Food Freedom or Fight
25 Feb 2014 1 Comment
in Consolidation, Control, Disease, FDA, Food Destruction Agency, food safety, GMO's, Uncategorized, USDA
As anyone who follows the approval of FDA and USDA “science” knows, we no longer have much at all in the way of actual science. Instead we have black balling of those who don’t tote the corporate line, and science based studies that have nothing to do with legitimate science and the scientific method we are supposed to learn in school.
The following interview by Democracy Now! has clearly exposed the issue. Check it out:
21 Feb 2014 1 Comment
in Agenda 21, Consolidation, Conspiracy, Control, food, food safety, GMO's Tags: corporate agriculture, GMO coalition, GMO's safe, safe affordable food
As expected, the promoters of GMO food are now beginning a broad push on the federal level to pre-empt the ability of consumers to know that they are eating stuff that was never part of creation and is more like sprinkling pesticide and herbicides on nearly everything you eat than ingesting food.
With nearly everything in our country, you can look at the corporations behind any social movement and figure out whether it is of the people, or of the corporations. People tend to want personal choice and informed consent, and corporations look at people as revenue generators and something to be exploited.
At this point in our nation’s history, it looks to me like the only thing we can do to try to provide for ourselves and our families is to grow as much of our own food as possible, and what we cannot produce we need to get from others who are growing their own food as well. We will never be able to fight Monsanto, Farm Bureau, Dupont, Bayer, Cargill, ADM, Bunge, Tyson, IBP and the banking structure in the legislature. They can give way more in the realm of political donations than we can, so the only justice we can seek must come from each other.
Here is the article from their “Coalition for Safe Affordable Food” website. Please read down to the bottom and view all their members. It’s illuminating:
Broad-Based Coalition Launched to Advocate for Congressional Action on a Federal GMO Labeling Solution
Legislation Needed to Protect Consumers by Eliminating Confusion and Advancing Food Safety
(Washington, D.C.) American farmers and representatives from a diverse group of almost thirty industry and non-governmental organizations today announced the formation of the Coalition for Safe Affordable Food (www.CFSAF.org) and urged Congress to quickly seek a federal solution that would establish standards for the safety and labeling of food and beverage products made with genetically modified ingredients (GMOs).
“American families deserve safe, abundant and affordable food,” said Martin Barbre, President of the National Corn Growers. “And America’s farmers rely on this proven technology to protect crops from insects, weeds and drought, enabling us to deliver on that promise and to do so through sustainable means. A federal solution on GMO labeling will bolster consumer confidence in the safety of American food by reaffirming the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) role as the nation’s foremost authority on the use and labeling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients.”
A federal GMO labeling solution is needed that will protect consumers and ensure the safety of food ingredients made through the use of modern agricultural biotechnology:
• Eliminate Confusion: Remove the confusion and uncertainty of a 50 state patchwork of GMO safety and labeling laws and affirm the FDA as the nation’s authority for the use and labeling of genetically modified food ingredients.
• Advance Food Safety: Require the FDA to conduct a safety review of all new GMO traits before they are introduced into commerce. FDA will be empowered to mandate the labeling of GMO food ingredients if the agency determines there is a health, safety or nutrition issue with an ingredient derived from a GMO.
• Inform Consumers: The FDA will establish federal standards for companies that want to voluntarily label their product for the absence-of or presence-of GMO food ingredients so that consumers clearly understand their choices in the marketplace.
• Provide Consistency: The FDA will define the term “natural” for its use on food and beverage products so that food and beverage companies and consumers have a consistent legal framework that will guide food labels and inform consumer choice.
“Foods made with genetically modified ingredients (GMOs) are safe and have a number of important benefits for people and our planet,” said Pamela G. Bailey, president and CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association. “Our nation’s food safety and labeling laws should not be set by political campaigns or state and local legislatures, but by the FDA, the nation’s foremost food safety agency.
“GMO technology has fostered a revolution in American agriculture that has benefitted consumers in the United States and around the world. And with global population expected to grow from seven to nine billion by 2050, we will need 70% more food production to keep pace. A federal GMO labeling solution will provide a framework for the safe and continued use of technology that is essential to the future of our planet.”
Facts About GMOs (www.FactsAboutGMOs.org )
• Many of the most influential regulatory agencies and organizations that study the safety of the food supply, including the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, Health Canada, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Academy of Sciences, have found genetically modified food ingredients (GMOs) are safe and there are no negative health effects associated with their use.
• GM technology adds desirable traits from nature, without introducing anything unnatural or using chemicals, so that food is more plentiful.
• GM technology is not new. In fact, it has been around for the past 20 years, and today, 70-80% of the foods we eat in the United States, both at home and away from home, contain ingredients that have been genetically modified.
• Ingredients grown using GM technology require fewer pesticides, less water and keep production costs down. In fact, GM technology helps reduce the price of crops used for food, such as corn, soybeans and sugar beets by as much as 15-30%.
• One in eight people among the world’s growing population of seven billion do not have enough to eat, and safe and effective methods of food production, like crops produced through GM technology, can help us feed the hungry and malnourished in developing nations around the world.
###
The Coalition for Safe Affordable Food is dedicated to providing policy makers, media, consumers and all stakeholders with the facts about ingredients grown through GM technology. We are also an advocate for common sense policy solutions that will only further enhance the safety of the GM crops and protect the vital role they play in today’s modern global food supply chain. The coalition is comprised of American farmers and representatives from a diverse group of industry and non-governmental organizations.
Coalition Members
1. AACC International/ American Phytopathological Society
2. American Bakers Association
3. American Beverage Association
4. American Farm Bureau Federation
5. American Feed Industry Association
6. American Frozen Food Institute
7. American Seed Trade Association
8. American Soybean Association
9. American Sugarbeet Growers Association
10. Biotechnology Industry Organization
11. Corn Refiners Association
12. Council for Responsible Nutrition
13. Flavor & Extract Manufacturers Association
14. Global Cold Chain Alliance
15. Grocery Manufacturers Association
16. International Dairy Foods Association
17. International Franchise Association
18. National Association of Manufacturers
19. National Association of Wheat Growers
20. National Confectioners Association
21. National Corn Growers Association
22. National Council of Farmer Cooperatives
23. National Grain & Feed Association
24. National Fisheries Institute
25. National Oilseed Processors Association
26. National Restaurant Association
27. National Turkey Federation
28. North American Millers Association
29. Pet Food Institute
30. Snack Food Association
31. U.S. Beet Sugar Association
Contact: Claire Parker
Coalition for Safe Affordable Food Press Office
703-888-9395
press@cfsaf.org
21 Jan 2014 Leave a comment
in Agenda 21, Consolidation, Conspiracy, Control, Disease, Enforcement, GMO's
In the continual battle for the right to not be invaded with bacterial or viral plants, those of us wishing to keep nature as close to undefiled as possible are gaining a larger percentage of the population and being defeated by the global govicorp entirely too often. Hawaii is dealing with this more than most now. Here’s an article about it:
The battle rages on between the deep pockets of agribusiness and the resilience and growing numbers of those against the genetic alteration of our food. In a desperate attempt to stop the spread of anti-GMO laws in Hawaii, DuPont, Syngenta and Agrigenetics, Inc. have filed a lawsuit against Kauai’s ordinance restricting GMO use.
The law in place since last November on the island of Kauai requires disclosure of pesticides and GMO varieties, and also maintains GMO and pesticide-free ‘buffer zones’ surrounding homes, hospitals and schools. Seems more than reasonable, right? Not according to the three biotech giants, who have filed suit in Honolulu district court, claiming that the law is ‘unconstitutional.’
Not only do DuPont, Syngenta and Agrigenetics want to repeal this law, they are also seeking an injunction which would permanently prohibit its enforcement.
Syngenta spokesperson Paul Minehart said, “the ordinance is invalid. It arbitrarily targets our industry with burdensome and baseless restrictions on farming operations by attempting to regulate activities over which counties in Hawaii have no jurisdiction. These activities are already regulated by governmental agencies under state and federal laws.”
However, just because GMOs are federally approved does not make placing restrictions on them “baseless.” The Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT) points to multiple studies that have associated GMOs with major health issues including immune system problems, changes in organ systems including the digestive system, infertility, insulin regulation complications and antibiotic resistance.
On this new lawsuit by the three biotech companies, Kauai County Councilman Gary Hooser, one of the council members who introduced the anti-GMO law, commented, “they chose to use their money and legal power to bully us in the courts. These companies do not want our county to set a precedent that other communities are going to follow.”
Indeed, Kauai’s example is being followed. A month after the Kauai bill became a law, a law on Hawaii’s Big Island was enacted prohibiting any new GMOs to be grown. Maui has a similar legislation to Kauai’s currently making its way through the courts. Additionally, almost half of all US states have some form of GMO labeling legislation in the works.
DuPont, Syngenta and Agrigenetics, Inc. are afraid that losing their grip on Kauai will mean losing their grip on many other locations. Part of the lawsuit states that Kauai provides, “the invaluable opportunity to triple or quadruple the pace of development of GM crops.” This is exactly what health-conscious consumers hope to stop.
The GMO manufacturers are scared. They may continue feeding money into similar lawsuits, but eventually they will have to concede to the fact that the tides are shifting against them, and realize that more and more Americans want nothing to do with GMOs.
-The Alternative Daily
14 Jan 2014 Leave a comment
in Agenda 21, Consolidation, Control, GMO's Tags: gmo, No GMO's, Tasmania
Maybe I’ll move to Tasmania.
In a victory for the GMO Free movement in Australia the Tasmanian Government announced Thursday that it has extended the state’s ban on genetically modified crops and animals indefinitely.
Tasmania, the only state in Australia that has a blanket ban on GM crops, has been GMO free since 2001, however the moratorium was set to end in November 2014.
Following a very clear consultation process with local farming and environmental groups, the Tasmanian government decided to announce Thursday that it would continue to protect Tasmania’s clean and green brand by extending the ban indefinitely.
Deputy Premier Bryan Green told ABC that making the ban indefinite will protect the state’s GMO-free brand.
Federal Senator Lin Thorp, who has led the push against GM in Tasmania and was a member of the state government that introduced the moratorium in 2001, said that Tasmania, as an island, can use its isolation and clean environment to “overcome the tyranny of distance and the difficulties of the size of our ventures” by producing GM-free food “that people are prepared to pay a premium for”.
The state’s agriculture industry bodies were also mostly united in their support for maintaining the moratorium. Tasmania’s honey growers even threatened to cease crop pollination services if the ban ended because GM contamination would have destroyed their lucrative European and Asian markets.
Most Tasmanian farmers have not taken an ideological position on GMOs. They have simply judged that GMO Free products give them a huge advantage, a view that is being supported by more and more farmers worldwide.
Tasmania’s Unique GMO policy:
08 Nov 2013 3 Comments
in Agenda 21, Consolidation, Food Destruction Agency, GMO's Tags: gmo, GMO Labeling, Issue 522
The most telling thing in this article is the amount of money spent by out of state interests in the “NO” camp of GMO labeling. It’s one of those ridiculous things that, to me, illustrates just how corrupt and non-representative our political process has become. We are so free, we can’t even know for certain what is in our food. And what’s more, we can’t buy it from each other without the oversight of those who want to tell us that “Round Up Ready” corn, etc is not significantly different enough from regular old corn to warrant either testing or labeling. However, it is significantly different enough to allow a life form to be patented. They are out to take care of you alright. Like taking care of a sick chicken.
At any rate, here’s an article on the issue:
Washington state voters on Tuesday rejected an initiative that would have required foods containing genetically engineered ingredients to be labeled.
The vote was 54.8% opposed to labeling and 45.2% in favor of it.
Had it passed, Initiative 522 would have made the state the first in the nation to require such labeling.
The initiative was the most expensive in state history, though it was largely fought by out-of-state interests.
The No on 522 campaign set a record for fundraising, bringing in $22 million in donations according to The Seattle Times. Just $550 came from Washington residents, according to the newspaper. The top five contributors were the Grocery Manufacturers Association, Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer, Dow AgroSciences and Bayer CropScience.
The largest donor to the pro-labeling campaign were California-based Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps and the Center for Food Safety in Washington, D.C. However the initiative garnered almost 30% of its funding from individuals in Washington state, the Times reported.
Food industry ads claimed that the initiative would raise food prices. Labels would mislead consumers into thinking that products that contain genetically engineered ingredients are “somehow different, unsafe or unhealthy,” said Brian Kennedy of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a food industry group based in Washington, D.C.
The Yes on 522 campaigns emphasized consumers right to know what’s in their food.
The Washington initiative was part of an ongoing national fight by those opposed to genetically engineered crops to push for labeling. A similar,bruising $37 million battle in California in 2012 went against labeling advocates. The final vote was 51.4% opposed and 48.6% in favor.
“Sooner or later, one of these is going to pass. It’s only a matter of time. At some point the industry is going to get tired of pouring this kind of money into these campaigns,” said Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University.
She said she doesn’t believe there’s anything dangerous about genetically engineered foods but is concerned about corporate control of the food supply.
Genetically engineered crops have a gene from another plant inserted into them to give them some ability they didn’t have before.
There are two common genetic modifications. One is for herbicide tolerance: Plants are given a gene that protects them from harm when a farmer sprays them with herbicides to kill weeds. The other is a gene from a soil bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis that allows plants to produce their own insecticide.
A huge proportion of commodity crops grown by U.S. farmers are genetically engineered: 97% of the nation’s sugar beets, 93% of the soybeans, 90% of the cotton and 90% of the feed corn for animals, according to the 2013 figures from the Department of Agriculture.
About 60% of the papaya grown in the United States, all in Hawaii, has been genetically engineered to allow it to withstand the ringspot virus, which virtually wiped out papaya production in the islands in the 1980s, according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications.
Very small amounts of genetically engineered zucchini, yellow squash and sweet corn are also sold in the United States.
The Food and Drug Administration does not require foods containing genetically engineered ingredients to be labeled because it considers them “functionally equivalent” to conventionally grown crops.
23 Oct 2013 Leave a comment
in GMO's Tags: Mexico Bans Monsanto
Mexico shows us what to do….
It hasn’t been a good week for Monsanto and the rest of the biotech industry.
Just three days ago, Mexico banned genetically engineered corn. Citing the risk of imminent harm to the environment, a Mexican judge ruled that, effective immediately, no genetically engineered corn can be planted in the country. This means that companies like Monsanto will no longer be allowed to plant or sell their corn within the country’s borders.
At the same time, the County Council for the island of Kauai passed a law that mandates farms to disclose pesticide use and the presence of genetically modified crops. The bill also requires a 500-foot buffer zone near medical facilities, schools and homes — among other locations.
And the big island of Hawaii County Council gave preliminary approval to a bill that prohibits open air cultivation, propagation, development or testing of genetically engineered crops or plants. The bill, which still needs further confirmation to become law, would also prohibit biotech companies from operating on the Big Island.
But perhaps the biggest bombshell of all is now unfolding in Washington state. The mail-in ballot state’s voters are already weighing in on Initiative 522, which would mandate the labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Knowing full well that 93 percent of the American public supports GMO labeling, and that if one state passes it, many others are likely to follow, entrenched agribusiness interests are pulling out all the stops to try to squelch yet another state labeling effort.
This time, however, things aren’t going quite as planned. On Wednesday, Washington state Attorney General Bob Feguson filed a lawsuit against the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA). The GMA, a lobby for the junk food industry, has been by far the largest donor to efforts to defeat the labeling initiative. The lawsuit alleged that the GMA illegally collected and spent more than $7 million while shielding the identity of its contributors.
The source of the money has now been exposed, and it turns out to be Pepsico, Coca-Cola, NestleUSA, General Mills and a few other junk food companies. The lawsuit revealed that GMA leadership held a series of secret meetings to plot how to perpetrate a money laundering scheme and illegally hide member donations from Washington state voters, in direct violation of campaign disclosure laws.
Unlike the junk food companies that feared consumer backlash, Monsanto hasn’t even bothered to hide the more than $4 million the company has given to the “no” campaign. In fact, GMA, Monsanto and a handful of other corporate donors have now broken a state record by pouring more than $17 million into their effort to stop Washington’s GMO labeling ballot initiative.
Voting is already underway in Washington, and the final ballots will be cast on November 5. The “yes” side is ahead in the most recent polls, but supporters of the right to know fear that a barrage of heavily funded and misleading ads could sour voters to the initiative.
They remember that just last year, California’s Proposition 37 was well ahead in the polls until Monsanto and its allies spent more than $46 million on their campaign in the Golden State.
All this label fighting and money laundering leads to some very significant questions. Why are Monsanto and the junk food industry willing to spend many tens of millions of dollars every year trying to keep you in the dark about your food? What doesn’t big food want you to know? And what are they afraid might happen if you did?
Monsanto tells us that their products are about the best thing to come along since sliced bread. For years they’ve been promising that GMOs would reduce pesticide use, increase yields, reduce water consumption, and offer foods that are more tasty and more nutritious.
I wish they were right.
But in the 20 years since GMO crops first came on the market, studies have found that they have led to higher pesticide use, and no meaningful improvement in flavor, nutrition, yield or water requirements. Instead, what they’ve created are plants that are engineered to withstand massive dosing of toxic herbicides, and plants that function as living pesticide factories. Monsanto’s Bt. corn, for example, is actually registered with the EPA as a pesticide.
With concern about GMOs growing fast, and with the public being pummeled with vast amounts of misinformation, there is a tremendous need for clear, accurate and reliable information about GMOs. In response, the 100,000+ member Food Revolution Network and the Institute for Responsible Technology are co-sponsoring a free online GMO Mini-Summit. From October 25-27, some of the top GMO experts on the planet will be providing insights and clear calls to action in this teleseminar that is also being broadcast without charge on the Internet. Monsanto probably isn’t too happy about the prospect of tens of thousands of people getting informed and mobilized. But if you love life, safe food, and the truth, then you might want to check it out.
And if you want to lend a hand to getting out the vote in the state of Washington, you can sign up to volunteer here.
Nobody knows what’s going to happen in Washington between now and November 5. But from Mexico, to Hawaii and to the 64 nations that already have GMO labeling, this tide just might be turning.
Maybe we, the people, do get a say in what we know, and what we eat, after all.
Ocean Robbins is co-author of Voices of the Food Revolution, and serves as adjunct professor for Chapman University and CEO and co-host (with best-selling author John Robbins) of the 100,000+ member Food Revolution Network. The GMO Mini-Summit starts October 25. Find out more here.
It hasn’t been a good week for Monsanto and the rest of the biotech industry.
Just three days ago, Mexico banned genetically engineered corn. Citing the risk of imminent harm to the environment, a Mexican judge ruled that, effective immediately, no genetically engineered corn can be planted in the country. This means that companies like Monsanto will no longer be allowed to plant or sell their corn within the country’s borders.
At the same time, the County Council for the island of Kauai passed a law that mandates farms to disclose pesticide use and the presence of genetically modified crops. The bill also requires a 500-foot buffer zone near medical facilities, schools and homes — among other locations.
And the big island of Hawaii County Council gave preliminary approval to a bill that prohibits open air cultivation, propagation, development or testing of genetically engineered crops or plants. The bill, which still needs further confirmation to become law, would also prohibit biotech companies from operating on the Big Island.
But perhaps the biggest bombshell of all is now unfolding in Washington state. The mail-in ballot state’s voters are already weighing in on Initiative 522, which would mandate the labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Knowing full well that 93 percent of the American public supports GMO labeling, and that if one state passes it, many others are likely to follow, entrenched agribusiness interests are pulling out all the stops to try to squelch yet another state labeling effort.
This time, however, things aren’t going quite as planned. On Wednesday, Washington state Attorney General Bob Feguson filed a lawsuit against the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA). The GMA, a lobby for the junk food industry, has been by far the largest donor to efforts to defeat the labeling initiative. The lawsuit alleged that the GMA illegally collected and spent more than $7 million while shielding the identity of its contributors.
The source of the money has now been exposed, and it turns out to be Pepsico, Coca-Cola, NestleUSA, General Mills and a few other junk food companies. The lawsuit revealed that GMA leadership held a series of secret meetings to plot how to perpetrate a money laundering scheme and illegally hide member donations from Washington state voters, in direct violation of campaign disclosure laws.
Unlike the junk food companies that feared consumer backlash, Monsanto hasn’t even bothered to hide the more than $4 million the company has given to the “no” campaign. In fact, GMA, Monsanto and a handful of other corporate donors have now broken a state record by pouring more than $17 million into their effort to stop Washington’s GMO labeling ballot initiative.
Voting is already underway in Washington, and the final ballots will be cast on November 5. The “yes” side is ahead in the most recent polls, but supporters of the right to know fear that a barrage of heavily funded and misleading ads could sour voters to the initiative.
They remember that just last year, California’s Proposition 37 was well ahead in the polls until Monsanto and its allies spent more than $46 million on their campaign in the Golden State.
All this label fighting and money laundering leads to some very significant questions. Why are Monsanto and the junk food industry willing to spend many tens of millions of dollars every year trying to keep you in the dark about your food? What doesn’t big food want you to know? And what are they afraid might happen if you did?
Monsanto tells us that their products are about the best thing to come along since sliced bread. For years they’ve been promising that GMOs would reduce pesticide use, increase yields, reduce water consumption, and offer foods that are more tasty and more nutritious.
I wish they were right.
But in the 20 years since GMO crops first came on the market, studies have found that they have led to higher pesticide use, and no meaningful improvement in flavor, nutrition, yield or water requirements. Instead, what they’ve created are plants that are engineered to withstand massive dosing of toxic herbicides, and plants that function as living pesticide factories. Monsanto’s Bt. corn, for example, is actually registered with the EPA as a pesticide.
With concern about GMOs growing fast, and with the public being pummeled with vast amounts of misinformation, there is a tremendous need for clear, accurate and reliable information about GMOs. In response, the 100,000+ member Food Revolution Network and the Institute for Responsible Technology are co-sponsoring a free online GMO Mini-Summit. From October 25-27, some of the top GMO experts on the planet will be providing insights and clear calls to action in this teleseminar that is also being broadcast without charge on the Internet. Monsanto probably isn’t too happy about the prospect of tens of thousands of people getting informed and mobilized. But if you love life, safe food, and the truth, then you might want to check it out.
And if you want to lend a hand to getting out the vote in the state of Washington, you can sign up to volunteer here.
Nobody knows what’s going to happen in Washington between now and November 5. But from Mexico, to Hawaii and to the 64 nations that already have GMO labeling, this tide just might be turning.
Maybe we, the people, do get a say in what we know, and what we eat, after all.
Ocean Robbins is co-author of Voices of the Food Revolution, and serves as adjunct professor for Chapman University and CEO and co-host (with best-selling author John Robbins) of the 100,000+ member Food Revolution Network. The GMO Mini-Summit starts October 25. Find out more here.
23 Oct 2013 Leave a comment
in Consolidation, Conspiracy, Control, Disease, farm loss, food, food safety, GMO's, WTO Tags: GMO Summit, Huber, Jeffrey Smith, John Robbins, monsanto, Thierry Vrain, Vandana Shiva
This weekend a tremendous opportunity to learn pretty much everything you have ever wondered about regarding Genetically Modified Organisms is taking place. This is the online GMO Summit, put on by John Robbins, and Jeffrey Smith. Allergies, cancer, diabetes, fertility, obesity, all of these are connected to GMO’s and the science is in and decidedly clear. The myriads of effects pertaining to the consumption and exposure to both Round Up and Round Up Ready plant varieties and other types of GMO’s will be discussed in detail by a massive panel of experts including Jeffrey Smith, Thierry Vrain, Vandana Shiva, Sara Gottfried, Don Huber, Joseph Mercola, and more.
Best of all, you don’t have to spend any time traveling to take part in this GMO Summit. So you can listen and study, and take notes and even have a get together and have your own GMO Mini Summit in your own home!
Here’s some more info on it:
You’ll get FREE access to highly focused half-hour interviews – personally conducted by Jeffrey and me – every day for the entire 3 days of the summit. You can listen via phone (conference call), or over the Internet.
PLUS
You’ll get access to even MORE SECOND WAVE EXPERT PRESENTATIONS over the following 5 weeks. These experts will give you even more critical insights in some of the specific areas that matter most to your life.
What if you miss an interview? No problem! There are recordings, transcripts, and many other AWESOME bonus resources that will be available as part of an optional upgrade package. You can get all the specially recorded Second Wave Expert Presentations on the day the Summit starts!
Never before has there been such an informative event on GMOs, with so many world-renowned experts and activists in the field.
And never before has it been this easy to access so much cutting edge information on this crucial topic!
With so much at stake for future generations, it’s never been more important to get informed, be inspired and take action.
This is a great opportunity to get all the info on GMO’s from people who have done their study thoroughly. I am really looking forward to it!
18 Oct 2013 Leave a comment
in Control, food, food safety, GMO's Tags: Gmo cannabalism, Human genes GMO
For those who are still on the fence about whether GMO’s might be beneficial for humanity, please read the following article. Certainly, even if one is not opposed to consuming other human beings themselves, it must be clear that most people are nauseated at the idea. I certainly am. My belief is that if people actually knew about this that there may be enough consumer push back to thwart this disgusting practice. From GreenMedInfo:
” Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.” ~ Albert Einstein
Whereas the quote above could easily be dismissed as the ‘progress-denying’ sentiment of a disgruntled anti-GMO activist, the fact is that it came from a scientist representing the very epitome of Western rationality and accomplishment.
Perhaps Einstein was reflecting on the inevitable existential consequences of the so-called “technological imperative”–whatever can be done, will be done. Fundamentally amoral and irrational economic and political forces drive technology’s feverish pace, infusing a certain arbitrary cruelty and disequilibrium into everything it touches.
In our continual drive to ‘improve upon Nature’ in the name of much-hyped, ‘life-saving’ biotechnological innovations, the line between humane and inhumane eventually is crossed, and there seems no going back. Biopollution from defective or dangerous GMO genes, for example, is virtually impossible to undo once unreleased into the biosphere; you can’t “recall” a defective gene like you can an automobile. Nor can we remove from our bodies the surreptitious viruses (e.g. simian virus #40 (SV40)) that contaminated millions of first-generation polio vaccines. In many ways our moral fiber suffers from the same susceptibilities. Once we have crossed a certain line – be it theft, lying, or worse, etc., – it is difficult, if not impossible to ‘go back’ and regain our innocence. Such is the human condition. And this is why we must carefully consider the medico-ethical implications of new technologies, whose developments we must first be aware of in order to guide, regulate and sometimes terminate.
The Scientific Community Moves To Embrace Embryo Cloning for Medical Purposes
For example, few are aware that the cloning of human embryos for ‘therapeutic purposes’ was made legal in the UK in January, 2001 through an amendment to the Human Embryology Act.[i] Not long after, in August 2004, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) approved the first license for cloning human embryos in the UK. Media reports at the time alleged the legal changes would result in the use of cloned human embryos to create “spare body parts.”
In an article published in 2000 titled, “Biotech Cannabalism,”[ii] C. Ben Mitchell, PhD reflects on the pro-cloning movement by quoting a proponent’s justification: “If you could use tissue from human embryos to save hundreds of lives, there must be a moral imperative to do it.” Mitchell disagrees, countering: “[C]reating a human being for the purposes of killing that person for another human being’s health, sounds an awfully lot like cannibalism, only worse.”
Calling Vaccines From Aborted Fetuses What They Are: Cannibalistic
Whereas cannibalism is considered by most modern societies to be the ultimate expression of uncivilized or barbaric behavior, it is intrinsic to many of the Western world’s most prized biotechnological and medical innovations. Probably the most ‘taken for granted’ example of this is the use of live, aborted fetus cell lines from induced abortions to produce vaccines. Known as diploid cell vaccines (diploid cells have two (di-) sets of chromosomes inherited from human mother and father), they are non-continuous (like cancer cells), and therefore must be continually replaced, i.e. new aborted, live fetal tissue must be harvested periodically. A good portion of the CDC’s immunization schedule requires the use of these human fetus-originated vaccines, and these include: rubella, measles, mumps, rabies, polio, smallpox, hepatitis A, chickenpox, and herpes zoster. Additionally, so-called “abortion tainted vaccines” cultivated on transformed fetal cells (293, PER.C6) are in the developmental pipeline, including: “flu, Respiratory Syncytial and parainfluenza viruses, HIV, West Nile virus, Ebola, Marburg and Lassa, hepatitis B and C, foot and mouth disease, Japanese encephalitis, dengue, tuberculosis, anthrax, plague, tetanus and malaria.” [iii]
Unfortunately, to millions who find injecting living aborted fetal cells or their biological derivatives into their bodies, or their children’s, morally objectionable, an increasingly Draconian biomedical establishment is either pressuring, coercing or mandating this to occur, using the faulty concept of “herd immunity” and concomitant biosafety concerns to override an individual’s right to refuse them. And most are completely unaware that aborted cells are used and being injected into their bodies, because the medical ethical principle of informed consent remains just that: a principle, not practiced regularly. Furthermore, beyond the obvious moral/ /religious/philosophical reasons to reject aborted fetal cell derived vaccines, there are real health concerns associated with the introduction of this type of biological material into the human body that are largely considered taboo to discuss.
Biopharming: The End of Choice for Those Who Do Not Want to Ingest Human Proteins
Another way in which the dark specter of cannibalism is resurfacing in our lives is through biotech’s intense investment in biopharming technologies. Also known as molecular farming, biopharming involves creating “drug-producing” GMOs by inserting a gene that code for useful pharmaceuticals or biological products (e.g. antibodies, lactoferrin) into host plants, insects or animals that do not naturally express those genes.
Concerns over the unintended, adverse effects of this technology are growing, primarily because once the genes are inserted into laboratory- or field-trialed organisms, their escape into the biosphere is not just possible, but a statistical inevitability. As we have seen with GMO crops, contamination is a default business strategy for biotech stakeholders, whose GM plants pollinate (some say “biorape“) organic or wild plants rendering them also GMOs. This means that — short of using ‘terminator technology‘ which renders the plants incapable of reproduction – foolproof GM containment is impossible. Eventually we will all be exposed to these GMO plants, insects and animals in some form or other.
There is intense work being done today to create biopharmed “edible vaccines,” which contain deadly viral or bacterial vectors. Obviously, the biopollution created by inserting these genes into plants traditionally used for human consumption and which could find their way into the human food supply could cause life-threatening health problems. But edible vaccines are only a subset of biopharmed products in the developmental pipeline. There are a broad range of human proteins being ‘pharmed’ using genetically modified animals expressing human genes as ‘bioreactors.’
Below is a small sample of biopharmed organisms in development that could at some point in the future result in the inadvertent ingestion of human proteins (technically, cannibalism):
With biotech weaving into the web of life arbitrarily placed human genes and their biological products, cannibalism (human consumption of human proteins) will become an inevitably in the future. The question is, will we stand for this reworking of the very molecular and genetic infrastructure of life, or pretend like it won’t also result in the genetic modification of our own bodies.
[i] BBCNews.com, Scientists given cloning go-ahead, 11 August, 2004
[ii] The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, Biotech Cannabalism, 4 April, 2000
[iii] José Luís Redondo Calderón. [Vaccines, biotechnology and their connection with induced abortion]. Cuad Bioet. 2008 May-Aug;19(66):321-53. PMID: 18611078
[iv] Jie Zhao, Jianxiang Xu, Jianwu Wang, Ning Li. Nutritional composition analysis of meat from human lactoferrin transgenic bulls.
[v] GMI-Cite:
I A Burkov, I A Serova, N R Battulin, A V Smirnov, I V Babkin, L E Andreeva, G A Dvoryanchikov, O L Serov. Expression of the human granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (hGM-CSF) gene under control of the 5′-regulatory sequence of the goat alpha-S1-casein gene with and without a MAR element in transgenic mice.
[vi] Ran Zhang, Chengdong Guo, Shunchao Sui, Tian Yu, Jianwu Wang, Ning Li. Comprehensive assessment of milk composition in transgenic cloned cattle.
[vii] J Zeyland, B Gawrońska, W Juzwa, J Jura, A Nowak, R Słomski, Z Smorąg, M Szalata, A Woźniak, D Lipiński. Transgenic pigs designed to express humanα-galactosidase to avoid humoral xenograft rejection.
[viii] Sung Ho Lee, Mukesh Kumar Gupta, Young Tae Ho, Teoan Kim, Hoon Taek Lee. Transgenic chickens expressing human urokinase-type plasminogen activator.
[ix] S H Lee, M K Gupta, D W Han, S Y Han, S J Uhm, T Kim, H T Lee. Development of transgenic chickens expressing human parathormone under the control of a ubiquitous promoter by using a retrovirus vector system.
[x] Ryota Adachi, Yuko Sasaki, Hiromi Morita, Michio Komai, Hitoshi Shirakawa, Tomoko Goto, Akira Furuyama, Kunio Isono. Behavioral analysis of Drosophila transformants expressing human taste receptor genes in the gustatory receptor neurons.
[xi] Jia-Biao Hu, Peng Zhang, Mei-Xian Wang, Fang Zhou, Yan-Shan Niu, Yun-Gen Miao. A transgenic Bm cell line of piggyBac transposon-derived targeting expression of humanized glycoproteins through N-glycosylation.
[xii] H-S Kim, J-W Youm, K-B Moon, J-H Ha, Y-H Kim, H Joung, J-H Jeon. Expression analysis of humanβ-secretase in transgenic tomato fruits.
[xiii] Farooqahmed S Kittur, Mamudou Bah, Stephanie Archer-Hartmann, Chiu-Yueh Hung, Parastoo Azadi, Mayumi Ishihara, David C Sane, Jiahua Xie. Cytoprotective Effect of Recombinant Human Erythropoietin Produced in Transgenic Tobacco Plants.
[xiv] I M Gerasymenko, L O Sakhno, M G Mazur, Y V Sheludko. Multiplex pcr assay for detection of human interferon alpha2b gene in transgenic plants.
[xv] Manman Su, Yitian Qi, Mingxing Wang, Weiqin Chang, Shuang Peng, Tianmin Xu, Dingding Wang. Expression and Purification of Recombinant Human Apolipoprotein A-II in Pichia pastoris.
[xvi] N A Matveeva, Iu I Kudriavets, A A Likhova, A M Shakhovskiĭ, N A Bezdenezhnykh, E Iu Kvasko. [Antiviral activity of extracts of transgenic cichory and lettuce plants with the human interferon alpha-2b gene].
[xvii] L O Sakhno, O Y Kvasko, Z M Olevinska, M Y Spivak, M V Kuchuk. Creation of transgenic Brassica napus L. plants expressing human alpha 2b interferon gene.
[xviii] Qing Zhang, Hui Yu, Feng-Zhen Zhang, Zhi-Cheng Shen. Expression and purification of recombinant human serum albumin from selectively terminable transgenic rice.
[xix] Chaoyang Lin, Peng Nie, Wei Lu, Qing Zhang, Jing Li, Zhicheng Shen. A selectively terminable transgenic rice line expressing human lactoferrin.
[xx] Hiroyuki Kawahigashi, Sakiko Hirose, Hideo Ohkawa, Yasunobu Ohkawa. Transgenic rice plants expressing human CYP1A1 remediate the triazine herbicides atrazine and simazine. J Agric Food Chem. 2005 Nov 2;53(22):8557-64. PMID: 16248553
[xxi] Taiji Yoshida, Eiichi Kimura, Setsuo Koike, Jun Nojima, Eugene Futai, Noboru Sasagawa, Yuichiro Watanabe, Shoichi Ishiura. Transgenic rice expressing amyloidβ-peptide for oral immunization. Int J Biol Sci. 2011;7(3):301-7. Epub 2011 Mar 25. PMID: 21448341
29 Sep 2013 Leave a comment
in GMO's, USDA, WTO Tags: Gene Silencing, GMO virus, risk-assessment
The following is probably a difficult read for a lot of folks, but it is very worthwhile. I’ve taken the liberty of putting in bold issues revealed that I feel need the most attention, but please, read it all the way through. It’s terribly important.
Cauliflower Mosaic Virus
Originally published on Independent Science News
How should a regulatory agency announce they have discovered something potentially very important about the safety of products they have been approving for over twenty years?
In the course of analysis to identify potential allergens in GMO crops, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has belatedly discovered that the most common genetic regulatory sequence in commercial GMOs also encodes a significant fragment of a viral gene (Podevin and du Jardin 2012). This finding has serious ramifications for crop biotechnology and its regulation, but possibly even greater ones for consumers and farmers. This is because there are clear indications that this viral gene (called Gene VI) might not be safe for human consumption. It also may disturb the normal functioning of crops, including their natural pest resistance.
What Podevin and du Jardin discovered is that of the 86 different transgenic events (unique insertions of foreign DNA) commercialized to-date in the United States 54 contain portions of Gene VI within them. They include any with a widely used gene regulatory sequence called the CaMV 35S promoter (from the cauliflower mosaic virus; CaMV). Among the affected transgenic events are some of the most widely grown GMOs, including Roundup Ready soybeans (40-3-2) and MON810 maize. They include the controversial NK603 maize recently reported as causing tumors in rats (Seralini et al. 2012).
The researchers themselves concluded that the presence of segments of Gene VI “might result in unintended phenotypic changes”. They reached this conclusion because similar fragments of Gene VI have already been shown to be active on their own (e.g. De Tapia et al. 1993). In other words, the EFSA researchers were unable to rule out a hazard to public health or the environment.
In general, viral genes expressed in plants raise both agronomic and human health concerns (reviewed in Latham and Wilson 2008). This is because many viral genes function to disable their host in order to facilitate pathogen invasion. Often, this is achieved by incapacitating specific anti-pathogen defenses. Incorporating such genes could clearly lead to undesirable and unexpected outcomes in agriculture. Furthermore, viruses that infect plants are often not that different from viruses that infect humans. For example, sometimes the genes of human and plant viruses are interchangeable, while on other occasions inserting plant viral fragments as transgenes has caused the genetically altered plant to become susceptible to an animal virus (Dasgupta et al. 2001). Thus, in various ways, inserting viral genes accidentally into crop plants and the food supply confers a significant potential for harm.
The original discovery by Podevin and du Jardin (at EFSA) of Gene VI in commercial GMO crops must have presented regulators with sharply divergent procedural alternatives. They could 1) recall all CaMV Gene VI-containing crops (in Europe that would mean revoking importation and planting approvals) or, 2) undertake a retrospective risk assessment of the CaMV promoter and its Gene VI sequences and hope to give it a clean bill of health.
It is easy to see the attraction for EFSA of option two. Recall would be a massive political and financial decision and would also be a huge embarrassment to the regulators themselves. It would leave very few GMO crops on the market and might even mean the end of crop biotechnology.
Regulators, in principle at least, also have a third option to gauge the seriousness of any potential GMO hazard. GMO monitoring, which is required by EU regulations, ought to allow them to find out if deaths, illnesses, or crop failures have been reported by farmers or health officials and can be correlated with the Gene VI sequence. Unfortunately, this particular avenue of enquiry is a scientific dead end. Not one country has carried through on promises to officially and scientifically monitor any hazardous consequences of GMOs (1).
Unsurprisingly, EFSA chose option two. However, their investigation resulted only in the vague and unreassuring conclusion that Gene VI “might result in unintended phenotypic changes” (Podevin and du Jardin 2012). This means literally, that changes of an unknown number, nature, or magnitude may (or may not) occur. It falls well short of the solid scientific reassurance of public safety needed to explain why EFSA has not ordered a recall.
Can the presence of a fragment of virus DNA really be that significant? Below is an independent analysis of Gene VI and its known properties and their safety implications. This analysis clearly illustrates the regulators’ dilemma.
Gene VI, like most plant viral genes, produces a protein that is multifunctional. It has four (so far) known roles in the viral infection cycle. The first is to participate in the assembly of virus particles. There is no current data to suggest this function has any implications for biosafety. The second known function is to suppress anti-pathogen defenses by inhibiting a general cellular system called RNA silencing (Haas et al. 2008). Thirdly, Gene VI has the highly unusual function of transactivating (described below) the long RNA (the 35S RNA) produced by CaMV (Park et al. 2001). Fourthly, unconnected to these other mechanisms, Gene VI has very recently been shown to make plants highly susceptible to a bacterial pathogen (Love et al. 2012). Gene VI does this by interfering with a common anti-pathogen defense mechanism possessed by plants. These latter three functions of Gene VI (and their risk implications) are explained further below:
1) Gene VI Is an Inhibitor of RNA Silencing
RNA silencing is a mechanism for the control of gene expression at the level of RNA abundance (Bartel 2004). It is also an important antiviral defense mechanism in both plants and animals, and therefore most viruses have evolved genes (like Gene VI) that disable it (Dunoyer and Voinnet 2006).
Gene VI (upper left) precedes the start of the 35S RNA
This attribute of Gene VI raises two obvious biosafety concerns: 1) Gene VI will lead to aberrant gene expression in GMO crop plants, with unknown consequences and, 2) Gene VI will interfere with the ability of plants to defend themselves against viral pathogens. There are numerous experiments showing that, in general, viral proteins that disable gene silencing enhance infection by a wide spectrum of viruses (Latham and Wilson 2008).
2) Gene VI Is a Unique Transactivator of Gene Expression
Multicellular organisms make proteins by a mechanism in which only one protein is produced by each passage of a ribosome along a messenger RNA (mRNA). Once that protein is completed the ribosome dissociates from the mRNA. However, in a CaMV-infected plant cell, or as a transgene, Gene VI intervenes in this process and directs the ribosome to get back on an mRNA (reinitiate) and produce the next protein in line on the mRNA, if there is one. This property of Gene VI enables Cauliflower Mosaic Virus to produce multiple proteins from a single long RNA (the 35S RNA). Importantly, this function of Gene VI (which is called transactivation) is not limited to the 35S RNA. Gene VI seems able to transactivate any cellular mRNA (Futterer and Hohn 1991; Ryabova et al. 2002). There are likely to be thousands of mRNA molecules having a short or long protein coding sequence following the primary one. These secondary coding sequences could be expressed in cells where Gene VI is expressed. The result will presumably be production of numerous random proteins within cells. The biosafety implications of this are difficult to assess. These proteins could be allergens, plant or human toxins, or they could be harmless. Moreover, the answer will differ for each commercial crop species into which Gene VI has been inserted.
3) Gene VI Interferes with Host Defenses
A very recent finding, not known by Podevin and du Jardin, is that Gene VI has a second mechanism by which it interferes with plant anti-pathogen defenses (Love et al. 2012). It is too early to be sure about the mechanistic details, but the result is to make plants carrying Gene VI more susceptible to certain pathogens, and less susceptible to others. Obviously, this could impact farmers, however the discovery of an entirely new function for gene VI while EFSA’s paper was in press, also makes clear that a full appraisal of all the likely effects of Gene VI is not currently achievable.
When Gene VI is intentionally expressed in transgenic plants, it causes them to become chlorotic (yellow), to have growth deformities, and to have reduced fertility in a dose-dependent manner (Ziljstra et al 1996). Plants expressing Gene VI also show gene expression abnormalities. These results indicate that, not unexpectedly given its known functions, the protein produced by Gene VI is functioning as a toxin and is harmful to plants (Takahashi et al 1989). Since the known targets of Gene VI activity (ribosomes and gene silencing) are also found in human cells, a reasonable concern is that the protein produced by Gene VI might be a human toxin. This is a question that can only be answered by future experiments.
Given that expression of Gene VI is likely to cause harm, a crucial issue is whether the actual inserted transgene sequences found in commercial GMO crops will produce any functional protein from the fragment of Gene VI present within the CaMV sequence.
There are two aspects to this question. One is the length of Gene VI accidentally introduced by developers. This appears to vary but most of the 54 approved transgenes contain the same 528 base pairs of the CaMV 35S promoter sequence. This corresponds to approximately the final third of Gene VI. Deleted fragments of Gene VI are active when expressed in plant cells and functions of Gene VI are believed to reside in this final third. Therefore, there is clear potential for unintended effects if this fragment is expressed (e.g. De Tapia et al. 1993; Ryabova et al. 2002; Kobayashi and Hohn 2003).
The second aspect of this question is what quantity of Gene VI could be produced in GMO crops? Once again, this can ultimately only be resolved by direct quantitative experiments. Nevertheless, we can theorize that the amount of Gene VI produced will be specific to each independent insertion event. This is because significant Gene VI expression probably would require specific sequences (such as the presence of a gene promoter and an ATG [a protein start codon]) to precede it and so is likely to be heavily dependent on variables such as the details of the inserted transgenic DNA and where in the plant genome the transgene inserted.
Commercial transgenic crop varieties can also contain superfluous copies of the transgene, including those that are incomplete or rearranged (Wilson et al 2006). These could be important additional sources of Gene VI protein. The decision of regulators to allow such multiple and complex insertion events was always highly questionable, but the realization that the CaMV 35S promoter contains Gene VI sequences provides yet another reason to believe that complex insertion events increase the likelihood of a biosafety problem.
Even direct quantitative measurements of Gene VI protein in individual crop authorizations would not fully resolve the scientific questions, however. No-one knows, for example, what quantity, location or timing of protein production would be of significance for risk assessment, and so answers necessary to perform science-based risk assessment are unlikely to emerge soon.
It is perhaps the most basic assumption in all of risk assessment that the developer of a new product provides regulators with accurate information about what is being assessed. Perhaps the next most basic assumption is that regulators independently verify this information. We now know, however, that for over twenty years neither of those simple expectations have been met. Major public universities, biotech multinationals, and government regulators everywhere, seemingly did not appreciate the relatively simple possibility that the DNA constructs they were responsible for encoded a viral gene.
This lapse occurred despite the fact that Gene VI was not truly hidden; the relevant information on the existence of Gene VI has been freely available in the scientific literature since well before the first biotech approval (Franck et al 1980). We ourselves have offered specific warnings that viral sequences could contain unsuspected genes (Latham and Wilson 2008). The inability of risk assessment processes to incorporate longstanding and repeated scientific findings is every bit as worrysome as the failure to intellectually anticipate the possibility of overlapping genes when manipulating viral sequences.
This sense of a generic failure is reinforced by the fact that this is not an isolated event. There exist other examples of commercially approved viral sequences having overlapping genes that were never subjected to risk assessment. These include numerous commercial GMOs containing promoter regions of the closely related virus figwort mosaic virus (FMV) which were not considered by Podevin and du Jardin. Inspection of commercial sequence data shows that the commonly used FMV promoter overlaps its own Gene VI (Richins et al 1987). A third example is the virus-resistant potato NewLeaf Plus (RBMT-22-82). This transgene contains approximately 90% of the P0 gene of potato leaf roll virus. The known function of this gene, whose existence was discovered only after US approval, is to inhibit the anti-pathogen defenses of its host (Pfeffer et al 2002). Fortunately, this potato variety was never actively marketed.
A further key point relates to the biotech industry and their campaign to secure public approval and a permissive regulatory environment. This has led them to repeatedly claim, firstly, that GMO technology is precise and predictable; and secondly, that their own competence and self-interest would prevent them from ever bringing potentially harmful products to the market; and thirdly, to assert that only well studied and fully understood transgenes are commercialized. It is hard to imagine a finding more damaging to these claims than the revelations surrounding Gene VI.
Biotechnology, it is often forgotten, is not just a technology. It is an experiment in the proposition that human institutions can perform adequate risk assessments on novel living organisms. Rather than treat that question as primarily a daunting scientific one, we should for now consider that the primary obstacle will be overcoming the much more mundane trap of human complacency and incompetence. We are not there yet, and therefore this incident will serve to reinforce the demands for GMO labeling in places where it is absent.
This summary of the scientific risk issues shows that a segment of a poorly characterized viral gene never subjected to any risk assessment (until now) was allowed onto the market. This gene is currently present in commercial crops and growing on a large scale. It is also widespread in the food supply.
Even now that EFSA’s own researchers have belatedly considered the risk issues, no one can say whether the public has been harmed, though harm appears a clear scientific possibility. Considered from the perspective of professional and scientific risk assessment, this situation represents a complete and catastrophic system failure.
But the saga of Gene VI is not yet over. There is no certainty that further scientific analysis will resolve the remaining uncertainties, or provide reassurance. Future research may in fact increase the level of concern or uncertainty, and this is a possibility that regulators should weigh heavily in their deliberations.
To return to the original choices before EFSA, these were either to recall all CaMV 35S promoter-containing GMOs, or to perform a retrospective risk assessment. This retrospective risk assessment has now been carried out and the data clearly indicate a potential for significant harm. The only course of action consistent with protecting the public and respecting the science is for EFSA, and other jurisdictions, to order a total recall. This recall should also include GMOs containing the FMV promoter and its own overlapping Gene VI.
26 Sep 2013 4 Comments
in Consolidation, Control, GMO's Tags: Bill Gates, GMO Labeling, monsanto, Washington I-522
WASHINGTON, DC – Activists protest against agricultural biotech company Monsanto outside the White House on March 27, 2013 in Washington, DC. Monsanto, which engineers genetically modified seeds, recently benefited from a section buried in the latest budget bill that allows the agribusiness giant to plant genetically-modified crops without judicial review to determine whether or not their crops are safe. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON STATE — Initiative 522 (I-522) is all about our right as consumers to know if we are purchasing and consuming genetically modified foods or not. And just like we saw in California with a similar ballot initiative, the chance for large corporate interests to persevere in the end, shooting-down the initiative is likely.
So far opponents of genetically modified food labeling have raised over $11 billion to fight the initiative.
Now Washingtonians are realizing they have no voice as they remain powerless against the Bill Gates supported Monsanto corporation.
Some like the fact that I-522 would also take care of labeling genetically modified fish, which is a big issue amongst Washingtonians.[1] The Washington wheat and apple industry is also covered in I-522 according to the official website.
Others like professor Goldberg, claim that organic supermarkets are actually pushing the bill and not the general public. Melissa Allison, SeattleTimes.com wrote, “Biology professor Goldberg, who has worked with the technology and believes it can help feed people and bring them greater nutrition, calls labeling supporters “the climate deniers of the left.”
He claims Whole Foods and other corporate supporters of I-522 want to heighten the public’s concerns about genetically engineered food “because it will drive people into their grocery stores.”[2] While this may be true, why have Americans become so docile that they could careless what they eat?
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