-savvy, seasoned national movement, bigger and stronger than ever.

As Zuri Allen, California Field Organizer of the Organic Consumers Association put it, “We may have lost this first major battle in California, but millions of angry and energized consumers across the country are now joining together in a nationwide right to know campaign which will ultimately drive genetically engineered crops and foods off the market.”

That clearly has Big Biotech and Big Food worried. And well it should. We’ve barely rung in the new year, and already GMO labeling battles are heating up in Washington State, Vermont and Connecticut. Other states aren’t far behind.

On Jan. 4, activists in Washington State delivered approximately 300,000 signatures to the state legislature to guarantee that a mandatory GMO labeling Initiative, I-522, will be on the ballot in November. Initial polling shows that Washington state voters will likely pass this Ballot Initiative, no matter how much money the biotech industry and large food corporations put into an anti-labeling campaign.

On the other side of the country, Vermont is picking up where it left off last year after the governor caved in to Monsanto’s threats to sue the state if it passed a GMO labeling law. Undaunted, and buoyed by 90% support from consumers, legislators will reintroduce a GMO labeling bill in early January. Vermont’s pro-organic, anti-GMO proponents fully expect to pass a labeling bill by May. Connecticut is right behind them, with plans to introduce a similarly popular GMO labeling bill early this year.

Why a win is just around the corner.

Giant biotech and junk food corporations, joined by major food processors and supermarket chains, poured more than $46 million dollars into a vicious dirty tricks campaign to defeat GMO labeling in California. Their tactics included a relentless barrage of TV and radio ads falsely claiming GE food labels would raise grocery prices, hurt family farmers, and enrich trial lawyers. They unleashed “scientific” testimonials manufactured by phony front groups, and they mailed counterfeit voter guides. They may even have engaged in “vote-flipping” by pre-programming electronic voting tabulators.

A statewide pre-election eve poll conducted by Lake Research found that the Biotech Behemoth’s “No on 37” propaganda campaign successfully confused many Californians. As of Nov. 5, the day before the election, the majority of Californians stated that they still supported mandatory labeling of GE foods. But a critical mass, especially the 40% who voted early by absentee ballot, said they were willing to give up their right to know what was in their food if mandatory GE labels might increase food costs, expand the size and power of state bureaucrats, harm family farmers or unfairly benefit trial lawyers and other “special interests.”

That changed once the YES on 37 campaign launched its own modest $3-million ad campaign on October 27. Once the pro-labeling ads rolled out, several million undecided voters saw through the biotech and junk-food industry propaganda and voted Yes on 37. In fact, Prop 37 won the election-day vote. But it was too little, too late. The campaign couldn’t recover from its losses in early voting.

That was California. Washington State promises to tell a different story.

Looking at the logistics and outcome of the Prop 37 campaign in California in 2012 and comparing these to the upcoming I-522 battle in Washington, there are several major differences that will likely prove to be decisive:

Size and campaign costs. California is an enormous state, both geographically and in terms of population. Its TV and radio ad markets are also among the priciest in the country. Tough for a grassroots campaign with a small budget to reach California voters far and wide, on the ground and through the media. Even tougher to compete with an opposition willing and able to spend $46 million to win. Compare that scenario with Washington State, which has one-fifth the population of California, and where $1 spent on TV ads equals $8 in California. Factor in that Washington’s population is highly concentrated in the health and environmentally-conscious Seattle metropolitan area, and it’s easy to see that internet, in-person contact, and radio and TV advertising will cost less and be easier to execute in Washington than it was in California. Experts estimate that Monsanto and its allies will be able to spend only $20 million in Washington on advertising. That’s enough to saturate the state’s airwaves. But it’s not too much for the Yes on I-522 campaign to overcome as long as it can raise and spend $4-$5 million – about half of what the California labeling campaign raised.

Timing. In California, Yes on 37 forces didn’t get on the ballot until May. That left only six months for public education and fundraising. In Washington, I-522 proponents have a full nine months before people begin their voting (which is by mail).

Support from farmers and rural communities. In California, Prop 37 was supported mostly by consumers and organic farmers. In Washington State, wheat farmers, whether organic or not, apple farmers and fishing communities also vocally support mandatory GMO labeling. That’s because GMO labeling is arguably in the best economic interests of a state where unlabeled GMO wheat, apples and salmon spilling into the market would severely damage state agricultural exports to countries that either forbid GMO imports or require GMO labeling.

Progressive elected officials and electorate. California’s Governor Brown refused to take a stand on Prop 37. But Washington’s new elected Governor, Jay Inslee, is a long-time supporter and former Congressional advocate of GMO labeling. Washington voters recently reminded us that they are proud progressives, by approving the legalization of marijuana via a November ballot Initiative. California voters defeated a similar measure in 2010.

The Frankenfish controversy. Despite enormous public opposition and warnings by scientists that genetically engineered salmon pose unacceptable health and environmental risks, the Obama administration’s FDA announced in late December that it would nonetheless allow unlabeled genetically engineered salmon to be commercialized. Polls show that Washington voters are adamantly opposed to this fast-growing, likely allergenic mutant salmon – part fish, part eel – entering the market. Fishermen/fisherwomen, chefs and restaurants are already raising their voices in opposition. Meanwhile in Alaska, GMO salmon will have to be labeled because of a state law passed in 2005. The biotech industry is going to have a difficult time explaining why Frankenfish have to be labeled in Alaska, but not in Washington or other states.

Divisions between Big Food and Big Biotech. As the comments by the Food Marketing Institute executive suggest, big food companies are starting to worry about their image. They’re worried about having to fight costly, high-profile battles against GMO labeling in numerous states, possibly even simultaneously. A number of large food companies that dumped big money into defeating Prop 37 – companies like Kellogg’s, General Mills, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft and Dean Foods, own “natural” or organic brands. Those brands, including Kashi, Muir Glen, Cascadian Farm, Ben and Jerry’s, White Wave, Horizon and others, are starting to feel the heat from angry consumers who have joined the “Traitor Boycott.” How long will the nation’s food manufacturers and supermarket chains carry the water and do the dirty work for Monsanto the devil and biotech industry?

It’s only a matter of time before we pass GMO legislation. Once we do, it will mark the beginning of the end for GMO food and farming, just as it did in Europe. But to ensure that this happens, sooner rather than later, state GMO right-to-know campaigns in Washington, Vermont, Connecticut and other states need money, technical assistance volunteers, and endorsements. You can help by donating to the Washington state ballot initiative, I-522, and other state GMO labeling efforts.

Monsanto Gets Its Way in Ag Bill

A New Level of Corporate Collusion with Government

by JIM GOODMAN


“The Farmers Assurance Provision” is the title of a rider, Section 733, inserted into the House of Representatives 2013 Agriculture Appropriations Bill. Somehow, as a farmer, I don’t feel the least bit assured.

The only assurance it provides is that Monsanto the devil and the rest of the agriculture biotech industry will have carte blanche to force the government to allow the planting of their biotech seeds.
In addition, the House Agriculture Committee’s 2012 farm bill draft includes three riders – Sections 1011, 10013 and 10014. These amendments would essentially destroy any oversight of new Genetically Modified (GMO) crops by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

If these riders had been in place during the review of GMO alfalfa, Monsanto the devil could have requested – no they could have compelled – the Secretary of Agriculture to allow continued planting of GMO alfalfa even though a federal court had ruled commercialization was illegal pending completion of an environmental impact study.

Essentially, the riders would prevent the federal courts from restricting, in any way, the planting of a GMO crop, regardless of environmental, health or economic concerns. USDA’s mandated review process would be, like court-ordered restrictions, meaningless. A request to USDA to allow planting of a GMO crop awaiting approval would have to be granted.

Wow, who’s next to get in on a deal like this, the drug companies?

Not only will the riders eviscerate the power of USDA and the authority of the courts, but it will also permanently dismiss any input from other agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Fish and Wildlife Service or Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Does Congress really believe it has the right to remove the court’s power of Congressional oversight? Doesn’t that violate the separation of powers guaranteed in the Constitution?

The trade group behind the riders, Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), insists that the riders do not, in any way, reduce regulatory requirements for new GMO crops. What? They only eliminate any oversight from the judicial branch – that’s sort of a big thing.

The approval process for new GMO crops is not without its perceived delays. As limited as it may be, review takes time but getting new GMO crops approved is a cakewalk.

StarLink corn and Liberty Link rice slipped through the approval process only to have major contamination and health issues after commercialization. Once a crop is in the USDA pipeline, approval is a near certainty.

BIO insists the riders are necessary to avoid delays in approval. Of course, delays cost them MONEY, which is obviously all they are concerned about. If they were concerned about environmental impacts, or food safety, wouldn’t they request input from EPA and FDA?

So, the “Farmer Assurance “ thing – using farmers as their poster children — is quite disingenuous. The biotech industry cares about farmers because farmers are their meal ticket.

Farmers are not stupid; we’ve learned that the promises of biotech were short lived at best and to various degrees, simply false. The new GMO crops are basically the old GMO crops, just redesigned to resist different, more toxic herbicides while having become less effective at killing insect pests.

No, the Farmer Assurance Provision and the Farm Bill riders – are not about farmers, nor are they about speeding needed crops to the waiting public. They’re about getting fast rubber stamp approval for new, profitable GMO crops.

These riders are an effort to end run Congress, the Courts and the Constitution.

Corporate collusion with government is not new, but this takes it to a new level. By allowing corporations to subvert the Constitution, Congress is saying that corporate influence and profits are more important than the best interests of the people.

Corporations are not people, my friends, despite the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

Corporate Push for GMO Food Puts Independent Science in Jeopardy

Friday, December 7, 2012 by The Asian Age
by Vandana Shiva

Science is considered science when it is independent, when it has integrity and when it speaks the truth about its search. It was the integrity, independence and sovereignty of science that drew me and propelled me to study physics.

Today, independent science is threatened with extinction. While this is true in every field, it is the field of food and agriculture that I am most concerned about.

At the heart of the food and agriculture debate are genetically modified organisms, also referred to as GMOs. The agrochemical industry’s new avatar is as the GMO industry. According to the industry, GMOs are necessary to remove hunger and are safe.

But evidence from all independent scientists has established that GMOs do not contribute to food security. The UN-sponsored International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) report — written by 400 scientists after a research of three to four years — concluded that there is no evidence that GMOs increase food security. The Union of Concerned scientists concluded in its report, “A Failure to Yield”, that in the US, genetic engineering had not increased the yield. “The GMO Emperor Has No Clothes” — a Global Citizens’ report on the state of GMOs based on field research across the world — also found that genetic engineering has not increased yields. Yet, the propaganda continues that GMOs are the only solution to hunger because GMOs increase yields.

The Supreme Court of India appointed an independent Technical Expert Committee (TEC) to advise it on issues of biosafety. The committee has some of India’s most eminent scientists, including Dr Imran Siddiqui, director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, and Dr P.S. Ramakrishnan, India’s leading biodiversity expert and professor emeritus at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

One would have expected the government to accept the recommendations of this eminent panel and to throw its weight behind the integrity and independence of science.

The most effective road to reducing hunger and malnutrition is to intensify land use in terms of biodiversity and ecological processes of renewal of soil fertility. Biodiverse ecological farms increase food and nutrition output per acre.

Instead, the government is throwing its weight behind the industry and its fraudulent claims. The Centre has joined the industry in opposing the expert committee’s report recommending moratorium on open field trial of GM crops for 10 years. Responding to a direct query from a bench presided over by Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice S.J. Mukhopadaya, Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati, appearing for the Centre, said that the Centre does not accept the recommendations of the TEC. With the industry also filing objections to the report, the court directed the expert committee to give a final report after considering objections by various parties.

Stressing on the need to introduce GM crops, the Centre has said it would not be able to meet the first millennium development goal (MDG) of cutting the number of hungry people by half without such technologies. A moratorium of 10 years would take the country 20 years back in scientific research, it added.

These are fallacious arguments. Only two per cent of the GMO soy in the US is eaten by humans. The rest is used as biofuel to run cars and as animal feed. More GMOs do not mean more food.

The most effective road to reducing hunger and malnutrition is to intensify land use in terms of biodiversity and ecological processes of renewal of soil fertility. Biodiverse ecological farms increase food and nutrition output per acre.

The real scientific need for India and the world is to do research on agroecology, on how biodiversity and agro-ecosystems can produce more food while using lesser resources.

In the chemical industrial paradigm, seed and soil are empty containers to add toxic chemicals and genes to, and water is limitless. Industrial agriculture is destroying the natural capital on which food security depends.

The industrial agriculture and GMO paradigm has no understanding of the millions of soil organisms that produce soil fertility, the thousands of crop species that feed us, the amazing work of pollinators like bees and butterflies. And because ecological interactions that produce food are a black hole in the GMO paradigm, the impact of the release of GMOs in the environment is also a black hole. Independent science is vital to fill the gaps in knowledge about the ecology of food production and the ecology of biosafety. This is the knowledge gap that the TEC and independent scientists everywhere are trying to fill.

All independent research on safety indicates that GMOs have serious biosafety issues. This is why we have a UN biosafety protocol.

Beginning with Hungarian-born biochemist and nutritionist Dr Arpad Putzai and continuing with French scientist Dr Seralini, the GMO industry and its lobbyists assault every independent scientist whose research shows that GMOs have risks. Dr Putzai’s research, commissioned by the UK government, showed that rats fed with GMO potatoes had shrunken brains, enlarged pancreas and damaged immunity. Dr Putzai was hounded out of his lab and a gag order was put on him.

The publication of a paper in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology “Long Term Toxicity of a Roundup Herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant GM Maize” by Dr Seralini et al (2012) has generated intense debate on the safety or otherwise of Monsanto the devil’s GM maize NK603.

The European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER) welcomes Dr Seralini’s study. I joined 120 scientists to sign a letter — Seralini and Science: An Open Letter — supporting Dr Seralini’s study.

Independent science is vital to fill the gaps in knowledge about the ecology of food production and the ecology of biosafety.

Russia and Kazakhstan have since halted imports of NK603 maize and, more recently, the Kenyan Cabinet has issued a directive to stop the import of GM foods due to inadequate research done on GMOs and lack of scientific evidence to prove the safety of the food.

This precautionary approach is what India’s Supreme Court-appointed TEC is calling for.

Citizens of California had put up Proposition 37 in the recent elections for something as simple as the “Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food” by having a label on GMO foods. This is recognised as a citizen’s right in Europe and now in India. But the California vote was defeated by industry spending — big food industry players are paying big bucks to battle California’s GMO labelling initiative. According to reports, they are spending as much as $1 million a day on false and misleading advertising.

If citizens don’t have the right to know and scientists don’t have the freedom to speak the truth, we are creating societies that are dangerous — both in terms of loss of democratic freedom and in terms of risking biosafety.

Independent scientists, along with the bees and biodiversity of our plants and seeds, could well become a species threatened with extinction if we do not stop the GMO drone.