Wednesday, December 14, 2011

VOTED NUMBER ONE - DEADLIEST CORPORATION: THREAT TO HUMAN HEALTH - ALL LIFE ON EARTH

monsantoworstcompany2011 210x131 Monsanto Declared Worst Company of 2011Monsanto Declared Worst Company of 2011

Anthony Gucciardi & Mike Barrett
NaturalSociety
December 6, 2011
Biotech giant Monsanto has been declared the Worst Company of 2011 by NaturalSociety for threatening both human health and the environment. The leader in genetically modified seeds and crops, Monsanto is currently responsible for 90 percent of the genetically engineered seed on the United States market. Outside of GM seeds, Monsanto is also the creator of the best-selling herbicide Roundup, which has spawned over 120 million hectacres of herbicide-resistant superweeds while damaging much of the soil. Despite hard evidence warning against the amplified usage of genetically modified crops, biopesticides, and herbicides, Monsanto continues to disregard all warning signs.
In a powerful review of 19 studies analyzing the dangers of GMO crops such as corn and soybeans, researchers revealed some shocking information regarding the safety of these popular food staples. Researchers found that consumption of GMO corn or soybeans may lead to significant organ disruptions in rats and mice – particularly in the liver and kidneys. This is particularly concerning due to the fact that 93 percent of U.S. soybeans are known to be genetically modified. Ignoring this evidence, Monsanto continues to expand their genetic manipulation.

Monsanto’s Genetic Manipulation of Nature

Outside of genetically modifying crops, Monsanto has also created genetically modified crops containing Bt. Bt is a toxin incorporated in GMO crops that are intended to kill different insects, however Bt usage has subsequently spawned insect populations which are resistant to the biopesticide. After being exposed to Bt, many insect populations actually mutated to resist the biopesticide. So far at least 8 insect populations have developed resistance, with 2 populations resistant to Bt sprays and at least 6 species resistant to Bt crops as a whole. Farmers are therefore forced to use even more pesticides to combat the resistant bugs.
What is the answer to this problem, according to Monsanto? To further genetically modify the Bt crop to make it a super-pesticide, killing the resistant insects.
Tests, however, have concluded that further modified Bt toxin crop provided ‘little or no advantage’ in tackling the insects, despite extensive time and funding put into the research. It seems that Monsanto’s solution to everything is to further modify it into oblivion, even in the face of evidence proving this method to be highly inefficient. The research shows that this will undoubtedly lead to insects that are resistant to the most potent forms of Bt and other modified toxins, resulting in the use of even more excessive amounts of pesticides in order to combat pests.

Superweeds Infesting Over 120 Million Hectacres of Farmland

Thanks to Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Roundup, farms across the world are experiencing the emergence of herbicide-resistant superweeds. The heavily resistant weeds have an immunity to glyphosate, an herbicide that Roundup contains. These resistant weeds currently cover over 4.5 million hectares in the United States alone, though experts estimate the world-wide land coverage to have reached at least 120 million hectares by 2010. The appearance of these superweeds is being increasingly documented in Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Europe and South Africa.
Of course, once again, the resistant weeds are so resistant to roundup that they require excessive amounts of herbicides. It is no surprise that the company is refusing to accept responsibility for the escalating cost of combating the weeds, stating that “Roundup agricultural warranties will not cover the failure to control glyphosate resistant weed populations.”

The World Says No to Monsanto

France, Hungary, and Peru are a few of the countries that have decided to take a stand against Monsanto. Hungary actually went as far as to destroy 1000 acres of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds, according to Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar.  Peru has also taken a stand for health freedom, passing a monumental 10 year ban on genetically modified foods. Amazingly, Peru’s Plenary Session of the Congress made the decision despite previous governmental pushes for GM legalization. The known and unknown dangers of GMO crops seem to supersede even executive-level governmental directives.
Anibal Huerta, President of Peru’s Agrarian Commission, said the ban was needed to prevent the ”danger that can arise from the use of biotechnology.”
France is the latest nation to say no to Monsanto’s GM corn maize, even in light of an overturned ban. It all began when France’s State Council overturned the ban on Monsanto’s GMO maize stating that it was not sufficiently justified. The organization then attempted to justify its decision by saying that the government did not give enough evidence to justify a ban. Under law, an EU country can only unilaterally ban a genetically modified strain if it can scientifically prove it is a risk to the health of humans, animals, or the integrity of the environment.
Even after the ban was overturned, it surfaced that French legislatures were planning to launch new restrictions regarding the use of Monsanto’s 810 maize on French soil. Even Nicolas Sarkozy, the current president of the French Republic, voiced his opposition to Monsanto’s GMO maize:
“The French government keeps and will keep its opposition against the cultivation of the Monsanto 810 maize on our soil,” Sarkozy said.

Worst Company of 2011

In nominating Monsanto the Worst Company of 2011 we are hoping to raise awareness over the threat that Monsanto poses to human health and the environment. Genetically modified organisms will only continue to threaten all living creatures if not stopped. It is through spreading the word that real change will come about, and declaring Monsanto the Worst Company of 2011 is a great way to highlight all of their reckless actions.
Source:   http://naturalsociety.com/monsanto-declared-worst-company-of-2011/

FRANKENFOOD$ MAKER$ FORCING U$DA TO $HOVE MORE DEADLY FOOD -FA$TER- INTO THE MARKET$

EXCLUSIVE: Under Industry Pressure, USDA Works to Speed Approval of Monsanto's Genetically Engineered Crops

by: Mike Ludwig, Truthout | Report

Monsanto researchers in Stonington, Illinois, working to develop new soybean varieties that will be tolerant to agricultural herbicide and have greater yields in July 2006. (Photo: Monsanto via The New York Times)
For years, biotech agriculture opponents have accused regulators of working too closely with big biotech firms when deregulating genetically engineered (GE) crops. Now, their worst fears could be coming true: under a new two-year pilot program at the USDA, regulators are training the world's biggest biotech firms, including Monsanto, BASF and Syngenta, to conduct environmental reviews of their own transgenic seed products as part of the government's deregulation process.
This would eliminate a critical level of oversight for the production of GE crops. Regulators are also testing new cost-sharing agreements that allow biotech firms to help pay private contractors to prepare mandatory environmental statements on GE plants the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is considering deregulating. 
The USDA launched the pilot project in April and, in November, the USDA announced vague plans to "streamline" the deregulation petition process for GE organisms. A USDA spokesperson said the streamlining effort is not part of the pilot project, but both efforts appear to address a backlog of pending GE crop deregulation petitions that has angered big biotech firms seeking to rollout new products.
Documents obtained by Truthout under a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request reveal that biotech companies, lawmakers and industry groups have put mounting pressure on the USDA in recent years to speed up the petition process, limit environmental impact assessments and approve more GE crops. One group went as far as sending USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack a timeline of GE soybean development that reads like a deregulation wish list. [Click here and here to download and read some of the documents released to Truthout.]
The pilot program is named the NEPA Pilot Project, after the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which mandates that agencies prepare statements on the potential environmental impacts of proposed actions by the federal government, such as deregulating transgenic plants. On July 14, USDA officials held a training workshop to help representatives from biotech firms (see a full list here) to understand the NEPA process and prepare Environmental Reports on biotech products they have petitioned the USDA to deregulate.
Regulators can now independently review the Environmental Reports and can use them to prepare their own legally mandated reviews, instead of simply reviewing the company's petitions for deregulation. The pilot project aims to speed up the deregulation process by allowing petitioning companies to do some of the legwork and help pay contractors to prepare regulatory documents and, for its part, the USDA has kept the pilot fairly transparent. A list of 22 biotech seeds that could be reviewed under the pilot program includes Monsanto drought-tolerant corn, a "non-browning" apple, freeze tolerant eucalyptus trees and several crops engineered to tolerate the controversial herbicides glyphosate and 2,4 D.
Activists say biotech firms like Monsanto are concerned only with profit and routinely supply regulators with one-sided information on the risks their GE seeds - and the pesticides sprayed on and produced by them - pose to consumers, animals and the agricultural environment. (The Natural Society recently declared Monsanto the worst company of 2011.) Bill Freese, a policy expert with the Center for Food Safety (CFS), told Truthout that the NEPA pilot gives already powerful biotech companies too much influence over the review process.
"It's the equivalent of letting BP do their own Environmental Assessment of a new rig," Freese said.
Monsanto Goes to Court
Freese and the Center for Food Safety have been on the frontlines of the battle to reform the USDA's regulatory approval process for GE crops. The group was a plaintiff in recent lawsuits challenging the deregulation - which basically means approval for planting without oversight - of Monsanto's patented alfalfa and sugar beets that are genetically engineered to tolerate glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide. Farmers can spray entire fields of Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" crops with Roundup to kill unwanted weeds while sparing the GE crops, but in recent years, some weeds have developed a tolerance to glyphosate, Roundup's active ingredient. The cases kept the crops out of America's fields for years and prompted biotech companies to put heavy pressure on top USDA officials to streamline and speed up the deregulation process, practically setting the stage for the NEPA pilot underway today. 
Under NEPA, agencies like the USDA must prepare an Environmental Assessment (EA) to determine if the proposed action, such as deregulating a transgenic organism, would have an impact on the environment. If some type of significant impact is likely, the agency must then prepare a more in-depth Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to explore potential impacts and alternative actions. NEPA requires an EIS for actions "significantly affecting the quality of the human environment." Preparing a full impact statement for a biotech plant implies the government does not think GE crops are safe and the biotech industry has routinely butted heads with environmentalists while attempting to convince regulators and consumers otherwise. In the Monsanto beets and alfalfa cases, the CFS and other plaintiffs argued that the USDA should have prepared an EIS, not just a simple EA, before deregulating both Monsanto crops.
In the alfalfa case, the CFS and its co-plaintiffs claimed the crop could have significant impacts by crossbreeding and contaminating conventional and organic alfalfa with transgenes. They also argued the crop would increase the use of herbicides and promote the spread of herbicide-tolerant weeds known as "super weeds." A federal district court agreed and vacated the USDA's original approval, halting plantings across the country. Monsanto challenged the decision and the alfalfa case landed in the Supreme Court in 2010.  The high court overturned an injunction preventing farmers from planting the alfalfa, but also ordered the USDA to prepare an EIS and issue another deregulation decision. The sugar beet case ended in similar fashion and the USDA recently released a draft EIS on the crop, which is expected to be deregulated in early 2012.
Monsanto won the right to sell its GE alfalfa seed in February 2011, but the lengthy and expensive legal battle captured the attention of food lovers and agriculturalists across the country. Americans debated the potential dangers of GE crops and the merits of the regulatory system that is supposed to protect farmers and consumers. As documents unearthed by a Truthout FOIA request reveal, the biotech industry did not sit idly by as activists challenged the regulatory status quo.
Mounting Pressure
The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) is a powerful group that represents dozens of biotech companies such as Monsanto, BASF and Bayer, and has spent more than $67 million lobbying Congress since 2000. In April 2010, BIO sent a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack as the Monsanto alfalfa case made its way through the courts. BIO warned Vilsack that the American biotech agriculture industry could be crippled if the legal precedents required the USDA to prepare an EIS for every GE crop up for deregulation:
With 19 deregulation petitions pending with more on the way, requiring an EIS for each product would amount to a de facto moratorium on commercialization and would send an unprecedented message that USDA believes that these products do have an environmental impact, when in fact most do not. Any suggestion by USDA that biotechnology plants as a category are likely to cause significant adverse effects on the quality of the human environment (i.e., require an EIS) would make approvals by other trading partners virtually impossible ...
BIO claimed that such a policy would be an "over-reaction to the current judicial decisions" and would threaten America's economic dominance in the agricultural biotechnology market. Such a policy, BIO representatives stated, would send a message to European countries that American regulators believe GE crops impact the environment, making approvals of GE crops by the European Union "virtually impossible" and allowing "Brazil and China to surpass the United States as world leaders in biotechnology." BIO also claimed that more rigorous assessments would "undercut" positions consistently take by the Obama and Bush administrations on the safety of biotech agriculture. 
Vilsack received similar letters requesting the USDA continue relying on EAs instead of EISs to deregulate GE crops from the Americas Soybean Association and the American Seed Trade Association. Both groups worried that an increase in oversight - precipitated by the more in-depth impact evaluation - could back up approvals for years. The soybean association included in its letter a pipeline chart of 25 GE soybean varieties it "expected" to be approved for commercialization within a decade.
A policy requiring an EIS for every GE seed is exactly what critics of Monsanto and the rest of the industry have spent years fighting for. Unlike the industry, they believe the herbicides that blanket GE crops and the potential for transgenic contamination are potential threats to the agricultural environment and human health.
Vilsack wrote a steady-handed reply to each trade group, reassuring them that the NEPA policy would not change and the USDA would continue preparing an EA for new GE seeds and an EIS only when necessary. Vilsack also wrote that he was "pleased" to recently meet with biotech industry representatives and "discuss improving the efficiency of the biotechnology regulatory process." Such improvements, he wrote, are "directly related" to the USDA's "objective of ensuring the United State leads the world in sustainable crop production and biotech crop exports." He took the opportunity to announce that the USDA would reorganize the Biotechnology Regulatory Services agency and create a new NEPA team "dedicated to creating high quality and defensible documents to better inform our regulatory decisions." This new NEPA team would go on to develop the NEPA Pilot Project and begin streamlining the approval process.
To Freese, it appears that Vilsack used to the word "defensible" in reference to legal challenges like the ones his group made to Monsanto alfalfa and sugar beets. "Their whole focus is on 'defensible' Environmental Assessments," Freese said after reading the letters. "From our perspective, that's the wrong goal ... it presumes the crop is going to be approved."
Freese said the correspondence between Vilsack and the industry groups highlights the need for a culture change at the USDA. Regulators should be concerned about the safety of new GE products, not ensuring American exports compete with Brazil and China.
"It should be all about doing good assessments and making sure the crops that are approved are safe," Freese said.
A USDA spokesperson declined to comment when asked if the agency would like to respond to criticisms of the NEPA Pilot Project and said updates on the project will be made available online.
Watchdogs like Freese know that regulators already work closely with the industry and the NEPA Pilot Project could simply make their work more efficient. Regulators already rely heavily on data provided by private contractors and by biotech companies to prepare EAs. During the Monsanto alfalfa case, internal emails between regulators and Monsanto officials surfaced and revealed the company worked closely with regulators to edit its original petition to deregulate the alfalfa. One regulator even accepted Monsanto's help in conducting the USDA's original EA of the GE alfalfa before it was initially approved in 2005.
Genetically engineered and modified crops continue to cause controversy across the globe, but in America they are a fact of life. The Obama and Bush administrations have actively promoted biotech agriculture both at home and abroad. Countries like China, Argentina and Brazil have also embraced biotech agriculture. Regulators in European countries - including crucial trade partners like France and Spain - have been much more cautious and, in some cases, even hostile toward the industry. GE crops are banned in Hungary and Peru, and earlier this year officials in Hungary destroyed 1,000 acres of corn containing Monsanto transgenes. The US, however, continues to allow big biotech companies to cultivate considerable power and influence and, as the letters uncovered by FOIA reveal, top regulators are ready to meet their demands.
"The USDA regards its own regulatory system as a rubber stamp," Freese said after reading the letters. "At least at the upper levels, there's always been this presumption that [GE crops] must be approved."

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

GMO LABELING BILLS: HR 3553 AND HR 3554- HAVE BIPARTISAN SUPPORT!

December 13, 2011
Two powerful new bills will help control GMOs. Spread the word with our Action Alert!
Take Action!
Rep. Dennis Kucinich has introduced two bills that would mandate labeling and provide stricter safety protections for GE products. HR 3553, the Genetically Engineered Food Right to Know Act, already has twelve co-sponsors (and bipartisan support). The bill requires labeling of all genetically engineered organisms—including fish, which is especially important since GM salmon approval seems imminent. For animals and animal products, the bill would also require disclosure if the animal has been fed GMO.
HR 3554, the Genetically Engineered Safety Act, has a number of excellent provisions. It:
  • Prohibits open-air cultivation of genetically engineered pharmaceutical and industrial crops, to prevent cross-pollination and contamination;
  • Prohibits the use of common human food or animal feed as the host plant for a genetically engineered pharmaceutical or industrial chemical; and
  • Establishes a tracking system to regulate the growing, handling, transportation, and disposal of GE pharmaceutical and industrial crops and their by-products.
This second bill currently has two co-sponsors: Rep. Raul Grijalva and Rep. Fortney “Pete” Stark. ANH-USA is working on Capitol Hill to garner greater support for both bills.
As we noted in November, the FDA is still reviewing the application for approving GE salmon. The House voted to stop funding the research on the fish but the Senate has not, and it seems a foregone conclusion that FDA will approve the salmon since USDA is funding it.
Rep. Kucinich’s bills will fix huge legal loopholes. Current laws require no oversight for GE products—and of course no labeling requirements. There is also a huge data gap regarding the safety of genetically engineered foods, as the few safety studies that have been done have all been sponsored by industry.
Dr. Joseph Mercola recently interviewed Dr. Don Huber, an agricultural scientist and expert in microbial ecology at Purdue University who has issued stern warnings about the devastating effects of GE food crops after discovering a brand new organism in GE animal feed—an organism that has since been clearly linked to infertility and miscarriage in cattle, horses, pigs, sheep, and poultry. It’s an interview no one should miss.
Our colleagues at ANH-Europe reported last week that one of the world’s largest chocolate producers, Mars, became the primary backer for scientists to produce a genetically modified (GMO) cocoa tree hybrid. As Dr. Robert Verkerk noted, “The last thing subsistence farmers need is GM crops….The push for GM is actually all about control of agriculture and control of the food supply by a handful of very large corporations.”
As huge a health issue as genetically engineered foods are, it is also a major environmental issue. GM farming, because of the constant and uncontrollable threat of cross-contamination, has the potential to wreak havoc on crops the world over—and thus have a devastating effect on the future of the entire human race.
We are also greatly concerned that the closed-system production of GMOs could cause a major environmental disaster as well. Just because the GMOs are not blowing in the wind, as it were, doesn’t mean we’re safe! Green algae, for example, is cultured for the production of biofuels and essential fatty acids—the DHA and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) used in some baby foods are derived from this cultured algae, as we discuss elsewhere in this issue.
While the bioreactors that process the algae are theoretically closed, they are not foolproof. Genetically modified algae could escape into rivers and oceans, and could compete and genetically recombine with natural algae. Creating an oil-rich layer of genetically engineered algae on the surface of the oceans would have unthinkable environmental consequences.
We need your help to get through not only to our legislators, but to world leaders as well.
Please take a moment and write to your representative, your senators, and President Obama, and ask them to fight genetically modified organisms by supporting these bills from Rep. Kucinich. Please take action today!
Take Action!

Monday, December 12, 2011

OCCUPY PURE FOOD: HEY, WE'VE ALL GOTTA EAT!

Occupy the Food System

The world can feed itself, without corporate America's science-experiment crops and expensive chemicals.

Farmers have been through this before — our lives and livelihoods falling under corporate control. It has been an ongoing process: consolidation of markets; consolidation of seed companies; an ever-widening gap between our costs of production and the prices we receive. Some of us are catching on, getting the picture of the real enemy.
The "99 percent" are awakening to the realization that their lives have fallen under corporate control as well. Add up the jobs lost, the health benefits whittled away, and the unions busted, and the bill for Wall Street's self-centered greed is taking a toll.It may be the Wall Street banks that are controlling our lives, or it may be Monsanto, Cargill, DuPont, Kraft, or Tyson's. The system isn't working. (photo: Brennan Cavanaugh / Flickr)
It's not the immigrants, the homeless, the unions, or the farmers that have looted the economy and driven us to the brink of another Great Depression. The public is catching on.
When Occupy Wall Street (OWS) welcomed the Farmers March to Zuccotti Park in New York on December 4, a natural rural-urban alliance — the Food Justice Movement, gardeners, farmers, seed growers, health care workers, and union members — was formed at Wall Street's back door.
Change can come only when you confront your oppressors directly on their turf. That makes them uncomfortable, it gets attention, and it wakes up the distracted public.
The Occupy movement is doing exactly what the prominent student activist Mario Savio spoke of in 1964, when he declared: "There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the apparatus and you've got to make it stop — and you've got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from running at all."
The people who are now forming a movement to occupy the food system agree with this sentiment too.
The food system isn't working. People eat too many calories, or too few. There's too much processed food on our plates. Too many Americans lack access to food that is fresh, nutritious, and locally grown. This is the food system that corporate America has given us. It's the food system it's selling to the rest of the world.
Clearly, this system doesn't have the best interests of the public at heart. Nor does it consider the interests of farmers or farm workers or animals or the environment. It has one interest: profit.
We all have to wake up.
Farmers need access to farm credit, a fair mortgage on their land, fair prices for the food they produce, and seeds that aren't patented by Monsanto or other big corporations. Consumers need to be able to purchase healthy and local food, and to earn a living wage.
The parallels are pointedly exact. It may be the Wall Street banks that are controlling our lives, or it may be Monsanto, Cargill, DuPont, Kraft, or Tyson's. The system isn't working.
Why do agribusiness profits continue to grow while farmers struggle to pay their costs of production and more Americans go hungry? We can't feed our people if we are forced to feed the bank accounts of the 1 percent.
Agribusinesses insist that we have the responsibility of feeding the world. Growing more genetically engineered corn and soy isn't going to feed the world, nor will it correct the flaws in our food system; clearly it has created many of them.
The world can feed itself, without corporate America's science-experiment crops and expensive chemicals. The world's people can feed themselves if we let them — if we stop the corporate land grabs and let them develop their own economies for their own benefit.
The message from the Occupy movement needn't and shouldn't be a specific set of demands. It should be about asking the right questions.
Wall Street, the government, and corporate America need to answer one basic question: Why did you sell us down the river?
Jim Goodman
Jim Goodman, his wife Rebecca and brother Francis run a 45-cow organic dairy and direct market beef farm in southwest Wisconsin. His farming roots trace back to his great-grandfather's immigration from Ireland during the famine and the farm's original purchase in 1848. A farm activist, Jim credits more than 150 years of failed farm and social policy as his motivation to advocate for a farmer-controlled consumer-oriented food system. Jim currently serves on the policy advisory boards for the Center for Food Safety and the Organic Consumers Association, and is a board member of Midwest Environmental Advocates and of the Family Farm Defenders.
Source:  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/12-0