GM Soy Herbicide Linked to Birth Defects

Natural News
David Gutierrez
Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The active ingredient of the popular herbicide Roundup, widely used on lawns and genetically modified (GM) crops worldwide, causes birth defects of the brain, heart and intestines even in minuscule doses, Argentinean researchers have found.

“The observed deformations are consistent and systematic,” said lead researcher Andres Carrasco, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Embryology at the University of Buenos Aires.

Argentina is the world’s third largest exporter of soy, planting nearly 17 million hectares (42 million acres), or half of the country’s cropland. Much of this soy has been genetically modified by the Monsanto Corporation to be resistant to the company’s trademark herbicide, Roundup. As a consequence, massive quantities of Roundup are sprayed over soy fields across the country. In many cases, the herbicide is sprayed from the air and may drift over nearby communities or enter their water supplies.

Approximately 200 million liters (53 million gallons) of Roundup are used in Argentina each year.

The new study, conducted by the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), was ordered by the Argentinean Health Ministry in response to complaints filed before federal courts over the health effects of widespread herbicide spraying. For the past five years, a wide coalition of environmental and rights groups have pointed to significantly higher rates of birth defects, cancer, lupus, and diseases of the kidney, skin and respiratory systems in communities located near field of GM soy. Most recently, the nonprofit Rural Reflection Group (GRR) published a paper containing reports of health effects from rural doctors, residents and experts.

The group has called for a ban on the use of Roundup in accordance with the precautionary principle.

In the first phase of the CONICET study, researchers diluted Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, to a strength 1,500 times less than that used on GM soy crops. Other than water, no ingredients were added. The researchers then submerged amphibian embryos into this glyphosate solution, finding that the embryos consistently developed into animals with deformed heads.

In the second phase, researchers injected embryos directly with the diluted glyphosate solution. In addition to head deformity, the researchers observed reduced head size, increased death of skull-forming cells, deformed cartilage and genetic changes to the animals’ central nervous system, on a much larger scale than in the first part of the study.

“One should be able to suppose, with certainty, that the same thing that happens to amphibian embryos can happen to humans,” Carrasco said, noting that the observed results were “completely comparable to what would happen in the development of a human embryo.”

“Pure glyphosate, in doses lower than those used in fumigation, causes defects … (and) could be interfering in some normal embryonic development mechanism having to do with the way in which cells divide and die,” he said. Because the researchers deliberately excluded any of the additives that are also found in Roundup, they concluded that the herbicide’s active ingredient was definitely to blame for the effects.

Because the levels of glyphosate used “were much lower than the levels used in the fumigations,” the risk in real life “is much more serious” than that seen in the lab, Carrasco said.

“The companies say that drinking a glass of glyphosate is healthier than drinking a glass of milk, but the fact is that they’ve used us as guinea pigs,” Carrasco said.

“It is clear that glyphosate is not innocuous and that it does not degrade or break down, but accumulates in cells.”

Carrasco called for immediate government action, pointing to the fate of communities such as Ituzaingo, where approximately 300 cases of pesticide-related cancer have been reported in the last eight years.

“In communities like Ituzaingo it’s already too late,” he said, “but we have to have a preventive system, to demand that the companies give us security frameworks and, above all, to have very strict regulations for fumigation, which nobody is adhering to out of ignorance or greed.”

Don’t Let Obama Put GMO Boosters in Charge of Food Safety!

Organic Consumers Association
Alexis Baden-Mayer, Esq.
Sunday, July 26, 2009

Genetically modified foods are not safe. The only reason they’re in our food supply is because government bureaucrats with ties to industry suppressed or manipulated scientific research and deprived consumers of the information they need to make informed choices about whether or not to eat genetically modified foods.

Now, the Obama Administration is putting two notorious biotech bullies in charge of food safety! Former Monsanto lobbyist Michael Taylor has been appointed as a senior adviser to the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner on food safety. And, rBGH-using dairy farmer and Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff is rumored to be President Obama’s choice for Under-Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety. Wolfe spearheaded anti-consumer legislation in Pennsylvania that would have taken away the rights of consumers to know whether their milk and dairy products were contaminated with Monsanto’s (now Eli Lilly’s) genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH).

Please click here to send a message to President Obama, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (oversees FDA) demanding Michael Taylor’s resignation, and letting them know that you oppose Dennis Wolff’s appointment.

About Michael Taylor

Michael Taylor is a lawyer who has spent the last few decades moving through the revolving door between the employ of GMO-seed giant Monsanto and the FDA and USDA. Taylor is widely credited with ushering Monsanto’s recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) through the FDA regulatory process and into the milk supply — unlabeled. A Government Accounting Office (GAO) investigated whether Taylor had a conflict of interest and or had engaged in ethical misconduct in the approval of rBGH. The report’s conclusion that there was no wrongdoing conflicted with the 30 pages of evidence that Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) described as proof that “the FDA allowed corporate influence to run rampant in its approval” of the drug.

Taylor is also responsible for the FDA’s decision to treat genetically modified organisms as “substantially equivalent” to natural foods and therefore not require any safety studies. The “substantially equivalent” rule allowed the FDA to ignore evidence that genetically engineered foods, including soy, are in fact very different from natural foods and pose specific health risks.

In November 2008, Tom Philpott reported that Taylor was among President-Elect Obama’s “team members” looking at energy and natural resources agencies, including USDA. In March 2009, President Obama announced the creation of a White House Food Safety Working Group to improve and coordinate the government’s approach to the nationwide food safety crisis. Agri-Pulse reported that Taylor was “the leading candidate to staff the White House [food safety] working group.” While anti-GMO activists, including the Organic Consumers Association, protested — OCA members sent 13,435 letters to USDA Sec. Tom Vilsack, who co-chairs the Food Safety Working Group with HHS Sec. Sebelius — Taylor laid low. He was nowhere to be found at the White House Food Safety Working Group’s May 13th Listening Session. But, the rumor proved true. On July 7, 2009, the FDA announced that Taylor had joined the agency as senior adviser to the commissioner.

As Philpott describes in a July 8th article, Taylor’s food safety agenda is to “shift much more of the burden for funding food-safety operations to the state and local level” and to promote HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) systems where the points in a process that pose the most risk are identified and “fixed” with remedies like ammonia washes and irradiation. Taylor’s approach — putting a few bandaids on an industrialized food system gone wrong — is in direct conflict with organic practices and is likely to unduly burden small producers.

Taylor has long been hostile to real food safety. While working as a lobbyist, Taylor authored more than a dozen articles critical of the Delaney Clause, a 1958 federal law prohibiting the introduction of known carcinogens into processed foods, which had long been opposed by Monsanto and other chemical and pesticide companies. When Taylor rejoined the federal government, he continued advocating that Delaney should be overturned. This was finally done when President Clinton signed the so-called Food Quality Protection Act on the eve of the 1996 elections.

Taylor is featured in the documentary, The World According to Monsanto, which you can watch on OCA’s Millions Against Monsanto page.

About Dennis Wolff

Dennis Wolff is the Secretary of Agriculture for the State of Pennsylvania. Wolff also is a dairy farmer and owns Pen-Col Farms, a 600-acre dairy cattle operation. Wolff has championed agribusiness interests as Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Agriculture, including banning local dairies from marketing their products as free of Monsanto’s rBGH. Wolff is a member of the Agriculture Technical Advisory Committee to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO has been largely credited with forcing so-called “free trade” on farmers and consumers around the globe, undermining national sovereignty and food safety. Finally, Wolff was a strong proponent of the “ACRE” initiative (Agriculture, Communities and Rural Environment), which gives the Pennsylvania state attorney general’s office the authority to sue municipalities over local farm ordinances deemed to exceed state law, depriving communities the right to ban toxic sewage sludge, factory farms, and GMOs.

Aside from having absolutely no experience in meat inspection, the chief food safety responsibility of the USDA, Dennis Wolff should be rejected for any post within the Obama Administration for the hostile position he has taken, as Pennsylvania’s Agriculture Secretary, against consumers’ right to know what is in our food. According to the Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Wolff:

* Tried to ban all labeling of dairy products that didn’t use genetically engineered growth hormone (rBGH or rBST). This was an outright violation of freedom of speech of the dairy processors and the farmers who supplied them.

* Said that consumers were “concerned or confused” about the labeling and said his department received “many calls” about it. Yet when a New York Times reporter asked him about this, Wolff couldn’t provide any surveys showing consumers were confused and could not come up with the name of ONE CONSUMER who had complained.

* Held one meeting of the so-called Food Labeling Advisory Committee and said they recommended the labeling ban. Yet the committee never voted on anything and never made any recommendations specific to dairy. Moreover, the group most affected by the rules and most opposed to them, the PA Association of Milk Dealers, was never even invited to the meeting.

Codex Continues to Assume GMO Labeling Would Confuse Ignorant Consumer

Natural News
Dr. Gregory Damato
Thursday, July 16, 2009

At the latest Codex Commission on Food Labeling (CCFL) meeting held in Calgary, Canada in May, the US and its allies continued to push for the case that food created through the use of genetic modification (GM) needs no labeling. Despite the fact that 90 percent of Americans, Africans and Europeans want genetically modified organisms (GMOs) labeled, the large multinational food corporations realize that profits come before health and believe that “GM/GE foods are in no way different from other foods simply due to their method of production”. The representatives from the 49th Parallel International NonGovernmental Organizations (INGOs) countered that argument by stating, “If, as the United States has claimed, there is no difference between GM foods and non-GM food, then why do companies rush to the Patent Office to patent their special GM food?”

This contentious issue has been hotly debated for the past 19 years at Codex with no chance for agreement as the entire EU, Brazil, all African countries and Saint Lucia demanded that GMOs be labeled so consumers are able to make an informed choice. The US amazingly submitted a document detailing how labeling GMOs would in fact be in violation of Codex regulations which states, “food shall not be described or presented in a manner that is false, misleading or deceptive, or is likely to create an erroneous impression regarding its character in any respect”. The National Health Federation (NHF) challenged the US and stated that consumers want GMOs to be labeled and the only way GMOs would ever be sold is if consumers remain ignorant of what they are consuming. The multinational representatives of Codex simply believe that consumers would be too confused if GMOs were properly labeled. After some cantankerous infighting amongst representatives regarding the wording of the Draft Recommendation of GM-food labeling a stalemate emerged.

After an acrimonious debate, Chairman Paul Mayers intervened and declared that this issue will not be solved at this meeting and proposed a three-year reprieve from GM-food labeling. The intense pressure from the delegations of Kenya, Denmark and the EU caused the chairman to drop the idea of scrapping the GMO labeling issue for the next three sessions. The session once again ended with the chairman stating the importance of this issue and asked that the progress be continued at next years CCFL meeting to be held in Quebec City, Canada.

The labeling issue remains a contentious one and seems to revolve around the fact that countries who put profits ahead of health do not want any liability when the health effects (e.g., Morgellons Disease, increased allergies, cell death, liver, kidney and fertility problems) begin to be inextricably and causally linked to the long term consumption of toxic GMOs. Codex representatives are not elected by the people and therefore in no way do they represent the views of the majority; they are appointed bureaucrats by the large multinational industries of the western world as a means of securing future profits at the expense of the health of future generations. If you want to help oppose Codex please take a few minutes to sign a petition asking for Congressional oversight on the Trilateral Cooperation Charter (TCC) which has linked the Health Products and Food Branch, in Canada; the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in the United States; and the Federal Commission for the Protection from Sanitary Risks, Secretaria de Salud, in Mexico. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/5/co…

The TCC is attempting to force the US into a North American Union thereby ushering in Codex Alimentarius guidelines. You can also send a message to your congressperson about TCC using the link below.

http://www.usalone.com/cgi-bin/petition.cgi?pnum=220

HR 2749: Totalitarian Control of the Food Supply

FoodFreedom

Thursday, June 18, 2009

A new food safety bill is on the fast track in Congress-HR 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. The bill needs to be stopped.

HR 2749 gives FDA tremendous power while significantly diminishing existing judicial restraints on actions taken by the agency. The bill would impose a one-size-fits-all regulatory scheme on small farms and local artisanal producers; and it would disproportionately impact their operations for the worse.

HR 2749 does not address underlying causes of food safety problems such as industrial agriculture practices and the consolidation of our food supply. The industrial food system and food imports are badly in need of effective regulation, but the bill does not specifically direct regulation or resources to these areas.

To read a detailed account of the bill, go to: http://www.ftcldf.org/news/news-15june2009.htm

(Read the section on tracing. That is NAIS, isn’t it? – highly disguised yet triggered by the word “trace.” )
Alarming Provisions:

Some of the more alarming provisions in the bill are:

* HR 2749 would impose an annual registration fee of $500 on any “facility” that holds, processes, or manufactures food. [isn't this every home in the US, every garden?] Although “farms” are exempt, the agency has defined “farm” narrowly. [What is the definition?] And people making foods such as lacto-fermented vegetables, cheeses, or breads would be required to register and pay the fee, which could drive beginning and small producers out of business during difficult economic times. [Yes. There are laws against this corporate-size-destroys-the-little-guy policy, aren't there? Are home bread or cheese or lacto-fermented vegetable makers who make for their own families included in this?]

* HR 2749 would empower FDA to regulate how crops are raised and harvested. It puts the federal government right on the farm, dictating to our farmers. [This astounding control opens the door to CODEX. WTO "good farming practices" will include the elimination of organic farming by eliminating manure, mandating GMO animal feed, imposing animal drugs, and ordering applications of petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides. Farmers, thus, will be locked not only into the industrialization of once normal and organic farms but into the forced purchase of industry's products. They will be slaves on the land, doing the work they are ordered to do - against their own best wisdom - and paying out to industry against their will.

There will be no way to be frugal, to grow one's own grain to feed the animals, to raise healthy animals without GMO grains or drugs, to work with nature at all. Grassfed cattle and poultry and hogs will be finished. So, it's obvious where control will take us. And weren't these the "rumors on the internet" that were dismissed but are clearly the case?]

* HR 2749 would give FDA the power to order a quarantine of a geographic area, including “prohibiting or restricting the movement of food or of any vehicle being used or that has been used to transport or hold such food within the geographic area.” [This - "that has been used to transport or hold such food" - would mean all cars that have ever brought groceries home so this means ALL TRANSPORTATION can be shut down under this. This is using food as a cover for martial law.] Under this provision, farmers markets and local food sources could be shut down, even if they are not the source of the contamination. The agency can halt all movement of all food in a geographic area. [This is also a means of total control over the population under the cover of food, and at any time.]

* HR 2749 would empower FDA to make random warrantless searches of the business records of small farmers and local food producers, without any evidence whatsoever that there has been a violation. [If these bills cover all who "hold food" then this allows for taking of records of anyone at any time on no basis at all.] Even farmers selling direct to consumers would have to provide the federal government with records on where they buy supplies, how they raise their crops, and a list of customers.

[NAIS for animals and all other foods?]

* HR 2749 charges the Secretary of Health and Human Services with establishing a tracing system for food. Each “person who produces, manufactures, processes, packs, transports, or holds such food” [Is this not every home in the US?] would have to “maintain the full pedigree of the origin and previous distribution history of the food,” and “establish and maintain a system for tracing the food that is interoperable with the systems established and maintained by other such persons.” The bill does not explain how far the traceback will extend or how it will be done for multi-ingredient foods. With all these ambiguities, [with all these ambiguities, it is dangerous, period, separate from the money] it’s far from clear how much it will cost either the farmers or the taxpayers. [It is massive and absurd and burdensome beyond the capacity of people to comply - is this not fascism? - so it is a set up for being used to impose penalties endlessly and/or to eliminate anyone at will.]

* HR 2749 creates severe criminal and civil penalties, including prison terms of up to 10 years and/or fines of up to $100,000 for each violation for individuals. [Does it include judicial review, Congressional oversight, a defined and limited set of penalties and punishments for a defined set of "crimes"? Or is it entirely ambiguous and left to the whim and sole power of "the Administrator"? Who is that person set to be? Is it Michael Taylor, Monsanto lawyer and executive, as Food Democracy has said? That is, do these bills set up an agency by which the entire US food supply will be turned over to the control of a multinational corporation under WTO regulations (and not to US farmers and not to US laws under the Constitution), with boundless freedom to do what it wants, and one infamous for harm to farmers and lack of safety of food?]

If it was not clear before how frightening these bills were, this small section of provisions, should make their actual fascism clear now. It goes way beyond “food safety” to absolute control over farms, animals, food, and us, including our movements and access to food at all.

Action to Take:

Contact your Representative now! Ask to speak with the staffer who handles food issues. Tell them you are opposed to the bill. Some points to make in telling your Representative why you oppose HR 2749 include:

1. The bill imposes burdensome requirements while not specifically targeting the industrial food system and food imports, where the real food safety problems lie.

2. Small farms and local food processors are part of the solution to food safety; lessening the regulatory burden on them will improve food safety.

3. The bill gives FDA much more power than it has had in the past while making the agency less accountable for its actions.

HR 2749 needs to be defeated!! Please take action NOW.

Or, contact your Representative by using the finder tool at www.Congress.org or send a message through the petition system (the petition will be on our website this evening) at http://www.ftcldf.org/petitions_new.htm. Or call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

To check the status of HR 2749, go to www.Thomas.gov and type “HR 2749″ in the bill search field.