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Friday, August 14, 2015

MONSANTO'S ROUNDUP BANNED, RECLASSIFIED 'PROBABLY CARCINOGENIC '

FROM NEWSWEEK, JUNE 15, 2015FRANCE BANS MONSANTO'S ROUNDUP, 3 MONTHS AFTER U.N. CALLS IT 'PROBABLE CARCINOGEN'
"On Sunday, French Ecology Minister Ségolène Royal announced that the government would ban the sale of Roundup at garden centers in the country. "France must be on the offensive with regards to the banning of pesticides," Royal said on French television, according to 
Agence France-Presse. "I have asked garden centers to stop putting Monsanto's Roundup on sale"

Shortly after the WHO announcement, Patrick Moore, who has an ecology Ph.D. and is a controversial defender of genetically modified crops, 
offered to drink Roundup on French television to prove its safety.
But when a TV host offered him a glass of the stuff, Moore refused,
and the video of the exchange quickly went viral online."


THE NETHERLANDS BANS ROUNDUP
 May 25, 2015    
"
First Russia, Tasmania, and Mexico say no to Monsanto and now, the Netherlands have passed a similar ban, determined to keep Glyphosate-laced herbicides away from the general public for good.

Late last year, the Dutch parliament voted to ban the sale of glyphosate-based herbicides to private parties. The ban, under which agricultural use is excluded, was initially proposed several years ago. However, it is thought that Monsanto influence prevented it from taking place at the time."




Mar 26 2014
"This news comes as another huge blow to the biotech industry, following as it does last week’s ruling  by Brazil’s Federal Appeals Court that unanimously decided to cancel the release for cultivation of Bayer’s Liberty Link GM Maize."

DENMARK ACTUALLY TOOK THE LEAD AND BANNED ROUNDUP IN 2003.

Many other countries have banned glyphosate or are planning to ban it. 
When will the United States follow suit?

Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning in France
Feb 13, 2012, REUTERS
"A French court on Monday declared U.S. biotech giant Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning of a French farmer, a judgment that could lend weight to other health claims against pesticides.

In the first such case heard in court in France, grain grower Paul Francois, 47, says he suffered neurological problems including memory loss, headaches and stammering after inhaling Monsanto's Lasso weedkiller in 2004.

He blames the agri-business giant for not providing adequate warnings on the product label.

Monsanto said it was disappointed by the ruling and would examine whether to appeal the judgment.

Previous health claims from farmers have foundered because of the difficulty of establishing clear links between illnesses and exposure to pesticides.

Francois and other farmers suffering from illness set up an association last year to make a case that their health problems should be linked to their use of crop protection products.

The agricultural branch of the French social security system says that since 1996, it has gathered farmers' reports of sickness potentially related to pesticides, with about 200 alerts a year.

The Francois case goes back to a period of intensive use of crop-protection chemicals in the European Union. 


The EU and its member countries have since banned a large number of substances considered dangerous."

A few years ago, there were sixteen countries that had TOTAL OR PARTIAL BANS on GMOs. 

Now there are at least twenty-six, including Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, China, India, Japan, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Mexico and Russia.

Significant restrictions on GMOs exist in about sixty other countries.

In Brazil popular resistance is growing against the government’s attempts to pass a law which would allow for the use of GM terminator or suicide seeds – seeds which make crops die off after one harvest without producing offspring. 
As a result, farmers would have to buy new seeds for each new planting, making them dependent on major seed and chemical companies.
In 2000, 193 countries signed up to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, which recommended a de facto moratorium on this technology.

2015 Survey: 68% of Doctors Think GMOs Should be Labeled
July 9, 2015

ALL OF THE GMO CROPS ARE BIOENGINEERED TO RESIST HERBICIDES, WHICH MEAN FARMERS MUST USE MORE AND MORE HERBICIDE TO BATTLE PESTS AND "SUPER WEEDS".
ROUNDUP, BY MONSANTO, IS THE HERBICIDE OF CHOICE IN AMERICA.
ROUNDUP IS A GLYPHOSATE HERBICIDE,

EVEN the World Health Organization's research arm declares glyphosate a probable carcinogen, BUT NOT THE EPA!


The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, concluded that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen, a statement that has been followed by an immediate backlash from industry groups.

A summary of the study was published in The Lancet Oncology.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(15)70134-8

Glyphosate, and specifically the product ROUNDUP, has been linked to tumors in mice and rats — and there is also what the IARC classifies as ‘mechanistic evidence’, such as DNA damage to human cells from exposure to glyphosate.

GENETICALLY ENGINEERED MAIZE STUDY REPUBLISHED


"A controversial paper linking genetically modified maize to the development of tumors and other severe disease in rats, which was published in 2012 and retracted in 2013, has now been published again, by a different journal.

Four other journals offered to publish the paper, lead author Gilles-Eric Séralini says. He and his team chose the journal Environmental Sciences Europe, he says, because it is open access so would make the study’s findings available to the whole scientific community."


THAT PAPER WENT ONLINE ON JUNE 24, 2014, BUT WENT UNNOTICED, OR AT LEAST UNREPORTED BY AMERICAN MAINSTREAM MEDIA.


Abstract

Background
The health effects of a Roundup-tolerant NK603 genetically modified (GM) maize (from 11% in the diet), cultivated with or without Roundup application and Roundup alone (from 0.1 ppb of the full pesticide containing glyphosate and adjuvants) in drinking water, were evaluated for 2 years in rats. This study constitutes a follow-up investigation of a 90-day feeding study conducted by Monsanto in order to obtain commercial release of this GMO, employing the same rat strain and analyzing biochemical parameters on the same number of animals per group as our investigation. Our research represents the first chronic study on these substances, in which all observations including tumors are reported chronologically. Thus, it was not designed as a carcinogenicity study. We report the major findings with 34 organs observed and 56 parameters analyzed at 11 time points for most organs.

Results

Biochemical analyses confirmed very significant chronic kidney deficiencies, for all treatments and both sexes; 76% of the altered parameters were kidney-related. In treated males, liver congestions and necrosis were 2.5 to 5.5 times higher. Marked and severe nephropathies were also generally 1.3 to 2.3 times greater. In females, all treatment groups showed a two- to threefold increase in mortality, and deaths were earlier. This difference was also evident in three male groups fed with GM maize. All results were hormone- and sex-dependent, and the pathological profiles were comparable. 
Females developed large mammary tumors more frequently and before controls; the pituitary was the second most disabled organ; the sex hormonal balance was modified by consumption of GM maize and Roundup treatments. 

Males presented up to four times more large palpable tumors starting 600 days earlier than in the control group, in which only one tumor was noted. These results may be explained by not only the non-linear endocrine-disrupting effects of Roundup but also by the overexpression of the EPSPS transgene or other mutational effects in the GM maize and their metabolic consequences.

Conclusion

Our findings imply that long-term (2 year) feeding trials need to be conducted to thoroughly evaluate the safety of GM foods and pesticides in their full commercial formulations.

A MAJOR DEPARTMENT OF THE FDA IS TODAY HEADED BY A FORMER MONSANTO CEO.
THE FDA, USDA, EPA ALL ALLOWED MONSANTO TO MARKET THEIR ROUNDUP AND GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD PRODUCTS AFTER, AT MOST, A SHORT 90-DAY "STUDY" ON RATS.


SOME MONSANTO PRODUCTS OFFERED NO STUDIES BEFORE BEING MARKETED.

MONSANTO DID THE RAT STUDIES, OR CLAIMED TO,  FOR ONLY 90 DAYS, WHICH WAS FINE, JUST FINE BY THE FDA.

ONLY 90 DAYS.

IT IS INTERESTING TO NOTE THAT FOOD ANIMALS RAISED ON GM GRAINS ARE SENT TO MARKET AT A YOUNGER AGE THAN CATTLE, HOGS, SHEEP, POULTRY WHO DO NOT GET FED GM PRODUCTS.
MANY HAVE QUESTIONED THIS PRACTICE AND WONDERED IF THE ANIMALS ARE PROCESSED BEFORE THE EFFECTS OF GM FEED BECOMES GLARINGLY OBVIOUS IN THEIR BODIES.
SHORT TERM VERSUS LONG TERM EFFECTS SHOW THAT LONG TERM SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE FOCUS OF STUDIES FROM THE START.

DID MONSANTO DO ANY HUMAN STUDIES?

DO PIGS FLY?

MONSANTO NEVER HAD TO DO HUMAN STUDIES...NOT ONE.

ROUNDUP, LIKE ALL MONSANTO PRODUCTS, INCLUDING ITS GMO FOODS, WAS OKAYED FOR MARKET IN RECORD TIME WITHOUT EITHER LONG-TERM STUDIES ON LAB RATS, OR ANY STUDY INVOLVING THEIR EFFECTS ON HUMAN BEINGS.

NO ONE KNEW WHAT LONG-TERM EFFECTS THERE WOULD BE!
NO ONE SEEMED TO CARE AT THE FDA, USDA, EPA OR ANYWHERE IN GOVERNMENT.

COULD THAT BE BECAUSE EX-MONSANTO EMPLOYEES HAVE HEADED DEPARTMENTS WITHIN THE FDA FOR A DECADE OR MORE AND HELD POSITIONS IN ALL OF OUR "REGULATORY AGENCIES".

ALL THEY SEEM TO WANT TO REGULATE IS OUR RIGHT TO FREE CHOICE AS TO WHAT FOODS WE CONSUME AND OUR RIGHT TO KNOW WHAT'S IN THE FOODS WE EAT, WHO GROWS THEM AND WHETHER OR NOT THEY ARE GENETICALLY MODIFIED, BIO-ENGINEERED FOODS.

HOW VERY CONVENIENT FOR MONSANTO, RIGHT?

HOW CAN IT BE THAT, KNOWING HUMANS WOULD BE DIRECTLY IN CONTACT WITH ROUNDUP, MONSANTO NEVER HAD TO DO HUMAN STUDIES, YET THE HERBICIDE WAS OKAYED FOR MARKET IN RECORD TIME?

COULD IT BE THE VERY SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP MONSANTO AND THE GMO COMPANIES HAVE ENJOYED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SINCE THE FIRST WORLD WAR?


MONSANTO DID SUPPLY AGENT ORANGE TO THE MILITARY BACK DURING THE VIETNAM WAR.
MONSANTO HAS PRODUCED 10 WELL KNOWN POISONS.
[LIST BELOW UNDER FURTHER READING]

HOW DOES MONSANTO CARRY SO MUCH POLITICAL WEIGHT, SO MUCH CLOUT WHEN IT COMES TO THE BUSINESS OF PRODUCING UNTESTED PRODUCTS?


IT'S CALLED A "REVOLVING DOOR"...MONSANTO PEOPLE GET EMPLOYED BY THE FDA, EPA, USDA THEN MAYBE GO BACK TO MONSANTO, OR ELSE THEY LEAVE FEDERAL JOBS AND GO TO WORK FOR MONSANTO...AS A "REWARD" MAYBE?

COME ON!
THIS ISN'T CONSPIRACY THEORY CRAP!
THIS IS SIMPLY FACTUAL INFORMATION AND HAS EVEN BEEN REPORTED ON BY BIG NAMES IN AMERICAN MEDIA.
NOT FOR LONG, NOT FOR LONG ENOUGH, BUT EVEN THE NEW YORK TIMES QUESTIONED THE "REVOLVING DOOR" BETWEEN OUR "REGULATORY AGENCIES" AND THE KINGS OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED PRODUCTS!

ANYONE CAN GO LOOK ON LINKEDIN AND SIMILAR WEBSITES AND SEE HOW MANY HAVE BEEN EMPLOYED BY BOTH OUR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND MONSANTO, ET AL.

"Most high-level FDA employees have a background in either medicine or law, but one of the largest private-sector sources is the Monsanto Company. Over the past decades, at least seven high-ranking employees in the FDA have an employment history with the Monsanto Company.
Connections have led many to speculate whether any conflicts of interest exist within this revolving door between the big food companies and the department charged with regulating them.
At the forefront of this controversy is Michael R. Taylor, currently the deputy commissioner of the Office of Foods. He was also the deputy commissioner for Policy within the FDA in the mid ’90s. However, between that position and his current FDA position, Mr. Taylor was employed by Monsanto as Vice President of Public Policy.
During his employment with Monsanto, the company was developing rBGH, a type of beef growth hormone. Mr. Taylor advised the company on the possible legal implications of using the hormone on cattle that could reach beef markets for human consumption. However, when Taylor left Monsanto for the FDA, he became one of the main authorities behind the FDA’s rBGH labeling guidelines, posing potential conflicts of interest.
Also tied up in the rBGH debacle are Margaret Miller and Susan Sechen. 
Miller, the deputy director of the Office of New Animal Drugs at the FDA, and a former Monsanto scientist, helped develop rBGH. Sechen, a data reviewer in Miller’s department, worked as a graduate student on some of the initial bovine drug studies. 
These studies were conducted at Cornell University and were financed by none other than Monsanto."

IN FACT, MONSANTO HAS BEEN RIDICULED FOR "SECRETLY FUNDING" STUDIES THAT SHOW ITS PRODUCTS ARE SAFE, AFTER NEWS REPORTS BEGAN FOLLOWING THE MONEY TRAIL OF MOST "POSITIVE" STUDIES ON GM PRODUCTS BACK TO MONSANTO.
IT'S BECOME A BIT OF A JOKE, BUT IT IS NO LAUGHING MATTER TO WHAT EXTENT THE GM MANUFACTURERS WILL GO TO CRAM THEIR PRODUCTS DOWN EVERY THROAT ON EARTH.

PEOPLE FIGHT AGAINST GM FOODS, BUT FEW THIRD WORLD NATIONS' POPULACE HAVE THE FINANCIAL MEANS TO FIGHT THESE GIANTS OF INDUSTRY.
IT'S BEST TO LAUNCH GE PRODUCTS IN POORER NATIONS BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE THE FUNDS TO FILE LAWSUITS.


Although epidemic levels of liver disease have been reported in farmers and farm workers in Sri Lanka, India, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and other South American countries, where herbicide overuse is ongoing, where ROUNDUP was the ONLY herbicide used on GM rice and sugarcane, where such diseases PRIOR to the use of ROUNDUP were virtually unknown, MONSANTO has fought its way through all lawsuits and has the money to continue fighting, even after victims have died and families seek compensation!

ROUNDUP RESISTANT CROPS REQUIRE MORE AND MORE PRODUCT, YOU SEE.
IT'S GOOD FOR BUSINESS TO GENETICALLY DESIGN CROPS THAT NEED MORE OF THE GM SEED SUPPLIERS HERBICIDE!

GE (GENETICALLY ENGINEERED) COMPANIES WIN, WIN!
BUT IT SURELY APPEARS THAT EVERYONE WHO USES THEIR PRODUCTS WILL LOSE IN THE LONG RUN.

CONGRESS HAS MADE MONSANTO IMMUNE NOW TO LAWSUITS ARISING FROM FARMERS' USE OF GM SEED PRODUCTS!
CONGRESS GETS A LOT OF MONEY FROM THE GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROPS BOYS!

 BEFORE DISCUSSING THE RISE IN SEVERAL CANCERS IN AMERICAN POPULATIONS, PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THE FIRST GM/GE CROP WAS HARVESTED IN 1983, AND THAT THEY WERE ENGINEERED TO RESIST  HERBICIDES USED ON THOSE CROPS .

ALSO BE AWARE OF THIS, FROM THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS:
"The American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending a new policy, too, as seen on their website which states:
“The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that chemical management policy in the United States be revised to protect children and pregnant women and to better protect other populations.”
PARENTS, PLEASE ALSO TAKE NOTE THAT..."At the same time, the President’s Cancer Panel, a bipartisan group of experts and scientists, has urged all Americans to reduce their exposure to these synthetic ingredients and toxic chemicals in an effort to reduce the burden of disease and its weight on our economy, with another study coming out showing what pesticide exposure can to do to children and how “it may be putting young children at risk of cancer.”

CANCER ON THE RISE
Dinse et al. examine US data from 1975 to 1994 focusing on long-term time trends in the incidence of various cancers. They use a sophisticated statistical analysis to tease apart the effects of age, period and birth cohort. 
  • Overall cancer rates have increased by 22% and 56% among white women and white men, respectively, over the course of a single generation. Increases in black men and women are comparable.
  • "A contemporary woman's risk of breast cancer is 54% greater than was her mother's at the same age among blacks and 41% greater among whites."
  • "Men today have about a three- to four-fold risk of being diagnosed with prostate cancer compared with their fathers."
  • Excluding cancers linked to smoking, or where trends are confounded by changes in diagnostic procedure (breast and prostate; see below), "relative to the previous generation, rates increased on average 13% in black women, 52% in white men, and 67% in black men." There was little change in white women.
  • For non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which they analyzed separately, the rates today relative to 25 years ago have "almost doubled in white women, nearly tripled in black women, more than tripled in white men, and more than quadrupled in black men."
  • [Dinse, GE, DM Umbach, AJ Sasco, DG Hoel and DL Davis. 1999.Unexplained increases in cancer incidence in the United States from 1975 to 1994. Annual Review of Public Health 20: 173-209.]
 July 14, 2014

Testicular Cancer Rates Are on the Rise in Young Hispanic Americans

A new analysis has found that rates of testicular cancer have been rising dramatically in recent years among young Hispanic American men, but not among their non-Hispanic counterparts.

AND WHERE ARE THE MAJORITY OF THESE YOUNG MALES EMPLOYED?
WHERE CAN WE LOOK AND SEE EVEN YOUNG HISPANIC CHILDREN WORKING?

[A PERSONAL NOTE OF OBSERVATION: WE WERE TRAVELING TO A DAUGHTER'S HOME FOR DINNER ABOUT 9 YEARS AGO IN MID-OCTOBER IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA AND PASSED THROUGH ACRES UPON ACRES OF TOMATO FIELDS.
THERE WERE HUNDREDS OF HISPANIC PEOPLE, MEN, WOMEN, CHILDREN, EVEN TODDLERS OUT IN THOSE FIELDS HARVESTING TOMATOES.

THERE WAS A FREEZE WARNING FOR THE WEEKEND THERE, SO GATHERING THE REMAINDER OF THE LATE SEASON TOMATOES WAS IMPERATIVE.
THEY WERE ALL OUT THERE TRYING TO SAVE WHAT THEY COULD.

SURE, ONE EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT MAY NOT COUNT FOR MUCH, BUT IT MADE ME AWARE THAT CHILD WORKERS WERE ACCEPTABLE, AND NOT THE LEAST "UNUSUAL", IN THAT INDUSTRY.

AFTER I NOTICED THIS FOR THE FIRST TIME, I NOTICED IT IN ALL OTHER YEARS UNTIL WE MOVED AWAY FROM THAT AREA.] 

WHOM DO WE MOSTLY SEE IN THE FIELDS PLANTING, TENDING AND HARVESTING CROPS FOR THE MEGA-FARMS, OR INVOLVED IN THE RAISING OF FOOD ANIMALS IN THAT INDUSTRY, OR EMPLOYED BY LANDSCAPE COMPANIES TO MOW, SPRAY, WEED, ETC?
ALL THOSE INDUSTRIES REQUIRE THE USE OF HERBICIDES AND PESTICIDES, BUT FEW ARTICLES MAKE MENTION OF THAT FACT.
SO WHEN STUDIES POINT TO THE DRAMATIC RISE IN TESTICULAR CANCER IN AMERICA", HISPANIC MALES WILL USUALLY BE THE MAJORITY.

"
The widespread observation of a birth cohort correlation for testicular cancer suggests that early or prolonged exposure to some carcinogenic stimuli might be required for the subsequent development of testicular cancer. "
[
McKiernan, JM, TW Hensle and H Fisch. 2000. Increasing risk of developing testicular cancer by birth cohort in the United States. Dialogues in Pediatric Urology 23(1): 7-8.] 

HERBICIDE RESISTANT CROPS PRODUCED HERBICIDE RESISTANT WEEDS, SO "BIGGER, BADDER" HERBICIDES HAVE TO BE USED TO KILL THE NEW GENERATION OF "SUPER WEEDS"!

CROP PESTS ARE ALSO SHOWING SIGNS OF ADJUSTING TO HEAVIER DOSES OF PESTICIDES, WHICH MEANS WE WILL HAVE TO EITHER USE MORE PESTICIDES OR GO BACK TO BETTER WAYS OF FARMING.

GREAT MARKETING STRATEGY ON MONSANTO'S PART, TO CREATE GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SEEDS THAT CREATE THE NEED FOR MORE HERBICIDES AND PESTICIDES, WHICH THEY ALSO SELL, BUT BAD INDEED FOR OUR ENVIRONMENT AND FOR GROWERS WHO JUST DON'T WANT TO USE GM PRODUCTS, AND FOR THOSE OF US WHO ARE SENSITIVE TO SUCH TOXINS!
CANADA AND THE EUROPEAN UNION AS WELL AS NATIONS IN ASIA AND SOUTH AMERICA HAVE FOUGHT BACK!  

AFRICAN NATIONS ARE ALSO SEEING THE TRUTH OF THE CYCLE OF GM CROPS NEEDING MORE MONSANTO POISONS.

 May 17, 2013
WASHINGTON POST
We will fight this until we cannot fight any more” if it appears that restrictions on growing genetically modified crops are about to be loosened, said Reinhard Jung, the head of the Brandenburg Farmers’ Federation."    
"Many here worry that a trade pact would ease regulations that have made it difficult for genetically modified crops and products to reach European shores. 
Genetically modified crops are broadly unpopular in Europe, and farmers and environmentalists fear that if trade restrictions are lowered, both genetically modified seeds and U.S.-grown genetically modified products would quickly take over European farmland and grocery stores."

PLEASE SEE ALSO:
JUNE 15, 2013
Though GMOs are increasingly unavoidable in the U.S. — Monsanto owns roughly 90 percent of the staple crops in the country — Europe has remained wary. Monsanto, with the help of the U.S. government, has lobbied hard to weaken European regulatory safeguards and force the EU to accept GM imports, with little success.
Europe has stood firm against the biotech onslaught not merely because Europeans are opposed to GMOs, but because their political leaders are listening to their constituents. Americans are just as skeptical of Monsanto and GMOs in general as Europeans are, but the company continues to flourish and even skirt environmental law thanks to its entrenched ties to the U.S. government, regulators, and politicians."

THAT LAST SENTENCE HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD!
August 13, 2015
"There are multiple problems with GMO Golden Rice, including the fact that the people from rice-producing countries do not want it!
Recently many top scientists and farmer advocates from rice-producing countries met in the Philippines in an effort to try and stop more field testing, and the commercialization of Golden Rice. The science behind Golden Rice does not prove benefits, and it threatens genetic diversity among traditional rice varieties which is necessary in many parts of the world that experience natural and man-made disasters. 
Like any GMO seed crop, Golden Rice would take the future of farming in rice-producing countries away from the control of the farmers and give it to multinational corporations that would then control the rice seed supplies."

“We are on the brink of a crisis situation,” said Neil Harker, a weed ecologist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Canadian equivalent of the US Department of Agriculture. “I do consider right now to be a watershed, direction-defining moment for agriculture.”
These can withstand both glyphosate, the world’s most widely-used herbicide, and a popular but comparatively lesser-used herbicide called 2,4-D. 
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to approve Dow’s proprietary formulation shortly, allowing the system to enter commercial use next year.
Most corn, soy and other field crops grown in the United States are genetically engineered to tolerate Roundup, a trait developed by agrotech giant Monsanto in the early 1990s. Glyphosate use exploded: rather than spraying herbicides on a weed-by-weed basis or pulling them by hand, farmers could use the herbicide on entire fields.
“This was an economically rational decision. It just wasn’t a biologically rational decision,” said herbicide resistance specialist Stephen Powles at a recent Weed Science Society of America meeting. "It favored the evolution of superweeds, which now pose an enormous agricultural threat.
Super Weeds now infest an estimated 70 million acres of U.S. farmland, causing roughly $1 billion in damage. The problem is growing fast, and farmers have scrambled for solutions. Dow and other large agrotech companies, including Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta, have responded by engineering plants to withstand combinations of herbicides rather than glyphosate alone.
'Enlist' is the first of these crops, and it could set an important precedent. Yet many scientists say simply using more, different herbicides will hasten the evolution of ever-more-resistant superweeds, putting agriculture on what some scientists have called an herbicide treadmill: more herbicides and more resistance, over and over.
The EPA ad USDA have largely downplayed that possibility, with the EPA’s plan to manage the evolution of resistance to Enlist consisting largely of Dow-led monitoring efforts. According to the EPA, that’s a model for regulating future multiple herbicide-resistant crops.
“In our view, it’s pathetically weak,” said science policy analyst Bill Freese at the Center for Food Safety, an advocacy group that has pledged to“pursue all available legal options” in fighting Enlist’s approval. “There is not a single meaningful” requirement for preventing superweed evolution in the EPA’s plan, said Freese."
THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A BETTER, SAFER, EVEN CHEAPER WAY TO RAISE CROPS AND HAVE HIGH YIELDS AND FEWER WEEDS.
In a review of scientific papers published between 1994 and 2012, Harker found that studies on herbicide-based weed control methods dramatically outnumbered those on other methods. Known as integrated weed management, or IWM, these methods usually involve growing multiple crops in rotations designed to slow the spread of weeds.
Diversity is the key: while weeds inevitably evolve in response to pressure, mixing the type and timing of those pressures keeps resistance from accumulating. “Herbicides alone are not sustainable. Diversity is the only way forward,” Powles said at the Weed Science Society meeting.
For IWM to go mainstream, scientists must play a crucial role in making it as profitable and productive as herbicide-dependent industrial agriculture. They’ll fine-tune techniques like seeding rates, harvest times, weed seed destruction and the use of perennial plants, said Harker, and work with economists to show that the methods are viable at large scales."
OCT 17, 2013"According to Food Sovereignty Ghana, seven African countries held anti-Monsanto rallies on Saturday, up from just one during the first global March Against Monsanto in May.

This time around, activists in Kenya, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Egypt and South Africa 
came out in force against the company. Activists in Accra carried signs saying, “GMO will make Ghanaian farmers poor” and “Our Food Under Our Control!!!”
Experts in international development also have their doubts about introducing Monsanto to the developing world. Because of the patent issues surrounding GMOs, the prestigious International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development advised that developing nations avoid GM seeds.

 Its 2008 analysis warned that GMOs’ high costs, uncertain yields, and the threat to local non-GM crop breeds posed more risks to poor farmers than benefits. Farmers who use GM seeds may not be able to exchange seeds with other farmers, while paying double the cost of conventional seeds."



Seed Wars: Latin America Strikes Back Against Monsanto

 In May 2013 the company [MONSANTO] had to suffer the ignominy of being the target of the two-million-man “March Against Monsanto,” as people in over 400 cities in 52 countries protested against the company, its influence and its GMO seeds.   
From Mexico’s Rio Grande in the north to Argentina’s fertile pampas in the south, indigenous and peasant communities are rising up against government legislation that would apply brutally rigid intellectual copyright laws to the crop seeds they are able to grow. The latest chapter in this unfolding drama was written in Chile, where the coordinated actions of a broad alliance of social movements have managed to put a stop – at least for now – to the passage of the so-called Monsanto Law.

COLOMBIA'S FARMERS WON IN COURT AS WELL!THE MONSANTO LAW THERE WAS DECLARED UNCONSTITUTIONAL!   
With the privatisation of seed laws effectively on hold in Colombia and Chile, and resistance growing in Mexico, where 800 scientists recently sent a petition to President Enrique Peña Nieto calling for a complete ban on transgenic corn, events on the ground in Latin America seem to be taking a decided turn against the interests of Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow & Co."

WHY ARE SO MANY NATIONS AND PEOPLE FIGHTING AGAINST THE GMOs?
THEY HAVE SEEN FIRST-HAND WHAT HAPPENS.
THEY KNOW THE REAL COSTS IN LIVES AND IN MONEY. 

THEY SEE THAT GM SEEDS HAVE NOT PRODUCED AS PROMISED.
THEY SEE THAT THE PREVIOUS DIVERSITY OF CROPS FED MORE PEOPLE AND COST LESS TO  PRODUCE.
THEY SEE THAT THEIR POPULATIONS WERE HEALTHIER BEFORE GMOs BECAME A PART OF THEIR LIVES.

Criminalising Dissent in India against GMOs and Monsanto

"The World Bank-funded International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge and Science for Development Report, which India signed in 2008:
“The IAASTD was the work of over 400 scientists and took four years to complete. It was twice peer reviewed. The report states we must look to small-holder, traditional farming (not GMOs) to deliver food security in third world countries through agri-ecological systems which are sustainable. Governments must invest in these systems. This is the clear evidence.”
“The Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) promotes public-private-partnerships with the biotechnology industry.

It does this with the active backing of the Ministry of Science and Technology. 


The MoA has handed Monsanto and the industry access to our agri-research public institutions placing them in a position to seriously influence agri-policy in India. 


You cannot have a conflict of interest larger or more alarming than this one. 


Today, Monsanto decides which Bt cotton hybrids are planted and where. 


Monsanto owns over 90 per cent of planted cotton seed, all of it Bt cotton.”
IF YOU WILL REMEMBER, INDIA REPORTED OVER A QUARTER OF A MILLION SUICIDES BY POOR FARMERS AFTER THEY WERE BASICALLY FORCED TO SWITCH TO MONSANTO SEEDS, WHICH CANNOT BE COLLECTED FROM CROPS, BUT MUST BE BOUGHT ANEW EVERY GROWING SEASON.


EXPENSIVE HERBICIDES ALSO HAD TO BE BOUGHT BECAUSE OF THE RESISTANCE TO HERBICIDES BUILT INTO GM SEEDS.


MANY FARMING FAMILIES IN INDIA LOST EVERYTHING AND ARE NOW HOMELESS AND WITHOUT A MALE HEAD OF HOUSEHOLD.

A POINT TO PONDER
THE POPULATION OF "THE AMERICAS" PRIOR TO EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT HAS BEEN ESTIMATED AT UPWARDS OF 100 MILLION PEOPLE.

THE SPANIARDS ALONE DOCUMENTED MANY INDIGENOUS "CITIES" AT OVER A MILLION INHABITANTS EACH  IN JUST CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA.

HOW WERE SO MANY PEOPLE FED?
HOW DID THEY GROW CROPS TO FEED THAT MANY?
DID ENOUGH "WILD" FOOD EXIST?
IN EITHER CASE, BY FARMING OR BY GATHERING FROM THE WILD, MILLIONS DID HAVE FOOD...SANS HERBICIDES, SANS CHEMICALS.

THE SAME WAS TRUE ALL ACROSS THE GLOBE IN INDIGENOUS CULTURES.

USING ONLY STUDIES DONE ON THE RAPID DECLINE IN THE HEALTH OF INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS ONCE BOTH FARMING ABILITY/TECHNIQUES AND DIETARY CHANGES CAME INTO PLAY SHOULD POINT TO "SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG HERE".




FURTHER READING:
TOP MONSANTO POISONS, IN ORDER OF THEIR INTRODUCTION
~Aspartame and Saccharin
From Huffington Post:
"Aspartame is primarily made up of aspartic acid and phenylalanine. 
The phenylalanine has been synthetically modified to carry a methyl group, which provides the majority of the sweetness.
That phenylalanine methyl bond, called a methyl ester, is very weak, which allows the methyl group on the phenylalanine to easily break off and form methanol. 
This is in sharp contrast to naturally-occurring methanol found in certain fruits and vegetables, where it is firmly bonded to pectin, allowing the methanol to be safely passed through your digestive tract.
Methanol acts as a Trojan horse: It's carried into susceptible tissues in your body, like your brain and bone marrow, where the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) enzyme converts it into formaldehyde, which wreaks havoc with sensitive proteins and DNA.

All other animals have a protective mechanism that allows methanol to be broken down into harmless formic acid, but there's a major biochemical problem with methanol in humans, because of the difference in how it's metabolized compared to all other animals. 
This is why toxicology testing on animals is a flawed model. It doesn't fully apply to humans.
Many readers have long forgotten what the 60-Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace stated in his 1996 report on aspartame -- available to view in this 2009 article -- that the approval of aspartame was "the most contested in FDA history."
At the time, independent studies had found it caused brain cancer in lab animals"  
NOW YOU KNOW.

~polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) (1920s)
After three decades, a recent study by University of California in San Francisco shows that Monsanto’s PCBs still remains in the blood of pregnant women in America. The effect of this on their developing fetuses is still "under consideration". 

~DDT (1944)Despite all the claims of Monsanto that DDT was safe, all its "studies", the research in the 1970s confirmed that DDT was EXTREMELY toxic and, due to public pressure, DDT were banned in 1972. 
~ROUNDUP (1994)
In 2007, more than 185,000,000 pounds of Roundup were applied to US crops – the same year that reporting requirements of application rates were halted. 

In other words, despite the fact that the President’s Cancer Panel and American Cancer Society were reporting that 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women are expected to get cancer in their lifetimes, we had stopped counting how much of this we were spraying on our food. 
Dr. Don Huber, a Professor Emeritus of Plant Pathology at Purdue University, a land grant institution, has been studying plants for 55 years.He has had a 41-year military career and is now a retired Colonel, having evaluated natural and manmade biological threats, including germ warfare and disease outbreaks and worked on committees that are part of the USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System under Homeland Security.

In 2011, Huber wrote a letter to the Secretary of Agriculture that was picked up by a few of our major media.
Reuters carried his warning.

"...
Don Huber has written a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack warning that a newly discovered and widespread "electron microscopic pathogen appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings."   
 He said the pathogen appears to be connected to use of glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup.   
In his letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Huber said the organism has been found in high concentrations of Roundup Ready soybean meal and corn, which are used in livestock feed. He said laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of the organism in pigs, cattle and other livestock that have experienced spontaneous abortions and infertility.   
The organism is also prolific in corn and soybean crops stricken by disease, according to Huber.   
"I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high risk status," Huber wrote. "In layman's terms, it should be treated as an emergency."

SINCE ROUNDUP ACCOUNTS FOR ABOUT 40%-45% OF ALL MONSANTO SALES, THERE IS NO WAY IT WILL STAND FOR THE POISON TO BE BANNED IN THE U.S.



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