Tag Archives for herbicide

Surprise! Monsanto-Funded Research Finds Their Products Safe (Bullshit!)

Source: Activist Post

Increasingly, the front lines of the information warfare being perpetuated by corporations upon the people are moving into peer-reviewed biomedical and life sciences journals. Once considered a place where rigorous, empirical science — i.e. the truth — is vindicated and publicly acknowledged, these journals, and the scientists who publish in them, are no longer capable of maintaining the once hard and fast illusion that they are immune to the corrupting influence of industry.

Corporations like Monsanto, whose GMO-agriculture inventions (Bt corn; Roundup herbicide) now threaten human and environmental health alike, have moved beyond the stage of simply denying or minimizing the science revealing the harm being done by their products (there is too much science now to maintain this strategy!); rather, they are now investing in the burgeoning, multi-billion dollar industry practice known as “check book” science: find willing researchers, research institutions, and journals to create and publish information favorable to the company writing the check, and you’re in business.

Case in point….
Monsanto-Funded “Research” Reveals Monsanto Products Are Safe

A review on glyphosate (Monsanto’s invention and key ingredient in their Roundup herbicide formulation) titled, “Developmental and reproductive outcomes in humans and animals after glyphosate exposure: a critical analysis,” was published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health late last year which claimed the following:

[T]he available literature shows no solid evidence linking glyphosate exposure to adverse developmental or reproductive effects at environmentally realistic exposure concentrations.

The review authors included a thank you to Monsanto for funding their work:

The authors acknowledge the Monsanto company for funding and for providing its unpublished glyphosate and surfactant toxicity study reports.

Their report aimed to discredit the work of a French research group at the Institut Jaques Monod who published five articles indicating glyphosate’s wide-ranging potential for environmental and human harm.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

In their newly published rebuttal titled, “LETTER TO THE EDITOR: TOXICITY OF ROUNDUP AND GLYPHOSATE,” the French research team pointed out several serious flaws in the Monsanto-friendly scientist’s criticism of their work.

The first major flaw was their total disregard for the scientific context within which their glyphosate research was performed, namely, the DNA-damaging and carcinogenic potential of the chemical.

The second flaw was the claim that their results were “not environmentally relevant” (repeated 5 times in the article), despite the fact that the French researchers were able to demonstrate toxicity in 100% of the individual cells at short exposure time below the usage concentration (20 mM) of the herbicide in present agricultural applications. They elaborated on this point further:

Therefore, regarding the considerable amount of glyphosate-based product sprayed worldwide, the concentration of Roundup in every single micro droplet is far above the threshold concentration that would activate the cell cycle checkpoint. (2) The effects we demonstrate were obtained by a short exposure time (minutes) of the cells to glyphosate-based products, and nothing excludes that prolonged exposure to lower doses may also have effects.

Since glyphosate is commonly found present in drinking water in many countries, low doses with long exposure by ingestion are a fact. The consequences of this permanent long term exposure remain to be further investigated but cannot just be ignored.In the interest of countervailing the mis- and disinformation, we are indexing research on the under-reported, adverse effects of glyphosate (the active ingredient which now includes 20 toxic properties associated with 30+ diseases or disease symptoms.

Monsanto Pesticide Found to Infect Plants with AIDS-like Disease!

When Dr. Don Huber, professor emeritus at Purdue University and internationally-recognized plant pathologist, wrote a letter back in January to US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack, warning him about a new mystery disease showing up primarily in genetically-modified (GM) crops, the notice fell on deaf ears.

Research conducted by a team of senior plant and animal scientists found that Monsanto’s glyphosate chemical, which is the primary ingredient in its popular RoundUp herbicide formula, appears responsible for infecting plants with an AIDS-like syndrome that destroys their immunity, blocks their absorption of certain vitamins and minerals, and eventually kills them.

 Dr. Huber explains in his letter that the destruction caused by glyphosate does not appear limited to plants, either — animals and humans alike that consume foods tainted with the chemical, or that are exposed in some other way to it, are potentially susceptible to developing the same autoimmune disorder. For this reason, Dr. Huber urged the USDA to further investigate RoundUp, as well as to deny the deregulation of GM alfalfa.

You can read a copy of Dr. Huber’s letter for yourself here:
http://es-la.facebook.com/notes/wood-prairie-farm/the-complete-text-o…

The key factor of Dr. Huber’s discovery was a microscopic pathogen specifically prevalent in GM crops. The pathogen, he explained in an interview with Food Democracy Now! (FDN) as well as in his letter, is common. But an apparent weakening of plant immunity by glyphosate makes plants treated with the chemical more susceptible to contracting the harmful pathogen. And as a result of exposure, large swaths of GM farmland have died, and many animals that feed on GM-tainted meal have become infertile or have had abortions.

But instead of listening to the scientifically sound advice of Dr. Huber and withholding deregulation of GM alfalfa until more intense safety studies could be conducted, the USDA decided to ignore it all and approve the “Frankencrop” anyway.

To watch the full video interview between FDN and Dr. Huber, visit:
http://vimeo.com/22997532

Sources for this story include:

http://www.bnet.com/blog/food-industry/mystery-science-more-details-o…

Monsanto ‘Roundup’ Herbicide Linked To Parkinson’s-Related Brain Damage – Don’t Buy It!

Source: Activist Post

Alarming new research published in the journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology supports the emerging connection between glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide, and neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and Parkinsonian disorders.

Published this month (April, 2012), the new study entitled “Glyphosate induced cell death through apoptotic and authophagic mechanisms,” investigated the potential brain-damaging effects of herbicides, which the authors stated “have been recognized as the main environmental factor associated with neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease.”

They found that glyphosate inhibited the viability of differentiated test cells (PC12, adrenal medula derived), in both dose-and-time dependent manners. The researchers also found that “glyphosate induced cell death via authophagy pathways in addition to activating apoptotic pathways.”

Roundup herbicide is now a ubiquitous contaminant in our air, rain, groundwater, and food, making complete avoidance near impossible. A growing body of experimental evidence now indicates that it in addition to its neurotoxicity it also has the following.
Modes of Toxicity

  • Carcinogen
  • Endocrine Disruptor
  • Genotoxic
  • Biocide
  • Cytotoxic
  • Bioaccumulator
  • Hepatotoxic
  • Teratrogenic
  • Clastogenic
  • Oxidant
  • Aquacidal
  • Mutagenic
  • Aromatase Disruptor
  • Glutathione Down-regulator
  • Malondialdehyde Up-regulator
  • Necrotic
  • Nephrotoxic

Once marketed as “safe as table salt” by Monsanto, the original patent holder and manufacturer of this glyphosate-based herbicide, evidence now indicates it is toxic to human DNA at concentrations diluted 450-fold lower than used in agricultural applications.

This study only adds to human case reports of glyphosate-poisoning and/or occupational exposure where neurological damage was a direct consequence. A 2011 case study published in the journal Parkinsonism Related Disorders, entitled “Parkinsonism after chronic occupational exposure to glyphosate,” reported the following incident:

Here we report a patient with parkinsonism following chronic occupational exposure to glyphosate. A previously healthy 44- year-old woman presented with rigidity, slowness and resting tremor in all four limbs with no impairment of short-term memory, after sustaining long term chemical exposure to glyphosate for 3 years as a worker in a chemical factory. The chemical plant produced a range of herbicides including: glyphosate, gibberellins, and dimethyl hydrogen phosphite; however, the patient worked exclusively in the glyphosate production division. She only wore basic protection such as gloves or a face mask for 50 h each week in the plant where glyphosate vapor was generated. She frequently felt weak. Two months before she came to our clinic, she had expe- rienced severe dizziness and blurred vision.

Another case study published in 2003 reported a case of parkinsonism subsequent to glyphosate exposure.

These case studies are also backed up by animal research. In the roundworm model of glyphosate exposure the chemical results in neurodegeneration directly associated with damage to the dopamine and GABA producing neurons. In the rat model, glyphosate exposure results in oxidative brain damage, particularly the substantia nigra, where the highest concentration of dopamine-producing cells reside, and which is the primary locus of neurological damage in Parkinson’s disease.

This article first appeared at GreenMedInfo.

Nepal – Street Riots Form in Response to Monsanto Intrusion – And It worked, they stopped the Bastards!

Source: The Activist Post

After the Nepalese government decided to allow Monsanto into their borders and subsequently force farmers to use genetically modified seeds, the citizens took to the streets.

The starving nation let Monsanto in despite recent and massive bans in a number of EU countries.

Monsanto’s GMO crops have been shown by a team of 900 scientists to be virtually ineffective at combating starvation — in fact, they perform way worse than traditional and sustainable agriculture.

Now, according to some Nepal-based activists, Monsanto has been run out of the country by fierce protesting.

Threatening the nation’s main crop, corn, Monsanto’s GM corn would certainly not help the 40% of Nepalese citizens who are currently malnourished.

It seems that the Nepalese people are quite aware of this fact as well, as hordes of activists demonstrated their opposition to Monsanto and genetically modified creations on the city streets.

Hundreds of the anti-Monsanto activists gathered in Kathmandu in front of the U.S. embassy, pouring out from their homes just shortly after the announcement was made.

According to the activist group ‘Stop Monsanto in Nepal’, the protests may have succeeded. In a post on Facebook on April 6th, the group stated:

Celebrating Victory! We knew from internal sources that the Nepal-Monsanto-USAID deal was postponed indefinitely but we didn’t have a public document to claim the victory officially. But Hari Dahal, Joint secretary and Spokesperson for the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC) mentioned on a recent ‘BBC Sajha Sawal’ that Monsanto will NOT be allowed in Nepal.

The news comes just after Monsanto was taken to court over ‘knowingly poisoning workers‘ and causing devastating birth defects. Argentinean tobacco farmers stated that the biotech giant knowingly poisoned them with herbicides and pesticides and subsequently caused ”devastating birth defects” in their children.

EPA Collusion in Monsanto Coverup – This IS Very Bad, Please TAKE ACTION to stop!

Source: OrganicConsumers.org

2,4-D and the dioxin pollution it creates are too dangerous to allow, period, but in the hands of bad actors like Monsanto and Dow Chemical the dangers increase exponentially. What’s the Environmental Protection Agency doing? Helping coverup the chemical companies’ crimes!

In February, Monsanto agreed to pay up to $93 million in a class-action lawsuit brought by the residents of Nitro, West Virginia, for dioxin exposure from accidents and pollution at an herbicide plant that operated in their town from 1929 to 2004.

That may seem like justice, but it is actually the result of Monsanto’s extraordinary efforts to hide the truth, evade criminal prosecution and avoid legal responsibility.

A brief criminal fraud investigation conducted (and quickly aborted) by the EPA revealed that Monsanto used a disaster at their Nitro, WV, plant to manufacture “evidence” that dioxin exposure produced a skin condition called chloracne, but was not responsible for neurological health effects or cancers such as Non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

These conclusions were repeatedly utilized by EPA and the Veterans Administration to deny help to citizens exposed to dioxin, if these persons did not exhibit chloracne.

The EPA knew the truth about Monsanto’s dioxin crimes, but it decided to hide it. Why? It would have affected us all. EPA’s brief criminal investigation of Monsanto included evidence that Monsanto knowingly contaminated Lysol with dioxin, even as the product was being marketed for cleaning babies’ toys.

Here are the details of this jaw-dropping and heart-breaking case of corporate criminality and EPA collusion.

According to Natural News:

  • In the town of Nitro, West Virginia, Monsanto operated a chemical plant from 1929 to 1995, making an herbicide that had dioxin as a by-product. The name dioxin refers to a group of highly toxic chemicals that have been linked to heart and liver disease, human reproductive disorders, and developmental problems. Dioxin persists in the environment and accumulates in the body, even in small amounts. In 2001, the U.S. government listed dioxin as a “known human carcinogen”.
  • In 1949, at the Nitro plant, a pressure valve blew on a container of this herbicide, producing a plume of vapor and white smoke that drifted out over the town. Residue coated the interior of buildings and those inside them with a fine black powder. Within days, workers experienced skin eruptions, and many were diagnosed with chloracne, a long lasting and disfiguring condition. Others felt intense pains in their chest, legs and trunk. A medical report from the time said the explosion “caused a systemic intoxication in the workers involving most major organ systems.” Doctors detected a strong odor coming from the patients they described as men “excreting a foreign chemical through their skins”.
  • Monsanto downplayed the incident, saying that the contaminant was “fairly slow acting” and only an irritant to the skin.
  • Meanwhile, the Nitro plant continued to produce herbicides, In the 1960′s it manufactured Agent Orange, the powerful herbicide used by the U.S. military to defoliate jungles during the Vietnam War, and which became the focus of lawsuits by veterans contending they had been harmed by exposure to the chemical. Agent Orange also created dioxin as a by-product.
  • At the Nitro plant, dioxin waste went into landfills, storm drains, streams, sewers, into bags with the herbicide, and then the waste was burned out into the air. Dioxin from the plant can still be found in nearby streams, rivers, and fish.

http://youtu.be/gWA_IBakjyo

According to Source Watch, in 1990, Cate Jenkins, a PhD chemist at EPA, became convinced that Monsanto had deliberately manipulated studies of worker victims of the Nitro disaster showing that dioxin was a human carcinogen.

Dr. Jenkins wrote a memorandum entitled “Newly Revealed Fraud by Monsanto in an Epidemiological Study Used by EPA to Assess Human Health Effects from Dioxins.” Read the memo at PureFood.org.

According to her memo:

  • Dr. Raymond Suskind at the University of Cincinnati was hired by Monsanto to study the workers at Monsanto’s Nitro, West Virginia plant. Dr. Suskind stated in published studies in question that chloracne, a skin condition was the prime indicator of high human dioxin exposures, and no other health effects would be observed in the absence of this condition. Unpublished studies by Suskind, however, indicate the fallacy of this statement. No workers except those having chloracne were ever examined by Suskind or included in his study. In other words, if no workers without chloracne were ever examined for other health effects, there is no basis for asserting that chloracne was “the hallmark of dioxin intoxication.”
  • These conclusions have been repeatedly utilized by EPA, the Veterans Administration, etc., to deny any causation by dioxin of health effects of exposed citizens, if these persons did not exhibit chloracne.
  • The results of Dr. Suskind’s studies also were diluted by the fact that the exposed group contained not only individuals having chloracne (a genuine, but not the only effect of dioxin exposure), but also all workers having any type of skin condition such as chemical rash. The workers could have had no or negligible dioxin exposures, but they were included in the study as part of the heavily exposed group. This fact was revealed only by the careful reading of the published Suskind study.
  • Further, Dr. Suskind utilized statistics on the skin conditions of workers compiled by a Monsanto clerical worker, without any independent verification.
  • Dr. Suskind also covered-up the documented neurological damage from dioxin exposures. At Workers Compensation hearings, Suskind denied that the workers experienced any neurological health effects. In the Kemner, et al. v. Monsanto proceedings, however, it was revealed that Suskind had in his possession at the time examinations of the workers by Monsanto’s physician, Dr. Nestman, documenting neurological health effects.
  • In his later published study, Dr. Suskind denied the continuing documented neurological health effects suffered by the workers, falsely stating that symptoms “had cleared.”
  • All of the Monsanto dioxin studies also suffer another fatal flaw. The purported “dioxin unexposed” control group was selected from other workers at the same Monsanto plant. An earlier court settlement revealed not only that these supposedly unexposed workers were exposed to dioxins, but also to other carcinogens. One of these carcinogens, para-amino biphenyl, was known by Monsanto to be a human carcinogen and it was also known that workers were heavily exposed.
  • Another Monsanto study involved independent medical examinations of surviving employees by Monsanto physicians. Several hundred former Monsanto employees were too ill to travel to participate in the study. Monsanto refused to use the attending physicians reports of the illness as part of their study, saying that it would introduce inconsistencies. Thus, any critically ill dioxin-exposed workers with cancers such as Non-Hodgkins lymphoma (associated with dioxin exposures), were conveniently excluded from the Monsanto study.
  • There are numerous other flaws in the Monsanto health studies. Each of these misrepresentations and falsifications always served to negate any conclusions of adverse health effects from dioxins.

Within days of learning that the Office of Enforcement had initiated a criminal investigation of Monsanto based on Jenkins’ allegations, her job duties were withdrawn without warning. She was not given any assignments from August 30, 1990 until she was reassigned on April 8, 1992 to a job which was primarily administrative or clerical.

According to a 1994 report on “EPA’s Phony Investigation of Monsanto,” by William Sanjour, Policy Analyst, US Environmental Protection Agency, published in Rachel’s Hazardous Waste News:

  • Dr. Jenkins filed a complaint with the Department of Labor claiming that she was being harassed for carrying out perfectly legal activities. The Labor Department investigated and found in Jenkins favor. The EPA appealed three times all the way up to the Secretary of Labor but each time the Department came down in favor of Jenkins finding that “None of the rationales [explaining her transfer] given by EPA … appear valid”.
  • In August of 1992, EPA quietly closed the criminal investigation without ever determining or even attempting to determine if the Monsanto studies were valid or invalid, let alone fraudulent. … There was no public announcement that the investigation was closed. Dr. Jenkins didn’t learn about it until fifteen months later. Yet Monsanto knew within a few days of EPA’s closing the case.

Why did Monsanto and the EPA go to such great lengths to hide the truth? It would have affected us all. EPA’s brief criminal investigation of Monsanto included evidence that Monsanto knowingly contaminated Lysol with dioxin, even as the product was being marketed for cleaning babies’ toys.

Dr. Jenkin’s memo also contained evidence that Lysol, a product made from Monsanto’s Santophen, was contaminated with dioxin with Monsanto’s knowledge. The manufacturer of Lysol was not told about the dioxin by Monsanto for fear of losing his business. Other companies using Santophen, who specifically asked about the presence of dioxin, were lied to by Monsanto.

This is just one example of why we can’t trust the EPA to stop Monsanto and Dow Chemical from poisoning us with dioxin.

TAKE ACTION: Call EPA’s Fail! Tell the EPA You Won’t Accept a Decision on 2,4-D Based on Dow Chemical’s Biased Studies!

TAKE ACTION: Tell USDA to Stop Agent Orange Corn!

To learn more about what’s wrong at the EPA, watch this video from the recent Occupy EPA protest:

http://youtu.be/0tcPC6q3bgU

 

Poland Joins Ranks of Grassroots Anti-Monsanto Activism

The anti-GMO, anti-Monsanto movement has been making major waves in recent months. The inexorable growth of the anti-Monsanto revolution was recently highlighted by the popularity of an article by Anthony Gucciardi, which discussed actions taken by Hungary to destroy 1000 acres of maize and issue a 10-year ban on GM foods. That article has gone mega-viral with over 95,000 shares, and is one of the best indications to date that we the people can take on even the largest of corporations if we simply take action and make our voices heard.

Recently declared the Worst Company of 2011, and people the world over are joining the opposition against bloated biotech giant Monsanto. Poland is contributing to the coordinated effort to protect their health freedom and preserve their local farming economy.

“The Festival of Nature and Culture” begins tomorrow and runs through December 11th as a celebration Poland’s effort to stop GMO and save traditional seeds. It is another angle on generating support for a Poland-wide demand to kill off continued government attempts to sneak through an Act that would permit GM seeds to be commercially grown there.

What is new about this initiative is that many artists are giving their names and talents to this festival. Jazz musicians, painters, actors, designers, rock bands and more are among those pledging their support. The festival comprises more than 80 events to take place all over Poland this coming weekend.

Activists in Poland are joining others around the world in a mission to keep their torch burning through a celebration of unmodified nature and culture. The ICPPC is coordinating this event from its farmhouse base in South Malopolska and J&J will also be engaged in other awareness-raising events in the nation’s capital of Krakow over the weekend.

Public attitudes are changing exponentially, as people are waking up to the dangers of a corrupted food chain. Moreover, the origin of this corruption is being identified as a corporate-government structure that is hell-bent on eradicating true food safety and the preservation of our right to grow and consume natural products. This corporate-government atrocity has become symbolized by Monsanto, as they aim to turn food and farming into nothing more than a sterile money-making machine.

The Festival of Nature and Culture offers another vision of the future – and its becoming clear that it is a vision shared by an increasing number of individuals from a wide cross-section of not only Polish society, but the larger human tribe as well.

For more information about this wonderful initiative, please visit their website HERE (in Polish). There are many free translation programs on the web that you can use to view how they are structuring this event. Please spread these ideas far and wide and adopt these tools to start a movement in your own community.

Explore More:

  1. Anti-Monsanto Articles Surpasses 80,000 Facebook Shares, Among Most Shared in 2011
  2. Sacramento Bee Deletes Viral Anti-Monsanto Article Without Warning
  3. GMO Giant Monsanto Will Soon Be Allowed To Police Itself
  4. Monsanto Admittedly Influences Colorado GMO Ban, Launches Phony ‘GMO Co-Existence’ Protests
  5. Judge Throws out Organic Farmers’ Recent Case Against Monsanto
  6. Setting the Record Straight: Did Monsanto Really Buy Blackwater (Xe)?

Monsanto’s Blatant Corruption and Disregard for Health

It is well known that Monsanto’s GMO crops provide a very real threat to both public health and the environment as a whole, but the depth of Monsanto’s corruption is often a less covered topic. It has been revealed by WikiLeaks that Monsanto not only has key figureheads stationed in powerful government positions inside the United States, but also has many — if not all — U.S. diplomats on their payroll.

In the bombshell report, the leaked cables reveal that many U.S. diplomats work directly for Monsanto. Furthermore, Monsanto also has international titans pushing their agenda to maximize profits and increase the spread of genetically modified food.

The same WikiLeaks cable exposes how in late 2007, the United States ambassador to France and business partner to George W. Bush, Craig Stapleton, urged a ‘target retaliation’ against the European Union and certain nations that did not support Monsanto’s GMO crops. Stapleton, a close business partner of George W. Bush, actually co-owned the Dallas/Fort Worth-based Texas Rangers baseball team with the former president in the 1990s. The ambassador stated:

Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices.

In addition to threatening trade wars and using political corruption as a business model, Monsanto has also been busted for forcing workers into ‘slave-like’ conditions. Forcing slave workers to work the cornfields for 14 hours per day and buy their food at highly-inflated prices from the company store, Monsanto has been running these slave rings for an unknown number of years. It wasn’t until Argentina’s tax agency, known as AFIP, raided the Monsanto corn field did the operation become unveiled.

Monsanto’s corruption has never been more obvious, with many political figureheads in the U.S. government spearheading the initiative to spread Monsanto’s GMO crops far and wide. Even billionaire celebrities like Monsanto shareholder, Bill Gates, have been pushing GMOs as the answer to everything from starvation to sustainable agriculture. Of course, despite this, it has been proven by a team of 900 scientists that GMO crops are not an effective way to fight starvation.

In addition, scientists have shown that GMOs are damaging to your health. A prominent review of 19 studies examining the safety of these crops found that consumption of GMO corn or soybeans can lead to significant organ disruptions in rats and mice – particularly in the liver and kidneys.

Disregarding this information, the USDA is now preparing to give Monsanto’s new GMO crops even speedier regulatory review in order to secure their financial success.

Explore More:

  1. GMO Crops Continually Banned Around the World in Display of Health Freedom
  2. 4 Proofs the USDA Doesn’t Care About Your Health
  3. Monsanto Shareholder Meeting Infiltrated by Activist (Video)
  4. Breaking: Monsanto Forced Out of UK by Activists
  5. Leaked: US to Start ‘Trade Wars’ with Nations Opposed to Monsanto, GMO Crops
  6. USDA to Give Monsanto’s New GMO Crops Special ‘Speed Approval’

This article first appeared at Natural Society, an excellent resource for health news and vaccine information.
 

Monsanto’s GMOs with ‘stacked traits’ exponentially more harmful to humans due to synergistic toxicity

(NaturalNews) Monsanto’s pipeline of upcoming genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) includes several new varieties specifically engineered with “stacked traits,” which means they contain multiple genetic modifications and built-in resistance traits as opposed to just one. And a new study published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology has found that these new multi-trait GMOs appear to be exponentially more harmful to humans than single-trait GMOs because of their synergistic toxicity.

Conducting actual research on the effects of GMO toxins on human cells — this is something Monsanto will never do — researchers from the University of Caen in France have found that the Cry1Ab protein, a Bt toxin deliberately produced in many GM crops, including Monsanto’s MON810 Bt corn, destroys human cells at levels of 100 parts per million (ppm) dilution and higher when consumed by itself. This level of exposure is relatively low, considering human exposure to Bt toxin comes from multiple sources, including meat and dairy products from animals fed Bt corn feed, as well as direct human consumption of Bt corn ingredients and soon-to-be Bt sweet corn from the produce section.

Additionally, the researchers found that exposure to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide formula, induces human cell death at exposures as low as 50 ppm, which is “far below agricultural dilutions,” according to the report. At a dilution of 57.5 ppm, which is only slightly higher, Roundup effectively kills 50 percent of human cells, which clearly illustrates its severe toxicity.

This important finding confirms the findings of numerous other reports conducted in recent days concerning Roundup’s toxicity in humans, including the fact that this widely-used chemical causes birth defects, cancer, and death

But the real kicker in the new research is the combined toxicity from exposure to both Roundup and Bt toxin which, according to the study, is tremendous. In their conclusion, researchers noted that “modified Bt toxins are not inert on nontarget human cells, and that they can present combined side-effects with other residues of pesticides specific to GM plants” (http://www.greenmedinfo.com).

So much for Monsanto’s claim that Bt toxin, Roundup, and various other chemically-engineered traits are perfectly harmless. Monsanto actually claims on its website that human testing of GMOs is unnecessary because they are no different than conventional and natural crop varieties — and regulatory authorities have never taken the agri-giant to task on actually proving this baseless claim, which flies in the face of independent science.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.greenmedinfo.com

Bill Gates, Monsanto, and Eugenics:Actively promoting a corporate takeover of global agriculture

(NaturalNews) After it was exposed that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic brainchild of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, purchased 500,000 shares in Monsanto back in 2010 valued at more than $23 million, it became abundantly clear that this so-called benevolent charity is up to something other than eradicating disease and feeding the world’s poor (http://www.guardian.co.uk). It turns out that the Gates family legacy has long been one of trying to dominate and control the world’s systems, including in the areas of technology, medicine, and now agriculture.

The Gates Foundation, aka the tax-exempt Gates Family Trust, is currently in the process of spending billions of dollars in the name of humanitarianism to establish a global food monopoly dominated by genetically-modified (GM) crops and seeds. And based on the Gates family’s history of involvement in world affairs, it appears that one of its main goals besides simply establishing corporate control of the world’s food supply is to reduce the world’s population by a significant amount in the process.

William H. Gates Sr., former head of eugenics group Planned Parenthood

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US – Millions of Pounds of Toxic Poison to Flood Farmland – Compliments of Monsanto & Dow

Source: BlacklistedNews.com

The EPA announced that it has completed the first part of its study on dioxin, after more than 25 years of stonewalling.

Dioxin is the most caustic man-made chemical known.  Dioxin is a general term for hundreds of chemicals that are produced in industrial processes that use chlorine and burning. Disturbingly, it has a half-life of 100+ years when it is leached into soil or embedded in water systems. Dioxin was the most harmful component in Agent Orange (the recipe for Agent Orange is 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T herbicides).

The EPA says that air emissions of dioxin have decreased by 90% since the 1980′s, but dioxin is dangerous at any level.  The study appears to omit any analysis of dioxin transmission in water and land.  The danger is growing because Dow AgroScience has received preliminary USDA approval for its 2,4-D herbicide resistant GMO corn.  This means that dioxin contaminated 2,4-D herbicide will drench US farm land and pollute water supplies if the crops are widely planted.

EPA Dioxin Assessment Report

The EPA’s press release on dioxin’s health effects trumpeted the lie that current exposure rates “don’t pose significant health risks”. But the EPA does admit that there is a cancer risk, although they are not releasing their study on cancer at this time.  Perhaps the delay is due to the fact that 95% of Americans have measurable levels of dioxin in their bodies.

The EPA’s claim that current levels are not a health risk is contradicted by another webpage on the EPA’s own site says that dioxin accumulates over a lifetime, persists for years, is likely to lead to an increased risk of cancer, and that the current exposure levels are “uncomfortably” close to levels that can cause “subtle” non-cancer effects. These so-called subtle effects may include birth defects, reproductive problems and immunosuppression.

There were 500,000 victims of birth defects in Viet Nam that can hardly be considered subtle.  Dioxin is bad at any level especially since it accumulates in the body.

Humans are exposed to dioxin primarily through food sources. The EPA’s press release fails to mention that people who eat animal based foods like meat, dairy and eggs will continually increase their dioxin levels.

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Integrated weed management best response to herbicide resistance: Roundup, Glyphosate

Source: Seeddaily.com

Over-reliance on glyphosate-type herbicides for weed control on U.S. farms has created a dramatic increase in the number of genetically-resistant weeds, according to a team of agricultural researchers, who say the solution lies in an integrated weed management program.

“I’m deeply concerned when I see figures that herbicide use could double in the next decade,” said David Mortensen, professor of weed ecology, Penn State.

Since the mid-1990s, agricultural seed companies developed and marketed seeds that were genetically modified to resist herbicides such as Roundup – glyphosate – as a more flexible way to manage weeds, Mortensen said. About 95 percent of the current soybean crop is modified by inserting herbicide-resistant genes into the plants.

“We do understand why farmers would use the glyphosate and glyphosate-resistant crop package,” Mortensen said. “It is simple and relatively cheap, but we have to think about the long-term consequences.”

The researchers said that increased use of herbicider is leading to more species of weeds that also are resistant to the chemicals.

They report their findings in the current issue of BioScience, noting that 21 different weed species have evolved resistance to several glyphosate herbicides, 75 percent of which have been documented since 2005, despite company-sponsored research that the resistance would not occur.

 

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Research: Monsanto “Roundup” Diluted by 450-Fold is Still Toxic to DNA

Source: Sayer Ji, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

New research released ahead of print and published in the journal Archives of Toxicology indicates that Roundup, the most common formulation of the herbicide glyphosate, is not only more toxic than its constituent ingredients, but is capable of damaging DNA within a human cell line when diluted down to 450-fold lower concentrations than presently used in GMO agricultural applications. In the researchers’ own words, Roundup has “genotoxic effects after short exposure to concentrations that correspond to a 450-fold dilution of spraying used in agriculture.”

The chemical – glyphosate – is the highest-selling herbicide in the world and has been identified as having a wide range of potential adverse health effects — largely minimized and/or under-reported — which include over two dozen diseases. Glyphosate’s primary properties of concern are its carcinogenicity, genotoxicity and endocrine disruptive actions.

Roundup contains a surfactant known as polyoxyethyleneamine which functions to reduce the surface tension between Roundup and the cells exposed to it, making the cellular membranes more permeable to absorbing glyphosate and other chemicals within the formula.

The surfactant in Roundup may therefore be responsible for increasing the toxicity of glyphosate by several orders of magnitude higher than it exhibits by itself.

This new research sheds light on a fundamental problem associated with toxicological risk assessments of agrichemicals (and novel manmade chemicals in general).
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