Thierry Vrain retired 10 years ago after a long career as a soil biologist and ended head of a department of molecular biology running his own research program to engineer nematode resistance genes in crops. In his retirement career as a gardener he learned five or six years ago how the soil ecosystem really functions and have been preaching ever since. He find himself with a good knowledge of genetic engineering technologies surrounded by people in fear of being hurt by the food they eat. He found that he cannot ignore them anymore and has joined the campaign to educate consumers about the potential health problems reported in the recent scientific literature.
Sharing the type of news you are unlikely to come across in the mainstream media.
Showing posts with label Roundup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roundup. Show all posts
Sunday, 31 August 2014
Monday, 17 June 2013
CFS Launches Class Action Lawsuit against Monsanto
By the Center For Food Safety
Last week, CFS and Pacific Northwest wheat farmers launched a class action lawsuit against Monsanto for the escape of Monsanto’s illegal GE wheat in Oregon. Support our work to hold Monsanto accountable!
You probably read the news that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced that unapproved, genetically engineered (GE) wheat was found contaminating an Oregon farmer’s field. The GE wheat, known as Roundup Ready, was developed by the Monsanto Company to withstand direct application of Roundup (glyphosate) herbicide, and was never approved for sale.
The discovery of unapproved Roundup Ready wheat in a farmer's field in Oregon, years after Monsanto terminated field testing, is just the latest example of Monsanto's inability to keep their engineered genes under control. Until Monsanto and USDA begin to take gene flow from field tests more seriously, we can expect GE contamination to continue to cause havoc.
CFS is not standing idly by hoping Monsanto and USDA do the right thing. We are taking action. Last week, Center for Food Safety and Pacific Northwest wheat farmers filed a class action lawsuit against Monsanto. Center for Food Safety and Pacific Northwest wheat farmers are representing the broad class of farmers affected by this contamination, seeking monetary compensation for farmers who have lost export markets, and forcing Monsanto to take measures to clean up the contamination and ensure it never happens again.
As we’ve warned for over a decade, GE crops simply can’t be controlled once they’re released into the environment. Past transgenic contamination episodes involving GE corn and GE rice triggered over $1 billion in losses and economic hardship to farmers, and recalls of food products containing illegal GE corn. CFS has been there every time, fighting in the courts, in the halls of Congress, and in communities to protect our food, our farms, and our environment from these risky GE crops.
With your support, we’ve been working to hold biotech companies like Monsanto accountable and tighten regulations over their experimental GE crop field trials for over a decade. And we’ve had a lot of successes -- like our past litigation over similar field trials in Oregon and Hawaii for other GE crops in which we won substantial victories over USDA and industry for their field trial abuses and failures. Because of this litigation, we now have the legal ability to challenge the legality of field trials, and USDA can no longer ignore their environmental and socioeconomic impacts. We’ve even forced USDA to publicly admit new field trial contamination incidents, like this one, that they otherwise tried to keep secret.
Center for Food Safety
660 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, #302
Washington DC 20003
phone (202) 547-9359 | fax (202) 547-9429
Sunday, 3 March 2013
Paul Craig Roberts: Polluted America - GMO Manmade Biological Threats, Plant Diseases, Germ Warfare
Global Research, February 26, 2013
Url of this article:
In the United States everything is polluted.
Democracy is polluted with special interests and corrupt politicians.
Accountability is polluted with executive branch exemptions from law and the Constitution and with special legal privileges for corporations, such as the Supreme Court given right to corporations to purchase American elections.
The Constitution is polluted with corrupt legal interpretations from the Bush and Obama regimes that have turned constitutional prohibitions into executive branch rights, transforming law from a shield of the people into a weapon in the hands of government.
Waters are polluted with toxic waste spills, oil spills, chemical fertilizer run-off with resulting red tides and dead zones, acid discharges from mining with resulting destructive algae such as prymnesium parvum, from toxic chemicals used in fracking and with methane that fracking releases into wells and aquifers, resulting in warnings to homeowners near to fracking operations to open their windows when showering.
The soil’s fertility is damaged, and crops require large quantities of chemical fertilizers. The soil is polluted with an endless array of toxic substances and now with glyphosate, the main element in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide with which GMO crops are sprayed.
Glyphosate now shows up in wells, streams and in rain.
Air is polluted with a variety of substances, and there are many large cities in which there are days when the young, the elderly, and those suffering with asthma are warned to remain indoors.
All of these costs are costs imposed on society and ordinary people by corporations that banked profits by not having to take the costs into account. This is the way in which unregulated capitalism works.
Our food itself is polluted with antibiotics, growth hormones, pesticides, and glyphosate.
Glyphosate might be the most dangerous development to date. Some scientists believe that glyphosate has the potential to wipe out our main grain crops and now that Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture, Thomas Vilsack, has approved genetically modified Roundup Ready alfalfa, maintaining sustainable animal herds for milk and meat could become impossible.
Alfalfa is the main forage crop for dairy and beef herds. Genetically modified alfalfa could be unsafe for animal feed, and animal products such as milk and meat could become unsafe for human consumption.
On January 17, 2011, Dr. Don Huber outlined the dangers of approving Roundup Ready alfalfa in a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack. Huber requested that approval be delayed until independent research could evaluate the risks. Vilsack ignored the letter and accommodated Monsanto’s desire for monopoly profits that come from the company’s drive to control the seed supply of US and world agriculture by approving Roundup Ready alfalfa.
Who is Don Huber, and why is his letter important?
Huber is professor emeritus at Purdue University. He has been a plant pathologist and soil microbiologist for a half century. He has an international reputation as a leading authority. In the US military, he evaluated natural and manmade biological threats, such as germ warfare and disease outbreaks and retired with the rank of Colonel. For the USDA he coordinates the Emergent Diseases and Pathogens Committee. In other words, he is high up in his scientific profession.
You can read online what Huber told the Secretary of Agriculture. Briefly, the outcome of many years of Roundup Ready GMO corn and soybeans has been a decline in nutritional value, the outbreak of new plant diseases resulting in widespread crop failures, and severe reproductive problems in livestock, with some herds having a spontaneous abortion rate that is too high to maintain a profitable business.
Glyphosate is a powerful biocide. It harms beneficial soil organisms, altering the natural balance in the soil and reducing the disease resistance of crops, thus unleashing diseases that devastate corn, soybean, and wheat crops, and giving rise to a new pathogen associated with premature animal aging and infertility. These developments, Huber told the Agriculture Secretary, “are threatening the economic viability of both crop and animal producers.” The evidence seems to be real that genetically modified crops have lost their genetic resistance to diseases that never previously were threats.
There is evidence that the new pathogen is related to a rise in human infertility and is likely having adverse effects on human health of which we are still uninformed. Like fluoride, glyphosate might enter our diet in a variety of ways. For example, the label on a bottle of Vitamin D says, “Other ingredients: soybean oil, corn oil.”
Monsanto disputes Huber’s claims and got support for its position from the agricultural extension services of Iowa State and Ohio State universities. However, the question is whether these are independently funded services or corporate supported, and there is always the element of professional rivalry, especially for funding, which comes mainly from agribusiness.
The Purdue University extension service was more circumspect. On the one hand it admits that there is evidence that supports Huber’s claims: “The claim that herbicides, such as glyphosate, can make plants more susceptible to disease is not entirely without merit. Research has indicated that plants sprayed with glyphosate or other herbicides are more susceptible to many biological and physiological disorders (Babiker et al., 2011; Descalzo et al., 1996; Johal and Rahe, 1984; Larson et al., 2006; Means and Kremer, 2007; Sanogo et al., 2000; Smiley et al., 1992). . . . Although some research indicates there is an increase in disease severity on plants in the presence of glyphosate, it does NOT necessarily mean that there is an impact on yield.”
On the other hand, the Purdue extension service maintains its recommendation for “judicious glyphosate use for weed control.” However, one of Huber’s points is that weeds are developing Roundup resistance. Use has gone beyond the “judicious” level and as glyphosate builds up in soil, its adverse effects increase.
A submission to the Environmental Protection Agency by 26 university entomologists describes the constraints that agribusiness has put on the ability of independent scientists to conduct objective research. The submission, in which the scientists are afraid to reveal their names because of the threat of funding cutoffs, is included as an item in one of the bibliographical references below. Here is the statement:
“The names of the scientists have been withheld from the public docket because virtually all of us require cooperation from industry at some level to conduct our research. Statement: Technology/stewardship agreements required for the purchase of genetically modified seed explicitly prohibit research. These agreements inhibit public scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good unless the research is approved by industry. As a result of restricted access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology, its performance, its management implications, IRM, and its interactions with insect biology. Consequently, data flowing to an EPA Scientific Advisory Panel from the public sector is unduly limited.”
Monsanto is not only sufficiently powerful to prevent any research other than that which it purchases with its funding, but also Monsanto succeeded last year in blocking with money and propaganda the GMO labeling law in California. I would tell you to be careful what you eat as it can make you ill and infertile, but you can’t even find out what you are eating.
You live in America, which has “freedom and democracy” and “accountable” government and ”accountable” corporations. You don’t need to worry. The government and responsible corporations are taking good care of you. Especially Obama, Vilsack, and Monsanto.
Short bibliography:
http://fhr.branditimage.com/hot-topic-letter-to-us-secretary-of-agriculture/
http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/blog/2011/apr/6/don-hubers-cover-letter-euuk-commissions/
http://www.greenpasture.org/utility/showArticle/?objectID=7169
http://ourecovillage.org/2011/04/11/dr-hubers-cover-letter-to-secretary-vilsack/
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/51-2012/14164-glyphosate-and-gmos-impact-on-crops-soils-animals-and-man-dr-don-huber
http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/may10/consequenceso_widespread_glyphosate_use.php
http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/huber-pathogen-roundup-ready-crops.aspx
http://southeastfarmpress.com/resistant-pigweed-plagues-central-georgia-cotton
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/blogs/time-for-usda-to-wake-up-to-weed-resistance-and-ban-agent-orange-corn-once-and-for-all/
http://southeastfarmpress.com/resistant-pigweed-plagues-central-georgia-cotton
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/blogs/time-for-usda-to-wake-up-to-weed-resistance-and-ban-agent-orange-corn-once-and-for-all/
Copyright © 2013 Global Research
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
The problem with Roundup Ready food
By Joel McNair, Belleville, Wisconsin
For a few years now — basically since his retirement from Purdue University — plant pathologist Don Huber has been telling people that there are serious problems with glyphosate (Roundup).
To date most of the discussion has taken place within the world of soybeans. Based on two decades of his own research along with the findings of other scientists, Huber is certain that glyphosate is reducing the ability of the soybean plant to take up and utilize manganese, thus reducing yields. It is a charge roundly denied by Monsanto and many mainstream agronomists.
But there is much, much more to Huber’s story, including potential animal and human health implications that deserve further investigation, especially as the United States confronts the very real potential for health care Armageddon. USDA’s late-January approval of Monsanto’s glyphosate-resistant (Roundup Ready) alfalfa — and the potential the genetics has to increase both glyphosate use and GMO contamination — makes this a good time to review what Huber is saying, and why the potential implications are so great. The information provided comes from Huber’s article, co-authored with fellow Purdue plant pathologist G.S. Johal, published in the October 2009 issue of the European Journal of Agronomy, plus his presentation at the recent GrassWorks Wisconsin Grazing Conference.
Glyphosate chelates (immobilizes) a tremendous number of soil minerals, reducing plant uptakes of some micronutrients by as much as 80%, Huber says. Calcium, cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, magnesium, nickel, zinc — all are bound up by glyphosate. While it is rapidly immobilized in the soil because it binds with those nutrients, glyphosate can remain in plants and soils for a very long time — up to 22 years in clay soils, Huber contends.
“It’s not just put it on the soil and ‘poof!’, it’s gone. It’s there for a very long time,” Huber told the Wisconsin grazing audience.
Glyphosate is also a potent microbiocide (disinfectant) that kills soils organisms important to converting certain minerals to forms usable by the plant, and in controlling soil-borne diseases that limit nutrient uptakes. While weed scientists have long said this is not a problem due to the its rapid immobilization, Huber contends that phosphorus applications and substances exuded by plant roots can free this locked-up glyphosate to damage plants long after its application. He says glyphosate leads to a nearly tenfold reduction in the soil organisms that make manganese available to plants, while increasing the organisms that make it less available by a factor of at least ten.
At the same time, Huber says there is evidence that the weed killer is producing “super pathogens” — mainly soil fungi such as Fusarium, Pythium and Phytophthora — that are causing problems in a variety of agricultural crops.
Bad as all of that may be, what glyphosate and the Roundup Ready gene does in and to the plant is even worse. Huber says glyphosate inhibits nitrogen fixation in legumes, damages roots, and reduces the ability of plants to utilize the reduced number of nutrients that the nodules and root tips are able to take in to the plant. Lignin production is reduced, thus making the plant more susceptible to disease. Photosynthesis is compromised, as is drought tolerance due to inefficient utilization of water, Huber asserts. He says the Roundup Ready gene itself is no bargain either, leading to drought stress, reduced N fixation and compromised nutrient uptake.
And the plants appear to have fewer nutrients. For example, at the Wisconsin conference Huber presented trial results showing nutrient declines in Roundup Ready alfalfa that had been treated with glyphosate the previous year. Compared to average levels, the declines for GMO alfalfa were: nitrogen 13%; phosphorus 15%; potassium 46%; calcium 17%; magnesium 26%; sulfur 52%; boron 18%; copper 20%; iron 49%; manganese 31% and zinc 18%. Gaze in wonder upon what USDA has just anointed.
This obviously worries Huber. “When you take one micronutrient out, there’s a domino effect. It makes all of them less efficient,” he told the Wisconsin grazing conference audience.
Calcium is important to bone formation, and iron is needed in blood. Manganese and zinc are required for proper liver and kidney function, while the brain needs copper and magnesium. Are the current epidemics of dementia and obesity being fueled at least partly by mineral imbalances in the food we eat and the water we drink?
And here is the very scariest part. In a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack prior to USDA’s RR alfalfa decision, Huber said that a team of scientists has discovered a tiny pathogen in RR soybeans and corn “that appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings.” He said that for an infectious agent to promote disease in both animals and plants “is very rare” and, while the work is preliminary, “I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high risk status. In layman’s terms, it should be treated as an emergency.” He said the pathogen may explain increasing rates of animal infertility and spontaneous abortions.
Vilsack, of course, ignored the warning. Most of what Huber says is disputed in the mainstream agricultural world, which is largely prohibited from doing the properly controlled experiments that might provide further verification to these charges. And of course, most of the research clout is on Monsanto’s side.
Yet there is enough evidence to merit concern. We graziers have known for at least two decades that it is very difficult to get grasses established in fields previously planted to row crops and sprayed with Roundup. None of us actually believed the stuff just went away, especially after many years of heavy use. For more than a decade we have had anecdotal evidence from farmers that their livestock don’t seem to perform as well on GMO grains. We now have studies indicating that modern foods are not as nutrient-dense as those of yore, and that organic foods grown without herbicides retain most of that density.
And we have evidence, both anecdotal and confirmed, that human health problems ranging from reduced sperm counts and diseases of the womb, to dementia and other diseases of late middle and old age, are on the rise in the United States. Is it the food? Is the problem at a broader environmental level in which food is just a part of what’s making us sick?
None of us has an certain answer to this, which is one reason why a few of the university people at Huber’s Wisconsin talk were at least somewhat dismissive. While it is widely understood that glyphosate locks up minerals in hard water, much of the rest of his message has not been proven to the mainstream. Any negative connotations for animal and, especially, human health are far beyond the realm of sound science, according to the scientists.
Still, one extension person who listened to Huber said it is entirely possible that he is on the mark. The history of innovation is rife with examples of the dark sides of a technology not being revealed until many years after its introduction. Whether it was emphysema from living in an Industrial Revolution factory town, or cancer from a toxic insecticide, we have almost always introduced first, and suffered the consequences later.
Someday, after the research is funded and the results published, we will have a better understanding of the consequences of GMOs. What’s particularly dangerous in regard to this particular technology is that we are changing organisms at the molecular level. How are we going to stuff this genie back into the bottle.
Coming back around to health care ... wouldn’t it be interesting if instead of treating symptoms (largely cost and availability), we started going after the root cause of the disease? Almost everyone with eyes and the ability to think knows that something is going on here that has yet to be fully explained. And anyone who is honest about the situation understands that we will not reach a viable health care solution until that something (or perhaps somethings) are discovered and addressed.
Of course there is no money in such, which brings us to what John Ikerd said at the Wisconsin conference. Ikerd, another retired land grant guy (University of Missouri agricultural economics), has for years been urging a move away from our current agricultural system with its focus on short-term profitability, and toward a “sustainable capitalism” that includes social and ecological goals in addition to dollar-and-cents economics.
Ikerd says our total focus on the bottom line in agriculture has created a “carefully oiled machine” that is incapable of functioning should some dirt get into the gears. “Take away government supports, and (the big operations) will collapse,” he warns.
Ikerd believes that change is afoot, and that efforts to address our looming health care disaster will be the impetus for that change. He says awareness of the potential impact of industrial food upon human health is growing exponentially, with the market for “something different” now three times bigger than the ability of farmers to supply it. Ikerd projects that within the foreseeable future, our health care problem will be directly tied to food quality, and that the industrial system will be replaced with something better and more sustainable.
I hope he’s right.
In addition to publishing Graze, Joel McNair grazes dairy heifers and sheep on a small farm in southern Wisconsin.
Contact - Graze • P.O. Box 48 • Belleville WI 53508 • 608-455-3311 • graze@grazeonline.com
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
The glyphosate research the GM soy lobby does not want you to read
By Claire Robinson
Andres Carrasco's research linking a controversial herbicide with birth defects highlighted the potential health dangers posed by GM crop-spraying in Argentina – and led to violence and intimidation for those behind the study.
In August 2010, community activists and residents gathered in La Leonesa, an agricultural town in Argentina, to hear a talk by Professor Andres Carrasco, lead embryologist at the University of Buenos Aires Medical School and the Argentinean national research council.
Carrasco was due to speak about his research, which found that glyphosate, an agrochemical used on genetically modified soy and rice in Argentina, causes birth defects in animal embryos at levels far below those frequently used in agricultural spraying. A delegation of public officials and residents from the nearby community of Resistencia also came to La Leonesa to hear the talk.
But the talk never took place. As the delegation headed for the school where it was to be held, it was attacked by a violent mob of approximately 100 people. Three people were seriously injured. Carrasco and a colleague shut themselves in a car and were surrounded by people beating the vehicle for two hours. Witnesses believe that a local rice producer and officials had organised the attack to protect agribusiness interests. As the police seemed reluctant to intervene, Amnesty International subsequently called for an independent investigation.
A political hot potato
Carrasco’s research was never destined to gather dust on a library shelf. It has become a political hot potato: scientific confirmation of a human rights tragedy that is unfolding on a massive scale in Argentina. Over the past decade, doctors and residents have reported escalating rates of birth defects, as well as infertility, stillbirths, miscarriages and cancers in areas where glyphosate is sprayed on genetically modified (GM) soy. Because GM soy is engineered to tolerate glyphosate, the herbicide can be sprayed liberally, killing weeds but allowing the crop to survive. Spraying is often carried out from the air, causing problems of drift.
Carrasco and his team discovered that Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate caused malformations in frog and chicken embryos that were similar to human birth defects found in GM soy-producing areas. In particular, the researchers found malformations of the head and cyclopia (where a single eye is present in the centre of the forehead). Carrasco said people should be worried by these findings as humans share with the experimental animals the same mechanisms of development. The researchers also pointed out that women living in soy-producing areas of South America have high rates of repeated miscarriage – often the result of a malformed foetus.
After Carrasco announced his findings ahead of publication – the study was later published in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology – a group of environmental lawyers petitioned the supreme court of Argentina to implement a national ban on the use of glyphosate. But such is Argentina’s dependence on GM soy that Guillermo Cal, executive director of the crop-protection trade association CASAFE, said a ban would mean ‘we couldn’t do agriculture in Argentina’. Much of Argentina’s GM soy is imported into Europe as livestock feed.
Unprecedented ruling
No national ban on glyphosate has yet been implemented, but in a revolutionary ruling in March 2010, a regional court in Santa Fe province banned the spraying of glyphosate and other agrochemicals near populated areas. While the ruling is limited to the area around San Jorge, other courts are expected to follow suit.
Just a month after the court ruling, another bombshell dropped in Argentina’s GM soy republic. The provincial government of Chaco province issued a report on health statistics from La Leonesa, the town where Carrasco was due to give his talk. The report said that from 2000 to 2009 the childhood cancer rate tripled in La Leonesa and the rate of birth defects increased nearly fourfold over the entire province. The report said that these staggering increases in disease coincided with the expansion of GM soy and rice crops in the region and the corresponding rise in agrochemical use.
Argentina is a unique experiment in the GM soy-farming model. In the 1990s the country rebuilt its collapsed economy around growing GM soy for export, becoming the world’s largest exporter of soybean meal and oil. In 2009 the crop covered 19 million hectares – more than half the country’s cultivated land area – which were sprayed with more than 200 million litres of glyphosate.
The Argentine government has come to depend on tariffs of more than 30 per cent levied on soy exports and is protective of the industry. Critics of the soy model have complained of harassment and persecution. Carrasco said after he went public with his findings, four people from CASAFE were sent to try to search his laboratory, and he was 'seriously told-off' by Argentina’s science and technology minister.
Serious health impacts
Carrasco’s study was not the first to show that glyphosate is not as safe as is made out. A report released in September 2010 and co-authored by nine international scientists, including Carrasco, called GM Soy: Sustainable? Responsible? gathered a series of studies showing links between exposure to glyphosate and premature births, miscarriages, cancer and damage to DNA and reproductive organ cells. The roster more than justifies Carrasco’s verdict: ‘I suspect the toxicity classification of glyphosate is too low ... in some cases this can be a powerful poison.’
Resistance against the GM soy with glyphosate model is growing. On 9th November, forest engineer and activist Claudio Lowy began a hunger strike in the doorway of the Ombudsman’s office in Buenos Aires. In Argentina, the Ombudsman is called la Defensoria del Pueblo de la Nación – the Defender of the Nation’s People.
In Lowy’s view, the Ombudsman wasn’t living up to his romantic title. Almost a year earlier, Lowy had signed a 2,700-strong petition to the Ombudsman requesting him to ask the government to change the way it classifies the toxicity of agrochemicals. When Lowy arrived on the Ombudsman’s doorstep, the new GM soy-planting season was beginning, once again putting 12 million people in the path of the spray planes – and the petitioners still hadn’t received a reply.
Long-term effects
Three days later, Lowy called off his hunger strike when the Ombudsman put in a formal request to the ministry of agriculture to reassess the toxicity of agrochemicals according to their entire range of health effects. The Ombudsman asked the ministry to consider sublethal and chronic effects involving low doses over long periods, as happens with people exposed to spraying of fields, rather than just short-term (acute) and lethal effects, as is the case now.
The Ombudsman also advised that the toxicity of agrochemicals should be assessed based on independent scientific studies, not data provided by agribusiness companies. The Ombudsman’s request will be sent to the ministry with a dossier of scientific research on the ill-health effects of agrochemicals, reports on sprayed residents and submissions from civil society organisations, scientists and health professionals.
Real science takes longer and costs more than rubber-stamping a company’s data on its own chemicals. Often, the time and money needed to carry out proper studies becomes an excuse for inaction on the part of regulators. But that escape route has been closed off by the Ombudsman’s final recommendation – that any chemicals that have not yet been evaluated for chronic and sublethal effects should be placed in the highest category of toxicity until they are proven safer. That would mean that they could not be sprayed near schools and residential neighbourhoods. Glyphosate is expected to be among them.
If the Ombudsman’s recommendations are written into law, they will set an important precedent for science-based regulation of agrochemicals worldwide. Will it happen? A reply from an activist sounded familiar. Variations on it have been voiced by several Argentine people caught up in the fight against agrochemical poisoning – from the anonymous authors of the Chaco report to Carrasco himself: ‘We don’t know. There are powerful interests at stake.’
Claire Robinson is an editor at GMWatch
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Millions against Monsanto
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/index.cfm
March 26th
Protest at the White House and many other locations.
Friday, 25 February 2011
USDA approved Monsanto alfalfa despite warnings of new pathogen discovered in GE crops
By Mike Ludwig
Just two weeks before the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) fully deregulated Monsanto's Roundup Ready alfalfa, a senior soil scientist alerted the department about a newly discovered, microscopic pathogen found in high concentrations of Roundup Ready corn and soy that researchers believe could be causing infertility in livestock and diseases in crops that could threaten the entire domestic food supply.
Dr. Don Huber, a plant pathologist and retired Purdue University professor, wrote in a letter to the USDA that the pathogen is new to science and appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals and probably humans.
"For the past 40 years, I have been a scientist in the professional and military agencies that evaluate and prepare for natural and manmade biological threats, including germ warfare and disease outbreaks," Huber wrote in his January 16 letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack. "Based on this experience, I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high risk status. In layman's terms, it should be treated as an emergency."
Also See: Why Monsanto Always Wins
Huber called for an immediate moratorium on approvals of Roundup Ready crops, but on January 27, the USDA fully deregulated Roundup Ready alfalfa after nearly five years of legal battles with farmers and environmental groups. The USDA partially deregulated Roundup Ready sugar beats on February 4.
The pathogen is about the size of a virus and reproduces like a micro-fungal organism. According to Huber, the organism may be the first micro-fungus of its kind ever discovered, and there is evidence that the infectious pathogen causes diseases in both plants and animals, which is very rare.
The pathogen is prevalent in soy crops suffering from a disease called sudden death syndrome and corn crops suffering from Goss' wilt disease.
Laboratory tests show that the pathogen is present in a "wide variety" of livestock suffering from infertility and spontaneous abortions. Huber warned that the pathogen could be responsible for reports of increased infertility rates in dairy cows and rates of spontaneous abortions in cattle as high as 45 percent.
Huber is concerned that the pathogen could be spreading because of overreliance on Monsanto's Roundup Ready crops systems, which have come to dominate American agribusiness during the past decade.
Monsanto's Roundup Ready corn, soy, cotton and alfalfa are genetically engineered to be resistant to glyphosate-base herbicides like Monsanto's Roundup. Farmers can blanket fields of Roundup Ready crops with glyphosate knowing that unwanted weeds will be killed and the genetically engineered crops will not.
"We are informing the USDA of our findings at this early stage, specifically due to your pending decision regarding approval of alfalfa," Huber wrote. "Naturally, if either the Roundup Ready gene or Roundup itself is a promoter or co-factor of this pathogen, then such approval could be a calamity."
Critics like Huber have long criticized glyphosate products like Roundup for weakening crops' natural defense systems and promoting the spread of glyphosate-resistant "superweeds" that have developed their own tolerance to glyphosate and infested millions of acres of farmland in the US alone.
"We are now seeing an unprecedented trend of increasing plant and animal diseases and disorders," Huber wrote. "This pathogen may be instrumental to understanding and solving this problem. It deserves immediate attention with significant resources to avoid a general collapse of our critical agricultural infrastructure."
Huber is a longstanding critic of biotech crops and coordinates a committee of the American Phytopathological Society as part of the USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System.
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
Biology professor resigns over government use of plant research
By Democracy Now!
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined by Dr. Martha Crouch. She used to be a biology professor here at the University of Indiana, was reaching the top of her profession. She earned a Ph.D. in Developmental Science. She taught here at the Indiana University, ran a lab dedicated to cutting- edge plant research, but she decided to end her research career when she found out that biotechnology companies were taking her research, using it for profit. Dr. Marti Crouch with us, former Professor of Biology here at Indiana University. We welcome you to Democracy Now!
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: Thank you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: So, first tell us very quickly what happened to you? This was years ago. When was it?
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: This was 15 years ago, about 1990, and it was at the very beginning of genetic engineering in agriculture. You know, now probably in Indiana, 75% of the crops grown are genetically engineered, but at the time there wasn’t anything in the field. I could see the writing on the wall, though, from the consulting that I was doing that genetic engineering was going to promote industrial agriculture. And I feel industrial agriculture is one of the major reasons that the environment is in the sad shape it is today. So, I couldn’t, in good conscience, continue that kind of research.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, specifically, you were doing work on palm trees?
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: I was doing work on canola. You’re probably familiar with canola oil. And the work that we were doing was basic research. We didn’t have any particular application in mind, but we were doing some consulting with Unilever in Great Britain, and they were using oil palm plantations around the world to make edible oil. They used some of our research to make the trees more genetically uniform so that they could grow larger plantations, and in the process, they cut down a lot of rain forests, kicked Indians off their land, polluted the rivers with the waste products of the processing of the oil. I was horrified by that because my own allegiance is with the small farmers and with the rain forests, and the idea that the kind of knowledge we were generating about how genes work was primarily being used to promote that kind of destruction, really sent me back to the basics of why research is funded.
AMY GOODMAN: So what did you do?
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: Well, I shut down my lab. And I think saying-–
AMY GOODMAN: You’re a professor here.
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: I was a professor here.
AMY GOODMAN: You had the cover story of which magazine, your research?
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: Well, Plant Cell, which at the time was the major research journal for my field. I had had the cover story the month before. So I was involved in this research, and-–
AMY GOODMAN: You were a rising star.
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: I guess I was at the time, and-–
AMY GOODMAN: So what do you mean to say you just shut down your lab?
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: Well, I asked my students to finish their projects, and I didn’t accept any more grant money and announced through writing a sort of a manifesto to the Plant Cell, where I had had the article, that I wanted people in biology to think about what their work was being used for. And not to have on blinders and just think that somehow the government was giving them money to do research just because it was fun. That money is given so that research will lead to innovation in industry and military applications, and if it doesn’t lead to that kind of innovation, then the money dries up. So, people needed to be comfortable with what industry and the military were doing with their research, and in my experience, we weren’t even thinking about that. So, I put out a challenge. I was very visible about it. I went around and debated and talked, and then went into teaching for the next ten years, particularly about the food system and finally quit at the university about five years ago, to pursue interests in sustainable agriculture.
AMY GOODMAN: The governor has signed off on legislation that prevents local communities, I suppose, like the Bloomington City Council from doing exactly what?
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: Well, biotechnology is one of those things that the more the citizens know about it, the less they like it. So, as people become educated, as to what is actually growing in the fields around them and what some of the risks are. For example, that there are crops that are being engineered to make pharmaceuticals like vaccines or industrial chemicals: plastics, precursors, and so forth, that are being tested in their communities but they don’t know where the tests are. Local communities in California and Vermont, Hawaii, Maine, are starting to enact legislation saying, we want to have a genetically-engineered free zone around our community until we know more about it, so our conventional farmers don’t have problems with contamination, that we don’t feel that the federal government is doing an adequate job of protecting our health. Now, that has traditionally been something local communities can do. You know, the town meeting sort of local protection of health and welfare. Over the years, the agriculture industry has slipped in legislation to limit the right of local communities to protect themselves against technologies and the first was pesticides. I don’t know if you know that in most states, local communities can not ban pesticides or limit their use. Other, you know, in more strict ways than the State. So, there’s precedent for this. The libel laws against disparaging vegetables or, you know, what got Oprah in trouble with, with hamburger.
AMY GOODMAN: The vegetable disparagement laws.
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: The vegetable disparagement laws.
AMY GOODMAN: You cannot diss a broccoli.
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: That’s right. Although we know certain people have. So, these laws have been on the books for other things. Now they’re saying that local communities in certain states, Indiana one of them—I think there are nine other states so far, many more proposing this legislation—cannot ban or regulate what kinds of seeds are grown in their local jurisdiction. I feel this is a terrible assault on local democracy.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Dr. Marti Crouch, former Professor of Biology here at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. We’re going to break, come back to her. I want to find out about this Superweed that is taking over Indiana, what it has to do with Monsanto and Roundup pesticides.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Battle Hymn of the Republic, by Julia Ward Howe. In a few minutes, we’re going to find out about what this song has to do with Mother’s Day, and how a woman who wrote this song was trying to create a day for peace. But first, we’re going to finish up with Dr. Marti Crouch, former Professor of Biology at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. This is Democracy Now! I am Amy Goodman and we are broadcasting from Indiana University in Bloomington. Dr. Marti Crouch, talk about this superweed that’s taking over Indiana.
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: Yeah. There’s a headline here, "Monsanto’s G.E. Crop Spawns Superweeds Across Indiana." This is interesting because when genetically-engineered crops were first developed, there was a lot of hype about how they were going to reduce the use of pesticides, that we were going to be able to get rid of weeds with safe chemicals, that sort of a thing. And one of the first crops that was genetically engineered was Roundup Ready. Now Roundup is glyphosate, one of the most common herbicides, weed killers in the world. And it was patented to Monsanto, about to come off patent, so they were going to start losing their income stream from that. And so, they genetically engineered a series of crops to be able to withstand Roundup. They called them Roundup Ready, so that you could spray the weed killer over them, they would survive, the weeds would die. And the idea was that you’d be able to use less weed killer, that Roundup was less toxic than some of the other ones, and that it would simplify weed management.
Well, in Indiana, about 5 million acres are now cultivated in Roundup Ready soybeans; about 90% of the soybean crop. And so, a quarter of our land area in Indiana, and this is typical throughout the soybean-growing regions, is sprayed with Roundup herbicide, one, two, three times during a season. Naturally, weeds, being smarter than people, are learning how to become resistant to the Roundup, as predicted. And this year, in the last couple of years, there’s a new weed in Indiana called Mare’s Tail. It’s actually a native plant that has learned how to grow under these conditions, has become resistant, and is moving very rapidly across the State. Which means that the Roundup Ready approach doesn’t work anymore, unless you mix in different herbicides. So, now they’re recommending that farmers, whenever they see this weed, and even if they don’t, start mixing the Roundup with 2,4-D, which is an old herbicide that has a lot of evidence now that it’s linked to certain cancers, and reproductive problems, a much more dangerous herbicide. So, the—and also because of this, more and more and more of the pesticides are being used, and as genetically-engineered crops have become more popular, pesticide use has increased instead of decreased.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, this issue of using crop plants for drugs?
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: Yes. This is the thing that I never even thought of 15 years ago when I decided to quit my research and makes me even more confident that I made the right decision, and that is that now people are making drugs, pharmaceuticals, in crops like corn, some are engineered into rice, sugar cane, other food crops. They’re in the testing phase. Only one industrial enzyme is being grown commercially for research purposes, but there are hundreds of tests of these pharmaceuticals. They include birth control agents, vaccines-–
AMY GOODMAN: Wait, wait. I don’t understand. So, do the birth control agent. What is happening?
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: You take a gene from an organism that makes a protein that can control conception, and you splice that into the DNA of a corn plant, and you ask the corn plant to become a factory to make that birth control agent.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you can have cornfields that sterilize whole communities?
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: You could. Or that make AIDS vaccines, or that make growth hormone, or that make plastic precursors. And the idea is factories are expensive, cornfields are cheap. So you get agriculture to make all of these things that used to be made in pharmaceutical factories or in industrial factories. Now, these are being field-tested around Indiana and around the United States and the world in secret field tests. The locations are not made public. And usually what particular drug or chemical being made is confidential business information. So, you don’t even know what particular chemical-–
AMY GOODMAN: It’s proprietary.
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: It’s proprietary. And there’s no regulatory agency that has the ability to test for whether this is already contaminating our food. And a lot of people think it probably is.
AMY GOODMAN: You’re making me think of what we just, we’re following the British elections, but those root pullers in Britain, the protesters who go out to these Monsanto fields or other companies that are doing biogenetic fields and they pull the roots as a form of civil disobedience.
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: Yeah, exactly. Now, some states are trying to deal with this. Hawaii, for example, has legislation that’s going through right now to attempt to force the companies to say what they’re growing and where, so that there can be community oversight. But in most other places, like Indiana, we’re getting these laws that say the community cannot protect themselves against this. They’re taking it out of our hands.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Dr. Marti Crouch, I want to thank you very much for alarming us today, former Professor of Biology at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. She quit her research job, her professorship here at the university, now is more likely to be found out in the Farmer’s Markets of Bloomington.
Monday, 7 February 2011
Monsanto's Roundup triggers over 40 plant diseases and endangers human and animal health
By The Institute For Responsible Technology
The following article reveals the devastating and unprecedented impact that Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide is having on the health of our soil, plants, animals, and human population. On top of this perfect storm, the USDA now wants to approve Roundup Ready alfalfa, which will exacerbate this calamity. Please tell USDA Secretary Vilsack not to approve Monsanto’s alfalfa today. [Note: typos corrected from Jan 16th, see details]
While visiting a seed corn dealer’s demonstration plots in Iowa last fall, Dr. Don Huber walked past a soybean field and noticed a distinct line separating severely diseased yellowing soybeans on the right from healthy green plants on the left (see photo). The yellow section was suffering from Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS), a serious plant disease that ravaged the Midwest in 2009 and ’10, driving down yields and profits. Something had caused that area of soybeans to be highly susceptible and Don had a good idea what it was.
Don Huber spent 35 years as a plant pathologist at Purdue University and knows a lot about what causes green plants to turn yellow and die prematurely. He asked the seed dealer why the SDS was so severe in the one area of the field and not the other. “Did you plant something there last year that wasn’t planted in the rest of the field?” he asked. Sure enough, precisely where the severe SDS was, the dealer had grown alfalfa, which he later killed off at the end of the season by spraying a glyphosate-based herbicide (such as Roundup). The healthy part of the field, on the other hand, had been planted to sweet corn and hadn’t received glyphosate.
This was yet another confirmation that Roundup was triggering SDS. In many fields, the evidence is even more obvious. The disease was most severe at the ends of rows where the herbicide applicator looped back to make another pass (see photo). That’s where extra Roundup was applied.
Don’s a scientist; it takes more than a few photos for him to draw conclusions. But Don’s got more—lots more. For over 20 years, Don studied Roundup’s active ingredient glyphosate. He’s one of the world’s experts. And he can rattle off study after study that eliminate any doubt that glyphosate is contributing not only to the huge increase in SDS, but to the outbreak of numerous other diseases. (See selected reading list.)
Roundup: The perfect storm for plant disease
More than 30% of all herbicides sprayed anywhere contain glyphosate—the world’s bestselling weed killer. It was patented by Monsanto for use in their Roundup brand, which became more popular when they introduced “Roundup Ready” crops starting in 1996. These genetically modified (GM) plants, which now include soy, corn, cotton, canola, and sugar beets, have inserted genetic material from viruses and bacteria that allows the crops to withstand applications of normally deadly Roundup.
(Monsanto incentivizes farmers who buy Roundup Ready seeds to also use the company’s Roundup brand of glyphosate. For example, they only provide warranties on the approved herbicide brands and offer discounts through their “Roundup Rewards” program. This has extended the company’s grip on the glyphosate market, even after its patent expired in 2000.)*
The herbicide doesn’t destroy plants directly. It rather cooks up a unique perfect storm of conditions that revs up disease-causing organisms in the soil, and at the same time wipes out plant defenses against those diseases. The mechanisms are well-documented but rarely cited.
- The glyphosate molecule grabs vital nutrients and doesn’t let them go. This process is called chelation and was actually the original property for which glyphosate was patented in 1964. It was only 10 years later that it was patented as an herbicide. When applied to crops, it deprives them of vital minerals necessary for healthy plant function—especially for resisting serious soilborne diseases. The importance of minerals for protecting against disease is well established. In fact, mineral availability was the single most important measurement used by several famous plant breeders to identify disease-resistant varieties.
- Glyphosate annihilates beneficial soil organisms, such as Pseudomonas and Bacillus bacteria that live around the roots. Since they facilitate the uptake of plant nutrients and suppress disease-causing organisms, their untimely deaths means the plant gets even weaker and the pathogens even stronger.
- The herbicide can interfere with photosynthesis, reduce water use efficiency, lower lignin, damage and shorten root systems, cause plants to release important sugars, and change soil pH—all of which can negatively affect crop health.
- Glyphosate itself is slightly toxic to plants. It also breaks down slowly in soil to form another chemical called AMPA (aminomethylphosphonic acid) which is also toxic. But even the combined toxic effects of glyphosate and AMPA are not sufficient on their own to kill plants. It has been demonstrated numerous times since 1984 that when glyphosate is applied in sterile soil, the plant may be slightly stunted, but it isn’t killed (see photo).
- The actual plant assassins, according to Purdue weed scientists and others, are severe disease-causing organisms present in almost all soils. Glyphosate dramatically promotes these, which in turn overrun the weakened crops with deadly infections.
“This is the herbicidal mode of action of glyphosate,” says Don. “It increases susceptibility to disease, suppresses natural disease controls such as beneficial organisms, and promotes virulence of soilborne pathogens at the same time.” In fact, he points out that “If you apply certain fungicides to weeds, it destroys the herbicidal activity of glyphosate!”
By weakening plants and promoting disease, glyphosate opens the door for lots of problems in the field. According to Don, “There are more than 40 diseases of crop plants that are reported to increase with the use of glyphosate, and that number keeps growing as people recognize the association between glyphosate and disease.”
For more:
Roundup promotes human and animal toxins
As Roundup use rises, plant disease skyrockets
Corn dies young
A question of bugs
Roundup persists in the environment
Nutrient loss in humans and animals
Livestock disease and mineral deficiency
Alfalfa madness, brought to you by Monsanto and the USDA
please click here.
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Fighting a common enemy on the GMO battlefield
By the Center for Food Safety
Yesterday’s announcement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that it will once again allow unlimited, nation-wide commercial planting of Monsanto’s genetically-engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa, despite the many risks to organic and conventional farmers, is deeply disturbing, but not surprising.
For the past four years, there has been a ban on the planting and sale of GE alfalfa, as a result of a lawsuit brought by the Center for Food Safety (on behalf of farmers) against USDA. In 2007, a federal court ruled that the USDA’s approval of GE alfalfa violated environmental laws by failing to analyze risks such as the contamination of conventional and organic alfalfa, the evolution of glyphosate-resistant weeds, and increased use of glyphosate herbicide, sold by Monsanto as Roundup. The Court banned new plantings of GE alfalfa until USDA completed a more comprehensive assessment of these impacts via an environmental impact statement (EIS). The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals twice affirmed the national ban on GE alfalfa planting. In June 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban on Monsanto’s Roundup Ready Alfalfa until and unless future deregulation occurs.
Last spring more than 200,000 people submitted comments to the USDA highly critical of the substance and conclusions of its draft EIS on GE Alfalfa. Instead of responding to these comments and concerns, including expert comments from farmers, scientists, academics, conservationists, and food safety and consumer advocates, the USDA has chosen instead to listen to a handful of agricultural biotechnology companies.
USDA’s decision to allow unlimited, nation-wide commercial planting of Monsanto’s GE Roundup Ready alfalfa without any restrictions flies in the face of the interests of conventional and organic farmers, preservation of the environment, and consumer choice. USDA has become a rogue agency in its regulation of biotech crops and its decision to appease the few companies who seek to benefit from this technology comes despite increasing evidence that GE alfalfa will threaten the rights of farmers and consumers, as well as damage the environment. CFS will be suing on this decision, and we anticipate we’ll have to litigate on GE sugar beets and other pending approvals as well.
For the rest of the article, please click here.
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