Thursday, July 10, 2014

FATAL KIDNEY DISEASE "CKDu" - LINKED TO DEADLY HERBICIDE USED GLOBALLY

2014 710 mons fw Monsanto's Herbicide Linked to Fatal Kidney Disease Epidemic: Could It Topple the Company?

Thursday, 10 July 2014 09:18 By Jeff Ritterman, M.D., Truthout | News Analysis

(Photo courtesy of Vivien Feyer)
Also see: Dahr Jamail | Salvadoran Farmers Successfully Oppose the Use of Monsanto Seeds
Monsanto's herbicide Roundup has been linked to a mysterious fatal kidney disease epidemic that has appeared in Central America, Sri Lanka and India.
For years, scientists have been trying to unravel the mystery of a chronic kidney disease epidemic that has hit Central America, India and Sri Lanka. The disease occurs in poor peasant farmers who do hard physical work in hot climes. In each instance, the farmers have been exposed to herbicides and to heavy metals. The disease is known as CKDu, for Chronic Kidney Disease of unknown etiology. The "u" differentiates this illness from other chronic kidney diseases where the cause is known. Very few Western medical practitioners are even aware of CKDu, despite the terrible toll it has taken on poor farmers from El Salvador to South Asia.
Dr. Catharina Wesseling, the regional director for the Program on Work and Health (SALTRA) in Central America, which pioneered the initial studies of the region's unsolved outbreak, put it this way, "Nephrologists and public health professionals from wealthy countries are mostly either unfamiliar with the problem or skeptical whether it even exists."
Dr. Wesseling was being diplomatic. At a 2011 health summit in Mexico City, the United States beat back a proposal by Central American nations that would have listed CKDu as a top priority for the Americas.
David McQueen, a US delegate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who has since retired from the agency, explained the US position.
"The idea was to keep the focus on the key big risk factors that we could control and the major causes of death: heart disease, cancer and diabetes. And we felt, the position we were taking, that CKD was included."
The United States was wrong. The delegates from Central America were correct. CKDu is a new form of illness. This kidney ailment does not stem from diabetes, hypertension or other diet-related risk factors. Unlike the kidney disease found in diabetes or hypertension, the kidney tubules are a major site of injury in CKDu, suggesting a toxic etiology.
2014 710 mons 2Salvadoran farmer returning from the fields, Palo Grande, El Salvador. Photo courtesy of Vivien Feyer.CKDu is now the second leading cause of mortality among men in El Salvador. This small, densely populated Central American country now has the highest overall mortality rate from kidney disease in the world. Neighboring Honduras and Nicaragua also have extremely high rates of kidney disease mortality. In El Salvador and Nicaragua, more men are dying from CKDu than from HIV/AIDS, diabetes, and leukemia combined. In one patch of rural Nicaragua, so many men have died that the community is called "The Island of the Widows."
In addition to Central America, India and Sri Lanka have been hit hard by the epidemic. In Sri Lanka, over 20,000 people have died from CKDu in the past two decades. In the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, more than 1,500 have been treated for the ailment since 2007. Given the rarity of dialysis and kidney transplantation in these regions, most who suffer from CKDu will die from their kidney disease.
Mural celebrating traditional agrarian life, Juayua, El Salvador. Photo courtesy of Vivien Feyer.
2014 710 mons 3In an investigation worthy of the great Sherlock Holmes, a scientific sleuth from Sri Lanka, Dr. Channa Jayasumana, and his two colleagues, Dr. Sarath Gunatilake and Dr. Priyantha Senanayake, have put forward a unifying hypothesis that could explain the origin of the disease. They reasoned that the offending agent had to have been introduced into Sri Lanka within the last 30 years, since the first cases appeared in the mid-1990s. The chemical also needed to be able to form stable complexes with the metals in hard water and to act as a shield, protecting those metals from metabolism by the liver. The compound would also need to act as a carrier and be able to deliver the metals to the kidney.
We know that political changes in Sri Lanka in the late 1970s led to the introduction of agrochemicals, especially in rice farming. The researchers looked for likely suspects. Everything pointed to glyphosate. This herbicide is used in abundance in Sri Lanka. Earlier studies had shown that once glyphosate binds with metals, the glyphosate-metal complex can last for decades in the soil.
Glyphosate was not originally designed for use as an herbicide. Patented by the Stauffer Chemical Company in 1964, it was introduced as a chelating agent. It avidly binds to metals. Glyphosate was first used as a descaling agent to clean out mineral deposits from the pipes in boilers and other hot water systems.
It is this chelating property that allows glyphosate to form complexes with the arsenic, cadmium and other heavy metals found in the groundwater and soil in Central America, India and Sri Lanka. The glyphosate-heavy metal complex can enter the human body in a variety of ways. The complex can be ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Glyphosate acts like a Trojan horse, allowing the bound heavy metal to avoid detection by the liver, since the glyphosate occupies the binding sites that the liver would normally latch onto. The glyphosate-heavy metal complex reaches the kidney tubules, where the high acidity allows the metal to break free of the glyphosate. The cadmium or arsenic then damages the kidney tubules and other parts of the kidneys, ultimately resulting in kidney failure and, most often, death.
At this point, this elegant theory advanced by Dr. Jayasumana and colleagues can only be considered hypothesis-generating. Further scientific studies will need to confirm the hypothesis that CKDu is indeed due to glyphosate-heavy metal toxicity to the kidney tubules. For the present, this may be the best explanation for the epidemic.
Another explanation is that heat stress may be the cause, or a combination of heat stress and chemical toxicity. Monsanto, of course, is standing behind glyphosate and disputing the claim that it plays any role whatsoever in the genesis of CKDu.
While the exact cause of CKDu has not been proven conclusively, both Sri Lanka and El Salvador have invoked the precautionary principle. El Salvador banned glyphosate in September 2013 and is currently looking for safer alternatives. Sri Lanka banned glyphosate in March of this year because of concerns about CKDu.
2014 710 mons 4Mural celebrating traditional agrarian life, Palo Grande, El Salvador. Photo courtesy of Vivien Feyer. 
Glyphosate has had an interesting history. After its initial use as a descaling agent by Stauffer Chemical, scientists at Monsanto discovered its herbicidal qualities. Monsanto patented glyphosate as an herbicide in the 1970s, and has marketed it as "Roundup" since 1974. Monsanto retained exclusive rights until 2000, when the patent expired. By 2005, Monsanto's glyphosate products were registered in more than 130 countries for use in more than 100 crops. As of 2013, glyphosate was the world's largest selling herbicide.
Glyphosate's popularity has been due, in part, to the perception that it is extremely safe. The Monsanto website claims:
Glyphosate binds tightly to most types of soil so it is not available for uptake by roots of nearby plants. It works by disrupting a plant enzyme involved in the production of amino acids that are essential to plant growth. The enzyme, EPSP synthase, is not present in humans or animals, contributing to the low risk to human health from the use of glyphosate according to label directions.
Because of glyphosate's reputation for both safety and effectiveness, John Franz, who discovered glyphosate's usefulness as a herbicide, received the National Medal of Technology in 1987. Franz also received the American Chemical Society's Carothers Award in 1989, and the American Section of the Society of Chemical Industry's Perkins Medal in 1990. In 2007, he was inducted into the United States' Inventor's Hall of Fame for his work on the herbicide. Roundup was named one of the "Top 10 Products That Changed the Face of Agriculture" by the magazine Farm Chemicals in 1994.
Not everyone agrees with this perception of glyphosate's safety. The first "Roundup resistant" GMO crops, soybeans, were introduced by Monsanto in 1996. The same year, the first glyphosate resistant weeds began to emerge. Farmers responded by using increasingly toxic herbicides to deal with the new super weeds that had developed glyphosate resistance.
In addition to the concern about the emergence of super weeds, a study in rats demonstrated that low levels of glyphosate induced severe hormone-dependent mammary, hepatic, and kidney disturbances. Recently two activist groups, Moms Across America and Thinking Moms Revolution, asked the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to recall Monsanto's Roundup, citing a host of adverse health impacts in their children from the herbicide, including failure to thrive, leaky gut syndrome, autism and food allergies.
Glyphosate is no ordinary herbicide. Besides being the most used herbicide on earth, it is also the central pillar of Monsanto's temple. Most of Monsanto's seeds, including soy, corn, canola, alfalfa, cotton, sugar beets and sorghum, are glyphosate resistant. As of 2009, Monsanto's Roundup (glyphosate) products, which include its GMO seeds, represented about half of Monsanto's yearly revenue. This reliance on glyphosate products makes Monsanto extremely vulnerable to research challenging the herbicide's safety.
Glyphosate-resistant seeds are engineered to allow the farmer to drench his fields in the herbicide to kill off all of the weeds. The glyphosate resistant crop can then be harvested. But if the combination of glyphosate and the heavy metals found in the groundwater or the soil destroys the farmer's kidneys in the process, the whole house of cards falls apart. This may be what is happening now.
An ugly confrontation has been unfolding in El Salvador. The US government has been pressuring El Salvador to buy GMO seeds from Monsanto rather than indigenous seeds from their own farmers. The US has threatened to withhold almost $300 million in aid unless El Salvador purchases Monsanto's GMO seeds. The GMO seeds are more expensive. They are not adapted to the Salvadoran climate or soil.
The only "advantage" of Monsanto's GMO seeds is their glyphosate resistance. Now that glyphosate has been shown to be a possible, and perhaps likely, cause of CKDu, that "advantage" no longer exists.

2014 710 mons 5
Mural, Concepcion de Ataco, El Salvador. Photo courtesy of Vivien Feyer.
What is the message from the United States to El Salvador exactly? Perhaps the kindest explanation is that the United States is unaware that glyphosate may be the cause of the fatal kidney disease epidemic in El Salvador and that the government sincerely believes that the GMO seeds will provide a better yield. If so, a sad mixture of ignorance and arrogance is at the heart of this foreign policy blunder. A less kind interpretation would suggest that the government puts Monsanto's profits above concerns about the economy, environment and health of the Salvadorans. This view would suggest that a tragic mix of greed and callous disregard for the Salvadorans is behind US policy.
Unfortunately, there is evidence to support the latter view. The United States seems to be completely behind Monsanto, regardless of any science questioning the safety of its products. Cables released by WikiLeaks show that US diplomats around the world are pushing GMO crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative. The cables also reveal instructions to punish any foreign countries trying to ban GMO crops.N
Whatever the explanation, pressuring El Salvador, or any country, to buy GMO seeds from Monsanto is a tragic mistake. It is foreign policy not worthy of America. Let's change it. Let's base our foreign and domestic policies on human rights, environmental stewardship, health and equity.
Post script: After articles about the seed dispute appeared in the media, The New York Times reported that the United States has reversed its position and will stop pressuring El Salvador to buy Monsanto's seeds. Thus far, the aid money has not been released.



Jeff Ritterman, M.D.
Dr. Jeff Ritterman is vice president of the board of directors of the SF Bay Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility.  He is the retired chief of cardiology at Kaiser Richmond and a former Richmond, Calif., city councilman.

 Source:  http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/24876-monsantos-herbicide-linked-to-fatal-kidney-disease-epidemic-will-ckdu-topple-monsanto

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

SMALL FARMERS STANDING UP TO US FORCING NEEDY NATIONS TO TAKE GMO SEED

(Photo: Edgardo Ayala) Dahr Jamail | Salvadoran Farmers Successfully Oppose the Use of Monsanto Seeds

Tuesday, 08 July 2014 09:04 By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report
(Photo: Edgardo Ayala)
Farmers across El Salvador united to block a stipulation in a US aid package to their country that would have indirectly required the purchase of Monsanto genetically modified (GM) seeds.

Thousands of farmers, like 45-year-old farmer Juan Joaquin Luna Vides, prefer to source their seeds locally, and not to use Monsanto's GM seeds.

"Transnational companies have been known to provide expired seeds that they weren’t able to distribute elsewhere," said Vides, who heads the Diversified Production program at the Mangrove Association, a community development organization that works in the Bajo Lempa region of El Salvador.

"We would like the US embassy and the misinformed media outlets [that are pressuring the Salvadoran government to change their procurement procedure] to know more about the reality of national producers and recognize the food sovereignty of the country," he added.

During the last two months, the US government has been attempting to pressure the government of El Salvador to sign the second Millennium Challenge Compact with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a US foreign aid agency created during the presidency of George W. Bush.

While the US government has not specifically requested the government of El Salvador or local farming coops there to purchase Monsanto products, it has tacitly looked the other way while Monsanto affiliates have raked in huge profits with highly priced, and less effective or less desired products.

The signing agreement was allegedly based upon the condition that El Salvador purchases GM seeds from Monsanto in conjunction with the Millennium Challenge Compact.

With Strings Attached
According to MCC, its role in El Salvador is a positive one.
"MCC is fueling economic growth in El Salvador's Northern Zone through technical assistance, rehabilitation of roads, credit, and investments in people, including vocational education, better water and sanitation services and an improved energy supply," according to the agency's website.

However, in late 2013, the US government made it clear that without "specific" economic and environmental policy changes, it would not provide the $277 million in aid funding it had promised to give El Salvador, via the MCC. In the following months, it became evident that these reforms included a policy change that would shift the country's current method of providing seeds to its farmers.

In stark contrast to what the US government is attempting to do by forcing farmers around the globe to purchase Monsanto GM seeds, Salvadoran farmers like Vides have been working with the government, alongside NGOs like the Mangrove Association, to provide certified corn seed for agricultural packets that are distributed to thousands of Salvadoran farmers. The program has been ongoing for more than five years in the country, and is continuing to expand.

"Before, small producers didn’t have the opportunity to participate in government seed procurement processes," said Vides, who farms coffee and vegetables, and raises cattle. "The program has generated employment and income for communities, inhabitants and cooperatives of the area, while producers have also greatly developed their capacity to produce certified seed. Catering to transnational companies could hurt these gains that the program has created."

Vides, along with hundreds of other farmers and their coops, has successfully produced high-quality seed that is adapted to the specific soil and climate conditions of their country. He notes that using indigenous seeds simply makes more sense agriculturally and economically.

Nevertheless, there has been an ongoing effort by the US government to work on behalf of multinational companies like Monsanto in pushing their GM products on the government of El Salvador.

In 2013, Food & Water Watch, a Washington, DC-based watchdog group, issued a report that detailed how the US State Department issued directives to US embassies to promote biotech products and be responsive to the concerns of the biotech industry.

"Between 2007 and 2009, the State Department sent annual cables to 'encourage the use of agricultural biotechnology,' directing every diplomatic post worldwide to 'pursue an active biotech agenda' that promotes agricultural biotechnology, encourages the export of biotech crops and foods and advocates for pro-biotech policies and laws," the report said.

"The State Department views its heavy-handed promotion of biotech agriculture as 'science diplomacy,' but it is closer to corporate diplomacy on behalf of the biotechnology industry," the watchdog group added.

Monsanto, which describes itself as "A Sustainable Agriculture Company," is a massive multinational corporation well known for deleterious practices like suing small farmers when Monsanto seeds have blown into their crops, using "suicide seeds" (also referred to as terminator technology, these are seeds that have been genetically-engineered so that when the crops are harvested, all of the new seeds produced from these crops are sterile, which then forces farmers to buy seeds annually from Monsanto in order to continue growing their crops)and altering the genetic structure of natural organisms and then patenting these seeds.

The company's concentrated control over the seed sector in India, as well as much of the rest of the world, has caused tens of thousands of farmers to go out of business, and triggered a spate of related suicides.

Farmers in Brazil are suing Monsanto for $2.2 billion for unfair collection of royalties - and this is just one among countless lawsuits against the company, which maintains extremely close ties with the US government.

Keeping It Local
Sixty-five-year-old farmer Manuel Cortez has been farming the Lower Lempa region of El Salvador since he was a small child. Cortez is the president of the La Maroma Cooperative, which is made of up 150 rural families and manages over 940 hectares of farming and pastureland.

The cooperative has been using 140 hectares for certified corn production for government contracts. Together with five other local coops, this farming area grows over 45 percent of the government of El Salvador's certified corn supply, specifically with the H59 certified corn seed, which is under threat by Monsanto's GM corn seed that the US government is pushing the country to use.

"We have heard that the United States would prefer that El Salvador purchase seeds from transnational sources, which would limit local seed producers like us," Cortez told Truthout. "We have lived with these inferior transnational seeds that previous governments have promoted, and our market was saturated with them. It seems as if the United States doesn’t support local production of seed.”
A farmer with the La Maroma farming coop, farming with H59, the certified corn seed. (Photo: Edgardo Ayala)A farmer with the La Maroma farming coop, farming with H59, the certified corn seed. (Photo: Edgardo Ayala)
Cortez explained that his coop and those he works with receive credit at the national bank, which relies on government contracts as collateral.

"With the United States inserting uncertainty in the legal future of El Salvador's seed contracting," he said, "we are worried that we won't be able to pay off our debt if the law changes to prefer transnational seed suppliers."
According to Cortez, all the local farmers prefer the certified corn seed his coop is producing, and the US government should respect that.

"The United States should support the government of El Salvador as it attempts to build a local rural economy, so that we don't have to migrate away from the area," he concluded. "Often times, when people immigrate north [to the United States], they end up worse off than when they started."

Supporting Farmers Against Monsanto
Nathan Weller is the program and policy director of EcoViva, a small NGO that, according to its website, "works in partnership and solidarity with low-income communities in Central America organized to achieve environmental sustainability, economic self-sufficiency, social justice, and peace."
Truthout asked Weller, who has been working with rural communities in the Lower Lempa area of El Salvador for 18 years, what he thinks the most sustainable course of action might be for Salvadoran farmers.

"There are now viable alternatives to the way seeds are produced in El Salvador, and the traditional reliance on a singular source of seed, or seed from just a handful of conventional agribusinesses, is no longer necessary," Weller said. "Domestic producers have proven their ability to cultivate a quality product to government standards, offered at a significantly lower price than what the government had historically paid for conventional seed supplied, by-in-large, by a singular Monsanto affiliate." 

EcoViva has supported the capacity building of five local cooperatives currently participating in the corn procurement process. Weller explained that the local H59 corn variety is grown under climatic and growing conditions that make the seed more suitable to the region. "This lends it toward higher yields without the need to apply the same expensive, harmful additives that Monsanto products generally require," he said.

According to Weller, the government of El Salvador's current ability to procure seed from local producers, who offer the best product at the cheapest price, has led to record corn yields in 2013.
"This has also led to a record outreach in national farming programs, and an injection of nearly $25 million total into the rural economy, creating hundreds of rural jobs," he said.

The Confederation of Federations of Salvadoran Agrarian Reform (CONFRAS) is a confederation that represents 131 farming coops in the country, which represent over 5,911 rural farmers throughout El Salvador. The group released a May 18 press statement that addressed the US government pressure on the government of El Salvador to purchase Monsanto GM corn seed, noting: "We are threatened because the US is pressuring the government of El Salvador so that its seed is not purchased from local families struggling to escape poverty, but transnational businesses."

CONFRAS states that from 2004 through 2009, farming inputs were delivered to Salvadoran family farmers with one primary purpose: to generate business to major importers of seed and other inputs, particularly to the seed producer Semillas Cristiani Burkard, a Monsanto affiliate.

As a result of widespread and mounting resistance to Monsanto seeds across El Salvador, the US government might now be softening its stance regarding its attempts to tie the $277 million aid deal to the requirement of the use of Monsanto GM seeds. Due in large part to the organization and resistance from the Salvadoran farmers, the US government appears to be leaving the GM seed requirement out of the aid deal.

However, even if that is the case, the US government could, as it has often done in the past, attempt to find another El Salvador aid package to tie the required purchase of Monsanto GM seeds.
At the time of publishing, Monsanto had not responded to Truthout's request for comment.

Source:  http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/24811-el-salvadoran-farmers-successfully-oppose-the-use-of-monsanto-seeds

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

HILL STILL GMO SHILL

Hillary Clinton Goes to Bat for GMOs at Biotech Conference

The potential presidential candidate's old industry ties resurface

- Max Ocean, editorial intern
Hillary Clinton in Hampton, NH (Photo: flickr/cc/Marc Nozell) Speaking at a conference in San Diego last week for the world's largest trade organization of biotechnology firms, potential presidential candidate Hillary Clinton backed GMOs and Big Ag, further displaying her allegiance to the industry in the eyes of sustainable food and organic advocates.

While trumpeting her endorsement of GMO seeds when she served as Secretary of State, Clinton told the crowd that the term "'genetically modified' sounds Frankensteinish," and thus turns people off to GMOs. "Drought resistant sounds really like something you'd want," she said, encouraging the industry to improve their semantics. “There’s a big gap between the facts and what the perceptions are.”

"If Hillary Clinton intends to run for office in 2016, she should think carefully about supporting a food and farming system that is proven to be detrimental to public health." —Katherine Paul, Organic Consumers Association

Clinton's certainty concerning the safety of GMO foods stands in stark contrast to public opinion. A Consumer Reports poll in June found that 92 percent of Americans favor labeling the foods.
U.S. campaigners rejecting the industry's push for genetically-modified crops have been pushing hard to get states to pass labeling laws.

"Hillary Clinton's views on GMOs are disappointing, but not surprising," said Katherine Paul, associate director of the Organic Consumers Union, in an email to Common Dreams. Unfortunately, Paul continued, Clinton's positions are "no different than those of previous administrations, including the Bush, Clinton and Reagan administrations, and they are taken straight from the biotech industry's talking points."

"Credible scientists, backed by independent (not industry-funded) studies are clear about the fact that foods containing GMOs are linked to a host of chronic illnesses," Paul continued. "The American Medical Association has called for pre-market safety testing and a recent pilot study found unsafe levels of glysophate, the key ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup, in the blood, urine and breast milk of American women."

During the hour that Clinton addressed the conference she also addressed fears that current subsidies and tax breaks aren't enough, or won't continue to be there in the future. “I don’t want to see biotech companies or pharma companies moving out of our country simply because of some perceived tax disadvantage and potential tax advantage somewhere else,” she assured the crowd, receiving vigorous applause in response.

"We should have an intensive discussion," Clinton said. “Maybe there’s a way of getting a representative group of actors at the table” so that the federal government can help biotechs with “insurance against risk.”

Clinton's ties to biotech have surfaced before, particularly her history with industry heavyweight Monsanto. The Rose Law Firm where Clinton worked in the 1980s represents both Monsanto and Tyson Foods.

Mark Penn, who served as CEO for one the world's largest public relations firms, Burson-Marsteller, which has also represented Monsanto, was a White House advisor under Bill Clinton and served as chief strategist and pollster to Hillary Clinton in her 2008 presidential campaign.

During Hillary's tenure as Secretary of State, the State Department heavily pressured other countries to use GMOs through a variety of methods, including bringing foreign journalists to the U.S. to "participate in a one-week biotech tour" so that they could help shift public opinion in their home country.

Yet Clinton's choices in her personal life indicate she's not so convinced that the science is in on genetically modified foods. According to Walter Sheib, who served as White House executive chef during the Clinton presidency, the job offered him the "professional challenge of fulfilling Hillary Clinton's mandate of bringing...nutritionally responsible food to the White House," meaning nearly everything he used "was obtained from local growers and suppliers."

And as Mother Jones reported in 2012, Scheib said that while Clinton's rooftop garden at the White House wasn't "certified organic," everything in it "was absolutely grown without pesticides and fertilizers. I guess it's what these days we call 'natural.'"

"If Hillary Clinton intends to run for office in 2016, she should think carefully about supporting a food and farming system that is proven to be detrimental to public health," said Paul, "unless she and her family are willing to give up eating organic and eat the same toxic food that she promotes to the general population."
Watch a video of Clinton's comments below:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/07/03-4
________________________________
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.