EXPLOSIVE MONSANTO DOCUMENTS REVEAL SERIOUS HAZARDS OF GENETICALLY ENGINEE

A May 22 headline news story in the London Independent has rocked Monsanto and the biotech industry and fueled the controversy over the safety of genetically engineered food. The story reveals that internal Monsanto documents, reviewed by EU scientists, show serious health damage to laboratory animals fed Monsanto's new genetically engineered "rootworm-resistant" corn. Rats who consumed the mutant corn developed smaller kidneys and exhibited blood abnormalities. Scientists say these are "red flags" for immune system damage and/or cancer tumor promotion.

Although the EU will now undoubtedly ban Monsanto's new GMO corn,
:mad: this same rootworm-resistant corn is already being grown and consumed on a major scale in the United States.:mad: Monsanto has denied that the corn can harm humans, but nonetheless refuses to turn over its data to the media, claiming that the lab studies are "Confidential Business Information." Learn more and take action: http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.htm

http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/052405.cfm

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=640402

http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/story.jsp?story=640362

Get heirloom seeds, varieties that have gone un-modified for 50-100 years. Learn home canning. Look into drilling a well on your property. Invest in a good rifle or a shotgun.

I used to think this was just militia nonsense, but giant corporations like Monsanto are quite well-known for cutting CORNERS as well as costs. Now that these GM "foods" have entered the bloodstream, so to speak, you can bet your ass that things are MUCH worse than "news" reports indicate.

And your local organic farmers. If you can't grow your own garden, look into subscription farmers.

Like everybody else, small, organic family farms have suffered under Bush, and Clinton before him. There is an all out assault on these folks out here in the country, and your support would be greatly appreciated by them.

Besides, not only is the food healthier for you, but it also tastes better.

Organic foods, fruit, veggies, eggs, tastes so much better, its all I buy now. In my area the cost difference is negated by the fact that I eat more and waste less.

as it used to.

and/or have never travelled to a tropical region, you've likely NEVER tasted a properly ripened banana.

But I live in the city- thank god for farmer's markets and organic products. This is always another option for people who can't grow gardens- local farmers markets featuring locally grown products. Mmmmmm soooooooo good!

When I worked in DC, I had an apartment in Alexandria VA that had nothing but a concrete slab patio surrounded by a wooden fence. I went and bought a bunch of laundry baskets, trash bags and bags of top soil. Within a month, I had greens and by Summer, all the veggies I could eat.

If you really want it, you can do it.

I have no ground space or deck.

Can you get together with neighbors and/or friends and turn a vacant lot into a garden?

Is there a park nearby that has space they can let you use for a community garden?

Will a friend or neighbor share garden space with you? Most gardeners are very friendly people and most also tend to grow more than they can eat. Most also would love help weeding and/or watering.

Get creative, where there is a will there is a way!

They can happen in every city. When I lived in San Francisco, which probably has the most expensive land in the country, a group of my neighbors found a city-owned lot that was overgrown with weeds. They worked with the city to turn it into a community garden, and I joined it.

It was a great time - you meet a lot of people (sometimes hard to do in the city) and you get a share of produce based on the work you do. It also reclaims neighborhood land that's an eyesore. I'd definitely recommend it.

You can put together small but productive gardens indoors using growlights.

If there's a will there's a way.

to barter for vegetables. ;-)

Having weeds in my garden is bad enough but the thought of pollen from GM modified crops pollinating related weed species and creating hybrids that are resistant to natural enemies is scary.

I find it harder and harder to get heirloom seeds where I am. I now harvest on round of seeds per year from each crop.

online. Let's see (in no particular order, and just what comes to mind) -- Johnny's, Cook's Garden, Heirloom, Pinetree, Seed Savers (Decorah, Iowa, I think -- not a commercial organization, but comprised of members many of which contribute seeds), and a number of others. Richter's in Canada is a great source of medicinal, culinary, ornamental and other herbs.

I am really proud of myself because I started my own seeds (heirloom and OP) this late winter using 1999 seeds I had, and even after giving about 1/4 of the seedlings away, I still have 38 tomato plants!!!, plenty of zuke and y.squash, cukes, jalapeno peppers and one other variety of bell peppers, and so forth. The only new seeds and plants were "Carnival" multi-colored variety of bell peppers from Martha Stewart, Lemon Cucumber (an heirloom) also from Martha, and 3 eggplant seedlings since none of my old eggplant seeds germinated. I even have a few herb plants - including lots of basil! I'm really proud of my tomato plants. They're lookin' so beautiful and a few are really, really strong and sturdy.

Supporting Community-Supported Agriculture (CSAs) and/or growing your own using heirloom and open-pollinated (OP as opposed to hybridized varieties -- or worse!!) and growing organically are extremely important. And yes! Learn to save your own seeds (it's not always as easy as just putting them aside once you run into them inside the vegetable).

Johnny's has one of the best catalogues for the novice gardener because there is a culture box for each item telling best practices on germination, fertilization, and harvest. All the others you mentioned are great too, as is Seeds of Change.

OP is the key. Heirlooms and OP generally will grow true from seed.
Heirloom varieties often are better tasting and have better texture than the commercial varieties because the latter are grown for sturdiness first, not flavor. They need to survive mechanical harvesting. storage, and shipment.

I prefer the processed public supply, thank-you.

I am so sick of "ditching safety for peofits" that if we all die of their corn, and they ultimately will too, so much tbe better.

I really don't, but they're going to do what they want anyway. So may it affect their breakfast tables too.

My solution?
Concentrate on real food, real population control (so we can truly live as a culture of life in a compassionate socity rather than overopulating it with mouths we can't feed, or feed with tainted chemical-laden or "frankenstein food"...), a real society where everybody shares (like open source except some asswipes can't spin it into a huge profit-generating commodity for itself; this will eliminate the corporate copyright crap that is now so convoluted it'll only keep people FROM Inventing... knowledge should be shared anyway; everyone is on the same playing field so nobody can hoard or feel threatened. Duh-oy...) If there is to be a brave new world, ours is the generation that will make the changes. And ensure our sons and daughters do too. And so on. The greed and tyrrany must end.




Anybody else consider the remote possibility that this isn't out of sloppy greed but a deliberate attempt to cull people off; what with peak oil looming and all?

Look who has interest in Monsanto. Surprise! (not)

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.html

Although I am now terrified of food, it is helpful to have more specific info about how the crooks are in charge- they write the report as a Monsanto employee, and then get appointed to the FDA and approve their own report? This provides more ammo to try to convince my red state sleepwalkers that this evil administration targets everyone- including them.

for this link..

Some of the Scariest..just as we thought!

"Prior to being the Supreme Court Judge who put GW Bush in office,Clarence Thomas was Monsanto's lawyer.

The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (Anne Veneman) was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Calgene Corporation.
The Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Searle pharmaceuticals.


The U.S. Secretary of Health, Tommy Thompson, received $50,000 in donations from Monsanto during his winning campaign for Wisconsin's governor.
The two congressmen receiving the most donations from Monsanto during the last election were Larry Combest (Chairman of the House Agricultural Committee) and Attorney General John Ashcroft. (Source: Dairy Education Board)"

Go ahead, believe the USDA, GE Foods are good for you and will feed the world.

Monsanto Wants Control of the WORLD'S Food Supply

He who controls the seeds, controls the world..

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Revolving-Door.htm

US Government Workers & University  Researchers      
        Go Biotech. . . .   
. . . and Back Again.
A Question of Ethics 

Just a short sample

USDA secretary Ann Veneman is a former director of Calgene (swallowed by Monsanto and now part of Pharmacia), the biotech company that heralded the world's first genetically altered food, the Flavr Savr tomato. Before becoming USDA secretary, Veneman, an attorney, was appointed by California Governor Pete Wilson as the secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). 

Rufus Yerxa, Monsanto's chief counsel, has been appointed as the US deputy to the WTO. He "has Geneva experience as the US ambassador to Gatt, the WTO's predecessor, where he had a reputation for charming opponents. Yerxa has been international counsel to Monsanto, the bio-technology group. Just the man Supachai will need should the US ever bleat to the WTO about EU restrictions on genetically modified food." - Trading Places Financial Times (UK) 20aug02

Bush Picks Industry Insiders to Fill Environmental Posts." - New York Times bluntly phrased headline. The Times seems upset about, among other things, the selections of Linda Fisher, head of government affairs for Monsanto, as deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; J. Steven Griles, a former coal and oil company executive and lobbyist for the mining industry, as deputy interior secretary; William Geary Myers III, lobbyist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, as the chief lawyer for the Interior Department; and James Connaughton, a lawyer with a firm that advises companies and trade groups, as chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. - Wall Street Journal 15may01

Linda J. Fisher...  Vice President of Government and Public Affairs for Monsanto Corporation, a leading developer of biotech foods, has been nominated for the second-ranking job at the Environmental Protection Agency. Fisher, who worked as Assistant Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Pollution Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances for 10 years before heading Monsanto's Washington lobbying office, was nominated for the post of deputy administrator. She also served on a U.S. Agriculture Department advisory committee on biotech foods.  One of the major issues currently before the EPA is a request from Aventis SA to approve a genetically- modified corn known as StarLink for human consumption. StarLink, a variety altered to repel pests, was barred from human food in 1998 due to concerns that it might trigger allergic reactions in some people. - Reuters 1may01

and lots more...happy reading, if this doesn't make you quit buying fast food and start buying organic, nothing will.

and see mindfully.org's GE page for links to tons of stories, what you don't know will hurt you! Scroll down the page for the links.

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/ge-2005.htm

We just need to get more mass media and alternative media coverage of GE issues. Somebody on AAR should commit to at least 5 minutes a day on this topic.

When we did our GE-Free ballot initiative last year about 50% of those I talked to (and I talked to thousands as I collected my 1,000 signatures to get our measure on the ballot) over half did not know what the term genetically engineered meant!!! Nor did they know what they were eating.

your hair:

Rumsfeld and Asparatame
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2257875

How Aspartame Became Legal
http://www.rense.com/general33/legal.htm

Aspartame, anti-depressants and Bush
(Highly political but has very good info otherwise)
By Jerry Mazza, Online Journal Contributing Writer
http://onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/080604Mazza/080604mazza.html

Good to know.

This is getting way too frequent.

I should just get a lobotomy and watch reality TV.

<sigh>

I think they are truly ego-maniacs that thought they could own everything and control everything from the water to the seeds to the air (?) as well as energy (oil, etc.) and that they either did not think about the consequences - toxins, etc. - or figured that they would be able to live outside of the consequences.

Unfortunately - if they ever do become enlightened - it will probably be too late.

Of course they obviously don't care about others affected by what they do or how many lives are lost.

to have GM foods labeled.
GM foods are all over the grocery shelves.

Ubiquitous, even in soda, everyone has ingested some. what a great way to get everyone into the hospital and onto big pharma before they grow too old.

Gives new meaning to the old phrase "It's not the one that screams in your face you need to worry about, It is the one who smiles in your face while they poison your coffee"

because corn syrup is used for sweetening in most of the processed foods. That's why soda is so cheap. Supersize me!

Natural Foods stores they have products all over the place that have "gmo" with a big SLASH through it.

We support Organic Farmers!

If it has the new USDA organic....is only has to be 25% organically grown to qualify.

the USDA has literally coopted the organic labelling...and much is grown south of the border and irrigated with raw human sewage (including heavy metals).

only locally grown , chemical free, straight from the farmer is safe.

This is just the tip of their NAZI iceberg.

MONSANTO'S former attorney Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court?
And all the others with MONSANTO connections in high places: just a coincidence....

I think all of MONSANTO's mutant foods should be tested on these folks.

The stuff must rub off.

It's very hard to avoid

one wonders if all corn will someday be contaminated.

Recently there was a farmer in Canada who was succesfully sued by Monsanto. He saved his own seed from year to year, but over time his crop had become contaminated by pollen from nearby fields that were using on of the herbicide resistant GM varieties produced by Monsanto. Even though he was unaware of the contamination and was an organic farmer, he was forced to pay damages for the use of his contaminated seed.

I think the lawsuit should have gone the other way and the farmer get damages for contaminating his organic seed stock.

The power of money and access.

The same laws have been surreptitiously introduced in Iraq. And soldiers are reportedly handing out GM seeds for free to farmers there, so their fields will be contaminated and they will have to pay royalties to Monsanto and DuPont for all eternity.

but not only because its harmful to humans. What really makes them scum is that, through their actions, MONSANTO and other companies like them are systematically destroying public confidence in science and progress.

...include the neurotoxin Nutrasweet (Aspartame), which contains methanol (wood alcohol). Monsanto bought Searle, and guess who was the CEO of Searle? Donald Rumsfeld! Another tidbit...before finding his way to an undeserved spot on SCOTUS, Clarence Thomas was an attorney for Monsanto.

A VERY EVIL COMPANY, not just for the GMO stuff...it goes WAY back!

hold of this story. Just wait until the opposition party refuses to let go of this issue until GMO corn is banned.

have already had results that show GMO foods to be of questionable safety but since the US studies showed otherwise, we have GMO stuff here. The problem is, the US studies were funded by Monsanto. The stuff doesn't even have to be labeled. There's the good old Republican non-regulation for ya. Corn and Soy are the most widespread of GMO foods in the US. I've been buying only organic corn and soy products for several years. The other big food cover-up is beef. The govt. is not doing enough to protect us from Mad Cow disease and has even covered up evidence that it's more widespread in the US than they thought.

We eat only grass-fed beef at our house. Yeah, it's expensive. Beef is now a treat to us instead of a staple. And it's awkward to turn down hamburgers at cook-outs, etc., but our health is worth it.

Go to this site if you're interested in finding out more and/or signing petitions to get this crap labeled.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/index.htm

GM food, patented life-forms, PNAC...

This stuff isn't good for you, but they want to make it the only thing available to you. There is a reason these seeds are hybrid. Right now Monsanto is quietly looking for a way to collect royalty payments from the farmers that plant their seed in South America. That means that once the seed has grown and harvested Monsanto would be entitled to a share of the profit that the farmer makes off the seed. I assure you if this is successful they will eventually try it in North America. They want to be able to make money not only from the sale of the seed,(that will have to be bought yearly because it's hybrid), they want to make money off the harvested seed. Once they get all other seed corn off the market, no one will have a choice about what kind of seed corn they get, plus they will be forced to pay whatever Monsanto wants. If you want to eat, or farm you won't have a choice.

I have a cousin in Iowa who still farms 1000 or so acres of Soy and Corn. I emailed him about Monsanto several months ago, I have never heard from him again. Odd since everthing was dandy before I asked that question. The thought crossed my mind that he already has a deal with monsanto. I sure hope not.

call him.

Monsanto is ruthless. You really shouldn't make fun. We all know that they aren't blocking calls or emails. But they make deals with farmers all the time. (My Dad owns 7 tractor dealerships, and the rest of my family farms.) My grandfather just got a settlement from them because one kind of corn he planted attacked the other variety of corn in the field next to it. No joke. Plus the disclosure forms they make you sign are unreal. Half the farmers I know are clueless about what they are signing, the rep just tells them to sign it, if they don't want their corn or beans attacked by disease or pests. I assure you this isn't a joking matter. They even threaten to sue you if you disclose to anyone any abnormalities you may see in the field.(such as deformed corn)

monitoring their "customers" communications--especially since you've described their tactics. Threatening to sue one for exercising free speech is plain old spooky. (Telling the truth is against the rules now? And since when can you sign away your constitutional right to free speech? Wouldn't that automatically make a person suspicious of them?)

I know they're evil. Sorry if my post annoyed you...

This subject gets me hot sometimes. Farmers are good people, they just have no understanding of the law, or their rights for that matter. That's why these big companies get away with this crap. It's really sad because the people that pay the real price are the consumers. Farmers feel trapped like they can't say anything, for fear of losing all they have, the farm. It really is sad.

exploitation.

now I can tell the technophiles who were trumpeting this as a great idea to save the world and calling us who said that GMO's are not good "luddites" and various other names to STFU!

liquidate Its' assets and turn over its' IP to the public. It's time that corporate "persons" face the same consequences as real people. NO MORE AMNESTY FOR CORPORATIONS!

Jay

after these reports. http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/050523/food_monsanto.html?.v=1

Thanks for this link. I will pass this on.

Should be a no brainer. And don't trust the government to protect us from them either. Not with all the bribes being paid to congressmen and the president.

www.mark-gelbart.com

:kick:

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

started by the USDA. Short of growing your own, it's the only way to make sure you're not getting genetically modified foods.

Worth the extra cost, in what you'll save down the road for your health.

It's not just produce. 90% of the soy grown in the US and around 60-70% of the corn is GMO, so avoid processed and packaged foods, too, unless they are organic or made with organic soy/corn.

I also recommend organic beef, as mad cow is being covered up in the U.S., from what I've seen.

FYI, I edit a nutrition journal.

Monsanto's seeds. Did y'all know that?

They introduced laws that forbade farmers to save patented seeds, which includes GM varieties. Basically the same laws that apply in the US. At the same time, they're reportedly handing out Monsanto seeds to farmers for free, so their fields will be contaminated and they will have to pay royalties forever...

They're still allowed to save and use their traditional seed varieties though. As long as their crops don't get contaminated.

Enron didn't get rights to the wind, yet, so the farmers can't sue them...

Any knowledge about how contamination happens (other than Monsanto thugs tossing handfuls of their seeds into the fields under cover of darkness)?

It happens by cross-pollineation, if GM plants grow too close to non-GM varieties. The non-GM plants get GM DNA and pass it on to the next "generation". Pretty damn awful if there are indeed health risks associated with it, and if the poor farmers have to buy new seeds every year and pay royalties because their crops have been contaminated.

They will be worth megabucks once the world's food supply has been contaminated by GM.

like corn syrup, etc.

Monsanto goes hand in glove with big pharma. big pharma wants americans to stay sick and use their so-called treatment drugs.

that's one reason big pharma is against stem cell research. they don't want any cures.

so if eating modified corn gives you internal problems, just take one of the indigestion pills advertized on TV.

and if one pill has side effects then you have to take another pill to counter the side-effect. money, money, money, makes the pharma go round.