tagged w/ GMOs
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MUSIC TO MY EARS.
Excerpt:
Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed maker, said its third-quarter earnings and sales fell 14% and 11%, respectively. In addition, the company said it is creating a separate division for its Roundup and other herbicides business and announced a planned restructuring that will eliminate approximately 900 jobs, or about 4% of its work force.
Net income in the third quarter ended May 31 totaled $694 million, equal to $1.27 per share on the common stock, down from $811 million, or $1.48 per share, in the same period a year ago. The earnings beat analysts’ forecasts of $1.17 per share, but the company’s fourth-quarter profit is expected to be dragged down by the restructuring initiative, which is scheduled to be completed in 2010. As a result, Monsanto said its full-year profit will be on the low end of its previous forecast of $4.40 to $4.50 per share.MUSIC TO MY EARS.
Excerpt:
Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed maker,... more
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In the global debate regarding genetically modified (GM) foods and organisms (GMO's), the little-known role of the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in testing and propagating GM crops has gone largely unnoticed and unexamined. The agricultural biotechnology activity in this tropical US colony is simply massive.
"Puerto Rico attracts agricultural biotechnology companies because of the tropical climate that permits up to four harvests yearly and the willingness of the government to fast-track permits", according to professors Margarita Irizarry and José Rodríguez Orengo, of the University of Puerto Rico's Medical Sciences Campus. "Furthermore, the opposition to GM foods is almost non-existent on the island and no particular environmental group is protesting the presence of Dow, Syngenta Seeds, Pioneer HiBred, Mycogen Seeds, Rice Tech, AgReliant Genetics, Bayer Croposcience, and Monsanto."
Since 2004 we at the Puerto Rico Project on Biosafety have been trying to find out just what is going on in our land regarding GM crops. We have obtained very little information so far, but what little we have managed to get is quite worrying.
The most recent US Department of Agriculture Biotechnology Regulatory Services (BRS) data we have obtained show that as of January 2005 it had authorized 1,330 field releases for experimental GM crops in the island, which resulted in 3,483 field tests. Of the field releases, 944 were for corn, 262 for soy, 99 for cotton, 15 for rice, 8 for tomato, 1 for papaya and 1 for tobacco. According to the documentation, these releases were being authorized as early as 1987, almost a full decade before US authorities permitted GM foods for human consumption. Where in Puerto Rico exactly? What traits have been tested? The BRS says it's all "confidential business information".
With the sole exception of Hawai'i, no state in the USA has had so many GM crop experiments per square mile. The only ones that had more field tests than Puerto Rico's 3,483 were Hawai'i (5,413), Illinois (5,092) and Iowa (4,659). Keep in mind that Puerto Rico has less than 4,000 square miles, whereas Illinois and Iowa each have over 50,000 square miles. Puerto Rico surpassed California by far, which had only 1,964 field tests, although California is 40 times larger.
These data, of course, must be updated. We have been walking around with these and showing them to everyone for four years now. But we do not see any reason to believe that the situation has significantly changed since 2005.
It must be pointed out that not all the GM crop activity in our territory is experimental. There is also commercial GM production, about which we know even less. Commercial GM crop production is exported to the US- and who knows where else- for use as seed.
Most of these crops are planted in the southern plains, between the municipalities of Juana Díaz and Guayama, and especially concentrated in the stretch of land between the towns of Santa Isabel and Salinas, south of expressway 52 and north of route 1. Various eyewitnesses have told us that security in these lands is extreme. You cannot even stop your car alongside these fields without having policemen show up and ask you what your business is. And no, you cannot film or even take photos. They claim to be concerned about theft of crops. While we acknowledge that theft- of both produce and machinery- is one of the most serious problems facing Puerto Rican agriculture today, we also note that no other farming operations in the island enjoy such dilligent police protection.
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Why all the security? What are they hiding? This shows the extent of government big ag walking hand in hand for profit without concern for the health or environmental effects of planting these untested crops in the open.In the global debate regarding genetically modified (GM) foods and organisms... more
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Time to stop buying Dole products as they allow Monsanto to slip their GMOs through the back door.
Excerpt:
Dole Fresh Vegetables, Inc. and Monsanto Co. have entered into an agreement to develop new products that will "enhance consumer vegetable choices," according to the companies. The five-year agreement will focus on broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and spinach. Any new products developed through the agreement will be commercialized by Dole in North America.
Plant breeding techniques will be used to improve the nutrition, flavor, color, texture, taste and aroma of the vegetables. Monsanto's role in the collaboration will be to improve the development of new and beneficial vegetable characteristics. Their efforts will be guided by Dole's knowledge of consumer needs and marketing.
"Dole prides itself on innovation and bringing consumers high quality, nutritious and great-tasting products," said Roger Billingsley, senior vice-president of research and development for Dole Fresh Vegetables. "We are looking forward to collaborating closely with Monsanto to do just that."
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Dole consider yourself officially boycotted in my house.Time to stop buying Dole products as they allow Monsanto to slip their GMOs through... more
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This is no future. But we have the power to change the future and we are. Stand by farmers who grow safe healthy food and who cherish the centuries old tradition of saving seeds. If we allow big ag to have its way their vision of a monculture world for their proft may lead us to worldwide famine, not sustainaibility. Stand up and fight for your right to maintain the closest and most spiritual relationship you have: That with your Earth which provides what keeps you alive.
Say NO to GMO.
This documentary will be featured on the Sustainable Agriculture Channel for the remainder of the weekend.
http://current.com/topics/86293911_sustainable-agriculture/
Please watch it if you haven't seen it, and let it empower you.
Thank you.This is no future. But we have the power to change the future and we are. Stand by... more
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Forget buckets of blood. Nothing says horror like one of those tubs of artificially buttered, nonorganic popcorn at the concession stand. That, at least, is one of the unappetizing lessons to draw from one of the scariest movies of the year, “Food, Inc.,” an informative, often infuriating activist documentary about the big business of feeding or, more to the political point, force-feeding, Americans all the junk that multinational corporate money can buy. You’ll shudder, shake and just possibly lose your genetically modified lunch.
Divided into chapters dedicated to points along the commercial food chain — from farm to fork, to borrow a loaded agribusiness phrase — the movie is nothing if not ambitious. “There are no seasons in the American supermarket,” the unidentified voice intones in the opening scene, as the camera sweeps the aisles of one such brightly lighted, heavily stocked if nutritionally impoverished emporium. From there the director Robert Kenner jumps all over the food map, from industrial feedlots where millions of cruelly crammed cattle mill about in their own waste until slaughter, to the chains where millions of consumers gobble down industrially produced meat and an occasional serving of E. coli bacteria.
The voice in the opening belongs to the ethical epicurean and locavore champion Michael Pollan, author of “In Defense of Food” and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” as well as a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine. (Somewhat confusingly, the movie uses voice-overs without clearly identifying who’s issuing forth on the soundtrack.) Mr. Pollan, who periodically appears on screen seated at a homey-looking table, is a great strength of “Food, Inc.,” as is one of its co-producers, Eric Schlosser, the author of “Fast Food Nation.” These two embodiments of conscience, together with Mr. Kenner, chart how and why the villains not only outnumber the heroes in contemporary food production, but also how and why they outbluff, outmuscle and outspend their opponents by billions of often government-subsidized dollars.
If you’ve read either “Fast Food Nation” or “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” you won’t be surprised by what the movie shows and tells about the killing floors and soybean fields. Chances are that you’ll still be appalled, which is to Mr. Kenner’s credit. Much as Mr. Schlosser does in “Fast Food Nation,” the movie takes a look at the animal abuse in industrial food production — including clandestine images of sick and crippled cows being prodded to join the rest of the ill-fated herd — but its main focus is on the human cost. It’s a cost visible in the rounded bodies of a poor family that eats cheap if filling fast-food burgers for breakfast and in the obscured faces of farmers too frightened to go on record about Monsanto, the agricultural biotech giant.
end of excerpt.Forget buckets of blood. Nothing says horror like one of those tubs of artificially... more
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They are poisoning the planet, and leading many small farmers to financial ruin in a monoculture world. How Monsanto or any agbusiness company can even think that is "sustainable" speaks to their total lack of a conscience or moral code.
WE ARE BEING POISONED DAILY, and it is happening with the consent of the very politicians so many continue to support and believe. It is happening with the help of a complicit and desensitized media that cares nothing for real truth and education on the whole, but simply "entertaining the masses" into apathy. It is happening with corporate malfeasance that is placing the almighty dollar above all else even at the expense of human life and the sustainability of the only planet that can sustain us.
And the only way it will stop is if we speak out. Now.
Link to article:
http://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article2803-Poisoning-The-Planet.htmlThey are poisoning the planet, and leading many small farmers to financial ruin in a... more
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But will this be on any television network today? Will any of the American people who need to know the potential dangers that GMOs pose to their environment and health be given that information by our media? Our politicans? This article makes a good analogy in regards to where we stand on GMOs now and where we stood regarding climate change before the dam on the silence about it was broken. As is noted in this article, Al Gore with Earth In The Balance tried to warn us but only to have it fall on deaf ears.
Now many are out here once again trying to warn people of another environmental/ health threat that has stealthily crept into their supermarkets, homes, and bodies, put there by the same moneyed corporate interests with political ties and profit motives that supercede morals, principles, or scientific integrity.
As with the climate crisis now as well the same question begs to be answered regarding GMOs: Will the truth about their effects and how they were released into our environment without our consent be made known and seen too late? Will humans who "trust" government in order to not have to worry about anything that deters them from their own distractions simply allow the destruction of biodiversity? Have we truly become that apathetic about our own lives?But will this be on any television network today? Will any of the American people who... more
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The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), the nodal agency on genetically modified (GM) food, has in its last monthly meeting had given a "no objection certificate" to Doritos corn chips, a processed food product that had, not so long ago, been proven to contain GM corn. The recent approval came after the GEAC had a hearing on the product following its detainment by the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) at Nhava Sheva Port in Mumbai on the grounds of suspicion of it containing GM food.
This detention by the DGFT as stated in the GEAC meeting minutes was uploaded on their website on May 31, 2009, was based on a representation made by Greenpeace in this regard in the months following May 2008 when Greenpeace India had made public the scientific results of laboratory tests credibly done by an independent laboratory (GeneScan laboratories, Germany) on Doritos chips packets (purchased from markets in South Delhi). These tested samples were found to contain GM corn varieties, MON 863 and NK 603.
What makes the current GEAC approval especially shocking is that it was given without any testing, and hence no scientific evidence of the product being GM-free, but instead, on a written confirmation from the importer that the product did not contain GM corn.
This clearly makes a mockery of GEAC's regular claim that no GMOs (genetically modified organisms) have ever entered the country, that there have been adequate measures taken to prevent unintentional entry of GMOs and that there is an "appropriate" domestic regulatory system with public participation.
In 2006-07 alone, India received close to 2500 tonne of non-oil soya products- about 48% of which was from the US, which has a large quantity of GM soya without any labeling and segregation law in place. The same year, grain imports of corn were about 2800 tonne, and more than 72% of it was from Argentina and the US, both the countries produce a large quantity of GM corn.
The latest approval of Doritos consignment by the GEAC is therefore a link in the chain, instead of being an isolated event.
This is feeding to the fear, and quite reasonably, among safe food activists that the country is getting colossal quantities of GM food dumps. India has an almost non-existent system of screening for GM food at our ports. There is also a lack of awareness among the port authorities, the Customs and Excise Board and the Directorate of Foreign Trade on GM food and Living Modified Organisms (LMO) and the laws that are associated to it.
This calls for an entire system that needs to be activated to use the provisions of the Cartagena protocol for bio-safety that India ratified in 2003, and is in force since 2005, to demand information from the countries of import. There are close to 15 major sea ports and about 11 international airports in the country and we can imagine the scale of threat that needs to be fought.The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), the nodal agency on genetically... more
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A group of leading doctors has warned the public to avoid genetically modified food and GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). A revealing press release from this group of concerned physicians states, "The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) today released its position paper on Genetically Modified foods stating that 'GM foods pose a serious health risk' and calling for a moratorium on GM foods."
On May 19th, the AAEM posted their landmark paper calling on “Physicians to educate their patients, the medical community, and the public to avoid GM (genetically modified) foods when possible and provide educational materials concerning GM foods and health risks. In addition to a moratorium on GM foods, these doctors also called for non-biased, long-term independent studies, and labeling of all foods containing GM ingredients.
AAEM’s position paper 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. They conclude, “There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation,” as defined by recognized scientific criteria. “The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies.”A group of leading doctors has warned the public to avoid genetically modified food... more
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The fact that we do not know because proper testing has not been done should be reason enough to place a moratorium on GMOS WORLDWIDE. The Idiot Cycle is a new film to be released this fall that examines this question.The fact that we do not know because proper testing has not been done should be reason... more
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A new Sustainable Agriculture channel is growing on Current, and I will be its curator.
Why is Sustainable Agriculture important?
Agriculture... is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals and happiness." --Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1787. ME 6:277
“Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds. As long, therefore, as they can find employment in this line, I would not convert them into mariners, artisans, or anything else." --Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 1785. ME 5:94, Papers 8:426
"Globalization is not the cross-cultural interaction of diverse societies; it is the imposition of a particular culture on all of the others...It is the predation of one class, one race, and often one gender of a single species on all the others. The "global" in the dominant discourse is the political space in which the dominant local seeks global control, freeing itself from the responsibility...of ecological sustainability and social justice."
— Vandana Shiva (Biopiracy)
"In nature's economy the currency is not money, it is life."
— Vandana Shiva (Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace)
As you can see by these quotes, love of sustainable agriculture and respect for the sustenance and life it brings us spans all time periods and cultures from ancient civilizations to modern times.
What is sustainable agriculture?
Sustainable agriculture works with the natural environment to produce food and plants for our sustenance with minimum negative impact to soil, air, water and seeds. It works to sequester soil nutrients, carbon, and water in a way that positively enhances not only yield, but the quality and nutritional value of what is grown while also preserving biodiversity, natural beauty, and the environmental purity and balance which then positively effects our economy, our health, and our spirits. It is a tradition of our ancestors that we now see in danger of extinction through globalization and industrial monoculture agricultural practices. We must do all we can to protect it in order to protect life.
What are we looking for?
We are looking for discussions regarding the environmental, economic, health, and spiritual aspects of sowing and saving the seeds of life. This includes articles on GMOs, food policy, organic farming, (and that does include hemp for farming purposes, but please respect the topic and not inundate the channel) climate change/environment, water, water scarcity, sustainable agricultural methods, industrial agriculture, global food policy, health effects, spiritual connections to the Earth and agriculture, history of agriculture, and the politics of food (FDA, USDA, EPA, etc.)
In the wake of globalization, (market speculation) water shortages, GMOs, climate change, and political /economic upheaval how we maintain our global food supply in the wake of all of this in correlation with population increases will be the most challenging crisis we will face in the 21st century in our quest to maintain the spirit of that from which all life flows: The seed.
Let us sow the seeds of environmental democracy, truth, and hope through our words, our voices, and our love for Mother Earth that provides us with all we need to sustain life on Earth.
Please join me:
http://current.com/groups/sustainableagriculture
Tag: Sustainable Agriculture
Thank you,
JanforGore
Curator, Sustainable Agriculture Channel
"When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers are therefore the founders of human civilization." Daniel Webster, 1840A new Sustainable Agriculture channel is growing on Current, and I will be its... more
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Germany is safe! Now courts in every country where their BT corn that has contaminated our food and environment is grown should ban the growing of BT corn everywhere. Nice to see there is at least one court in this world that doesn't bend to intimidation.
Danke shoen!Germany is safe! Now courts in every country where their BT corn that has contaminated... more
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Marie-Monique Robin doesn’t like to stick to comfortable topics. This indefatigable Frenchwoman with 25 years of investigative journalism under her belt has produced an impressive range of hard-hitting books, reportages and documentaries. They include Voleurs d’yeux (Eye Thieves) on organ trafficking, which won her the prestigious Albert London prize in 1995 and Escadrons de la mort, l'école française (Death Squads: The French School), on the links between the French secret services and the Argentine and Chilean dictatorships, which was described by the French Senate as “best documentary of the year” in 2004.
But Marie-Monique Robin is also proud to be the daughter of small farmers. She explains why she decided to dedicate four years of her life to investigating the leading global company in the transgenic industry, Monsanto, which now owns 90% of GMOs grown worldwide (mainly soy, corn, cotton and canola). “I have always been interested in human rights and agriculture. More recently I began to work on the dangers facing biodiversity: here the three issues are interlinked to an incredible extent”. The result of this work was The World According to Monsanto, an investigative book which covers the history, hidden strategies and true objectives of the controversial multinational.
Now published in Italy, it has been translated into 13 languages and the DVD film version has been distributed in 22 countries. In the year since its first publication in France it has unleashed a massive international debate, but no official reaction from the biotech colossus, apart from the creation of a blog which confined itself to denying the points made in the book: yet another, if inadvertent, admission of the credibility and seriousness of Robin’s work.
In the book you show how Monsanto, when it was one of the most important chemical companies in the world, deliberately lied on many occasions, particularly regarding the toxicity of its products, from PCBs (polychlorobiphenyls) to dioxin, and Agent Orange used in Vietnam. It is now genetically manipulating seeds entering our diet. Can we trust them?
Absolutely not. They lied in the past and are continuing to do so, even if their website says things like “we help small farmers to produce healthier food with reduced environmental impact”. In fact none of this is true, just look at Roundup Ready seeds (RR). GM soy, for example, the first GMO launched on the market, now constitutes 90% of all soy grown in the US. It has been manipulated to resist a powerful glyphosate-based herbicide called Roundup which has been produced by Monsanto since the 1970s (since 1988 there has also been a version for home gardens). The multinational maintained that it was a 100% biodegradable herbicide that was completely harmless for humans and the environment. Too bad that it has been found guilty, first in the US and recently in France, for misleading advertising. Last year a confidential Monsanto study was made public where it was stressed that only 2% of Roundup decomposes in the soil, and then only after 28 days! A far cry from the concept of biodegradability. This is a crucial lie, since 70% of GMOs currently grown in the world have been genetically manipulated so they can be sprayed with Roundup.
Can Roundup adversely affect health?
It is very toxic and over the long term can cause cancer, as I show in the book on the basis of several scientific studies, but it also leads to sterility, abortions and genetic malformations. It acts as an endocrine disruptor, altering the male and female reproductive system. In Argentina I have met people living very close to enormous soy plantations which have been sprayed from the air. The immediate effects of acute intoxication are dermatitis, inflammation to the eyes, vomiting and respiratory difficulties. To think that Roundup is the most sold herbicide in the world: Denmark is the only country not to permit it.Marie-Monique Robin doesn’t like to stick to comfortable topics. This... more
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If you listen to NPR stations that carry the program Marketplace, you've probably heard the 12 second ad that Monsanto has been running that says, "Marketplace is supported by Monsanto, committed to sustainable agriculture, creating hybrid and biotech seeds designed to increase crop yields and conserve natural resources. Learn more at ProduceMoreConserveMore.com"
Tell American Public Media, which produces the Marketplace program, to stop spreading Monsanto's lies.
Click on the URL linked here to take action now.
Thank you!If you listen to NPR stations that carry the program Marketplace, you've probably... more
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The Organization for Competitive Markets is a national, non-profit public policy research organization headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska. OCM believes America must work together, across all commodities, toward the common purpose of returning its food and agricultural sector to true supply and demand-based competition. Antitrust, competition and fair trade are important areas of interest to OCM.
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This video deals with the seed monopoly of Monsanto and their patents that are killing competitive markets and squeezing out the American farmer.
American farmers must stand up to Monsanto as farmers in other countries around the world are doing. They should not be allowed to get away with their anti-democratic tactics and lack of business ethics that seek world domination of our seeds at the expense of our economy, our health, and our biodiversity!The Organization for Competitive Markets is a national, non-profit public policy... more
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Incredible lecture recently given by Dr. Vandana Shiva on the future of food and seed. The preservation of the bija as Dr. Shiva refers to here is the secret of life itself. Monsanto kills life and therefore they will fail. They may see profits in $$$$$ for a time but they will fail where it really matters if we as Dr. Shiva stated at the end of this video, stand together and hold hands worldwide. And in this lecture she covers the entire movement from beginning to end giving us truth, inspiration, and hope. How I love this intelligent, brave, visionary woman!Incredible lecture recently given by Dr. Vandana Shiva on the future of food and seed.... more
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Conventional wisdom says that the meteoric rise in obesity and related health conditions – the early stages of which are now called metabolic syndrome – is due to the West having a bad case of “couch potato syndrome.” That is, over the past few decades, we have been eating too much and not exercising enough.
While poor diet and inactivity play an undeniable role in fostering metabolic syndrome, that’s not the whole story. Clinical and epidemiological evidence increasingly implicates another culprit: the environment.
An insufficient explanation
Some scientists suspect that a combination of environmental factors, including a group of chemicals called obesogens, share the blame for the explosion of metabolic syndrome and its later stages: diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and even Alzheimer’s.
“Despite what we’ve heard,” said Dr. Bruce Blumberg, Professor of Developmental and Cell Biology and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Univeristy of California, Irvine, “diet and exercise alone are insufficient to explain the obesity epidemic.”
A May 7 teleconference presented by the nonprofit Collaborative on Health and the Environment explored this urgent and compelling topic. This article is based upon that teleconference.
Metabolic syndrome is estimated to affect more than one-third of U.S. adults, 60% of them under 65 years old.
When environment collides with human biology
Speaker Dr. David Jacobs, Professor of Public Health at the University of Minnesota, a chronic-disease epidemiologist, defined metabolic syndrome as “a constellation of related metabolic abnormalities (body fatness, blood fat handling, insulin, glucose).”
Environmental factors suspected to contribute to metabolic syndrome include the food system, the transportation system, the built environment, air pollution, obesogens, other environmental contaminants, and socioeconomic stress.
These stressors alter pathways in the body, causing inflammation, oxidative stress, and disrupted insulin signaling. Altered pathways can, in turn, lead to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and abnormal lipids (tied to dementia and Alzheimer’s).
You can think of metabolic syndrome as a crossroads, said speaker Dr. Jill Stein, co-founder of the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities, board member of Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, and co-author of the recent report Environmental Threats to Healthy Aging (www.agehealthy.org).
“This is where the environment meets human biology in the early stages of the disease process. You can think of environmental factors as kind of colliding with human biology here."
end of excerptConventional wisdom says that the meteoric rise in obesity and related health... more
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This once again illustrates the hold corporate money has on universities. Shameful.
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On our April 9 episode, Deconstructing Dinner examined the precarious state of the University of Guelph's organic agriculture program. As was learned, the University had chosen to cut the program along with others displaying low enrollment. The program now sits in limbo. The episode explored the key decision makers at the University in an effort to determine why the lion's share of research funding at the school is directed towards the genetic engineering of lifeforms and the corporate control of seeds instead of towards organic research. As a coordinator of the organic agriculture major, Dr. E. Ann Clark's work within the Department of Plant Agriculture has provided her with an ideal vantage point from which to critically analyze the outcomes of the genetic engineering of the food supply also underway at the university.
On May 10, Deconstructing Dinner recorded Ann speak at an event hosted by the Kootenay Local Agricultural Society. Ann's talk dealt with the topic of genetically engineered food, and she sought to demonstrate the "spectacular failures" of these technologies, which are now pervasive throughout the North American food supply.
Topics Covered on the Show:
The May 14, 2009 joint statement from wheat producers supporting commercialization of GM wheat
The questionable groups communicating to Canadian wheat farmers
The formalization of Dow's NAFTA challenge against the Canadian Government
Challenging the genetically engineered promises of "higher yields", "reduced biocide use", "feeding the world", "saving the soil", "farmers would make more money"
Misleading promises of Bt Corn
Seemingly manipulated research findings of consumer preferernces of GM vs. conventional corn
The disinformation communicated by Canada's largest agricultural publication, The Western Producer.
You can listen to this show at the upload link on the site linked here.
end of excerptThis once again illustrates the hold corporate money has on universities. Shameful.... more
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In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising-and often shocking truths-about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.
Learn more:
http://www.foodincmovie.comIn Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food... more
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Last night on Comedy Central, Jon Stewart's brilliant mockery of genetically engineered wheat puts the only humorous twist on an otherwise serious health risk that now concerns the American Academy of Environmental Medicine: genetically modified foods.
On May 8th, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) called on “Physicians to educate their patients, the medical community, and the public to avoid GM (genetically modified) foods when possible and provide educational materials concerning GM foods and health risks.” Their position paper 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. AAEM states, “GM foods have not been properly tested” and “pose a serious health risk.” They conclude, “There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation,” as defined by recognized scientific criteria. “The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies.” AAEM called for a moratorium, long-term independent studies, and labeling.
A second US medical association is currently drafting a similar resolution, and more and more doctors are already prescribing GM-free diets. “I strongly recommend patients eat strictly non-genetically modified foods,” says Dr. Amy Dean, a Michigan internal medicine specialist. Ohio allergist 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.”
According to AAEM, “There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation” as defined by recognized scientific criteria. “The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies.” Some experts go a step further. After reviewing more than 600 scientific journals, world renowned biologist Pushpa. M. Bhargava concluded that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are a major contributor to the sharply deteriorating health of Americans.
end of excerptLast night on Comedy Central, Jon Stewart's brilliant mockery of genetically... more
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