Who is Michael Taylor, really? Monsanto, the FDA and a history of evil

 "...[A]ll knowledgeable observers understand that technological advance and population aging are inexorable and costly and that sustained control of health care costs is possible only by denying some beneficial care to some people."

Who wrote that?

His name is Henry J. Aaron, and he wrote that in a Jan. 23, 2000, opinion piece for the Washington Post.

Aaron appears to be making the case that serious healthcare experts believe that rationing care to some Americans is the only way to save this nation's healthcare system.

This Brookings Institution scholar made a similar argument nine years later, in 2009, in a paper where he argued that it has become "necessary to develop protocols that enable providers to identify in advance patients in whom expected benefits of treatment are lower than costs [and] to design incentives that encourage providers to act on those protocols."

Why does his opinion matter?

Because in November 2011, President Barack Obama nominated him to be on the Social Security Advisory Board , a panel which, critics say, could serve in a rationing role under Obamacare regulations down the road by recommending cuts to Social Security benefits, as a way to control the budget.

In short, Obama has oft-denied critics' claims that his healthcare reform law would ever lead to rationing of care, but he nevertheless nominated someone who has argued for rationing his entire professional career to be on a panel that could play a role in that very thing.

Enter Michael Taylor. Who is he?

"The person who may be responsible for more food-related illness and death than anyone in history has just been made the US food safety czar," writes foremost healthy food consumer advocate Jeffrey Smith over at the Huffington Post.

Here's his story.

Some time ago, scientists at the Food and Drug Administration were asked to give their feedback on what was to become "the most radical and potentially dangerous change in our food supply," writes Smith - the introduction of genetically modified foods. Despite what consumers are told today by Big Agriculture and government agencies - that GM foods are safe and good for you - once-secret documents now indicate that the experts at FDA were extremely concerned.

In memo after memo, these experts "described toxins, new diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and hard-to-detect allergens," Smith said. They were unyielding in their belief that this radical technology carried "serious health hazards" and called for careful, lengthy research that would include human trials before any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could safely be released into the food supply.

The fix was in; however, science - and scientists - would be discounted.

Healthcare problems grew after GM foods introduced

That's because the biotech industry pushing GMOs managed to have one of their own placed in a position of prominence within the FDA, "and he wasn't going to be swayed by feeble arguments related to food safety," Smith wrote. Rather, "he was going to do what corporations had done for decades to get past these types of pesky concerns. He was going to lie."

Nearly 20 years ago, when the FDA was putting together GMO policy, agency scientists were certain that gene-sliced foods were greatly different, which could, in turn, lead to "different risks" than those posed by conventional foods.

Nevertheless, official FDA policy would declare exactly the opposite, claiming the agency "knew nothing of significant differences, and declared GMOs substantially equivalent," says Smith.

The fiction then became the narrative: GM foods would not only be permitted on the market, but they would be introduced with no required safety studies whatsoever. The determination that GM foods were safe was placed entirely in the hands of the biotech giants producing them - "companies like Monsanto, which told us that PCBs, DDT, and Agent Orange were safe," Smith wrote.

So by 1996, GM foods were showing up on plates in American homes. And over the next nine years, multiple, chronic illnesses in the U.S. nearly doubled, from seven percent to 13 percent, while allergy-related E.R. visits did actually double between 1997 and 2002. Food allergies, especially among kids, skyrocketed as well, Smith says, adding that the country "witnessed a dramatic rise in asthma, autism, obesity, diabetes, digestive disorders, and certain cancers."

Research and scientists catching on to dangers of GM foods

"In January of this year, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, one of the world's top biologists, told me that after reviewing 600 scientific journals, he concluded that the GM foods in the US are largely responsible for the increase in many serious diseases," said Smith.

Bhargava isn't alone. In May of this year, the Academy of Environmental Medicine also concluded that studies in animals have shown that there is at least a causal relationship between GM foods and infertility, faster aging, poor insulin regulation, changes to major organs and the gastrointestinal system, immune problems (asthma, allergies and inflammation).

And in July, a report by eight renowned international experts concluded that weak, superficial evaluations of GMOs by regulators and biotech companies alike "systematically overlook the side effects" and greatly underestimate "the initial signs of diseases like cancer and diseases of the hormonal, immune, nervous and reproductive systems, among others."

"If GMOs are indeed responsible for massive sickness and death," writes Smith, "then the individual who oversaw the FDA policy that facilitated their introduction holds a uniquely infamous role in human history."

That person, he says, is Taylor.

Taylor needs to go

"He had been Monsanto's attorney before becoming policy chief at the FDA," Smith continues. "Soon after, he became Monsanto's vice president and chief lobbyist."

Adds Marion Nestle at Food Politics, Taylor has been with "Monsanto, FDA, USDA, Monsanto, private sector, university, FDA" and is "a classic example of the 'revolving door.'"

In recent months, the outcry from both advocacy groups and a growing number of Americans for the government to require labeling of GM foods has grown to a fever pitch. In fact, an amendment in California, Proposition 37, would require just that - and Natural News' Health Ranger, Mike Adams, has come out in support of that requirement.

As far as Taylor, who is deputy commissioner of food at FDA, is concerned, there is a growing Internet petition effort to have him fired from the FDA for his role in circumventing the normative food testing and screening process, to have GM foods placed on the U.S. market.

One small step in the right direction.

http://www.naturalnews.com/037678_Michael_Taylor_Monsanto_FDA.html

Big Ag Ad Blitz Puts GMO Labeling in Jeopardy

California Proposition 37 to label foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is up for a vote on Tuesday, November 6. It enjoyed broad popular support as of September, with a USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll showing support by 61 percent of registered voters.

But in the two weeks following that poll, support dropped to 48 percent, according to a poll done by Pepperdine University School of Public Policy and the California Business Roundtable.

What explains the 13 point slide?

Multi-Million Dollar Ad Blitz Changes Minds

Between one poll and the next, voters saw the start of what the Los Angeles Times called a "major television advertising blitz by opponents aimed at changing voters' minds on the issue."

How big of an advertising blitz? $41 million in campaign contributions have been made to the "No on 37" campaign, according to the Los Angeles Times. The campaign paid Winner & Mandabach Campaigns, a political campaign management and advertising firm specializing solely in ballot measures, $14.7 million for "TV or cable airtime and production costs" in September.

Mark Bittman writes in a New York Times op-ed, "By some accounts the 'no' advocates are spending $1 million a day."

Follow the Money: "Big 6" GMO Companies Buy Big Ads

Among the campaign's largest funders are the "Big 6" GMO and pesticide corporations: BASF, Bayer, Dupont, Dow Chemical Company, Syngenta, and Monsanto (see the chart below this article). These six corporations dominate the world's seed, pesticide and genetic engineering (GE) industries. Collectively they have contributed more than $20 million to oppose the labeling measure.

The most effective ad run by the opposition campaign, according to "Yes on 37" spokesperson Stacy Malkan, features Henry I. Millertelling voters that Prop 37 "doesn't make sense." It misleads voters by spinning the law's logical labeling exemptions into "arbitrary" "special interest" loopholes that allegedly result in an "illogical" and "ill-conceived" law.

For instance, the ad discusses exemptions for animal products, but currently there are no genetically modified cows, pigs, or chickens on the market.

According to the Earth Island Journal, spinning the law's exemptions into a major issue makes "a snazzy sound bite, . . . no doubt informed by the No campaign’s polling and focus group findings that show this is a wedge issue. But it’s a strawman argument and fundamentally misleading. The article points out "the holes in the loophole argument" one by one.

Who is Henry Miller?

The ad originally listed campaign spokesperson Miller as "M.D., Stanford" and showed Stanford University buildings in the background. The campaign had to pull that version off the air at the request of Stanford University and re-do it because "the Stanford ID on the screen appeared to violate the university’s policy against use of the Stanford name by consultants," according to the Los Angeles Times.

Miller is a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank housed on the Stanford campus. Prior to joining Hoover, Miller worked for 15 years at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where he was an outspoken advocate of agricultural biotechnology, including GMOs. Miller was the founding director of the FDA Office of Biotechnology, from 1989-1994.

What Miller is most notorious for are his unusual public positions. In 2003, Miller penned an op-ed for the New York Times defending DDT and arguing for its resurrection. This prompted a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) response pointing out the estimated "increase in infant deaths that might result from DDT spraying."

Miller was also a founding member scientist of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, a now-defunct, tobacco industry-funded public relations front group run by the APCO Worldwide PR firm that worked to discredit the links between cigarettes and cancer.

Perhaps most outrageously, Miller wrote in a 2011 op-ed for Forbes that some of those exposed to radiation after the damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant "could have actually benefitted from it."

So it is unsurprising that Miller penned a Forbes op-ed on GMO labeling this week suggesting that it is the supporters of GMO labeling who are engaged in "no-holds-barred advocacy . . . to disparage farming methods and promulgate fraudulent health claims about the foods we eat."

Behind the Money is the Right to Know

In these big dollar proposition campaigns, voters in California are often subject to a great deal of misinformation. As CMD has reported, a proposition on the California ballot in June dropped 17 points in the polls and was defeated after a $47 million misleading ad campaign by the tobacco industry.

On election day, voters in California are challenged to sift the wheat from the chaff to decide if they want to join 61 nations in enjoying the right to know if their food contains GMOs.

"No on 37" Campaign Funding

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/26-1

Inside the Monsanto Information War

In the United States and abroad, independent and industry science battle it out on a playing field where testing protocols are still in flux despite a history of efforts to push for standardization.

French food safety officials have decided not to ban a Monsanto variety of genetically engineered corn after dismissing the findings of a recent study that linked the corn to massive tumors in lab rats and set off a firestorm of global controversy, but the announcement was not a straight victory for Monsanto and the biotech industry. The French authorities agreed with one of the study's conclusions - and Monsanto's deepest critics - that more long-term testing of genetically engineered food must be done (Genetically engineered products are also known as genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.)

In an opinion released on Monday, the French food safety authority ANSES announced that the data offered in a study on Monsanto corn and Roundup herbicide conducted by a team lead by biotech critic Gilles-Eric Séralini did not support its author's controversial claims linking the products to health problems in rats.

ANSES also called attention to the "originality" of the study, which was one of the first long-term feeding studies of its kind, and called for more research on the "rarely investigated" subject of the long-term health effects of consuming genetically engineered crops and the pesticides associated with them.

The two-year study, published in a peer-reviewed US journal in September, found that rats fed a lifetime supply of either Monsanto's NK603 corn, the Roundup herbicide which NK603 is engineered to tolerate, or both suffered organ damage and premature deaths at higher rates than control groups.

Séralini hyped the cancer findings and told the media he stands by his research, but he has also said that more research needs to be done. The study, after all, was a long-term toxicology study modeled from short-term industry studies like those funded by Monsanto to gain regulatory approvals in Europe, not a carcinogenicity study. Similar industry studies span about 90 days, and Séralini's team said that many of the health problems appeared in rats after the 90-day mark.

Michael Hansen, a biotechnology expert for Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, told Truthout that the study does not definitively link Roundup and NK603 to cancer, "but it raises questions that absolutely need to be answered."

If ANSES and Séralini's detractors say the study is flawed, Hansen said, then they must also extend that criticism to the Monsanto-funded studies Séralini mimicked over a longer time period.

In its statement, ANSES claimed that Séralini's study "did not cast doubt on previous assessments of ... NK603," but the agency called for large-scale studies on "insufficiently documented health risks."

In a way, the ANSES announcement dismissing the results of the study while calling for more like it is a victory for Séralini and his supporters. Séralini has publicly wrangled with Monsanto for years over the safety of its products and is supported by an activist group pushing for long-term, mandatory studies of genetically engineered crops, which are not required for regulatory approval in the United States or Europe.

Séralini's Media Fallout

In September, the Séralini study made a splash worldwide and quickly drew sharp criticism from scientists in the United States and the United Kingdom and pro-business publications such as Forbes.com. Monsanto itself recently dismissed the study.

The French and Russian governments, however, quickly launched investigations into the safety of NK603 in light of the study, and Russian authorities placed a temporary ban on NK603 imports. The ANSES announcement this week was the result of the expedited French investigation.

Meanwhile, US regulatory agencies, which have never conducted food safety studies on genetically engineered crops, stayed mum while the debate lit up the blogosphere.

Séralini's study included grotesque pictures of rats with giant tumors and was released to a limited number of journalists under a heavy embargo that prevented them from sharing the report with scientists before its official release, leading some in the media to suspect Séralini's team was more interested in generating media hype than promoting objective science.

Hansen, however, said that there have been "vicious" media attacks against Séralini in the past, and the media embargo may have been used to beat his detractors to the punch.

Regardless of the researcher's motives, the ongoing controversy surrounding the study injected genetic engineering into the headlines during the past month, exposing the inner workings of an ongoing information war over the safety of GMOs and an industry bent on drowning out scientific dissent.

The Information War

When it comes to getting the facts on GMOs, it all depends on whom you talk to. Many of the study's alleged shortcomings that boomed through the media following its release also exist in the industry studies - including Monsanto's own studies - that form the basis of approvals of genetically engineered crops in Europe. Some of the loudest critics of the study, such as the UK-based Science Media Centre, have received funding from agrichemical companies such as Bayer, BASF and - you guessed it - Monsanto. 

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), a European Union agency and food safety watchdog, also discredited the study on many of the same grounds as the Science Media Centre. GMO critics are quick to point out that the EFSA has come under fire from auditors and the European Parliament for conflicts of interest with the industry. 

"When an industry study comes out poorly designed, they don't trash it," said Hansen, who described a "battalion" of pro-industry scientists that stands ready to criticize independent researchers like Séralini whenever their studies are released.

The science surrounding genetically engineered crops is complex, Hansen said, and with the looming deadlines of a 24-hour news cycle, reporters easily succumb to spin from both sides of the debate. In the weeks following the study's release, American bloggers smelled blood and resorted to pot shots to discredit Séralini and reporters who cover his work.

Journalist and blogger Keith Kloor, who is no stranger to controversy, wrote a scathing article for Slate accusing Mother Jones, Grist and, with a generous link, Truthout, of "fear-mongering" and seizing on "pseudoscience" in covering the study. GMO opponents, Kloor writes, are the "climate skeptics of the left." (Truthout's coverage did mention that known biotech critics conducted the study.)

Hansen tells Truthout that independent risk assessments like the Séralini study are often held to a double standard. In an open letter signed by dozens of scientists, Hansen and his colleagues point out that one widely quoted British scientist, Tom Sanders of Kings College, told media outlets that the Sprague-Dawley breed of lab rats used in the study are prone to tumors, and Séralini allowed the rats to eat as much NK603 as they liked. Similar studies by the industry, however, also use the same type of rats, and feed intake was also unrestricted.

Séralini was also widely criticized for using small test groups of ten male and ten female rats each. Séralini and his supporters have said that the sample size meets international protocols for toxicology studies, and Monsanto's own 90-day studies analyzed test groups of the same size. EFSA and other European regulators, however, said Séralini's study did not meet these same protocols.

"Where were you people when Monsanto was submitting studies with the same sample size and saying they that they were valid to show that this crop is safe?" Hansen asks of Séralini's detractors.

Séralini and his colleagues have been sparring with Monsanto for years, and in 2009, they released a study re-analyzing the data in three Monsanto-funded safety studies on NK603 and two other corn varieties that were submitted to European regulators. Like Séralini's own embattled study, Monsanto analyzed 10 out of a group of 20 Sprague-Dawley rats from each test group. Séralini's team was forced to fight legal battles in court in order to secure Monsanto's data for the comparative analysis, but once they did, they found that Monsanto somehow missed evidence that linked pesticide residue on the corn to toxic side effects.

EFSA also dismissed Séralini's 2009 review of the Monsanto studies, which the regulators had accepted from the company as part if its approval process for the genetically engineered corn varieties.

The European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER), which routinely defends Séralini and other independent researchers, explained in a statement that Séralini's latest study attempted to replicate the previous Monsanto studies over an extended time period. ENSSER agrees with Séralini's critics that a sample size of ten rats is too small for a long-term study and protocols should be tightened, but if regulators like ESFA dismiss the study on such grounds, then the studies submitted by Monsanto for regulatory approval must be dismissed, as well. Regulators, ENSSER and Hansen claim, fail to turn such a critical eye when the industry studies show no harm.

ENSSER admits Séralini's rat study is not perfect, but the group welcomed it into the scientific debate over GMOs. The group argues that the controversy Séralini has stirred up reveals an underlying lack of scientific standards for conducting safety studies. Concerned scientists have demanded international authorities agree on a set of standard methodologies since the introduction of genetically engineered crops, but industry lobbyists routinely block such efforts, ENSSER argues.

Crushing Scientific Dissent

Hansen and watchdogs like the Union of Concerned Scientists say the biotech industry has a long history of suppressing and discrediting independent research on its genetically engineered products. The open letter Hansen co-authored details a legacy of scientists who faced intimidation after releasing research on suspected dangers of GMOs. Most recently, the Argentinian embryologist Andres Carrasco survived an attack by a violent mob in 2010 while on his way to present to members of a small farming community on the findings of a study linking Roundup herbicide to birth defects in Argentina's agriculture areas.

Patents on genetically engineered seeds set up a blockade prohibiting independent scientists from using the seeds for research. In 2009, a group of 26 corn entomologists sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) complaining that "no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions" regarding genetically engineered crops due to patent restrictions. The restrictions "inhibit public scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good unless the research is approved by industry," the scientists claimed.

Christian Krupke, a Purdue University entomologist who signed the letter, told a scientific journal at the time, "Industry is completely driving the bus." 

The scientists were involved in research projects on corn rootworms and other crop pests. Since then, corn rootworms have become an agricultural epidemic for farmers as they developed a resistance to pesticides produced by Monsanto's genetically engineered crops.

In the wake of the letter, Monsanto and other companies set up voluntary deals with universities, and an industry trade group is developing guidelines to improve access to new seeds, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. The Union warns, however, that these deals are voluntary and too opaque to assure the public that independent researchers have access to biotech seeds. Researchers who are not involved in the deals are still left in the dark.

Label Monsanto?

So whom can consumers believe? In one corner sits Monsanto and the rest of the biotech industry, armed with its own studies and well-funded scientists, claiming over and over that its patented genetically engineered crops are safe. In the other corner sits an international network of activists and independent scientists who, like Séralini, say more testing must be done on GMO safety but are often accused of operating with an anti-GMO bias. Anti-GMO alarmists and pro-industry pundits further cloud the waters.

Hansen and other consumer advocates are pushing for regulatory reforms in the United States that would require agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to conduct long-term safety studies on genetically engineered crops instead of simply relying on data voluntarily submitted from the industry, as US regulators have for years.

"People are shocked when they find out that the FDA has never done a safety study on these products," Hansen said.

Until reforms are made, Hansen fears consumers will have to sort out the GMO information war on their own.

"People are guinea pigs, and if you want to be part of this experiment, that's fine, but you have a right to choose not too," Hansen said.

For this reason, Hansen and the Consumers Union support Proposition 37, a California ballot initiative that would require groceries containing genetically engineered ingredients to be labeled as such. While the Séralini controversy exploded across France and Europe, Proposition 37 has sparked a GMO information war of its own, complete with millions of dollars worth of television ads paid for by Monsanto, DuPont and other agrichemical companies pushing to defeat the initiative.

Some anti-37 ads feature Henry Miller, an expert who's resume includes arguing for the reintroduction of the pesticide DDT and founding a Phillip Morris-backed front group to discredit the links between tobacco products and health problems. Several California newspapers have complained that the ads are misleading and the pro-37 campaign claims their well-funded opponents are subverting the election with "a massive campaign of lies and deception."

Meanwhile, the pro-37 campaign has taken heat for trumpeting the embattled Séralini study and using scare tactics to woo voters. 

At home and abroad, the Monsanto information war continues.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/12284-inside-the-controversy-over-a-french-gmo-study-and-the-monsanto-information-war

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

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.

Seed Freedom: A Call To End Corporate Control

In a defiant step against corporate control over food sovereignty, activists issued a report to draw attention to the extreme threat that Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and corporate influence have on the future of food security and individual independence. 

"Seed Freedom: A Global Citizen's Report," was written by over a hundred organizations, experts, activists and farmers under the direction of Dr. Vandana Shiva's organization Navdanya; some prominent contributors include Pat Mooney, Jack Kloppenbur and Salvatore Cecarelli. Hoping to to draw attention to the "serious risk to the future of the world's seed and food security," the document focuses on the imperative to stop laws that are preventing farmers from saving and exchanging their native varieties of seeds by encouraging individuals to pressure governments to roll back patents on seeds and seed laws.

As articulated in a statement on Navdanya's site from 2010:

"Leaving the control over seeds to multinational corporations means leaving decisions on choice in the food market and the way food is produced to those whose first aim is to make a profit, not provide food security."

The report gives examples from movements around the world and grassroots initiatives that have successfully fought for seed freedom, from indigenous women in Chile to organic farmers in Oregon. "Seed Freedom" also gives information on indigenous varieties of seeds by region.

This is one of many measures meant to counter the threat of industrialized food systems. In July, Navdanya hosted a conference that included farmers, activists, scientists, legal experts and students resulting in the foundation of a national alliance of individuals committed to the cause of protecting biodiversity and small farms. The organization has also launched a global campaign on seed freedom from October 2 to October 16, ending on World Food Day.

On her blog, founder and director Vandana Shiva writes, “I started Navdanya to save seeds to prevent the memory in the seeds from being erased forever. For us, that is seed freedom.”

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

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=

Lisa Cerda - Monsanto: A Modern Day Plague

Monsanto’s history is one steeped with controversial products, deadly consequences, massive cover ups, political slight of hand, and culminates as a modern day plague on humanity, a plague that is about to peak to biblical proportions. Created in 1901, the company started producing its first form of poison, the artificial sweetener saccharin. The rise in use of saccharin really began 70 years later. Monsanto had plenty of time for a realistic and long term study on the impact of saccharin on human health. Instead, Monsanto learned how to finagle political support and grow its empire despite the growing consensus that saccharin caused cancer.

No surprise then that the company continued on a path of controversy. Here’s a bullet point history.
•    Contributed to the research on uranium, for the Manhattan Project, during WWII.
•    Operated a nuclear facility for the U.S. government until the late 1980s.
•    Top manufacturer of synthetic fibers, plastics and polystyrene (EPA’s 5th ranked chemical production that generates the most hazardous waste).
•    A top 10 US chemical company.
•    Agriculture pesticides producer.
•    Herbicide producer – herbicides 2,4,5-T, Agent Orange, Lasso, and DDT.

•    Agent Orange (used in Vietnam), had the highest levels of dioxin and contaminated more than 3 million civilians and servicemen of which only partial compensation awarded.
•    Nearly 500,000 Vietnamese children were born deformed and never compensated.
•    Lasso was banned in USA, so weed killer “Roundup” is launched in 1976.
•    A major producer of both dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which generated many law suits and environmental cleanups
•    $180 million settlement for Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange
•    Fined $1.2 million for concealing the discharge of contaminated waste water
•    Ordered to pay $41.1 million due to hazardous waste dumping
•    Paid $600 million in settlement claims to more than 20,000 Anniston residents in Abernathy v. United States.
•    Produced GM cattle drug, bovine growth hormone (called rBGH or rBST)
•    Acquiring seed companies from the 1990’s and forward.
•    Monsanto Filed 144 lawsuits against struggling farmers and settled out of court with 700 farmers, for reportedly violating seed patents.  A full time staff of 75 Monsanto employees investigates patent infringement. They are dedicated solely to finding farms that have been contaminated by their unwanted seed. As of 2007, Monsanto was awarded in 57 recorded judgments against farmers a total of $21,583,431.99. Monsanto vs. Farmers.

Read More:

http://wakeup-world.com/2012/07/16/monsanto-a-modern-day-plague/