Archive for the ‘Medical Hazards’ Category

GM Files: Engdahl and the Geopolitics of Food

Friday, April 18th, 2008

The Natural Solutions Foundation, the leading Global Health Freedom organization, is proud to present this information to you. We protect your right to know about – and to use – natural ways to maintain and regain your health, no matter where in the world you live. Among your freedoms is the right to clean, unadulterated food free of genetic manipulation, pesticides, heavy metals or other contaminants and access to herbs, supplements, frequency devices and other means as therapies that may benefit or to protect your well-being without drugs and other dangerous interventions, if you choose.

For more information on our global programs, including the International Decade of Nutrition, and our US based ones, please visit us at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org and www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org and join the free email list for the Health Freedom eAlerts to keep you in the loop, informed and active defending your right to make your own decisions about your health and wellbeing!
Our activities are supported 100% by your tax deductible donations. Please give generously (https://www.staging.healthfreedomusa.com/index.php?page_id=189) to the Natural Solutions Foundation. Thank you for your support.
Feel free to disseminate this information as widely as possible with full attribution.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.organics4U.org

Seeds of Destruction:
The Geopolitics of GM Food
WILLIAM ENGDAHL / Current Concerns (Zurich) n.5, 6mar2005

In June 2003, President George W. Bush made the issue of lifting an 8-year European Union ban on genetically modified (GM) plants a matter of US national strategic priority. This came only days after the US occupation of Baghdad. The timing was not accidental. Since that time, EU resistance to GM plants has crumbled, as has that of Brazil, and other key agriculture producing nations. One year before, the future of GM crops was in doubt.

terminator seeds – Seeds of Destruction: The Geopolitics of GM Food WILLIAM ENGDAHL / Current Concerns WILLIAM ENGDAHL / Current Concerns (Zurich) n.5, 6mar2005

Now, some months and enormous pressure later, the strategists of GM food hegemony are on the verge of a control over the global human and animal food chain never held by any single nation or power.

The present debate over the nature of biotechnology and genetic modification of basic food such as maize or soybeans, misses the most essential point. The conversion of world agriculture by a small elite of biotech companies, most US-based, has little to do with corporate greed. It has very much to do with geopolitics and plans of some people to control world population growth over the coming decades.

The nature of American power projection in the world today rests on the development of key strategic advantages which no other combination of nations can challenge, what the Pentagon planners term, “full spectrum dominance.” This includes global military dominance. It includes dominance of the world’s limited, and rapidly depleting petroleum supplies. It includes control of the world’s reserve currency, the dollar. And today it most definitely includes future control of world agriculture through control of GM patents and GM crops.

Before the end of the decade, if present trends continue, US global dominance will be based on control of the food supply of most of this planet, far more than military or even energy control. The geopolitical dimension of this prospect bears careful examination.

A Rockefeller Trojan horse

The agency at the center of the GM controversy is the Rockefeller Foundation in New York. Over the past decade, this influential private foundation has spent more than $100 million in sponsoring research and development of GM crops to be deployed in world food production. They have specifically targeted key developing nations in their effort.
More on Monsanto

Their public statements suggest noble motives: “The Rockefeller Foundation is a global foundation with a mandate and a commitment to enrich and sustain the lives of the poor and excluded throughout the world,” said foundation president, Gordon Conway, in a 1999 speech to the Monsanto Company, the world’s largest producer of GM seeds and pesticides. Conway cites as justification for the GM revolution in agriculture the projections of an added 2 billion people in the world by 2020, amid a decline in existing agriculture yields, and increased degradation of soils and ecology. All indications suggest this is not the real reason GM plants are being promoted with a fervor.

Over the past 18 years, the Rockefeller Foundation has played a decisive role worldwide in spreading the acceptance of radical practices of genetic modification to countries and laboratories where a direct US Government research program would be greeted with greatest suspicion. The Rockefeller Foundation is, in effect, the Trojan Horse of GM proliferation.

It has gained entry in key countries in part by selecting key scientists from select developing countries to be educated and trained in the US or other industrial countries under foundation programs and auspices. It has done this by funding GM research and by using its influence in government and other agencies and NGO’s. To date more than 400 leading scientists from the Philippines to Thailand to Kenya to China have been trained and cultivated by the foundation.

The Rockefeller Foundation has a murky past, since its creation in 1914 out of the Rockefeller family Standard Oil Trust fortune. Well before 1945, the foundation had been a leading funder of eugenics research, work made infamous by the Nazi race purity experiments. This included Rockefeller support to the American Eugenics Society and the Population Council. As the race breeding policies of the German Third Reich came to light after the war, Rockefeller strategists shifted profile to champion the causes of environment, resource scarcity and over-population. The policy remained one of global population reduction. (1).

Kissinger and NSSM 200

Since more than a quarter century, Rockefeller Foundation energy has been focused on biotechnology and genetic engineering research and promotion. This comes after decades of involvement in various population control schemes for the developing world. There is no contradiction.

In 1972 President Nixon named foundation board member, John D. Rockefeller III, to chair a Presidential Commission on “Population and the American Future.” The same Rockefeller created the Population Council in 1952, and openly called for “zero population growth.”

Rockefeller’s Commission on Population and the American Future laid the foundation for Henry Kissinger’s National Security memorandum, NSSM 200, of April 1974, which cited population growth in strategic, raw materials rich developing countries as a US national security concern of the highest priority.

During the 1970’s, when Kissinger was National Security Council director as well as Secretary of State, food and oil emerged as strategic US national security commodities. Kissinger initiated the controversial “oil-for-food” strategy in which a food-deficient USSR imported vast sums of US grain and paid it with large export of Soviet oil for dollars. US domestic oil production, outside Alaska, had peaked in 1970 and began a steady decline. The US was becoming increasingly an oil import nation. National security became tied to security of cheap imported oil, and food was a weapon in the US security arsenal from that time on. Kissinger’s Cabinet colleague, Agriculture Secretary, Earl Butz, reflected the Kissinger policy when he stated, “Hungry men listen only to those who have a piece of bread. Food is a tool. It is a weapon in the US negotiating kit.” Kissinger was then chief negotiator.

In 1974, Kissinger submitted the NSSM 200 memorandum to President Nixon, naming population growth in key raw-materials rich developing countries as, a US “national security threat.” Since that time, control of economic growth rates and population growth in key developing countries has been US national security priority.

Kissinger owed his political career since the late 1950’s to his stint as a researcher for the Rockefeller family, and owed his rise to power to their backing. The Rockefeller family had been at the center of US oil and raw materials geopolitics since early in the 1900’s, when the Standard Oil Trust was built. Kissinger was well aware of the importance of food and energy to US national interests.

With Kissinger’s NSSM 200, Washington official policy was to impose restrictions on fast-growing developing countries, policies which would significantly cut population growth. In NSSM 200, Kissinger implied that famine might be an effective way to reduce population: “…large-scale famine of a kind not experienced for several decades – a kind the world thought had been permanently banished,” was foreseeable, he wrote. He remarked that the US and other donor countries would not be likely to provide necessary food export to the afflicted regions.

In 1975, Kissinger’s successor as National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, later a Kissinger business partner, wrote, “United States leadership is essential to combat population growth, to implement the World Population Plan of Action and to advance United States security and overseas interests. The President endorses…NSSM 200…,” Scowcroft added.

Kissinger’s NSSM 200 document, classified secret and not made public until 1989, took estimates of world population growth to the end of the century and beyond, and the impact on the need for food and raw materials, notably energy. “Growing populations will have a serious impact on the need for food especially in the poorest, fastest growing LDC’s,” Kissinger stated. “World needs for food rise by 2.5% or more a year at a time when readily available fertilizer and well-watered land is already largely being utilized. Therefore, additions to food production must come from higher yields,” the Government memo declared. It was at this time that the Rockefeller Foundation also began large research in genetic engineering of plants, including rice, ostensibly to raise yields.

With NSSM 200, Washington made implementation of population control programs a pre-condition for US financial aid, even famine relief. Washington ensured that birth reduction was adopted as official policy by the IMF, World Bank and the UN. Beginning the mid-1970’s all IMF and World Bank aid to developing target countries was tied to their willingness to accept population control policies dictated by Washington.

NSSM 200 explicitly listed 13 countries as “key countries” in which the US held a “special political and strategic interest.” These were: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, Nigeria, Philippines, Turkey, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. Their population growth was deemed especially worrisome to US national interests, according to Kissinger. Notably, every key country has been subjected to major social, economic and military upheaval since 1974. US food aid, even in famine, was withheld from countries refusing to adopt US-mandated birth control or population reduction policies. (2).

NSSM 200 continues as unofficial US Government policy to the present day, despite public Bush Administration concessions to Catholic Right to Life groups. In this, the role of the Rockefeller Foundation is central to Washington policy regarding genetic engineering in world agriculture, especially that in key developing nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Rockefeller’s GM proliferation network

In 1971 the Rockefeller Foundation, together with the Ford Foundation and the World Bank, established the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which runs 16 research centers around the world, most in developing countries, spending some $350 million annually. The focus of CGIAR is the spread of GM crops in the developing world.

CGIAR today operates under the umbrella of the World Bank, and has drawn 20 developing countries in as sponsors. World Bank aid is administered on the basis of a recipient agreeing to impose population control policies, the present form of NSSM 200, but with Washington officially in the background. Thus, the Rockefeller Foundation, World Bank, Monsanto and other agri-giants and the US Government, all meet under CGIAR auspices.

The CGIAR mission is to promote “sustainable agriculture for food security.” To do this, CGIAR has used its funds and government influence to take control of one of the world’s largest collections of plant genetic resources. CGIAR then makes the materials available to companies like Monsanto and Syngenta, “so that new gene combinations can be used to increase productivity, sustainably,” as they state. In turn, CGIAR mobilizes biotechnology proliferation in developing countries. CGIAR trains the most promising national scientists and researchers in biotechnology, insuring that cadre of pro-GM national researchers will promote the spread of GM agriculture and biotechnology back home.

In addition to its role in establishing CGIAR, the Rockefeller Foundation has been a major donor to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications or ISAAA.

Every US President since George H.W. Bush in 1992, has made support of genetically engineered crops a matter of highest national priority. The example of US-AID backing for the Rockefeller Foundation’s ISAAA is exemplary.

The ISAAA was originally founded with Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund money for the sole purpose to “facilitate the delivery of proprietary biotechnologies from the corporate labs of the industrialized world into the food and farming systems of the South.”

How this works becomes clear when the current financial sponsors of the ISAAA are known. In addition to the Rockefeller Foundation, sponsors include Monsanto (USA), Syngenta (Swiss), Dow AgroSciences (USA), Pioneer Hi-Bred (USA), Cargill (USA), Bayer CropScience (Germany), and a mysterious “Anonymous Donor “(USA), and US-AID of the State Department.

The argument of the institutions behind ISAAA is that the developing world is where a rising population makes growing food demand most acute, but where economic resources are least able to meet the needs. Hence, ISAAA enables the introduction of corporate GM technologies and crops from the industrial world into the South, acting as “honest brokers” in their words.

As the Kissinger NSSM 200 targeted 13 developing countries in 1974 for population reduction, the ISAAA targets 12 countries for introduction of GM crops. Six of these countries are the same as Kissinger listed in 1974: Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Egypt. In addition, ISAAA lists Malaysia, Vietnam, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Argentina and Costa Rica.

By their own admission, the ISAAA launches propaganda offensives to counter hostility to GM crops, and they train science elites from the target countries, often bringing them to USA or other leading GM research centers such as the Monsanto Life Sciences Research Center, to learn the world of GM elite research. Randy Hautea is head of the group’s SEAsia Center in the Philippines, based in the center established by the Rockefeller Foundation’s International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

Hautea recently stated that his group has targeted Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam because, “they all have the political will to pursue and adopt biotechnology applications.” What Hautea did not say was that introduction of GM seeds means introduction of costly GM pesticides and other policies which only global agribusiness companies are able to carry out.

Food production of target countries is being transformed into the global agribusiness market, not longer available for national food security. Hautea does not say how biotechnology brought in to, say, Indonesia or Malaysia by Syngenta or Monsanto, contributes to the benefit of small farmers, the heart of their food production. To date, in fact, there exists no proof of any benefit from GM crops for family farmers. In fact the opposite is the case. Farmers are often coerced or forced to buy Monsanto GM seeds or other GM seeds by their governments.

Through ISAAA and related networks of organizations, the Rockefeller Foundation is at the center of the worldwide actions of Monsanto, DuPont, Cargill and Dow Agri-sciences, Syngenta, Bayer AG and other major biotech giants, dominating the ongoing “new Green Revolution” as Rockefeller’s Conway terms it. (3).

Spreading the GM control

The list of major GM plants today includes GM rice, soybeans, corn, oilseeds, and numerous other basic food crops. The Rockefeller Foundation has played a key fostering role in the development of most major new types.

More than 70% of all processed foods Americans consume comes today from GM products. Almost all the animal feed used to feed cattle, and other animals in the US and in major world markets today is GM feed, mainly soymeal and corn.

Most Americans are ignorant of what they eat. The US government has refused to label food that contains GM inputs. A new EU food labelling law also does not require producers to identify animal products fed on GM feed, leaving consumers ignorant of what GM products they eat. In 2003, the total acreage planted to GM seeds worldwide was 167 million acres or 68 million hectares according to ISAAA data. This was a 15% rise in one year. The United States is the largest GM grower with 106 million acres of genetically modified soybeans, corn and cotton. Worldwide, 55% of all soybeans grown now are GM crops. Soymeal is one of the most essential and richest protein sources for animal and human consumption. Every bite of a McDonald’s hamburger contains as much as 30% of GM soyameal.

Without even realizing, most people in North America, East Asia and Europe regularly eat products or animals fed from GM crops. What is most remarkable is the fact that farmers in North America, Australia, Argentina, and more recently after a long battle, in Brazil, have surrendered their control over seeds to a handful of multinational biotech giants who have a deliberate strategy to dominate and control the planting of basic food crops worldwide.

The terminator not dead

If emerging nations from China to India to Indonesia and beyond, were to manage to create a food self-sufficiency independent of reliance on US or OECD food suppliers, the ability of the United States to remain the dominant power would diminish, regardless of military might.

What better way to control the destiny of China, India, East Asia and the rest of the world than to establish permanent control over their ability to grow food? Enter Monsanto and the agriculture biotechnology cartel, who dominate GM crops globally. Just two years ago it seemed Monsanto might be headed into financial ruin. Today, it is on the verge of becoming the one of the single most powerful corporations in the world.

Interestingly, it was the direct intervention of the Rockefeller Foundation in October 1999, which was responsible for the widely-touted decision of Monsanto “not to commercialize” its ‘terminator technology’ for GM seeds. Monsanto president Robert Shapiro wrote to the Rockefeller Foundation that it would “shelve” or put on hold its “sterile seed” technology, formally called Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT). The Monsanto decision was a tactical ploy, taken on advice of Rockefeller’s Conway, to defulse growing opposition to GM crops, especially in Europe. Monsanto’s terminator seed technology, in which the US Department of Agriculture also holds part patent rights, has been called the ultimate weapon, the ‘neutron bomb’ of agriculture, rightly so.

Terminator seeds would solve a major problem for Monsanto and other GM giants in collecting seed fees in the developing world for patented GM seeds, something made possible a few years ago by GATT trade talks on patent rights.

Free trade in agriculture is today at the heart of the WTO. Under the treaty of the World Trade Organization, created by the GATT Uruguay trade round in the early 1990’s, multinational corporations now have the right, enforced by WTO sanctions, to collect royalty payments for “intellectual property.”

The Uruguay agreement, ratified by all GATT member countries under enormous US pressure, allows a corporation for the first time, to patent a specific plant variety, even though that plant sort might have been in the public domain in a country such as Pakistan or Peru for thousands of years. The WTO term is Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, TRIPs. Washington pushed the controversial TRIPs agreement through GATT, accusing developing countries of ‘piracy’ in not paying due royalties to multinationals, claiming US companies were losing hundreds on millions in unpaid fees for fertilizer and seeds or drugs. Mickey Kantor, US Trade Representative who negotiated the Uruguay Round talks, today sits on the board of Monsanto.

The TRIPs WTO agreement includes patent rights on GM plants. Under TRIPs the Swiss agri-tech company, Syngenta, holds control potentially of most of the rice in Pakistan, India and Asia. Monsanto dominates patents on soybeans, corn, cotton and other major crops. Their only problem is how to collect royalty payments from millions of small peasant farmers. Collecting patent payments for GM seeds in many developing countries is extremely difficult.

Not so, if terminator seeds are sold. Terminator technology, which Monsanto paid $1.6 billion to acquire, allows introduction of a ‘suicide gene’ into plants such as corn or cotton or soya or potentially, even wheat. A farmer using terminator seeds no longer will be able to share seeds with other farmers or plant his own in following years. He will be forced to turn to Monsanto each season to buy his existence, in the form of more suicide seeds, as well as the special herbicides Monsanto has developed to be used with it. The original developers of terminator technology, Delta & Pine Land Seed, which Monsanto bought in 1998, specifically noted that the rice and wheat markets of China, India, Pakistan and such major population countries was the target of terminator. The political implications of such a development are easy to imagine.

Rockefeller Foundation funds vaccines with hidden birth-control hormones

The Rockefeller Foundation is among the funders of a WHO program in “reproductive health” which has developed a tetanus vaccine that allegedly contains hidden birth-control hormones.

According to a report from the Global Vaccine Institute, the WHO has overseen massive vaccination campaigns against tetanus in Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines since the early 1990’s. Comite Pro Vida de Mexico, a Catholic organization, tested numerous vials of the vaccine and found them to contain human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), a natural hormone needed to maintain a pregnancy. When combined with a tetanus toxoid carrier, it stimulates formation of antibodies against hCG, rendering a woman incapable of maintaining a pregnancy. Similar reports of vaccines laced with hCG hormones have come from the Philippines and Nicaragua.

The organization confirmed several other curious facts about the WHO vaccination programs. Tetanus vaccine was given only to women, between ages 15-45, not men or children. The presence of hCG is a clear contamination of the vaccine. It does not belong. With financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation, the World Bank, the Population Council, Ford Foundation, among others, the WHO has been working for 20 years to develop an anti-fertility vaccine using hCG with tetanus and other vaccines, according to scientific articles published on the effort by WHO. This has been documented by WHO and others, including the respected British medical journal, The Lancet, June 11, 1988, “Clinical Trials of a WHO Borth Control Vaccine.”

To mid-1993 the WHO had spent a total of $365 million of such research funds on “reproductive health” including research on implanting hCG into tetanus vaccine. WHO has been unable to answer why women vaccinated were found with anti-hCG antibodies. They feebly replied it was “insignificant.” The vaccine was produced by Connaught Laboratories Ltd of Canada and Intervex and CSL Laboratories of Australia.

Since the 1920’s the Rockefeller Foundation has been among the leading sponsors of population reduction programs worldwide. If the reports of birth control vaccines are true, it is not difficult to suspect the Rockefeller Foundation is also among those planning to use genetically modified seeds technology as a potential means to control world population growth through future control of food supply.

The Rockefeller-Monsanto public relations maneuver “not to commercialize” terminator seeds was clearly designed to defuse growing opposition to proliferation of GM seeds, to buy time while allowing them to spread GM crops to the world’s largest growing areas – North America, Argentina, Brazil and now, the EU. Once spread, it is simple to shift to terminator.

In February 2003, at a meeting of the International Seed Federation in Lyon France, Monsanto’s Roger Krueger released a paper titled, “The Benefits of GURTs.” It argued that terminator in fact would benefit poor farmers. Monsanto argues in a new ploy, that terminator would in fact hinder spread of unwanted GM genes to non-GM plants, promoting the same idea in new clothes as a “biosafety” tool. Clearly they believe opposition to terminator and GM is falling. Reports are that Monsanto would be ready to introduce commercial terminator or GURT seeds in 3-4 years.

Dual use and GM crops: Biowarfare?

The days are long past when the USDA represented the interests of America’s family farmers. Today, US agri-business, dominated by a dozen or more giant international concerns, is the second most profitable industry next to pharmaceuticals, and has annual value of well over $800 billion. The USDA today is the organized lobby of agri-business giants, none more influential than Monsanto. Bush Administration official, Ann Veneman, USDA Secretary, is a former board member of a Monsanto company and, not surprisingly, a strong advocate of GM. Several other Bush officials have ties to Monsanto as well.

Terminator and related GM technologies in the hands of Monsanto and less than half-a-dozen corporations worldwide, backed by the USDA, Defense Department and State Department, could open the door to potential forms of biological warfare against entire populations not imagined before. A recent US Air Force study states that “biological weapons offer greater possibilities for use than do nuclear weapons.”

Washington US-AID food assistance for Africa in recent months has been linked to willingness of a country to accept US GM crops. US assistance to combat AIDS in Africa has similar strings. GM has clearly become a strategic, geopolitical tool for Washington.

Defenders of GM technology argue that no one in their right mind would consider such a drastic use of GM crops as to control entire areas of world food supply. “We’re tempted to say that nobody in their right mind would ever use these things.” Stanford biology professor Steven Block stated in another context. Block hastened to add, “But not everybody is in their right mind!” Block, a leading consultant to the US Government, went on to warn, “Any technology that can be used to insert genes into DNA can be used for either good or bad.” Genetic engineering can create rice with enhanced vitamin A, but can just as well create seeds containing highly toxic bacteria. US researchers first did this in 1986. Genetic engineering of more toxic and harder to detect bioweapons was a major motivation for nations to call for a stronger convention on bioweapons.

The US Government’s controversial drug eradication program in Colombia, since discontinued, would spray crops with deadly glyphosate. Glyphosate, under the patent name, Roundup, is the GM herbicide sold by Monsanto also for its GM plants. The Bush Administration has repeatedly refused to back a legally binding Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, arguing it needs the freedom to develop defense against biowarfare. Freedom can work both ways however.

Genetic manipulation opens the possibilities in the hands of a malevolent power, to unleash untold harm on the human species. Even were it to be the case that GM plants increase yields, which is not at all proven, this potential for control of the food supply of entire nations is too much power to give to any single corporation or government. Essential foods, like fresh water, are no ordinary commodities to be sold under rules of an imposed free market. They are basic human rights as the right to breathe. We should not tempt any government with the power that present GM strategists advocate over our food security.

References

1. B.K. Eakman, “The Cloning of the American Mind,” gives information on Rockefeller Foundation funding of eugenics.

s. Jim Heron, “Population Politics and the Shambles of Africa in http://catholiceducation.org/articles/population/pc0005.html.

2. National Security Strategy Memorandum, NSSM 200, “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests,” National Security Council, April 24, 1974, Henry Kissinger, director, National Security Council. “The Over-population cabal” in Mindszenty Report, Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation, April 1999, www.mindszenty.org.report/1999/April1999.html .

3. “ISAAA in Asia promoting corporate profits in the name of the poor,” October 2000, in www.grain.org/publications/reports/isaaa.html.

4. The Monsanto terminator seed plans are described in “Monsanto Breaks Promise to Abandon Terminator Technology,” April 23, 2003, http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/promise042403.cfm. “Biological warfare against crops,” by Simon Whitby, reviewed in www.rainbowbody.net/Ongwhehonwhe/plantwar.htm notes the US use of Roundup against crops in Colombia. “Biological warfare emerges as 21st Century threat,” by Mark Schwartz in Stanford Report, January 11, 2001, details the warnings of Block, a member of the top-secret Government research group, Jason. The US Air Force has published on the subject, “Biological Weapons for Waging Economic Warfare,” by Lt. Col. Robert Kadlec who speaks of “using biological warfare to attack livestock, crops or ecosystems.” In www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/battle/chp10.html, also www.sunshine-project.org/bwintro/gebw.html.

GM Files: GMOs Changes Bacteria in Honey Bees

Friday, April 18th, 2008

The Natural Solutions Foundation, the leading Global Health Freedom organization, is proud to present this information to you. We protect your right to know about – and to use – natural ways to maintain and regain your health, no matter where in the world you live. Among your freedoms is the right to clean, unadulterated food free of genetic manipulation, pesticides, heavy metals or other contaminants and access to herbs, supplements, frequency devices and other means as therapies that may benefit or to protect your well-being without drugs and other dangerous interventions, if you choose.

For more information on our global programs, including the International Decade of Nutrition, and our US based ones, please visit us at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org and www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org and join the free email list for the Health Freedom eAlerts to keep you in the loop, informed and active defending your right to make your own decisions about your health and wellbeing!
Our activities are supported 100% by your tax deductible donations. Please give generously (https://www.staging.healthfreedomusa.com/index.php?page_id=189) to the Natural Solutions Foundation. Thank you for your support.
Feel free to disseminate this information as widely as possible with full attribution.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.organics4U.org

Monday May 14th, 2007

A leading zoologist has found evidence that genes used to modify crops can jump the species barrier and cause bacteria to mutate,
prompting fears that GM technology could pose serious health risks.

A four-year study by Professor Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a respected German zoologist, found that the alien gene used to modify oilseed rape had transferred to bacteria living inside the guts of honey bees.

The research – which has yet to be published and has not been reviewed by fellow scientists – is highly significant because it suggests that all types of bacteria could become contaminated by genes used in genetically modified technology, including those that live inside the human digestive system.
If this happened, it could have an impact on the bacteria’s vital role in helping the human body fight disease, aid digestion and facilitate blood clotting.

Agriculture Minister Nick Brown, who was yesterday advising farmers who have accidentally grown contaminated GM oilseed rape in Britain to rip up their crops, confirmed the potential significance of Kaatz’s research. He said: ‘If this is true, then it would be very
serious.’

The 47-year-old Kaatz has been reluctant to talk about his research until it has been published in a scientific journal, because he fears
a backlash from the scientific community similar to that faced by Dr Arpad Pustzai, who claimed that genetically modified potatoes damaged the stomach lining of rats. Pustzai was sacked and had his work discredited.

But in his first newspaper interview, Kaatz told The Observer: ‘It is true, I have found the herbicide-resistant genes in the rapeseed
transferred across to the bacteria and yeast inside the intestines of young bees. This happened rarely, but it did happen.’

Although Kaatz realised the potential ‘significance’ of his findings, he said he ‘was not surprised’ at the results. Asked if this had
implications for the bacteria inside the human gut, he said: ‘Maybe, but I am not an expert on this.’

Dr Mae-Wan Ho, geneticist at Open University and a critic of GM technology, has no doubts about the dangers. She said: ‘These
findings are very worrying and provide the first real evidence of what many have feared. Everybody is keen to exploit GM technology,
but nobody is looking at the risk of horizontal gene transfer.

‘We are playing about with genetic structures that existed for millions of years and the experiment is running out of control.’

One of the biggest concerns is if the anti-biotic resistant gene used in some GM crops crossed over to bacteria. ‘If this happened it would leave us unable to treat major illnesses like meningitis and E coli.’

Kaatz, who works at the respected Institute for Bee Research at the University of Jena in Germany, built nets in a field planted with
genetically modified rapeseed produced by AgrEvo. He let the bees fly freely within the net. At the beehives, he installed pollen traps in order to sample the pollen from the bees’ hind legs when entering the hive.

This pollen was fed to young honey bees in the laboratory. Pollen is the natural diet of young bees, which need a high protein diet. Kaatz then extracted the intestine of the young bees and discovered that the gene from the GM rape-seed had been transferred in the bee gut to the microbes.

Professor Robert Pickard, director-general of the Institute of the British Nutrition Foundation, is a bee expert as well as being a
biologist and has visited the institute where Kaatz works. He said: ‘There is no doubt that, if Kaatz’s research is substantiated, then
it poses very interesting questions and will need to be looked at very closely.

‘But it must be remembered that the human body has been coping perfectly well with strange DNA for millions of years. And we also
know many people have been eating GM products for years without showing any signs of ill health.’

GM Files: “Nanotechnology a Bigger Concern than GM Foods”

Friday, April 18th, 2008

The Natural Solutions Foundation, the leading Global Health Freedom organization, is proud to present this information to you. We protect your right to know about – and to use – natural ways to maintain and regain your health, no matter where in the world you live. Among your freedoms is the right to clean, unadulterated food free of genetic manipulation, pesticides, heavy metals or other contaminants and access to herbs, supplements, frequency devices and other means as therapies that may benefit or to protect your well-being without drugs and other dangerous interventions, if you choose.

For more information on our global programs, including the International Decade of Nutrition, and our US based ones, please visit us at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org and www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org and join the free email list for the Health Freedom eAlerts to keep you in the loop, informed and active defending your right to make your own decisions about your health and wellbeing!
Our activities are supported 100% by your tax deductible donations. Please give generously (https://www.staging.healthfreedomusa.com/index.php?page_id=189) to the Natural Solutions Foundation. Thank you for your support.
Feel free to disseminate this information as widely as possible with full attribution.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.organics4U.org

Dec 06 2007, 3:12 PM Category: Brave New World Source: ABC News Print

Nanotechnology a ‘bigger concern’ than GM foods
By Simon Lauder

The lifting of bans on genetically modified crops has revived the debate about the safety of the food we eat.

But the next step in industrial food production has got Australia’s food regulator bracing itself for even more controversy.

Opponents to nanotechnology say it is a much scarier prospect than GM food, and while it can make food look better and last longer, there are fears about how it might affect the human body.

The regulator now faces the difficulty of ruling when packaging becomes part of the food.

The CEO of Food Standards Australia New Zealand, Steve McCutcheon, says it is called interactive packaging, where the food takes in chemicals from the packet as it sits on the shelf.

“At the moment, the shelf life of prepacked salad vegetables is fairly short, but with the application of this technology we understand that you could actually package fresh salads, and they would be fresh still after the 30-day period on the shelf,” he said.

The development that has given birth to the one-month fresh salad is called nanotechnology – working with particles thousands of times smaller that the width of a human hair.

It is not only for packaging, some companies want to use nanoparticles as ingredients in the food itself.

“We understand that a company in the United States has applied for a patent to cover the use of titanium dioxide and silicone dioxide in chocolate, in nanoparticle form, to give the surface a gloss,” he said.

“At this stage we’re aware of applications to use this technology in the marketplace, but whether that’s actually happening or not, I don’t know.”

Mr McCutcheon says the new form of technology would require pre-market approval prior to entering the market in Australia and New Zealand.

Dr Rye Senjen is researching nanotechnology for Friends of the Earth.

She says it could already be in some food we eat, and it is a bigger concern than genetically modified organisms.

“I think it’s genetically engineering on steroids, because nanotechnology has a much bigger application that will be applied to every single aspect of the food chain. It’s much more scary,” she said.

Although nanotech food has not been approved, Dr Senjen says there is no law to prevent manufacturers using their regular ingredients in nanoparticle form.

“There’s no legal requirement whatsoever to tell the regulator that now you’ve shrunk the particle size. It’s not in the regulations. You don’t even have to mention it,” she added.

She says nanoparticles are dangerous because they are small and could breach the body’s defences in ways no natural food can.

“When you ingest something and then if it can cross from the digestive system to elsewhere, well it can go anywhere,” she said.

But Mr McCutcheon believes it is too early to say there are risks.

“We don’t know yet what the hazards and risks are from its application to food, if indeed there are any hazards or risks,” he added.

Mr McCutcheon says the regulator is only just beginning to look at the global evidence on the impact of eating nanoparticles.

GM Files: GMOs Contain Latent Pesticides Which Are Activated When Eaten

Friday, April 18th, 2008

The Natural Solutions Foundation, the leading Global Health Freedom organization, is proud to present this information to you. We protect your right to know about – and to use – natural ways to maintain and regain your health, no matter where in the world you live. Among your freedoms is the right to clean, unadulterated food free of genetic manipulation, pesticides, heavy metals or other contaminants and access to herbs, supplements, frequency devices and other means as therapies that may benefit or to protect your well-being without drugs and other dangerous interventions, if you choose.

For more information on our global programs, including the International Decade of Nutrition, and our US based ones, please visit us at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org and www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org and join the free email list for the Health Freedom eAlerts to keep you in the loop, informed and active defending your right to make your own decisions about your health and wellbeing!
Our activities are supported 100% by your tax deductible donations. Please give generously (https://www.staging.healthfreedomusa.com/index.php?page_id=189) to the Natural Solutions Foundation. Thank you for your support.
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Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
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www.organics4U.org

Genetically engineered crops contain latent pesticides that are activated when eaten by consumers
Sep 07 2006
Source: NewsTarget

According to a recent article from the Institute for Responsible Technology, certain varieties of herbicides used on genetically modified (GM) crops — though inactive inside the plants they protect — can be re-activated after consumption and cause toxic reactions.

Herbicide tolerance (HT) is a common trait in roughly 71 percent of all GM crops, which are mostly comprised of corn, soy, cotton and canola. HT crops tend to make a lot of money for biotech companies, since farmers who buy HT seeds are required to purchase that company’s brand of herbicide as well.

The herbicide used in many GE crops is derived from a natural antibiotic found in soil, which produces specialized enzymes that transform from an antibiotic to a non-toxic form called NAG (N-acetyl-L-glufosinate). The enzymes are then inserted into the DNA of GM crops, so that when the crop is sprayed with herbicides, the plant transforms the herbicide into non-toxic NAG — essentially, the plant is able to protect itself from the toxic chemicals that kill the weeds surrounding it.

However, recent animal studies have shown that after GM crops — which have accumulated high levels of NAG after several herbicide sprays — are consumed, stomach bacteria can re-transform NAG back into the toxic herbicide. Two rat studies found a 10 percent and a 1 percent rate of NAG conversion after consumption of HT crops.

According to a January 2006 report by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of the Inspector General, certain pesticides easily enter the brains of young children and fetuses, where they then destroy cells. Studies of mice embryos exposed to glufosinate resulted in reduced numbers of vital brain receptors, growth retardation, increased death rates and incomplete development of the forebrain.

Critics of GM crops urge the public to call on the EPA for more rigorous testing of genetically engineered crops, and for stricter labeling laws on GM products so consumers can more easily avoid them.

GM Files: Summary of GM Risks.2

Friday, April 18th, 2008

The Natural Solutions Foundation, the leading Global Health Freedom organization, is proud to present this information to you. We protect your right to know about – and to use – natural ways to maintain and regain your health, no matter where in the world you live. Among your freedoms is the right to clean, unadulterated food free of genetic manipulation, pesticides, heavy metals or other contaminants and access to herbs, supplements, frequency devices and other means as therapies that may benefit or to protect your well-being without drugs and other dangerous interventions, if you choose.

For more information on our global programs, including the International Decade of Nutrition, and our US based ones, please visit us at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org and www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org and join the free email list for the Health Freedom eAlerts to keep you in the loop, informed and active defending your right to make your own decisions about your health and wellbeing!
Our activities are supported 100% by your tax deductible donations. Please give generously (https://www.staging.healthfreedomusa.com/index.php?page_id=189) to the Natural Solutions Foundation. Thank you for your support.
Feel free to disseminate this information as widely as possible with full attribution.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.organics4U.org

This article summarizes the findings in Jeffrey Smith’s “Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods.”

Potential Health Hazards of Genetically Engineered Foods

by Stephen Lendman

Global Research, February 22, 2008

This article discusses the potential health risks of genetically engineered foods (GMOs). It draws on some previously used material because its importance bears repeating. It also cites three notable books and highlights one in particular – Jeffrey Smith’s “Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods.” Detailed information from the book is featured below.

Genetically engineered foods saturate our diet today. In the US alone, over 80% of all processed foods contain them. Others include grains like rice, corn and wheat; legumes like soybeans and soy products; vegetable oils, soft drinks; salad dressings; vegetables and fruits; dairy products including eggs; meat, chicken, pork and other animal products; and even infant formula plus a vast array of hidden additives and ingredients in processed foods (like in tomato sauce, ice cream, margarine and peanut butter). Consumers don’t know what they’re eating because labeling is prohibited, yet the danger is clear. Independently conducted studies show the more of these foods we eat, the greater the potential harm to our health.

Today, consumers are kept in the dark and are part of an uncontrolled, unregulated mass human experiment the results of which are unknown. Yet, the risks are enormous, it will take years to learn them, and when we finally know it’ll be too late to reverse the damage if it’s proved conclusively that genetically engineered foods harm human health as growing numbers of independent experts believe. Once GM seeds are introduced to an area, the genie is out of the bottle for keeps. There is nothing known to science today to reverse the contamination already spread over two-thirds of arable US farmland and heading everywhere unless checked.

This is happening in spite of the risk because of what F. William Engdahl revealed in his powerfully important, well documented book titled “Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation.” It’s the diabolical story of how Washington and four Anglo-American agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting animal and vegetable life forms to gain worldwide control of our food supply, make it all genetically engineered, and use it as a weapon to reward friends and punish enemies.

Today, consumers eat these foods daily without knowing the potential health risks. In 2003, Jeffrey Smith explained them in his book titled “Seeds of Deception.” He revealed that efforts to inform the public have been quashed, reliable science has been buried, and consider what happened to two distinguished scientists – UC Berkeley’s Ignacio Chapela and former Scotland Rowett Research Institute researcher and world’s leading lectins and plant genetic modification expert, Arpad Pusztai. They were vilified, hounded, and threatened for their research, and in the case of Pusztai, fired from his job for doing it.

He believed in the promise of GM foods, was commissioned to study them, and conducted the first ever independent one on them anywhere. Like other researchers since, he was shocked by his findings. Rats fed GM potatoes had smaller livers, hearts, testicles and brains, damaged immune systems, and showed structural changes in their white blood cells making them more vulnerable to infection and disease compared to other rats fed non-GMO potatoes. It got worse. Thymus and spleen damage showed up; enlarged tissues, including the pancreas and intestines; and there were cases of liver atrophy as well as significant proliferation of stomach and intestines cells that could be a sign of greater future risk of cancer. Equally alarming, results showed up after 10 days of testing, and they persisted after 110 days that’s the human equivalent of 10 years.

Later independent studies confirmed what Pusztai learned, and Smith published information on them in his 2007 book called “Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods.” The book is encyclopedic in depth, an invaluable comprehensive source, and this article reviews some of the shocking data in it.

Compelling Evidence of Potential GMO Harm

In his introduction, Smith cites the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) policy statement on GM food safety without a shred of evidence to back it. It supported GHW Bush’s Executive Order that GMOs are “substantially equivalent” to ordinary seeds and crops and need no government regulation. The agency said it was “not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.” That single statement meant no safety studies are needed and “Ultimately, it is the food producer” that bears responsibility “for assuring safety.” As a consequence, foxes now guard our henhouse in a brave new dangerous world.

FDA policy opened the floodgates, and Smith put it this way: It “set the stage for the rapid deployment of the new technology,” allowed the seed industry to become “consolidated, millions of acres (to be) planted, hundreds of millions to be fed (these foods in spite of nations and consumers objecting, and) laws to be passed (to assure it).” The toll today is contaminated crops, billions of dollars lost, human health harmed, and it turns out the FDA lied.

The agency knew GM crops are “meaningfully different” because their technical experts told them so. As a result, they recommended long-term studies, including on humans, to test for possible allergies, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems. Instead, politics trumped science, the White House ordered the FDA to promote GM crops, and a former Monsanto vice-president went to FDA to assure it.

Today, the industry is unregulated, and when companies say their foods are safe, their views are unquestioned. Further, Smith noted that policy makers in other countries trust FDA and wrongly assume their assessments are valid. They’re disproved when independent studies are matched against industry-run ones. The differences are startling. The former report adverse affects while the latter claim the opposite. It’s no secret why. Agribusiness giants allow nothing to interfere with profits, safety is off the table, and all negative information is quashed.

As a result, their studies are substandard, adverse findings are hidden, and they typically “fail to investigate the impacts of GM food on gut function, liver function, kidney function, the immune system, endocrine system, blood composition, allergic response, effects on the unborn, the potential to cause cancer, or impacts on gut bacteria.” In addition, industry-funded studies creatively avoid finding problems or conceal any uncovered. They cook the books by using older instead of younger more sensitive animals, keep sample sizes too low for statistical significance, dilute the GM component of feeds used, limit the duration of feeding trials, ignore animal deaths and sickness, and engage in other unscientific practices. It’s to assure people never learn of the potential harm from these foods, and Smith says they can do it because “They’ve got ‘bad science’ down to a science.”

The real kinds show GMOs produce “massive changes in the natural functioning of (a) plant’s DNA. Native genes can be mutated, deleted, permanently turned off or on….the inserted gene can become truncated, fragmented, mixed with other genes, inverted or multiplied, and the GM protein it produces may have unintended characteristics” that may be harmful.

GMOs also pose other health risks. When a transgene functions in a new cell, it may produce different proteins than the ones intended. They may be harmful, but there’s no way to know without scientific testing. Even if the protein is exactly the same, there are still problems. Consider corn varieties engineered to produce a pesticidal protein called Bt-toxin. Farmers use it in spray form, and companies falsely claim it’s harmless to humans. In fact, people exposed to the spray develop allergic-type symptoms, mice ingesting Bt had powerful immune responses and abnormal and excessive cell growth, and a growing number of human and livestock illnesses are linked to Bt crops.

Smith notes still another problem relating to inserted genes. Assuming they’re destroyed by our digestive system, as industry claims, is false. In fact, they may move from food into gut bacteria or internal organs, and consider the potential harm. If corn genes with Bt-toxin get into gut bacteria, our intestinal flora may become pesticide factories. There’s been no research done to prove if it’s true or false. Agribusiness giants aren’t looking, neither is FDA, consumers are left to play “Genetic Roulette,” and the few animal feeding studies done show the odds are against them.

Arpad Pusztai and other scientists were shocked at their results of animals fed GM foods. His results were cited above. Other independent studies showed stunted growth, impaired immune systems, bleeding stomachs, abnormal and potentially precancerous cell growth in the intestines, impaired blood cell development, misshaped cell structures in the liver, pancreas and testicles, altered gene expression and cell metabolism, liver and kidney lesions, partially atrophied livers, inflamed kidneys, less developed organs, reduced digestive enzymes, higher blood sugar, inflamed lung tissue, increased death rates and higher offspring mortality as well.

There’s more. Two dozen farmers reported their pigs and cows fed GM corn became sterile, 71 shepherds said 25% of their sheep fed Bt cotton plants died, and other reports showed the same effects on cows, chickens, water buffaloes and horses. After GM soy was introduced in the UK, allergies from the product skyrocketed by 50%, and in the US in the 1980s, a GM food supplement killed dozens and left five to ten thousand others sick or disabled.

Today, Monsanto is the world’s largest seed producer, and Smith notes how the company deals with reports like these. In response to the US Public Health Service concerning adverse reactions from its toxic PCBs, the company claims its experience “has been singularly free of difficulties.” That’s in spite of lawsuit-obtained records showing “this was part of a cover-up and denial that lasted decades” by a company with a long history of irresponsible behavior that includes “extensive bribery, highjacking of regulatory agencies, suppressing negative information about its products” and threatening journalists and scientists who dare report them. The company long ago proved it can’t be trusted with protecting human health.

In his book, “Seeds of Destruction,” Engdahl names four dominant agribusiness giants – Monsanto, DuPont, Dow Agrisciences and Syngenta in Switzerland from the merger of the agriculture divisions of Novartis and AstraZeneca. Smith calls these companies Ag biotech and names a fifth – Germany-based Bayer CropScience AG (division of Bayer AG) with its Environmental Science and BioScience headquarters in France.

Their business is to do the impossible and practically overnight – change the laws of nature and do them one better for profit. So far they haven’t independent because genetic engineering doesn’t work like natural breeding. It may or may not be a lot of things, but it isn’t sex, says Smith. Michael Antoniou, a molecular geneticist involved in human gene therapy, explains that genetic modification “technically and conceptually bears no resemblance to natural breeding.” The reproduction process works by both parents contributing thousands of genes to the offspring. They, in turn, get sorted naturally, and plant breeders have successfully worked this way for thousands of years.

Genetic manipulation is different and so far fraught with danger. It works by forcibly inserting a single gene from a species’ DNA into another unnaturally. Smith puts it this way: “A pig can mate with a pig and a tomato can mate with a tomato. But this is no way that a pig can mate with a tomato and vice versa.” The process transfers genes across natural barriers that “separated species over millions of years of evolution” and managed to work. The biotech industry now wants us to believe it can do nature one better, and that genetic engineering is just an extension or superior alternative to natural breeding. It’s unproved, indefensible pseudoscience mumbo jumbo, and that’s the problem.

Biologist David Schubert explains that industry claims are “not only scientifically incorrect but exceptionally deceptive….to make the GE process sound similar to conventional plant breeding.” It a smoke screen to hide the fact that what happens in laboratories can’t duplicate nature, at least not up to now. Genetic engineering involves combining genes that never before existed together, the process defies natural breeding proved safe over thousands of years, and there’s no way to assure the result won’t be a deadly unrecallable Andromeda Strain, no longer the world of science fiction.

The industry pooh-pooh’s the suggestion of potential harm, and unscientifically claims millions of people in the US and worldwide have eaten GM food for a decade, and no one got sick. Smith’s reply: How can we know as “GM foods might already be contributing to serious health problems, but since no one is monitoring for this, it could take decades” to find out. By then, it will be too late and some industry critics argue it already may be or dangerously close.

Today, most existing diseases have no effective surveillance systems in place. If GM foods create new ones, that potentially compounds the problem manyfold. Consider HIV/AIDS. It went unnoticed for decades and when identified, many thousands worldwide were infected or had died.

Then there’s the problem of linkage. In the US and many countries, GM foods are unlabeled so it’s impossible tracing illness and diseases to specific substances ingested even if thousands of people are affected. It can plausibly be blamed on anything, especially when governments and regulatory agencies support industry claims of reliability and safety.

It’s rare that problems like the L-Tryptophan epidemic of the late 1980s are identified, but when it was thousands were already harmed. L-Tryptophan is a natural amino acid constituent of most proteins and for years was produced by many companies including Showa Denko in Japan. The company then got greedy, saw a way to increase profits from a product designed to induce sleep naturally, and gene-spliced a bacterium into the natural product to do it. The result was many dozens dead, over 1500 crippled, and up to 10,000 afflicted with a blood disorder from a new incurable disease called Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome or EMS.

It’s a painful, multi-system disease that causes permanent scarring and fibrosis to nerve and muscle tissues, continuing inflammation, and a permanent change in a person’s immune system. It cost the company two billion dollars to settle claims. Hundreds have since died, in all likelihood from contracting EMS.

This is the known toll from a single product. Consider the potential harm with Ag biotech wanting all foods to be unlabeled GMOs worldwide and governments unable to balk because WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) and Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) rules deny them. They’re also prevented under WTO’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (SPS). It states that national laws banning GMO products are “unfair trade practices” even when they endanger human health. Other WTO rules also apply – called “Technical Barriers to Trade.” They prohibit GMO labeling so consumers don’t know what they’re eating and can’t avoid these potentially hazardous foods.

The 1996 Biosafety Protocol was drafted to prevent this problem, and it should be in place to do it. Public safety, however, was ambushed by Washington, the FDA and the agribusiness lobby. It sabotaged talks and insisted biosafety measures be subordinate to WTO trade rules that apply regardless of other considerations, including public health and safety. The path is thus cleared for the unrestricted spread of GMO seeds and foods worldwide unless a way is found to stop it.

Independent Animal Studies Showing GMO Harm

Rats fed genetically engineered Calgene Flavr-Savr tomatoes (developed to look fresh for weeks) for 28 days got bleeding stomachs (stomach lesions) and seven died and were replaced in the study.

Rats fed Monsanto 863 Bt corn for 90 days developed multiple reactions typically found in response to allergies, infections, toxins, diseases like cancer, anemia and blood pressure problems. Their blood cells, livers and kidneys showed significant changes indicative of disease.

Mice fed either GM potatoes engineered to produce Bt- toxin or natural potatoes containing the toxin had intestinal damage. Both varieties created abnormal and excessive cell growth in the lower intestine. The equivalent human damage might cause incontinence or flu-like symptoms and could be pre-cancerous. The study disproved the contention that digestion destroys Bt-toxin and is not biologically active in mammals.

Workers in India handling Bt cotton while picking, loading, weighing and separating the fiber from seeds developed allergies. They began with “mild to severe itching,” then redness and swelling, followed by skin eruptions. These symptoms affected their skin, eyes (got red and swollen with excessive tearing) and upper respiratory tract causing nasal discharge and sneezing. In some cases, hospitalization was required. At one cotton gin factory, workers take antihistamines daily.

Sheep grazing on Bt cotton developed “unusual systems” before dying “mysteriously.” Reports from four Indian villages revealed 25% of them died within a week. Post mortems indicated a toxic reaction. The study raises questions about cottonseed oil safety and human health for people who eat meat from animals fed GM cotton. It’s crucial to understand that what animals eat, so do people.

Nearly all 100 Filipinos living adjacent to a Bt corn field became ill. Their symptoms appeared when the crop was producing airborne pollen and was apparently inhaled. Doing it produced headaches, dizziness, extreme stomach pain, vomiting, chest pains, fever, and allergies plus respiratory, intestinal and skin reactions. Blood tests conducted on 39 victims showed an antibody response to Bt-toxin suggesting it was the cause. Four other villages experienced the same problems that also resulted in several animal deaths.

Iowa farmers reported a conception rate drop of from 80% to 20% among sows (female pigs) fed GM corn. Most animals also had false pregnancies, some delivered bags of water and others stopped menstruating. Male pigs were also affected as well as cows and bulls. They became sterile and all were fed GM corn.

German farmer Gottfried Glockner grew GM corn and fed it to his cows. Twelve subsequently died from the Bt 176 variety, and other cows had to be destroyed due to a “mysterious” illness. The corn plots were field trials for Ag biotech giant Syngenta that later took the product off the market with no admission of fault.

Mice fed Monsanto Roundup Ready soybeans developed significant liver cell changes indicating a dramatic general metabolism increase. Symptoms included irregularly shaped nuclei and nucleoli, and an increased number of nuclear pores and other changes. It’s thought this resulted from exposure to a toxin, and most symptoms disappeared when Roundup Ready was removed from the diet.

Mice fed Roundup Ready had pancreas problems, heavier livers and unexplained testicular cell changes. The Monsanto product also produced cell metabolism changes in rabbit organs, and most offspring of rats on this diet died within three weeks.

The death rate for chickens fed GM Liberty Link corn for 42 days doubled. They also experienced less weight gain, and their food intake was erratic.

In the mid-1990s, Australian scientists discovered that GM peas generated an allergic-type inflammatory response in mice in contrast to the natural protein that had no adverse effect. Commercialization of the product was cancelled because of fear humans might have the same reaction.

When given a choice, animals avoid GM foods. This was learned by observing a flock of geese that annually visit an Illinois pond and feed on soybeans from an adjacent farm. After half the acreage had GM crops, the geese ate only from the non-GMO side. Another observation showed 40 deer ate organic soybeans from one field but shunned the GMO kind across the road. The same thing happened with GM corn.

Inserting foreign or transgenes is called insertional mutagenesis or insertion mutation. When done, it usually disrupts DNA at the insertion site and affects gene functioning overall by scrambling, deleting or relocating the genetic code near the insertion site.

The process of creating a GM plant requires scientists first to isolate and grow plant cells in the laboratory using a tissue culture process. The problem is when it’s done it can create hundreds or thousands of DNA mutations throughout the genome. Changing a single base pair may be harmful. However, widespread genome changes compound the potential problem manyfold.

Promoters are used in GM crops as switches to turn on the foreign gene. When done, the process may accidently switch on other natural plant genes permanently. The result may be to overproduce an allergen, toxin, carcinogen, antinutrient, enzymes that stimulate or inhibit hormone production, RNA that silences genes, or changes that affect fetal development. They may also produce regulators that block other genes and/or switch on a dormant virus that may cause great harm. In addition, evidence suggests the promoter may create genetic instability and mutations that can result in the breakup and recombination of the gene sequence.

Plants naturally produce thousands of chemicals to enhance health and protect against disease. However, changing plant protein may alter these chemicals, increase plant toxins and/or reduce its phytonutrients. For example, GM soybeans produce less cancer-fighting isoflavones. Overall, studies show genetic modification produces unintended changes in nutrients, toxins, allergens and small molecule metabolism products.

To create a GM soybean with a more complete protein balance, Pioneer Hi-Bred inserted a Brazil nut gene. By doing it, an allergenic protein was introduced affecting people allergic to Brazil nuts. When tests confirmed this, the project was cancelled. GM proteins in other crops like corn and papaya may also be allergenic. The same problem exists for other crops like Bt corn, and evidence shows allergies skyrocketed after GM crops were introduced.

Another study of Monsanto’s high-lysine corn showed it contained toxins and other potentially harmful substances that may retard growth. If consumed in large amounts, it may also adversely affect human health. In addition, when this product is cooked, it may produce toxins associated with Alzheimer’s, diabetes, allergies, kidney disease, cancer and aging symptoms.

Disease-resistant crops like zucchini, squash and Hawaiian papaya may promote human viruses and other diseases, and eating these products may suppress the body’s natural defense against viral infections.

Protein structural aspects in GM crops may be altered in unforeseen ways. They may be misfolded or have added molecules. During insertion, transgenes may become truncated, rearranged or interspersed with other DNA pieces with unknown harmful effects. Transgenes may also be unstable and spontaneously rearrange over time, again with unpredictable consequences. In addition, they may create more than one protein from a process called alternative splicing. Environmental factors, weather, natural and man-made substances and genetic disposition of a plant further complicate things and pose risks. They’re introduced as well because genetic engineering disrupts complex DNA relationships.

Contrary to industry claims, studies show transgenes aren’t destroyed digestively in humans or animals. Foreign DNA can wander, survive in the gastro-intestinal tract, and be transported by blood to internal organs. This raises the risk that transgenes may transfer to gut bacteria, proliferate over time, and get into cells DNA, possibly causing chronic diseases. A single human feeding study confirmed that genes, in fact, transferred from GM soy into the DNA gut bacteria of three of seven test subjects.

Antibiotic Resister Marker (ARM) genes are attached to transgenes prior to insertion and allow cells to survive antibiotic applications. If ARM genes transfer to pathogenic gut or mouth bacteria, they potentially can cause antibiotic-resistant super-diseases. The proliferation of GM crops increases the possibility. The CaMV promoter in nearly all GMOs can also transfer and may switch on random genes or viruses that produce toxins, allergens or carcinogens as well as create genetic instability.

GM crops interact with their environment and are part of a complex ecosystem that includes our food. These crops may increase environmental and other toxins that may accumulate throughout the food chain. Crops genetically engineered to be glufosinate (herbicide)resistant may produce intestinal herbicide with known toxic effects. If transference to gut bacteria occurs, greater problems may result.

Repeated use of seeds like Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybeans results in vicious new super-weeds that need far greater amounts of stronger herbicides to combat. Their toxic residues remain in crops that humans and animals then eat. Even small amounts of these toxins may be endocrine disruptors that can affect human reproduction adversely. Evidence exists that GM crops accumulate toxins or concentrate them in milk or animals fed GM feed. Disease-resistant crops may also produce new plant viruses that affect humans.

All type GM foods, not just crops, carry these risks. Milk, for example, from cows injected with Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone (rbGH), has much higher levels of the hormone IGF-1 that risks breast, prostate, colon, lung and other cancers. The milk also has lower nutritional value. GM food additives also pose health risks, and their use has proliferated in processed foods.

Potential harm to adults is magnified for children. Another concern is that pregnant mothers eating GM foods may endanger their offspring by harming normal fetal development and altering gene expression that’s then passed to future generations. Children are also more endangered than adults, especially those drinking substantial amounts of rbGH-treated milk.

Conclusion

The above information is largely drawn from Smith’s “Genetic Roulette.” The data is startling and confirms a clear conclusion. The proliferation of untested, unregulated GM foods in the span of a decade is more a leap of faith than reliable science. Microbiologist Richard Lacey captures the risk stating: “it is virtually impossible to even conceive of a testing procedure to assess the health effects of (GM) foods when introduced into the food chain, nor is there any valid nutritional or public interest reason for their introduction.” Other scientists worldwide agree that GM foods entered the market long before science could evaluate their safety and benefits. They want a halt to this dangerous experiment that needs decades of rigorous research and testing before we can know.

Unchecked and unregulated, human health and safety are at risk because once GMOs enter the food chain, the genie is out of the bottle for keeps. Thankfully, resistance is growing worldwide, many millions are opposed, but reversing the tide won’t be easy. Washington and Ag biotech are on a roll with big unstated aims – total control of our food, making it all genetically engineered, and scheming to use it as a weapon to reward friends and punish enemies.

Smith is hopeful that people will prevail over profits. Hopefully he’s right because human health and safety must never be compromised. Resistance already halted the introduction of new crop varieties, and Smith believes that with enough momentum existing ones may end up withdrawn. He cites an example he calls a “Shift away from GM foods in the United States” in 2007. Leading it is an initiative launched last spring to remove GM ingredients from the entire natural food sector. It’s led by a coalition of natural food products producers, distributors and retailers along with the Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT). It’s called the Campaign for Healthier Eating in America, and its aims are big – to educate consumers about GM food risks and promote healthy alternatives through shopping guides.

A Pew survey reported that 29% of Americans, representing 87 million people, strongly oppose these foods and believe they’re unsafe. That’s a respectable start if backed up with efforts to avoid them, and more information how is at ResponsibleTechnology.org. Jeffrey Smith founded IRT in 2003 “to promote the responsible use of technology and stop GM foods and crops through both grassroots and national strategies.” It seeks safe alternatives and aims to “ban the genetic engineering of our food supply and all outdoor releases of (GM) organisms, at least until (or unless scientific opinion) believes such products are safe and appropriate based on independent and reliable data.”

IRT urges consumers to become educated about the risks, mobilize to combat them and act in our mutual self-interest. It’s beginning to happen, and Smith believes “there is an excellent chance that food manufacturers will abandon GM foods in the near future” if a public groundswell demands it. He ends his book saying: “Although GMOs present one of the greatest dangers, with informed, motivated people, it is one of the easiest global issues to solve.” Hopefully he’s right.

Global Research Associate Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hours on RBN Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions of world and national topics with distinguished guests.

Stephen Lendman is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Stephen Lendman