tagged w/ transgenic contamination
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'Controlling Our Food'
On March 11 a new documentary was aired on French television - a documentary that Americans won’t ever see. The gigantic bio-tech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years'Controlling Our Food'
On March 11 a new documentary was aired on French... more
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Slowly but surely the truth will win out about the deception of GMOs. Slowly but surely more and more people around the world are catching on to Monsanto's lies about yields. Slowly but surely the toxic effects of glyphosate which has now poisoned much of our planet will be seen. But will it be too late? Is there any other Monsanto product besides the toxic Aspartame that is still on the market besides their test tube organisms and accompanying poisonous herbicides? Doesn't that tell you something? They even had to sell off rbgh to Eli Lilly because of the truth of that being told as well.
Kudos to Austria, Hungary, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Brazil (which I hope continues this trend) and even Sri Lanka that has banned GMOS. This is the greatest environmental challenge we will face in concert with climate change and water scarcity. If you then don't see how these multinationals are lining up to get your food and water because they see what is coming and are doing all in their power to precipitate it, you are simply not paying enough attention.
MONSANTO KILLS BIODIVERSITY. And biodiversity is the crux of human life and environmental and economic sustainability. Once they take that away and own all of the seed and water, you may as well kiss your future bye bye. That is the truth of it. Which is why I and so many others are fighting so hard by using these mediums to get information out to people to empower them to say NO to GMOS.
Reality will then be our ally.Slowly but surely the truth will win out about the deception of GMOs. Slowly but... more
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Regardless of the PR and propaganda spawned by Monsanto and other biotech companies to have you believe that their GM test tube "foods" are globally accepted and safe, resistance to them is at an all time high and growing. We must keep that momentum going in 2009 because there has never been a more crucial time to be vigilant about our food, water, and environmental sustainability in the face of this push to own it all at our expense.
There is a method to their madness, and a method to taking advantage of the climate crisis and food "crisis" spawned by the the sky is falling announcements of the World Bank: and that is to use them as a reason to flood markets with GM garbage in order to reap a profit off others' misery.
It is not a lack of food that plagues this world, it is lack of access to it and the concerted efforts of agribusiness in league with politicians and other "interests" to undermine education, access, sustainable agriculture, and environmental democracy to benefit themselves in establishing global food fascism.
However, if last year is any indication it has not been as easy for them as they would have you believe. That is good news not only for our health, but for environmental democracy, sustainability, and biodiversity. But now is not the time to think we have won anything, as these companies are now raking in profits and using them for an all out war on organic farming, biodiversity, our food freedom, and all that agriculture has been and represented for centuries.
We have the power in this equation. We are the consumers. We are the farmers. And more and more of us worldwide are standing up and saying, NO TO GMO.Regardless of the PR and propaganda spawned by Monsanto and other biotech companies to... more
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I wonder, did Tom Vilsack of this Dept. Of Agriculture meet with their agriculture secretary?Monsanto is licking its chops to get into Mexico because they are being frozen out of Europe. Don't wonder now why Obama won't bother reworking NAFTA. This is one reason why. The only good thing about this is that individual Mexican states can still ban it, and based on the rightful opposition to it and its threat to the biodiversity of the corn varieties there I hope that happens.
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From the article:
NOTE: For what's really happening in Mexico, see the video of the interview with Silvia Ribeiro
http://www.grain.org/videos/?id=195
and the article, 'Fighting GMO contamination around the world'
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=575
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GM corn gets green light
Latinamerica Press, 12 March 2009
http://www.latinamericapress.org/articles.asp?art=5814
*Agriculture secretary says genetically-modified varieties of this ubiquitous crop may be used in experiments.
Mexico has revised its biosafety law to reverse a nationwide ban on genetically-modified corn, the country's most important crop and the centerpiece of the Mexican diet, and allow the varieties to be used in experiments.
In a press conference, Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada, said that the government would fight any illicit planting of genetically-modified corn, of which Mexico is the birthplace.
Elvira Quesada added that the changes to Biosafety and Genetically-Modified Organisms would not prohibit individual states from instating bans on transgenic corn, and under those circumstances, experiments would not be an excuse.
Mexico's agriculture secretary said there are 25 requests to plant experimental transgenic corn in the country.
Genetically-modified corn has been a contentious issue in Mexico, where there are some 200 native varieties of the staple crop.
In February, a study by scientists from the Mexico, the Netherlands and the United States found that genetically-modified corn strains did contaminate native corn varieties in southern Mexico.
The study, led by Elena Alvarez-Buylla of the National Autonomous University in Mexico, backed findings a contentious 2001 study published in the journal Nature that said the genetically-engineered corn had been detected in some of these varieties, sparking a heated debate over the study´s research methods and findings.
On Feb. 25, Mexico City's government issued a declaration that seeks to protect native corn varieties and promote ecologically-friendly and organic agriculture.
The decision was lauded by Greenpeace Mexico as a sign of commitment to protecting "Mexicans' most important grain." - Latinamerica Press.I wonder, did Tom Vilsack of this Dept. Of Agriculture meet with their agriculture... more
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The people of Germany and the government want to kick Monsanto out of Germany. The issue revolves around MON810, (the pesticide corn recently rejected for planting in Austria and Hungary by the EU environmental commission) and its contamination of the honey of a beekeeper there who has taken them to court.
This is a good article that puts together the facets of the legal battle along with the moral dilemma and environmental impacts of these test tube foods. It also showcases the coldness of Monsanto and their love of profit over sustainability.
It is heartening to see people standing up to this horrible company in so many countries now. Field trials are declining, lawsuits against them increasing, and awareness of the potential longterm health and environmental effects to humans and other species have more people questioning why and how these "foods" were put out into our environment without proper testing by independent sources.
This will be the environmental issue of the 21st century along with climate change and freshwater shortages, and as we now see in Germany, many parts of Europe, South America, India, and now even in America, Monsanto has a fight on their hands. I say, it's about time.The people of Germany and the government want to kick Monsanto out of Germany. The... more
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This Friday morning, the world’s largest natural and organic products trade show will start off with an Educational Session on international efforts to secure a non-GMO food supply. The session, titled “GMO's: Gettin'M Out of our Food” (8:30 to 10 am in Anaheim Convention Center Room 207A), brings together prominent speakers from the fields of science, policy, and natural products.
According to Michael Funk, Board Chair and Founder of UNFI, “There is no greater threat to the natural and organic industry than GMOs.” GMOs (genetically modified organisms) are created when DNA from one species is inserted into another species in a laboratory, creating combinations of plant, animal, bacterial, and viral genes that do not occur in nature or through traditional cross-breeding. Funk will bring an industry perspective to the session, discussing how GMOs affect natural products manufacturers, retailers, processors and growers, and encouraging industry members to join efforts addressing contamination risks. The primary solution he will be suggesting is participation in the Non-GMO Project.
The Non-GMO Project (www.nongmoproject.org), which was first launched two years ago at Expo West 2007, brings together stakeholders across North America in a collaborative effort to ensure the sustained availability of non-GMO options. As a Board member of the Project, along with top executives from Eden Foods, Lundberg Family Farms, Nature’s Path Organic Foods, Organic Valley, and Whole Foods Market, Funk is committed to supporting the Project’s strategy of product verification and uniform “Non-GMO Project Verified” labeling (the label will start appearing on products in October 2009).
Funk says that UNFI’s support will include highlighting “Verified” products: “We look forward to promoting and identifying items that have gone through the verification process in our catalogues, web site and other sales materials. Our focus will be on continuing to provide this critical information to retailers and consumers, giving additional integrity to the products we sell.” Funk would like to see “all companies in the natural products industry begin to enroll their brands through the Non-GMO Project’s verification process. By doing so,” he says, “we can ensure that we keep GMOs out of our food supply.”
The session’s other speakers, Michael Hansen, Ph.D, of the Consumers Union and John Fagan, Ph.D, of FoodChain Global Advisors, will speak about GMO science and policy, both in this country and internationally. Hansen, who will be focusing on the health implications of GMOs, says, “Recent scientific studies raise questions about the safety of GE (genetically engineered) foods.” He adds, “People are always shocked to learn that the FDA does not require safety testing of GE foods before they are allowed on the market. In fact, except for the FlavrSavr tomato, FDA has never made a conclusion about the safety of any GE crop.” Fagan will offer an update on the European Union’s GMO policies (the EU requires labeling on any product containing more than 0.9% GMO, and in most EU countries no GM crops are grown), and will also talk about GMO struggles in India, Brazil, and elsewhere across the globe.This Friday morning, the world’s largest natural and organic products trade show... more
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Some people might ask why I continue to talk about this. Well, that is because biodiversity to me is the linchpin to our survival as a species. Without it and with GMO monocrops deciding our food source it is highly likely in my view that we will face a worldwide famine in the future because of this transgenic contamination that is killing biodiversity. And I believe Mexico is just the tip of the iceberg.
So many thousands of varieties of rice, corn and other crops have been killed off due to industrial agriculture and losing sight of what agriculture is all about. Agriculture is now another facet of our lives that has been privitized and industrialized to the point where farmers no longer even have to put their hands into the Earth to plant it. There is no closeness in the relationship between Mother Earth and the planting of the seeds that are the miracle of life combined with water the elixir of life. It is now being made into a cold, greed driven, downright scary business where yields are not gotten to feed hungry people, but to be used as a commodity to feed animals for slaughter, make biofuels, pay off debt, and take up land that could be used more productively.
And now, even this contamination is being hidden from the people en masse as well as research being thwarted on these GMOs to give us the truth of their longterm effects on our health and our environment. Just what kind of world are we making for future generations? Where is the truth they will seek when they don't get it from us?
Agriculture in many countries is not just the action of planting seeds in the ground to make a profit off a government subsidy to support a corporation's profit sheets. It is a sacred tradition that shows the spiritual relationship we have to the only planet that can sustain our needs. It is a labor of love conducted by the first stewards of our global environment so many centuries ago that has survived, but is now slowly being stolen from us.
To see that relationship being totally destroyed saddens and outrages me. To look at the future in a world run by a handful of multinationals whose only tradition is to not lose one dollar of business at any cost as we continue to fall further and further away from the closeness we once has to this Earth also explains to me why we have no peace. And I think that's worth talking about. We have great power within us to preserve that which has been handed down for centuries that has worked in continuing the natural processes that have sustained us. To use that power to destroy that which sustains us is in my view to doom us to an certain future we cannot afford to risk.Some people might ask why I continue to talk about this. Well, that is because... more
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GMW: Global resistance - U.S.A., NZ, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium
1. Leading Catholic hospital group bans food from GMOs and animal clones
2. Hungary to defy European Commission call to scrap ban on GMO crops
3. Italy, no quality brand for products employing GMOs
4. Japan laps up non-GM soyameal
5. Lobby Groups Welcome Abandonment of GM Trials in New Zealand
6. Join a large European march against GMOs
A global food revolution is taking place. It's time to take back our food and our planet!GMW: Global resistance - U.S.A., NZ, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Germany, Netherlands,... more
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French journalist and filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin, author of the book and documentary The World According to Monsanto, an exhausting investigation into genetically-modified organisms and Monsanto, the world´s largest transgenic seed producer, spoke with Latinamerica Press managing editor Elsa Chanduví Jaña about the effects of these seeds and Monsanto´s ambitions to “control the world´s food chain.” Robin participated in the seminar “Seeds of Diversity vs. Transgenics” in Lima Jan. 28-29, which Comunicaciones Aliadas and Latinamerica Press co-organized.
The interview follows.
Stand up for your right to eat healthy natural foods.French journalist and filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin, author of the book and... more
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A lawsuit filed last year to stop sales of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready genetically modified sugar beet seed will be argued in a US District Court of Northern California on April 3. One man’s livelihood may hang in the balance.A lawsuit filed last year to stop sales of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready genetically... more
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Ever since GMOs were first introduced in the mid-1990s, farmers’ groups and NGOs have warned that they would contaminate other crops. This has happened, just as predicted. In this article we look at how communities in different parts of the world that have experienced contamination are developing strategies to fight against it.
[Three videos accompany this article which can be viewed here: http://www.grain.org/videos/?id=195]
When GM crops are planted they contaminate other crops with transgenic material. In places where GM crops are grown on a large scale, it has already become almost impossible to find crops of the same species that are free of GM material. And the contamination spreads even to areas where GM crops are not officially permitted. [1] The GM Contamination Register, managed by GeneWatch UK and Greenpeace International, has documented more than 216 cases of GM contamination in 57 countries over the past 10 years, including 39 cases in 2007. [2]
Monsanto and the other biotech corporations have always known that their GM crops would contaminate other crops. Indeed, it was part of their strategy to force the world into accepting GMOs. But around the world people are refusing to lie down and accept genetic modification as a fact of life; instead they are struggling against it, even in places subject to contamination. In fact, some communities experiencing contamination are developing sophisticated forms of resistance to GM crops. These usually begin with short-term strategies to decontaminate their local seeds, but often seek over the long term to strengthen their traditional food and agricultural systems.
We look at the experiences of communities in different parts of the world in dealing with GM contamination to see what insights they can offer others faced with similar situations. Each situation is unique, and gives rise to different processes. Common to all of them is the primary importance of collective action – of communities working at the grassroots to identify their own solutions and not depending on courts or governments, which, without strong social pressure, tend to side with industry.Ever since GMOs were first introduced in the mid-1990s, farmers’ groups and NGOs... more
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A corn crop to be used just for ethanol? Wasn't it already proven that ethanol does not reduce CO2 emissions effectively and is actually wasteful in its processing? Well, we now know that Tom Vilsack will have a smooth confirmation hearing to be Sec of Agriculture. I am sure he is for the deregulation of this industrial corn crop. Transgenic contamination of corn for human consumption however, will be at risk, and the proper EIS has not of yet been done on this particular GE crop. Once again, Monsanto, Syngenta, and the industrial agriculture lobby wins out over the consumer.
Attached to this link is a form you can fill out and a letter attached regarding the USDA's actions regarding this industrial GE crop. This is not only a threat to human health because it is not designed for human consumption, it is a waste of land that could be used to grow traditional corn to feed people. We now can pretty much access that the lies coming from chemical companies like Monsanto that their GE crops are to feed the hungry world are just that, lies. Profit and now taking advantage of the climate crisis instead of finding ways to mitigate it are what this is all about.
And it would appear that these companies with the help of the Obama administration will now continue to seek profits over fair access to traditional food and alternate methods of producing energy that do not take valuable land away that could be used to grow real food. That is why we must be heard.
You can express your opinion on this at the link and also send any comments you may have on this as well. Comments are being accepted at the USDA until January 20th.A corn crop to be used just for ethanol? Wasn't it already proven that ethanol... more
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We cannot and must not relent on the USDA to do all in it's power to reverse the policy on GM foods in this country. We can no longer afford to continue to consume these foods without proper testing and with FDA scientists no longer being gagged about the results they came up with initially. Americans are being used as guinea pigs and pawns for profit, and it is expanding worldwide. Test after test confirms that these foods are not entirely safe for consumption (not to mention the environmental devastation and transgenic contamination they are spreading) and it is being hidden from the general population at large.This is more than likely why Monsanto and the FDA have been fighting to keep the source of our food off of our labels. Monsanto has also been sued regarding false advertising regarding Round Up and had to change how they were advertising it. They know it is poison. Just like Agent Orange, and the human and environmental effects of that are still being felt forty years later.
I am writing another letter to "president- elect" Obama and will be making a petition within the week. I don't know if it is going to be a written petition or one I will post here as a video that people can respond to. I do know this however, we have to stand up for labeling of our foods NOW, and if independent tests are refused by Monsanto a nationwide boycott of any company that uses their GM fake food in their products must be begun.
The choice is now clear for them:
Label it or face boycott.
Our safety and the health of our children and environment are more important than your stock price!We cannot and must not relent on the USDA to do all in it's power to reverse the... more
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In 1998 the GM giant Monsanto launched an aggressive advertising campaign to persuade reluctant Europeans they should accept GM foods: "As we stand on the edge of a new millennium, we dream of a tomorrow without hunger… Worrying about starving future generations won't feed them. Food biotechnology will."
Such claims drew a critical response not just from many development organizations with decades of on the ground experience of helping the poor and hungry in the developing world, but even from the head of GM firm Syngenta UK (then Novartis Seeds UK), Steve Smith. Smith told a public meeting, "If anyone tells you that GM is going to feed the world, tell them that it is not…To feed the world takes political and financial will.
Delegates from 20 African Countries to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN also responded sharply to Monsanto’s PR campaign, issuing a joint public statement in which they declared: “We strongly object that the image of the poor and hungry from our countries is being used by giant multinational corporations to push a technology that is neither safe, environmentally friendly nor economically beneficial to us."
But a decade later, in the face of massive food price inflation affecting some of the poorest countries in the world, claims that GM crops are the silver bullet that can deliver cheap and abundant food for all are once again being made. The evidence to support such claims, however, is scant to non-existent, as noted by the recently concluded International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), a process involving 400 scientific experts initiated by the World Bank with the co-sponsorship of the United Nations.
The IAASTD process involved a thorough sifting of the evidence about agriculture and food production, and took four years to complete. Its 2500-page report, based on peer reviewed publications, concluded that the yield gains in GM crops "were highly variable" and in some cases, "yields declined". The report also noted, "Assessment of the technology lags behind its development, information is anecdotal and contradictory, and uncertainty about possible benefits and damage is unavoidable." Asked at a press conference whether GM crops were the simple answer to hunger and poverty, IAASTD Director Professor Bob Watson (former director of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and as of 2008, chief scientist at Defra) replied, "I would argue, no ". The UK Government approved the IAASTD report on 9 June 2008.
The report not only brought into question GM's claims to be the solution to global poverty and hunger but also to be a solution to climate change. In fact, GM crops are seen by many as reinforcing an outdated model of agriculture, unsuited for dealing with the conditions that climate change and expensive scarce oil bring for global food security. Many also see GM crops as anti-innovation, because they involve patents which restrict the sharing of knowledge and technology.
Large sections of the IAASTD report favoured truly innovative approaches to improving agriculture and increasing food production. These involve techniques suited to small farmers that minimize the use of increasingly expensive fossil fuel-derived inputs like fertilisers and pesticides. These approaches to cultivation and pest control recognise the value, particularly to the poor and hungry, of low-cost practices using locally available materials and technologies in an environmentally sensitive manner. They include integrated pest management (IPM) and agroecological, or even fully organic, methods.In 1998 the GM giant Monsanto launched an aggressive advertising campaign to persuade... more
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Raise the alarm for Mexican corn-s biosecurity: a molecular study conducted by Mexican, American and Dutch researchers demonstrates the presence of genes from genetically modified organisms (GMO) among the varieties of traditional corn cultivated in the remote regions of Oaxaca State in the southern part of the country, even though the Mexican government has always maintained a moratorium on the use of transgenic seed.
The results of this study incite the experts to demand much more restrictive protective measures. Old time agriculture as practiced in Mexico - where wind-blown pollination of corn is the norm and where peasants are in the habit of exchanging their seed - seems to aggravate the risk of rapid GMO contamination.
An article that details their conclusions should be published in the next edition of the review, Molecular Ecology. It was written by Elena Alvarez-Buylla of the Institute for Ecology of the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM), with the collaboration of a dozen other scientists.
Their work could relaunch the controversy that was unleashed in 2001 by a highly controversial article in the magazine, Nature, the authors of which, biologists David Quist and Ignacio Chapela from the University of California at Berkeley, revealed that criollos (traditional) corn from the Oaxaca region - one of the cradles of that cereal - were contaminated by Roundup Ready (RR) and Bt genes, property of the American company Monsanto.
In her book, The World According to Monsanto, (due for release in March 2009 and already available for pre-order at Amazon.com), Marie-Monique Robin related how Mr. Chapela became a victim of media lynching at that time at the instigation of the dominant company in the GMO market. Nature ended up publishing a disclaimer, deeming that the two biologists article was insufficiently backed up.
However, seven years later, the work Mrs. Alvarez-Buylla directed broadly confirms their conclusions, as a report published in the November 13 Nature emphasizes. The researchers have discovered transgenes in three of the twenty-three fields of Oaxaca-s northern sierra where samples were taken in 2001, then in two places sampled in 2004.
American Allison Snow, of the University of California and author in 2005 of a preliminary study that seemed to undermine Ignacio Chapela and David Quist-s discoveries (and which were then immediately exploited by GMO partisans), is publishing an additional complimentary note in the same issue of Molecular Ecology, in which she judges the molecular analysis conducted by the UNAM team to be very good, bringing to light the positive evidence of transgenes.
snip
The study-s authors call for a strengthening of biosecurity measures to preserve native corn varieties, especially in Mexico, corn-s center of origin. They say Mexico must set up truly independent laboratories and adapt criteria of molecular analysis to the Mexican reality, rather than trusting methods used in countries such as the United States which have an agricultural system entirely different from our own.
But their greatest concern at present involves planned pharmaceutical trusts which want to make a profit on corn biomass and use it as a bioreactor in order, for example, to express vaccines and anti-coagulants. Given the incidents that have already occurred in the United States where they have trouble separating bioreactors from GMO, we may fear that corn could turn into the garbage bin of the pharmaceutical industry, at the expense of its purpose as food, fears Mrs. Alvarez-Buylla. What shall we do when anti-coagulants arrive in Mexican tortilla?
* Quotes and apostrophes eliminated because they won-t show on post properly.Raise the alarm for Mexican corn-s biosecurity: a molecular study conducted by... more
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In a few hundred thousand years, after all weather effects of 21st century climate change have disappeared from the earth-s surface, after our quietly smoldering nuclear waste has been extinguished, two destructive impacts traceable to George Bush-s policies will yet remain.
The first is extinctions. Species that have died out, including the subset resulting from Bush-s environmental policies, will forever deprive our evolving biosphere of their contribution.
The second is genetically modified organisms (GMOs) -- animals, plants, bacteria, and viruses, whose DNA have been mixed and mangled by insertions from foreign species. Once released into the ecosystem, by intention or accident, the genetic pollution self-propagates. No recall by the Obama administration can clean up Mexico-s indigenous corn varieties, now contaminated by our genetically modified (GM) corn. No executive order can remove or even identify the wild mustard plants now carrying altered genes bestowed on it by the pollen from its cousin, GM canola.
We all know stories that illustrate the exponential effects of invasive species. Here-s my favorite, recalled in my book Genetic Roulette:
On Christmas Day 1859, the Victorian Acclimatization Society released 24 rabbits into the Australian countryside so that settlers could hunt them for sport and feel more at home. The rabbits multiplied to well over 200 million, spreading out over 4 million square kilometers. That Christmas present now costs Australian agriculture about $600 million per year.
http://geneticroulette.com/
Will GMOs of today show up as the Australian rabbits of the future? While their impact on our ecosystem and diet is largely unstudied, that has not stopped the current and past administrations from presiding over the release of millions of acres of GM crops. Not only does each plant carry a gene from bacteria or viruses, its DNA has hundreds or thousands of mutations resulting from the disruptive process of genetic engineering. Reports suggest that the side effects of GMOs are quite dangerous. http://geneticroulette.com/
Bush policies institutionalize GMO contamination
If we were to ban GMOs today, as is more than justified, some contamination from commercialized GM food crops will nonetheless carry forward in the gene pool of those (and related) species. This includes contaminants from our largest farmed GM crops, including soybeans, yellow corn, cotton, and canola, as well as the smaller crops: Hawaiian papaya, zucchini, and crookneck squash. Newly added--in this year-s harvest--are GM sugar beets and white corn. There are also GM tomatoes and potatoes no longer on the market, but whose genes and seeds, to some degree, continue to persist out there. But the dirty laundry list actually includes over 100 different experimental GM crops, field trialed at more than 50,000 sites in the US since 1986.
Although the government is supposed to make sure that these trials won-t contaminate the surrounding environment, a 2005 report by the USDA Office of Inspector General harshly condemned the USDA-s abominable oversight. Current regulations, policies, and procedures, said the report, do not go far enough to ensure the safe introduction of agricultural biotechnology. The agency-s weaknesses increase the risk that regulated genetically engineered organisms will inadvertently persist in the environment.
But George Bush-s pro-biotech response was to further weaken the agency-s GMO oversight--and he-s trying to do it quickly, before Obama steps in. The proposed ruling makes gene escape more likely, even from GM crops designed to produce pharmaceutical drugs and industrial chemicals.
^^In a few hundred thousand years, after all weather effects of 21st century climate... more
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We are on the tip of the iceberg regarding GMOs in our food supply. They have only been in our food supply for a little over a decade. We may not truly begin to see the full health effects of them for another twenty years. However, they are continued to be allowed to be spread thoughout the world to kill biodiversity and threaten traditional agriculture as we know it with little to no oversight. And Monsanto like coal, oil, and tobacco companies is paying big bucks to try to make people believe they do not need any independent testing of these test tube organisms they are passing off as food. As the end of this article states, Monsanto sure does have some explaining to do, only they do not give interviews. I wonder why?We are on the tip of the iceberg regarding GMOs in our food supply. They have only... more
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Looks like the letters, petitions, and protests will have to get louder on this from those of us who see the dangers of genetic modification. This I suppose would also mean he would oppose labelling of our food to disclose to consumers that they are eating test tube food as well as independent testing being disclosed on the safety of this fake food. This entire world will be polluted with Round Up glyphosate with farmers beholding to multi nationals for their own seeds that are not even theirs, and transgenic contamination will kill biodiversity in this world and agriculture as we have klnown it for centuries will be dead.
I surely hope Obama is not the same as Bush on ag policy. But if he is, he is going to hear it loud and clear from many about how genetic modification of our food is nothing more than a profit making scheme designed to once again subjugate the poor to the whims of the rich few. Very disappointing if you really believed his spiel about change. Even I thought he would at least have enough smarts to realize that there is enough to feed this world if the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and other NWO organizations in league with governments to hold back food to raise prices were taken out of the picture and farmers allowed to cultivate their own crops tradititonally and naturally.
I REFUSE TO LIVE IN A MONSANTO WORLD.Looks like the letters, petitions, and protests will have to get louder on this from... more
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* Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack;s support of genetically engineered pharmaceutical crops, especially pharmaceutical corn:
http://www.gene.ch/genet/2002/Oct/msg00057.html
http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/drugsincorn102302.cfm
* The biggest biotechnology industry group, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, named Vilsack Governor of the Year. He was also the founder and former chair of the Governor's Biotechnology Partnership.
http://www.bio.org/news/pressreleases/newsitem.asp?id=200...
* When Vilsack created the Iowa Values Fund, his first poster child of economic development potential was Trans Ova and their pursuit of cloning dairy cows.
* Vilsack was the origin of the seed pre-emption bill in 2005, which many people here in Iowa fought because it took away local government's possibility of ever having a regulation on seeds- where GE would be grown, having GE-free buffers, banning pharma corn locally, etc. Representative Sandy Greiner, the Republican sponsor of the bill, bragged on the House Floor that Vilsack put her up to it right after his state of the state address.
* Vilsack has a glowing reputation as being a schill for agribusiness biotech giants like Monsanto. Sustainable ag advocated across the country were spreading the word of Vilsack's history as he was attempting to appeal to voters in his presidential bid. An activist from the west coast even made this youtube animation about Vilsack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hmoc4Qgcm4s
The airplane in this animation is a referral to the controversy that Vilsack often traveled in Monsanto's jet.
*Vilsack is an ardent support of corn and soy based biofuels, which use as much or more fossil energy to produce them as they generate, while driving up world food prices and literally starving the poor.
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Another administration of cronies? Is this what we will get as change? I sure hope this is not true.* Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack;s support of genetically engineered pharmaceutical... more
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