GM foods cannot be linked to falling US birth rate

Rady Ananda, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Current speculation that falling US birth rates are connected to genetically modified foods is debunked by a historical review of US birth rates. We cannot tie GM foods to falling US birth rates, yet anyway, since a look at the rate over the past 100 years shows much sharper drops than the one seen since 1996 when GM foods were deployed.

Spermicidal corn has been developed, as William Engdahl points out, and likely deployed somewhere (he suggests in Latin America or other “Third World countries”). If deployed in the US, its effects cannot be teased out from other environmental and cultural factors that contribute to a nation’s birth rate, given lack of GM food labels and subsequent safety testing.

Faulty assumptions aside, Bill Gates’ advice to use vaccines to reduce population is based on his thinking that women will not feel the need to keep reproducing if child survival rates improve.

Genetically modified cows produce 'human' milk

Scientists have created genetically modified cattle that produce "human" milk in a bid to make cows' milk more nutritious.

Holstein Milkers/Wikimedia Commons

Richard Gray
Telegraph

The scientists have successfully introduced human genes into 300 dairy cows to produce milk with the same properties as human breast milk.

Human milk contains high quantities of key nutrients that can help to boost the immune system of babies and reduce the risk of infections.

The scientists behind the research believe milk from herds of genetically modified cows could provide an alternative to human breast milk and formula milk for babies, which is often criticised as being an inferior substitute.

They hope genetically modified dairy products from herds of similar cows could be sold in supermarkets. The research has the backing of a major biotechnology company.

The work is likely to inflame opposition to GM foods. Critics of the technology and animal welfare groups reacted angrily to the research, questioning the safety of milk from genetically modified animals and its effect on the cattle's health.

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Lawsuit seeks to invalidate Monsanto’s GMO patents

Rady Ananda, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

“A new invention to poison people … is not a patentable invention.” Lowell v. Lewis, 1817

A landmark lawsuit filed on March 29 in US federal court seeks to invalidate Monsanto’s patents on genetically modified seeds and to prohibit the company from suing those whose crops become genetically contaminated.

The Public Patent Foundation filed suit on behalf of 270,000 people from sixty organic and sustainable businesses and trade associations, including thousands of certified-organic farmers.

“As Justice Story wrote in 1817, to be patentable, an invention must not be ‘injurious to the well being, good policy, or sound morals of society,’” notes the complaint in its opening paragraphs.

The suit points to studies citing harm caused by Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, including human placental damage, lymphoma, myeloma, animal miscarriages, and other impacts on human health.
Plaintiffs condemn Monsanto for prohibiting independent research on its transgenic seeds and for its successful lobby efforts to ban GM food labeling. Many raise the specter of allergic reaction to GM foods, proof of which is hidden by lack of labeling. GMO label laws, currently pending in 14 states, would partially remedy this situation. (Please contact your state reps.)

Eating Healthier, Part 1: Understanding Genetically Modified Foods and Their Dangers

Kevin Hayden, Truth is Treason
Activist Post Contributor

The adulteration and modification of some of the planet’s most widely used crops has changed our food landscape.  Chemicals, preservatives, genetic modification and low-cost substitutions and fillers have wrecked meals that were once healthy for us.  Stepping inside of a grocery store nowadays, we find ourselves in a dangerous and toxic new world.  The introduction of genetically modified organisms into the food supply in the 1990s, coupled with rampant use of carcinogens such as aspartame and substitutes like high fructose corn syrup, set up the perfect ingredients to form a deadly concoction known as processed food.  Sadly, this is what encompasses the average American diet.

Genetically modified foods, or GMOs, are now found in approximately 80% of all food in a typical grocery store.  Corn is the most widely grown genetically modified crop next to soy and canola.  And because corn is now the most common ingredient in American food products, it represents a major threat, especially as it relates to the wide-spread use of high fructose corn syrup.

Over the last few years, organic diets and fads have gained popularity.  Mediterranean cuisines and vegan lifestyles have become mainstream.  Being picky about the source of our food and its ingredients is not as fringe as it once was.  Friends tell me, “I just don’t have the time or energy to sift through all of this jargon.” or “…eating healthy costs a lot!”  Turns out that eating wisely doesn’t cost a lot more and in many cases, will save you money!

Artificial 'nano-food' could soon show up at a store near you

Ethan A. Huff
Natural News

The scientific community has once again caught food-tampering fever. Recent reports indicate that food scientists are busy developing nanoparticle-modified (NM) food that could one day end up on your dinner plate — and you may never even know about it. By shifting around nanoparticles, food scientists say that fat-free foods can taste like full-fat foods, and they can be programmed to digest more slowly–two changes that some say may help reverse the obesity epidemic.

But most of this research is going on in secret because of fears over how the public will respond. Like genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), nano-modifying food involves literally changing its molecular properties, which has never been proven safe. So naturally, consumers are likely to reject NM food if given the choice.


“These particles could be hazardous and we need to know more about their effects both in the body and in the environment,” said Frans Kampers, coordinator of research on foodnanotechnology at Wageningen and Research Center in the Netherlands. “Since these particles are very small, they can…enter cells or even the nucleus of a cell if they have the right characteristics.”

The stated goal of nanotechnology research in food is to create foods that behave differently than real ones in terms of digestion, assimilation, taste and nutritional value. By altering the “nano-structure” of food, so to speak, NM food can be programmed to make people feel fuller faster, for instance. And nutrients in food can also be nano-encapsulated to release at timed intervals to specific parts of the body.

Even though NM food has yet to see the light day, the European Union (EU) is already taking proactive steps to make sure that, if it does make it to consumers, NM food will at least be regulated and labeled. Thus, the EU has developed a research project called NanoLyse to address the “very limited knowledge [that is] available on the potential impact of engineered nanoparticles on consumers’ health.”

Sources for this story include:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68E24W20100915

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70% of World's Raw Chocolate Soon To Be Genetically Modified

Source: UNCTAD based on the data from
International Cocoa Organization, quaterly bulletin of cocoa statistics

Prevent Disease

With the intention of flooding 70% of the global cocoa supply with genetically modified (GMO) cocoa tree hybrids, a collaboration involving Mars, USDA and IBM is accelerating this process.

With primary funding from US chocolate producer Mars, the partnership includes scientists based at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the US Department of Agriculture and Science as well as researchers working at IBM’s Thomas J Watson Research Center.

The scientists are determined to finalize gene sequencing of the cocoa genome which they say will "benefit" the chocolate industry and cocoa growers in West Africa where 70 percent of the world's cocoa is produced, and in other tropical zones.

According to the global head of plant science and research at the confectionery firm, Howard-Yana Shapiro, the sequence is of great importance.

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RELATED ARTICLE:
Chocolate Prices Could Skyrocket as Cocoa Farmers Leave Business

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Indian protestors take it to the streets in defiance of GM crops

Image from The Daily Mail

Ethan A. Huff
Natural News

Many Indian farmers and concerned citizens are taking the offensive against the attempted takeover of their agriculture system by multinational biotechnology giants like Monsanto. A group known as Kisan Swaraj Yatra (KSY) has been mobilizing and gathering support from farmers, and touring the country in protest of genetically-modified (GM) crops that are destroying the nation's agriculture.

Recently, more than 50 farmers from KSY stormed Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) to demand that it stop being "the agent of multinational corporation Monsanto" with its trial of Bt cotton, brinjal and corn. According to the group, these crops significantly disrupt the domestic seed market and cause a massive reduction in income levels for farmers. And the group is making several other stops across the nation to raise awareness and create further alliances.

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RELATED ARTICLES AND SOURCES: 
7 Secret Ways We Are Being Poisoned
Activist Solutions

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Monsanto's Super Weeds Come Home to Roost

Charles Marqulis
Generation Green

There’s been much recent news aboutMonsanto paying farmers to use its competitors’ herbicides, in what many see as a last ditch effort to address the spread of superweeds created by the company’s “Roundup Ready” (RR) GMO crops.

Environmental scientists warned even before Monsanto’s “herbicide tolerant” GMO crops were approved that they would hasten the evolution of resistant weeds. For these scientists, the issue was obvious: introduction of high doses of a single chemical year after year would result in the exact conditions needed to breed resistance: weeds with resistance genes would be the only weeds that could survive and breed, leading to superweeds that are unaffected even by massive herbicide spraying.

Of course, Monsanto denied these early warnings. In a 1997 paper, Monsanto scientists claimedthat weed resistance was such a complex genetic phenomena that RR crops would be unlikely to lead to resistant weeds.  What’s even more troubling, though, is that Monsanto continued to ignore the spread of superweeds for years, and worked to persuade and threaten farmers against strategies to avoid resistance – since those strategies would have cut into the company’s sales of Roundup and RR crops.


For example, in a 2003 report, a Monsanto "Roundup technical manager" advised against crop rotation and warned farmers that using chemicals other than Roundup with RR crops would only add an unnecessary expense. Farmers have been growing Roundup Ready soy continuously for eight years, he said, without any resistance problems. Weeds were not resistant, he said, but were exhibiting "differential tolerance."

Which means, he said, farmers should simply use more Roundup to kill resistant weeds, because "if it’s a dead weed, it won’t produce seed."

Which is funny, because two years earlier, scientists in Delaware reported that ten times the recommended amount of Roundup was ineffective on a resistant weed strain (perhaps they should have tried 100 times the label amount).

In fact, Monsanto was spreading their “use more Roundup, because dead weeds don’t seed” line far and wide. In a 2003 pamphlet on “managing weed resistance” it sent to thousands of farmers, the company advised the growers to use maximum doses of Roundup and warned that switching to rotations with non-GMO crops would cost farmers money.

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EU food safety chief forced to quit GM lobby role

Jemima Roberts and Tom Levitt
The Ecologist

Questions raised over why European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) chair Diana Banati failed to make clear her connections to International Life Science Institute (ILSI), which advises biotech giants like Monsanto, Bayer and BASF

A key figure in charge of food safety within the EU has been forced to quit her director role at a pro-GM group.

European Green MEPs had called for EFSA chair Diana Banati's resignation after she had failed to disclose her seat on the board of directors of the International Life Science Institute (ILSI), which advises biotech corporations including Monsanto, Bayer and BASF.

However, she has been re-elected as chair of the European food safety watchdog after EFSA confirmed she had resigned from ‘positions which may create a potential conflict of interest'.

Campaigners said her links were 'unbelievable' and brought into question both the judgement of the EFSA’s senior management and the impartiality of the organisation as a whole.

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U.S. evangelical push for GM foods, opposition called 'ignorant'

GM Watch

BBC World Service - One Planet: The Father of Genetic Engineering....First broadcast 10:32am, 7 Oct 2010

GMWatch comment: This programme, part of the BBC World Service’s One Planet series on the environment, interviews genetic engineer Dr Roger Beachy. Beachy's interview appears to be part of a new evangelical push on the part of the US government hyping GM crops as the solution to world hunger.

In the BBC interview, Beachy claims GM is being demonized but then proceeds to demonize organic production, as he has done before (even suggesting organic food may be dangerous to eat!)

Beachy characterizes people who oppose GM crops as anti-science or just plain ignorant. He also uses straw man arguments, dismissing scientifically valid concerns about the uncontrollability of GM contamination with a story about a man who (according to Beachy) had an irrational concern about potatoes being contaminated by GM corn or cotton.

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