World-News

Le Monde (Translation: Leslie Thatcher): "A study published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences demonstrates the toxicity of three genetically modified corn varieties from the American seed company Monsanto, the Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering (Criigen, based in Caen), which participated in that study, announced Friday, December 11."

http://www.truthout.org/1215091



Three Approved GMO's Linked to Organ Damage

Rady Ananda, Truthout: "In what is being described as the first ever and most comprehensive study of the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers have linked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto's GM maize."

http://www.truthout.org/article/three-approved-gmos-linked-organ-damage

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The Health Hazards of GM Corn

Video: The Health Hazards of GM Corn A study demonstrates the toxicity of genetically modified corn, which shows that it is neither sufficiently healthy nor proper to be commercialized.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/01/09/GM-Corn-Poses-Health-Hazard.aspx

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Health Scandal: Monsanto’s GMO Perversion of Food

by Byron Richards

In the 2010 growing season Monsanto plans to unleash its latest Frankenfood experiment on the American and Canadian public, a new version of genetically mutated corn with eight abnormal gene traits called Genuity SmartStax corn. It is the culmination of an astonishing scandal that has been steadily building over the past decade. During this time Monsanto’s mutated seeds have grown to 90% of the U.S. soy crop and 85% of the corn crop – and wheat is next on their agenda. Their efforts have been marked by.....

http://www.newswithviews.com/Richards/byron189.htm

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MONSANTO: PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE
http://tinyurl.com/ydu59cr

Monsanto: The World's Poster Child for Corporate Manipulation and Deceit
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/monsanto-the-worlds-poste_b_427035.html


Informant: Dorothee Krien



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Ende November genehmigte die EU-Kommission den Genmais MIR604 des Agrochemiekonzerns Syngenta für den Import in die EU, nachdem vorher bereits drei Genmais-Sorten von Monsanto und Pioneer zugelassen wurden. Die Zulassungen dienen dazu, die Einfuhr gentechnisch verunreinigter Futtermittel in die europäische Union zu legalisieren und damit die bisherige europäische Nulltoleranzpolitik auszuhebeln. „Die Zulassung neuer Genmais-Sorten ist eine Verbeugung vor dem amerikanischen Gen-Imperialismus," kritisiert Harald Nestler, Vorstand beim Umweltinstitut München.

http://umweltinstitut.org/pressemitteilungen/2009/2009_12_01-711.html



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ISIS Lecture 26/11/09

Science of the Organism & Sustainable Systems

Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

Invited lecture, The Alternative View, 13-15 November, Grand Thistle Hotel, Bristol, UK

Abstract

Monsanto has surreptitiously withdrawn its high lysine GM maize LY038 for safety reasons under a shroud of secrecy. There are serious health hazards inherent to the technology, which apply to every GMO. In addition each GMO carries unique hazards. None of these has been addressed adequately so far, and there is now a stack of evidence indicating that GM food and feed are unsafe.

GM crops have had adverse impacts on farmers especially those in developing countries. The high costs of GM seeds and poor harvests led to spiralling debts and deaths. Between 1997 and 2007, the Indian government recorded nearly
200 000 farmer suicides, more than half due to Bt cotton introduced since 2002. GMOs are bad for health and the environment; they will severely compromise global food security and exacerbate global warming. Those foisting GM crops on farmers in developing countries are committing a crime against humanity.

Genetic engineering is the epitome of mechanistic biology, part and parcel of the dominant model of the world as machine that was becoming obsolete since the turn of the last century when the new science of the organism emerged with quantum theory.

The dominant neo-liberal economy of infinite unsustainable growth has brought the earth to the brink of irreversible climate catastrophe. It is driven by competition, profligate dissipation and waste. In contrast, nature’s circular economy (thermodynamics) of balanced sustainable growth is based on reciprocity and cooperation, which enables energy and material resources to be recycles while minimizing waste and dissipation. Nature’s economy applies most clearly to the highly productive agro-ecology systems innovated by farmers, or perfected over millennia.

We have all the appropriate science and technologies, abundant human creativity, and local initiatives that will enable us to exit the multiple crises of food, fuel and finance. The major stumbling block is our political leaders’ overwhelming adherence to the obsolete mechanistic model.

The complete text of this lecture with references and richly illustrated power point presentation are available for download. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/onlinestore/lectures.php#289

Other lecture downloads are available here http://www.i-sis.org.uk/onlinestore/lectures.php

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Mealy Bug Plagues Bt Cotton in India and Pakistan
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/mealybugPlaguesBtCotton.php

Lessons from Bt Cotton
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/lessonsFromBtCotton.php

GM Crops Increase Herbicide Use in the United States
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMcropsIncreasedHerbicide.php



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Resistente Unkräuter zwingen US-Farmer zu verstärktem Gift-Einsatz. http://sonnenseite.kjm4.de/ref.php?id=d8741687386ms182



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Pestizid

Monsanto, poster child for manipulation and corporate greed, is caught red-handed once again …

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/21/France-Finds-Monsanto-Guilty-of-Lying.aspx



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ISIS Press Release 11/11/09

A much touted second generation “nutritionally enhanced” GM crop bites the dust, as company fails to address serious health concerns; but don’t suppose that regulation will triumph Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof. Peter Saunders

Monsanto withdraws maize from regulatory approval citing commercial reasons

In a dramatic move, Monsanto has withdrawn its genetically modified (GM) maize, LY038 from commercial approval in Europe after safety concerns prompted the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to request further evidence from the company [1].

At the end of April 2009, two letters were sent to EFSA by Monsanto's European subsidiary company Renessen, withdrawing applications originally submitted in 2005 [2]. The whole episode was shrouded in secrecy before being uncovered by Dr. Brian John of GM-Free Cymru. There has been no mainstream press report, and no record on the EFSA website. Not only LY038, but also the stacked variety LY038 x MON810 - derived from a cross between LY038 and another GM variety MON810 - has been withdrawn. MON810 is currently banned in many countries in Europe [3] Europe Holds the Key to a GM- Free World, 5th Conference of GM-Free Regions, Food & Democracy ( SiS 43), and has its own hazards [4-6] ( GM Maize Disturbs Immune System of Young and Old Mice , GM Maize Reduces Fertility & Deregulates Genes in Mice , SiS
41; MON810 Genome Rearranged Again , SiS 39).

The GM maize LY038, modified to produce high levels of the amino acid lysine, was deregulated in the United States, despite our protest [7] ( Why Not Transgenic High Lysine Maize , SiS 29); and subsequently approved as safe to eat in Canada, Japan, S. Korea, the Philippines and Australia/New Zealand in 2006-7 . It belongs to the much touted “second generation”, “nutritionally enhanced” GM crops that are supposed to benefit consumers, but are insidious health risks instead [8] ( GM Crops and Microbes for Health or Public Health Hazards? SiS 32).

In its letter to the EFSA, Renessen Europe stated that "conducting further studies ... can no longer be justified, in view of the additional costs involved and the reduced commercial interest in this product."

Scientists cite safety

The high lysine maize was also submitted to Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) in 2004 and approved as safe for human consumption in December 2007, despite strong scientific objections from the Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety (INBI) at Canterbury University, Christchurch, in New Zealand [9, 10]. Among the issues raised were risks of cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease.

FSANZ maintains there is no safety issue with LY038, and that it was withdrawn from Europe purely for commercial reasons.

Monsanto spokesman Jonathan Ramsay said [1] “changes in the overall corn market” were among the factors resulting “in a shift of the overall value to customers of this product at this time.”

Geneticist Dr. Jack Heinemann, an associate professor at Canterbury University and director of INBI, believes it was a tactical, rather than purely commercial withdrawal on Monsanto's part, and demands to know why FSANZ still considers it would be safe for “Kiwis” to eat the maize [1].

“Personally, I don't believe the withdrawal of LY038 was for economic reasons,” Heinemann said. “Monsanto estimated the street value of LY038 was going to be US$1 billion a year. Do we really believe that a market of US$1bn a year is too small for Monsanto? I don't. The European Food Safety Authority requested more safety data from Monsanto.”

Heinemann also indicated that from comments released to him, it appears that Finland for example, was not satisfied with either the number or the quality of animal-feeding studies, and Malta voted to reject the maize on the basis of the INBI submission, “the same science that FSANZ attempted to bury down here.”


Read the rest of this article here:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/HighLysineGMMaize.php



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Monsanto
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=GM+maize

by Byron Richards

It should come as no surprise when a Monsanto product poisons the earth and our food. Our planet has never recovered from the forty-year Monsanto-led PCB contamination that was banned in the U.S. in 1977. To this day environmental PCBs continue to degrade into highly toxic furans and dioxins, wreaking all manner of human health problem. The new case in point involves several aspects: 1) the bizarre alteration of the nature of food itself by splicing viral, bacterial, and other life forms into the DNA of.......

http://www.newswithviews.com/Richards/byron186.htm



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http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/10/16-0



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ISIS Report 23/09/09

Transgenic flax grown for several years in Canada has nevertheless contaminated probably the country’s entire flax seed stock; that’s why flax should never be used to produce transgenic industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals Prof. Joe Cummins

Transgene contamination of flax seed

Flax seed is used widely in the food industry, including bread, and as source of omega 3 fatty acids. On 10 September 2009, the European Union (EU) Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) reported finding an unapproved genetically modified (GM) flax/linseed variety in cereal and bakery products in Germany. The GM flax variety, FP967 (CDC Triffid), is not authorized for food or feed in the EU; it has tolerance to soil residues of sulfonylurea-based herbicides, and was developed by the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. Canada supplies approximately 70 percent of the total flax/linseed in the EU annually. Because GM flax FP967 is not authorized in the European Union, there is zero tolerance for the variety. That means any raw material or flax/linseed derivative analyzed to be positive for FP967 is illegal and not marketable in the EU. The test for the genetic modification of Triffid flax was developed by Genetic ID Laboratories in USA and Europe [1].

The ‘Triffid’ is a highly venomous fictional plant species, the titular antagonist from John Wyndham's 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids. The University of Saskatchewan appears to have used that great novel as a model for its GM creation.

Triffid yanked off seed market in 2001

The discovery of Triffid gene contamination in Canadian flax exports is surprising because Triffid flax seed has not been openly produced in Canada since 2001. Triffid was deregulated over a decade ago in Canada for environmental release for feed in 1996 and for food in 1998. USA authorized the release of Triffid for food and feed in 1998, and for commercial growth in the environment in 1999 [2]. Triffid has been grown in the open fields in both Canada and US. But by early 2001, under pressure from Canadian flax growers anxious to protect their markets, Triffid was deregistered and removed from the market in Canada. By then, around 200 000 bushels of Triffid flax seed had been grown on farms across the prairies [3].

Read the rest of this report here

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/theDayOfTheTriffids.php

Or read other articles about GM agriculture here
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GE-agriculture.php

 

http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=transgen

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/22-8

 

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