No, Really, Monsanto Has a "Discredit Bureau"

A company functionary discusses Monsanto's 'Ministry of Truth'

Heather Callaghan

Monsanto company arguably holds an inordinate amount of the global food supply, not only with its genetically engineered seed but its complimentary product, Roundup herbicide, which contains the active ingredient glyphosate.

Which is why they spat lividly when a subset of WHO publicly announced that glyphosate is a probably cause of cancer. They demanded a retraction. The report published in The Lancet Oncology discussed chromosomal and DNA damage, and glyphosate found in human blood and intestines. Catherine Frompovich expounds on it in What’s Your “Daily Value” of Glyphosate?

Since they hold more capital than Lucifer, it stands to reason they would have a propaganda wing that disseminates information and decimates those who stand in the way. Snippets of proof have surfaced before. Although shrouded in secrecy, this time someone from the company got a little too gleeful at the thought of "debunking" naysayers whether they be scientists, activists, bloggers or you.

What’s Your “Daily Value” of Glyphosate?

Dees Illustration

Catherine J. Frompovich

Do readers know what glyphosate is? Or, what the Daily Value (DV) is? Are you aware that there are glyphosate residues present in almost every food or edible product U.S. consumers eat? However, as yet, there are no minimum or maximum Daily Values for dietary intake guidelines designated by the U.S. FDA or any other federal health agency for glyphosate—a toxic herbicide in foods—intake, as there are for “Guidance for Industry: A Food Labeling Guide (14. Appendix F: Calculate the Percent Daily Value for the Appropriate Nutrients).”Maybe there ought to be such guidelines, since U.S. consumers are eating glyphosate residues in incalculable amounts in just about 85 to 90 percent of all processed foods! 

It is my understanding that no one’s figured out how much glyphosate we consume on a daily basis as yet. 

Why should we know how much glyphosate we are ingesting? 

Dr. Oz: GMOs Can Be Ushering in a Pesticide Arms Race

Heather Callaghan

One thing's for sure: when Dr. Oz speaks, people listen. Many a healthfood store and tea shop owner have saluted him when he mentions their goods on air - and their stores fill up. In the past he has drawn cheers and jeers for his fluctuating stances on organic food and genetically modified organisms in the food supply.

Today, he makes a very clear stance, as a concerned doctor, against the EPA's pending approval of a new, toxic pesticide intended for use on genetically engineered crops like corn and soy - this country's biggest crops and food ingredients. He warns about floundering brain health, thyroid problems, chronic disease and more as a result of this stronger pesticide's use.

Today's episode of The Dr. Oz Show examines a new GMO pesticide that the EPA is on the very brink of approving because GMO crops now contain superweeds that have become resistant to glyphosate (Roundup). This new concoction called Enlist Duo, by Dow AgroSciences, contains both glyphosate and the choline salt of 2,4-D (2,4-D was one of the ingredients in Agent Orange).

Why Monsanto's 'Cure' For World Hunger Is Cursing The Global Food Supply

Sayer Ji

What if the very GM agricultural system that Monsanto claims will help to solve the problem of world hunger depends on a chemical that kills the very pollinator upon which approximately 70% of world's food supply now depends?
  
A new study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology titled, "Effects of field-realistic doses of glyphosate on honeybee appetitive behavior," establishes a link between the world's most popular herbicide – aka Roundup – and the dramatic decline in honeybee (Apis mellifera) populations in North American and Europe that lead to the coining of the term 'colony collapse disorder' (CCD) in late 2006 to describe the phenomena.[1]

The researchers found that concentrations of glyphosate (GLY) consistent with the type of exposures associated with standard spraying practices in GM agricultural - and neighboring ecosystems - reduced the honeybees' sensitivity to nectar reward and impaired their learning abilities – two behavioral consequences likely to adversely affect their survival abilities. Moreover, while sub-lethal doses were not found to overtly affect their foraging behavior, they hypothesized that because of their resilience, "..forager bees could become a source of constant inflow of nectar with GLY traces that could then be distributed among nest mates, stored in the hive and have long-term negative consequences on colony performance."

Glyphosate Detected in Deformed Piglets

Heather Callaghan

In April, a Danish farmer called for a ban on glyphosate. For three years he had used non-GMO soy feed for his pig herds, but when he ran out, he ordered two tons of GM soy feed. His herdsman immediately told the farmer of diarrhea in the piglets and lack of appetite in the sows. He had not told the herdsman of the feed switch.

Worse, he began noticing an absurd amount of deformed piglets and reproductive problems in the sows.  Roundup is used on GMO soy shortly before it is used as pig feed.

But that's not all - he brought 38 malformed piglets to a laboratory. In a research project by German and Egypt Veterinarian doctors using ELISA testing, differing levels of glyphosate (aka Roundup herbicide, by Monsanto) concentrations were discovered in piglets born from sows eating genetically modified soy feed.

EPA to Raise Allowable Glyphosate Pesticide Levels in Food Crops by 3,000%!

Another win for biotech giant Monsanto equals another loss for humanity.

Melissa Melton

Just days ago, RT.com reported that the U.S. Environmental “Protection” Agency is set to raise the allowable limits of Monsanto’s best-selling glyphosate pesticide Roundup in our nation’s food crops to ridiculously high levels:

Through the EPA’s new standards, the amount of allowable glyphosate in oilseed crops such as flax, soybeans and canola will be increased from 20 parts per million (ppm) to 40 ppm, which GM Watch acknowledged is over 100,000 times the amount needed to induce breast cancer cells. Additionally, the EPA is increasing limits on allowable glyphosate in food crops from 200 ppm to 6,000 ppm.

Supposedly they were able to do this because a two-month open comment period that began May 1st drew little public resistance.

This is in spite of a flurry of new studies coming out just this month demonstrating the detrimental effects of pesticide on the environment and all manner of things living in it:

Oakland moves forward with citywide surveillance center despite data collection, privacy controversy

image credit:
jean-louis zimmermann/Flickr

Madison Ruppert

Ignoring the concerns surrounding data collection and privacy, Oakland continues to push forward with their federally funded, citywide surveillance project known as the Domain Awareness Center.

Other cities have launched “Domain Awareness”programs, including New York City, where Mayor Bloomberg said that New Yorkers will “never know where our cameras are.”

The project in Oakland will link everything from ever-controversial license plate scanners to surveillance cameras to gunshot detectors, Twitter feeds, and more.

It began as a joint project between the city and the Port of Oakland, part of a nationwide initiative to make ports more secure by placing and networking cameras and other sensors around the port.

Is It Time To Acknowledge Roundup Herbicide As A Contraceptive?

How much longer will we deny the growing body of research linking Roundup to infertility before calling this chemical a contraceptive?

Sayer Ji

Following closely on the heels of the EPA's decision to allow Roundup herbicide residues in your food at concentrations a million times higher than shown carcinogenic, a concerning new study published in the journal Free Radical Medicine & Biology implicates the herbicide, and its main ingredient glyphosate, in male infertility, at concentration ranges well within the EPA's "safe level" for food.[1]

Performed by Brazilian researchers, the study found acute Roundup exposure at low doses (36ppm, 0.036g/L) for 30 minutes induced cell death in Sertoli cells in prepubertal rat testis. Sertoli cells are known as "mother" or "nurse" cells within the testicles, as they are responsible for maintaining the health of sperm cells, and are required for normal male sexual development.

Roundup herbicide exposure was found to induce oxidative stress and to activate multiple-stress response pathways within affected cells, and was associated with an increase in intracellular calcium (Ca2+) concentration leading to Ca2+ overload, and cell death.

Despite Irrefutable Evidence of Toxicity and Death, Monsanto’s Friends at the EPA Raise Allowable Glysophate Levels

Daisy Luther

Great news! You no longer have to worry about excessive levels of glyphosate, the toxic chemical found in Monsanto’s Round-up pesticide, in your food or in the feed that livestock consumes. Why not? Well, the Environmental Deception Protection Agency has looked over the situation, and in their infinite wisdom, raised the safety threshold of glyphosate that is allowed to be in consumable goods.

The EPA’s change of heart means that the the allowed glyphosate level in animal feed will rise to 100 parts per million (ppm) and 40 ppm in oilseed crops. Thankfully, there’s no need for us to worry because they’ve assured us that the new allowable levels are only “minimally toxic” to humans.

The EPA is the agency that is charged with protecting the air we breathe, the soil in which we grow our food and the water that we drink. Unfortunately the only responsibility they seem to take seriously is their commitment to furthering the agendas of big business. This decision to allow more Roundup to drench the food supply comes immediately after two major, peer reviewed studies have proven that glyphosate is deadly.

The first study found that glyphosate increases the breast cancer cell proliferation in the parts-per-trillion range.

Glyphosate and Roundup’s Implications on Modern Diseases

An interview with Stephanie Seneff, PhD: Co-author of "Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases."

image source

Catherine J. Frompovich

In April 2013, independent scientist Anthony Samsel and MIT scientist Stephanie Seneff published their mega studies analysis of glyphosate titled “Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases” in the online journal, Entropy. With 286 peer-reviewed papers analyzed, Samsel and Seneff documented that glyphosate—and the herbicide Roundup®, in particular—has deleterious impact on disease causality in laboratory and farm animals, and humans.

This is an interview with co-author Stephanie Seneff, of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.

Before we get into details, will you please tell us how glyphosate and Roundup® came into being? Who owns it and how profitable a commodity is it for that corporation?

Monsanto is the inventor of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup®. It was brought to market first in the U.S. in the mid 1970s, and it came out from under patent in 2000, making it far more attractive as an herbicide due to the reduced cost.

Didn’t Monsanto produce saccharine (1901?), DDT (1944), Agent Orange for the Vietnam War (1960s-1970s), Posilac®—bovine somatotropin (Bst) for dairy cows (1994), Roundup Ready® soybeans (1996), Roundup Ready® Cotton and Roundup Ready® Canola (1997), Roundup Ready® Corn (1998), and receive USDA authorization for planting Genuity® Roundup Ready® Alfalfa and Genuity® Roundup Ready® Sugarbeets in 2011?

Yes. Monsanto has a long record of producing toxic chemicals.

Study: Glyphosate (Roundup) Feeds Breast Cancer Cell Growth In the PARTS PER TRILLION Range

Sayer Ji

An alarming new study finds that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup weedkiller, is estrogenic and drives breast cancer cell proliferation in the parts-per-trillion range. Does this help explain the massive mammary tumors that the only long term animal feeding study on Roundup and GM corn ever performed recently found?

An alarming new study, accepted for publication in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology last month, indicates that glyphosate, the world's most widely used herbicide due to its widespread use in genetically engineered agriculture, is capable of driving estrogen receptor mediated breast cancer cell proliferation within the infinitesimal parts per trillion concentration range.[i]

The study, titled, "Glyphosate induces human breast cancer cells growth via estrogen receptors," compared the effect of glyphosate on hormone-dependent and hormone-independent breast cancer cell lines, finding that glyphosate stimulates hormone-dependent cancer cell lines in what the study authors describe as "low and environmentally relevant concentrations."

Monsanto’s Roundup, Glyphosate Linked to Parkinson’s and Similar Diseases

Elizabeth Renter

We already know the links between herbicides and sterility in men, birth defects, mental illness, obesity and possibly cancer—but now we have something new to add to the nasty effects of pesticides list — Parkinson’s disease and similar neurodegenerative conditions.

New research, published in the journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology, indicates a connection between a component in Monsanto’s Roundup and Parkinson’s disease. Glyphosate is said to induce cell death, with frightening repercussions.

GreenMedInfo.com reports the study was investigating the links between herbicides (weed killers) and brain damage. These chemicals, the study’s authors say, “have been recognized as the main environmental factor associated with neurodegenerative disorders,” like Parkinson’s.

Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative nervous system disease. It slowly progresses as time goes on with common symptoms like tremors, rigidity, difficulty walking, poor posture, lack of movement, and slowness of movement, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center.

The CDC reports Parkinson’s as the 14th leading cause of death in the U.S. In 2010 (the last year for which data is available), there was 4.6% increase in the number of deaths attributed to this disease. One has to wonder if there is a connection between this jump and the ever-growing prevalence of herbicides like Roundup in our air, food, and water.

Argentinian Study Finds Roundup Ingredient Causes Birth Defects

Elizabeth Renter
Activist Post

A study out of Buenos Aires has found that glyphosate, an herbicide created by Monsanto, and used on GMO soy in Argentina, could cause birth defects in unborn children. The most interesting thing about this revelation is that the herbicide known as glyphosate in Argentina, is also known to be connected with Roundup in the U.S.

Roundup Ingredient Shown to Cause Birth Defects

According to the Latin American Herald Tribune, researchers with the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research conducted the study on amphibian embryos. The lead researcher says their results are “completely comparable to what would happen in the development of a human embryo.”