Washington’s Brand of Crony Capitalist Medicine

Does AARP really speak for the elderly? Or the AMA for doctors?

In Washington, AARP (the American Association of Retired Persons) is said to represent the interests of retirees in arguments about medicine. Their endorsement of President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was mentioned reverently during the October 3rd presidential debate. Similarly, the AMA (American Medical Association) is said to represent the interests of doctors.

But do these groups actually represent anyone other than their members? Is their support basically for sale?

Consider AARP. It gets only about 20% of its revenue from its members. Over 50% comes from its medical insurance business where it has the largest share of “Medigap” policies, the policies that fill in the holes in traditional Medicare. When the administration sought AARP’s support for the Affordable Care Act, it promised to exempt Medigap policies from the requirement that insurers could not turn away people with preexisting conditions. Not only that, it also promised to exempt Medigap policies from rate review. (Ordinarily, health insurance companies must tell consumers when they want to increase insurance rates for individual or small group policies by an average of 10% or more.) In the end, Medigap was exempted from most of the law.

If that weren’t enough, the Affordable Care Act targets Medicare Advantage plans run by other private insurers. If these do not survive, and we expect they won’t, seniors currently in these plans will fall back into traditional Medicare and need—you guessed it—Medigap coverage, the field that AARP dominates.

Given these deals, South Carolina senator Jim DeMint may not be exaggerating when he calls the relationship between AARP and the White House “a protection racket ^[1].” He also alleges that AARP has engaged in a secret lobbying campaign to prevent Medigap reforms which would have saved 80% of of seniors enrolled an average of $415 a year.

What about the AMA, then? Is it doing what it says it is doing in Washington—protecting the best interests of doctors? Perhaps not, if the dwindling number of doctors who are currently members is any indication.

The word in Washington is that the administration assured AMA support for its legislation by 1) promising not to implement doctor reimbursement cuts in Medicare that had previously been written into law, and 2) threatening to pull the medical coding contracts with the US Department of Health and Human Services that constitute the largest share of the AMA’s income, estimated by one source to be $50–80 million.

Have you noticed your doctor filling out a yellow code sheet indicating what services he or she has provided? That is a coding system run by the AMA and paid for by the government—and it is a monopoly. Have others tried to offer a competitive coding system? Yes, and a much better coding system at that. It is called the ABC system ^[2], which we reported on two years ago, but Health and Human Services has essentially blocked it from becoming competition for the AMA. No wonder Dr. Richard A. Armstrong says ^[3], “The AMA is a corporation in the business of selling and protecting its [coding system] income stream, not its doctor members.” (Read more about the ABC coding system in this article. ^[4])

There are a lot of things wrong with American medicine today, especially its disregard for real prevention in the form of diet, supplements, and exercise in favor of toxic drugs and surgery. But much of the problem, in the final analysis, goes back to a crony capitalist system dominated by special interests and their allies in government.

With the election over, it’s a good time to remember that crony capitalism permeates both parties, and we have a lot of work to do to keep medicine a “helping” profession with high ethics, not a place for special interests to get rich.

http://www.anh-usa.org/washingtons-brand-of-crony-capitalist-medicine/

Chemistry Council trying to lobby Washington to cut off funding for research on carcinogens

Every two years, the National Toxicology Program (NTP), which operates under the banner of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), releases a congressionally-mandated report entitled the "Report on Carcinogens" (RoC) that identifies various agents, substances, mixtures, or exposures that are known to cause cancer. But the American Chemical Society (ACS), which represents many of the biggest names in the cancer-causing chemical industry, is currently trying to lobby Congress to stop the publishing of this important document.

Because the latest RoC lists formaldehyde, a chemical commonly used in both consumer and industrial products, as a definitive cause of cancer, and styrene, another common household chemical, as a suspected carcinogen, the chemical industry is up in arms about its potential profit losses. So in the spirit of Big Tobacco's approach to dealing with inconvenient science, the chemical industry is now desperately trying to muddle the scientific process by paying off Congress to not only withhold the truth about these and other deadly chemicals, but also to prevent the public from accessing this information by blocking funding for future publishings of the RoC.

"The way the free market is supposed to work is that you have information," Lynn Goldman, Dean of the School of Public Health at George Washington University (GWU), is quoted as saying by the New York Times (NYT) about the importance of the RoC report. "They're (thechemical companies) trying to squelch that information."

Similar stall tactics were used by the chemical industry back in the 1930s when the safety of asbestos was first called into question. Just like today, industry lobbyists at that time denied all the emerging science about the serious dangers of asbestos, insisting that it was all "ill-informed and exaggerated" bunk, according to the NYT. The chemical was eventually exposed and banned in the 1980s, of course, but by this point, millions of people had already been needlessly exposed to asbestos, with roughly 10,000 of them now die every year as a result of asbestos-related disease.

"The industrial chemical formaldehyde and a botanical known as aristolochic acids are listed as known human carcinogens," says a National Institutes of Health (NIH) announcement about the eight new substances added to the 2011 RoC, which the chemical industry is trying to keep under wraps. "Six other substances -- captafol, cobalt-tungsten carbide (in powder or hard metal form), certain inhalable glass wool fibers, o-nitrotoluene, riddelliine, and styrene -- are added as substances that are reasonably anticipated to be human carcinogens." (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/newsroom/releases/2011/june10/)

You can read the full 2011 RoC here:
http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/?objectid=03C9AF75-E1BF-FF40-DBA9EC0928DF8B15

http://www.naturalnews.com/037724_Chemistry_Council_lobbying_carcinogens.html

Pesticide Industry Backed Opponents of GMO Labeling Get Criminal in California

The $36 million No on 37 campaign, bankrolled by $20 million from the world's six largest pesticide companies, has been caught in yet another lie, this time possibly criminal.

These companies and their allies in the junk food industry know that their profit margins may suffer if consumers have a choice whether to purchase genetically engineered foods or not.  And that's why opponents are spending nearly a million dollars per day trying to make Prop 37 complicated. But really it's simple - we have the right to know what's in our food.

To date, the No on 37 campaign has been able to repeat one lie after another with near impunity. But has this pattern of deceit finally caught up to it?

Yesterday, the Yes on 37 campaign sent letters to the U.S. Department of Justice requesting a criminal investigation of the No on 37 campaign for possible fraudulent misuse of the official seal of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  

The No on 37 campaign affixed the FDA's seal to one of the campaign's mailers. Section 506 of the U.S. Criminal Code states: "Whoever...knowingly uses, affixes, or impresses any such fraudulently made, forged, counterfeited, mutilated, or altered seal or facsimile thereof to or upon any certificate, instrument, commission, document, or paper of any description...shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both."

The letter also provides evidence that the No on 37 campaign falsely attributed a direct quote to the FDA in the campaign mailer. Alongside the FDA seal, the mailer includes this text in quotes. "The US Food and Drug Administration says a labeling policy like Prop 37 would be 'inherently misleading." The quote is entirely fabricated. The FDA did not make this statement and does not take a position on Prop 37.

In addition, the three identified authors of the "Rebuttal to Argument in Favor of Proposition 37" include a Dr. Henry I. Miller, who is identified solely as "Founding Director, Office of Biotechnology of the Food & Drug Administration." Dr. Miller in fact, does not currently work for the FDA in any capacity - as millions of California voters have been erroneously led to believe.

This is not the first blatant act of deception that the No on 37 campaign has been caught perpetrating on the citizens of California - particularly relating to their "top scientist" Dr. Henry Miller.

Consider Miller's growing "rap sheet":

• On Oct. 4 the No on 37 campaign was forced to pull its first ad off the air and re-shoot it after they were caught misrepresenting Miller as a doctor at Stanford University  when he is actually a researcher at the Hoover Institute on Stanford's campus, as the Los Angeles Times reported.
• Last week, the campaign was reprimanded by Stanford again for misrepresenting the university in a mailer that went out to millions of voters. And this week, the campaign was caught sending out yet another deceptive mailer involving the University.

In addition to allowing his university affiliation to be repeatedly overblown, Miller has a sordid history of parroting the talking points of some of the world's most notorious corporate bad actors: he's a founding member of a now defunct tobacco front group that tried to discredit the links between cigarettes and cancer, he's repeatedly called for the reintroduction of DDT - known to cause premature birth, fronted for an oil industry funded climate change denial group for Exxon, claimed that people exposed to radiation from the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster "may have benefited from it", and attacked the US Food and Drug Administration's efforts to ensure proper vetting and testing of new drugs safety while urging it to outsource more of its functions to private industries.

This is the man the No on 37 campaign has portrayed to voters as an arbiter of good science and promoted as an expert worthy of our trust. In reality, Miller is nothing more than a corporate shill that will say whatever his paymasters ask him to, be it Exxon, Phillip Morris, Monsanto, or DuPont.

Does the No on 37 campaign stand behind Miller's fringe views on tobacco, climate change, nuclear radiation and DDT?

But this pattern of deceit doesn't end with Miller:

• On Oct. 5, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the nation's largest professional association for nutritionists and dieticians, accused the No on 37 campaign of misrepresenting its position and misleading voters in the official California Voter's Guide that went to 11 million voters.
• And the anti-Proposition 37 ads that are now blanketing the state have been described as misleading by the San Jose Mercury News, Sacramento Bee, and San Francisco Chronicle.

Perhaps these latest revelations will prompt the mainstream press to begin focusing their attention on the No on 37 campaign's pattern of deceptions - including a potentially criminal act - rather than on easily discredited pesticide industry Prop 37 "red herrings" like common sense exemptions, phony lawsuit scares, bogus "big bureaucracy claims", and "cost increase hysteria".

So who should we trust?

Who should we trust when it comes to our right to know what's in the food we eat: Monsanto, DuPont, and Henry Miller or the millions of California consumers and leading consumer, health, women's, faith-based, labor and other groups; 61 countries that already require GMO labeling; and a growing stack of peer-reviewed research linking genetically engineered foods to health and environmental problems?

Who has our best interests at heart, the pesticide and junk food industry, or Prop 37 supporters like Consumers Union, California Nurses Association, California Democratic Party, California Labor Federation, United Farm Workers, American Public Health Association, Consumers Union, Sierra Club, Whole Foods Market, California Council of Churches, Organic Consumers Association, Center for Food Safety, Consumer Federation of America, Public Citizen, and Food Democracy Now!?

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/19

Fighting for Prop 37: The Truth that $36 Million Can’t Hide

The people's movement for our right to know what's in our food has hit a critical fork in the road: the moment when it's time to ask ourselves and each other -- how hard are we willing to fight for our basic right to know what's in the food we're eating and feeding our families? Proposition 37 is the  litmus test for whether there is actually a food movement in this country, writes Michael Pollan in an article to appear in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. It may also be the litmus test for whether there is democracy left in this country. After months of sky-high support in the polls, just 10 days of relentless pounding propaganda by the pesticide industry has made a significant dent in support for Proposition 37 and our right to know if our food is genetically engineered. So worried are the pesticide companies about California consumers having labels on genetically engineered foods that they are spending one million dollars a day flooding the airwaves with a tidal wave of deception about Prop 37. As proof of the dishonest tactics in play, in just the past week, the anti-consumer No on 37 campaign has been accused of misleading voters by Stanford University (twice), the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and by three major newspapers.

Yet most voters are seeing only one face and hearing only one voice in the debate about Prop 37 - that of notorious pesticide-industry front man Henry Miller. Who is Henry Miller? And can easily discredited pesticide-industry lies really win an election?  Easily Discredited Pesticide-Industry Lies Hour after hour in every media market across the state, Henry Miller appears on TV to explain his views about Proposition 37. The ad campaign was exposed as dishonest at the outset, when Stanford University forced the anti-Prop 37 campaign to yank the ad because it falsely identified Miller as a doctor at Stanford (he is actually a researcher at the Hoover Institution), and used images of Stanford's vaulted buildings to push a political position in violation of university policy. The edited ad was soon back on the air -- one viewer in San Francisco reported seeing it 12 times in one day -- pounding voters with Henry Miller's message that Prop 37 "makes no sense." But a lot of things that make sense to the rest of us don't make sense to Henry Miller: for example, that DDT was banned for a reason, or that exposure to radioactive elements after a nuclear power plant meltdown is not a health benefit. (Read all about the extreme views of the No on 37 science spokesperson here.) Henry Miller is the perfect poster guy for the lack of credibility of the pesticide giants' campaign against our right to know what's in our food.  Who are they going to trot out next, the president of the Flat Earth Society? The only honest thing about the No on 37 ads is the disclaimer that tells us who's funding this campaign of deception -- Monsanto and Dupont, the same companies that told us DDT and Agent Orange were safe. Setting the Record Straight Yet incredibly, it's working. Henry Miller's hypocritical script in a misleading ad campaign that was discredited as soon as it began has taken a bit hit out of the support for Prop 37. In the ad, Miller claims the exemptions included in Prop 37 are "illogical" and included "for special interests." As if the companies for which he is working - the biggest special interests of all - would be in favor of Prop 37 if it were even stronger. They would not. For the record, the exemptions are common sense. They follow the trajectory of labeling bills in the Europe Union and all around the world. Prop 37 will cover the vast majority of genetically engineered foods that consumers are eating - the food on supermarket shelves. Meat, milk and eggs would be labeled if they came from genetically engineered animals. There are no genetically engineered animals in the human food supply right now, but if there were, they would have to be labeled. Which will come in handy since the first GE animal is on its way to our dinner plates - a salmon genetically engineered with an eel to grow twice as fast. Wouldn't you want to know if you were eating such a thing? Because Prop 37 is designed to be simple and business friendly, it does not require labeling for cows that eat genetically engineered feed. It would not be a simple matter to track what cows eat. More to the point, that exemption is common around the world. It didn't make sense for California to try to leapfrog over the rest of the world with our labeling law, when we have been trying to catch up with the rest of the world for 15 years. Yes pet food would have to be labeled if it contains genetically engineered crops like corn or soy. That's because the standard definition of food under the Sherman Act considers pet food to be food - so argue that one with the legislature. As for other story lines the opposition is shopping -- there will be no increased costs to consumers with Prop 37. Doesn't it seem strange that these companies would spend tens of millions of dollars to convince us that adding a little ink to their labels will force them to raise the cost of groceries? And as for "shakedown lawsuits," that makes no sense when you consider the fact that there are no incentives for lawyers to sue under Prop 37. The only shakedown lawsuits related to this issue are the thousands of farmers Monsanto is suing for planting their own seeds to grow food. In case you missed it, consider this chilling sentence from last week's Washington Post: Monsanto "has filed lawsuits around the country to enforce its policy against saving the seeds for the future." Policy against the future? Sounds about right. Pet Food for Thought While Californians are mired in debate about pet food versus steak, the real question facing voters is this:  Are we going to allow out-of-state pesticide and junk food corporations tell us what we can and can't know about what's in the food we eat? "What makes you think you have the right to know?" asks Danny DeVito in a a parody video supporting Prop 37. "Knowing if you're buying or eating genetically engineered food is not your right." "Maybe move to Europe or Japan if you want that right," says Kaitlin Olson. "Or China," adds Dave Matthews, because, "Here in American you don't get the right to know if you're eating genetically modified organisms." Unless, unless: We demand that GMOs get labeled. Unless we vote yes on Prop 37. Unless we influence every single California voter we can to do the same. The Yes on 37 campaign is a true people's movement for our right to know what's in our food. We will not be stopped. When California voters go to the polls this November, they will value their right to know what's in their food, rather than leaving it up to the pesticide industry and Henry Miller to make those choices for us. But in order to win this, every single one of us has to fight like hell to make it happen. read more.. http://www.nationofchange.org/fighting-prop-37-truth-36-million-can-t-hide-1350097249

Is Whole Foods Sincere About its Support for Labeling Genetically Modified Foods?

After months of pressure from the organic community, including thousands of its customers, the leadership of Whole Foods Market on September 11 endorsed Proposition 37 [3], the California Ballot Initiative to require mandatory labels on genetically engineered foods. But the endorsement came with “reservations” and inaccuracies. It also included the false claim that company policy precludes Whole Foods and its executives from providing much-needed financial support to Prop 37, a campaign that consumers – the very people who have made WFM and its executives wildly profitable – overwhelmingly support.

Is it possible that Whole Foods wants to ride the GMO labeling popularity wave while it quietly works behind the scenes to prevent Prop 37, or any other GMO labeling law, from passing? Could it be that a GMO labeling law – especially one like Prop 37 that prohibits the use of the word “natural” on any food containing GMOs – would cut too deeply into the company’s $9.8 billion in sales and almost $246 million in profits? [4]

Right up until the company announced its lukewarm endorsement, Vice President of Global Communications and Quality Standards Margaret Wittenberg and other WFM top brass repeatedly stated that they would not endorse Prop 37. CEO John Mackey has reportedly claimed that “the jury is still out” on whether genetically engineered crops and foods are unhealthy for people or the environment. (Mackey also has stated [5] that “no scientific consensus exists” to support global warming or climate change).

And while the company website states [6] that WFM is “committed to foods that are fresh, wholesome and safe to eat”, nowhere on its list of unacceptable ingredients [7] is there any mention of GMOs.

So why come out with a public endorsement of Prop 37? With national polls showing 90% support for GMO labeling, and voter support [8] for Prop 37 running 67% for and 24% against, it was just common-sense marketing strategy to get behind the initiative. But was it really an endorsement?

When it first came out, WFM’s official endorsement contained misleading information that read straight from the opposition’s playbook. It also contained one glaring error.  Initially, the company listed among its “reservations” about Prop 37 this incorrect statement: The use of 0.5% of the total weight as the upper limit for processed foods that contain one or more genetically engineered ingredients to be exempted from labeling is inconsistent with the long-established international labeling standard of 0.9%.

Not true. The OCA contacted the authors of the official press release and offered this correction, taken straight from the ballot initiative [9] itself: The 0.5% exemption is for one ingredient and a food can have up to ten such ingredients, meaning a 5.0% exemption (until 2019).

It took them several days, but WFM public relations team did finally issue a correction [3]. But the correction did little to strengthen the company’s endorsement, which continues to perpetuate the exact same myths that the NO on 37 campaign is now airing in its $35-million TV advertising blitz. The endorsement echoes biotech industry claims that Prop 37 is “too complicated.” That GMO food labeling is best left up to the pro-biotech federal government and the FDA (don’t hold your breath for this), rather than the states. That if passed, Prop 37 will result in greedy trial lawyers suing innocent grocery stores, farmers, and food processors for not labeling or mislabeling GMO foods.

None of this is true – as has been repeatedly outlined [10] by the YES on Prop 37 campaign.

Also not true? That WFM can’t financially support the most important battle ever waged in the U.S. for consumers’ right to know about GMOs and truthful labeling on so-called “natural” foods. According to its website, company policy precludes donating to political campaigns or ballot initiatives. And yet, in 2009 WFM spent $180,000 lobbying [11] against the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have granted farm workers (the same farm workers who pick the fruits and vegetables sold in WFM stores) and other food workers the right to form unions and enjoy collective bargaining rights with their employers.

Company policy also apparently doesn’t preclude WFM’s wealthy executives from donating to political campaigns. CEO John Mackey has donated $2500 so far this year to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, and has made many personal donations [12] to past political campaigns – yet not one penny to Prop 37.

Clearly, the executives and big investors who control WFM don’t want to antagonize millions of their customers, so they’ve issued a token endorsement of Prop 37. But here’s the inconvenient truth. WFM sells billions of dollars of non-organic, so-called “natural” products every year that contain genetically engineered ingredients, including thousands of different processed foods, nutritional supplements, meat, and animal products. Once Prop 37 passes on November 6, WFM, just like every other supermarket chain, will face a major dilemma. Are they willing to demand that their suppliers get GMOs out of the 50,000 items sold in their stores, and give WFM legally binding affidavits to prove this? Is WFM willing to stop marketing non-organic GMO-tainted foods as “natural,” when many of them are not?

And the most critical question of all: Is WFM willing to antagonize – and possibly lose - their core customers, consumers who will not want to purchase foods carrying labels that say “produced through genetic engineering”?

Most of the workers, and certainly the overwhelming majority of the customers, at Whole Foods support organic foods and mandatory labeling of GMOs. It’s time for the executives and the top brass to stop the lies and obfuscation, to stop the greenwashing, and to atone for the fact that they’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars in profit over the years by selling non-organic, so-called “natural” foods and supplements that contain GMOs.

It’s also time for WFM to remove misleading information about Prop 37 from the company website. It’s time for this multi-billion corporation and its wealthy executives to put their money where their mouth is, and make a sizeable donation to the California ballot Initiative to label genetically engineered foods. This is the food fight of our lives, and Whole Foods Market is either with us or against us. Please join the 25,000 organic consumers who have already signed this petition [13] asking WFM to throw real support behind Prop 37.

Is The End of Monsanto Near? Prop 37 Succeeding as Nations Ban GMO Crops

Is the end of Monsanto within reach? It has certainly been a rough couple of weeks for the mega corporation as the real dangers surrounding GMOs are being brought to the attention of consumers on a global scale like never before. It all started with the monumental French study finding a serious link between the consumption of Monsanto’s Roundup-drenched GMOs and massive tumors. Being called the ‘most thorough’ research ever published on the real health effects of GMOs, the study led to even larger victories.

After the study not only did France call for a potential worldwide ban on GMOs pending the results of their in-depth analysis, but Russia’s major consumer rights organization announced a ban on both the importation and use of Monsanto’s GMO corn.

Prop 37 Can Label Monsanto Out of Existence

And now, the Proposition to label all GMOs in the state of California is showing massive success. If Prop 37 passes, it won’t just affect California. It is very likely that other states will not just take note, but adopt similar legislation. Through this legal mechanism, we can essential label Monsanto out of existence.  This is possible when considering that the average consumer is actually opposed to GMOs and heavily in favor of proper labeling.

In a major Los Angeles Times poll, registered California voters in favor of labeling outnumber pro-GMO voters by more than a 2-to-1 margin. Altogether, a whopping 61% of those polled reported supporting the Prop 37 labeling initiative. Only 25% reported opposing it.

If GMO-containing products are properly labeled, the simple fact of the matter is that less people will buy them. As of right now, very few people are even aware of what they are putting in their mouth. In fact, if the public knew that they were consuming GMOs which were linked to massive tumors and organ failure, the overwhelming majority would abandon such products. Without labeling, however, they have no idea. The same can also be said for other ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup and aspartame.

As Yes on 37 campaign manager Gary Ruskin explains:

“Monsanto, DuPont, and Coca-Cola do not want Californians to know what’s really in their food and drinks, because they fear consumers will turn away from their genetically engineered ingredients and pesticides that go with them.”

If they knew they were eating mercury in the HFCS and consuming an artificial sweetener with over 42 associated diseases, then major change would occur – change that includes forcing manufacturers to abandon these ingredients in order to stay profitable. And after all, Monsanto’s number one goal is profit. This is a company that has been caught running ‘slave-like’ working conditions in which ‘employees’ were forced to buy only from the company store and were not allowed to leave the area or their pay would be withheld.

If Monsanto’s profits were to plummet, their political reign would likely follow as well. Without an endless amount of cash to throw at crushing Prop 37, already contributing $4 million to fuel anti-labeling propaganda in California, the corporation’s massive grasp on the world of science (continually censoring studies and funding pro-GM research) and politics would virtually cease to exist.

It is essential that we ensure the passing of Prop 37 in a bid to generate the literal end of Monsanto. Once consumers actually know that they’re putting genetically modified creations into their body, real change will occur within the food supply.

William Malaurie -- Yes, GMOs are poisonous!

*French researchers studied privately for two years, 200 rats fed GM corn. Tumors, serious diseases ... a massacre. And a bomb [for the] GMO industry. 

This is a real bomb that launches this September 19 to 15 hours, the very serious American journal "Food and Chemical Toxicology" - a benchmark for food toxicology - publishing the results of the experiment conducted by [the] team [of] French Gilles-Eric Seralini, professor of molecular biology at the University of Caen. A cluster bomb [for] scientific, medical, and industrial policy. It sprays indeed an official truth: the safety of genetically modified maize. 

Heavily toxic and often fatal

Even at low doses, the GM study proves heavily toxic and often lethal to rats. So much so that, if it were a drug, it should be suspended forthwith pending further investigations. Because it is the same GMO found on our plates through the meat, eggs or milk.

In 2006, this is a true thriller that begins this research, the project manager, Gilles-Eric Seralini discloses itself conclusions in a book to be published next week ("All guinea pigs", Flammarion, in bookstores September 26).
Codenamed Vivo

Until 2011, the researchers worked under conditions of quasi-underground. They have their encrypted emails and the Pentagon, have banned all phone conversation and even launched a study decoy as they feared a coup de Jarnac multinational seed.

The story of the operation - codenamed Vivo - [involves] the difficult recovery of GM maize seeds NK 603, owned [and] patented [by] Monsanto, through an agricultural college in Canada. Then harvested and the repatriation of "big jute bags" [via]the port of Le Havre in late 2007, before making croquettes in total secrecy and the selection of two hundred lab rats called "Sprague Dawley". [The result?] Chilling: "After less than a year of genetically modified maize menus differentiated says Professor Séralini, it was a slaughter among our rats, [of] which I had not imagined the magnitude." 

Serious diseases, mammary tumors

All groups of rats, whether fed with GM maize treated or untreated with Roundup herbicide, Monsanto, or fed with water containing low doses of herbicide found in GM fields are hit by a multitude of serious diseases in the 13th month of the experiment. In females, this is manifested by explosions chain mammary tumors that reach up to 25% of their weight. Males, are purifiers organs, liver and kidneys, which are marked with abnormalities or severe. With a frequency of two to five times greater than for rodents fed non-GM corn.

Comparison implacable rats GMO therefore trigger two to three times more tumors than non-GMO rats whatever their sex. At the beginning of the 24th month, that is to say at the end of their lives, 50% and 80% of females are affected GMOs against only 30% among non-GMO.

Above all, tumors occur much faster in rats GM: twenty months earlier in males, three months earlier in females. For an animal that has two years of life expectancy, the difference is considerable. For comparison, one year for a rodent is roughly the equivalent of forty years for a man ... 

Demand accountability

It is these strong conclusions Corinne Lepage , in a book that seems to Friday, September 21 ("The truth about GMOs, is our business", Editions Charles Léopold Mayer), intends to demand accountability from political and experts, French and European health agencies and the Brussels Commission, which have so long opposed by all means and the principle of a long-term study on the physiological impact of GMOs.

This battle, the former Minister of Ecology and First Vice-President of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety in Strasbourg, the leading fifteen years in the Criigen (Committee for Independent Research and Information on genetic engineering) with Joel Spiroux and Gilles-Eric Seralini. A simple association 1901 which has yet been able to meet end to end funding of this research (3.2 million euros) that neither INRA, CNRS neither, nor any public agency had judged advisable to undertake.
A study funded by Auchan and Carrefour

How? Another surprise by asking the Swiss Foundation Charles Léopold Mayer. But the owners of the supermarkets (Carrefour, Auchan ..), who gathered for the occasion together. Since the mad cow disease, in fact they want to protect themselves from any new food scandal. So much so that it is Gérard Mulliez, founder of the Auchan Group, which provided the initial funding. 

The study by Professor Séralini portend a new murderous war between pro and anti-GMO. Health agencies they require urgently similar studies to verify the findings of French scientists? It would be the least. Monsanto, the largest seed firm global transgenic leave she do? Unlikely: its survival would be at stake for a single plant GMOs, there are hundreds of varieties. Implying at least a dozen studies from 100 to 150 million euros each!
The time of truth

Except that in this new confrontation, the debate can no longer be bogged down by the past. September 26 dice, everyone can see the film in the cinema shock Jean-Paul Jaud, "All guinea pigs?", Adapted from the book by Gilles-Eric Seralini, and the terrible images of rats stuffy in their tumors. Images that will go around the world and the Internet, as it will be broadcast on Canal + (the "Grand Journal" September 19) and France 5 (October 16 in a documentary). For GM, the era of doubt ends. The time of truth begins.

Read more.. http://bit.ly/UngEH0

Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez -- We Eat by the Grace of Nature, Not by the Grace of Monsanto

“Organic, schmorganic,” fumes New York Times columnist Roger Cohen sarcastically in an article entitled “The Organic Fable.”

He bases his sweeping dismissal of the organic foods movement on a new Stanford University study claiming that “fruits and vegetables labeled organic are, on average, no more nutritious than their cheaper conventional counterparts.”

Cohen does grant that “organic farming is probably better for the environment because less soil, flora and fauna are contaminated by chemicals…. So this is food that is better ecologically even if it is not better nutritionally.”

But he goes on to smear the organic movement as an elitist, pseudoscientific indulgence shot through with hype.

“To feed a planet of 9 billion people,” he says, “we are going to need high yields not low yields; we are going to need genetically modified crops; we are going to need pesticides and fertilizers and other elements of the industrialized food processes that have led mankind to be better fed and live longer than at any time in history.

“I’d rather be against nature and have more people better fed. I’d rather be serious about the world’s needs. And I trust the monitoring agencies that ensure pesticides are used at safe levels — a trust the Stanford study found to be justified.”

Cohen ends by calling the organic movement “a fable of the pampered parts of the planet — romantic and comforting.”

But the truth is that his own, science-driven Industrial Agriculture mythology is far more delusional.

Let me count the ways that his take on the organic foods movement is off the mark:

Organic food may not be more “nutritious,” but it is healthier because it is not saturated with pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and preservatives, not to mention antibiotics, growth hormones and who knows what other chemicals.

There are obvious “health advantages” in this, since we know—though Cohen doesn’t mention—that synthetic chemicals and poor health, from asthma to cancer, go hand in hand.

Read more.. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/09/08-3

Jason Mark -- Whoa, Is Organic Food No Healthier Than Non-Organic? Controversy Erupts Over Study

I had barely drank my first cup of coffee when I heard the news yesterday morning on NPR [3] – organic food, it turns out, may not be that much healthier for you than industrial food.

The NPR story was based on a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine [4] which concluded, based on a review of existing studies, that there is no “strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods.” The study, written by researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine, also found that eating organic foods “may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”

The interwebs were soon full of headlines talking down the benefits of organic foods. “Stanford Scientists Cast Doubt on Advantages of Organic Meat and Produce,” the NY Times [5] announced, as reporter Kenneth Chang pointed out that pesticide residues on industrially grown fruits and vegetables are “almost always under the allowed safety limits.”CBS news [6], running the AP story on the Stanford study, informed readers: “Organic food hardly healthier, study suggests.”

Organic agriculture advocates were quick with their rebuttals. The Environmental Working Group [7] put out a press release playing up the researchers’ findings that organic produce has less pesticide residue. Charles Benbrook, a professor of agriculture at Washington State University and former chief scientist at The Organic Center [8], wrote a detailed critique you can find here [9]. Benbrook noted that the Stanford study didn’t include data from the USDA and US EPA about pesticide residue levels. He also pointed out that the researchers’ definition of “significantly more nutritious” was a little squishy.

Is this the last word on the nutritional benefits of organic foods? Hardly. As Benbrook said, in the coming years improved measurement methods will hopefully allow for better comparisons of food nutritional quality. (You can find an Earth Island Journal cover story on this very issue here [10].)

I’ll leave it to the PhDs and MDs to fight this out among themselves. As they do, I’ll keep buying (and growing [11]) organic foods. Why? Because even if organic foods are not demonstrably better for my health than industrial foods, I know that organics are better for the health of other people – the people who grow our nation’s food.

To his credit, NPR’s new ag reporter, Dan Charles, was careful to note that organic agriculture “can bring environmental benefit[s].” One of the most important environmental benefits organic agriculture delivers is a boost to public health and safety.

Let’s say you’re not worried about the relatively small amounts of pesticides that end up on the industrial foods at the supermarket. (Though you should read this [12] Tom Philpott dissection of the Stanford report when considering your risk of eating pesticide residue.) Well, you should still be concerned about the huge amounts of pesticides that end up in the air and water of farming communities – chemicals that can lead to birth defects, endocrine disruption, and neurological and respiratory problems.

When pesticides are sprayed onto farm fields, they don’t just stay in that one place. They seep into the water and waft through the air and accumulate on the shoes and clothes of farm workers. In recent years in California (the country’s top ag producer) an average of 37 pesticide drift incidents [13] a year have made people sick. Pesticides also find their way into the homes of farm workers. A study by researchers at the University of Washington found that the children of farm workers have higher exposure to pesticides [14] than other children in the same community. When researchers in Mexico looked into pesticide exposure of farm workers there, they found that 20 percent of field hands “showed acute poisoning. [15]”

The health impacts on those workers were serious and included “diverse alterations of the digestive, neurological, respiratory, circulatory, dermatological, renal, and reproductive system.” The researchers concluded: “there exist health hazards for those farm workers exposed to pesticides, at organic and cellular levels.”

There are shelves’ worth of studies [16] documenting the health dangers of pesticide exposure. A study published last year found that prenatal exposure to organophosphate pesticides [17] – which are often sprayed on crops and in urban areas to control insects – can lower children’s IQ. A follow-up investigation into prenatal pesticide exposure concluded that boys’ developing brains appear to be more vulnerable [18] than girls’ brains. A study by Colorado State University epidemiologist Lori Cragin found that women who drink water containing low levels of the herbicide atrazine are more likely to have low estrogen levels [19] and irregular menstrual cycles; about three-quarters of all US corn fields are treated with atrazine annually. British scientists who examined the health effects of fungicides sprayed on fruits and vegetable crops discovered that 30 out of 37 chemicals studied altered males’ hormone production [20].

Read more.. http://www.alternet.org/food/whoa-organic-food-no-healthier-non-organic-controversy-erupts-over-study

Dave Gutknecht -- Farmers Fight Monsanto's Threats and Intimidation

A major lawsuit against Monsanto was denied in at the district court and has been appealed. On July 5, 2012, seventy-five family farmers, seed businesses, and agricultural organizations representing over 300,000 individuals and 4,500 farms filed a brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., asking the appellate court to reverse a lower court's decision from February dismissing their protective legal action against agricultural giant Monsanto's patents on genetically engineered seed.

The plaintiffs brought the pre-emptive case against Monsanto in March 2011 in the Southern District of New York (Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association et al. v Monsanto) and specifically seek to defend themselves from nearly two dozen of Monsanto's most aggressively asserted patents on GMO seed. They were forced to act pre-emptively to protect themselves from Monsanto's abusive lawsuits, fearing that if GMO seed contaminates their property despite their efforts to prevent such contamination, Monsanto will sue them for patent infringement.

Lead plaintiff in the suit (and the main source for this report) is the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (www.osgata.org), a not-for-profit agricultural organization made up of organic farmers, seed growers, seed businesses and supporters. OSGATA is committed to developing and protecting organic seed and its growers in order to ensure the organic community has access to excellent quality organic seed – seed that is free of contaminants and adapted to the diverse needs of local organic agriculture.

Dangerous Drift

Seed and pollen can drift great distances, in some cases as far as 10-15 miles, increasing the likelihood of contamination of organic crops with genetics from Monsanto's laboratories. The latter seeds and crops are referred to as "transgenic," and have had DNA of foreign organisms inserted into their DNA through human engineered processes. The suit plaintiffs use and sell non-transgenic seed, more commonly referred to as heirloom, organic, or conventional seed.

Read more.. http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/445-farm-and-food-policy/13042-focus-farmers-fight-monsantos-threats-and-intimidation?tmpl=component&print=1&page=