U.S. FDA calling for Genetically Modified Salmon to be released into the Environment

December 27, 2012 Leave a comment

By ANTHONY GUCCIARDI | NATURAL SOCIETY | DECEMBER 27, 2012

While you were likely resting or enjoying time with friends and family over the Christmas break, the United States Food and Drug Administration was hard at work ramming through genetically modified salmon towards the final acceptance process. Despite the frankenfish actually being blocked by Congress last year over serious health and environmental concerns, the FDA is making a massive push to release the genetically modified salmon into the world as the FDA-backed biotech giant and creator of the fish AquaAdvantage screams for profits.

These fish of course threaten the very genetic integrity of the food chain when considering the fact that they will ultimately be unleashed into waters with other salmon and likely even the ocean at large. The AquaAdvantage genetically modified salmon have been engineered through genetic manipulation to grow double the size and weight of the average salmon. Hitting 24 inches instead of 13 and weighing in at 6.6 pounds instead of 2.8, the GM fish contains both a gene from another salmon known as the  Pacific Chinook as well as an eel-like fish.

This unnatural genetic infusion allows the fish to generate a growth hormone 24/7, making it a massively mutated ball of growth hormones and disease.

Genetically Modified Salmon Threaten Genetic Stability of Food Chain

In the event that awareness is not spread and Congress allows the FDA to approve AquaAdvantage’ GM salmon, it will become the first approved GM animal for growth and human consumption.

 Modified salmon will mate with regular breeds, creating hybrid mutations that may likely never be tracked. Hybrid families that may continue to repopulate for generations, all containing modified genes. After being consumed by predators like sharks or others, the sharks are then affected by the genetically modified fish through the development of various health conditions conditions. In mice trials alone it was found that eating GMOs triggered mass tumors and early death in the animals — and that’s just crops. Genetically modified crops are concerning enough, but are much less complex than animals.

The fact of the matter is that no one truly knows the long term effects of GM crops, let alone GM animals. But hey, why not test it out on the public? After all, who cares? It’s not like the FDA will do anything to Monsanto despite the numerous studies linking GMOs to disease. Instead, they just say it’s pseudo science and that only FDA-backed ‘science’ is worth anything. Forget the fact that the only lifelong rat study done on GMOs found it led to tumor development.

So what can we do?

There are a number of methods here, but first and foremost the word needs to be spread far and wide that genetically modified salmon is being pushed through by the FDA. People despise GM products on average, with 90 plus percent in favor of at least labeling. In addition, there is a petition going around to send to politicians to ask them to stop this approval as they did in 2011.

Ultimately, it comes down to opposition. If enough people know this is coming and are very upset about it, they will have trouble ramming it through. That’s why they announce these things over Christmas weekend. They don’t want anyone to even hear about it — they want to make it harder to popularize since hardly anyone saw it.

We can beat this as we did back in 2011, and the FDA knows it. Their dirty tactics are not effective in the technological age in which the transfer of information is more powerful than ever. Share this news and spread the word. Block genetically modified salmon from getting put on your dinner table without any labels.

 

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Genetically Modified Wheat making your belly grow

December 5, 2012 Leave a comment

A beer belly is not just a myth. Fortunately, the beer itself is not the one responsible for your extra weight, but the GM wheat used to produce this and other industrial products.

By LISA GARBER | NATURAL SOCIETY | DECEMBER 5, 2012

Many of us are shunning wheat for lots of reasons, but we usually  cite gluten as the culprit. Cardiologist and author Dr. William Davis, however,  says it’s not gluten that makes modern wheat a “perfect, chronic poison.” It’s  the fact that genetically modified wheat has become the wheat we know today.

Davis spoke on “CBS This Morning” earlier this year about one of  agribusiness’s biggest creations—the word “creation” not used lightly.

Genetically Modified Wheat – Increased Appetite, Altered  Genome

“[Modern wheat is] an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic  research in the ‘60s and ‘70s  This thing has many new features nobody told  you about, such as there’s a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It’s not  gluten. I’m not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease.  I’m talking about everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the  gliadin protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in  your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more  calories per day, 365 days per year.”

Increasing hankerings and padding on pounds aren’t all genetically  modified wheat is capable of doing. A new GM wheat in development by the  Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CIRO), an  Australian governmental research agency, may permanently alter the genes of the humans and animals that consume  it.

“Through ingestion,” says Professor Jack Heinemann of the  University of Canterbury Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety, “these  olecules can enter human beings and potentially silence our genes.” The double  stranded RNAs present in this genetically modified wheat would also survive  cooking, digestion, and generations of life.

GM Whole Grains Like Filtered Cigarettes

But what about all the hype over whole grains? Several health  resources like the Mayo Clinic advocate ditching white wheat for less processed  varieties, but Davis claims that is like replacing unfiltered with filtered  cigarettes.

“That’s the logic of nutrition; it’s a deeply flawed logic.”

Instead of genetically modified wheat, Davis advocates eating “real  foods” like avocados, olives, olive oil, eats, and vegetables. While Davis does  tell consumers to favor food least likely to be changed by agribusiness, the CBS  source, unfortunately, does not directly address variables like  organic and small-scale farming versus conventionally raised and  pesticide-drenched vegetables or pasture-raised versus factory-farmed meats.

GM Not the Answer to Feeding the Nation

Genetically modified foods pose a threat to people (not just  consumers), animals, and the planet  Pesticides for GM corn pollute our water and often contaminate organic products. Although the issue of feeding the  world is a complex and emotional one, GM food—and the poisoning of entire  populations of people—is not the answer.

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A Brave Farmer Takes Monsanto to the Supreme Court

April 28, 2010

Russia Today

A small farmer is taking on the food giant Monsanto and the argument has gone all the way to the US Supreme Court. The outcome could determine the future of GM seeds in the United States.

It’s the case of a multinational corporation vs. small American farmers, environmental activists and people who want to know more about the origins of their food. For the first time in US history, the Supreme Court will hear arguments against genetically engineered crops and the dangers they pose to the environment.

In the lawsuit, Geertson Seed Farms contends that Monsanto is in violation of Food and Drug Administration regulations.

“It produces dormant seed. This is seed that can lay in the ground for up to 20 years before it germinates and comes up. And once that feral alfalfa makes its seed and that seed is distributed around the area, it is virtually impossible to clear it out of the environment,” said farmer Phil Geertson.

Monsanto is king of the genetically engineered world, a global biotechnology agrochemical giant. It is well-known for dominating the farming industry both in the US and throughout the world. Monsanto’s controversial practices have brought Phil Geertson, an alfalfa farmer from Idaho, all the way to the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC. Geertson claims his farms have been contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically engineered Alfalfa.

The US Department of Agriculture has been investigating Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide to determine whether the company’s modified alfalfa poses any safety or health risks. Despite the lack of a ruling from the USDA or the FDA, Monsanto alfalfa seeds can be found in fields nationwide

“Just because some people were wanting to have their field free of Roundup Ready alfalfa, they could coexist even if the government approved this product for planting. This product will be out there, so farmers need to coexist,” said David Snively, Monsanto general counsel.

Monsanto insists a federal court decision in 2004 that banned the planting of its alfalfa was misguided and the Supreme Court will decide the case in its favor after the USDA completes its investigation.

In the meantime, US consumers are concerned. They are calling for a full boycott of Monsanto’s alfalfa products and encouraging people to buy organic instead. The activists may be in for a rude awakening in June, however, when the decision is expected to come down. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas used to work for Monsanto and several top positions in the Food and Drug Admininstration and the Department of Agriculture are filled with former Monsanto lobbyists.

In this case, those revolving doors of influence could determine whether genetically modified seeds become a way of life.

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Monsanto declares war on Food, Inc film

April 22, 2010 3 Comments

Cult of Green

The Monsanto Co. is leading Big Ag’s PR offensive against Food Inc., the searing documentary on industrial agriculture that opened monsanto vs food incFriday. That’s not surprising. The chemical giant comes off as the biggest bogeyman in the film, which focuses on the company’s genetic seed patents, alleged bullying of farmers and efforts to influence politicians.

What is surprising is that Monsanto is tying its response to the movie to a discredited front group called the Center for Consumer Freedom. It seems too obviously payback for at least $200,000 that Monsanto has contributed to the supposedly nonprofit organization.

The company’s PR offensive against Food Inc. is no ham-handed reaction. It includes a very slick (of course) web page featuring an interactive seven-question quiz and the following characterization of the movie:

Food, Inc. is a one-sided, biased film that the creators claim will “lift the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer.” Unfortunately, Food, Inc. is counter-productive to the serious dialogue surrounding the critical topic of our nation’s food supply.

A couple of points may undermine Monsanto’s message, however. A core theme on the company’s site is that Food Inc. “demonizes American farmers.” But the movie actually positions itself as siding with family farms against agribusiness and accuses the ag industry of doing precisely what Monsanto is doing in response to the movie: conflating its interests with those of small farmers.

Maybe this is smart on Monsanto’s part. Both sides in the Great Food Debate brandish the “family farmer” as a talisman against the claim that they’re elitists. But Monsanto inherently will have a more difficult time maintaining that it’s the friend of farmers — especially, family farmers — at the same time it’s aggressively going after farmers in lawsuits.

And that standing-up-for-the-little-ol’-farmer line gets a bit harder to take when you consider that Monsanto is directing readers from its own website to the Center for Consumer Freedom. The center is one of a dozen or so front groups created by Washington lobbyist Rick Berman to push the interests of some of America’s least popular industries.

You may have read about Berman earlier this year, when his son, former Silver Jews front man David Berman, quit his band on the same day that he wrote a statement calling his father “a despicable man” and “sort of human molester” for the “evil” work he does.

He props up fast food/soda/factory farming/childhood obesity and diabetes/drunk driving/secondhand smoke.

He attacks animal lovers, ecologists, civil action attorneys, scientists, dieticians, doctors, teachers.

His clients include everyone from the makers of Agent Orange to the Tanning Salon Owners of America.

Among other causes, Rick Berman has fought against  minimum wage increases, tougher drunk-driving laws and tobacco regulations. He’s claimed the nation’s rising obesity rate is a “myth” created by “food police” and that there’s a “lack of evidence that second-hand smoke causes cancer.”  More…

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