global citizen reportCompiled by Rosemary Mason MB ChB FRCA on behalf of a global network of independent scientists, beekeepers and environmentalists

Farm Wars

What are pesticides and medical drugs doing to human health?

Have you wondered why pollinators, birds, amphibians, bats etc. have dramatically decreased in numbers in the last 20-30years? Or perhaps you weren’t even aware of the fact – because the British Media has been silent on the matter.

But you will be aware of the increasing number of diseases that are affecting us all: obesity, type 2 diabetes, autism, Dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, various neurological disorders, cancers, inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis, infertility, birth defects, depression, heart disease, strokes, hypertension etc.

Why has no-one in medicine, public health or medical epidemiology managed to work it out? “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”1

The answer is simple; but the cure is not. We are slowly, silently being poisoned. Our genes, and those of our children, are being damaged by toxic chemicals.2 Of course it is something of a ‘post-code’ (or water-shed ‘post code’ lottery3) and depends on where you are living. If you live in London and eat organic food, you may not have noticed. But there are pesticide residues (particularly glyphosate) in staple foods that are made from cereal crops, because many are desiccated (dried off) with glyphosate before harvest. Since 2007, most brewers and distillers have permitted pre-harvest desiccation to be done, so it will now be in beer and whiskey. Most of the imports from the US have ingredients contaminated with GM and herbicides (such as glyphosate, 2,4-D, glufosinate, dicamba) in the production process.

In South Wales we have found that glyphosate is present in our tap water.4 This is because large amounts of glyphosate are used on noxious weeds such as Japanese knotweed that are invading previously industrialised areas. Contractors on quad bikes with knapsacks have been spraying Roundup® along kerbs, verges, highways, even in areas of schools, libraries and doctors surgeries. In 2012 the Chemicals Regulation Directorate (CRD) instructed the workers not to spray on hard surfaces,5 because there is a lot of run-off into water courses, but I doubt whether a technical instruction posted on a website ever gets passed on to a worker.

Our Assembly Member wrote to the Local Council, but they said that Roundup® was perfectly safe. (This is a Monsanto myth: since 1996 the Corporation has been convicted in courts for fraudulent and false advertising6). Our Council refused to stop spraying until they were instructed to do so by the CRD or Defra. We have spent 3 years writing to these two Government Departments. Both maintain that glyphosateand the neonicotinoid insecticides are perfectly safe if applied in the correct dosages! We remain at an impasse and continue to be poisoned by Government policies.

Unfortunately some members of the British Government, such as the Defra Minister, Environment Minister, Science Minister and their Chief Scientists and a few MPs are ‘in bed’ with the pesticides companies. They, together with NFU Chairman, Peter Kendall, and many scientists from the John Innes Centre have held secret meetings with industry to devise a strategy to try to get GM crops into the UK.7 Paradoxically, at the same time, a significant number of countries are banning them.

Here is a 2012 Report: Combatting Monsanto: Grassroots resistance to the corporate power of agribusiness in the era of the ‘green economy’ and a changing climate.8 It is compiled by La Via Campesina,9 Friends of the Earth International and Combat Monsanto. Many countries have banned GMO crops. This Report also documents many crimes (including murder) committed by the Corporate Industries in their quest for seed and pesticide dominance. Is it significant that the UK has volunteered to take the first stockpile of chemicals from Syria (for the deadline: 31/12/2013) into an unknown British Port for destruction? These precursors are capable of being used by the pharmaceutical industry.10

The supposedly independent committees in the UK; the Advisory Committee on Pesticides (ACP) and the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (CoT) both have at least one or two members with conflicts of interest. Defra Committees are also filled with ‘trusted’ graduates from British Universities.

Fera bee scientists have been executing work commissioned by Syngenta11 and when the long awaited work on bumblebees12 was rejected by EFSA as being deeply flawed, Dr Helen Thompson Fera Chief Bee Scientist responsible announced she was going to work for Syngenta (full time!). This had happened once before in 1997 with Dr Peter Campbell, Head of the UK Pesticides Safety Directorate, who rotated into Syngenta).

The British Beekeeping and the Scottish Beekeeping Associations (BBKA, SBA) have been in receipt of industry money and are on Defra’s side.13 They claim that there is no Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in the UK. This is in stark contrast to the European Beekeeping Coordination which is joining with Buglife in a new lawsuit.

In December 2013, I was invited to be a Guest Speaker at a Symposium in Beijing to be held in July 2014, to give an account of the toxicity of glyphosate (despite all our evidence having been dismissed as ‘hypothetical’ by Lord de Mauley and the CRD). In China there are epidemics of Parkinson’s disease and depression. There are several preparations of glyphosate to choose from, Monsanto, Bayer or cheaper Indian and Chinese lookalikes.

I cannot attend in person, but I have sent them our papers. I give links to four of them here; but the most recent one: How glyphosate is being whitewashed for its review in the EU and the US is attached to this email. The following documents have been posted:

Corporate Espionage: The Séralini Affair and Beyond (sent to Dirk Detken Chief Attorney to the European Food Safety Authority on 13/12/2013 with cc to Scotland and Europe): is at: http://farmwars.info/?p=12140

Glyphosate: Destructor of Human Health and Biodiversity: Another Silent Killer: This was the first letter sent on 06/09/2013 to Sir Harry Burns, Chief Medical Officer for Scotland. It was eventually acknowledged, but only after I had had to ask for one.
http://farmwars.info/?p=11565

Glyphosate, GMOs and the BBC: in which I addressed Prof Jonathan Jones and the BBC about their misconceptions about the effects of Glyphosate on Human Health on 21/10/2013. http://farmwars.info/?p=11789

Glyphosate at the root of human and animal diseases: epidemiological evidence: this was the second letter to Sir Harry Burns, Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, sent on 21/11/2013. The reply (received on 13/12/2013) was negative and had clearly been written by a member of the Chemicals Regulation Directorate. However, when I came to print it out, the letter vanished before my very eyes, before I had a chance to put it on record.
http://farmwars.info/?p=11963

For those of you who wish to see more of Dr Nancy Swanson’s graphs correlating glyphosate with diseases in those on a Western diet.14,15

READ FULL REPORT HERE: A Global Citizens Report against Big Ag Big Pharma and Governments

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8 Responses to “A Global Citizens Report against Big Ag, Big Pharma and Governments”

  1. Umesh says:

    Molecule, you’re correct.
    To re-establish dharma (righteousness) Lord Sri Satya Sai Baba incarnated on Earth.
    The elevation of human consciousness to bring back the Golden Age has begun.
    All we need do is each of us take responsibility, and be accountable for our impact on the planet.
    Love, light, and peace.

  2. B. Talbert says:

    Great article and I am glad to hear of this organization. The more we learn the more people become informed and join the fight.
    The US policies regarding food are becoming a big problem for the rest of the world and we are bullying our way into the business of countries who do not agree with us. But we are not the only ones. There is a global agenda regarding food.
    Just a note: Care II has a petition against feeding chicken poop to cows and a major article about the practice.

  3. OzzieEd says:

    Great comment above except that Monsanto ARE responsible as their agenda is to make all soils so toxic that only their Frankenseeds will grow in them. If a chemical salesman turns up at your farm, he should be taken into custody as an enemy of humanity. What about the local hardware store owner? The public needs to let these guys know that peddling poisons is worse than peddling drugs. Maybe even a lot worse. Some pressure needs to be applied to the whole chain of supply. It may already be too late but it needs to stop RIGHT NOW! NO MORE CHEMICALS in our environment, or you are one of the enemy. This is war against all of us and we need to wake the F up before we’re all dead.

  4. Visionaerie says:

    My brother knows a beekeeper who had his bees basically destroyed by Monsanto because he was researching what was really killing them! I also know that every time it rains, I notice a strange sickly-sweet smell in the air — which I’ve also noticed many other places. And every time I walk past the bread aisle in the supermarket, it smells like mold. Obviously we all need to be as proactive as possible in what we consume and inhale. I developed asthma from working in a “sick” or poorly-ventilated building, so I certainly do my best to avoid those triggers. Thanks for posting this and let’s all resolve to defeat this beast while doing our best to provide TRUE natural health to our families and friends!

  5. Abe says:

    About 20 years ago it would be hard to sleep in my neck of the woods due to all the frogs croaking. I haven’t seen or heard frogs for years now. Even longer a salamander. These amphibians are the barometer of our wetlands. Back in the mid 90’s in Henderson Minnesota they found frogs with an extra leg, missing a leg, or even missing an eye or two. Henderson is in the Minnesota River Valley. A great deal of farm land drains through Henderson. Here’s an article about it.
    It’s Not Easy Being a Frog
    http://www.scholastic.com/teac.....being-frog
    I like to go hunting. One thing I’ve observed in the fields is there’s a 1/8″ – 1/4″ layer of pink on the bottom of the ponds. These are typical of the ponds I used to catch frogs at for fish bait. These days these ponds are basically sterile of any amphibians, or any other wild life for the most part. You don’t need to be a genius to figure out why. But the question is how much longer will humanity allow themselves to be slowly poisoned to death just for the profits of a few???
    Along with the frogs I’ve seen a dramtic decrease in honey bees, and monarch, and swallowtail butterflies, and luna moths in my area on top of the minneesota River Valley.

  6. When people are lied to and they believe those lies, the entity that lies bears the responsibility. The person that believes the lies is only accountable once he/she becomes aware of the truth. If a package is labeled as biodegradable, natural, and the FDA stamps it as safe, most people believe the lies. Unless they have a reason to believe otherwise, they will continue believing the lies. It is our job to awaken those who want the truth so that they can make informed choices, and to expose the liars and cheats who poison for profit so that they can be held accountable.

  7. molecule says:

    The problem is not Monsanto, nor is it corruption in governments.

    The responsibility falls directly on the shoulders of us men. We have lost our sense of righteousness, individual dignity, and duty to community. These characteristics of men should be innate and inborn.

    Momsanto has never applied so much as one single drop of glyphoshate on a farm. They are completely blameless. Not one drop. Nor has any government agent poisoned the water supply of a neighboring farmer.

    Glyphosate is applied by individual farmers, and by oligarchical land owners. The result is a system of corporate land ownership that seems bent of poisoning the fertility of its own soils, as well as those of its neighbors. It will not sustain.

    There was a time when if you stole a man’s horse, a posse was raised, and you soon got yourself tangled up in some form of justice. There was a time when if you poisoned the water supply of an adjoining farmer, the injured farmer would raise a small militia of his neighbors, and you got yourself tangled up with some form of justice.

    Until men get their righteousness back, nothing will happen. Monsanto will be Monsanto, and governments will be governments. Women and children will continue to be poisoned. The problem is not Monsanto. There are always going to be depraved crooks, murders and liars, like Monsanto. Their powers are so invincible and remote, they will always be untouchable and unaccountable. There will also always be corruption in governments. We have no right to expect otherwise.

    When your neighbor steals your house, or poisons your pastures and their groundwater, then perhaps it time for a few righteous farmers to have some friendly little chats with their socially irresponsible neighborhood farmers, who are using glyphosate.

    … just one stupid molecule here …