Archive for the ‘Food Policy’ Category

 

Since the early 1990’s there have been genetically modified organisms in our food. GMOs – short for genetically modified organisms – are man-made organism created in a laboratory and patented by a corporation or the USDA. GMOs are created by a process called genetic engineering.  Many people have been asking for required labeling of GMO food, as already exists in thirty other countries. And there are a growing number of countries, like Ireland, Japan and Egypt that have completely banned the cultivation of GMO crops.

GMOs are not created the same way as traditional cross-breeding. Traditional cross-breeding is creating natural hybrids, such as crossing two varieties of roses, different types of squashes, or different breeds of dogs or cats. GMOs are made by actually splicing a gene from a virus or another species into the GMO seed.  Some examples are, fish genes being spliced into tomatoes, human genes in corn, mouse genes in potatoes.

Since the 1990’s, people have been asking for GMO food to be labeled.  We’ve been asking the USDA, the FDA, our legislators and the courts. They are not listening, and it’s time for us to speak for ourselves.

If you live in California, there is a Ballot Initiative in the works for the 2012 election. This proposition would require labeling on all GMO foods in the state of California. The website is http://www.LabelGMOs.org and there’s a Facebook page as well, Label GMOs.

Why avoid GMO foods and why do we want them labeled? Scientists warn that GMO foods may set off allergies, increase cancer risks, produce antibiotic-resistant pathogens, damage our food quality and produce dangerous toxins in our environment. GMO fed animals had higher death rates and organ damage in scientific studies.

GMOs will increase the risk of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria due to the use of antibiotic resistant genes in GM food. The British Medical Association cited this as one reason why they called for a global moratorium or ban on GM foods.

GMO crops cross-pollinate: Canadian organic farmers can no longer grow canola and soybean crops organically. The seed stocks of those two crops are now totally contaminated by GMOs, which cross-pollinate into other market garden crops from the brassica family, such as kale, cabbage and broccoli.   The recent deregulation of GMO alfalfa is particularly concerning as Alfalfa is a high cross pollinator, which means it can cross pollinate – and contaminate – many other plants.

It will be a few months before we can volunteer to gather signatures but there are many ways to get involved now.  If you would like to be part of the Label GMO campaign you can visit the website, spread the word, volunteer to gather signature in the fall and/or donate.  You will be coming together with other parents, farmers, doctors, scientists and food activists who are demanding our right to know what’s in our food.

This is an exciting time.

It’s time to for us to join together and legislate labeling of all GMO food.

We have a right to know!

Read more, great Monday Mania posts here: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/2011/07/monday-mania-7252011/

Read more great, Real Food Wednesday posts here: http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/07/real-food-wednesday-7272011.html

Read more, great Simple Lives Thursday posts here: http://gnowfglins.com/2011/07/28/simple-lives-thursday-54/

Read more, great Pennywise Platter Thursday posts here: http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2011/07/pennywise-platter-thursday-728.html

Read more, great Fight Back Friday posts here: http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-friday-july-29th/

Farmageddon – A MUST See Movie

We saw Farmageddon – The Unseen War on American Family Farms last week.  It’s produced and directed by Kristin Canty, a mom of four, who couldn’t understand why the healthy food she wanted to buy for her family, was so hard to find.

Kristin said, about why she made this film, “I decided I needed to tell this story. My goal was to let these honest farmers using centuries old farming practices tell their side of the stories. So, I set out to make a film. Farmageddon is in no way meant to convince anyone to drink raw milk, or eat grass fed beef, but rather an argument to allow those that want to make those choices to do so. It is simply about freedom of food choice. The government needs to stop harassing small farmers, private food buying clubs and co- ops without food freedom…. we are not free.”

From the movie’s website, “Americans’ right to access fresh, healthy foods of their choice is under attack. Farmageddon tells the story of small, family farms that were providing safe, healthy foods to their communities and were forced to stop, sometimes through violent action, by agents of misguided government bureaucracies, and seeks to figure out why.”

 

“Farmageddon highlights the urgency of food freedom, encouraging farmers and consumers alike to take action to preserve individuals’ rights to access food of their choice and farmers’ rights to produce these foods safely and free from unreasonably burdensome regulations. The film serves to put policymakers and regulators on notice that there is a growing movement of people aware that their freedom to choose the foods they want is in danger, a movement that is taking action with its dollars and its voting power to protect and preserve the dwindling number of family farms that are struggling to survive.”

I knew the basic premise of the movie before we went to see it as I had seen the trailer and have been impatiently waiting for it to come to a theater near me. It’s such a travesty of justice that our small farmers are under fire, most times with no just cause. There are cases of food and animals being seized, hundreds of thousands of dollars of livestock, and equipment seized, for no reason.  No complaints had been filed, no one had gotten sick. There have been raids of private food clubs, guns drawn on young children. It’s not just isolated instanced. Google “farmers raided” and you will see too many examples. There are more examples on my post of last year, http://momsforsafefood.net/2010/10/25/what-is-the-matter-with-the-fda/

This is not the American Way!

I thought Farmageddon was brilliantly directed. Where it could have just been a very depressing story, there’s hope here too.  It’s about the growing real food movement and how more and more people are looking to buy their food directly from their local farmers.

It’s time for all of us to stand up for food freedom. For the freedom to choose real food for our families and for the choice to not have our food contaminated by GMOs. I am starting to wonder if it’s going to take acts of civil disobedience – nonviolent resistance – and becoming vocal to the point where the FDA, USDA and our government understand that we are not going to put up with our small farmers being harassed and raided for good no reason.  It’s time to stand up for ourselved and our farmers!

This is a film that everyone should see. It’s only in a few theaters now, but if you are near anywhere there is a showing, it’s an incredible film.  Below is the link to the website. There you can watch the trailer and see or arrange a screening.  Highly recommended!

http://farmageddonmovie.com/

Read more, great Fight Back Friday posts here: http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-friday-july-8th/

Read more, great Pennywise Platter Thursday posts here: http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2011/07/pennywise-platter-thursday-77.html

Read more, great Simple Lives Thursday posts here: http://gnowfglins.com/2011/07/07/simple-lives-thursday-51/

Read more, great Real Food Wednesday posts here: http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/07/real-food-wednesday-762011.html

Read more, great Monday Mania posts here: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/2011/07/monday-mania-742011/

What we can do!

I wanted to add some updates to “what we can do” to work towards ending GMO’s in our food supply. There are a lot of people starting to take action and it’s making a difference.

First, if you, or your family and friends have not yet seen the movies The Future of Food and The World According to Monsanto, you can watch both for free.  Watch them and then share the links with everyone you know.

Knowledge is power!

The Future of Food can be watched here:

http://www.thefutureoffood.com/onlinevideo.html

 

The World According to Monsanto can be watched here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6262083407501596844#

 

Then get involved!  There are so many ways to get involved and even spending a few minutes here and there can make a difference.

The best place to start is with your grocery shopping.  Tell your store managers you don’t want GMO’s in your food. GMO’s in our food are showing serious health risks for everyone and they are being hidden in most of our food. (read more about their health risks here: http://www.responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers/health-risks

Vote with your fork!  Buy heirloom and organic varieties from your store and local farmers market. Buy pastured and 100% grassfed meat. Corn fed meat is fed GMO corn, unless it’s organic.

The Institute for Responsible Technology has a number of free letters and flyers you can use on their Action Tool Kit page here: http://www.responsibletechnology.org/take-action/action-tool-kit

Join Organic Consumers, Millions Against Monsanto campaign.  They are working on petitions, action groups, and much, much more.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/index.cfm

If you live in California, there’s a labeling campaign going on.  You can find out more here,

http://labelgmos.org/

If you want to learn to teach others about GMO’s, Jeffrey Smith gives wonderful and affordable Speaker Training Courses, online and in person.  More info here:

http://www.responsibletechnology.org/speaker-training-calendar

It’s time to take back our food supply.  Together we CAN make a difference!

Love,

Mom

Read more, great Monday Mania posts here: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/2011/06/monday-mania-6202011/

Read more, great Real Food Wednesday posts here: http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/06/real-food-wednesday-62211.html

 

 

 

 

This week we have another article by Jeffrey M. Smith, from the Institute of Responsible Technology.  Mom

Is Eli Lilly Milking Cancer by Promoting AND Treating It?

by Jeffrey M. Smith

Breast Cancer Action and a coalition of consumer and health organizations have launched a campaign called Milking Cancer, where you can demand from Eli Lilly that they withdraw their dangerous bovine growth hormone from the market. For more on bovine growth hormone, see the 18-minute film, Your Milk on Drugs.

Years ago, an owner of a glass company was arrested for throwing bricks through store windows in his town. What a way to increase business! Has Eli Lilly figured out the drug equivalent of breaking, then fixing our windows?

In August 2008, the huge drug company agreed to buy Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone (rbST or rbGH), which is injected into cows in the US to increase milk supply. It was an odd choice at the time. A reporter asked Lilly’s representative why on earth his veterinary division Elanco just paid $300 million for a drug that other companies wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. The drug’s days were obviously numbered. The former head of the American Medical Association has urged hospitals to stop using dairy products from rbGH-injected cows, the American Nurses Association came out against it, even Wal-Mart has joined the ranks of numerous retailers and dairies loudly proclaiming their cows are rbGH-free. In fact, Monsanto’s stock rose by almost 5% when the sale was announced, and Eli Lilly’s dropped by nearly 1%.

The main reason for the unpopularity of this hormone, which is banned in most other industrialized countries, is the danger of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). Dozens of studies confirm that IGF-1, which accelerates cell division, substantially increases the risk of breast, prostate, colon, lung, and other cancers. Normal milk contains IGF-1, milk drinkers have higher levels of IGF-1, and the milk from cows injected with Eli Lilly’s drug has much greater amounts of IGF-1. You can connect the dots.

Would it be too crass to point out the obvious conflict-of-the-public’s-interest that Eli Lilly also markets cancer drugs? In fact their drug Evista, which might help reduce the risk of breast cancer, may lower IGF-1 (according to one small study). So on the one hand, Eli Lilly pushes a milk drug that might increase cancer, and on the other, it comes to the rescue with drugs to treat or “prevent” cancer. Call it the perfect cancer profit cycle.

It gets better.

Cows treated with rbGH have much higher incidence of mastitis, a painful infection of the udder. This results in more pus in the milk (yuck). But don’t worry. It’s Eli Lilly to the rescue again. They are one of the companies happy to sell antibiotics to dairy farmers to treat the infection—which can’t help but increase antibiotic resistance in humans (double yuck).

History of Lawsuits and Criminal Charges

But would Eli Lilly consciously risk our health just to increase their profit? What kind of company are they and can we trust them with our food? If recent events are any indication, you better look for rbGH-free labels.

A December 17, 2006 New York Times article revealed that according to hundreds of internal documents and emails, “Eli Lilly has engaged in a decade-long effort to play down the health risks of Zyprexa.…Lilly executives kept important information from doctors about Zyprexa’s links to obesity and its tendency to raise blood sugar — both known risk factors for diabetes. … Lilly was concerned that Zyprexa’s sales would be hurt if the company was more forthright about the fact that the drug might cause unmanageable weight gain or diabetes.”

Their own surveys revealed that 70% of psychiatrists had at least one patient “develop high blood sugar or diabetes while taking Zyprexa.” And 30% of patients taking the drug for a year gained at least 22 pounds—some over 100 pounds. But Lilly told their sales team, “Don’t introduce the issue!!!”
One doctor even warned: “unless we come clean on this, it could get much more serious than we might anticipate.” It did indeed get serious. They paid out hundreds of millions in settlements to people who claimed they developed diabetes or other disorders.

But Lilly’s Zyprexa troubles were not over. In early 2009, they were forced to pay a record-setting $1.42 billion settlement with the justice department, and another record-setting state consumer protection claim of $62 million, for illegally marketing the drug to children and the elderly. It emerged in June of this year that Lilly “officials wrote medical journal studies about the antipsychotic Zyprexa and then asked doctors to put their names on the articles, a practice called ‘ghostwriting.’”

Eli Lilly was also the maker of the infamous Diethylstilbestrol (DES), a synthetic estrogen. Starting in 1938, it was prescribed to pregnant women to prevent miscarriages and other problems. Although in 1953, research showed that it didn’t actually prevent miscarriages, it continued to be used until 1971, when the FDA alerted the public that the daughters exposed to DES in the womb were at risk of a rare vaginal cancer. An estimated 5-10 million pregnant women received DES. The civil courts held Lilly liable because they should have foreseen (based on prior information) that DES might cause cancer and that Lilly should have done the proper testing before marketing it.

Rigging Research

In the late 1980s Eli Lilly was one of four companies (including American Cyanamid, Upjohn, and Monsanto) that tried to get their version of bovine growth hormone approved by the FDA. I sat down with Dr. Richard Burroughs, who was a lead reviewer for the agency on these applications. He didn’t have kind words to say about the companies. “They didn’t follow good science and they didn’t follow regulations for adequate well controlled studies,” he said. “They just went out and skewed the data.”

He said, for example, that Eli Lilly had mysteriously lost organ samples that may have shown problems in injected cows. And their researchers came up with creative ways to hide reproductive changes in the animals. Specifically, injections appeared to suppress cows’ regular menstrual cycle or reduce the visual symptoms. The company was required to report the number of cows “in heat,” but was told by the FDA that they could not use bulls to identify them. If bulls were needed, then the label on their drug would have to inform farmers that they would need a bull to help identify which cows were in heat. And most farms didn’t have bulls.

According to Burroughs, FDA investigators figured out that Lilly researchers secretly pumped up a heifer—a young female cow—with male hormones, so that the transgendered animal would act like a male and be attracted to the cows in heat. Lilly followed the letter of the law by not using a bull, but well, you can decide if you want to trust these guys.

Eventually, Lilly and two other companies withdrew their products, leaving Monsanto’s brand of rbGH as the only one that got approved and marketed. But Lilly worked a deal where they represented Monsanto’s drug outside the US. They sell it in 20 countries, including South Africa, Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, Kenya and Mexico. And now, they offer it in the US as well.

Human Reproductive Problems from Drugged Milk

In May 2006, an article in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine concluded that rbGH use, and the subsequent increase in IGF-1 in the US diet, is probably the reason why we have much higher levels of fraternal twins compared to the UK, where rbGH is banned.

Mothers with twin births are more likely to suffer from hypertension, gestational diabetes, hemorrhage, and miscarriage. Twin babies are more likely to be born prematurely and suffer from birth defects, mental retardation, cerebral palsy, vision and hearing disorders, and serious organ problems. How many drugs do you suppose Eli Lilly sells to treat these disorders?

Tell Eli Lilly to take rbGH off the market and out of your milk.

To learn more about the health dangers of GMOs, and what you can do to help end the genetic engineering of our food supply, visit www.ResponsibleTechnology.org.

To learn how to choose healthier non-GMO brands and milk without rbGH, visit www.NonGMOShoppingGuide.com.

International bestselling author and filmmaker Jeffrey Smith is the leading spokesperson on the health dangers of genetically modified (GM) foods. His first book, Seeds of Deception, is the world’s bestselling and #1 rated book on the topic. His second, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, provides overwhelming evidence that GMOs are unsafe and should never have been introduced. Mr. Smith is the executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, whose Campaign for Healthier Eating in America is designed to create the tipping point of consumer rejection of GMOs, forcing them out of our food supply.

Read more, great Monday Mania posts here: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/2011/05/monday-mania-592011/

Read more, great Real Food Wednesday posts here: http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/05/real-food-wednesday-51111.html

Read more, great Fight Back Friday posts here: http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-friday-may-13th/

 

 

Today we have a guest post by Jeffrey Smith. Thank you for all you do, Jeffrey! Mom

 

Monsanto: The World’s Poster Child for Corporate Manipulation and Deceit

By Jeffrey Smith

At a biotech industry conference in January 1999, a representative from Arthur Anderson, LLP explained how they had helped Monsanto design their strategic plan. First, his team asked Monsanto executives what their ideal future looked like in 15 to 20 years. The executives described a world with 100% of all commercial seeds genetically modified and patented. Anderson consultants then worked backwards from that goal, and developed the strategy and tactics to achieve it. They presented Monsanto with the steps and procedures needed to obtain a place of industry dominance in a world in which natural seeds were virtually extinct.

This was a bold new direction for Monsanto, which needed a big change to distance them from a controversial past. As a chemical company, they had polluted the landscape with some of the most poisonous substances ever produced, contaminated virtually every human and animal on earth, and got fined and convicted of deception and wrongdoing. According to a former Monsanto vice president, “We were despised by our customers.”

So they redefined themselves as a “life sciences” company, and then proceeded to pollute the landscape with toxic herbicide, contaminate the gene pool for all future generations with genetically modified plants, and get fined and convicted of deception and wrongdoing. Monsanto’s chief European spokesman admitted in 1999, “Everybody over here hates us.” Now the rest of the world is catching on.

“Saving the World,” and other lies

Monsanto public relations story about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are largely based on five concepts.

1. GMOs are needed to feed the world.
2. GMOs have been thoroughly tested and proven safe
3. GMOs increase yield.
4. GMOs reduce the use of agricultural chemicals.
5. GMOs can be contained, and therefore coexist with non-GM crops.

All five are pure myths—blatant falsehoods about the nature and benefit of this infant technology. The experience of former Monsanto employee Kirk Azevedo helps expose the first two lies, and provides some insight into the nature of the people working at the company.

In 1996, Monsanto recruited young Kirk Azevedo to sell their genetically engineered cotton. Azevedo accepted their offer not because of the pay increase, but due to the writings of Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro. Shapiro had painted a picture of feeding the world and cleaning up the environment with his company’s new technology. When he visited Monsanto’s St. Louis headquarters for new employee training, Azevedo shared his enthusiasm for Shapiro’s vision during a meeting. When the session ended, a company vice president pulled him aside and set him straight. “Wait a second,” he told Azevedo. “What Robert Shapiro says is one thing. But what we do is something else. We are here to make money. He is the front man who tells a story. We don’t even understand what he is saying.” Azevedo realized he was working for “just another profit-oriented company,” and all the glowing words about helping the planet were just a front.

A few months later he got another shock. A company scientist told him that Roundup Ready cotton plants contained new, unintended proteins that had resulted from the gene insertion process. No safety studies had been conducted on the proteins, none were planned, and the cotton plants, which were part of field trials near his home, were being fed to cattle. Azevedo “was afraid at that time that some of these proteins may be toxic.”

He asked the PhD in charge of the test plot to destroy the cotton rather than feed it to cattle, arguing that until the protein had been evaluated, the cows’ milk or meat could be harmful. The scientist refused. Azevedo approached everyone on his team at Monsanto to raise concerns about the unknown protein, but no one was interested. “I was somewhat ostracized,” he said. “Once I started questioning things, people wanted to keep their distance from me. . . . Anything that interfered with advancing the commercialization of this technology was going to be pushed aside.” Azevedo decided to leave Monsanto. He said, “I’m not going to be part of this disaster.”

Monsanto’s toxic past

Azevedo got a small taste of Monsanto’s character. A verdict in a lawsuit a few years later made it more explicit. On February 22, 2002, Monsanto was found guilty for poisoning the town of Anniston, Alabama with their PCB factory and covering it up for decades. They were convicted of negligence, wantonness, suppression of the truth, nuisance, trespass, and outrage. According to Alabama law, to be guilty of outrage typically requires conduct “so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society.”^[i]

The $700 million fine imposed on Monsanto was on behalf of the Anniston residents, whose blood levels of Monsanto’s toxic PCBs were hundreds or thousands of times the average. This disease-producing chemical, used as coolants and lubricants for over 50 years, are now virtually omnipresent in the blood and tissues of humans and wildlife around the globe. Ken Cook of the Environmental Working Group says that based on Monsanto documents made public during a trial, the company “knew the truth from the very beginning. They lied about it. They hid the truth from their neighbors.” One Monsanto memo explains their justification: “We can’t afford to lose one dollar of business.” Welcome to the world of Monsanto.

Infiltrating the minds and offices of the government

To get their genetically modified products approved, Monsanto has coerced, infiltrated, and paid off government officials around the globe. In Indonesia, Monsanto gave bribes and questionable payments to at least 140 officials, attempting to get their genetically modified (GM) cotton accepted.^[ii] In 1998, six Canadian government scientists testified before the Senate that they were being pressured by superiors to approve rbGH, that documents were stolen from a locked file cabinet in a government office, and that Monsanto offered them a bribe of $1-2 million to pass the drug without further tests. In India, one official tampered with the report on Bt cotton to increase the yield figures to favor Monsanto.^[iii] And Monsanto seems to have planted their own people in key government positions in India, Brazil, Europe, and worldwide.

Monsanto’s GM seeds were also illegally smuggled into countries like Brazil and Paraguay, before GMOs were approved. Roberto Franco, Paraguay’s Deputy Agriculture Ministry, tactfully admits, “It is possible that [Monsanto], let’s say, promoted its varieties and its seeds” before they were approved. “We had to authorize GMO seeds because they had already entered our country in an, let’s say, unorthodox way.”

In the US, Monsanto’s people regularly infiltrate upper echelons of government, and the company offers prominent positions to officials when they leave public service. This revolving door has included key people in the White House, regulatory agencies, even the Supreme Court. Monsanto also had George Bush Senior on their side, as evidenced by footage of Vice President Bush at Monsanto’s facility offering help to get their products through government bureaucracy. He says, “Call me. We’re in the ‘de-reg’ business. Maybe we can help.”

Monsanto’s influence continued into the Clinton administration. Dan Glickman, then Secretary of Agriculture, says, “there was a general feeling in agro-business and inside our government in the US that if you weren’t marching lock-step forward in favor of rapid approvals of biotech products, rapid approvals of GMO crops, then somehow, you were anti-science and anti-progress.” Glickman summarized the mindset in the government as follows:

“What I saw generically on the pro-biotech side was the attitude that the technology was good, and that it was almost immoral to say that it wasn’t good, because it was going to solve the problems of the human race and feed the hungry and clothe the naked. . . . And there was a lot of money that had been invested in this, and if you’re against it, you’re Luddites, you’re stupid. That, frankly, was the side our government was on. Without thinking, we had basically taken this issue as a trade issue and they, whoever ‘they’ were, wanted to keep our product out of their market. And they were foolish, or stupid, and didn’t have an effective regulatory system. There was rhetoric like that even here in this department. You felt like you were almost an alien, disloyal, by trying to present an open-minded view on some of the issues being raised. So I pretty much spouted the rhetoric that everybody else around here spouted; it was written into my speeches.”^[iv]

He admits, “when I opened my mouth in the Clinton Administration [about the lax regulations on GMOs], I got slapped around a little bit.”

Hijacking the FDA to promote GMOs

In the US, new food additives must undergo extensive testing, including long-term animal feeding studies.^[v] There is an exception, however, for substances that are deemed “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS). GRAS status allows a product to be commercialized without any additional testing. According to US law, to be considered GRAS the substance must be the subject of a substantial amount of peer-reviewed published studies (or equivalent) and there must be overwhelming consensus among the scientific community that the product is safe. GM foods had neither. Nonetheless, in a precedent-setting move that some experts contend was illegal, in 1992 the FDA declared that GM crops are GRAS as long as their producers say they are. Thus, the FDA does not require any safety evaluations or labels whatsoever. A company can even introduce a GM food to the market without telling the agency.

Such a lenient approach to GM crops was largely the result of Monsanto’s legendary influence over the US government. According to the New York Times, “What Monsanto wished for from Washington, Monsanto and, by extension, the biotechnology industry got. . . . When the company abruptly decided that it needed to throw off the regulations and speed its foods to market, the White House quickly ushered through an unusually generous policy of self-policing.” According to Dr. Henry Miller, who had a leading role in biotechnology issues at the FDA from 1979 to 1994, “In this area, the U.S. government agencies have done exactly what big agribusiness has asked them to do and told them to do.”

The person who oversaw the development of the FDA’s GMO policy was their Deputy Commissioner for Policy, Michael Taylor, whose position had been created especially for him in 1991. Prior to that, Taylor was an outside attorney for both Monsanto and the Food Biotechnology Council. After working at the FDA, he became Monsanto’s vice president. He’s now back at the FDA, as the US food safety czar.

Covering up health dangers

The policy Taylor oversaw in 1992 needed to create the impression that unintended effects from GM crops were not an issue. Otherwise their GRAS status would be undermined. But internal memos made public from a lawsuit showed that the overwhelming consensus among the agency scientists was that GM crops can have unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects. Various departments and experts spelled these out in detail, listing allergies, toxins, nutritional effects, and new diseases as potential problems. They had urged superiors to require long-term safety studies.^[vi] In spite of the warnings, according to public interest attorney Steven Druker who studied the FDA’s internal files, “References to the unintended negative effects of bioengineering were progressively deleted from drafts of the policy statement (over the protests of agency scientists).”^[vii]

FDA microbiologist Louis Pribyl wrote about the policy, “What has happened to the scientific elements of this document? Without a sound scientific base to rest on, this becomes a broad, general, ‘What do I have to do to avoid trouble’-type document. . . . It will look like and probably be just a political document. . . . It reads very pro-industry, especially in the area of unintended effects.”^[viii]

The FDA scientists’ concerns were not only ignored, their very existence was denied. Consider the private memo summarizing opinions at the FDA, which stated, “The processes of genetic engineering and traditional breeding are different and according to the technical experts in the agency, they lead to different risks.”^[ix] Contrast that with the official policy statement issued by Taylor, Monsanto’s former attorney: “The agency is not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.”^[x] On the basis of this false statement, the FDA does not require GM food safety testing.

Fake safety assessments

Monsanto participates in a voluntary consultation process with the FDA that is derided by critics as a meaningless exercise. Monsanto submits whatever information it chooses, and the FDA does not conduct or commission any studies of its own. Former EPA scientist Doug Gurian-Sherman, who analyzed FDA review records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, says the FDA consultation process “misses obvious errors in company-submitted data summaries, provides insufficient testing guidance, and does not require sufficiently detailed data to enable the FDA to assure that GE crops are safe to eat.”^[xi]

But that is not the point of the exercise. The FDA doesn’t actually approve the crops or declare them safe. That is Monsanto’s job! At the end of the consultation, the FDA issues a letter stating:

“Based on the safety and nutritional assessment you have conducted, it is our understanding that Monsanto has concluded that corn products derived from this new variety are not materially different in composition, safety, and other relevant parameters from corn currently on the market, and that the genetically modified corn does not raise issues that would require premarket review or approval by FDA. . . . As you are aware, it is Monsanto’s responsibility to ensure that foods marketed by the firm are safe, wholesome and in compliance with all applicable legal and regulatory requirements.”^[xii]

The National Academy of Sciences and even the pro-GM Royal Society of London^[xiii] describe the US system as inadequate and flawed. The editor of the prestigious journal Lancet said, “It is astounding that the US Food and Drug Administration has not changed their stance on genetically modified food adopted in 1992. . . . Governments should never have allowed these products into the food chain without insisting on rigorous testing for effects on health.”^[xiv]

One obvious reason for the inflexibility of the FDA is that they are officially charged with both regulating biotech products and promoting them—a clear conflict. That is also why the FDA does not require mandatory labeling of GM foods. They ignore the desires of 90% of American citizens in order to support the economic interests of Monsanto and the four other GM food companies.

Monsanto’s studies are secret, inadequate, and flawed

The unpublished industry studies submitted to regulators are typically kept secret based on the claim that it is “confidential business information.” The Royal Society of Canada is one of many organizations that condemn this practice. Their Expert Panel called for “completely transparent” submissions, “open to full review by scientific peers” They wrote, “Peer review and independent corroboration of research findings are axioms of the scientific method, and part of the very meaning of the objectivity and neutrality of science.”^[xv]

Whenever Monsanto’s private submissions are made public through lawsuits or Freedom of Information Act Requests, it becomes clear why they benefit from secrecy. The quality of their research is often miserable, and would never stand up to peer-review. In December 2009, for example, a team of independent researchers published a study analyzing the raw data from three Monsanto rat studies. When they used proper statistical methods, they found that the three varieties of GM corn caused toxicity in the liver and kidneys, as well as significant changes in other organs.^[xvi] Monsanto’s studies, of course, had claimed that the research showed no problems. The regulators had believed Monsanto, and the corn is already in our food supply.

Monsanto rigs research to miss dangers^[xvii]

Monsanto has plenty of experience cooking the books of their research, hiding the hazards. They manufactured the infamous Agent Orange, for example, the cancer and birth-defect causing defoliant sprayed over Vietnam. It contaminated more than 3 million civilians and servicemen. But according to William Sanjour, who led the Toxic Waste Division of the Environmental Protection Agency, “thousands of veterans were disallowed benefits” because “Monsanto studies showed that dioxin [the main ingredient in Agent Orange] was not a human carcinogen.” But his EPA colleague discovered that Monsanto had allegedly falsified the data in their studies. Sanjour says, “If they were done correctly, [the studies] would have reached just the opposite result.”

Here are examples of tinkering with the truth about Monsanto’s GM products:

o     When dairy farmers inject cows with genetically modified bovine growth hormone (rbGH), more bovine growth hormone ends up in the milk. To allay fears, the FDA claimed that pasteurization destroys 90% of the hormone. In reality, the researchers of this drug (then owned by Monsanto) pasteurized the milk 120 times longer than normal. But they only destroyed 19%. So they spiked the milk with a huge amount of extra growth hormone and then repeated the long pasteurization. Only under these artificial conditions were they able to destroy 90%.

o     To demonstrate that rbGH injections didn’t interfere with cows’ fertility, Monsanto appears to have secretly added cows to their study that were pregnant BEFORE injection.

o     FDA Veterinarian Richard Burroughs said that Monsanto researchers dropped sick cows from studies, to make the drug appear safer.

o     Richard Burroughs ordered more tests on rbGH than the industry wanted and was told by superiors he was slowing down the approval. He was fired and his tests canceled. The remaining whistle-blowers in the FDA had to write an anonymous letter to Congress, complaining of fraud and conflict of interest in the agency. They complained of one FDA scientist who arbitrarily increased the allowable levels of antibiotics in milk 100-fold, in order to facilitate the approval of rbGH. She had just become the head of an FDA department that was evaluating the research that she had recently done while an employee of Monsanto.

o     Another former Monsanto scientist said that after company scientists conducted safety studies on bovine growth hormone, all three refused to drink any more milk, unless it was organic and therefore not treated with the drug. They feared the substantial increased of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) in the drugged milk. IGF-1 is a significant risk factor for cancer.

o     When independent researchers published a study in July 1999 showing that Monsanto’s GM soy contains 12%-14% less cancer-fighting phytoestrogens, Monsanto responded with its own study, concluding that soy’s phytoestrogen levels vary too much to even carry out a statistical analysis. Researchers failed to disclose, however, that they had instructed the laboratory to use an obsolete method of detection—one that had been prone to highly variable results.

o     To prove that GM protein breaks down quickly during simulated digestion, Monsanto uses thousands of times the amount of digestive enzymes and a much stronger acid than what the World Health Organization recommends.

o     Monsanto told government regulators that the GM protein produced in their high-lysine GM corn was safe for humans, because it is also found in soil. They claimed that since people consume small residues of soil on fruits and vegetables, the protein has a safe history as part of the human diet. The actual amount of the GM corn protein an average US citizen would consume, however, if all their corn were Monsanto’s variety, would be “about 30 billion-4 trillion times” the amount normally consumed in soil residues. For equivalent exposure, people would have to eat as much as 22,000 pounds of soil every second of everyday.

o     Monsanto’s high-lysine corn also had unusual levels of several nutritional components, such as protein and fiber. Instead of comparing it to normal corn, which would have revealed this significant disparity, Monsanto compared their GM corn to obscure corn varieties that were also far outside the normal range on precisely these values. On this basis, Monsanto could claim that there were no statistically significant differences in their GM corn content.

Methods used by Monsanto to hide problems are varied and plentiful. For example, researchers:

o     Use animals with varied starting weights, to hinder the detection of food-related changes;

o     Keep feeding studies short, to miss long-term impacts;

o     Test Roundup Ready soybeans that have never been sprayed with Roundup—as they always are in real world conditions;

o     Avoid feeding animals the GM crop, but instead give them a single dose of GM protein produced from GM bacteria;

o     Use too few subjects to obtain statistical significance;

o     Use poor or inappropriate statistical methods, or fail to even mention statistical methods, or include essential data; and

o     Employ insensitive detection techniques—doomed to fail.

Monsanto’s 1996 Journal of Nutrition study, which was their cornerstone article for “proving” that GM soy was safe, provides plenty of examples of masterfully rigged methods.

o     Researchers tested GM soy on mature animals, not the more sensitive young ones. GMO safety expert Arpad Pusztai says the older animals “would have to be emaciated or poisoned to show anything.”

o     Organs were never weighed

o     The GM soy was diluted up to 12 times which, according to an expert review, “would probably ensure that any possible undesirable GM effects did not occur.”

o     The amount of protein in the feed was “artificially too high,” which would mask negative impacts of the soy.

o     Samples were pooled from different locations and conditions, making it nearly impossible for compositional differences to be statistically significant.

o     Data from the only side-by-side comparison was removed from the study and never published. When it was later recovered, it revealed that Monsanto’s GM soy had significantly lower levels of important constituents (e.g. protein, a fatty acid, and phenylalanine, an essential amino acid) and that toasted GM soy meal had nearly twice the amount of a lectin—which interferes with the body’s ability to assimilate nutrients. Moreover the amount of trypsin inhibitor, a known soy allergen, was as much as seven times higher in cooked GM soy compared to a cooked non-GM control. Monsanto named their study, “The composition of glyphosate-tolerant soybean seeds is equivalent to that of conventional soybeans.”

A paper published in Nutrition and Health analyzed all peer-reviewed feeding studies on GM foods as of 2003. It came as no surprise that Monsanto’s Journal of Nutrition study, along with the other four peer-reviewed animal feeding studies that were “performed more or less in collaboration with private companies,” reported no negative effects of the GM diet. “On the other hand,” they wrote, “adverse effects were reported (but not explained) in [the five] independent studies.” They added, “It is remarkable that these effects have all been observed after feeding for only 10–14 days.”^[xviii]

A former Monsanto scientist recalls how colleagues were trying to rewrite a GM animal feeding study, to hide the ill-effects. But sometimes when study results are unmistakably damaging, Monsanto just plain lies. Monsanto’s study on Roundup, for example, showed that 28 days after application, only 2% of their herbicide had broken down. They nonetheless advertised the weed killer as “biodegradable,” “leaves the soil clean,” and “respects the environment.” These statements were declared false and illegal by judges in both the US and France. The company was forced to remove “biodegradable” from the label and pay a fine.

Monsanto attacks labeling, local democracy, and news coverage

o     On July 3, 2003, Monsanto sued Oakhurst dairy because their labels stated, “Our Farmers’ Pledge: No Artificial Growth Hormones.” Oakhurst eventually settled with Monsanto, agreeing to include a sentence on their cartons saying that according to the FDA no significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rbGH-treated and non-rbGH-treated cows. The statement is not true. FDA scientists had acknowledged the increase of IGF-1, bovine growth hormone, antibiotics, and pus, in milk from treated cows. Nonetheless, the misleading sentence had been written years earlier by the FDA’s deputy commissioner of policy, Michael Taylor, the one who was formerly Monsanto’s outside attorney and later their vice president.

o     Monsanto’s public relations firm created a group called the Dairy Coalition, which pressured editors of the USA Today, Boston Globe, New York Times and others, to limit negative coverage of rbGH.

o     A Monsanto attorney wrote a letter to Fox TV, promising dire consequences if the station aired a 4-part exposé on rbGH. The show was ultimately canceled.

o     A book critical of Monsanto’s GM foods was three days away from being published. A threatening letter from Monsanto’s attorney forced the small publisher to cancel publication.

o     14,000 copies of Ecologist magazine dedicated to exposing Monsanto were shredded by the printer due to fears of a lawsuit.

o     After a ballot initiative in California established Mendocino County as a GM-free zone—where planting GMOs is illegal, Monsanto and others organized to push through laws in 14 states that make it illegal for cities and counties to declare similar zones.

Monsanto’s promises of riches come up short

Biotech advocates have wooed politicians, claiming that their new technology is the path to riches for their city, state, or nation. “This notion that you lure biotech to your community to save its economy is laughable,” said Joseph Cortright, an Oregon economist who co-wrote a report on the subject. “This is a bad-idea virus that has swept through governors, mayors and economic development officials.”^[xix] Indeed, The Wall Street Journal observed, “Not only has the biotech industry yielded negative financial returns for decades, it generally digs its hole deeper every year.”^[xx] The Associated Press says it “remains a money-losing, niche industry.”^[xxi]

Nowhere in the biotech world is the bad-idea virus more toxic than in its application to GM plants. Not only does the technology under-deliver, it consistently burdens governments and entire sectors with losses and problems.

Under the first Bush administration, for example, the White House’s elite Council on Competitiveness chose to fast track GM food in hopes that it would strengthen the economy and make American products more competitive overseas. The opposite ensued. US corn exports to Europe were virtually eliminated, down by 99.4 percent. The American Corn Growers Association (ACGA) calculated that the introduction of GM corn caused a drop in corn prices by 13 to 20%.^[xxii] Their CEO said, “The ACGA believes an explanation is owed to the thousands of American farmers who were told to trust this technology, yet now see their prices fall to historically low levels while other countries exploit US vulnerability and pick off our export customers one by one.”^[xxiii] US soy sales also plummeted due to GM content.

According to Charles Benbrook, PhD, former executive director of the National Academy of Sciences’ Board on Agriculture, the closed markets and slashed prices forced the federal government to pay an additional $3 to $5 billion every year.^[xxiv] He says growers have only been kept afloat by the huge jump in subsidies.^[xxv]

Instead of withdrawing support for failed GM crops, the US government has been convinced by Monsanto and others that the key to success is to force open foreign markets to GMOs. But many nations are also reeling under the false promise of GMOs.

Canola crashes on GM

When Canada became the only major producer to adopt GM canola in 1996, it led to a disaster. The premium-paying EU market, which took about one-third of Canada’s canola exports in 1994 and one-fourth in ’95, stopped all imports from Canada by 1998. The GM canola was diverted to the low-priced Chinese market. Not only did Canadian canola prices fall to a record low,^[xxvi] Canada even lost their EU honey exports due to the GM pollen contamination.

Australia benefited significantly from Canada’s folly. By 2006, the EU was buying 38% of Australia’s canola exports.^[xxvii] Nonetheless, Monsanto’s people in Australia claimed that GM canola was the way to get more competitive. They told farmers that Roundup Ready canola would yield up to 30% more. But when an investigator looked at the best trial yields on Monsanto’s website, it was 17% below the national average canola yield. When that was publicized, the figures quickly disappeared from the Monsanto’s site. Two Aussie states did allow GM canola and sure enough, they are suffering from loss of foreign markets.

In Australia and elsewhere, the non-GMO farmers also suffer. Market prices drop, and farmers spend more to set up segregation systems, GMO testing, buffer zones, and separate storage and shipping channels to try to hold onto non-GMO markets. Even then, they risk contamination and lost premiums.

GM farmers don’t earn or produce more

Monsanto has been quite successful in convincing farmers that GM crops are the ticket to greater yields and higher profits. You still hear that rhetoric at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). But a 2006 USDA report “could not find positive financial impacts in either the field-level nor the whole-farm analysis” for adoption of Bt corn and Roundup Ready soybeans. They said, “Perhaps the biggest issue raised by these results is how to explain the rapid adoption of [GM] crops when farm financial impacts appear to be mixed or even negative.”^[xxviii]

Similarly, the Canadian National Farmers Union (NFU) flatly states, “The claim that GM seeds make our farms more profitable is false.”^[xxix] Net farm incomes in Canada plummeted since the introduction of GM canola, with the last five years being the worst in Canada’s history.

In spite of numerous advertising claims that GM crops increase yield, the average GM crop from Monsanto reduces yield. This was confirmed by the most comprehensive evaluation on the subject, conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists in 2009. Called Failure to Yield, the report demonstrated that in spite of years of trying, GM crops return less bushels than their non-GM counterparts. Even the 2006 USDA report stated that “currently available GM crops do not increase the yield potential of a hybrid variety. . . . In fact, yield may even decrease if the varieties used to carry the herbicide tolerant or insect-resistant genes are not the highest yielding cultivars.” ^[xxx]

US farmers had expected higher yields with Roundup Ready soybeans, but independent studies confirm a yield loss of 4-11%.^[xxxi] Brazilian soybean yields are also down since Roundup Ready varieties were introduced.^[xxxii] In Canada, a study showed a 7.5% lower yield with Roundup Ready canola.^[xxxiii]

The Canadian National Farmers Union (NFU) observed, “Corporate and government managers have spent millions trying to convince farmers and other citizens of the benefits of genetically-modified (GM) crops. But this huge public relations effort has failed to obscure the truth: GM crops do not deliver the promised benefits; they create numerous problems, costs, and risks. . . . It would be too generous even to call GM crops a solution in search of a problem: These crops have failed to provide significant solutions.”^[xxxiv]

 

Herbicide use rising due to GMOs

Monsanto bragged that their Roundup Ready technology would reduce herbicide, but at the same time they were building new Roundup factories to meet their anticipated increase in demand. They got it. According to USDA data, the amount of herbicide used in the US increased by 382.6 million pounds over 13 years. Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybeans accounted for 92% of the total increase. Due to the proliferation of Roundup resistant weeds, herbicide use is accelerating rapidly. From 2007 to 2008, herbicide used on GM herbicide tolerant crops skyrocketed by 31.4%.^[xxxv] Furthermore, as weeds fail to respond to Roundup, farmers also rely on more toxic pesticides such as the highly poisonous 2,4-D.

Contamination happens

In spite of Monsanto’s assurances that it wouldn’t be a problem, contamination has been a consistent and often overwhelming hardship for seed dealers, farmers, manufacturers, even entire food sectors. The biotech industry recommends buffer zones between fields, but these have not been competent to protect non-GM, organic, or wild plants from GMOs. A UK study showed canola cross-pollination occurring as far as 26 km away.^[xxxvi]

But pollination is just one of several ways that contamination happens. There is also seed movement by weather and insects, crop mixing during harvest, transport, and storage, and very often, human error. The contamination is North America is so great, it is difficult for farmers to secure pure non-GM seed. In Canada, a study found 32 of 33 certified non-GM canola seeds were contaminated.^[xxxvii] Most of the non-GM soy, corn, and canola seeds tested in the US also contained GMOs.^[xxxviii]

Contamination can be very expensive. StarLink corn—unapproved for human consumption—ended up the US food supply in 2000 and resulted in an estimated price tag of $1 billion. The final cost of GM rice contamination in the US in 2006 could be even higher.

Deadly Deception in India

Monsanto ran a poster series called, “TRUE STORIES OF FARMERS WHO HAVE SOWN BT COTTON.” One featured a farmer who claimed great benefits, but when investigators tracked him down, he turned out to be a cigarette salesman, not a farmer. Another poster claimed yields by the pictured farmer that were four times what he actually achieved. One poster showed a farmer standing next to a tractor, suggesting that sales of Bt cotton allowed him to buy it. But the farmer was never told what the photo was to be used for, and said that with the yields from Bt, “I would not be able to buy even two tractor tires.”

In addition to posters, Monsanto’s cotton marketers used dancing girls, famous Bollywood actors, even religious leaders to pitch their products. Some newspaper ads looked like a news stories and featured relatives of seed salesmen claiming to be happy with Bt. Sometimes free pesticides were given away with the seeds, and some farmers who helped with publicity got free seeds.

Scientists published a study claiming that Monsanto’s cotton increased yields in India by 70-80%. But they used only field trial data provided to them by Monsanto. Actual yields turn out to be quite different:

• India News^[xxxix] reported studies showing a loss of about 18%.
• An independent study in Andhra Pradesh “done on [a] season-long basis continuously for three years in 87 villages” showed that growing Bt cotton cost 12% more, yielded 8.3% less, and the returns over three years were 60% less.^[xl]
• Another report identified a yield loss in the Warangal district of 30-60%. The official report, however, was tampered with. The local Deputy Director of Agriculture confirmed on Feb 1, 2005 that the yield figures had been secretly increased to 2.7 times higher than what farms reported. Once the state of Andhra Pradesh tallied all the actual yields, they demanded approximately $10 million USD from Monsanto to compensate farmers for losses. Monsanto refused.

In sharp contrast to the independent research done by agronomists, Monsanto commissioned studies to be done by market research agencies. One, for example, claimed 4 times the actual reduction in pesticide use, 12 times the actual yield, and 100 times the actual profit.^[xli]

In Andhra Pradesh, where 71% of farmers who used Bt cotton ended up with financial losses, farmers attacked the seed dealer’s office and even “tied up Mahyco Monsanto representatives in their villages,” until the police rescued them.^[xlii]

In spite of great losses and unreliable yields, Monsanto has skillfully eliminated the availability of non-GM cotton seeds in many regions throughout India, forcing farmers to buy their varieties.

Farmers borrow heavily and at high interest rates to pay four times the price for the GM varieties, along with the chemicals needed to grow them. When Bt cotton performs poorly and can’t even pay back the debt, desperate farmers resort to suicide, often drinking unused pesticides. In one region, more than three Bt cotton farmers take their own lives each day. The UK Daily Mail estimates that the total number of Bt cotton-related suicides in India is a staggering 125,000.

Doctors orders: no genetically modified food

A greater tragedy may be the harm from the dangerous GM foods produced by Monsanto. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) has called on all physicians to prescribe diets without GM foods to all patients.^[xliii] They called for a moratorium on GMOs, long-term independent studies, and labeling. They stated, “Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food,” including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system. “There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation…”

Former AAEM President Dr. Jennifer Armstrong says, “Physicians are probably seeing the effects in their patients, but need to know how to ask the right questions.” Renowned biologist Pushpa M. Bhargava believes that GMOs are a major contributor to the deteriorating health in America.

Pregnant women and babies at great risk

GM foods are particularly dangerous for pregnant moms and children. After GM soy was fed to female rats, most of their babies died—compared to a 10% deaths among controls fed natural soy.^[xliv] GM-fed babies were smaller, and possibly infertile.^[xlv]

Testicles of rats fed GM soy changed from the normal pink to dark blue.^[xlvi] Mice fed GM soy had altered young sperm.^[xlvii] Embryos of GM soy-fed parent mice had changed DNA.^[xlviii] And mice fed GM corn had fewer, and smaller, babies.^[xlix]

In Haryana, India, most buffalo that ate GM cottonseed had reproductive complications such as premature deliveries, abortions, and infertility; many calves died. About two dozen US farmers said thousands of pigs became sterile from certain GM corn varieties. Some had false pregnancies; others gave birth to bags of water. Cows and bulls also became infertile.^[l]

In the US, incidence of low birth weight babies, infertility, and infant mortality are all escalating.

Food that produces poison

Monsanto’s GM corn and cotton are engineered to produce a built-in pesticide called Bt-toxin—produced from soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis. When bugs bite the plant, poison splits open their stomach and kills them. Organic farmers and others use natural Bt bacteria spray for insect control, so Monsanto claims that Bt-toxin must be safe.

The Bt-toxin produced in GM plants, however, is thousands of times more concentrated than natural Bt spray, is designed to be more toxic,^[li] has properties of an allergen, and cannot be washed off the plant.

Moreover, studies confirm that even the less toxic natural spray can be harmful. When dispersed by plane to kill gypsy moths in Washington and Vancouver, about 500 people reported allergy or flu-like symptoms.^[lii],^[liii] The same symptoms are now reported by farm workers from handling Bt cotton throughout India.^[liv]

GMOs provoke immune reactions

GMO safety expert Arpad Pusztai says changes in immune status are “a consistent feature of all the [animal] studies.”^[lv] From Monsanto’s own research to government funded trials, rodents fed Bt corn had significant immune reactions^{.[lvi] [lvii]}

Soon after GM soy was introduced to the UK, soy allergies skyrocketed by 50%. Ohio allergist Dr. John Boyles says “I used to test for soy allergies all the time, but now that soy is genetically engineered, it is so dangerous that I tell people never to eat it.”

GM soy and corn contain new proteins with allergenic properties,^[lviii] and GM soy has up to seven times more of a known soy allergen.^[lix] Perhaps the US epidemic of food allergies and asthma is a casualty of genetic manipulation.

Animals dying in large numbers

In India, animals graze on cotton plants after harvest. But when shepherds let sheep graze on Bt cotton plants, thousands died. Investigators said preliminary evidence “strongly suggests that the sheep mortality was due to a toxin. . . . most probably Bt-toxin.”^[lx] In one small study, all sheep fed Bt cotton plants died; those fed natural plants remained healthy.

In an Andhra Pradesh village, buffalo grazed on cotton plants for eight years without incident. On January 3^rd, 2008, 13 buffalo grazed on Bt cotton plants for the first time. All died within three days.^[lxi] Monsanto’s Bt corn is also implicated in the deaths horses, water buffaloes, and chickens in The Philippines.^[lxii]

Lab studies of GM crops by other companies also show mortalities. Twice the number of chickens fed Liberty Link corn died; 7 of 40 rats fed a GM tomato died within two weeks.^[lxiii] And a farmer in Germany says his cows died after exclusively eating Syngenta’s GM corn.

GMOs remain inside of us

The only published human feeding study revealed that even after we stop eating GMOs, harmful GM proteins may be produced continuously inside of us; genes inserted into Monsanto’s GM soy transfer into bacteria inside our intestines and continue to function.^[lxiv] If Bt genes also transfer, eating corn chips might transform our intestinal bacteria into living pesticide factories.

Hidden dangers

Biologist David Schubert of the Salk Institute says, “If there are problems [with GMOs], we will probably never know because the cause will not be traceable and many diseases take a very long time to develop.” In the 9 years after GM crops were introduced in 1996, Americans with three or more chronic diseases jumped from 7% to 13%.^[lxv] But without any human clinical trials or post marketing surveillance, we may never know if GMOs are a contributor.

Un-recallable contamination

In spite of the enormous health dangers, the environmental impacts may be worse still. That is because we don’t have a technology to fully clean up the contaminated gene pool. The self-propagating genetic pollution released into the environment from Monsanto’s crops can outlast the effects of climate change and nuclear waste.

Replacing Nature: “Nothing Shall Be Eaten That We Don’t Own”

As Monsanto has moved forward with its master plan to replace nature, they have led the charge in buying up seed businesses and are now the world’s largest. At least 200 independent seed companies have disappeared over 13 years, non-GMO seed availability is dwindling, and Monsanto is jacking up their seed prices dramatically. Corn is up more than 30%, soy nearly 25%, over 2008 prices.^[lxvi]

 

An Associated Press exposé^[lxvii] reveals how Monsanto’s onerous contracts allowed them to manipulate, then dominate, the seed industry using unprecedented legal restrictions. One contract provision, for example, “prevented bidding wars” and “likely helped Monsanto buy 24 independent seed companies throughout the Farm Belt over the last few years: that corn seed agreement says that if a smaller company changes ownership, its inventory with Monsanto’s traits ‘shall be destroyed immediately.’”

With that restriction in place, the seed companies couldn’t even think of selling to a company other than Monsanto. According to attorney David Boies, who represents DuPont—owner of Pioneer Seeds: “If the independent seed company is losing their license and has to destroy their seeds, they’re not going to have anything, in effect, to sell,” Boies said. “It requires them to destroy things—destroy things they paid for—if they go competitive. That’s exactly the kind of restriction on competitive choice that the antitrust laws outlaw.” Boies was a prosecutor on the antitrust case against Microsoft. He is now working with DuPont in their civil antitrust lawsuit against Monsanto.

Monsanto also has the right to cancel deals and wipe out the inventory of a business if the confidentiality clauses are violated

“‘We now believe that Monsanto has control over as much as 90 percent of (seed genetics). This level of control is almost unbelievable,’ said Neil Harl, agricultural economist at Iowa State University who has studied the seed industry for decades.”

Monsanto also controls and manipulates farmers through onerous contracts. Troy Roush, for example, is one of hundreds accused by Monsanto of illegally saving their seeds. The company requires farmers to sign a contract that they will not save and replant GM seeds from their harvest. That way Monsanto can sell its seeds—at a premium—each season.

Although Roush maintains his innocence, he was forced to settle with Monsanto after two and a half years of court battles. He says his “family was just destroyed [from] the stress involved.” Many farmers are afraid, according to Roush, because Monsanto has “created a little industry that serves no other purpose than to wreck farmers’ lives.” Monsanto has collected an estimated $200 million from farmers thus far.

Roush says, “They are in the process of owning food, all food.” Paraguayan farmer Jorge Galeano says, “Its objective is to control all of the world’s food production.” Renowned Indian physicist and community organizer Vandana Shiva says, “If they control seed, they control food; they know it, it’s strategic. It’s more powerful than bombs; it’s more powerful than guns. This is the best way to control the populations of the world.”

Our food security lies in diversity—both biodiversity, and diversity of owners and interests. Any single company that consolidates ownership of seeds, and therefore power over the food supply, is a dangerous threat. Of all the corporations in the world, however, the one we should trust the least is Monsanto. With them at the helm, the impact could be cataclysmic.

 

 

International bestselling author and independent filmmaker Jeffrey M. Smith is the Executive Director of the Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT) and the leading spokesperson on the health dangers of GMOs. His first book, Seeds of Deception is the world’s bestselling book on the subject. His second, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, identifies 65 risks of GMOs and demonstrates how superficial government approvals and industry research are not competent to find most of them. IRT’s Campaign for Healthier Eating in America is designed to create a tipping point of consumer rejection of GMOs, forcing them out of the market. www.ResponsibleTechnology.org.

NOTE: This is a reprint, with permission from the author, of Jeffrey’s 10 part article that was previously published on Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/monsanto-the-worlds-poste_b_427035.html

Here’s another brilliant article by Jeffrey Smith from the GMO free speakers training. Mom

How corporations engineered the non-regulation of dangerous genetically modified foods by Jeffrey Smith

Government officials around the globe have been coerced, infiltrated, and paid off by the agricultural biotech giants. In Indonesia, Monsanto gave bribes and questionable payments to at least 140 officials, attempting to get their genetically modified (GM) cotton approved.[1] In India, one official tampered with the report on Bt cotton to increase the yield figures to favor Monsanto.[2] In Mexico, a senior government official allegedly threatened a University of California professor, implying “We know where your children go to school,” trying to get him not to publish incriminating evidence that would delay GM approvals.[3] While most industry manipulation and political collusion is more subtle, none was more significant than that found at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The FDA’s “non-regulation” of GM foods

Genetically modified crops are the result of a technology developed in the 1970s that allow genes from one species to be forced into the DNA of unrelated species. The inserted genes produce proteins that confer traits in the new plant, such as herbicide tolerance or pesticide production. The process of creating the GM crop can produce all sorts of side effects, and the plants contain proteins that have never before been in the food supply. In the US, new types of food substances are normally classified as food additives, which must undergo extensive testing, including long-term animal feeding studies.[4] If approved, the label of food products containing the additive must list it as an ingredient.

There is an exception, however, for substances that are deemed “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS). GRAS status allows a product to be commercialized without any additional testing. According to US law, to be considered GRAS the substance must be the subject of a substantial amount of peer-reviewed published studies (or equivalent) and there must be overwhelming consensus among the scientific community that the product is safe. GM foods had neither. Nonetheless, in a precedent-setting move that some experts contend was illegal, in 1992 the FDA declared that GM crops are GRAS as long as their producers say they are. Thus, the FDA does not require any safety evaluations or labels whatsoever. A company can even introduce a GM food to the market without telling the agency.

Such a lenient approach to GM crops was largely the result of Monsanto’s legendary influence over the US government. According to the New York Times, “What Monsanto wished for from Washington, Monsanto and, by extension, the biotechnology industry got. . . . When the company abruptly decided that it needed to throw off the regulations and speed its foods to market, the White House quickly ushered through an unusually generous policy of self-policing.” According to Dr. Henry Miller, who had a leading role in biotechnology issues at the FDA from 1979 to 1994, “In this area, the U.S. government agencies have done exactly what big agribusiness has asked them to do and told them to do.”

Following Monsanto’s lead, in 1992 the Council on Competitiveness chaired by Vice President Dan Quayle identified GM crops as an industry that could increase US exports. On May 26, Quayle announced “reforms” to “speed up and simplify the process of bringing” GM products to market without “being hampered by unnecessary regulation.”[5] Three days later, the FDA policy on non-regulation was unveiled.

The person who oversaw its development was the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Policy, Michael Taylor, whose position had been created especially for him in 1991. Prior to that, Taylor was an outside attorney for both Monsanto and the Food Biotechnology Council. After working at the FDA, he became Monsanto’s vice president. In the summer of 2009, the Obama administration put Taylor back in the FDA, as the US Food Safety Czar.

Covering up health dangers

The policy he oversaw in 1992 needed to create the impression that unintended effects from GM crops were not an issue. Otherwise their GRAS status would be undermined. But internal memos made public from a lawsuit showed that the overwhelming consensus among the agency scientists was that GM crops can have unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects. Various departments and experts spelled these out in detail, listing allergies, toxins, nutritional effects, and new diseases as potential problems. They had urged superiors to require long-term safety studies.[6] In spite of the warnings, according to public interest attorney Steven Druker who studied the FDA’s internal files, “References to the unintended negative effects of bioengineering were progressively deleted from drafts of the policy statement (over the protests of agency scientists).”[7]

FDA microbiologist Louis Pribyl wrote about the policy, “What has happened to the scientific elements of this document? Without a sound scientific base to rest on, this becomes a broad, general, ‘What do I have to do to avoid trouble’-type document. . . . It will look like and probably be just a political document. . . . It reads very pro-industry, especially in the area of unintended effects.”[8]

The FDA scientists’ concerns were not only ignored, their very existence was denied. Consider the private memo summarizing opinions at the FDA, which stated, “The processes of genetic engineering and traditional breeding are different and according to the technical experts in the agency, they lead to different risks.”[9] Contrast that with the official policy statement: “The agency is not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.”[10] On the basis of this manufactured and false notion of no meaningful differences, the FDA does not require GM food safety testing.

To further justify their lack of oversight, they claimed that GM crops were “substantially equivalent” to their natural counterparts. But this concept does not hold up to scrutiny. The Royal Society of Canada described substantial equivalence as “scientifically unjustifiable and inconsistent with precautionary regulation of the technology.” In sharp contrast to the FDA’s position, the Royal Society of Canada said that “the default prediction” for GM crops would include “a range of collateral changes in expression of other genes, changes in the pattern of proteins produced and/or changes in metabolic activities.”[11]

Fake safety assessments

Biotech companies do participate in a voluntary consultation process with the FDA, but it is derided by critics as a meaningless exercise. Companies can submit whatever information they choose, and the FDA does not conduct or commission any studies of their own. Former EPA scientist Doug Gurian-Sherman, who analyzed FDA review records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, states flatly, “It is clear that FDA’s current voluntary notification process (even if made mandatory) is not up to the task of ensuring the safety of future GE [genetically engineered] crops.” He says, “The FDA consultation process does not allow the agency to require submission of data, misses obvious errors in company-submitted data summaries, provides insufficient testing guidance, and does not require sufficiently detailed data to enable the FDA to assure that GE crops are safe to eat.”[12] Similarly, a Friends of the Earth review of company and FDA documents concluded:

“If industry chooses to submit faulty, unpublishable studies, it does so without consequence. If it should respond to an agency request with deficient data, it does so without reprimand or follow-up. . . . If a company finds it disadvantageous to characterize its product, then its properties remain uncertain or unknown. If a corporation chooses to ignore scientifically sound testing standards . . . then faulty tests are conducted instead, and the results are considered legitimate. In the area of genetically engineered food regulation, the ‘competent’ agencies rarely if ever (know how to) conduct independent research to verify or supplement industry findings.”[13]

At the end of the consultation, the FDA doesn’t actually approve the crops. Rather, they issue a letter including a statement such as the following:

“Based on the safety and nutritional assessment you have conducted, it is our understanding that Monsanto has concluded that corn products derived from this new variety are not materially different in composition, safety, and other relevant parameters from corn currently on the market, and that the genetically modified corn does not raise issues that would require premarket review or approval by FDA. . . . As you are aware, it is Monsanto’s responsibility to ensure that foods marketed by the firm are safe, wholesome and in compliance with all applicable legal and regulatory requirements.”[14]

The National Academy of Sciences and even the pro-GM Royal Society of London[15] describe the US system as inadequate and flawed. The editor of the prestigious journal Lancet said, “It is astounding that the US Food and Drug Administration has not changed their stance on genetically modified food adopted in 1992. . . . The policy is that genetically modified crops will receive the same consideration for potential health risks as any other new crop plant. This stance is taken despite good reasons to believe that specific risks may exist. . . . Governments should never have allowed these products into the food chain without insisting on rigorous testing for effects on health.”[16]

Promoting and regulating don’t mix

The FDA and other regulatory agencies are officially charged with both regulating biotech products and promoting them—a clear conflict. Suzanne Wuerthele, a US EPA toxicologist, says, “This technology is being promoted, in the face of concerns by respectable scientists and in the face of data to the contrary, by the very agencies which are supposed to be protecting human health and the environment. The bottom line in my view is that we are confronted with the most powerful technology the world has ever known, and it is being rapidly deployed with almost no thought whatsoever to its consequences.”

Canadian regulators are similarly conflicted. The Royal Society of Canada reported that, “In meetings with senior managers from the various Canadian regulatory departments . . . their responses uniformly stressed the importance of maintaining a favorable climate for the biotechnology industry to develop new products and submit them for approval on the Canadian market. . . . The conflict of interest involved in both promoting and regulating an industry or technology . . . is also a factor in the issue of maintaining the transparency, and therefore the scientific integrity, of the regulatory process. In effect, the public interest in a regulatory system that is ‘science based’—that meets scientific standards of objectivity, a major aspect of which is full openness to scientific peer review—is significantly compromised when that openness is negotiated away by regulators in exchange for cordial and supportive relationships with the industries being regulated.”[17]

The conflict of interest among scientists at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) GMO Panel is quite explicit. According to Friends of the Earth, “One member has direct financial links with the biotech industry and others have indirect links, such as close involvement with major conferences organized by the biotech industry. Two members have even appeared in promotional videos produced by the biotech industry. . . . Several members of the Panel, including the chair Professor Kuiper, have been involved with the EU-funded ENTRANSFOOD project. The aim of this project was to agree [to] safety assessment, risk management and risk communication procedures that would ‘facilitate market introduction of GMOs in Europe, and therefore bring the European industry in a competitive position.’ Professor Kuiper, who coordinated the ENTRANSFOOD project, sat on a working group that also included staff from Monsanto, Bayer CropScience and Syngenta.” The report concludes that EFSA is “being used to create a false impression of scientific agreement when the real situation is one of intense and continuing debate and uncertainty.”[18] This parallels the deceptive façade at the FDA.

The pro-GM European Commission repeats the same ruse. According to leaked documents obtained by Friends of the Earth, while they privately appreciate “the uncertainties and gaps in knowledge that exist in relation to the safety of GM crops . . . the Commission normally keeps this uncertainty concealed from the public whilst presenting its decisions about the safety of GM crops and foods as being certain and scientifically based.” Further, in private “they frequently criticize the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and its assessments of the safety of GM foods and crops, even though the Commission relies on these evaluations to make recommendations to member states. . . [and] to justify its decisions to approve new GM foods.”[19] For example, the Commission privately condemned the submission information for one crop as “mixed, scarce, delivered consecutively all over years, and not convincing.” They said there is “No sufficient experimental evidence to assess the safety.”[20]

Evaluations miss most health problems

Although the body of safety studies on GM foods is quite small, it has verified the concerns expressed by FDA scientists and others.

• The gene inserted into plant DNA may produce a protein that is inherently unhealthy.
• The inserted gene has been found to transfer into human gut bacteria and may even end up in human cellular DNA, where it might produce its protein over the long-term.
• Toxic substances in GM animal feed might bioaccumulate into milk and meat products.
• Farmer and medical reports link GM feed to thousands of sick, sterile, and dead animals.

But there is not a single government safety assessment program in the world that is competent to even identify most of these potential health problems, let alone protect its citizens from the effects.[21]

A review of approved GM crops in Canada by professor E. Ann Clark, for example, reveals that 70% (28 of 40) “of the currently available GM crops . . . have not been subjected to any actual lab or animal toxicity testing, either as refined oils for direct human consumption or indirectly as feedstuffs for livestock. The same finding pertains to all three GM tomato Decisions, the only GM flax, and to five GM corn crops.” In the remaining 30% (12) of the other crops tested, animals were not fed the whole GM feed. They were given just the isolated GM protein that the plant was engineered to produce. But even this protein was not extracted from the actual GM plant. Rather, it was manufactured in genetically engineered bacteria. This method of testing would never identify problems associated with collateral damage to GM plant DNA, unpredicted changes in the GM protein, transfer of genes to bacteria or human cells, excessive herbicide residues, or accumulation of toxins in the food chain, among others. Clark asks, “Where are the trials showing lack of harm to fed livestock, or that meat and milk from livestock fed on GM feedstuffs are safe?”[22]

Epidemiologist and GM safety expert Judy Carman shows that assessments by Food Safety Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) similarly overlook serious potential problems, including cancer, birth defects, or long-term effects of nutritional deficiencies. [23]

“A review of twelve reports covering twenty-eight GM crops – four soy, three corn, ten potatoes, eight canola, one sugar beet and two cotton – revealed no feeding trials on people. In addition, one of the GM corn varieties had gone untested on animals. Some seventeen foods involved testing with only a single oral gavage (a type of forced-feeding), with observation for seven to fourteen days, and only of the substance that had been genetically engineered to appear [the GM protein], not the whole food. Such testing assumes that the only new substance that will appear in the food is the one genetically engineered to appear, that the GM plant-produced substance will act in the same manner as the tested substance that was obtained from another source [GM bacteria], and that the substance will create disease within a few days. All are untested hypotheses and make a mockery of GM proponents’ claims that the risk assessment of GM foods is based on sound science. Furthermore, where the whole food was given to animals to eat, sample sizes were often very low – for example, five to six cows per group for Roundup Ready soy – and they were fed for only four weeks.”[24]

Hidden information, lack of standards, and breaking laws

Companies claim that their submissions to government regulators are “confidential business information” so they are kept secret. Some industry studies that have been forced into the public domain through Freedom of Information requests or lawsuits have been appalling in design and execution. This is due in part to the lack of meaningful and consistent standards required for assessments. Gurian-Sherman says of the FDA’s voluntary consultation, “Some submissions are hundreds of pages long while others are only 10 or 20.”[25] A Friends of the Earth report on US regulation and corporate testing practices states, “Without standardization, companies can and do design test procedures to get the results they want.” [26] Regulators also reference international standards as it suits them. According to the Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety, for example, FSANZ “relaxed adherence to international standards for safety testing when that better suited the Applicant’s submitted work, and imposed international standards whenever that was a lower standard than we recommended.”[27]

Regulators also break laws. The declaration of GRAS status by the FDA deviated from the Food and Cosmetic Act and years of legal precedent. In Europe, the law requires that when EFSA and member states have different opinions, they “are obliged to co-operate with a view to either resolving the divergence or preparing a joint document clarifying the contentious scientific issues and identifying the relevant uncertainties in the data.”[28] According to FOE, in the case of all GM crop reviews, none of these legal obligations were followed.[29]

Humans as guinea pigs

Since GM foods are not properly tested before they enter the market, consumers are the guinea pigs. But this doesn’t even qualify as an experiment. There are no controls and no monitoring. Without post-marketing surveillance, the chances of tracing health problems to GM food are low. The incidence of a disease would have to increase dramatically before it was noticed, meaning that millions may have to get sick before a change is investigated. Tracking the impact of GM foods is even more difficult in North America, where the foods are not labeled. Regulators at Health Canada announced in 2002 that they would monitor Canadians for health problems from eating GM foods. A spokesperson said, “I think it’s just prudent and what the public expects, that we will keep a careful eye on the health of Canadians.” But according to CBC TV news, Health Canada “abandoned that research less than a year later saying it was ‘too difficult to put an effective surveillance system in place.’” The news anchor added, “So at this point, there is little research into the health effects of genetically modified food. So will we ever know for sure if it’s safe?”[30]

Not with the biotech companies in charge. Consider the following statement in a report submitted to county officials in California by pro-GM members of a task force. “[It is] generally agreed that long-term monitoring of the human health risks of GM food through epidemiological studies is not necessary because there is no scientific evidence suggesting any long-term harm from these foods.”[31] Note the circular logic: Because no long-term epidemiological studies are in place, we have no evidence showing long-term harm. And since we don’t have any evidence of long-term harm, we don’t need studies to look for it.

What are these people thinking? Insight into the pro-GM mindset was provided by Dan Glickman, the US Secretary of Agriculture under President Clinton.

“What I saw generically on the pro-biotech side was the attitude that the technology was good, and that it was almost immoral to say that it wasn’t good, because it was going to solve the problems of the human race and feed the hungry and clothe the naked. . . . And there was a lot of money that had been invested in this, and if you’re against it, you’re Luddites, you’re stupid. That, frankly, was the side our government was on. Without thinking, we had basically taken this issue as a trade issue and they, whoever ‘they’ were, wanted to keep our product out of their market. And they were foolish, or stupid, and didn’t have an effective regulatory system. There was rhetoric like that even here in this department. You felt like you were almost an alien, disloyal, by trying to present an open-minded view on some of the issues being raised. So I pretty much spouted the rhetoric that everybody else around here spouted; it was written into my speeches.”[32]

Fortunately, not everyone feels that questioning GM foods is disloyal. On the contrary, millions of people around the world are unwilling to participate in this uncontrolled experiment. They refuse to eat GM foods. Manufacturers in Europe and Japan have committed to avoid using GM ingredients. And the US natural foods industry, not waiting for the government to test or label GMOs, is now engaged in removing all remaining GM ingredients from their sector using a third party verification system. The Campaign for Healthier Eating in America will circulate non-GMO shopping guides in stores nationwide so that consumers have clear, healthy non-GMO choices. With no governmental regulation of biotech corporations, it is left to consumers to protect themselves.

To learn more about the health dangers of GMOs, and what you can do to help end the genetic engineering of our food supply, visit www.ResponsibleTechnology.org.

To learn how to choose healthier non-GMO brands, visit www.NonGMOShoppingGuide.com.

International bestselling author and filmmaker Jeffrey Smith is the leading spokesperson on the health dangers of genetically modified (GM) foods. His first book, Seeds of Deception, is the world’s bestselling and #1 rated book on the topic. His second, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, provides overwhelming evidence that GMOs are unsafe and should never have been introduced. Mr. Smith is the executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, whose Campaign for Healthier Eating in America is designed to create the tipping point of consumer rejection of GMOs, forcing them out of our food supply.

---

[1] “Monsanto Bribery Charges in Indonesia by DoJ and USSEC,” Third World Network, Malaysia, Jan 27, 2005, http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/Monsanto-Indonesia-Bribery27jan05.htm

 

[2] “Greenpeace exposes Government-Monsanto nexus to cheat Indian farmers: calls on GEAC to revoke BT cotton permission,” Press release, March 3, 2005, http://www.greenpeace.org/india_en/news/details?item_id=771071

[3] Jeffrey M. Smith, Seeds of Deception, (Iowa: Yes! Books, 2003), 224.

[4] See Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA)

[5] Dan Quayle, “Speech in the Indian Treaty Room of the Old Executive Office Building,” May 26, 1992.

[6] See Smith, Seeds of Deception; and for copies of FDA memos, see The Alliance for Bio-Integrity, www.biointegrity.org

[7] Steven M. Druker, “How the US Food and Drug Administration approved genetically engineered foods despite the deaths one had caused and the warnings of its own scientists about their unique risks,” Alliance for Bio-Integrity, http://www.biointegrity.org/ext-summary.html

[8] Louis J. Pribyl, “Biotechnology Draft Document, 2/27/92,” March 6, 1992, www.biointegrity.org http://www.biointegrity.org/FDAdocs/04/view1.html

[9] Linda Kahl, Memo to James Maryanski about Federal Register Document “Statement of Policy: Foods from Genetically Modified Plants,” Alliance for Bio-Integrity(January 8, 1992) http://www.biointegrity.org

[10] “Statement of Policy: Foods Derived from New Plant Varieties,” Federal Register 57, no. 104 (May 29, 1992): 22991.

[11] “Elements of Precaution: Recommendations for the Regulation of Food Biotechnology in Canada; An Expert Panel Report on the Future of Food Biotechnology prepared by The Royal Society of Canada at the request of Health Canada Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Environment Canada” The Royal Society of Canada, January 2001.

[12] Doug Gurian-Sherman, “Holes in the Biotech Safety Net, FDA Policy Does Not Assure the Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods,” Center for Science in the Public Interest, http://www.cspinet.org/new/pdf/fda_report__final.pdf

[13] Bill Freese, “The StarLink Affair, Submission by Friends of the Earth to the FIFRA Scientific Advisory Panel considering Assessment of Additional Scientific Information Concerning StarLink Corn,” July 17–19, 2001.

[14] FDA Letter, Letter from Alan M. Rulis, Office of Premarket Approval, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, FDA to Dr. Kent Croon, Regulatory Affairs Manager, Monsanto Company, Sept 25, 1996. See Letter for BNF No. 34 at http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/biocon.html

[15] See for example, “Good Enough To Eat?” New Scientist (February 9, 2002), 7.

[16] “Health risks of genetically modified foods,” editorial, Lancet, 29 May 1999.

[17] “Elements of Precaution,” The Royal Society of Canada, January 2001.

[18] Friends of the Earth Europe, “Throwing Caution to the Wind: A review of the European Food Safety Authority and its work on genetically modified foods and crops,” November 2004.

[19] Friends of the Earth Europe and Greenpeace, “Hidden Uncertainties What the European Commission doesn’t want us to know about the risks of GMOs,” April 2006.

[20] European Communities submission to World Trade Organization dispute panel, 28 January 2005.

[21] Jeffrey M. Smith, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, Yes! Books, Fairfield, IA USA 2007

[22] E. Ann Clark, “Food Safety of GM Crops in Canada: toxicity and allergenicity,” GE Alert, 2000.

[23] FLRAG of the PHAA of behalf of the PHAA, “Comments to ANZFA about Applications A372, A375, A378 and A379.”

[24] Judy Carman, “Is GM Food Safe to Eat?” in R. Hindmarsh, G. Lawrence, eds., Recoding Nature Critical Perspectives on Genetic Engineering (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2004): 82–93.

[25] Doug Gurian-Sherman, “Holes in the Biotech Safety Net, FDA Policy Does Not Assure the Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods,” Center for Science in the Public Interest, http://www.cspinet.org/new/pdf/fda_report__final.pdf

[26] William Freese, “Genetically Engineered Crop Health Impacts Evaluation: A Critique of U.S. Regulation of Genetically Engineered Crops and Corporate Testing Practices, with a Case Study of Bt Corn,” Friends of the Earth U.S., http://www.foe.org/camps/comm/safefood/gefood/index.html

[27] M. Cretenet, J. Goven, J. A. Heinemann, B. Moore, and C. Rodriguez-Beltran, “Submission on the DAR for Application A549 Food Derived from High-Lysine Corn LY038: to permit the use in food of high-lysine corn, 2006, www.inbi.canterbury.ac.nz

[28] EU Regulation 178/2002 (Article 30)

[29] Friends of the Earth Europe, “Throwing Caution to the Wind: A review of the European Food Safety Authority and its work on genetically modified foods and crops,” November 2004.

[30] “Genetically modified foods, who knows how safe they are?” CBC News and Current Affairs, September 25, 2006.

[31] Mike Zelina, et al., The Health Effects of Genetically Engineered Crops on San Luis Obispo County,” A Citizen Response to the SLO Health Commission GMO Task Force Report, 2006.

[32] Bill Lambrecht, Dinner at the New Gene Café, St. Martin’s Press, September 2001, pg 139

Read more, great Fight Back Friday posts here: http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-friday-february-18th/

Read more, great Real Food Wednesday posts here: http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/02/real-food-wednesday-21611.html

Read more, great Monday Mania posts here: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/2011/02/monday-mania-2142011/

Great article from Organic Consumers. This really is the heart of the problem, former Monsanto employees are in charge of our food supply. It’s unconscionable!  Mom

• By Ronnie Cummins
  Organic Consumers Association, Feb 3, 2011
  Straight to the Source

My expose last week, “The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto: What Now?”  has ignited a long-overdue debate on how to stop Monsanto’s earth killing, market-monopolizing, climate-destabilizing rampage. Should we basically resign ourselves to the fact that the Biotech Bully of St. Louis controls the dynamics of the marketplace and public policy? Should we seek some kind of practical compromise or “coexistence” between organics and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)? Should we focus our efforts on crop pollution compensation and “controlled deregulation” of genetically engineered (GE) crops, rather than campaign for an outright ban, or mandatory labeling and safety-testing? Should we prepare ourselves for a future farm landscape where the U.S.’s 23 million acres of alfalfa, the nation’s fourth largest crop, (93% of which are currently not sprayed with toxic herbicides), including organic alfalfa, are sprayed with Roundup and/or genetically polluted with Monsanto’s mutant genes?

Or should we stand up and say Hell No to Monsanto and the Obama Administration? Should we stop all the talk about coexistence between organics and GMOs; unite Millions Against Monsanto,  mobilize like never before at the grassroots; put enormous pressure on the nation’s grocers to truthfully label the thousands of so-called conventional or “natural” foods containing or produced with GMOs; and then slowly but surely drive GMOs from the market?

Of course “coexistence” and “controlled deregulation” are now irrelevant in regard to Monsanto’s herbicide-resistant alfalfa.  Just after my essay was posted last week, the White House gave marching orders to the USDA to allow Monsanto and its Minions to plant GE Roundup-resistance alfalfa on millions of acres, from sea to shining sea, with no restrictions whatsoever.

“Bill Tomson and Scott Kilman of the Wall Street Journal reported that Vilsack’s rejection of a compromise proposal – partial deregulation, which was vehemently opposed by biotech companies and only tepidly accepted by non-GE interests – was the result of an Obama administration review of “burdensome” regulations.”

“Sources familiar with the negotiations at USDA, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Food Safety News they believe the White House asked Vilsack to drop proposed regulations so the administration would appear more friendly to big business.”   – Helena Bottemiller, Food Safety News

This post-holiday gift to Monsanto from the White House is ominous. After the deliberate contamination of 20 million acres of U.S. alfalfa, we can then expect Monsanto and corporate agribusiness to call for GMOs to be allowed under the National Organic Standards. But of course let us hope we get another temporary reprieve from the same federal judge in California who halted the planting of GE alfalfa previously, since the USDA has still failed to demonstrate in their current Environmental Impact Statement that Monsanto’s alfalfa is safe for the environment.

Organic Infighting

Whole Foods and others spent a lot of time this week on their blogs and on the Internet attacking me and the Organic Consumers Association for supposedly mischaracterizing their position on “coexistence” with Monsanto. In an internal company memorandum, marked “For Internal Use Only – Do Not Distribute” January 30, 2011, Whole Foods execs basically told their employees that the OCA is spreading lies to “uniformed consumers” in exchange for money and publicity. Quoting directly from the WFM company memo:

“Why is the OCA spreading misinformation? That’s a hard question for us to answer. Perhaps because we don’t share their narrow view of what it means to support organics, or perhaps because we do not support them with donations. Either way, it’s a shame that an organization that claims to “campaign for health, justice and sustainability” can’t simply tell the truth. This just confuses consumers. Despite all their noise, no industry leaders listen to the OCA – but uninformed consumers might. Their fear-mongering tactics, combined with the OCA’s lack of transparency about its funding sources, underscore the fact that it is neither credible nor trustworthy. We can only assume their activities are intended for further fund-raising. ”

After bashing the OCA, Whole Foods then goes on to admit that WFM stores are filled with conventional and “natural” products that are contaminated with GMOs (they neglect to mention to their staff that these conventional and “natural” products make up approximately 2/3 of WFM’s total sales). Again quoting directly:

“The reality is that no grocery store in the United States, no matter what size or type of business, can claim they are GE-free. While we have been and will continue to be staunch supporters of non-GE foods, we are not going to mislead our customers with an inaccurate claim (and you should question anyone who does). Here’s why: the pervasive planting of GE crops in the U.S. and their subsequent use in our national food supply.  93% of soy, 86% of corn, 93% of cotton, and 93% of canola seed planted in the U.S. in 2010 were genetically engineered. Since these crops are commonly present in a wide variety of foods, a GE-free store is currently not possible in the U.S. (unless the store sells only organic foods.)”

But of course we are not asking WFM to lie to or “mislead” their customers, to claim that all their products are GMO-free, or to sell only organically certified foods. On the contrary, we are simply asking them to abandon the “business as usual” industry practice of remaining silent on the scope and degree of contamination in the billions of dollars of non-organic food they are selling to unwitting consumers every year. What we are asking is that WFM ethically lead the way – in what is now a very unethical marketplace – by admitting publicly (not just in an internal memo) that a major portion of the non-organic foods they are selling (especially processed foods and animal products) are contaminated with GMOs. Then we want them to take the next step and announce that they will start labeling these GMO and/or CAFO foods truthfully, meanwhile pressuring their non-organic food suppliers to either reformulate products with non-GMO ingredients or start making the transition to organic.

Let us hope that WFM eventually does the right thing. It’s unlikely WFM will adopt Truth-in-Labeling unless they get a massive amount of pressure from their customers, workers, and natural food competitors. But if we can build a grassroots Movement strong enough to convince WFM and other natural food stores to adopt Truth-in-Labeling practices, there will be enormous pressure in the marketplace for other larger supermarket chains to follow suit. However, if WFM and other grocery stores refuse to voluntarily label GMO and CAFO products, OCA is prepared to mobilize nationwide to press for mandatory labeling ordinances at the city, county, and state level.

To sign up as a grassroots coordinator for OCA’s Millions Against Monsanto and Factory Farms Truth-in-Labeling Campaign go to: http://organicconsumers.org/oca-volunteer/

Beyond Organic Infighting

The good news this week is that WFM, Organic Valley, Stonyfield, the National Coop Grocers Association and the Organic Trade Association have been making strong statements about fighting against GMOs. In a lengthy telephone conversation two days ago with Organic Valley CEO George Sieman, George told me how angry he was at me and the OCA, but he also said that Organic Valley was going to step up the fight against Monsanto. I said I was glad to hear this. I told him that OCA was going to do the same. I told him that our Millions Against Monsanto Truth-in-Labeling campaign is already attracting thousands of volunteers all across the USA and that we weren’t going to give up until grocery stores, natural food stores, and coops start labeling conventional and “natural” products containing GMOs or coming from CAFOs.

We’ll certainly see Organic Valley and the rest of the organic industry’s pledge to fight GMOs put to the test in the near future, when the USDA unleashes genetically engineered sugar beets for nationwide planting. But given the need for a United Front, OCA would like to stress that Whole Foods Market is not the enemy. Wal-Mart and Monsanto are the enemy. Stonyfield Farm is not the enemy. The Biotechnology Industry Association, Archer Daniels Midland, and Cargill are the enemy. Organic Valley is not the enemy. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, Kraft and Dean Foods are the enemy. OCA wants the organic community to unite our forces, cut the bullshit about “coexistence,” and move forward with an aggressive campaign to drive GMOs and CAFOs off the market.

Monsanto’s Minions: The White House, Congress, and the Mass Media

The United States is rapidly devolving into what can only be described as a Monsanto Nation. Despite Barack Obama (and Hillary Clinton’s) campaign operatives in 2008 publicly stating that Obama supported mandatory labels for GMOs, we haven’t heard a word from the White House on this topic since Inauguration Day. Michele Obama broke ground for an organic garden at the White House in early 2009, but after protests from the pesticide and biotech industry, the forbidden “O” (Organic) word was dropped from White House PR.  Since day one, the Obama Administration has mouthed biotech propaganda, claiming, with no scientific justification whatsoever, that biotech crops can feed the world and enable farmers to increase production in the new era of climate change and extreme weather.

Like Obama’s campaign promises to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; like his promises to bring out-of-control banksters and oil companies under control; like his promises to drastically reduce greenhouse gas pollution and create millions of green jobs; Obama has not come though on his 2008 campaign promise to label GMOs. His unilateral approval of Monsanto’s genetically engineered alfalfa, overruling the federal courts, scientists, and the organic community, offers the final proof: don’t hold your breath for this man to do anything that might offend Monsanto or Corporate America.

Obama’s Administration, like the Bush and Clinton Administrations before him, has become a literal “revolving door” for Monsanto operatives. President Obama stated on the campaign trail in 2007-2008 that agribusiness cannot be trusted with the regulatory powers of government.

But, starting with his choice for USDA Secretary, the pro-biotech former governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsack, President Obama has let Monsanto and the biotech industry know they’ll have plenty of friends and supporters within his administration. President Obama has taken his team of food and farming leaders directly from the biotech companies and their lobbying, research, and philanthropic arms:

Michael Taylor, former Monsanto Vice President, is now the FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods. Roger Beachy, former director of the Monsanto-funded Danforth Plant Science Center, is now the director of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Islam Siddiqui, Vice President of the Monsanto and Dupont-funded pesticide-promoting lobbying group, CropLife, is now the Agriculture Negotiator for the US Trade Representative. Rajiv Shah former agricultural-development director for the pro-biotech Gates Foundation (a frequent Monsanto partner), served as Obama’s USDA Under-Secretary for Research Education and Economics and Chief Scientist and is now head of USAID. Elena Kagan, who, as President Obama’s Solicitor General, took Monsanto’s side against organic farmers in the Roundup Ready alfalfa case, is now on the Supreme Court. Ramona Romero, corporate counsel to DuPont, has been nominated by President Obama to serve as General Counsel for the USDA.

Of course, America’s indentured Congress is no better than the White House when it comes to promoting sane and sustainable public policy. According to Food and Water Watch, Monsanto and the biotech industry have spent more than half a billion dollars ($547 million) lobbying Congress since 1999. Big Biotech’s lobby expenditures have accelerated since Obama’s election in 2008. In 2009 alone Monsanto and the biotech lobby spent $71 million. Last year Monsanto’s Minions included over a dozen lobbying firms, as well as their own in-house lobbyists.

America’s bought-and-sold mass media have likewise joined the ranks of Monsanto’s Minions. Do a Google search on a topic like citizens’ rights to know whether our food has been genetically engineered or not, or on the hazards of GMOs and their companion pesticide Roundup, and you’ll find very little in the mass media. However, do a Google search on the supposed benefits of Monsanto’s GMOs, and you’ll find more articles in the daily press than you would ever want to read.

Although Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio) recently introduced a bill in Congress calling for mandatory labeling and safety testing for GMOs, don’t hold your breath for Congress to take a stand for truth-in-labeling and consumers’ right to know what’s in their food. In a decade of Congressional lobbying, the OCA has never seen more than 24 out of 435 Congressional Representatives co-sponsor one of Kucinich’s GMO labeling bills. Especially since the 2010 Supreme Court decision in the outrageous “Citizens United” case gave big corporations like Monsanto the right to spend unlimited amounts of money (and remain anonymous, as they do so) to buy elections, our chances of passing federal GMO labeling laws against the wishes of Monsanto and Food Inc. are all but non-existent. Keep in mind that one of the decisive Supreme Court swing votes in the “Citizen’s United’ case was cast by the infamous Justice Clarence Thomas, former General Counsel for Monsanto.

To maneuver around Monsanto’s Minions in Washington we need to shift our focus and go local. We’ve got to concentrate our forces where our leverage and power lie, in the marketplace, at the retail level; pressuring retail food stores to voluntarily label their products; while on the legislative front we must organize a broad coalition to pass mandatory GMO (and CAFO) labeling laws, at the city, county, and state levels. And while we’re doing this we need to join forces with the growing national movement to get corporate money out of politics and the media and to take away the fictitious “corporate personhood” (i.e. the legal right of corporations to have all the rights of human citizens, without the responsibility, obligations, and liability of real persons) of Monsanto and the corporate elite.

Monsanto’s Minions: Frankenfarmers in the Fields

The unfortunate bottom line is that most of the North American farmers who have planted Monsanto’s Roundup-resistant or Bt-spliced crops (soybeans, corn, cotton, canola, sugar beets, or alfalfa) are either brain-washed, intimidated (Monsanto has often contaminated non-GMO farmers crops and then threatened to sue them for “intellectual property violations” if they didn’t sign a contract to buy GMO seeds and sign a confidentiality contract to never talk to the media), or ethically challenged. These “commodity farmers,” who receive billions of dollars a year in taxpayer subsidies to plant their Frankencrops and spray their toxic chemicals and fertilizers, don’t seem to give a damn about the human health hazards of chemical, energy, and GMO-intensive agriculture; the cruelty, disease and filth of Factory Farms or CAFOs; or the damage they are causing to the soil, water, and climate. Likewise they have expressed little or no concern over the fact that they are polluting the land and the crops of organic and non-GMO farmers.

Unfortunately, these Frankenfarmers, Monsanto’s Minions, have now been allowed to plant GMO crops on 150 million acres, approximately one-third of all USA cropland. With GE alfalfa they’ll be planting millions of acres more.

The time has come to move beyond polite debate with America’s Frankenfarmers, and their powerful front groups such as the American Farm Bureau, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association. “Coexistence” is a joke when you are dealing with indentured Minions whose only ethical guideline is making money. When I asked a French organic farmer a few years ago what he thought about the idea of coexistence with GE crops and farmers, he laughed. “If my neighbor dared to plant Monsanto’s GM crops, I’d hop on my tractor and plow them up.” Thousands of European farmers and organic activists have indeed uprooted test plots of GMOs over the past decade. Unfortunately if you get caught destroying Frankencrops in the USA, you’ll likely be branded a terrorist and sent to prison.

Apart from direct action, it’s time to start suing, not just Monsanto and the other biotech bullies, but the Frankenfarmers themselves. Attorneys have pointed out to me that the legal precedent of “Toxic Trespass” is firmly established in American case law. If a farmer carelessly or deliberately sprays pesticides or herbicides on his or her property, and this toxic chemical strays or “trespasses” and causes damage to a neighbor’s property, the injured party can sue the “toxic trespasser” and collect significant damages. It’s time for America’s organic and non-GMO farmers to get off their knees and fight, both in the courts and in the court of public opinion. The Biotech Empire of Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, Bayer, BASF, and Syngenta will collapse if its Frankenfarmers are threatened with billions of dollars in toxic trespass damages.

Monsanto’s Minions: Retail Grocery Stores, Factory Farms, Restaurants, and Garden Supply Stores

It’s important to understand where GMOs are sold or consumed, and who’s selling them. Twenty-five percent of GMOs end up in non-labeled, non-organic processed food, the so-called conventional or “natural” foods sold in grocery stores or restaurants; while the remaining 75% are forced-fed to animals on non-organic farms, factory farms, or CAFOs (Confined Animal Feedlot Operations); or else sold internationally, often without the informed consent of overseas consumers. This means we need to identify and boycott, not only so-called conventional or “natural” foods containing soy, soy lecithin, corn, corn sweetener, canola, cottonseed oil, and sugar beet sweetener, but all non-organic meat, dairy, and eggs that come from factory farms or CAFOs. Once Truth-in-Labeling practices are implemented it will be relatively easy for consumers to identify and avoid products that are labeled “May Contain GMOs” or “CAFO.”

Although most of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide sales are directly to farmers, a considerable amount of Roundup is sold in garden supply stores, supplying backyard gardeners, landscapers, and golf courses. Municipal and state governments also spray Roundup in parks and along roadways, while the DEA sprays large amounts of Roundup in rural villages in Colombia and the Andes, part of the insane and murderous War on Drugs.

Monsanto’s Minions: Consumers

Millions of health, climate, and environmental-minded consumers are starting to realize that we must vote with our consumer food dollars if we want health, justice, and sustainability. Unfortunately, millions of others are still mindlessly consuming and over consuming processed foods, junk foods, and cheap, contaminated meat and animal products. The only guaranteed way to avoid GMOs completely is to buy organic foods or to grow your own, and stay away from restaurants (unless they are organic) and fast food outlets. Otherwise, if you are contemplating the purchase of a conventional or “natural” food check the ingredients panel carefully. Avoid all non-organic products that contain soy, soy lecithin, corn, corn sweetener, canola, cottonseed oil, and sugar beet sweetener.

Millions Against Monsanto

We must draw hope from the fact that Monsanto is not invincible. After 16 years of non-stop biotech bullying and force-feeding Genetically Engineered or Modified (GE or GM) crops to farm animals and “Frankenfoods” to unwitting consumers, Monsanto has a big problem, or rather several big problems. A growing number of published scientific studies indicate that GE foods pose serious human health threats.  Federal judges are finally starting to acknowledge what organic farmers and consumers have said all along: uncontrollable and unpredictable GMO crops such as alfalfa and sugar beets spread their mutant genes onto organic farms and into non-GMO varieties and plant relatives, and should be halted.

Monsanto’s Roundup, the agro-toxic companion herbicide for millions of acres of GM soybeans, corn, cotton, alfalfa, canola, and sugar beets, is losing market share. Its overuse has spawned a new generation of superweeds that can only be killed with super-toxic herbicides such as 2,4, D and paraquat. Moreover, patented “Roundup Ready” crops require massive amounts of climate destabilizing nitrate fertilizer. Compounding Monsanto’s damage to the environment and climate, rampant Roundup use is literally killing the soil, destroying essential soil microorganisms, degrading the living soil’s ability to capture and sequester CO2, and spreading deadly plant diseases.

In just one year, Monsanto has moved from being Forbes’ “Company of the Year” to the Worst Stock of the Year. The Biotech Bully of St. Louis has become one of the most hated corporations on Earth.

The biotech bullies and the Farm Bureau have joined hands with the Obama Administration to force controversial Fankencrops like alfalfa onto the market. But as African-American revolutionary Huey Newton pointed out in the late 1960’s, “The Power of the People is greater than the Man’s technology.” Join us as we take on Monsanto and their Minions. Our life and our children’s “right to a future” depend upon the outcome of this monumental battle.
Reprinted from:  http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22499.cfm
Please sign up now as a volunteer grassroots coordinator for OCA’s Millions Against Monsanto and Factory Farms Truth-in-Labeling Campaign: http://organicconsumers.org/oca-volunteer/

Eating GMO-free on a budget

It’s a new year and it’s a great time to make resolutions. I am hoping that many more of us will make a resolution to eat GMO free in 2011.  Organics can be expensive so how can you eat GMO free on a budget?  Here are some tips for healthy GMO-free eating on a budget. You can do it, and it will be good for you and your family.

Buy whole foods and cook from scratch – cooking from scratch is less expensive and healthier then buying pre-made meals. As long as you avoid the common GMO ingredients you can use non-organic products. Buy fresh and in season fruits and vegetables, meats, from local farmers if possible, grains (other then corn) and olive oil.  Add some fresh herbs and you can make amazing and wonderfully GMO free meals.  We have a number of great and easy recipes, right here on Moms for Safe Food

Join a CSA – Community Supported Agriculture is a great way to eat GMO free and support your local farmers as well.  When you join a CSA you are buying a share of the years crop, given either weekly or bi-weekly. We belong to a wonderful CSA and get fruit, a wonderful variety of vegetables, spring mix and herbs every week for much less then we’d pay at the store. If you want to find a CSA near you, go to http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

Buy directly from a farmer – other then CSA’s you can also shop at farmers markets, and find a local farmer, raising grass and pastured meat and buy directly from them. It will save you money and support our wonderful farmers.

There’s a link to U.S. Wellness Meats in our links section. They have a wonderful variety of grass fed and pastured meats and cheese.

If you eat some processed foods, contact any company you buy processed, pre-made food from. If the food contains, canola, soy, corn, High Fructose Corn Syrup and even ‘sugar’ (a lot of companies are using GMO Sugar Beets), it is most likely GMO. They are using GMO ingredients because we have not yet made it clear that that is unacceptable. You can tell them,

“I would buy more of your product if it was GMO free, otherwise I’m looking for alternatives and will stop buying your product.”  If they hear this from enough of us they will look for alternatives.  Also let your supermarket know you want non-GMO options. There will be a ‘tipping point’ – when they hear from enough people that it starts to make a difference.

So the biggest budget saver, to avoid GMO’s is to buy real, whole foods and cook them yourself. Your family and health will thanks you.

Here’s to a GMO free 2011! – Mom

Read more, great Fight Back Friday posts here: http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-friday-january-7th/

Read more, great Pennywise Platter Thursday posts here: http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2011/01/pennywise-platter-thursday-1611.html

Read more, great Real Food Wednesday posts here: http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/01/real-food-wednesday-1511.html

Read more, great Monday Mania posts here: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/2011/01/monday-mania-132011/

Why didn’t I know about GMO’s?

A friend who is learning about GMO’s told me that she felt badly that she didn’t know about them before now. It got me thinking as I felt the same way when I first learned about what was going on with our food supply.

Here’s a great description of GMO’s from the Non-GMO Project Shopping guide:

GMOs (or “genetically modified organisms”) are organisms that have been created through the gene-splicing techniques of biotechnology (also called genetic engineering, or GE). This relatively new science allows DNA from one species to be injected into another species in a laboratory, creating combinations of plant, animal, bacteria, and viral genes that do not occur in nature or through traditional crossbreeding methods. Virtually all commercial GMOs are bred to withstand direct application of herbicide and /or to produce an insecticide. None of the GMO traits currently on the market offer increased yield, drought tolerance, enhanced nutrition or any other consumer benefit. Studies, meanwhile, increasingly show a correlation between consumption of GMO’s and an array of health risks.

Read more here: http://www.nongmoproject.org/consumers/

Why didn’t we all know about GMO’s?

Because, it seems, Monsanto did not want us to.  Putting Genetically Modified Organisms in our food was never presented to the American people, it was done behind our backs. The FDA (run by former employees of Monsanto) allowed them to be marketed, based on Monsanto’s assurance that the products are safe.  There was never any safety testing done by our government and tests done elsewhere in the world have proved them to be unsafe and potentially dangerous.  Our government, both the Democrats and the Republicans have handed our food supply over to a private multi-national corporation. This is the corporation who gave us DDT and Agent Orange. They now own almost all our commercial seed.

They are not doing this to ‘save the world’, they are doing this to control our food supply. If they had good intentions they would not be suing our farmers or putting our seed cleaners out of business. Farmers have traditionally saved their seed to replant for the next year and they’ve done this for thousands of years.  Monsanto is known to sue any farmer who saves their seed, even unintentionally.  They have also put most, if not all, of the seed cleaners that our farmers use out of business as well.  Watch The Future of Food for more information. You can watch the movie here, for free: http://www.thefutureoffood.com/

This is the history of GMO’s in our food supply, dates and basic info from: http://deliciouslivingmag.com/greenliving/dl_article_1558/ comments added by Mom.

1986   First field tests of genetically engineered plants (tobacco) are conducted.

1987   Advanced Genetic Sciences’ Frostban, a genetically altered bacterium that inhibits frost formation is field-tested on strawberry and potato plants in California—the first authorized outdoor tests of an engineered bacterium. Again this was done without public knowledge or approval.

1993   The FDA declares GMO foods are “not inherently dangerous” and do not require special regulation. And the FDA, the same people who are now being put in charge of our farms, allowed them to with no questions asked. In 1994, Norman Braksick, president of Asgrow Seed Co., a subsidiary of Monsanto said, “If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.” (source, Kansas City Star, March 7, 1994).  Here’s what another Monsanto employee had to say,

The debate on genetically modified (GM) brinjal variety continues to generate heat. Former managing director of Monsanto India, Tiruvadi Jagadisan, is the latest to join the critics of Bt brinjal, perhaps the first industry insider to do so.

Jagadisan, who worked with Monsanto for nearly two decades, including eight years as the managing director of India operations, spoke against the new variety during the public consultation held in Bangalore on Saturday.

On Monday, he elaborated by saying the company “used to fake scientific data” submitted to government regulatory agencies to get commercial approvals for its products in India.

The former Monsanto boss said government regulatory agencies with which the company used to deal with in the 1980s simply depended on data supplied by the company while giving approvals to herbicides.

Read more here:

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/StoryPrint?sId=83093&secid=4&page=0

Here’s some more history of GMO’s in the US.

1995   GMO soy and corn planted in the United States.

1996   GMO foods first hit supermarket shelves. WE are not told!

1996   Seven percent of soy and 1.5 percent of corn crops grown in the United States are genetically modified.

1999   The rising tide of public opinion in Europe brings biotech food into the spotlight.  Europe has stopped accepting some of our food as it’s GMO and they do have labeling.  Ireland is a GMO free country!

2000   GMO corn StarLink, approved solely for animal feed, ends up in corn products for human consumption.

2002   ProdiGene violates the U.S. Plant Protection Act by allowing experimental biopharmaceutical corn to mix with a commercial soy crop.

2004   GMO wheat developer Monsanto decides against selling GMO wheat because of negative public perception.

2004   Eighty-five percent of soy and 45 percent of corn crops grown in the United States are genetically modified.

Anything you eat with soy, corn, canola like high fructose corn syrup, corn oil, soy oil, canola oil, etc, is most likely genetically modified.

We can get GMO’s out of our food supply but we need to speak up. Let’s make 2011 the year that the USA goes GMO free!

Read more, great Fight Back Friday posts here:  http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-friday-december-3rd/

Read more, great Real Food Wednesday posts here: http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2010/12/real-food-wednesday-12110.html

Sprouted Banana Bread

This is very nice and easy banana bread recipe. It was delicious, the kids loved it and it stayed fresh and moist until we finished it a few days later.  Happy Thanksgiving, hope everyone has a very happy and healthy holiday.

Ingredients

* 3 or 4 ripe organic bananas, smashed

* 1/3 cup melted organic pastured butter

* 3/4 cup sucanat, rapidura or organic sugar

* 1 pastured egg, beaten

* 1 tsp. vanilla

* 1 tsp. baking soda

* Pinch of Celtic or sea salt

* 1 cup sprouted whole-wheat flour

* 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F Read the rest of this entry »