Cancer // Current TV

Documentary: Breast cancer cure ‘hijacked’ by pink ribbons

By David Edwards Friday, February 3, 2012 16:15 EST Long before Susan G. Komen for... more

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Komen Foundation pretends to change its mind. One corporate communications executive wonders: is the public stupid enough to buy it? | Scholars and Rogues

Read. The language. Closely. Contrary to what Komen’s highly-paid PR crisis... more

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Follow Fukushima Radiation

The latest geiger readings show more widespread radiation than last week. Living near... more

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The Decemberists cut Susan G. Komen out like cancer

In the wake of Susan G. Komen for the Cure cutting all its funding to Planned... more

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Jehovah's Witnesses with Leukemia Turn to Atheist Doctor

Los Angeles Times... . COLUMN ONE A meeting of hearts if not minds Some... more

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NYC: Protesters come out against Monsanto

If you happened to be walking around Lower Manhattan this morning, you might have noticed the anti-Monsanto chants echoing from Foley Square. In a protesting trifecta, Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Big Food, and Food Democracy Now joined forces to support family farmers as the first phase of their federal court case against food industry giant Monsanto. The crowd of around 200 people included farmers from as far away as Maine as well as local food activists and chefs.

The case against Monsanto (Organic Seed Growers Trade Association et al. v. Monsanto) aims to protect farmers against aggressive lawsuit and crop contamination from Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds. Organic and non-GMO crops can be severely damaged by the introduction of GMO seeds and farmers whose crops have been infiltrated are vulnerable to lawsuits from Monsanto who owns a vast majority of the genetics on commodity crops such as corn, soybeans and cotton.

Farmers’ fear of being sued by the multi-billion dollar company is not unfounded. According to Monsanto, since 1997, it has filed 145 lawsuits against farmers and settled 700 other disputes out of court.

Today in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Judge Naomi Buchwald will hear complaints from farmers and determine whether or not their case against Monsanto will move forward. Protestor and organic farmer Deb Taft of Mobius Fields in Westchester, New York said she was “cautiously optimistic” about the outcome of this morning's hearings.

Many protestors felt it was an accomplishment in itself that the case has made it to Federal District Court. An unnamed protestor and chef at a local private school said he came out to stand with farmers who finally got their day in court. He has been wary of Monsanto since the mid 1980s, when the issues of genetically modified organisms were mostly talk, rather than reality.

While all of the protestors united around their distrust of and frustration with Monsanto, their specific reasons for being there were varied. Some were concerned with the lack of seed choice now that Monsanto has put many local providers out of business while others were concerned with Monsanto’s global presence (Monsanto is currently being sued for biopiracy in India).

Protestors pointed to a long history of infractions on the part of Monsanto, which they demonstrated by creating a human timeline of the company’s history. Monsanto genetically modified its first plant in 1982, but the company’s story goes back to the beginning of the 20th century. John Francis Queeny, a pharmaceutical industry veteran, founded the company in 1901 and in 1902 Monsanto sold its first product to Coca-Cola — saccharin, the artificial sweetener that has been linked to cancer. Protestors this morning also referenced Monsanto's role as one of the companies that manufactured Agent Orange, an herbicide used by the U.S. Army in Vietnam that has been proven to caues severe health damage and birth defects.

But the protestors main focus today was the effect that that GMOs have on biodiversity and farmer livelihood. Andrew Faust, a permaculture teacher and founder of The Center for Bioregional Living in Ellenville, New York, urged consumers to use their buying power to boycott Monsanto products. Currently, advocacy groups working under the slogan “Right to Know” are lobbying for GMO labeling, which is already required in the European Union and China, and which Monsanto is fighting against.

According to a tweet from someone present in the courtroom, the judge will give her ruling on this morning’s hearings, which ended around 11:30 am, by March 31st. Those interested in supporting the farmers' cause can sign Food Democracy Now!’s pledge to support America’s farmers and donate to the Right to Know campaign.

More at the linkIf you happened to be walking around Lower Manhattan this morning, you might have... more

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School Suspends Cancer Survivor for Long Hair

School principals seem to be working toward the "Morons of the Year" award,... more

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Your Fratoscope: January 29, 2012

The psychic frat boy is back with your predictions for the week.

TonyDiGerolamo
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The Fluoride Conspiracy - the greatest case of scientific fraud of this century

The history of forcing fluoride on humans through the fluoridation of drinking water... more

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Sustainability commissioner/ethics advisor of 2012 London Olympics quits over DOW sponsorship

The London 2012 Olympic Games were embroiled in further controversy last night as... more

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Tell President Obama to Walk Away from Empty Promises of Fracked Shale Gas

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama lauded natural gas from shale as a... more

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Two Bacon Slices a Day Boosts Pancreatic Cancer Risk

stop eatting shitty bacon

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Your Fratoscope: January 22, 2012

The psychic frat boy tells you the future for the week.

TonyDiGerolamo
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Chemo Brain is a Real Side Effect of Cancer Chemotherapy - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com

I have had a lot of people saying thank you for writing this. If you or someone you... more

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Cancer Drugs Could Cause Tumours To Spread, Rather Than Preventing Them, Warns Study

Cancer drugs that are designed to shrink tumours by cutting off the supply to their... more

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ISRAEL AND THE MIDEAST: Israeli company produces cancer vaccine - Israel Culture, Ynetnews

vaccine.html This new therapy may stop 90% of cancers from coming back

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The Relay for Life Palm Desert California - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com

Help us find a cure. Relay For Life is a walking and education event about cancer.... more

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Your Fratoscope: January 15, 2012

The psychic frat boy is back with your predictions.

TonyDiGerolamo
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DOW And Monsanto in deadly race on the pesticide treadmill

You’ve all heard the news: farmers across the country are losing their fields to superweeds so formidable and fast-spreading that they break farm machinery and render millions of acres of farmland useless. These superweeds have evolved as a direct consequence of Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready pesticide-seed package. Now superbugs are emerging, resistant to Monsanto’s transgenic insecticidal crops. Ecologists predicted this ecological disaster 15 years ago.

The big question is, can we possibly learn from this ecological and agronomic disaster? The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Monsanto’s rival, Dow Chemical, apparently cannot.

From bad to worse
Instead of abandoning this losing strategy, Dow is trying to get us running faster on the same old broken pesticide treadmill. Dow and USDA are hoping to quietly approve a new genetically engineered corn seed that basically swaps RoundUp (glyphosate) out and an even worse weedkiller (2,4-D) in. Bad idea.

As with Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready lines, the herbicide with which these seeds are engineered to be used (2,4-D) will surge in use. Dow aims to get 2,4-D-resistant corn to market this year, soy next year and cotton in 2015. These three crops dominate U.S. agriculture, blanketing over 100 million acres of mono-cropped countryside and driving the pesticide market. Only this time, the fallout will be even worse. Here’s why:

2,4-D is a more toxic herbicide, both to humans and to plants. 2,4-D is a reproductive toxicant (associated with lower sperm counts) and its formulations have been linked to cancer (in particular non-Hodgkins lymphoma), disruption of the immune and endocrine (hormone) systems and birth defects. EPA has also expressed a “concern for developmental neurotoxicity resulting from exposure to 2,4-D.”

2,4-D does and will drift off of target crops – both through spray drift and volatilization. The latter enables chemicals to travel with moving air masses for miles. Neither applicator nor innocent bystander can prevent such movement. The spread of 2,4-D across our lands will damage non-target crops and vegetation, devastate adjacent ecosystems and poses a very real threat to rural economies and farmers growing non-2,4-D-resistant crops. Conventional farmers growing their product miles away will suffer severe crop losses, while organic farmers will lose both crops and certification, resulting in business failures, job losses and an economic unraveling of already-stressed rural communities.

2,4-D-resistant “superweeds” will arise and spread just as RoundUp-resistant “superweeds” have taken over farms and countryside in the Midwest and Southeast. Where will this leave struggling farmers? What even more deadly pesticide will the biotech companies resort to next?
Corn is wind-pollinated which means that genetic material from 2,4-D corn will contaminate non-GE corn. You cannot put a GE genie back in the bottle.
What next?

Will Dow provide compensation to farmers, their children and rural communities for the harms likely to occur should the company secure approval of its 2, 4-D resistant corn? I rather doubt it. Dow has still refused to assume responsibility for the deaths and devastation arising from the pesticide explosion in Bhopal, India in 1984, so why would the company show any integrity now?

It will take an active, engaged public to get USDA back on track and in the business of serving the public interest.

What about USDA? Can we expect our public agency to carefully scrutinize the likely fallout of approving 2,4-D resistant corn? One problem is that USDA does not really want to know what the public thinks.

More at the linkYou’ve all heard the news: farmers across the country are losing their fields to... more

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Ruling leaves dioxin cleanup in Nitro WVa. OUT of Monsanto trial

-- As the trial begins in a major toxic pollution lawsuit against Monsanto Co., jurors... more

JanforGore
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