Thursday, March 10, 2011

GMO CROP YIELDS PLUMMET IN EUROPE

GM crops falter across the EU

Public still wary of using genetically modified seeds despite their higher yields

Posted: March 9, 2011

By Cat Contiguglia - Staff Writer | Comments (0) | Post comment

Courtesy Photo

The European Union is being criticized as yields from genetically modified (GM) crops plummet across the 27 member states and favor grows for organic crops, all at a time when the future of food and agricultural policies are more important than ever for world leaders.

In the Czech Republic, one of the top three producers of GM crops in the EU, production of Bt maize, used for animal feed, dropped 27 percent to just 4,680 hectares, while organic crop acreage increased 30 percent in 2010.

In Europe, GM crops and organic crops have drastically different yields in the first years of production. GM crops are at the top with 20 percent greater yields than standard crops. To produce the same amount of crops with organic seeds, however, requires up to three times the land.

Worldwide, GM acreage reached a record of more than 1 billion cultivated acres in 2010, up 10 percent from 2009, according to an annual report from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), despite a 30 percent drop in the already negligible GM acreage in Europe. Europe's downward trend will likely continue in light of newly proposed legislation that would allow members for the first time to ban GM crops without providing any scientific evidence to justify their decision.

"We had a legal deadlock on the issue," said Frédéric Vincent, a European Commission (EC) spokesman for health and consumer policy.

Some member states have consistently violated the current legislation by banning GM crops without scientific evidence, he said, which requires the EC to respond legally. Instead, the EC chose to modify legislation to fit the actions of EU members.

As a result, trade partners are leaning on governments to let GM crops in. In late February, a U.S. trade representative asked the EU to accept the safety of GM crops.

"When Europeans come to the United States, they come and enjoy our cuisine with no concerns whatsoever," Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Miriam Sapiro said. "Why should we have different standards in Europe?"

Meanwhile, organic crop production continued to climb as European consumers increasingly bought organic foods and drinks despite the economic recession, and the EC continues to support nationally customized campaigns to promote switching to organic crops.

"Europe's consumers have a huge power in deciding the trends. Consumers are more conscious of the negative impact of GM crops," said Noémi Nemes, a consultant from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization Natural Resources Department.

The decrease of Czech GM crops' that started in 2009 - detailed in a 2010 Agriculture Ministry report - is a story of perpetuation. Anti-GM sentiments, justified or not, scared consumers from buying GM products. Public perception, paired with tedious legislation and high start-up costs during a recession, beat out GM crop's lure of higher yields and profits.

Environmental groups like Greenpeace point to the weak demand for GM crops as proof that GM crop production in Europe should, and will be, completely phased out in the future, citing a survey conducted by the group in which 61 percent of respondents were against the use of GM crops.

"Despite strong promotion of GM crops by the biotechnological industry, it turns out that this has been a completely unsuccessful experiment," said Greenpeace spokeswoman Lucie Jakešová. "The promoted advantages apparently didn't convince farmers."

On the contrary, said Czech Agrarian Chamber President Jan Veleba, farmers are convinced of the advantages; it's the government and consumers that are skeptics.

"Quite clearly, there is a generally negative atmosphere in Europe toward GM crops," Veleba said. "In Europe, there is a certain stigma associated with GM crops, and so the market behaves as if the crops were dangerous and harmful. ... Sometimes I hear the debate in Brussels and the views of representatives of some countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain, and I feel like I am in the Middle Ages during the Inquisition, when they would burn heretical books."

What the trends in organics and GM crops means for Europe's role in guaranteeing a food supply is up for debate. The European Crop Protection Association argues outrightly against promoting organic foods, as they are more expensive and produce smaller yields.

"All too common in the debate about food security is the highly patronizing line that Europeans don't have to worry about it because we eat too much," the association says on its website. "Reminiscent of Marie Antoinette, they are saying, 'Let them eat organic (and pay more).' Unfortunately, this thinking has gained traction in Brussels."

GM crops actually make food safer, said Clive James, author of the ISAAA report, and allow small farms to compete in the market because of higher yields that can be competitive with larger farms. Bt maize is bred especially to resist Lepidoptera larvae, or corn borers, which can create toxins that are harmful to humans. That allows for reduced use of pesticides normally used to combat the bugs.

"What we are dealing with is exactly the same as the natural process. The genes are just different," James said. "You can compare it to a surgeon with a scalpel, [who] precisely cuts out one gene, sees its affect and makes sure it's safe. Technology used in conventional crops cannot do that." (James is dead wrong; GMO's inject viruses, herbicides -toxic- pesticides -toxic-, human genes and genes from other species -see:Flavr Savr Tomato. None of these inter-gene mutations ever occur in nature. If the surgeon James refers to is Frankenstein, he is spot on! Voila: FRANKENFOODS -Clean Food Earth Woman)

However, some scientists still hold that genetic modification of crops can produce potentially dangerous results, and that, in the long run, organic crops will actually cost the world less.

"If we include the environmental and health costs, the prices of GM foods would go up exponentially," Nemes said, explaining that the externalities of food production, whether health or environmental costs, are not included in the final price.

- Klára Jiřičná contributed to this report.

Cat Contiguglia can be reached at
ccontiguglia@praguepost.com

THE IDIOT CYCLE FILM: ENDLE$$$$$ PROFIT ON CREATING CANCERS

A Perfect Storm of GMOs, Chemicals and Cancer

March 10th, 2011

By Rady Ananda
Food Freedom

Several books, including Seeds of Destruction and Corrupt to the Core, along with the film, The Idiot Cycle, lay out the framework for and evidence of a concerted effort to sicken and then treat humanity, while earning obscene profits. When we factor in other recent actions taken by transnational corporations and lawmakers, the conspiracy adopts a more ominous tone.
Authors William Engdahl and Shiv Chopra appear in Emmanuelle Schick Garcia’s powerful film, The Idiot Cycle: What you aren’t being told about cancer. Both writers provide detailed evidence of a corporate-government conspiracy to adulterate the food and water supply with dangerous substances linked to a host of illnesses. The Case Against Fluoride, a book using hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, provides more evidence. In David Gumpert’s Raw Milk Revolution, we get a peek at the US government’s war on the natural dairy industry.
Looking at six companies, Dow Chemical, BASF, Bayer,Dupont, Astrazeneca (Syngenta), and Monsanto, Idiot Cycle exposes corporate-government collusion in the release of carcinogenic chemicals, but also reveals how some of the same chemical companies then profit from treating cancer. It’s a cycle only an idiot would tolerate. Going further, much of the film then addresses genetically modified food and its potentially disastrous effect on health and the environment.
Before making the film, Garcia and her team spent three years on research, and it shows. The film is chock full of disturbing facts. How many people know, for example, which synthetic chemical will cause more cancer than any others? Or that only 5-10% of all cancers are genetically inherited? Or that testicular cancer in young men has increased 50% in every industrial country? In 2002, the film asserts, the top ten drug companies made more money than the top 490 wealthiest US companies combined. At $1,600 a month for cancer-treatment, we can see why it’s called Big Pharma.
Important tidbits like these make the film a must-see. But the filmmaker shows real courage when she then includes the connection with genetically modified foods. It is with this additional component that a global conspiracy more fully comes into focus.
Idiot Cycle interviews world renowned scientists Arpad Pusztai, Eric-Gilles Seralini and Shiv Chopra, two of whom suffered job loss and all of whom endured campaigns to smear their professional reputations. In the GM debate, getting the message out about hazards to human health and the environment can cost you your career.

Silencing Negative Findings of Independent Scientists

1. Arpad Pusztai
Arpad Pusztai is no doubt the most famous scientist in the film. He first blew the whistle in 1998 on the hazards of GM crops, costing him his job at Rowett Research Institute in Scotland. Having studied biotechnology for 35 years, Pusztai had well earned the title as the world’s leading expert in this highly specialized field. In 1995, he won a three-year, $1.5 million contract from the UK government to establish a testing methodology for regulators when assessing the safety of GM crops.
This marked the world’s first independent study of GM food safety, according to Engdahl. He interviewed Pusztai in 2007 for his book, Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation. Engdahl notes that Pusztai “was fully certain the study would confirm the safety of GM foods.” His team used potatoes modified by Monsanto to produce an insecticide. Writes Engdahl:

“The rats fed for more than 110 days on a diet of GM potatoes had marked changes to their development. They were significantly smaller in size and body weight than ordinary potato-fed control rats in the same experiment. More alarming, however, was the fact that the GMO rats showed markedly smaller liver and heart sizes, and demonstrated weaker immune systems. The most alarming finding from Pusztai’s laboratory tests, however, was the markedly smaller brain size of GMO-fed rats compared with normal potato-fed rats.”

When he reported his findings on national television, excluding the smaller brain size info for fear it would induce mass panic, he also added that he wouldn’t eat GM foods. For two days, the Institute applauded and supported him, even issuing a press release clarifying that his concerns were based on “ a range of carefully controlled studies.”
But then the firestorm hit. President Bill Clinton contacted Prime Minister Tony Blair, who then contacted Pusztai’s boss at the Institute. Within two days, he was fired, along with his wife, another respected researcher at Rowett. Then began a mass media campaign to discredit him and his work, as revealed by UK journalist, Andrew Rowell. The Pusztais were gagged from defending Arpad under threat of losing their pensions.
In Idiot Cycle, Pusztai called it “criminal” that GM crops have been foisted on the world without full and complete safety studies, especially in light of preliminary studies showing serious potential harm.
2. Eric-Gilles Seralini
The next most famous scientist in the GM debate, arguably, is Eric-Gilles Seralini, whose groundbreaking studies we covered here. Seralini has also been vilified by the biotech community. In The Idiot Cycle, he describes the battle that he endured to publicize Monsanto’s blood test results of rats that had eaten GM corn for three months. Once the information was made public, independent scientists could then review Monsanto’s “safe” finding.
Normally, two years of testing is the “gold standard” in the scientific community. Seralini called it “absurd” that only three months of testing allowed the GM corn to be approved in over a dozen nations. Any reputable scientist would agree. Upon reviewing Monsanto’s raw data, he and his team found, among other problems, liver damage and physiological changes into a pre-diabetic condition among the rats which had eaten Monsanto’s GM corn. And that’s just from three months of eating such food.
The rate of diabetes in the U.S. has nearly doubled since GM foods were secretly foisted on us in 1996. Today, 26 million people have it and another 79 million are pre-diabetic, according to new estimatesreleased in January. These figures include those actually diagnosed with the disease, plus an estimate of those who have diabetes but are undiagnosed. If we look at just the “diagnosed” numbers over the last three decades (which is less than the actual number who have diabetes), we see that diabetes has tripled since 1980:

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Many believe that the prevalence of GM corn and GM sugarbeets used as sweeteners in processed foods (such as high fructose corn syrup) is a leading contributing factor to the spike in diabetes. Actos, made by Takeda Pharmaceutical, and Avandia, made by GlaxoSmithKline, reportedly treat Type II diabetes, and both increase the risk of heart failure – in one study by 72%.
3. Shiv Chopra
Canada Health whistleblower Shiv Chopra, who authored Corrupt to the Core: Memoirs of a Health Canada Whistleblower, explains the genesis of the misanthropic aims of these chemical companies and their government protectors. Beginning 50-60 years ago, he says in the film, chemicals began playing a major part in agriculture. “On the one hand, they’re contaminating people’s food, and they do damage. Then they come back with chemicals to treat them.”
Chopra was eventually fired from Health Canada, along with two others, for “insubordination” because they refused to authorize (among other food processes) the long-term use of antibiotics and GM hormones in food-producing animals, given their questionable safety. In particular, he adamantly refused to authorize rBST, a genetically modified bovine growth hormone created by Monsanto and Eli Lilly to stimulate milk production in dairy cows. Studies show that large percentages of cows develop lameness and mastitis from the GM hormone.
In Corrupt to the Core, we learn that one of the other “food processes” they objected to was feeding BSE-infested slaughterhouse waste to meat and milk animals. BSE, more popularly known as mad cow disease, gives humans the lethal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Chopra makes a significant contribution to human health when he discusses his Five Pillars of Food Safety:

“The source of food-borne diseases during approximately the last 50 years is reported to originate from indiscriminate application of the following five substances in food production: hormones, antibiotics, slaughterhouse wastes, genetically modified organisms and pesticides.”

In the book and in Idiot Cycle, he charges that use of these substances violates the Food and Drug Act of both the U.S. and Canada. Because the first three are banned in the European Union, the US and Canada cannot ship beef to the EU. This issue, incidentally, continues to be debated at the World Trade Organization.
4. Andres Carrasco
Though not in the film, another globally recognized scientist in the biotech world is Andres Carrasco. He and his team from Argentina and Paraguay found that Monsanto’s Roundup causes birth defects in frogs and chickens. “The findings in the lab are compatible with malformations observed in humans exposed to glyphosate during pregnancy,” he told GMWatch. In 2009, he was threatened at his lab, and in 2010physically attacked by local police and the hired hands of a wealthy GM rice grower.

Contaminating the Natural Food Supply

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GM crops contaminate natural plants, converting ownership to the patent holder under twisted, but recognized, legal logic. Idiot Cycle stresses this as a deliberate move toward complete control of the world’s food supply. It’s no idle accusation. GeneWatch UK and Greenpeace have documented over 300 contaminations through July 2010. Genetic contamination of natural plants is vast and ongoing and, until recently, courts have repeatedly penalized the farmer victimized by such contamination.
Many have heard of Percy Schmeiser’s battle with Monsanto that resulted in a pyrrhic victory for the farmer. Unaware his crops had been contaminated with transgenes, he reused the seeds. Monsanto sued, but this time, after a long and expensive litigation process, the Canadian Supreme Court backed Schmeiser and ordered Monsanto to pay for the clean up of his fields. Though not in the final release ofIdiot Cycle, he does appear in the bonus clips.
An 84-page report by the Center for Food Safety published in 2005 details cases like these and others. In 2008, Vanity Fair’s Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele also posted an in-depth investigation, providing more details of farmers being victimized by contamination and then being successfully sued by Monsanto. The CFS report also describes cases where farmers bought GM seeds third hand, signing no agreement about their use or reuse. This happened to Tennessee farmer, Kem Ralph, who is also featured in The Idiot Cycle.
In court, Monsanto presented an agreement which bore his forged signature. Judge Rodney Sippel, a former Monsanto attorney, awarded judgment for Monsanto in the amount of $2.9 million. CFS documents evidence of Monsanto presenting forged signatures in court. “Forging farmers' signatures on Technology Agreements is called ‘common’ by seed dealers. Nearly one in 10 of Monsanto's lawsuits involve such forgeries.”
In the film we learn that Judge Sippel in Kem Ralph’s case sat on ten other lawsuits involving Monsanto, corruptly refusing to recuse himself. In all of those cases, Monsanto won.
We also find such conflicts of interest on the U.S. Supreme Court with the ethically challenged Clarence Thomas, a former Monsanto attorney. In 2001, he wrote the high court decision allowing biotech companies to patent GM seeds. Thomas also corruptly refused to recuse himself from Monsanto v Geertson Seed, which allowed the USDA to impose a partial deregulation of GM alfalfa last June. (This January, the USDA completely deregulated GM alfalfa, even removing the requirement for buffer zones.) Plus, Thomas’ new sidekick on the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, defended Monsanto’s right to contaminate natural alfalfa crops when she served as Solicitor General arguing against Geertson.
But not all judges work for the biotech industry.

After Bayer CropScience contaminated a third of the US rice supply in 2006, it found itself facing 6,000 lawsuits. In addition to cases it has already lost or settled, each under $2 million, Bayer now faces a whopping $380 million lawsuit from Riceland Foods in a trial currently underway in Arkansas. Stuttgart Daily Leader has been covering the trial, with articles posted Feb. 22, , 2/24, 2/25, 2/28, March 4, Mar. 8 and Mar. 10.
Cases like these are what is surely behind a recent decision by the world’s largest seed company to modify its Technology Stewardship Agreement wherein Monsanto has shifted all liability arising from transgenic crops onto farmers who plant their seeds. How’s that for taking corporate immorality to new depths?
This falls in line nicely with a recent Supreme Court decision that protects vaccine makers from liability. In the film, one European regulator, Willy de Greef, informs us that GM crops only account for 5% of all biotechnology. Most drugs and vaccines contain GMOs. A host of deleterious effects from vaccines has been documented, including narcolepsy, sterility, mental retardation, paralysis, autism, and death. “First do no harm” has succumbed to “Make the most money.”
Given the USDA’s recent deregulation of GM alfalfa, and the certainty that natural alfalfa will become contaminated, Monsanto’s attempt to shirk responsibility with this no-liability clause “appears to be unconscionable” said environmental attorney Anthony Patchett in a video interview with Morph City. Patchett formerly worked as Assistant Head Deputy District Attorney of Environmental Crimes, OSHA Division.
That decision to deregulate a perennial plant with tiny seeds that can travel miles can be seen as nothing other than a deliberate intent to contaminate North American natural alfalfa. Biotech firms will gain ownership of contaminated fields. This will also destroy the organic meat and dairy industry in the United States, and likely Canada, as well. Biotech and chemical firms, along with all growers who chemically douse their crops, will profit enormously from the collapse of the untainted food industry. The question is, can we survive their victory?

Sick Food, Dangerous Vaccines & Eugenics

Controlling the world’s food supply is one thing. As evidence mounts that biotech crops sicken us, this assures increased profits for biotech companies that develop drugs to treat us. But, some wonder if GM crops will do more than sicken us. We have preliminary findings that GM crops cause sterility in test animals, and that Roundup is associated with spontaneous abortions in farm animals fed wheatlage under weed management using glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup. Coupling this with globalist concern with rising population, how can we avoid questioning if biotechnology is being used as a weapon?

In the film, author William Engdahl talks about his research for Seeds of Destruction. He briefly describes the relationship between depopulationists like the Rockefellers and IG Farben, the company that gassed millions to death in Nazi Germany and which also killed thousands more when testing drugs and vaccines on captured populations. For these crimes against humanity, after the war, IG Farben was broken into its original constituent companies. Bayer, BASF and Hoechst (now Aventis) eventually expanded into plant genetics. (In 2002, Bayer acquired Aventis.)
Engdahl writes: “The Rockefeller-I.G. Farben relationship went back to 1927, around the same time the Rockefeller Foundation began heavily funding German eugenics research.” Paraphrasing from his book, he explains:

“‘The Project’ I referred to is the project of the Rockefeller Foundation and powerful financial interests since the 1920’s to use eugenics, later renamed genetics, to justify creation of a genetically-engineered Master Race. Hitler and the Nazis called it the Ayran Master Race.

”The eugenics of Hitler were financed to a major extent by the same Rockefeller Foundation which today is building a doomsday seed vault to preserve samples of every seed on our planet. Now this is getting really intriguing. The same Rockefeller Foundation created the pseudo-science discipline of molecular biology in their relentless pursuit of reducing human life down to the ‘defining gene sequence’ which, they hoped, could then be modified in order to change human traits at will. Hitler’s eugenics scientists, many of whom were quietly brought to the United States after the War to continue their biological eugenics research, laid much of the groundwork of genetic engineering of various life forms, much of it supported openly until well into the Third Reich by Rockefeller Foundation generous grants.”

Seeds of Destruction provides a wealth of detailed evidence of “the hidden agenda of genetic manipulation.” It’s clear from having read the book why Garcia chose to interview him for her film. Seedshighlights bioweaponry, in the form of pandemics, and the drugs used to treat them. The recent Swine flu hype was a repeat of the Avian flu engineered just a few years before. Vaccines used in Nicaragua and the Phillipines actually sterilized people. Spermicidal corn was developed for Mexico.
Though Rockefeller, et al. may be looking to improve human genetics for traits they deem more desirable in their club, “you ain’t in it.” Neither am I; nor is 93% of humanity, if the Georgia Guidestones are any indication of what the ideal population level should be. What we get, instead, are toxic foods, grown or raised on toxic farms, and further treated and processed in toxic factories. Then we’re prescribed toxic drugs that cause side effects which hasten our death. Nice racket.
Bayer and BASF aren’t alone. Monsanto also has a history of “incidental” ecocide and genocide by the creation and deployment of Agent Orange (dioxin), PCBs, DDT, rBST, and the neurotoxin, Aspartame.
Biotech and pharmaceutical companies have also produced several hundred “pharma crops” – food that contains vaccines against a variety of diseases. Never mind that such a plan fails to consider appropriate dosage specific to a person’s age, weight and medical condition. The same failure applies to fluoride treated water, which lowers intelligence, causes skeletal and dental fluorosis, and induces depression and lethargy. (See the 2010 book, The Case Against Fluoride and this short 30-minute film, Professional Perspectives on Water Fluoridation.)

Criminalizing Nature

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One final element briefly mentioned in the film plays heavily into this growing body of evidence supporting the idea of a global conspiracy to harm humanity for profit. The Idiot Cycle mentions Iraq Order 81, which bans the saving of seeds. Iraqi farmers must buy GM seeds, every year. This outrageous law is a direct attack on the right to food freedom: the evolutionary imperative of humans to eat whatever natural foods their bodies crave.
Beyond that, a string of national and international laws, rules, and regulations criminalize natural plants. This will give the pharmaceutical industry complete control of healthcare, since the world’s best medicines come from plants. For example, prior to 2000, Monsanto began genetically modifying marijuana, and last November, the US Drug Enforcement Agency proposed a subtle rule change that will decriminalize synthetic THC for use as a medicine, reports Pencil Method, a medical marijuana news site:

“Paul Armentano of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws reads the proposal as a way of legalizing marijuana so just Big Pharma can make money from it.

“'DEA is taking a shortcut by saying, well, we can reschedule organic THC because it mimics an existing drug on the market,' Armentano said. 'Which is ironic given that they are saying the organic substance is derivative of the synthetic substance that is actually based on the organic substance.'”

Kitty Campion, a world renowned herbalist who has written several books, and who holds a PhD from the School of Natural Healing (Utah), warns that:

“[G]overnments all over the world are joining hands with Big Pharma and Big Food, (meaning the industrialised processed food giants) in an unprecedented pogrom against herbal medicine. I left Britain in December last year after 30 years in full time herbal practice and came into Australia on a Distinguished Talent Visa, precisely because so many of the herbs I needed in my extensive herbal pharmacy had been banned by the European Commission. The Gestapo tactics have long begun. In Germany and in the UK, the ‘drug police’ recently confiscated natural remedies as though they were contraband drugs. The EU's main strategy has been to try and place every natural product, natural remedy or natural service firmly under the thumb of prescription drug law and, of course, if a substance is treated like a drug it has to be evaluated and studied like a drug. The millions that this costs, mainly for safety and efficacy evaluation, is out of reach of the vast majority of herbal manufacturers - in effect it is a de facto ban.”

Several similar laws around the globe further the scheme to criminalize nature. Here’s a brief sampling, with some victories for food freedom:

* On May 1, 2011, thousands of herbal medicinal products become illegal in the European Union. In an email, Shiv Chopra said, “As for the sale of herbal remedies, homeopathic, Ayurvedic and Chinese medicines, EU and NAFTA are on the same page. All of them, without counting Mexico, are determined to ban any substance that interferes in the sale of their big pharma products, including drugs and vaccines causing disease and death. I am not sure what China plans to do about it but India as we all know is selling out its stakes to join the rich man's club, without any concern for the public interest.”

* Australia has proposed a ban on thousands of plants including its national flower, since they contain DMT – a naturally-occurring hallucinogen. Marketed as a war on drugs, the bill ignores that most of these common garden plants have never been used to extract DMT, since only trace amounts are found in them. Humans also produce DMT in their bodies, so we know this is something we need.

* Canada just passed a “consumer protection” law known as C36, though the final version exempted natural health products after a nationwide fight. However, the law violates human rights by authorizing home invasions to search for suspected products. Through Canada’s 2004 Food and Drug Act and other regulations, thousands of natural health products are no longer available, writesKaren Stephenson.

* Last December, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered one pharmacy to stop making injectable Vitamin C, a known cure for cancer. When taken intravenously in large doses, it has remarkable healing properties. IV Vitamin C even cured a New Zealand man on death’s door with the swine flu.

* The FDA is also waging a war on natural dairy, shutting down producers and distributors even though no one has become ill from their products. David Gumpert’s book, The Raw Milk Revolution, details the government’s war on food rights (which I reviewed here). As a complete food, raw milk provides innumerable benefits, including reducing childhood allergies. Many who are labeled "lactose-intolerant" safely drink raw milk.

* Also on the dairy front, Monsanto complained to the Federal Trade Commission about organic dairy farmers who labeled their product free of artificial hormones. Though the FDA allows such labeling, it maintains that rBST (also known as rBGH) is safe and that there is no difference between organic and GMO milk. Last September, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, overturning an Ohio law banning such labels. The court found a “compositional difference” between the two kinds of milk, and also ruled that prohibiting such labels violates the first amendment rights of organic producers.

* The US Food Safety Modernization Act, signed into law in January, “extends control over all food in the US, violating the fundamental human right to food,” explains Steve Green. Providing a comment for that article, Shiv Chopra said that the bill precludes “the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice.”

* Operating under the UN and the World Health Organization, Codex Alimentarius harmonizes international food standards, ostensibly to facilitate trade. Summarizing the work of Scott Tips and the Alliance for Natural Health, Brandon Turberville writes, “At best, the guidelines will reduce dose levels [of vitamins and other supplements] to minuscule amounts too small to be beneficial, as well as causing the prices to skyrocket for both consumers and producers.”

Taken together, we are witnessing corporate-government seizure of the means by which humans survive and thrive. Major corporations, backed by government, are causing cancer and other diseases with their toxic products. Yet, natural foods and remedies are being criminalized, forcing us to rely on Western drugs with often lethal side effects. On top of this, our water supply is deliberately treated with a substance that, among other problems, lowers intelligence.
The Idiot Cycle provides an excellent summary of the major forces working against humanity, which are well documented in several books, including those listed below.

Recommended Sources:

The Idiot Cycle
Written and Directed by Emmanuelle Schick Garcia
JPS Films (2009, 96 mins)
Website: stoptheidiotcycle.com
Screenings: Showtimes
The film can be rented for 4.99 euros ($7 USD) at JPS.
Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
F. William Engdahl
Global Research: 2007 (341 pp.)
www.globalresearch.ca/books/SoD.html
Corrupt to the Core: Memoirs of a Health Canada Whistleblower
Shiv Chopra
KOS Publishing: 2009 (340 pp.)
www.kospublishing.com/html/corrupt_to_the_core.html
The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle over Food Rights
David E. Gumpert
Chelsea Green Publishing: 2009 (254 pp.)
www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/the_raw_milk_revolution:paperback
The Case Against Fluoride: How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep It There
Paul Connett, James Beck, Spedding Micklem
Chelsea Green Publishing: 2010 (384 pp.)
www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/the_case_against_fluoride:paperback
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FOOD SOVEREIGNTY PHYSICIST & ACTIVIST VANDANA SHIVA DETAINED

WED

MAR

2011

Renowned Scientist, Vandana Shiva Held at Canadian Border

written by Chris Cook

Renowned Scientist/Activist, Vandana Shiva Held at Canadian Border

by C. L. Cook

Vandana Shiva was scheduled to speak tonight in Calgary, Alberta, spiritual home of far right Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper. But, like other activists and writers trying to enter Canada lately, things didn't go smoothly for her.

Shiva is also scheduled to receive tomorrow a University of Calgary's Consortium for Peace Studies award. (Please see below break for details).

Swerve Calgary reports Shiva is being held tonight at the Canada/U.S. border due to "an issue with her visa."

Vandana Shiva now joins a lengthening list of dissident writers, reporters, and activists harried by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA).

In 2009, then British MP George Galloway was not allowed entry into Canada due to his alleged support for Palestinian groups listed by the CBSA as terrorist organizations. Galloway took the case to court, where Stephen Harper's government was rebuked.

Last year, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! found herself cooling her heels at the border when Canadian agents refused to believe she was not going to Vancouver to report critically on the Olympic games. Goodman recounted the bizarre incident to the crowd awaiting her speaking engagement in the Olympic city.

No such luck for Calgarians who had hoped to hear Shiva speak tonight.

The CBSA is overseen by minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturism Jason Kenney, a controversial figure noted for callous remarks regarding refugees, and more recently embroiled in a fund raising scandal.

[A date not kept: India’s famed environmental activist knows all about taking a stand. She’ll be in town on March 9 to discuss democracy, empowerment of women, development, social justice and the environment. Vandana Shiva speaks Wednesday, March 9, 7 p.m. At Murray Fraser Hall, University of Calgary. $12 – $15. netcommunity.ucalgary.ca/shiva.]

[On March 10th, the University of Calgary’s Consortium for Peace Studies will award Dr. Vandana Shiva, a world-renowned environmental activist from New Dehli, The Calgary Peace Prize. The awards ceremony and banquet will be held at the Calgary Golf & Country Club. Tickets are available via the U of C’s secure Net Community: TICKETS]

UPDATE: http://www.ucalgary.ca/peacestudies/

Upcoming Speakers & Events

URGENT RELEASE to all attendees of “An Evening with Vandana Shiva” and to all Calgarians and the media

Dr Vandana Shiva event will proceed... The Show Will Go On!!

Calgary Community Rallies to support Consortium for Peace Studies event @ Mac Hall tonight... 1000 expected to attend

Dr. Vandana Shiva, respected environmentalist, activist, philosopher and author was scheduled to speak to a sold out audience of 1000 people at Mac Hall this evening. Her visit to Calgary was prompted by the awarding of the 2011 Calgary Peace Prize, which was to be presented to her by Mayor Nenshi tomorrow evening.

With great misfortune Vandana has been unable to cross the U.S. border and enter into Canada as officials claim her Visa has expired.

However we are working extremely hard with Immigration Canada to have her arrive in Calgary.

THE SHOW WILL GO ON... Calgary Community Rallies to support Consortium Peace event

A diverse line up of local eco/food/peace celebrities has volunteered to speak at the event.

Kris Vester, Paul Hughes, Wade Sirios, Chris Turner & Hugo Bonjean will each address the audience for 10 minutes, followed by a panel discussion. Numerous local agencies will also be participating and information booths will be set up so audience members can have their questions answered about local food justice & peace issues. We are also working with the Mayor Nenshi’s office to have him come and speak at the event.

The Consortium for Peace Studies at the University of Calgary had planned to honor Dr. Shiva for her commitment to social justice, empowerment of women in developing countries, her advocacy of human rights and her scientific analysis of environmental sustainability.

Her talk was to address elements of the global food crisis and its relation to democracy, gender justice and the environment.

We are trying our best to bring Vandana Shiva over to Calgary by March 11, 2011. We will reschedule a public lecture with her and if you have bought a ticket to the event, you will get free entry to the lecture by her and the public event for tonite. If you want a ticket refund, please contact the Consortium for Peace Studies after March 14th, 2011.