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monsanto (1 Viewer)

There's really no denying it, this is :banned:
Monsanto is an American-owned international agro-chemical and foods conglomerate. It employs about 45,000 people and peddles over eight billion dollars a year in chemical products all over the world. While Monsanto has been critised for some time for their production of NutraSweet and the genetically engineered rBGH (Bovine Growth Hormone), the latest criticism is for it's moves into the world of GMOs (genetically manipulated organisams). They produce 'RoundUp Ready' soya beans that are genetically altered to be resistant to their chemical herbicide 'Roundup' (the biggest selling agro-chemical in the world with sales totalling more than $620 million a year), which provides 40% of the companies operating profit. Take a look at the Monsanto corporate web site and you might be excused for mistaking Monsanto for a caring company with only our best interests at heart. In 'The Monsanto Pledge' (which includes the slogan 'We pledge to be part of the solution', the company lays down seven principles that describe the company's apparent vision for a sustainable environment. They pledge to: Reduce all toxic and hazardous releases and emissions, working toward an ultimate goal of zero effect; Ensure no Monsanto operation poses any undue risk to our employees and our communities; Work to achieve sustainable agriculture through new technology and practices; Ensure groundwater safety; Keep our plants open to our communities and involve the community in plant operations; Manage all corporate real estate, including plant sites, to benefit nature; and Search worldwide for technology to reduce and eliminate waste from our operations, with the top priority being not making it in the first place. The propaganda continues with Bob Shapiro, the CEO of Monsanto, declaring; "We take our responsibilities to our customers, employees, shareowners and people of the world very seriously.""..we're working very hard to make sure our products and manufacturing facilities are safe for the people who use them and for the environment we live in. ""..we're trying to improve people's lives all over the world.""What is important and valuable to you is important and valuable to us."It all sounds very nobel but words are just words, and their record tells a different story... In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Monsanto, a major manufacturer of phenoxy herbicides, sponsored studies on workers that the company had exposed to dioxin, and these studies revealed no increased cancer deaths among these exposed workers. However, the studies have since been criticized by a report from the National Research Council, which says Monsanto's studies were "plagued with errors in classification of exposed and unexposed groups, according to some reports, and hence have been biased toward a finding of no effect." A 1990 analysis of Monsanto workers, conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, reported a statistically-significant increase in soft tissue arcomas. As part of its multi-year scientific reassessment of dioxin, the American Environmental Protection Agency recently published a draft review of all scientific data linking dioxin to cancer and other health effects in humans. The EPA's draft document concludes that four separate studies of workers exposed to dioxin have revealed an "overall increased mortality from all malignancies combined." EPA speculates that dioxin's ability to mimic hormones gives dioxin the capacity to cause cancer in many different organs and bodily systems in humans. There seems to be little room left for doubt: As the EPA's "scientific reassessment team" told then-chief of EPA, William Reilly, January 27, 1992: "Dioxin does cause cancer in humans." Monsanto was sued on behalf of plaintiffs who say they were harmed when a Norfolk and Western railroad tank car derailed, spilling 19,000 gallons of a Monsanto chemical called "ocp-crude" into the community of Sturgeon, Missouri the night of January 10, 1979. Monsanto's plant in Sauget, Illinois has over a dozen chemical dumps on it, according to the WALL STREET JOURNAL, several of them containing substantial quantities of cancer-causing PCBs, at concentrations as high as 74,000 parts per million (ppm), or 7.4 percent. For years, Monsanto's Sauget plant was the nation's largest single manufacturer of PCBs. Monsanto officials insist that the PCBs on their property do not necessarily belong to them. Anyone could have dumped PCBs there, they say. All told, there are more than one million tons of chemical wastes on Monsanto's property--chlorinated pesticides, PCBs and other chemicals that Monsanto manufactured on the site for decades. Monsanto insists the wastes did not necessarily come from their plant, located half a mile north of the dumps. It is company policy to destroy waste records after 4 years. Meanwhile the state of Illinois has spent 12 years and $1.3 million trying to get the Monsanto site listed on the federal Superfund. An estimated 13 tons of chemical wastes leach off the Monsanto site into the Mississippi River each year. Monsanto has tried to intimidate farmers and retailers in the USA who label their milk products as rBGH-free (see below). The corporation has actually brought lawsuits against such farmers and, through a related organization, has sued the state of Vermont over its permissive attitude toward BGH labeling. This seems an obvious encroachement on the Americas' First Amendment and is no doubt outrageous, but the Department of Justice appears to do nothing to stop it. Monsanto is part of the Chemical industry.It is not only the specific practices of individual companies that cause problems. The attitudes created by the currrent system of exploitation gives power and profits to the few, at the expense of people, animals and the environment. It is important to expose the unethical practices of specific companies as their behaviour is often indicative of the entire system. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------What's Wrong With Monsanto? Environmental DestructionIn the 1980s, Monsanto Corporation got a bad name for polluting every square foot of the planet with noxious PCBs, dioxin, and harmful pesticides. Now Monsanto is a leader in the biotech revolution that threatens to engineeer the genes of every food crop on the planet with potentially desasterous consequences for the environment. In 1996 Monsanto introduced its RoundUp Ready soybean - which has been geneticallyaltered to be resistant to the chemical herbicide glyphosate which is marketed by Monsanto as Roundup. The inbuilt resistance allows farmers to use the herbicide while the crop is growing. Other altered crops likeky to be marketed include maize, wheat, sugar beet, letuce, potatoes and poplar. Monsanto also owns 49.9 percent of Calgene, the maker of the Flavr Savr tomato engineered for longer shelf life. Abusing animalsMonsanto performs experiments on many thousand of animals each year. These tests are futile since not only are the results from animal testing inconclusive when directly related to humans, but Monsanto (like many other companies) has been known to manipulate the results to meet their requirements (as was the case with aspartame). Monsanto's artificial bovine growth hormone BGH (Posilac) is designed to make cows produce more milk. Ingnoring the fact that no body needs more milk one of the problems with the use of the hormone is that it pushes the cow to the limits of production and causes illness such as Mastitis. In Monsanto's own words: "Use of Posilac has been associated with increases in cystic ovaries and disorders of the uterus...digestive disorders...enlarged hocks and lesions (lacerations, enlargements, calluses) of the knee..." On March 1993 the Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee of the FDA unanimously agreed with the Monsanto conclusion that "Cows injected with Posilac are at an increased risk for clinical mastitis." If you drink milk you will be pleased to know that this disease is treatment with high levels of antibiotics which no doubt find their way into the milk supply. Since the intriduction of BGH in the USA, reports of serious health and reproductive problems among U.S. cows have increased significantly. Irresponsible marketingSince April 1995, the U.S. FDA has reported over 10,000 volunteered consumer complaints stemming from NutraSweet (aka Equal , Aspartame). Among the symptoms listed are blindness seizures, memory loss, loss of limb control, slurred speech, skin lesions, extremity numbness, depression, mood swings, anxiety attacks, coma and death. Absorbed very quickly into the bloodstream it metabolizes into six to eight byproducts including methyl alcohol and the class A carcinogen, formaldehyde. The early research history of aspartame was plagued with deception. Although the US FDA gave the product approval, it later emerged that the results of animal experiments conducted when researching the chemical, had been manipulated to improve them. Monsanto's herbicide Butachlor, marketed in foreign countries such as Machete and Lambast, has never been permanently approved by the Environmental Protection Agency. Adverse effects of the chemical include weight loss, weight changes in internal organs, reduced brain size together with lesions. Multinational Monitor reports that Butachlor can be found in the U.S. food supply. It's used in Argentina, Brazil, China, India, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Venezuela. This implies that the majority of rice imports could contain it. Monsanto owns the drug company, G.D. Searle - producers of; Demulen, an oral contraceptive, is an oestrogenic compound. Environmental scientists are linking oestrogenic pollutants to breast cancer. Flagyl, an oral synthetic antiprotozoal and antibacterial, can cause convulsive seizures,peripheral neuropathy, a significant lessening of white blood corpuscles, and can make candida infections worse. Kerlone for "management of hypertension" can contribute to cardiac failure. Lomotil, the anti-diarrhea drug, has a number of adverse effects including tachycardia, vomiting, depression, numbness of extremities and pancreatitis.
 
Thank You Monsanto for giving me food and a full plate of meat raised on those products :lmao:

No Monsanto Hate Here :bag:

Just enjoying my food :lmao:

Ckev

 
Thank You Monsanto for giving me food and a full plate of meat raised on those products ;) No Monsanto Hate Here :no: Just enjoying my food :no: Ckev
Ignorance is bliss. Meanwhile, your taxes are higher thanks to environmental remediation of PCBs that Monsanto created. There are at least 20 people in the NY State environmental department alone whose jobs are to deal with PCB remediation. Each person costs the taxpayer about $100k a year in salary and benefits. Monsanto won't pay for the cleanup - it's up to the taxpayer. Fine upstanding corporation, Monsanto.
 
This thread is much too educational for the FFA.

Imma go bump Hippo's date thread now... :unsure:

 
I like their Roundup, but usually use the generic glyphosate now. It isn't quite as effective, but good enough for the price difference.

 
Now that it's on the FFA, maybe the Time will see and pick up on it...

WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

 
Monsanto Takes a Punch to the Gut--Patent Office Rejects Four GMO Patent Applications

How the World Works

Monsanto takes a punch to the gut

By Andrew Leonard

Salon.com, July 26, 2007

Straight to the Source

Last October, How the World Works expressed skepticism over efforts by Daniel Ravicher, the founder and president of the Public Patent Foundation, to invalidate four Monsanto patents involving the methods by which genes from one organism are inserted into another. But even then, we liked how the man expressed himself:

"The patent system is being abused by private actors to the detriment of the mostly unaware public. Our health, our freedom, and our economic prosperity are all under assault from bogus rights meted out to the few with the power and expertise to game a system originally established hundreds of years ago to promote progress within society as a whole. The government, through primarily a captured patent office utterly failing to achieve its mission and skewed policies implemented into patent law by Congress and the courts, is not just failing to defend the public interest from abuse of the patent system, but is complicit in and supportive of such efforts."

Then, in April, the Public Patent Foundation scored a major success when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected three major stem cell patents claimed by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Now comes the news that the PTO has similarly rejected Monsanto's patents. (Thanks to Naked Capitalism for the heads-up.)

If the decision is upheld after Monsanto's inevitable appeal, a process that could take years, it will have enormous implications for the future prospects of corporate ownership of genetic modification technologies.

Back in October, my headline for How the World Work's initial appraisal of Ravicher and the Public Patent Foundation was "Don Quixote, or David vs. Goliath?" That question appears to be answered.

 
Brazil Says 'Yes' to GM Crops and Stem Cell Research

Author: Luisa Massarani

Science and Development Network . (Source)

The Brazilian parliament has passed legislation allowing stem cell research and the planting and sale of genetically modified crops.

Approved on 2 March by 352 votes to 60, the biosafety law states that all products containing GM crops will need to be clearly labelled.

The law also allows research using stem cells from human embryos produced by in vitro fertilisation, provided the embryos have been frozen for more than three years or if they would be unlikely to survive if they were transferred to a woman's uterus.

In either case, the donors' permission will be required before embryos can be used for research.

Brazilian religious groups opposed this aspect of the legislation, calling instead for a total ban on stem cell research.

Another controversial aspect of the law is the power it gives to the National Technical Commission of Biosafety, which is part of the Ministry of Science and Technology. According to the bill, the commission will be responsible for deciding which GM crops can be sold.

However, not all areas of the government agree with the legislation. The Ministry of Environment has said that the new legislation would relegate those public bodies that are responsible for the environment, agriculture, fishing, and health to a secondary role in policymaking relating to GM crops.

This, says the ministry, will create an imbalance in the decision-making process and weaken the safety measures taken to manage the introduction of GM crops.

Silvio Valle, an expert on biosafety at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, says the scientific community felt that stem cells and GM crops should not have been put together in the same bill.

The legislation will be finalised when Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio da Silva, signs it.
funny how gmo doesnt need to be labeled here in america. :lmao:
 
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Open Letter to FDA: Why Monsanto's Genetically Engineered Bovine Growth Hormone Needs to Be Banned

Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, July 14, 2007

Straight to the Source

Sheldon T. Bradshaw, Chief Counsel

Food and Drug Administration

5600 Fishers Lane

Rockville, MD 20957

Mary K. Engle, Associate Director

Division of Advertising Practices

Federal Trade Commission

600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C. 20580

Dear Mr. Bradshaw and Ms. Engle:

This letter is in response to the letters you received from Brian Robert Lowry of the Monsanto Company dated February 22, 2007 regarding labeling of milk labeling practices with respect to recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBST or rBGH).

In these letters, Mr. Lowry claimed that consumers are being misled by the labeling of dairy companies that refrain from the use of rBGH. Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility disputes the accuracy of many of Mr. Lowry's statements and strongly disagrees. We contend that most consumers are very clear on the labeling and are making their buying decisions based on well-founded concerns about rBGH.

Our organization has studied the science and history of rBGH in depth for the past four years and has led a national public education campaign urging consumers to buy rBGH-free products. We would like to add our comments as you consider this issue.

rBGH and rBGH-free milk are not the same

Mr. Lowry claims that there is no difference between rBGH and rBGH-free milk: "Put simply, milk from cows supplemented with rBST is equivalent in all respects to other milk." This is incorrect.

As Dr. Michael Hansen of Consumers Union pointed out, Monsanto's Posilac® adds one amino acid (methionine) to the cow's natural growth hormone molecule. It has been demonstrated that even small differences in this molecular structure can significantly change immunogenic properties.[1] Therefore, rBGH is different than the cow's natural BGH and can be detected by the immune system.

Moreover, it is not in dispute that rBGH significantly increases the levels of another powerful growth hormone, IGF-1, in cows' milk. In neither letter did Mr. Lowry even mention IGF-1, which as will be pointed out, is highly significant.

There is no consensus on the safety of rBGH to human health

Mr. Lowry claims there is a scientific consensus that rBGH is safe for human health: ". . . for well over a decade the safety of milk from animals supplemented with rBST has not been a scientific issue." This is also incorrect.

There are three major problems associated with rBGH, including the most controversial, the suspected links between this drug and human cancer. Increased cancer risk: IGF-1 is present and identical in both cows and humans and is necessary for growth and development. However, both laboratory and epidemiological studies have demonstrated that elevated levels of IGF-1 are associated with increases in several types of cancers in humans.[2]

There have been many studies establishing IGF-1's promotion of breast cancer, including one showing the influence of tamoxifen on the hormone.[3] A prospective epidemiological study, using data from the Nurses' Health Study at Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard, demonstrated a positive relation between circulating IGF-1 levels and risk of breast cancer in premenopausal women.[4] There have also been numerous studies linking IGF-1 to other common cancers. One prospective study showed that men with higher levels of the hormone are over four times more likely to develop prostate cancer than men with lower levels.[5] Several other studies have linked IGF-1 with promoting metastasis and increasing colon cancer rates.[6] IGF-1 in milk was originally thought to be destroyed by digestion, unable to reach the bloodstream where it could affect cancer rates. Although IGF-1 by itself doesn't survive digestion, studies conducted after 1993 indicate that casein, the main protein in milk, protects most IGF-1 from digestion.[7]

Some argue that rBGH-induced IGF-1 is not a cancer risk because the body produces far more IGF-1 than can be taken in by dietary sources. However, even very small amounts of hormones can have major implications for human health, especially if consumed over long periods of time or at critical stages of growth and development (infancy, puberty, etc.). Moreover, several studies have shown that dietary intake of IGF-1 can indeed have an effect on human health.[8] The precise ways that IGF-1 increases cancer rates are quite complex and involve far more than levels in the blood. The half-life and effects of binding proteins play crucial roles, and there are other mechanisms not totally understood.[9] While it's not possible to declare with certainty that rBGH use increases cancer rates, there are significant scientific data pointing in that direction. Antibiotic resistance: The FDA acknowledges that cows given rBGH experience a statistically higher rate of mastitis, a painful udder infection.[10] It is treated with antibiotics such as penicillin, amoxicillin and erythromycin, which are also used to treat infections in humans. Bacteria resistant to these antibiotics are selected out and end up in the milk, air, soil and water, which can contribute to increased antibiotic resistance in humans, a major health problem. Numerous scientists in Canada and the European Union[11] cited cancer and antibiotic resistance risks. The Codex Alimentarius, the U.N.'s main food safety body, considered rBGH twice, in 1997 and 1999.[12] Both times, it concluded there was NO consensus that rBGH was safe for human consumption. It has not been brought up since. Health Care Without Harm, an international coalition of over 440 organizations dedicated to health and safety in hospitals, issued a position statement in 2005 opposing the use of rBGH based on health risks to cows and humans.[13] Hospitals all over the country are turning to rBGH-free dairy products. The FDA's approval of rBGH was one of the most controversial decisions it has ever made, with widespread criticism from government leaders, farmers and numerous scientists, including several within the FDA. Scientific evidence accumulated since then only reinforces the human health concerns with this drug. Enclosed with this letter is a copy of Oregon PSR's Know Your Milk brochure, which lists extensive scientific documentation of the human and animal health concerns of rBGH, much of it discovered after the FDA approved the drug in 1993.

rBGH harms cows Mr. Lowry claims that ". . . the use of rBST has no harmful effects on cows . . ." This is also incorrect. Monsanto's own package insert for Posilac® lists 16 different harmful conditions that this drug increases in cows, including reduced pregnancy rates, decreases in birth weight of calves, increases in somatic cell counts and mastitis, increases in body temperature, increases in indigestion, bloat and diarrhea, increased numbers of enlarged hocks and lesions and more disorders of the foot region. Virtually every major animal protection agency in the country, including the Humane Society of the U.S., Humane Farming Association, Farm Sanctuary and Animal Protection Institute, opposes the use of rBGH. And in addition to human health concerns, the governments of Canada and all 25 nations of the European Union formally cite physical harm to cows as justification for their banning of rBGH. Consumers don't want rBGH Monsanto and its supporters have also claimed that rBGH is not a significant factor in consumer dairy buying habits. This is not only incorrect, it is simply denying the obvious. It's common knowledge that sales of organic milk have increased by approximately 20% per year for the last decade. It's also well known in the dairy industry that most of this increase has been driven by the desire of consumers to avoid rBGH. This aversion to rBGH is backed up by other studies. The Washington (State) Dairy Products Commission conducted a survey in 2006 that recorded that 64% of respondents were aware of rBGH and of those, 31% altered their dairy consumption accordingly. Both figures were the highest since the annual survey was launched in 1998. Blair Thompson, the organization's spokesman, said "More than any other issue, rBST use is driving changes in dairy consumption behaviors."[14] In 2004, Tillamook County Creamery Association noted that fully 8% of all consumer contacts were about rBGH, up from 4% in 2003 and 3% in 2002.[15] These consumer concerns were a major factor in the company declaring their cheese rBGH-free in April 2005. The consumer trend was obvious. In the past two years, companies all over the country have cited consumer preference as the major driver in going completely or partially rBGH-free. Processors such as California Dairies, Inc., Southeast Dairies, Inc., Hood, Garelick, Darigold, Sinton and Wilcox; supermarket chains such as Publix Super Markets and Price Chopper; and retailers such as Starbucks and Chipotle Mexican Restaurants have all reported that significant numbers of customers have asked them to go rBGH-free. They simply listened to their customers and acted accordingly. Consumers aren't misled by labels Mr. Lowry claims that consumers are misled by rBGH-free labeling: ". . . current advertising practices mislead consumers by falsely claiming that there are health and safety risks associated with milk from rBST-supplemented cows." This is also incorrect, on two counts ­ there are health risks and consumers aren't misled. First, please note we agree with the decision to disallow inaccurate "hormone-free" labels, since all milk has hormones. However, it should be noted that the vast majority of dairy processors don't say this and make no health claims whatsoever. The most commonly used labels are these phrases or statements, or wording very similar:

· "rBST- (or rBGH-) Free"

· "Our farmers pledge: No artificial hormones"

· "This milk comes from cows not treated with the growth hormone rBST (or rBGH)"

Moreover, even Mr. Lowry admits that most companies include the FDA-suggested disclaimer that there is no significant difference between rBGH and rBGH-free milk.

The labels are quite clear and most consumers know what they mean just as much as they know what "No preservatives," "No artificial flavors," "No artificial colors," etc. mean when they read them on other labels. Consumers simply don't believe Monsanto and the FDA when they say there are no significant differences in the milk and no human health concerns.

As we've pointed out above, they have solid, scientific justification for these beliefs. Moreover, many consumers are very well aware of the well-documented harm done to cows and refuse to buy rBGH dairy products based on animal welfare grounds.

Companies have the right to tell consumers how their products are produced and what is NOT in them

It's helpful to compare labeling of non-dairy products to see what is legally established practice in American business. Enclosed are photos of a small sample of foods that label what is not in their products:

DeBoles rice: "Gluten free ­ all natural ingredients ­ no preservatives or chemicals added"

Applegate Farms bacon: "Vegetarian grain-fed with no animal by-products ­ No nitrites added ­ No antibiotics used"

Sunrise Fresh eggs: "Cage free ­ certified humane raised & handled ­ vegetarian diet"

Ranger chicken: "All vegetarian diet ­ no animal by-products, antibiotics or growth promoting hormones are given to our Ranger Birds"

Back to Nature pickles: "No artificial preservatives, flavors or colors"

Ian's fish sticks: "No wheat ­ no gluten ­ no casein ­ no milk ­ no eggs ­ no nuts ­ no soy"

This is only a small sample. The most widespread use of labeling to inform consumers, of course, is organic products. Whether stated or not on the label, organic by definition means that no antibiotics, pesticides or hormones are allowed.

It seems to us that Monsanto is asking the federal government to restrict fair competition to try to save its dying product. After four years of this campaign in which we've made over 150 public presentations all over the country presenting both sides of this issue, one fact stands out: the more consumers know about rBGH, the more they're likely to oppose it. Moreover, we know that most consumers that go rBGH-free never go back to accepting rBGH products. This is highly significant in a very competitive business. Knowledge about the science-based concerns with rBGH is rapidly spreading and consumers are increasingly "voting with their dollars." This fact is not lost on business leaders, who are making perfectly logical decisions to discontinue rBGH to preserve and enhance their profits.

Companies should have the right to continue to tell consumers in straightforward language how their products are produced and what is not in them. This is accepted advertising practice and dairy producers should not be subject to restrictions that do not affect all other food manufacturers.

Companies should also have the right to respond to market conditions and do what is best for profitability. If they are hearing from their customers that they don't want something, they should have every freedom to eliminate it and give these customers the information they need to make an educated purchasing decision.

Finally, consumers should have the right to know how their food is produced and what ingredients are and are not in them. This can only be accomplished by labeling.

We urge you to preserve fair competition by not further restricting labeling of rBGH-free products.

Moreover, based on a significant body of scientific research conducted since 1993, we urge the FDA to remove rBGH from the market immediately.

Sincerely,

Rick North, Project Director ­

Campaign For Safe Food

Martin Donohoe, MD ­

Chief Scientific Advisor

Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility

 
so, what i am deriving from all this is that monsanto is abusing the u.s. patent system in an attmept to gain control of the world's food crops. thay have taken bill gate's formula for microsofts operating system and applied it to agriculture. a computer operating system takes all the axioms of computer hardware and and connects them on the software level. similarly, monsanto takes the basics of growing food and provides a product/service for connecting the marketing dots on the finacial/legal level.

:mellow:

 
China Executes Top FDA Official While the U.S. Does Nothing to Counter Corruption

By Mike Adams

NewsTarget.com /Truth Publishing, July 11, 2007

Straight to the Source

What's interesting about China's execution of its top FDA official (Zheng Xiaoyu) for accepting bribes from drug companies is not that China executed a corrupt official, it's that such harsh actions demonstrate, in contrast, the complete lack of action against corrupt FDA officials in the United States. In the U.S., the more corrupt the politician or bureaucrat, the more power they seem to gain, and those who demonstrate the most extreme degrees of evil, greed and contempt for fellow human beings seem to end up at the very top. Just look at who's running the FDA today (or the nation, for that matter).

I'm no proponent of the death penalty, especially since it is almost always applied in a racist manner in the United States, but there are times when high crimes against the people can seemingly justify permanently removing someone from society. China did precisely that in executing its top FDA official for accepting more than $800,000 in bribes from drug companies to approve unsafe drugs. Yet bribery is routine in the United States drug approval process. In fact, the official FDA policy right now is that FDA decision panel experts -- the people who decide which drugs to approve or reject -- can currently accept up to $50,000 in bribes from drug companies and still serve on such decision panels.

This policy, by the way, is brand new. Until recently, there was no limit on the amount of money these FDA decision makers could accept from drug companies. In fact, there was no requirement whatsoever that these decision makers even reveal their conflicts of interest! They could take hundreds of thousands of dollars from the very drug companies impacted by their votes, and yet sit on the decision panel and cast votes. (See the CounterThink cartoon Conflicts of Interest for a humorous depiction of this.)

None of the FDA leaders saw any problem with this policy of tolerated corruption. In fact, they still resist the idea that Congress is passing new laws to place restrictions on such obvious conflicts of interest. Corruption is so endemic in the FDA that the agency is incapable of even recognizing corruption. The agency thinks it is above the law (much like the White House) and that it must answer to no one. This is the view of its leaders, at least. Many of the people who work inside the agency see the corruption all around them. The problem is, when they try to speak up about it, they get fired or blackballed... or even threatened with legal action by the agency's top "enforcers."

The FDA is more dangerous to Americans than terrorism

As I have stated many times on this site, the FDA is a clear and present danger to the health and safety of the American people. The agency is so deeply entangled in protecting drug company profits and corporate interests that it has utterly abandoned its mission of protecting the people. Not a single person has presented a credible defense against these accusations. The FDA is indefensible.

China executed its top FDA official for corruption. I believe the U.S. should arrest and prosecute top FDA officials. And while I would not support actually killing them (although many would say that is quite justified, given the enormous number of Americans killed by FDA-approved pharmaceuticals), I would strongly support requiring them to make a public apology and testify to the atrocities they have committed against the people. Modeling an FDA apology after the post-Apartheid South African amnesty arrangement might be worth exploring. We need to know the truth far more than we need to punish or kill FDA officials.

Of course, killing corrupt officials in the name of justice also serves its own purpose: It sends a message to others that corruption will not be tolerated. But corruption is always tolerated to some extent, even in China. It's only a question of WHO gets targeted for termination based on the politics of the moment. It was in China's political interests, for example, to show the West that it was cracking down on FDA corruption following the discovery of toxic pet food proteins and toothpaste products exported by Chinese manufacturers. So the execution of its top FDA official served a convenient political purpose, too.

That doesn't mean the execution wasn't justified on its own. Some might say that any official who knowingly accepted $800,000 in bribes from drug companies while running the country's top drug approval agency was engaged in such an egregious crime that it clearly crossed the line and deserved a swift and aggressive response. I'm just wondering why the U.S. Food and Drug Administration didn't offer the guy a job and secretly smuggle him out of China. If he can run a corrupt regulatory agency, and he's used to taking money from drug companies, he'd fit right in with the American FDA! They could use another evil bureaucrat like that around here!

As usual, the press misses the real story

What's really interesting about the press coverage of China's execution is that virtually no one has bothered to call for arresting and prosecuting corrupt FDA officials in the United States. The reaction from the mainstream press is all too typical: It's someone else's problem, not ours. The U.S. FDA is trustworthy. Our people would never stoop to accepting bribes.

It's all hogwash, of course, and the mainstream media is part of the problem because it refuses to print the truth about the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In an honest society with a truly free press, the Washington Post should be calling for a massive FDA investigation and prosecution effort. After all, investigating a corrupt agency responsible for killing 100,000 Americans each year (which is a conservative estimate of the number of Americans killed each year by FDA-approved prescription drugs) should obviously be a very high priority for a free press. It's the story of the decade. And yet there's no interest whatsoever in conducting such an investigation or publishing an editorial calling for the arrest and prosecution of U.S. FDA officials. The mainstream media is asleep at the wheel on this one.

A State of fear

It makes you wonder: Why do American citizens tolerate such corruption these days? Why are people so afraid to question their government? The answer, of course, is that America has been turned into a police state nation, where the population is controlled by a campaign of fear orchestrated by the White House. The easiest way to keep the sheeple in line is to scare them to death with fabricated tales of foreign enemies trying to "destroy freedom." It's a propaganda campaign that has the intended effect of making the people too scared to question their government anymore. Very few remaining Americans have the courage to march in the streets, or carry a protest sign, or even say what they think. I recall talking to an author of a very popular health book who told me she didn't include a section on stevia because she thought the FDA might confiscate the book if she mentioned the herb!

Incredible. What has America come to if people won't stand up against a corrupt, tyrannical government? The answer is simple: An enslaved nation that will devolve into a tyrannical dictatorship. The FDA already operates a medical dictatorship, complete with censorship, oppression of information and intimidation campaigns against those who attempt to speak out against the agency. (Just ask Dr. David Graham.) This pattern of tyranny permeates American government today. And it has left us with a nation where the people are diseased, afraid and bankrupt.

This is why I predict the nation will not last for one more generation. The United States of America is a nation on a course of self destruction. When the people are too afraid to speak out against their own government, the future of that nation is not in doubt. Read your history on the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party to find out what happens next.

http://www.newstarget.com/021931.html

 
An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton from Another Wellesley College Alumna

Dear Hillary,

By polling logic, I should be your supporter - Democrat, older woman, white, liberal. I was even in a dorm with you in college. I have pulled for you for years. But something this past summer fundamentally changed my responsibility to my children and grandchildren. In the time I have left in my life to protect them and others, I need to speak out.

I saw a News Hour piece on Maharastra, India, about farmers committing suicide. Monsanto, a US agricultural giant, hired Bollywood actors for ads telling illiterate farmers they could get rich (by their standards) from big yields with Monsanto's Bt (genetically engineered) cotton seeds. The expensive seeds needed expensive fertilizer and pesticides (Monsanto, again) and irrigation. There is no irrigation there. Crops failed. Farmers had larger debt than they'd ever experienced

And farmers couldn't collect seeds from their own fields to try again (true since time immemorial). Monsanto "patents" their DNA-altered seeds as "intellectual property." They have a $10 million budget and a staff of 75 devoted solely to prosecuting farmers. (http://www.grist.org/comments/food/2008/01/17). Since the late 1990s (about when industrial agriculture took hold in India),166,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide and 8 million have left the land.

Farmers in Europe, Asia, Africa, Indonesia,South America, Central America and here, have protested Monsanto and genetic engineering for years.

What does this have to do with you?

You have connections to Monsanto through the Rose Law Firm where you worked and through Bill who hired Monsanto people for central food-related roles. Your Orwellian-named "Rural Americans for Hillary" was planned withTroutman Sanders, Monsanto's lobbyists.

Genetic engineering and industrialized food and animal production all come together at the Rose Law Firm, which represents the world's largest GE corporation (Monsanto), GE's most controversial project (DP&L's - now Monsanto's - terminator genes), the world's largest meat producer (Tyson), the world's largest retailer and a dominant food retailer (Walmart).

The inbred-ness of Rose's legal representation of corporations which own controlling interests in other corporations there and of corporate boards sharing members who are also shareholders of each other's corporations there, is so thorough that it is hard to capture. Jon Jacoby, senior executive of the Stephens Group - one of the largest institutional shareholders of Tyson Foods, Walmart, DP&L - is also Chairman of the Board of DP&L and arranged the Wal-Mart deal. Jackson Stephens' Stephens Group staked Sam Walton and financed Tyson Foods. Monsanto bought DP&L. All represented at Rose.

You didn't just work there, you made friends. That shows in the flow of favors then and since. You were invited onto Walmart's board, you were helped by a Tyson executive to make commodity trades (3 days before Bill became governor), netting you $100,000, Jackson Stephens strongly backed Bill for Governor, and then for President (donating $100,000). http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/e.../2006/0828.html

Food and friends, in Clinton terms:

Bill's appointed friend Mike Espy, Secretary of Agriculture, who immediately significantly weakened federal chicken waste and contamination standards, opening the door to major expansion of Tyson's chicken factory farms (www.financialsense.com/ editorials/engdahl/2006/0828.html). Espy resigned, indicted for accepting bribes, illegal contributions, money laundering, illegal dispersal of USDA subsidies, .... Tyson Foods was the largest corporate offender. http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/GMO/...o/monsanto.html

But what Bill did for Monsanto "genetic engineering" goes beyond inadequate concepts of giving corporate friends influence: He unleashed genetic engineering into the world. And then he helped close off people's escape from it.

Genetic engineering is many orders of magnitude different from "normal" (even polluting) business in its potential biologic ramifications. The warning myth of Pandora'a Box - letting irretrievable things rush out into nature - has become real. The harrowing change to the world from nuclear fission and fusion is the closest parallel.

What did Bill do?

1. Bill's put Monsanto people in at the FDA, as US Agricultural Trade Representatives, on International Biotechnology Consultive Forums, and more ... (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/072600-03.htm) or http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9904b/monsantofda.html or http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Revolving-Door.htm

2. Bill's FDA gave Monsanto permission to market rBGH (a GE bovine growth hormone), the first genetically engineered product let loose on us (or did tomatoes with fish DNA get there first?).

3. Despite reports of bovine illness and death, Bill's FDA did not recall it or put warnings on it. Even "a very angry, very vocal nationwide consumer base" had no impact. " http://www.wafreepress.org/14/Envirowatch.html

4. Bill's FDA wouldn't even label rBGH as "present" in milk.

5. When dairy farmers tried to label their own milk rBGH-free so the public could choose, Bill's USDA threatened all dairies that their products could be confiscated from stores. Michael Taylor, USFDA Deputy Commissioner, was formerly Monsanto's counsel.

6. How were consumers to protect their family, given Bill's FDA enforced public blindness, except to buy only organic? But Bill's FDA tried to close off that last escape, proposing to include in "organic" standards, "the dirty three" a : genetic engineering of plants and animals, use of irradiation in food processing and use of municipal sewage sludge as a fertilizer. (My emphasis.) The FDA backed down. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...75AC0A96E958260

Had this gone through, Monsanto could have finally labeled rBGH milk ... as "organic." And animal waste from factory farms, a pollution nightmare for Tyson and others, could have been sold as fertilizer.

USDA head Dan Glickman: "This is probably the largest public response to an [Agriculture Department] rule in modern history." In fact the response was 20 times greater than anything ever before proposed by the USDA. http://www.orpheusweb.co.uk/john.rose/orglab.html

Personally, I resent years of effort to protect my children and now grandchildren, from that crap.

Politically, Bill sided against small farmers and against the public's right to know, and with Monsanto.

A snap shot of our food:

Oils: Sheep died in India after feeding on Bt cotton fields (http://btcotton.blogspot.com/). We feed our children Bt cotton, as cottonseed oil in peanut butter and cookies.

Grains: 49% of US corn acreage was planted in Bt corn in 2007. A French study proved Monsanto's GMO corn causes kidney and liver toxicity (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_4790.cfm). Soft drinks and candy have highly concentrated Bt corn, in the form of high fructose Bt corn syrup. The US food system depends most on two crops, soy (90% GMO, 90% of traits owned by Monsanto) and corn, the largest crop (60% GMO, nearly 100% Monsanto traits). "[E]ssentially our entire food supply is genetically modified, to the benefit of one company." The Grocery Manufacturers of America in 2000 estimated that 70 percent of US food contains GM traits. http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_9716.cfm

Meat: Steroids bulk up atheletes. Monsanto steroids bulk up animals - more weight, more profit. We feed our children steroids in meats. Is this why our children are fattening, like Hansel and Gretel?

Poultry: Bill's USDA weakened chicken waste and contamination standards and attempted to allow sewage sludge as fertilize crops. I will say more about disease from industrialized poultry farms waste, at the end of this letter.

Milk: Over 30 scientific publications have shown increased levels of IGF-1 in milk with rBGH increases risks of breast cancer by up to seven-fold, also increasing colon and prostate cancers risks. Canada, 29 European nations, Norway, Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa ban U.S. rBGH dairy products. Bill's USFDA put no restrictions, no warning labels (not allowing labels at all). (My emphasis.) http://www.sustdev.org/index.php?option=co...7&Itemid=35

American children eat that food and drink that milk, Hillary. Coincidentally, American children are increasingly fat and sick.

Here, Bill ignored pleas for labeling. Abroad, Bill ignored intense international objections over the same issue - unlabeled US food exports - badly straining trading relations. Monsanto's "good ole boy," he betrayed American families at the deepest levels conceivable - their family's health and their democratic right to know. He betrayed our rural life and American family farmers - backing corporation deceit and control, over honesty and clean farming.

But, HIllary, it is one thing to not label a regular ole food product to sell it, and quite another to sell a suspected-dangerous food product (rBGH), but Bill's administration didn't label (or stop) a well-known, terrifying threat - Mad Cow Disease.

Bill's FDA's August, 1997 regulation permitted "known TSE-positive [Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy] material to be used in pet food, pig, chicken and fish feed," only requiring the label to read "Do not feed to cattle and other ruminants" in the US.

Monsanto added to the problem. "There is evidence that rbST use [Monsanto's GE bovine growth hormone] reduces the useful lifespan of a dairy cow. ... Given that the incubation period for BSE is at least three to five years and perhaps longer, rbST-treated cows could harbor "hidden" BSE. That is, they might be infected but still asymptomatic when sent to slaughter." (My emphasis.) http://www.consumersunion.org/food/bgh-codex.htm

Bill let TSE into our entire food chain. And who owned the feed and slaughter and genetic engineering corporations whch benefitted?

Please, tell me, Hillary, what he could possibly have gotten in friendship or favors, that could ever justify his exposing millions of people to this?

With genetic engineering itself, Bill did something to the whole world, which tried to object. Words are inadequate to express how astoundingly immoral, beyond human bounds and conceit and power, that was.

"Even for the biggest "winners," it is like winning at poker on the Titanic." Jerry Mander: Facing the Rising Tide

He had no right.

Do you hear that?

Bill had sex from Monica Lewinsky. That's "dinky immoral." That's chicken feed immoral - excuse the Tyson pun, excuse the TSE-laced pun. Bill let genetic engineering lose on NATURE itself.

"Our way of life is likely to be more fundamentally transformed in the next several decades than in the previous one thousand years…Tens of thousands of novel transgenic bacteria, viruses, plants and animals could be released into the Earth's ecosystems…Some of those releases, however, could wreak havoc with the planet's biospheres." Jeremy Rifkin, Biotech Century

Bill did this to us, like it was some nothing and he, some big dumb ### Southern boy, just smiling and getting in good with the Big Boys, thinking about as much about the consequences of something this immense and about us human beings out here, as he thought about you, when he was unfaithful with Monica. Just one big fool getting off on the power and used to getting away with things.

Terminator genes, developed by DP&L, a Rose Firm client, prevent seeds from "working" after only one season. Farmers "must" repurchase (patents and suing not certain enough control, it seems). Those "killing" genes pose the apocalyptic risk of breaking out into nature. Natural seeds could fail, too. Nature could fail.

Far-fetched?

GMO fields are already contaminating normal species (http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/backgrdrs/2002/sp02v8n2.html. Berkeley Professor of Microbiology, Ignacio Chapela, wrote an open letter, warning the Mexican government about just this breaking out phenomenon happening in maize (http://www.slogefree.org/newsletters/News_Item.2004-12-21.4353/).

And it has already happened with weeds - pesticide resistant GMO seeds break lose and weeds become pesticide-resistant Superweeds (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1882-geneticallymodified-superweeds-not-uncommon.html).

But Bill's USDA spokesman, Willard Phelps said the USDA wanted the technology to be ‘widely licensed and made expeditiously available to many seed companies.’

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...;articleId=3082

"Genetic Engineering is often justified as a human technology, one that feeds more people with better food. Nothing could be further from the truth. With very few exceptions, the whole point of genetic engineering is to increase sales of chemicals and bio-engineered products to dependent farmers." David Ehrenfield: Professor of Biology, Rutgers University

Hillary, one third of the world's bee colonies have collapsed. Gone. Farmers in India are killing themselves. Farmers and bees. Since organic farmers in India are fine and organic farmers report no colony collapse, what does these farming catatrophes say about "industrial agriculture"?

Mad Cow Disease is another direct result of industrial agriculture. And now ....

... transnational poultry factories are implicated as the source of bird flu. ... Small scale poultry farms and wild birds seem not to be the problem [just as small farmers are not the issue in Mad Cow Disease], and yet "initiatives are multiplying to ban outdoor poultry, squeeze out small producers and restock farms with genetically modified chickens. ... http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2006/2006-02-27-01.asp "Of the few outbreaks that did occur in [Laos], more than 90% broke out in commercial poultry operations, not free-ranging flocks." http://www.birdflubook.com/a.php?id=75

Monsanto (and others) is currently working with the USDA (http://www.farmandranchguide.com/articles/2006/01/30/ag_news/updates/update01.txt)

to force small farmers to tag every animal with a global tracking device (NAIS - National Animal Identification System). Allegedly related to food safety, Monsanto and others would be creating a vast corporate digital library on every move of small farmers's livestock. http://goexcelglobal.he.net/~natpropg/nonais.html

But small farmers do not create the contaminated environments, do not supply the feed, do not grind up diseased animals into feed (how Mad Cow began) and then sell it. In fact, their farming methods, free range and small scale, are significantly healthier and safer for animals and food than the massive concentration of animals by corporate industrial agriculture.

Monsanto is also aggressively pushing for state laws to limit farmers' right to choose what to plant and the public's right exclude GE plants from their communities http://www.rense.com/general65/righto.htm

Cattle bloated by steroids, lapse and loss of 10,000 year old normal seeds, immense pollution from factory farms, deadly-disease-ridden feed, world-wide bee colony collapse, poisoned soil and depleted water supplies, Superweeds (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1882-geneticallymodified-superweeds-not-uncommon.html), lawsuits against farmers, loss of family farms, and ... India farmers killing themselves in what may be the largest mass suicide in recorded human history (on average ... one farmers’ suicide every 30 minutes since 2002 - The Hindu 1.30.08) - that is industrial agriculture.

Monsanto and Tyson are two of the largest industrial agricultural corporations in the world. Industrial agriculture is represented by your Rose Law Firm.

Your claim to care about food safety is terrifying double-speak given what Bill did and who you take donations from. Your idea of a Department of Food Safety would centralize control of food - in whose corporate connected hands? You talk tough about labeling food - ah, but "foreign" food - a sleight of hand tricking a public desperate for safe US food. You talk about food safety but Bill degraded food in every imaginable way and prevented minimally sane labeling.

I am a person before I am a woman. Your gender means nothing. It is a media distraction. Your policies on health and food and women and children, are meaningless in the face of connections that have threatened those groups profoundly, connections you have never denounced.

Monsanto uses child labor in India, primarily very young girls, exposing them to a lethal pesticide 13-14 hours a day, for pennies in pay. http://www.indiaresource.org/issues/agbiot...tounilever.html But you take donations from their lobbyists. You say you care about black people but as the poorest people in this country, they are least able to buy organic and are forced to eat the contaminated foods Bill let into our food system. The National Black Farmers Association has a boycott out on all Monsanto products.

Do you eat organic?

So, who are you with, hapless black consumers and black farmers, or Monsanto? Mothers left to give their children rBGH milk, or Monsanto? Women exposed to 7 times greater risk of breast cancer, or Monsanto? Desperate farmers in India and young children forced into child labor in cottonseed factories there, or Monsanto? Animals suffering from lives in filthy cages and disgusting feedlots, shot up with steroids and hormones and antibiotics, or Monsanto? Our children who eat candy with high fructose Bt corn syrup associated with kidney and liver toxicity, or Monsanto?

Edwards was right about your corporate connections. I just didn't understand until I saw that PBS show and read about Monsanto, how personally affected my children and grandchildren, and all people around the world, have been.

I will not vote for you. I will vote for someone who will commit themselves to work on behalf of small farmers and real food and decent treatment of animals and to end this industrialized agricultural nightmare that is taking us off a cliff.

Linn Cohen-Cole

Atlanta

 
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When I think of Monsanto, the first thing that comes to mind is this old ride at Disneyland where you keep shrinking until there's this huge eyeball staring at you. Man, I miss that ride!

 
Monsanto doesn't even have a plant in Sauget, Illinois. (Yes, I'm taking advantage of the article's likely datedness.)

The timing of this bump coinciding with the Appleton thread and the Crandon shooting thread bump is really creepy to me personally.

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
I saw a News Hour piece on Maharastra, India, about farmers committing suicide. Monsanto, a US agricultural giant, hired Bollywood actors for ads telling illiterate farmers they could get rich (by their standards) from big yields with Monsanto's Bt (genetically engineered) cotton seeds. The expensive seeds needed expensive fertilizer and pesticides (Monsanto, again) and irrigation. There is no irrigation there. Crops failed. Farmers had larger debt than they'd ever experienced.
This is what she was talking about: The Dying Fields.
 
Blackdot. I need to write a short paper before 7:00 pm today. This is interesting in that I work for a company that is in the Agri-business as a fertilizer supplier.

 
It sounds like a pipe dream, but as our technology starts to have more subtle, delayed and dangerous effects upon us, IMO we need to increase the number of ethicists on research teams, marketing teams, and production teams. It may not be realistic regarding how American corporations do business, but eventually we will have to and hopefully it's not becuase we painted ourselves into that particular corner.

 

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