On March 11 a new documentary was aired on French television. It is a documentary most Americans will never see, explaining how the gigantic biotech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years.
For millennia, farmers have saved seeds from season to season. But when Monsanto developed GM seeds that would resist its own herbicide, Roundup, Monsanto patented the seeds. For nearly all of its history the United States Patent and Trademark Office refused to grant patents on seeds, viewing them as life-forms with too many variables to be patented. But in 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court allowed for seed patents in a five-to-four decision, laying the groundwork for a handful of corporations to begin taking control of the world’s food supply.
Since the 1980s, Monsanto has become the world leader in genetic modification of seeds and has won 674 biotechnology patents, more than any other company. Farmers who buy Monsanto’s Roundup Ready seeds are required to sign an agreement promising not to save the seed produced after each harvest for re-planting, or to sell the seed to other farmers. This means that farmers must buy new seed every year.
Monsanto puts pressure on farmers, farmers’ co-ops, seed dealers, and anyone else it suspects may have infringed its patents of genetically modified seeds. To do this, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents. They secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops. They infiltrate community meetings. They gather information from informants about farming activities.
Some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors. Others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them to sign papers giving Monsanto access to their private records. Farmers call them the “seed police” and use words such as “Gestapo” and “Mafia” to describe their tactics.
Sources:
Vanity Fair May 2008
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Monsanto, which was a plain old chemical business before it rechristened itself a "life sciences" company, and started using bioengineering to develop genetically altered crops, is one of the biggest threats to both mankind and the earth today. They have both the capability and the ruthless drive to, more or less single-handedly, destroy the world’s natural biodiversity and food supply for their own profit.
Complicating the picture further, Monsanto is also deeply entrenched with the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmacia Corporation was created in April 2000 through the merger of Pharmacia & Upjohn with Monsanto Company and its G.D. Searle unit. Few people ever make the connection between GMO crops and the sale of drugs.
I believe the GMO crop issue is one of the most significant challenges to your future health. And, the drug industry is one of the primary driving forces for the traditional paradigm, which focuses on the treating symptoms with expensive band-aids, so you get sicker and sicker and require more of their self-serving expensive drug solutions to relieve your symptoms. Put these two health disasters together – where one is feeding the profits of the other -- and the picture becomes bleak indeed.
Folks, it’s time to just say no to this madness and abrogation of ethics.
Let your elected officials know how you feel about it; ask your local supermarket to stock their shelves with more natural organic foods; vote with your pocketbook – avoid everything that contains GMO products. That means abstaining from virtually all processed food products and sticking to fresh, locally grown, organic food stuffs, and going back to basic food preparation in your own home.
Cooking from scratch, with wholesome ingredients based on your nutritional type, is one of the absolute best things you can do for your long-term health.
Is New Terrifying Disease the Cause of Genetically Modified Foods?
Have you ever heard of “Morgellon’s Disease?”
As of February 2007, more than 10,000 reports of the mysterious disease have been reported on the Morgellon Foundation's website. That’s up from 2,000 reports in February of 2006.
Reports come from 15 nations across the world, including Canada, the UK, Australia and The Netherlands, as well as all 50 U.S. states. The majority of reports have come from Texas, California and Florida.
People with Morgellon’s disease describe it as a feeling of bugs or parasites scuttling around beneath their skin, accompanied by open lesions that heal slowly and ooze out blue, black or white fibers that can be several millimeters long. These fibers appear like pliable plastic. They can be as fine as spider silk, yet they are strong enough to distend the skin when pulled and elicit shooting pains when you try to remove them.
The CDC, unusually slow to respond to what can only be described as a new outbreak, has finally set up a web page about the phenomenon, which they refer to as “Unexplained Dermopathy.” In August 2007 -- a year after vowing to look into the terrifying disorder -- they gave $300,000 to Kaiser Permanente to investigate the disease.
The CDC’s website lists additional symptoms, including fatigue, mental confusion, short term memory loss, joint pain, changes in vision, and social dysfunction, including suicide.
According to an article in Natural News, published last week, Morgellon’s disease may be linked to genetically modified food.
While the CDC dragged its feet, a research team from Oklahoma State University lead by Dr. Randy Wymore, studied some of the fibers sent to them by Morgellons patients. They found that the fibers from different people look remarkably similar to each other, yet do not match any common environmental fibers.Vitaly Citovsky, Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University in New York, discovered that the fibers contain the substance Agrobacterium, a genus of gram-negative bacteria capable of genetically transforming not only plants, but also other eukaryotic species, including human cells.
Are we now teetering on the brink of the GM food disaster we feared from the very beginning?
Information is Power, so Power Up!
If you aren't convinced this is an important issue for you, your children, and your grandchildren, then do yourself a favor and find some free time to review the evidence, starting with the related articles listed at the end. You can also search my site by entering “Monsanto” into the search box. I have over 300 pages on this topic alone! To further guide you in understanding the problems associated with GM foods, I strongly recommend reading the incredible series Seeds of Doubt, written by staffers at the Sacramento Bee.
And, last but not least, I urge everyone to watch the video The Future of Food. Forward the link to this video widely among your friends, family and acquaintances. This in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind genetically modified foods is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen. It will help you understand how and why the genetic engineering we allow to be unleashed today is a very real threat to ALL future generations.
How to Avoid GM Foods
Many of you probably don't understand just how ubiquitous GM foods are in the food chain.
The fact is that genetically modified foods are so prevalent in the United States that if you randomly pick an item off your grocery store's shelves, you have a 75 percent chance of picking a food with GM ingredients. This is because at least seven out of every 10 items have been genetically modified.
The True Food Shopping Guide is a great tool for helping you determine which brands and products contain GMO ingredients. It lists 20 different food categories that include everything from baby food to chocolate.
Here are four simple steps to decrease your consumption of GM foods as much as possible:
Reduce or eliminate processed foods in your diet. The fact that 75 percent of processed foods contain GM ingredients is only one of the many reasons to stick to a whole foods diet.
Read produce and food labels. Conventionally raised soybeans and corn make up the largest portion of genetically modified crops. Ingredients made from these foods include high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), corn flour and meal, dextrin, starch, soy sauce, margarine, and tofu.
Buy organic produce. By definition, food that is certified organic must be free from all GM organisms, produced without artificial pesticides and fertilizers and from an animal reared without the routine use of antibiotics, growth promoters or other drugs. Additionally, grass-fed beef will not have been fed GM corn feed.
Look at produce stickers. The PLU code on stickers for conventionally grown fruit consists of four numbers, organically grown fruit has five numbers prefaced by the number nine, and GM fruit has five numbers prefaced by the number eight.
Related Articles:
Drug Company Owns Monsanto and Their Weed Killer Is What Funds GMO Crops How Monsanto Manipulates the System to Poison Your Health Genetically Modified Food Genes Contaminate Humans
No comments:
Post a Comment