Biggest Threat to Your Future Health
On March 11 a new documentary was aired on French television. It is a documentary most Americans will never see, explaining how the gigantic biotech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years.For millennia, farmers have saved seeds from season to season. But when Monsanto developed GM seeds that would resist its own herbicide, Roundup, Monsanto patented the seeds. For nearly all of its history the United States Patent and Trademark Office refused to grant patents on seeds, viewing them as life-forms with too many variables to be patented. But in 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court allowed for seed patents in a five-to-four decision, laying the groundwork for a handful of corporations to begin taking control of the world's food supply.
Since the 1980s, Monsanto has become the world leader in genetic modification of seeds and has won 674 biotechnology patents, more than any other company. Farmers who buy Monsanto's Roundup Ready seeds are required to sign an agreement promising not to save the seed produced after each harvest for re-planting, or to sell the seed to other farmers. This means that farmers must buy new seed every year.
Monsanto puts pressure on farmers, farmers' co-ops, seed dealers, and anyone else it suspects may have infringed its patents of genetically modified seeds. To do this, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents. They secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops. They infiltrate community meetings. They gather information from informants about farming activities.
Some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors. Others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them to sign papers giving Monsanto access to their private records. Farmers call them the "seed police" and use words such as "Gestapo" and "Mafia" to describe their tactics.
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Monsanto, which was a plain old chemical business before it rechristened itself a "life sciences" company, and started using bioengineering to develop genetically altered crops, is one of the biggest threats to both mankind and the earth today. They have both the capability and the ruthless drive to, more or less single-handedly, destroy the world's natural biodiversity and food supply for their own profit.
Complicating the picture further, Monsanto is also deeply entrenched with the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmacia Corporation was created in April 2000 through the merger of Pharmacia & Upjohn with Monsanto Company and its G.D. Searle unit. Few people ever make the connection between GMO crops and the sale of drugs.
I believe the GMO crop issue is one of the most significant challenges to your future health. And, the drug industry is one of the primary driving forces for the traditional paradigm, which focuses on the treating symptoms with expensive band-aids, so you get sicker and sicker and require more of their self-serving expensive drug solutions to relieve your symptoms. Put these two health disasters together - where one is feeding the profits of the other -- and the picture becomes bleak indeed.
Folks, it's time to just say no to this madness and abrogation of ethics.
Let your elected officials know how you feel about it; ask your local supermarket to stock their shelves with more natural organic foods; vote with your pocketbook - avoid everything that contains GMO products. That means abstaining from virtually all processed food products and sticking to fresh, locally grown, organic food stuffs, and going back to basic food preparation in your own home.
Cooking from scratch, with wholesome ingredients based on your nutritional type, is one of the absolute best things you can do for your long-term health.
Is New Terrifying Disease the Cause of Genetically Modified Foods? Have you ever heard of "Morgellon's Disease?"
As of February 2007, more than 10,000 reports of the mysterious disease have been reported on the Morgellon Foundation's website. That's up from 2,000 reports in February of 2006.
Reports come from 15 nations across the world, including Canada, the UK, Australia and The Netherlands, as well as all 50 U.S. states. The majority of reports have come from Texas, California and Florida.
People with Morgellon's disease describe it as a feeling of bugs or parasites scuttling around beneath their skin, accompanied by open lesions that heal slowly and ooze out blue, black or white fibers that can be several millimeters long. These fibers appear like pliable plastic. They can be as fine as spider silk, yet they are strong enough to distend the skin when pulled and elicit shooting pains when you try to remove them.
The CDC, unusually slow to respond to what can only be described as a new outbreak, has finally set up a web page about the phenomenon, which they refer to as "Unexplained Dermopathy." In August 2007 -- a year after vowing to look into the terrifying disorder -- they gave $300,000 to Kaiser Permanente to investigate the disease.
The CDC's website lists additional symptoms, including fatigue, mental confusion, short term memory loss, joint pain, changes in vision, and social dysfunction, including suicide.
According to an article in Natural News, published last week, Morgellon's disease may be linked to genetically modified food.
While the CDC dragged its feet, a research team from Oklahoma State University lead by Dr. Randy Wymore, studied some of the fibers sent to them by Morgellons patients. They found that the fibers from different people look remarkably similar to each other, yet do not match any common environmental fibers.
Vitaly Citovsky, Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University in New York, discovered that the fibers contain the substance Agrobacterium, a genus of gram-negative bacteria capable of genetically transforming not only plants, but also other eukaryotic species, including human cells.
Are we now teetering on the brink of the GM food disaster we feared from the very beginning?
Information is Power, so Power Up!
If you aren't convinced this is an important issue for you, your children, and your grandchildren, then do yourself a favor and find some free time to review the evidence, starting with the related articles listed at the end.
You can also search my site by entering "Monsanto" into the search box. I have over 300 pages on this topic alone!
To further guide you in understanding the problems associated with GM foods, I strongly recommend reading the incredible series Seeds of Doubt, written by staffers at the Sacramento Bee.
And, last but not least, I urge everyone to watch the video The Future of Food. Forward the link to this video widely among your friends, family and acquaintances. This in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind genetically modified foods is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen. It will help you understand how and why the genetic engineering we allow to be unleashed today is a very real threat to ALL future generations.
How to Avoid GM Foods
Many of you probably don't understand just how ubiquitous GM foods are in the food chain.
The fact is that genetically modified foods are so prevalent in the United States that if you randomly pick an item off your grocery store's shelves, you have a 75 percent chance of picking a food with GM ingredients. This is because at least seven out of every 10 items have been genetically modified.
The True Food Shopping Guide is a great tool for helping you determine which brands and products contain GMO ingredients. It lists 20 different food categories that include everything from baby food to chocolate.
Here are four simple steps to decrease your consumption of GM foods as much as possible:
* Reduce or eliminate processed foods in your diet. The fact that 75 percent of processed foods contain GM ingredients is only one of the many reasons to stick to a whole foods diet.
* Read produce and food labels. Conventionally raised soybeans and corn make up the largest portion of genetically modified crops. Ingredients made from these foods include high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), corn flour and meal, dextrin, starch, soy sauce, margarine, and tofu.
* Buy organic produce. By definition, food that is certified organic must be free from all GM organisms, produced without artificial pesticides and fertilizers and from an animal reared without the routine use of antibiotics, growth promoters or other drugs. Additionally, grass-fed beef will not have been fed GM corn feed.
* Look at produce stickers. The PLU code on stickers for conventionally grown fruit consists of four numbers, organically grown fruit has five numbers prefaced by the number nine, and GM fruit has five numbers prefaced by the number eight.
Who is Dr. Mercola ...
My qualifications: first and foremost, I am an osteopathic physician, also known as a DO. DOs are complete physicians who, along with MDs, are licensed to prescribe medication and perform surgery in all 50 states. But DOs bring something extra to the practice of medicine. Osteopathic physicians practice a "whole person" approach to medicine, treating the entire person rather that just the symptoms. With a focus on preventive health care, DOs help patients develop attitudes and lifestyles that don't just fight illness, but help prevent it, too.
I am also board-certified in family medicine and served as the chairman of the family medicine department at St. Alexius Medical Center for five years. I am trained in both traditional and natural medicine and have been practicing natural medicine actively since 1990. For my insight on a variety of healthcare issues, I have been interviewed on national and local news, including:
Today Show, CNN, ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, CBS, NBC, Fox News and ABC local news shows, Time magazine, LA Times and Dozens of Nationally Broadcast Radio Shows.
My passion is to transform the traditional medical paradigm in the United States, and that consumes most of my free time after seeing patients. Since 1968, though, I have been an active runner; I completed the Chicago Marathon in just over three hours, among other accomplishments. I have also been a computer hobbyist since 1985, with an interest in the Internet that dates back to the early 1990s.
The existing medical establishment is responsible for killing and permanently injuring millions of Americans, but the surging numbers of visitors to Mercola.com since I began the site in 1997 - we are now routinely among the top 10 health sites on the Internet - convinces me that you, too, are fed up with their deception. You want practical health solutions without the hype, and that's what I offer.
For his full story and vital health information go to his website where you can see videos and sign up for a health tip newsletter: Dr. MercolaTo download this story on a pdf file click here: Biggest Threat
Genetically Modified Food Genes Contaminate Humans
For the first time, it has been proved that bacteria in the human gut can take up DNA from genetically modified food.Opponents of GM foods say the results vindicate their warnings that this might happen, and that the risk of gut bacteria scavenging antibiotic resistance genes from GM food is no longer theoretical.
"This is a first," says Adrian Bebb of the Friends of the Earth. "We've said time and time again there's a risk of this happening. Now, they've looked just once and they've found it."
Burger and Soy Shake
Harry Gilbert and colleagues at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne made the discovery, after feeding volunteers with a burger and a milk shake containing GM soya.
To see how the GM food was dealt with by different parts of the digestive system, he gave the food to 12 healthy volunteers and to seven volunteers who had previously had their colons surgically removed.
When he examined stools from the healthy volunteers, he found no traces whatever of DNA from the GM food. It had all been digested. Nor did he find any evidence that gut bacteria had taken up the DNA.
But when he examined waste products collected from the seven ileostomy bags, he found that up to 3.7 per cent of the GM DNA survived.
Crucially, in three of the seven, he found that bacteria had taken up GM DNA from the soya. But "despite exhaustive attempts", he could not isolate the precise bacteria which had taken up the GM DNA. He concludes that the DNA must have been taken up only by tiny proportions of gut bacteria.
Destructive Enzyme
To account for the differences between the "ileostomists" and volunteers with intact digestive systems, Gilbert's team speculate that DNA might survive the small bowel but gets completely destroyed in the large bowel. They say in a draft manuscript that people with ileostomies might produce less of the enzyme that degrades DNA.
As supporting evidence, they found that unmodified soya DNA survived in the small bowel as plentifully as the GM DNA. "It shows that the GM DNA acts in the body the same way as DNA from regular food," says a spokeswoman from the FSA.
In a separate experiment on colonies of intestinal cells, Gilbert's team showed that raw loops of GM DNA called plasmids can be taken up directly, but only by one gut cell in 3000.
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
While the scientists will use this study to offer reassurances, it certainly suggests the potential for future problems, especially as the GMO foods become more widespread. As I stated last year:
Investigators have found that rats fed genetically modified potatoes had an increased thickening in the lining of their stomach and intestine and a weakening of their immune system. And now these mad scientists want to put vaccines into the plants. Sheer lunacy.
What these geniuses have failed to fully appreciate is that once these plants are growing, it is physically impossible to prevent them from pollinating other plants and contaminating them with these new proteins -- we have no clue of these proteins long-term consequences.
The entire process is mind-boggling. The vaccines they are using don't even work, yet they are willing to sacrifice the food supply for it. If this insanity continues, our grandchildren may not have access to any non-genetically modified food, and the health of our society will continue to decline rapidly.
One of the keys to health is good food. Although most of us don't choose to do so, we can still purchase real, unaltered food in this country. The future does not appear to provide that option.
Genetically modified foods did not exist prior to 1995. Ninety percent of the money Americans spend on food is spent on processed foods and seventy percent of processed foods have genetically modified foods in them. There are NO STUDIES with humans on what happens when one consumes genetically modified foods. The FDA has ASSUMED that they are equivalent to the original and never required any studies to have them approved. This is despite the fact that this technology has never existed in the history of the world before.
Absolutely brilliant! Especially in light of the US Federal track record on genetically engineered safety, which is terrible.
Last year Starlink corn was only approved for animal consumption -- NOT human consumption. This was due to a concern that it could cause allergies in humans. Well, Starlink corn wound up trapped in the human food supply, despite FDA precautions.
There are EIGHT different agencies in the US regulating biotechnology under TWELVE different sets of laws. NONE of the laws had biotechnology in mind when they were passed, as they are 40-50 years old.
This is one big disaster just waiting to happen.
How Monsanto Manipulates the System to Poison Your Health
Sir Richard Doll was a British cancer specialist who died last year. He was noted for making the connection between smoking and lung cancer. But for years, he was being paid as a consultant by Monsanto, a fact not revealed in his reports.Sir Richard Doll told a commission investigating Monsanto's Agent Orange that there was no evidence that the chemical increased risks of cancer and genetic defects. He did not mention that he was being paid $1,500 a day by Monsanto at the time.
Monsanto has used similar paid shills and other techniques to propagandize the safety of genetically modified food, aspartame, and other products, including wrecking the careers of scientists who discover problems with their products.
When Dr. Arpad Pusztai conducted studies showing that rats fed on certain GM potatoes had suffered stunted growth and damage to the immune system, liver, and heart, he was suspended from his job, ordered to hand over all his data, and threatened with legal action if he spoke to anyone on the subject.
The behind-the-scenes business tactics used by Monsanto to poison our foods with genetically modified (GM) replacements make the multi-national drug companies look like Mother Teresa. This frightening story from David Icke.com describes one of the primary strategies behind Monsanto's successful business practices:
Confusing the argument against GM foods, for example, by peppering the debate with "science-speak" to muddy any clear representation of the facts before the hazards are ever realized.
Part and parcel of this strategy and Monsanto's success has been finding "independent" scientists willing to sell the company line, like the late Sir Richard Doll, who was paid handsomely to defend such monstrosities as Agent Orange.
But if, like Dr. Arpad Pusztai, you were on the wrong side of the debate, you would find your career in a shambles thanks to Monsanto's multi-national influence.
Above all, don't be confused about the global GM blight that taints some 70 percent of the processed foods you find at your corner grocery store. Before you go shop for foods again, do your homework by reviewing my tips for staying clear of GM foods.
And I urge you to watch the video The Future of Food. This in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind genetically modified foods is one of the best documentaries I have ever viewed. It will help you understand the very real threat that ALL future generations face as a result of genetic engineering.
There is a revolution happening in the farm fields and on the dinner tables of America -- a revolution that is transforming the very nature of the food we eat.
THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade.
Shot on location in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, THE FUTURE OF FOOD examines the complex web of market and political forces that are changing what we eat as huge multinational corporations seek to control the world's food system. The film also explores alternatives to large-scale industrial agriculture, placing organic and sustainable agriculture as real solutions to the farm crisis today.
Created by Deborah Koons Garcia and Lily Films, The Future of Food is the first of a series of documentaries Lily Films plans to produce dealing with the current issues influencing our food, environment and agriculture.
Please support Lily Films by logging onto Future of Food to purchase the entire 88 minute film and ensure that this vital message is spread throughout the world.
Beware, Food Crisis Getting Worse
In the year 2007, wheat prices rose 77 percent and rice 16 percent. These were some of the sharpest price hikes ever. But this year the speed of change has accelerated even further. Since January 2008, the price of rice has soared just over 140 percent.Says Josette Sheeran, head of the UN World Food Programme, “… This crisis is different. It is occurring in many countries simultaneously, the first time that has happened since the early 1970s. And it is affecting people not usually hit by famines.”
So what’s happening?
There’s a lot of talk about the rising demand for biofuel being the culprit, as more farmers are now growing biofuel products rather than food, spurred on by various governmental incentives. But that’s certainly not the one and only factor fueling this world-wide problem.
What has Caused This Burgeoning Food Crisis?
Other factors that have been pointed out, in various articles spread across the past weeks, include:
Improved financial situation of people in China and India has increased demand for western-style diets rich in grains, meat and dairy
Export quotas by large grain producers, coupled with panic-buying by grain importers
Trade imbalances among nations
Population growth, adding 78 million people per year
Global warming. Unfavorable climatic conditions in 2007 devastated crops in Australia and reduced harvest in other European countries. Southern Africa and the western U.S. have been plagued with severe drought.
Unsustainable use of land and water
Rising oil prices, as fossil fuels are needed throughout the agricultural process, from running tractors, to fertilizer production, to shipping
A few others, from non-traditional media outlets, bypass all these “excuses” and point the finger directly at the similarities between our current situation and previous man-made famines for the end purpose of mass genocide.
In January 2008, the BBC broadcast a segment in their “The Things We Forgot to Remember,” featuring Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen, among others, speaking about the 1943-1945 Bengal famine in which 6-7 million people perished when the price of rice doubled, and then finally quadrupled. However, that famine, as now, was not caused by a food deficit per say, but rather by the callous politics in the area at the time.
Personally, one of the things that bother me most after reading through multiple articles on this issue, are the frequent references to the need for “higher yield crops,” rather than the development of sustainable agriculture. Although the names of any particular biotech companies are never mentioned, it walks, talks and reeks like poorly cloaked Monsanto propaganda.
Monsanto’s Rich Harvest
Monsanto’s genetically altered seeds tripled their first-quarter earnings, from $90 million to $256 million, according to BusinessWeek in January 2008. Their GM seeds have been a prime beneficiary of the growing demand for food and alternative fuel sources.
I have a sinking feeling that Monsanto will eventually ride in like a knight in shining armor, offering to end the world-wide plight with its high-yield spawn – those one-time-use-only seeds with dubious genetic signatures that may or may not kill anything that’s left. They already began that project in mid-2007, with the Gates and Rockefeller foundations donating $150 million worth of GMO crops to “reform agriculture and end hunger in Africa.”
That would surely be one of the absolute worst case scenarios we could possibly face, as GM crops are bound to do far more harm than good, both to the biodiversity of the planet and your individual health, through the unchecked introduction of foreign genetic material and hardier pests.
What Can You Do to Help Yourself?
There are certainly no easy answers to these world-wide issues. However, I do believe it’s possible to act as positively as you can on an individual basis.
As Ms. Sheeran stated, the initial response of the middle-class to the current situation is to cut out medical care. Unfortunately, for many this equates to doing virtually nothing to maintain their health, instead of focusing on healthy alternatives and preventive measures. Don’t fall into that category, folks! There is still much you can do to optimize your health that doesn’t have to cost a fortune.
Here are a few tips and guidelines to keep in mind:
Eat as much raw, locally grown organic food as you can afford, paying attention to your nutritional type. Not only will this maximize the health benefits you can derive directly from your food intake, but you’ll also help keep your local small farmers -- that are actively involved in sustainable agriculture -- in business
Exercise regularly
Get plenty of appropriate sunshine, which has been proven to help prevent numerous cancers and other diseases Manage your stress
Limit toxin exposure as much as possible
Get plenty of sleep
Join a car sharing program. CarSharing.net is a great resource with links to local programs across the United States, Europe and limited parts of Asia
Simplify your life. Everything you own, owns you, and “voluntary simplicity” has become the catchphrase for people across the globe who are drawn to a less stressful, more joyful, healthy and “rich” existence, with organizations such as The Simple Living Network offering plenty of guidance
This story came from Dr. Mercola's newsletter and you can find more articles like this at his webiste Mercola.com
See my tips and ideas on how to grow a few to a large quantity of fresh vegies even if you live in an apartment or flat -- all you need is six hours of sunlight a day Grow Your Own Food In Small Places
Herbicide-resistant genes found to persist in weeds
Paul Hanley, Special on The StarPhoenixPublished: Tuesday, February 19, 2008
It's not supposed to happen, but it does. Genetically modified canola plants have been found to interbreed with a weed, producing a hybrid wild mustard that is resistant to the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup).
Significantly, these new hybrid weeds are persistent.
Millions are spent on propaganda to calm the nerves of irrational consumers and other overwrought folks worried about the environment, those who fear there is something potentially dangerous about genetic engineering. The main thrust of the campaign is to offer calm and reasoned responses from scientists meant to allay any and all concerns by establishing the "fact" that everything done in the name of biotechnology is perfectly safe.
First the propagandists said that genetically engineered plants wouldn't cross with weeds. When they did, they said the new hybrids wouldn't persist. They are unstable plants that die out after a year or two, so no need to worry. Now, new research from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada scientists provides the first report of persistence and apparent introgression (stable incorporation of genes from one gene pool into another).
The researchers found the herbicide resistance gene from Brassica napus moved into the gene pool of its weedy relative, Brassica rapa, under normal commercial field conditions. Persistence of the HR trait occurred during a six-year period.
Contrary to the propaganda from the biotechnology industry, the scientific community is not entirely at ease with genetic engineering, and for good reason. Given that transgenic canola is grown over millions of acres across Canada and around the world, it is highly likely that herbicide-resistance genes have escaped to weeds in multiple locations. This is of great concern to organizations like the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), since it means the emergence of herbicide-resistant weeds could be widespread.
The UCS believes the escape of transgenes into the wild is common. They point out, for example, that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has recently fined the Scotts company with the maximum penalty of $500,000 for allowing an experimental turf grass for golf courses to become established in the wild in the U.S. Scotts' negligence allowed creeping bentgrass, which was genetically engineered to tolerate Roundup, to escape from field trials in Oregon and interbreed with wild relatives. This is the company's second offence, reports the UCS. Scotts was also fined in 2004 for not notifying the USDA on two occasions that the wind had blown seeds out of its test plots. The company agreed at that time to take additional steps to control the escaped bentgrass, but apparently did not succeed. The transfer and persistence of herbicide-resistant genes in weedy species -- and the potential costs to farmers, other landowners, and the environment -- is one of the major concerns of the UCS about growing these crops.
The organization of scientists is not opposed to biotechnology, however they do oppose the sometimes cavalier attitude with which this new technology is deployed. They believe there is insufficient oversight by regulatory bodies to ensure safety, a concern that is confirmed by a growing number of reports of genes escaped into the wild or unapproved transgenic grains entering the food supply.
The UCS among others hold that the scientific evidence available to date, while generally encouraging, does not support the conclusion that genetically modified crops are intrinsically safe for health or the environment.
They say the next generation of products -- crops engineered to produce drugs and industrial chemicals or to alter regulatory and metabolic pathways -- offer far more numerous traits and appear to be more obviously dangerous than the current slate of herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant crops. "It would be a serious misstep to overread the positive early experience with Bt and herbicide-tolerant crops and conclude that the weak regulation currently in place will suffice to control the risks of these and other new crops," says the union.
The UCS argues that the regulatory regime must become more stringent as new transgenic plants and animals start to enter the environment in the future.
Longtime environmental writer and activist Paul Hanley has been writing a hugely popular column in Saskatoon's Star-Phoenix since 1989. Recently, he has edited and contributed to The Spirit of Agriculture, a collection of essays that explores a range of issues in agriculture, food and renewable resource use from an ethical perspective. Visit his website The Spirit of Agriculture, to participate in an ongoing discussion about the future of agriculture both locally and globally and to read the latest postings on sustainability strategies.
Activist Paul Hanley creates a dynamic new forum for sharing ideas about sustainability on Canadian Geographic
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