News regarding the dangers of GMOs and biotech, and the advantages of organic sustainable agriculture.
France Bans Sale of Monsanto Herbicide Roundup in Garden Centers
French Ecology Minister Segolene Royal announced today a ban on the sale of popular weedkiller Roundup from garden centres, which the UN has warned may be carcinogenic. The active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, was in March classified as "probably carcinogenic to humans" by the UN's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The weedkiller, used by amateur gardeners as well as farmers, is the star product of American biotechnology giant Monsanto. "France must be on the offensive with regards to the banning of pesticides," Royal said on French television. "I have asked garden centres to stop putting Monsanto's Roundup on sale" in self-service aisles, she added.
Supermarket Chains in Europe to Remove Glyphosate Weed Killer from Shelves
Swiss supermarket giants Coop and Migros have announced that they will no longer sell products that contain glyphosate, following the World Health Organization’s report stating that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen. They have also announced that they will be exploring non-toxic alternative weed-killers. Coop’s and Migros’s decisions followed German giant retailer REWE Group’s decision, announced in early May, to remove glyphosate herbicides from the shelves of their 350 ‘toom Baumarkt DIY’ starting in September.
Oregon Grass-fed Ranchers Face Criminal Charges for Grazing Animals
The latest from Paradise Ranch: The judge has ordered that all the animals we are charged with neglecting be forfeited unless we pay a bond of $39,780 by 4 p.m. Pacific time, Thursday, June 11. Unless we come up with the money by that time, 35 of our animals (cows and their calves, yearlings, and a boar) will be forfeited. On Tuesday, January 27, 2015 we became accused criminals. The Union County Sheriff’s Department served us with a search and seizure warrant after several animals died over an extended period of time. The next day, they confiscated every head of livestock from our Summerville, Oregon property on the grounds of “criminal neglect”—but nothing more specific than that. They stole our breeding boar and sow, 6 mules, 5 horses, 23 yearling calves, 2 bulls, 4 steers, and 43 cows. The mother cows represent years of genetic selection for cows that will do well living on pasture and eating only grass. Almost all of our mother cows, all of our future beef, and hog breeding stock were taken. This is the majority of our livestock. Prior to the seizure, law enforcement had not presented us with any specific concerns that they wanted to see addressed. They did not work with us to have a veterinarian come on the property to assess our animals. They did not ask to see our hay purchase records to confirm how much hay we were buying and feeding. They had never cited us for lack of appropriate care for our livestock. This led us to think we were meeting their expectations. But in a matter of hours, they took our past, present, and future.
All Eyes on Jackson County Oregon as GMO Ban Survives Legal Challenge and Takes Effect
This past weekend (June 6, 2015) a historic ban on growing GMO crops went into effect in Jackson County, Oregon. The ban was the result of a ballot initiative in 2014, where citizens voted overwhelmingly to ban the growing of GMO crops in Jackson County, Oregon, by a 65.9% to 34.1% measure. This was seen as a significant victory, since the corporate opposition to the GMO ban spent over $1 million to try and defeat the measure. Just after the GMO ban ballot initiative was passed, two GMO alfalfa farmers sued Jackson County saying the GMO ban would cause them undue financial hardship and violated their constitutional rights. But a federal judge rejected their request to block the ban on May 30th. U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke ruled that the GMO ban is not pre-empted by Oregon's "right to farm" law. Non-GMO farmers now seem to have a clear path to sue GMO farmers if their crops are contaminated by GMO crops in Jackson County, which would be a first in the U.S.
Monsanto Funds “Reporter Boot Camp” for Food Journalists
The Washington, DC-based National Press Foundation announced that they're taking applications for an upcoming all-expenses-paid journalism conference called "Food, From Farm to Table." The conference promises to "take a holistic look at the issues: hunger, food waste, organic, GMOs, food science, feeding the world’s growing population, and more." That's cool, if you don't mind that one of its major sponsors is Monsanto, that the program includes a visit to the controversial agrobiotech company's research labs, or that this sounds a whole lot more like a press junket than a journalism conference.
Glyphosate Causes Cancer: EPA “Trade Secret” Sealed Files Reveal Cancer Link Known Back in the 1970s
In 2015, Dr. Anthony Samsel was interviewed by Tony Mitra, where he discussed certain documents he has in his possession from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that allegedly show Monsanto knew about research connecting glyphosate to cancer since the 1970s. Dr. Samsel states that the documents he received from the EPA are "trade secret" documents belonging to Monsanto. These documents allegedly are safety studies about glyphosate from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, and others beyond those dates. Monsanto allegedly asked the EPA to seal these documents as "trade secrets" so no one else could review the data from these studies. Dr. Samsel stated that he is still sifting through all the data from these sealed documents, and that he is about to write a paper on glyphosate and cancer. He states that these "trade secret" documents are documents that Monsanto had the EPA seal so that nobody could revisit the data. According to Samsel, these documents show: "unequivocally, that glyphosate causes cancer. Should it be on the market? No. Should it be in our food? No." He states that taking glyphosate off the market will not necessarily solve the problem if they substitute it with another herbicide. "No herbicide belongs in our food. Whether it is 2,4-D, Dicamba, Glufosinate.... there should be no herbicides in our food because it disrupts our bacterial homeostasis, and it disrupts our immune system. When we disrupt our bacteria and the microbiota within us, disease ensues. Disease begins with the destruction of our microbiome."
Avian Flu Outbreak Among Chickens—How Long Can we Continue this Failed Food System?
Three large egg-producing states in the US are in the midst of an avian flu outbreak. Iowa declared a state of emergency on May 1. Minnesota and Wisconsin declared states of emergency last month. It’s estimated that 25 percent of all chickens in Iowa have been infected, and millions of chickens and turkeys in the three states have already been killed in an effort to contain the disease. This outbreak is really not surprising. In fact, it's exactly what you can expect when you dramatically disrupt the natural order of things, and produce food under wholly unnatural circumstances. Confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are major warehouse-style growing facilities where animals are crowded together by the thousands, or in the case of chickens, tens of thousands. These animals are fed a completely unnatural diet of glyphosate-containing genetically engineered (GE) grains mixed with antibiotics—a surefire recipe for drug resistance and out-of-control spread of disease
Sri Lankan President Orders Immediate Ban on Glyphosate
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena today announced that the imports and release of the agrochemical Glyphosate will be banned with immediate effect. The President, who was the Health Minister of the former government, said the government has decided to totally ban the imports of Glyphosate, which is linked to the kidney disease, as the number of kidney patients was surging.
Study: Over 40% Of U.S. Bee Colonies Died Past Year – Situation “Unheard Of”
The United States has lost more than 40% of its bee colonies this past year according to a new national survey. Oklahoma, Illinois, Iowa, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Maine and Wisconsin all saw more than 60 percent of their hives die since April 2014, according to the survey. There can be no doubt that modern agriculture with its emphasis on GMOs and chemicals is a huge part of the problem. Dr. Don Huber has shown a connection between glyphosate, the active ingredient in the world's most common pesticide, Roundup, and bee colony losses.
Will Foods Contaminated with Glyphosate have to Carry a Prop 65 Cancer Warning to be Sold in California?
In late March, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a division of the World Health Organization (WHO), determined that glyphosate—the active ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup—is a Class 2 A “probable carcinogen.” This determination is nothing short of devastating to Monsanto and other chemical technology companies that rule our food supply, and recent “astroturf” attack on Dr. Oz reveals just how desperate they are to quell rising concerns. Not only is the IARC considered the global gold standard for carcinogenicity studies, it’s also one of the research agencies from which the California agency of environmental hazards gets its data to declare carcinogens under Prop 65. So, eventually, foods containing glyphosate will likely have to carry a Prop 65 cancer warning label to be sold in California.
Campaign Against Glyphosate Steps Up in Latin America
After the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared glyphosate a probable carcinogen, the campaign has intensified in Latin America to ban the herbicide, which is employed on a massive scale on transgenic crops. It is used not only on transgenic crops but also on vegetables, tobacco, fruit trees and plantation forests of pine or eucalyptus, as well as in urban gardens and flowerbeds and along railways. Stédile, who is also a member of the international small farmers movement Vía Campesina, hopes this region and Europe will ban its use in agriculture, as Mexico, Russia and the Netherlands have done. As an alternative, he proposed “agroecological production that combines scientific know-how with the age-old knowledge of peasant farmers, to develop crops without the use of poisons, suited to each ecosystem.” That methodology has increased “the productivity of the soil and labour, better than practices that use poisons,” he said.
Monsanto sued in Los Angeles County for False Advertising on Glyphosate Claim
On April 21, 2015 a class action lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles County, California against the Monsanto corporation. The suit alleges that Monsanto is guilty of false advertising by claiming that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, targets an enzyme only found in plants and not in humans or animals. Monsanto makes this claim to support the contention that glyphosate is harmless to humans. In the lawsuit, the argument is made that the targeted enzyme, EPSP synthase, is found in the microbiota which reside in our intestines and therefore this enzyme is found in humans and animals. It is further stated in the lawsuit that there are many human and animal health problems associated with the disruption of our intestinal microbes. Residents of California can become members of the class in this action.
Stop Seed Laws that Criminalize Farmers Who Use Local Seeds
Seeds are under attack everywhere. Under corporate pressure, laws in many countries increasingly put limitations on what farmers can do with their seeds and with the seeds they buy. Seed saving, a thousand-year-old practice which forms the basis of farming, is fast becoming criminalised. What can we do about this?
Food And Chemical Companies Spent $63.6 Million In 2014 To Defeat GMO Labeling
Food and biotechnology companies spent $63.6 million in 2014 alone to oppose mandatory labeling of genetically modified food ingredients, or GMOs, according to a new analysis by EWG. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, for example, disclosed $5.8 million in lobbying expenditures around GMO labeling in 2014, “up sharply from $60,000 in 2013,” according to the analysis. PepsiCo nearly doubled the amount it spent, dedicating more than $4 million to the anti-labeling effort in 2014, up from 2.6 million in 2013. Other iconic companies that spent big in 2014 to deny consumers the right to know if their foods contain GMOs include Kellogg ($2.1 million), General Mills ($2.6 million) and Coca-Cola, which put up more than $9 million – the most of any food company, according to the report.
Glyphosate Is Spreading Like A Cancer Across The U.S.
American growers sprayed 280 million pounds of glyphosate on their crops in 2012, according to U.S. Geological Survey data. That amounts to nearly a pound of glyphosate for every person in the country. The use of glyphosate on farmland has skyrocketed since the mid-1990s, when biotech companies introduced genetically engineered crop varieties (often called GMOs) that can withstand being blasted with glyphosate. Since then, agricultural use of the herbicide has increased 16-fold. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, Monsanto’s widely used weed killer, which according to the World Health Organization is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
Study: RoundUp Causes Cell Death to Human Placenta Cells at Levels Allowed in Drinking Water
Roundup is an endocrine disruptor and is toxic to human cells in vitro (tested in culture dishes in the laboratory) at levels permitted in drinking water in Australia, a recent study has found. This is the first study to examine the effects of glyphosate and Roundup on progesterone production by human female cells in an in vitro system that models key aspects of reproduction in women. Glyphosate alone was less toxic to human cells than glyphosate in a Roundup formulation; both glyphosate and Roundup caused chorioplacental JAr cell death which resulted in decreased progesterone levels – a form of hormone/endocrine disruption. Endocrine disruption did not precede the toxicity to cells but occurred after it. The decreases in progesterone concentrations were caused by reduced numbers of viable cells.
Texas Scientists Find Antibiotic Resistant “Super Bugs” Traveling Through the Air from Cattle Feed Lots
Phil Smith and Texas Tech University colleague Greg Mayer may have made their biggest discovery yet: DNA from antibiotic-resistant bacteria in cattle feedlots is airborne. For years, scientists have known that humans can contract antibiotic-resistant bacteria by consuming contaminated meat or water. The findings by Smith and Mayer indicate that humans could also be exposed to so-called "super bugs" or "super bacteria" traveling through the air. "This is the first test to open our eyes to the fact that we could be breathing these things," said Smith, an environmental toxicologist at Texas Tech.
Glyphosate Testing Skyrockets After WHO Report on Cancer
U.S. consumer groups, scientists and food companies are testing substances ranging from breakfast cereal to breast milk for residues of the world's most widely used herbicide on rising concerns over its possible links to disease. The focus is on glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. Testing has increased in the last two years, but scientists say requests spiked after a World Health Organization research unit said last month it was classifying glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans." "The requests keep coming in," said Ben Winkler, laboratory manager at Microbe Inotech Laboratories in St. Louis. The commercial lab has received three to four requests a week to test foods and other substances for glyphosate residues. In prior years, it received only three to four requests annually, according to its records. Tests by Abraxis found glyphosate residues in 41 of 69 honey samples and in 10 of 28 soy sauces; Microbe tests detected glyphosate in three of 18 breast milk samples and in six of 40 infant formula samples.
Organic Producers Sue USDA for Changing Organic Rules without Public Input
Organic stakeholders have filed a lawsuit in federal court, maintaining that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) violated the federal rulemaking process when it changed established procedures for reviewing the potential hazards and need for allowed synthetic and prohibited natural substances used in producing organic food. The unilateral agency action taken to adopt major policy change without a public process, the plaintiffs maintain, violates one of the foundational principles and practices of OFPA -public participation in organic policy-making.
Study: Herbicides Used with GM Crops Alter Antibiotic Resistance of Disease-causing Bacteria
A 2015 study was published looking at the effects of three widely used herbicides on disease-causing bacteria and their susceptibility to antibiotics. The three herbicides are dicamba, 2,4-D (recently approved by the U.S. EPA), and glyphosate. In what is believed to be the first study of its kind, they researches found that these popular herbicides affected the bacteria responded to antibiotics, often developing a resistance to them.