censorship-1Compiled by Rosemary Mason MB ChB FRCA, on behalf of a global network of independent scientists, beekeepers and environmentalists

Farm Wars

Last week the G8 Conference was held in London to discuss the problem of the massive increases in the incidence of dementia in the Western World.[1]

The herbicide glyphosate will be reviewed by Germany, the Rapporteur Member State, in 2014. The review of glyphosate was due to take place in 2012. Soon after the European Commission was notified of the latest research showing that glyphosate and Roundup® caused birth defects, it quietly passed a directive delaying the review of glyphosate and 38 other dangerous pesticides until 2015.[2]

There are two research papers that the German Regulatory Authorities will find the hardest to ignore when they study new evidence that has arisen since glyphosate was last reviewed in 2002. It is crucial that industry eliminates these studies from consideration.

  • Séralini, G.-E., et al. Long term toxicity of a Roundup® herbicide and a Roundup® tolerant genetically modified maize. Food Chem. Toxicol. (2012). Séralini’s 2-year feeding study provoked chronic hormone and sex dependent pathologies in rats; males developed tumours at 4 months and females at 7 months.[3]

What Séralini’s team discovered in rats is happening in humans and animals.

  • Samsel, A., Seneff, S. Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases. Entropy 2013, 15, 1-x manuscripts; doi:10.3390/ e140x000x.[4]

What Samsel and Seneff discovered was that glyphosate/Roundup® interferes with many metabolic processes in plants, animals and humans. Glyphosate is an endocrine disruptor and it damages DNA and is a driver of mutations that lead to cancer.

Dr Nancy Swanson has constructed graphs (from USDA and US CDC data) of a correlation between glyphosate applied to crops and % GM corn and soy planted, to the incidence and prevalence of various diseases of those on a Western diet.[5]

Séralini’s research was successfully retracted (14 months after it appeared in the journal) by appointing a Monsanto Scientist as an Associate Editor (he also retracted another paper that was dangerous to the GM industry showing that Bt insecticidal toxins were not broken down in digestion and were toxic to mice). There have been attempts by the Publishers to retract the Samsel and Seneff paper, but the Editor-in-Chief and the authors have made a firm stand.

  • My outgoing emails (3-years’-worth) were destroyed 3 weeks ago by a British agency, at the same time as Anthony Samsel’s computer was hacked; fortunately his quick thinking saved his files. Who would want to destroy my emails and why? Because I had a document they needed to destroy before they could retract Séralini’s rat study.
  • I had sent this document on 22nd October 2012 to Dirk Detken, Chief Attorney for the European Food Safety Authority, Subject: EFSA and the Séralini paper on rat tumours. I told him that Monsanto had already done “experiments” in humans in South America with GM Roundup® Ready soy: the farmers and their families had been affected by birth defects, reproductive problems, cancers and DNA changes shown on blood tests.[6] Fortunately my letter is still linked to a website.[7]
  • The reason for the disappearance of emails from my SENT box, between March 2012 and mid-July 2012 became obvious. In response to an EU Press Release: 06/2012 Ombudsman investigates whether the Commission should do more to combat bee mortality we complained, not only about pesticides and bees, but about perceived irregularities in the European Commission and European Food Safety Authority’s conduct. After prolonged correspondence throughout the summer, our complaints were finally dismissed by all three bodies; 06/07/2012 by the European Commission, 10/08/2012 by EFSA and by the Ombudsman on 03/10/2012.

Why are other countries banning GMOs[8] [9]as fast as Europe is authorising them?

  • On 30/04/2012 the UK Environmental Audit Committee issued recommendation about GMOs.[10] “Unless and until there is both clear public and political acceptance of GM, it is proven to be both beneficial to the environment and to producers, and evidence that demand for these products is based on understanding by consumers and transparent product labelling, the Government should not license its commercial use in the UK nor promote its use overseas. It should establish an independent body to research, evaluate and report on the potential impacts on the environment of GM crops, and their impacts on farming and on the global food system.”
  • The British Government rejected the EAC Report:[11] The Government takes a science-led approach to GM, and the protection of human health and the environment are our overriding priorities… We will only agree to the planting of GM crops, the release of other types of GM organism or the marketing of GM food or feed products if a robust risk assessment that has taken full account of the scientific evidence indicates that it is safe.” In fact, the Government completely rejected the suggestion that an independent body should be formed. It said that research and monitoring in Europe had already established the safety of GMOs.

The Government does not agree that a new independent body should be established to research, evaluate and report on the potential impacts on the environment of GM crops, and their impacts on farming and on the global food system… In 2010, the European Commission published a report entitled ‘A decade of EU-funded GMO research’ which summarised the results of 50 research projects addressing primarily the safety of GMOs for the environment and for animal and human health.”

  • Conflicts of interest in the EU. In a disturbing paper published by the BMJ Publishing Group Ltd the murky web of the EU regulatory boards is exposed.[12] “EFSA experts involved in assessing the risks of GM foods have attracted criticism. In 2010, 12 out of 21 experts on the GMO Panel…had conflicts of interest as defined by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.”
  • The British Government has joined forces with Monsanto, EFSA and the EU Commission to fight civil society in the EU Court to defend the right to import Monsanto’s transgenic soybean Intacta® which produces an insecticide and is resistant to glyphosate herbicides such as Roundup®.[13] Did EFSA’s sudden change of sides from being sued to suing denote the import of hardliners though the revolving doors? Is that why CEO Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle, and Herman Fontier Head of EFSA’s Pesticides Unit have gone?

Why did the US and UK claim that Wikileaks was a danger to National Security, and branded those that leaked the cables as ‘traitors’?   

In response to moves by France to ban a Monsanto GM corn 810 variety in late 2007, the US Ambassador to France, Craig Stapleton, a friend and business partner of former US president George Bush, advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops.[14] In other newly released cables, US diplomats around the world are found to have pushed GM crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.[15]

Corporate Espionage: in 2008, Monsanto employed Total Intelligence Solutions to protect the Corporation’s name[16]

In leaked emails, Black wrote that Wilson “understands that we can span collection from internet, to reach out, to boots on the ground on legit basis protecting the Monsanto [brand] name…. Ahead of the curve info and insight/heads up is what he is looking for.” Black added that Total Intelligence “would develop into acting as intel arm of Monsanto.

Western Governments were looking for chemical weapons in Syria[17]

  • What is the difference between chemical weapons and pesticides?
  • Not much, they all act as neurotoxins, genotoxins and teratogens.
  • Chemical weapons kill fast: the effects are obvious for anyone to see.
  • The effect of pesticides on humans and the environment are subtle; genetic and teratogenetic changes in humans often take more time to manifest themselves. By which time the pro-industry lobby is able to propose other causes; climate change, toxoplasmosis in cats, older pesticides (POPs; persistent organic pollutants) etc.
  • There is overwhelming evidence that exposure to chemicals in early pregnancy damages the development of the foetus,[18] but agencies in the UK Government are in denial. If pesticides poison insects, what does it do to the human foetal brain when it is the same size as that of an insect brain?  That is why there are massively increasing rates of autism and other neurodevelopment disorders. That’s why our children’s brainpower is deteriorating; congenital disabilities and incidents of violent and antisocial behaviour are increasing. Prof Philippe Grandjean published a book in May 2013: ONLY ONE CHANCE. How Environmental Pollution Impairs Brain Development – and How to Protect the Brains of the Next Generation.[19].
  • The British Government blames the parents, the teachers, the NHS, the prisons….
  • …but this crisis is of the Government’s own making. They totally eliminated the statutory conservation bodies and allowed Agrochemical Corporations free rein.  No-one was left to watch the environment. No-one in Defra noticed that ‘the canaries in the cage’ were dying. Even when Buglife described what was happening, Defra completely ignored it. The Government’s policy of supporting a system of agriculture that was chemically-based has meant that chemical contamination of the environment has poisoned people and the environment. The situations in the US and Australia are identical; all three Governments are in the hands of the pesticides industry.
  • Pesticides are silent killers: by the time their effects are obvious, it is too late.

Why has no-one in the Medical Research Council or the Sanger Institute worked it out?

It is possible that some of them had done; did they decide that they preferred the status quo?[20]

Former US vice-president Al Gore, in his book An Inconvenient Truth, quoted the American socialist writer Upton Sinclair.[21] “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” “That is an oversimplification of the complex relationship between consciousness and social context, but it is fundamentally true”.

Of course all those who did work it out may have seen what happens to those who dare to speak the truth.[22] Dr Brian John of GM-Free Cymru wrote: “For more than a decade now, scientists working in the GM field have mounted vicious personal attacks (sometimes politically rather than scientifically motivated) upon serious scientists who have had the temerity to discover “uncomfortable things about GM crops and foods.” This trend started with the vitriolic treatment meted out (with the Royal Society in the vanguard) on Arpad Pusztai and Stanley Ewen a decade ago, and continued with the crucifixion of Ignacio Chapela and David Quist, Angelika Hilbeck, Mae-wan Ho, Judy Carman, Gilles-Eric Séralini, Andrès Carrasco, Manuela Malatesta, Christian Velot, Irina Ermakova and many others. These people have been severely punished by the Agrochemical Corporations, presumably as a warning to others; like farmers hanging dead crows on a line to deter their fellow corvids from eating the crops.

Dr Nancy Swanson’s graph of Deaths from Senile Dementia plotted against glyphosate application to GM corn & soy

Graph10

Further information can be found in four documents[23],[24],[25],[26].

Click Here for References

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6 Responses to “How glyphosate is being whitewashed for its review in the EU and the US”

  1. Ib Borup Pedersen says:

    The graph Death From Senile Dementia plots the usage of Glyphosate on Corn and Soy from 1990.
    The rise in Dementia had started earleyer, but so did the use of Glyphosate, it was first on the marked in 1974, so it follows the trend in Senile Dementia right from start of the graph.

  2. abinico warez says:

    Dementia is an iatrogenic disease; doctors relentless condemnation of cholesterol is the reason. The brain is like 90% cholesterol and without adequate dietary intake, guess what, the brain atrophies. So you want to avoid dementia – eat egg yolks, fatty steaks, and fish oil.

  3. Pierre says:

    Dear Barb,again that I said before, Glyphosate poison is the same product like agent orange with a bit of water and color change.

  4. Diane Adams says:

    Yes, the dementia deaths do rise before the glyphosate begins, but considering that pesticide chemicals were being used before glyphosate / Roundup was the crowning jewel of Monsanto corporation… that factors in in my opinion.

    Forget the detox program at the bottom – this article by Dr. Tim O’Shea holds comprehensive and illuminating information on the history of GMOs and what the USA has done within other countries to force them to use the patented seeds, all the way to writing into the Iraqi constitution that they must use the Monsanto seeds. http://www.thedoctorwithin.com.....ods-alert/

    Again, look past the religious appeal to the concise information http://www.eaec.org/newsletter.....1/gmo3.htm

    Also, here is a column printed in a European paper that tells how the USA threatened to sue Europe if they did not begin to use the Monsanto GMOs http://www.biointegrity.org/Wh.....itical.htm

    wherein it states…

    “This article was published in the Comment section of The Financial Times on May 18, 2004 with the headline: “America’s hypocrisy over modified produce”. (It is in UK spelling format.)

    Tomorrow, the European Commission plans to end a de facto moratorium on the approval of new genetically modified foods that has endured for six years. One significant motivation for this action is concern about the lawsuit the US has filed at the World Trade Organization against the European Union’s restrictions on these products. However, despite this major attempt at appeasement, the Bush Administration has indicated it intends to vigorously press ahead with its suit. Such persistence has surprised many Europeans.

    But what should be even more surprising is the degree to which this suit is cloaked in hypocrisy and driven by deception. It’s based on the pretence that the precautionary principle – which prescribes the course of caution when the evidence is inconclusive – cannot be legitimately applied to GM food and that the US is free to resist it. In reality, US law mandates a much stricter application of the principle than does EU law; and the Bush administration is trying to quash EU regulations that are looser than those it is legally required to implement itself – but has assiduously avoided.”

    I believe that all these articles would make a great book. Include other whistle blowers and viola, truth.

  5. B. Talbert says:

    There is more here than meets the eye regarding glyphosate. Chitin and chitosan are being incorporated into plant cell walls (especially cotton). Many pesticides are pelleted with chitin as well. I am not sure if glyphosate is. Chitin is a polysaccharide and we are adding it to our food and soil and now our plant cell walls at an alarming rate. It took a millennia to allow the microbiota of the soil to reduce the amount of chitin left by the receding oceans and to make the land part of our planet fertile. Chitin enhances human cell dessication. This, in turn, produces cell death. Our human cells are thirsty and chitin, like plastic, is preventing them from accessing the water that we take in. Too much of our food is not water soluble. It is also preventing the soil from taking in the water that it needs for soil microbiota to thrive. Our over-use of chitin is causing retrograde evolution.

  6. common law private attorney general Chris says:

    Odd how the NEW/ novelle RE-vised Word art term RE-FRAMED to portend to magically/magi-cAH-EL-LIE/Ly:
    RE-Move it’s actual: Ethylene / E-Thoth-EL-Ene;
    “G”lycol/ “G”-LIE-cAH-EL; Phosphate/pHA-ospHAte G-LIE-cAH-EL RED [Blood Red] FLAG label/ L-AB-EL it still RE-tains the “LIE” sound, in it’s NEW rendition?
    It’s probably / Pro AB LIE just a mere CO-incedence?
    PRAY