GMO Technology, Glyphosate Toxicity Leaving Men Sterile

GMO Technology, Glyphosate Toxicity Leaving Men Sterile (Activist Post, Sep 30, 2012):

What if the pesticides and herbicides being sprayed on your food was causing your sperm to die? What if GMO crops had the same effect? What would it mean for humanity if this “modern food marvel” (as Monsanto would like you to think) was actually making men infertile, and eventually wipe us out?

Sounds pretty end-of-times-ish, but it’s happening right now. Well, studies indicate that factors like glyphosate toxicity and GMO technologies could be playing a significant role in the growing number of men who struggle with fertility.

Glyphosate Toxicity and GMO Technology

One study in particular found that glyphosate (an ingredient in Roundup), leaves a residue on crops and this residue is “actually toxic to testicle cells.” Also, the residue lowers testosterone synthesis—this means the glyphosate toxicity lowers the amount of the male sex hormone available for the body to use.

The negative effects from glyphosate toxicity vary, but some people have been known to develop breasts, have a variety of birth defects, and have been known to experience carcinogenic effects as well. The people are also becoming sterile over time. Given the rate of consumption, they will likely be completely sterile within a decade.

Another study, this one out of Russia, found that hamsters who consume GM soybeans have a slower sexual maturation process and in a few generations, they weren’t able to reproduce.

“We noticed quite a serious effect when we selected new pairs from their cubs and continued to feed them as before. These pairs’ growth rate was slower and reached their sexual maturity slowly.” By the third generation, the hamsters were infertile.

Read moreGMO Technology, Glyphosate Toxicity Leaving Men Sterile

Nearly All Conventional Food Crops Grown With Fluoride-Laced Water, Then Sprayed With More Fluoride

Nearly all conventional food crops grown with fluoride-laced water, then sprayed with more fluoride (Natural News, Sep 10, 2012):

The average American today is exposed to a whole lot more fluoride than he or she is probably aware. Conventional produce, it turns out, is one of the most prevalent sources of fluoride exposure besides fluoridated water, as conventional crops are not only irrigated with fluoride-laced water in many cases, but also sprayed with pesticide and herbicide chemicals that have been blended with fluoride, and later processed once again with fluoridated water.

This fact may come as a surprise to many who have bought into the idea that eating more fresh produce is automatically beneficial for health, regardless of how that produce was grown. Thinking that they are doing their bodies a favor, millions of Americans have incorporated conventional fruits and vegetables into their everyday diets, not realizing that the resulting cumulative effect of fluoride exposure from these foods could be harming their health.

Many food crops uptake fluoride chemicals from water, soil

Read moreNearly All Conventional Food Crops Grown With Fluoride-Laced Water, Then Sprayed With More Fluoride

Marie-Monique Robin: ‘Unser täglich Gift’ – ‘Notre Poison Quotidien’ (Documentary – Full Length – In German And French)

Must-see … for those who understand German and/or French.


Unser täglich Gift

YouTube

Notre Poison quotidien


YouTube

New GMO ‘Agent Orange Soy’ Silently Backed By USDA

New GMO ‘Agent Orange Soy’ Silently Backed by USDA (Activist Post, July 20, 2012):

Millions of pounds of herbicides are applied to crops around the nation each year. In one single year, 2006, 96.7 million pounds of glyphosate was sprayed on soybeans alone; this is a 20-fold increase from the 4.9 million pounds in 1994, the year before Monsanto’s Roundup Ready seeds were introduced.

Well, now, biotechnology giant and creator of pesticides and herbicides, Dow AgroSciences is bringing forth brand new GMO soybeans and GMO corn to the market that will ultimately cause more herbicides than ever to be sprayed across the nation. What’s more, the USDA is all over the idea.

Read moreNew GMO ‘Agent Orange Soy’ Silently Backed By USDA

Study: Roundup Herbicide 450-Fold Diluted Is Still Genotoxic

Abstract Title:

Cytotoxic and DNA-damaging properties of glyphosate and Roundup in human-derived buccal epithelial cells.

Abstract Source:

Arch Toxicol. 2012 Feb 14. Epub 2012 Feb 14. PMID: 22331240

Abstract Author(s):

Verena J Koller, Maria Fürhacker, Armen Nersesyan, Miroslav Mišík, Maria Eisenbauer, Siegfried Knasmueller

Article Affiliation:

Department of Internal Medicine 1, Institute of Cancer Research, Medical University of Vienna, Borschkegasse 8A, 1090, Vienna, Austria.

Monsanto’s Seedy Legacy (Video)


YouTube Added: 26.06.2012 von RTAmerica

Description:

Agricultural giant Monsanto is best known for their production of pesticides and genetically modified foods, but they have a controversial history as a chemical company with a slew of toxic cover ups. In addition to their battle against small farmers, the
newest buzz about the corporation is the speculation that their GM seeds are linked to the die off of bees. Abby Martin of RT brings us more on their seedy practices and what they are up to now.

Interview With Neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock On MSG And Brain-Damaging Excitotoxins (Video)

Health Ranger interviews neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock on MSG and brain-damaging excitotoxins (Natural News, April 13, 2012):

In the following interview, Dr. Russell Blaylock, renowned neurosurgeon, author and researcher, talks to Mike Adams about MSG, aspartame and other brain-damaging excitotoxins that are widely used in our food supply today. Dr. Blaylock is the author of Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills and other important books on this important topic as well as others. In this interview, find out why Dr. Blaylock was shocked at what he found out about the effects MSG and aspartame have on our brain function and pathology and much more.

Health Ranger: Hello and welcome everyone, this is Mike Adams, the Health Ranger for Natural News.com and today I’m joined by neurosurgeon and author, researcher, Dr. Russell Blaylock. He’s widely regarded as the foremost authority on excitotoxins, and we’re going to be talking about MSG, aspartame, and other issues as we interview him today via Skype video. Dr. Blaylock, thanks for joining me today.

Dr. Blaylock: Well thank you, Mike.

Health Ranger: It’s great to have you on, you know I’m a big fan of your work and your books. In fact, one of your earlier books, Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills is one of the first books I read that helped get me into the business of teaching people about health.

Read moreInterview With Neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock On MSG And Brain-Damaging Excitotoxins (Video)

Now Deadly Glyphosate Found In People’s Urine

Don’t miss:

New Research: GMO Food Far More Deadly Than We Think


Now glyphosate found in people’s urine (GM Watch, Feb. 20, 2012):

According to an article in German in the Ithaca journal, a German university study has found significant concentrations of glyphosate in the urine samples of city dwellers. The analysis of the urine samples apparently found that all had concentrations of glyphosate at 5 to 20-fold the limit for drinking water. As well as being used increasingly widely in food production, glyphosate-based weedkillers often also get sprayed onto railway lines, urban pavements and roadsides.
http://www.ithaka-journal.net/herbizide-im-urin

Disturbingly, the Ithaca journal reports (in our translation), “The address of the university labs, which did the research, the data and the evaluation of the research method is known to the editors. Because of significant pressure by agrochemical representatives and the fear that the work of the lab could be influenced, the complete analytical data will only be published in the course of this year.”
http://www.ithaka-journal.net/herbizide-im-urin

News of this study comes not long after the publication of a study confirming glyphosate was contaminating groundwater. Last year also saw the publication of two US Geological Survey studies which consistently found glyphosate in streams, rain and even air in agricultural areas of the US.
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/13549

Other recent studies – see the abstracts below – indicate that people may not only be absorbing glyphosate from multiple sources but that it can circulate in the blood and can even cross the placental barrier and so reach the developing fetus.

Read moreNow Deadly Glyphosate Found In People’s Urine

New Research: GMO Food Far More Deadly Than We Think

New Research: GMO Food Far Worse Than We Think (Activist Post, Feb: 19, 2012):

Disturbing new research published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology indicates that genetically modified (GM) crops with “stacked traits”  — that is, with multiple traits such as glyphosate-herbicide resistance and Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) insecticidal toxins engineered together into the same plant, are likely far more dangerous to human health than previously believed, due to their synergistic toxicity.

Resistance to glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, has been engineered into many GM plants, so that fields can be sprayed indiscriminately with herbicide without destroying the crops. While the GM glyphosate-resistant plants survive, they subsequently contain residues of glyphosate and its various metabolites (e.g. aminomethylphosphonic acid) that present a significant health threat to the public.

In this latest study the glyphosate-containing herbicide Roundup was tested on human embryonic kidney cells at concentrations between 1 to 20,000 parts per million (ppm). It was found that concentrations as low as 50 ppm per million, which the authors noted were “far below agricultural dilutions,” induced cell death, with the 50% of the cells dying at 57.5 ppm.

The researchers also found that the insecticidal toxin produced by GM plants known as Cry1Ab was capable of causing cell death at 100 ppm concentrations.

Taken together the authors concluded:

In these results, we argue that modified Bt toxins are not inert on nontarget human cells, and that they can present combined side-effects with other residues of pesticides specific to GM plants.

The Farming Systems Trial – A 30 Year Study – Conventional Versus Organic Farming – Full Report (PDF)

Download the Full Report (PDF)  (!!!)

The Farming Systems Trial – Celebrating 30 Years (Rodale Institute):

The hallmark of a truly sustainable system is its ability to regenerate itself. When it comes to farming, the key to sustainable agriculture is healthy soil, since this is the foundation for present and future growth.

Organic farming is far superior to conventional systems when it comes to building, maintaining and replenishing the health of the soil. For soil health alone, organic agriculture is more sustainable than conventional. When one also considers yields, economic viability, energy usage, and human health, it’s clear that organic farming is sustainable, while current conventional practices are not.

As we face uncertain and extreme weather patterns, growing scarcity and expense of oil, lack of water, and a growing population, we will require farming systems that can adapt, withstand or even mitigate these problems while producing healthy, nourishing food. After 30 years of side-by-side research in our Farming Systems Trial (FST)®, Rodale Institute has demonstrated that organic farming is better equipped to feed us now and well into the ever changing future.

Fast Facts

Organic yields match conventional yields.

Organic outperforms conventional in years of drought.

Organic farming systems build rather than deplete soil organic matter, making it a more sustainable system.

Organic farming uses 45% less energy and is more efficient.

Conventional systems produce 40% more greenhouse gases.

Organic farming systems are more profitable than conventional.

Coming In 2012: Genetically Modified Front Lawns And The Mass Spraying Of Neighborhoods And Playgrounds With RoundUp

More on RoundUp here:

ROUNDUP: Birth Defects Caused By World’s Top-Selling Weedkiller, Scientists Say


Coming in 2012: Genetically modified front lawns and the mass spraying of neighborhoods and playgrounds with RoundUp (NaturalNews, July 17, 2011)

Thanks to a recent admission by the USDA that it does not have the regulatory framework to even regulate GMOs, the world of biotech is set to unleash a tidal wave of genetically modified seeds upon the United States. This is the upshot of Scotts Miracle-Gro challenging the USDA over its GMO grass seeds, to which the USDA threw in the towel and essentially announced it can’t technically regulate many GMOs at all.

Welcome to the new world order of GMO self regulation, where the companies that produce the GMO seeds now get to regulate their own behavior! (http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott…)

Read moreComing In 2012: Genetically Modified Front Lawns And The Mass Spraying Of Neighborhoods And Playgrounds With RoundUp

The Worlds Largest Human Experiment: GMO’s In Europe – Why Europeans (And Everyone Else) Should Be Worried (Part 2)

The world’s largest human experiment part two: why Europeans (and everyone else) should be worried (Activist Post, July 11, 2011):

In part one of what will become a long-running series, I briefly outlined two recent papers published in the renowned peer-reviewed journal, Chemical Research in Toxicology, which revealed the horrifying effects of Monsanto’s best-selling glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide.

These two independent and highly rigorous studies found that Roundup caused critical cell damage including necrosis, a horrendous process in which cells break down and release their contents into the surrounding area, creating widespread, unmitigated cell death. The Monsanto formulation was found to be much more devastating to human cells than the glyphosate herbicide alone.

The studies that comprised the bulk of part one of this series were published in an American journal, yet the people of the United States seem, on the whole, ignorant of the dangers of Roundup and the specifically modified Roundup Ready genetically modified seeds made to be able to absorb the toxin and live.

Read moreThe Worlds Largest Human Experiment: GMO’s In Europe – Why Europeans (And Everyone Else) Should Be Worried (Part 2)

The Worlds Largest Human Experiment: GMOs, Roundup And The Monsanto Monstrosity (Part 1)

The worlds largest human experiment: GMOs, Roundup and the Monsanto monstrosity – part one (Activist Post, July 11, 2011):

Informed consent is one of the most basic aspects of patient-physician relations, as well as subject-researcher relations in the case of research studies. This involves making the patient aware of and verifying that they understand the risks, benefits, facts, and the future implications of the procedure or test they are going to be subjected to.

Read moreThe Worlds Largest Human Experiment: GMOs, Roundup And The Monsanto Monstrosity (Part 1)

Monsanto’s Roundup Triggers Over 40 Plant Diseases and Endangers Human and Animal Health

And now:

Organic Panic: Obama Administration Green Lights Mutant Alfalfa



Wheat affected after 10 years of glyphosate field applications.

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.)

Read moreMonsanto’s Roundup Triggers Over 40 Plant Diseases and Endangers Human and Animal Health

Natural Farming: Farmer Doubles Production, Cuts Water Use By 30 Percent, Needs NO Fertilizer, Herbicides And Pesticides

See also:

Growing Power: Growing Fish in Greenhouses – 1 Million Pounds of Food on 3 Acres

Sepp Holzer: Permaculture – Farming With Nature

Sepp Holzer on Permaculture: Farming with Terraces and Raised Beds


A self-sufficient system of farming is increasing yields across Hawaii


Instead of using pesticides, bug baits consisting of beer in plastic bottles are hung along rows of Thai basil.

Farmer Samson Delos Reyes reached into his bluejeans pocket to grab a phone call from a buyer and ended up smiling but shaking his head.

The caller wanted to triple her order of his pungent Thai basil, to 60 from 20 cases a week, but S&J Farms of Waianae is already booked solid. Since trying “natural farming” last year under the guidance of a folksy South Korean master farmer known as Han Kyu Cho, Delos Reyes said production on his 10-acre plot has doubled — and demand is growing even faster.

“This is my first time having earthworms on my farm,” he said, scooping up a handful of earth and nutrient-rich worm castings in his fingers. “They’re cultivating the soil for me.”

Unlike conventional or even organic farming, “natural farming” is a self-sufficient system to raise crops and livestock with resources available on the farm. Rather than applying chemical fertilizers, farmers boost the beneficial microbes that occur naturally in the soil by collecting and culturing them with everyday ingredients such as steamed rice and brown sugar. They also feed their crops with solutions containing minerals and amino acids made from castoff items such as eggshells and fish bones.

“What others consider rubbish, we use,” Cho told gardeners and farmers at a workshop in Honolulu last month. “Natural farming uses local resources, but you have to give what the plants need, when they need it and in the right amounts.”

On land once classified as unsuitable for farming, Delos Reyes’ sturdy stalks of Vietnamese kalo now stand taller than he does, and his basil bushes are thick with leaves. He no longer has to buy fertilizer, herbicides or pesticides, and he has cut water use by 30 percent. The indigenous microorganisms in the dirt — bacteria, fungi and protozoa — help nourish his crops. The plants grow hardier because their roots have to reach further to find water, according to Cho.

“You use less water, you use less inputs and you end up with a healthier plant which produces more nutritious food, of a higher quality,” said landowner David Wong, who ran Oahu’s last dairy on this Waianae property and is working with Delos Reyes in the first commercial operation using Cho’s methods on Oahu. “Here’s a system that is not freight-dependent, and it changes the economics of how agriculture could be done in Hawaii.”

Read moreNatural Farming: Farmer Doubles Production, Cuts Water Use By 30 Percent, Needs NO Fertilizer, Herbicides And Pesticides

The GMO Catastrophe In The US, A Lesson For The World

monsanto1

Recently the unelected potentates of the EU Commission in Brussels have sought to override what has repeatedly been shown to be the overwhelming opposition of the European Union population to the spread of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) in EU agriculture. EU Commission President now has a Maltese accountant as health and enviromnent Commissioner to rubber stamp the adoption of GMO. The former EU Environment Commissioner from Greece was a ferocious GMO opponent. As well, the Chinese government has indicated it may approve a variety of GMO rice. Before things get too far along, they would do well to take a closer look at the world GMO test lab, the USA. There GMO crops are anything but beneficial. Just the opposite.

What is carefully kept out of the Monsanto and other agribusiness propaganda in promoting genetically manipulated crops as an alternative to conventional is the fact that in the entire world until the present, all GMO crops have been manipulated and patented for only two things-to be resistant or “tolerant” to the patented highly toxic herbicide glyphosate chemicals that Monsanto and the others force farmers to buy as condition for buying their patented GMO seeds. The second trait is GMO seeds that have been engineered genetically to resist specific insects. Contrary to public relations myths promoted by the agribusiness giants in their own self-interest, there exists not oné single GMO seed that provides a greater harvest yield than conventional, nor one that requires less toxic chemical herbicides. That is for the simple reason there is no profit to be made in such.

Giant super-weeds plague

As prominent GMO opponent and biologist, Dr Mae-Wan Ho of the  Institute of Science in  London has noted, companies such as Monsanto build into their seeds herbicide-tolerance (HT) due to glyphosate-insensitive form of the gene coding for the enzyme targeted by the herbicide. The enzyme is derived from soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Insect-resistance is due to one or more toxin genes derived from the soil bacterium Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis). The United States began large scale commercial planting of GMO plants, mainly soybeans and corn and cotton around 1997. By now, GM crops have taken over between 85 percent to 91 percent of the areas planted with the three major crops, soybean, corn and cotton in the US, on nearly 171 million acres.

The ecological time-bomb that came with the GMO according to Ho, is about to explode. Over several years of constant application of patented glyphosate herbicides such as Monsanto’s famous and highly Roundup, new herbicide-resistant “super-weeds” have evolved, nature’s response to man-made attempts to violate it. The super-weeds require significantly more not less herbicide to control.

ABC Television, a major US national network, made a recent documentary about the super-weeds under the rubric, “super weeds that can’t be killed.”[1]

They interviewed farmers and scientists across Arkansas who described fields overrun with giant pigweed plants that can withstand as much glyphosate as farmers are able to spray. They interviewed one farmer who spent almost €400000 in only three months in a failed attempt to kill the new super-weeds.

The new super-weeds are so robust that harvester combines are unable to harvest the fields and hand tools break trying to cut them down. At least 400000 hectares of soybean and cotton in Arkansas alone have become invested with this new mutant biological plague. Detailed data on other agricultural regions is not available but believed similar. The pro-GMO and pro-agribusiness US Department of Agriculture has been reported lying about the true state of US crop harvest partly to hide the grim reality and to prevent an explosive revolt against GMO in the world’s largest GMO market.

gmo-superweeds
Superweed

One variety of super-weed, palmer pigweed can grow up to 2.4 meters high, withstands severe heat and prolonged droughts, and produces thousands of seeds with a root system that drains nutrients away from crops. If left unchecked, it takes over an entire field in a year. Some farmers have been forced to abandon their land. To date palmer pigweed infestation in GMO crop regions has been identified in addition to Arkansas, also in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, New Mexico, Mississippi and most recently, Alabama and Missouri.

Weed scientists at the University of Georgia estimate that just two palmer pigweed plants in every 6 meter length of cotton row can reduce yield by at least 23 percent. A single weed plant can produce 450 000 seeds. [2]

Roundup toxic danger being covered-up

Read moreThe GMO Catastrophe In The US, A Lesson For The World

US: Gender-Bending Chemical Atrazine Contaminates Public Water Supply

Atrazine can’t be sprayed in Europe because it contaminates groundwater, but it remains widely used in the U.S., where the EPA endorsed its continued use as recently as 2006, based on a scientific review from 2003. Federal records show the review was heavily influenced by industry and relied on studies financed by Syngenta, a Swiss-based company that manufactures most of the atrazine sprayed in the U.S.


Alarmed by latest research, the Obama administration is conducting a broad review of toxic weed killer atrazine that could lead to tighter restrictions

gender-bender-chemical-atrazine-contaminates-public-water-supply
John Kiefner prepares his boom sprayer for cleaning on his Manhattan, Ill., farm. (Chicago Tribune)

Despite growing health concerns about atrazine, an agricultural weedkiller sprayed on farm fields across the Midwest, most drinking water is tested for the chemical only four times a year — so rarely that worrisome spikes of the chemical likely go undetected.

High levels of the herbicide can linger in tap water during the growing season, according to more frequent tests in some agricultural communities.

Spread heaviest on cornfields, atrazine is one of the most commonly detected contaminants in drinking water. Studies have found that exposure to small amounts of the chemical can turn male frogs into females and might be more harmful to humans than once thought.

Read moreUS: Gender-Bending Chemical Atrazine Contaminates Public Water Supply

Former Managing Director of Monsanto India: Monsanto ‘Faked’ Data for Approvals

monsantoland

The debate on genetically modified (GM) brinjal variety continues to generate heat. Former managing director of Monsanto India, Tiruvadi Jagadisan, is the latest to join the critics of Bt brinjal, perhaps the first industry insider to do so.

Jagadisan, who worked with Monsanto for nearly two decades, including eight years as the managing director of India operations, spoke against the new variety during the public consultation held in Bangalore on Saturday.

On Monday, he elaborated by saying the company “used to fake scientific data” submitted to government regulatory agencies to get commercial approvals for its products in India.

The former Monsanto boss said government regulatory agencies with which the company used to deal with in the 1980s simply depended on data supplied by the company while giving approvals to herbicides.

“The Central Insecticide Board was supposed to give these approvals based on the location and crop-specific data from India. But it simply accepted foreign data supplied by Monsanto. They did not even have a test tube to validate the data and, at times, the data itself was faked,” Jagadisan said.

Read moreFormer Managing Director of Monsanto India: Monsanto ‘Faked’ Data for Approvals

Scientist: Monsanto’s herbicide could cause brain, intestinal and heart defects in foetuses

Multinational Biotechnology Corporations And Their Supporters Mounted An Unprecedented Attack By Trying To Ridicule Andrés Carrasco’s Research, Incl. Personal Threats.

andres-carrasco
“I expected a reaction but not such a violent one.”
“If I know something, I will not shut my mouth.”

In April 2009 Andrés Carrasco, an Argentinian embryologist, gave an interview to the leading Buenos Aires newspaper Página 12, in which he described the alarming results of a research project he is leading into the impact of the herbicide glyphosate on the foetuses of amphibians. Dr Carrasco, who works in the Ministry of Science’s Conicet (National Council of Scientific and Technical Investigations), said that their results suggested that the herbicide could cause brain, intestinal and heart defects in the foetuses. Glyphosate is the herbicide used in the cultivation of Monsanto’s genetically modified soya, which now covers some 18 million hectares, about half of Argentina’s arable land. [1]

Carrasco said that the doses of herbicide used in their study were “much lower than the levels used in the fumigations”. Indeed, as some weeds have become resistant to glyphosate, many farmers are greatly increasing the concentration of the herbicide. According to Página 12, this means that, in practice, the herbicide applied in the fields is between 50 and 1,540 times stronger than that used by Carrasco. The results in the study are confirming what peasant and indigenous communities – the people most affected by the spraying – have been denouncing for over a decade. The study also has profound consequences for the USA’s anti-narcotics strategy in Colombia, because the planes spray glyphosate, reinforced with additional chemicals, on the coca fields (and the peasants living among them).

Three days after the interview, the Association of Environmental Lawyers filed a petition with the Argentine Supreme Court, calling for a ban on the use and sale of glyphosate until its impact on health and on the environment had been investigated. Five days later the Ministry of Defence banned the planting of soya in its fields. This sparked a strong reaction from the multinational biotechnology companies and their supporters. Fearful that their most famous product, a symbol of the dominant farming model, would be banned, they mounted an unprecedented attack on Carrasco, ridiculing his research and even issuing personal threats. He was accused of inventing his whole investigation, as his results have not yet been peer-reviewed and published in a prestigious scientific journal.

Read moreScientist: Monsanto’s herbicide could cause brain, intestinal and heart defects in foetuses

U.S.-Mexico Border: Plans to Spray Agent Orange-Like Chemical to Kill All Plant Life

(NaturalNews) The Border Patrol has temporarily postponed — but refused to cancel — plans to use helicopters to spray herbicide along the banks of the Rio Grande between the cities of Laredo, Texas and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, in order to kill a fast-growing river cane that provides cover for undocumented migrants, smugglers and other border crossers.

The controversial plan has drawn fire for its similarities to the U.S. government’s defoliation strategy during the Vietnam War, in which the government sprayed more than 21 million gallons of “Agent Orange” and other herbicides in order to eliminate hiding places for Vietnamese guerillas. An estimated 4.8 million Vietnamese citizens and thousands of U.S. soldiers were exposed to the dioxin-based chemical, resulting in more than 500,000 birth defects and 400,000 deaths and disabilities among adults.

The Border Patrol proposed to begin by defoliating 1.1 miles of the river, possibly eventually expanding the program to 130 miles and perhaps even to other parts of the border.

Local citizens and environmentalists on both sides of the border have widely criticized the plan. The Mexican government has objected that there is insufficient scientific data over the health risks of imazapyr, the herbicide to be used, and that it wants to conduct its own assessment. The Border Patrol has postponed the plan, but has not promised to await the results of further studies.

Read moreU.S.-Mexico Border: Plans to Spray Agent Orange-Like Chemical to Kill All Plant Life

Pesticides Shown to be Huge Parkinson’s Disease Risk

(NaturalNews) According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, most researchers believe exposure to some kind of toxin or toxins in the environment triggers the development of Parkinson’s disease (PD) — the degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that impairs motor skills (including walking), speech and other functions.

Pesticides have long been on the list of possible suspects as a PD-causing toxin. But a new study just published in the American Journal of Epidemiology by University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) scientists appears to be the “smoking gun” that places pesticides at the top of that list.

They found that exposure to a combination of two widely used pesticides increased the risk of Parkinson’s disease by an incredible 75 percent.

In previous animal studies and cell cultures, researchers have shown pesticides spark a neurodegenerative process that leads to Parkinson’s disease. The UCLA scientists, however, are the first to provide evidence for a similar process in humans.

They came up with their alarming results by analyzing an epidemiological study of Central Valley, California, residents. The region is one of the nation’s top food-growing regions and crops like potatoes, dry beans and tomatoes have long been routinely sprayed with fungicides, herbicides and pesticides.

Read morePesticides Shown to be Huge Parkinson’s Disease Risk

It’s official: Men really are the weaker sex

Evolution is being distorted by pollution, which damages genitals and the ability to father offspring, says new study. Geoffrey Lean reports

The male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals.

The research – to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet published – shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.

Backed by some of the world’s leading scientists, who say that it “waves a red flag” for humanity and shows that evolution itself is being disrupted, the report comes out at a particularly sensitive time for ministers. On Wednesday, Britain will lead opposition to proposed new European controls on pesticides, many of which have been found to have “gender-bending” effects.

It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminised genitals.

“This research shows that the basic male tool kit is under threat,” says Gwynne Lyons, a former government adviser on the health effects of chemicals, who wrote the report.

Wildlife and people have been exposed to more than 100,000 new chemicals in recent years, and the European Commission has admitted that 99 per cent of them are not adequately regulated. There is not even proper safety information on 85 per cent of them.

Read moreIt’s official: Men really are the weaker sex

Mexican Marijuana Cartels Sully US Forests, Parks

Mexican marijuana cartels use pesticides, herbicides that pollute US parks, forest lands


A member of Kentucky’s state marijuana strike force cuts down marijuana in rural Breathitt County, Ky. (AP Photo)

National forests and parks – long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels – have become home to some of the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America because of the toxic chemicals needed to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides, federal officials said.

The grow sites have taken hold from the West Coast’s Cascade Mountains, as well as on federal lands in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Seven hundred grow sites were discovered on U.S. Forest Service land in California alone in 2007 and 2008 – and authorities say the 1,800-square-mile Sequoia National Forest is the hardest hit.

Weed and bug sprays, some long banned in the U.S., have been smuggled to the marijuana farms. Plant growth hormones have been dumped into streams, and the water has then been diverted for miles in PVC pipes.

Rat poison has been sprinkled over the landscape to keep animals away from tender plants. And many sites are strewn with the carcasses of deer and bears poached by workers during the five-month growing season that is now ending.

“What’s going on on public lands is a crisis at every level,” said Forest Service agent Ron Pugh. “These are America’s most precious resources, and they are being devastated by an unprecedented commercial enterprise conducted by armed foreign nationals. It is a huge mess.”

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In lean times, biotech grains are less taboo

A farmer harvests soy beans on the outskirts of Gualeguaychu, north of Buenos Aires.(Andres Stapff/Reuters)

Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their longstanding resistance to genetically engineered crops.

In Japan and South Korea, some manufacturers for the first time have begun buying genetically engineered corn for use in soft drinks, snacks and other foods. Until now, to avoid consumer backlash, the companies have paid extra to buy conventionally grown corn. But with prices having tripled in two years, it has become too expensive to be so finicky.

“We cannot afford it,” said a corn buyer at Kato Kagaku, a Japanese maker of corn starch and corn syrup.

In the United States, wheat growers and marketers, once hesitant about adopting biotechnology because they feared losing export sales, are now warming to it as a way to bolster supplies. Genetically modified crops contain genes from other organisms to make the plants resistance to insects, herbicides or disease. Opponents continue to worry that such crops have not been studied enough and that they might pose risks to health and the environment.

(Genetically modified crops have been studied long enough to know that GM food weakens the immune system within days, increases the cancer risk dramatically etc. – The Infinite Unknown)

Read moreIn lean times, biotech grains are less taboo

Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear

Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics-ruthless legal battles against small farmers-is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.

No thanks: An anti-Monsanto crop circle made by farmers and volunteers in the Philippines.
By Melvyn Calderon/Greenpeace HO/A.P. Images.

Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his “old-time country store,” as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.

The Square Deal is a fixture in Eagleville, a place where farmers and townspeople can go for lightbulbs, greeting cards, hunting gear, ice cream, aspirin, and dozens of other small items without having to drive to a big-box store in Bethany, the county seat, 15 miles down Interstate 35.

Everyone knows Rinehart, who was born and raised in the area and runs one of Eagleville’s few surviving businesses. The stranger came up to the counter and asked for him by name.

“Well, that’s me,” said Rinehart.

As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto’s genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company’s patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him-or face the consequences.

Rinehart was incredulous, listening to the words as puzzled customers and employees looked on. Like many others in rural America, Rinehart knew of Monsanto’s fierce reputation for enforcing its patents and suing anyone who allegedly violated them. But Rinehart wasn’t a farmer. He wasn’t a seed dealer. He hadn’t planted any seeds or sold any seeds. He owned a small-a really small-country store in a town of 350 people. He was angry that somebody could just barge into the store and embarrass him in front of everyone. “It made me and my business look bad,” he says. Rinehart says he told the intruder, “You got the wrong guy.”

When the stranger persisted, Rinehart showed him the door. On the way out the man kept making threats. Rinehart says he can’t remember the exact words, but they were to the effect of: “Monsanto is big. You can’t win. We will get you. You will pay.”

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