The Frankenbunny

The Frankenbunny

(This is actually quite cute, but if Monsanto designed it I'm quite sure it would be a highly venomous Easter killing machine that shoots out projectile eggs filled with Roundup and Agent Orange...)

Editorial: Agent Orange still poisons many Vietnam War veterans

For many Americans, the enduring memory of the Vietnam War is of the protests that defined a generation and shattered the illusion of America’s purity on the world stage. But for the 3 million men and women who served in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and early 1970s, the memories are more visceral: the fog of combat, the stench of death, the sting of returning to a seemingly ungrateful nation.

For some veterans, there’s something else, and it’s no memory. Exposed to the toxin-laced Agent Orange a half-century ago, they are now suffering long-term effects including heart disease, Parkinson’s, type II diabetes, immune system disruption, and a variety of potentially lethal cancers. The time has come for them to get the moral and financial support that are our nation’s debt.

Robert Schmid of Leverett is one of those Vietnam vets. Schmid was a soldier on the ground when planes overhead showered down herbicide to kill jungle foliage and reveal enemy troops. Amid the gunfire, he paid it little heed. “There is so much activity,” he told reporter Lisa Spear, “that it is just another thing happening.”

Now 72, Schmid has suffered a heart attack and attributes his coronary heart disease to his time in-country. Donald F. Moulton, another Vietnam veteran, suffers from an aggressive form of leukemia. He told fellow veteran John Paradis that he was exposed to Agent Orange while a Navy Seabee clearing vegetation to build bases, hospitals and schools.

“We weren’t even using the words Agent Orange then and we just took it for granted,” Moulton said. “I can tell you this, we weren’t pulling any weeds over there — that stuff pretty much took care of everything.”

And no wonder. Agent Orange contained toxins including the now-infamous dioxin, and the U.S. military sprayed close to 11 million gallons of it in Vietnam. In the decades since, scientists have concluded beyond a doubt that the herbicide is to blame for health problems including the ones suffered by Schmid and Moulton — and the government has begun paying benefits to veterans who grapple with those issues.

Veterans collect monthly benefits ranging from modest to more substantial; veterans interviewed by Spear reported payments between $300 and $3,000 a month, depending on their debilitation. But many of those afflicted don’t know that they and their spouses are entitled to the help, despite the pain and expense associated with long-term ailments.

Too many veterans remain unaware of the benefits they might collect, says Timothy Niejadlik, director of the Upper Pioneer Valley Veterans’ Services office in Greenfield. To help spread the word, his organization recently held a town hall meeting at Greenfield Community College to provide information, health screenings and help in filing claims.

“A lot of these diseases are equated to age, so (veterans) are just thinking that it’s part of their natural aging process,” said Niejadlik.

Says Schmid: “There are a lot of vets who don’t take advantage; either they don’t know about it or they are shy about asking for it — and I was like that, too.”

Happily, Schmid did ask and now receives a $300 monthly benefit that not only helps with his health-related expenses but also signals a recognition — long overdue — of the sacrifices he made in that distant land. Other vets deserve that same recognition and our nation’s thanks.

LINK

Happy Easter!!!

The Frankenbunny

(This is actually quite cute, but if Monsanto designed it I'm quite sure it would be a highly venomous Easter killing machine that shoots out projectile eggs filled with Roundup and Agent Orange...)

Monsanto Faces Hundreds of New Cancer Lawsuits

Soon after a California judge required a cancer warning to be displayed on the popular weedkiller, Roundup, in accordance with the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, Monsanto is suddenly finding itself knee deep in cancer lawsuits. The lawsuits are being filed over the health risks associated with glyphosate, a chemical classified by the WTO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as a “probable human carcinogen.”

The new round of lawsuits was filed in St. Louis County Circuit Court last week by Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, a law firm based in Los Angeles. It was filed on behalf of “136 plaintiffs from across the country who allege that exposure to Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma.” Additionally, the firm has also filed similar lawsuits in Alameda County, California, Superior Court on behalf of 40 people who “allege that exposure to the herbicide caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma.”

According to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a co-counsel in the lawsuit, the law firm decided to file the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs “to address the injuries that have been caused by Roundup and glyphosate to mainly farmers and farm workers, but we think that consumers and home gardeners have also been affected.”

Plaintiffs from both cases are seeking compensatory and punitive damages for wrongful death and personal injuries against Monsanto, according to EcoWatch. Other defendants include Osborn & Barr Communications, Inc. and Osborn & Barr Holdings, Inc of St. Louis, Missouri, and Wilbur Ellis Company, LLC of San Francisco, California.

With this latest round of lawsuits, the number of cancer claims that have been filed in federal courts against the agriculture giant is more than 700! And that number is expected to continue climbing. Kennedy even suggested that “claims could increase to 3,000 in the next few months” in light of the new cancer warnings being displayed on Roundup.

However, the lawsuits aren’t just sounding the alarm on the cancer risk associated with Roundup. It’s also shining a light on the corruption that exists throughout Monsanto. For example, just last week, “a federal judge in San Francisco unsealed documents suggesting that company employees had ghostwritten scientific reports that U.S. regulators used to determine glyphosate does not cause cancer.” In simple terms, Monsanto tried to hide Roundups risks from the public and regulators so the company could go on, business as usual.

Kennedy summed up the company’s corruption in a recent statement, saying:

“Monsanto’s newly released documents expose a culture corrupt enough to shock the company’s most jaded critics. Those papers show sociopathic company officials ghostwriting scientific studies to conceal Roundup’s risks from Monsanto’s regulators and customers, including food consumers, farmers, and the public…One wonders about the perverse morality that incentivizes executives to lie so easily and to put profits before human life. All humanity will benefit when a jury sees this scheme and gives this behemoth a new set of incentives.”

The scary thing is, despite reports and tests classifying glyphosate, as a carcinogen, Monsanto continues to claim that “Roundup creates no risks to human health or to the environment.” But according to reports like the one from the WTO classifying the chemical as a probable carcinogen, it does, and that’s why consumers across the globe should be ecstatic that Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman has decided to take a stand against Monsanto to shed light on just how crooked the company is.

So what does Monsanto have to say in its defense? Well, in addition to continuing to claim that glyphosate is perfectly safe, Monsanto spokesperson Charla Lord issued a statement saying:

“We empathize with anyone facing cancer. We can also confidently say that glyphosate is not the cause. No regulatory agency in the world considers glyphosate a carcinogen.”

There’s no denying that this is shaping up to be a whopper of a case, and it will be interesting to see how things unfold in coming weeks and months.

http://www.legalreader.com/monsanto-faces-hundreds-of-new-cancer-lawsuits/

Breaking Bread: GMO labeling due on packaged foods by summer 2018

FINALLY!!!!!

Last year, Congress passed a law requiring that foods containing genetically modified ingredients reveal that on their labels.

By the summer of 2018, the marketing division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is charged with defining what that label will say.

Will it actually list the ingredients (as in: "This product contains genetically modified corn and soy"), or will it be a QR code connecting the consumer to the information on a website?

The debate over the label's wording could prove as contentious as the fight over genetically modified organisms themselves.

GMOs are plants whose DNA has been changed. The development is beyond the typical cross-breeding of plants because the changes are made in the laboratory at the cellular level.

Opponents of GMOs fought hard for the labeling. They consider GMOs less safe than non-GMO foods, have ethical concerns about tampering with nature, have issues with the corporations behind GMO seed (namely Monsanto), and fear environmental damage from widespread GMO crops.

GMOs were developed 20 years ago to help farmers by changing the structure of plants to make them more resistant to disease so that farms could produce higher yields while applying fewer pesticides. GMOs are produced mostly for commodity crops: Corn, soy, canola and sugar beet.

Recently, I had the chance to sit in while a group of Ohio food manufacturers learned about the new labeling law from Steve Armstrong of EAS Consulting.

Armstrong is a lawyer who specializes in food labeling and food-regulation compliance; until recently, he served as the chief food-law counsel for Campbell's Soup Co. Armstrong traveled to Columbus to speak at the Ohio Food Industry Summit, sponsored by the Center for Innovative Food Technology in Toledo.

JUMP

MONSANTO AND THE EPA ALLEGEDLY HID EVIDENCE LINKING ROUNDUP TO CANCER

There is growing evidence that the agricultural giant Monsanto and the EPA allegedly worked together to hide evidence which links Roundup to cancer, as a new court filing shows. Sixty people that contracted cancer have been named on behalf of the recent court filing which purports that the Environmental Protection Agency worked with Monsanto officials to hide evidence that Roundup is toxic.

Included in the court filing is evidence from an EPA scientist who worked with the agency for 30 years and specifically singles out Jess Rowland, one of the top EPA officials, for using “political conniving games with the science” in order to hand out favors to Monsanto.

The reason Rowland is being named is because this official was in charge of the assessment for glyphosate, which is the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup and other weed killers and Rowland was also responsible as the main author of a report which found that glyphosate was not deemed to be toxic. However, in correspondence, Marion Copley, a top EPA toxocologist, stated, “It is essentially certain that glyphosate causes cancer,” which came after numerous animal studies. Marion Copley’s correspondence was written on May 4, 2013.

This letter was dated after Marion Copley stopped working for the EPA in 2012, but before she passed away from breast cancer in 2014. Marion alleged that the EPA’s Jess Rowland “intimidated staff” by colluding with Monsanto to change reports in their favor. Copley also wrote that there has been ample research conducted which proves that glyphosate and Monsanto’s Roundup should be considered a “human carcinogen,” as Huffington Post reported.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, A branch of the World Health Organization, has also said that glyphosate was a carcinogen in March 2015. Monsanto, meanwhile, has gone out of their way to try to discredit the IARC and any scientific studies they have conducted or cited.

If the communication from Marion Copley is proven to be legitimate, this could have a major effect on this multi-district litigation case with Monsanto and the EPA. The plaintiffs that are involved in this lawsuit have all either contracted non-Hodgkin lymphoma or have lost someone to the disease. These plaintiffs are citing growing evidence that Monsanto was able to sell their allegedly toxic Roundup because the agricultural company has so much influence within the Office of Pesticide Program, run by the EPA.

JUMP

Related to the Above Piece

Monsanto and Bayer's Chemical Romance: Heroin, Nerve Gas and Agent Orange

The proposed remarriage of two agrochemical giants with dark histories promises more bad things.

Fifty years ago, the Monsanto and Bayer corporations were forced to separate in order to avoid violating basic antitrust regulations. U.S. courts declared that the two chemical giants, when operating together under the name Mobay, stymied market competition and comprised a monopoly that could not stand.


But that was then. Today, under a much different regulatory climate that all but rubberstamps such corporate monopolies, the Germany-based Bayer’s $66 billion offer to purchase Monsanto is being fast-tracked by U.S. regulators. The proposed mega-merger, or re-marriage, will result in nearly 30 percent of all worldwide pesticide and seed sales being controlled by the new partnership.

JUMP

Monsanto is Scrambling to Bury This Breaking Story – Don’t Let This Go Unshared!

We all know Monsanto has their fingers in all areas of the food industry, but did you know how skilled they are at burying news stories? It's pretty alarming — but we're here to tell you how we can help reverse that trend by making our voices heard!

Perhaps you've heard of glyphosate. It's an extremely, dangerous toxic chemical — found in Monsanto's Roundup. What you may not know — because of Monsanto's skill in burying stories — is that it's found in tons of American founds, and at extremely high levels!

We have to tell everyone we know, or else Monsanto will succeed in continuing to bury this story.

Recently an FDA-registered food safety lab tested a wide range of iconic American foods - and found glyphosate at crazy alarming levels.

Consider this: Glysophate is considered harmful at levels as low as 0.1 ppb - but many foods were found to contain levels more than 1,000 times greater!

Independent research links glyphosate to cancer and it has been deemed a probable human carcinogen by the World Health Organization’s team of international cancer experts.

The childhood cancer rate is steadily rising and experts say that they don’t know why. Hmm...

Research also indicates that glyphosate is an endocrine disruptor, which disrupts hormones and leads to reproductive problems, early onset puberty, obesity, diabetes, and some cancers.

When it comes to endocrine disruptors, very small exposures are the most damaging - any amount of glyphosate can do tremendous damage!

Glyphosate is also a broad-spectrum antibiotic and kills the good bacteria in your gut. Poor gut health is linked to inflammation and a whole host of diseases.

As GMOs laced with glyphosate are commonly fed to farm animals, this could very well be contributing to antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

This chemical has gone so mainstream that glyphosate has infiltrated every facet of our environment – our water, air, soil.

There are still thousands of other brands and whole foods that have not been tested for glyphosate residues, so we can’t be so sure that our own organic, non-GMO, and unprocessed food is safe.

Americans are effectively being forced to eat this poison until something is done to stop the rampant use of this chemical.

Monsanto doesn’t want the public to know these findings for obvious reasons. They have our regulatory agencies in their back pocket to make sure they can continue to make a hefty profit while poisoning the masses.

Our public agencies are allowing corporations to poison Americans for profit.

It is shameful that the American media has thus far failed to cover this breaking news, but WE HAVE THE POWER to make this information go viral.

If you really want to stop the corruption perpetuated by Monsanto and the large chemical companies – this is how we shut them down!

http://www.organicandhealthy.org

California Clears Hurdle for Cancer Warning Label on Roundup

California can require Monsanto to label its popular weed-killer Roundup as a possible cancer threat despite an insistence from the chemical giant that it poses no risk to people, a judge tentatively ruled Friday.

California would be the first state to order such labeling if it carries out the proposal.

Monsanto had sued the nation's leading agricultural state, saying California officials illegally based their decision for carrying the warnings on an international health organization based in France.

Monsanto attorney Trenton Norris argued in court Friday that the labels would have immediate financial consequences for the company. He said many consumers would see the labels and stop buying Roundup.

"It will absolutely be used in ways that will harm Monsanto," he said.

After the hearing, the firm said in a statement that it will challenge the tentative ruling.

Critics take issue with Roundup's main ingredient, glyphosate, which has no color or smell. Monsanto introduced it in 1974 as an effective way of killing weeds while leaving crops and plants intact.

It's sold in more than 160 countries, and farmers in California use it on 250 types of crops.

The chemical is not restricted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which says it has "low toxicity" and recommends people avoid entering a field for 12 hours after it has been applied.

But the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a Lyon, France-based branch of the U.N. World Health Organization, classified the chemical as a "probable human carcinogen."

Shortly afterward, the most populated U.S. state took its first step in 2015 to require the warning labels.

St. Louis-based Monsanto contends that California is delegating its authority to an unelected foreign body with no accountability to U.S. or state officials in violation of the California Constitution.

Attorneys for California consider the International Agency for Research on Cancer the "gold standard" for identifying carcinogens, and they rely on its findings along with several states, the federal government and other countries, court papers say.

Fresno County Superior Court Judge Kristi Kapetan still must issue a formal decision, which she said would come soon.

California regulators are waiting for the formal ruling before moving forward with the warnings, said Sam Delson, a spokesman for the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.

Once a chemical is added to a list of probable carcinogens, the manufacturer has a year before it must attach the label, he said.

Teri McCall believes a warning would have saved her husband, Jack, who toted a backpack of Roundup for more than 30 years to spray weeds on their 20-acre avocado and apple farm. He died of cancer in late 2015.

"I just don't think my husband would have taken that risk if he had known," said Teri McCall, one of dozens nationwide who are suing Monsanto, claiming the chemical gave them or a loved one cancer.

But farmer Paul Betancourt, who has been using Roundup for more than three decades on his almond and cotton crops, says he does not know anyone who has gotten sick from it.

"You've got to treat it with a level of respect, like anything else," he said. "Gasoline will cause cancer if you bathe in the stuff."

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/california-fights-monsanto-labels-popular-weed-killer-45082502

California Widow Sues Monsanto For Killing Her Husband

Teri McCall of Cambria, California, lost her husband of 40 years, Anthony “Jack” McCall, to terminal cancer in December 2015. For nearly 30 years on his 20-acre fruit and vegetable farm, Jack had used Monsanto’s herbicide, Roundup.

Now, Teri has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Monsanto Co., alleging that Monsanto had known for years that exposure to glyphosate—the main ingredient in the agribusiness giant’s flagship weedkiller Roundup—could cause cancer and other serious illnesses or injuries.

And she just might win.


A growing body of evidence is accumulating, which indicates that Jack’s death might, indeed, be linked to his exposure to glyphosate.

Glyphosate, which is the most widely applied pesticide worldwide, was declared as “probably carcinogenic to humans” in March of 2015 by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

Besides the “convincing evidence” the herbicide can cause cancer in lab animals, the IARC also found:

“Case-control studies of occupational exposure in the U.S.A., Canada, and Sweden reported increased risk for non-Hodgkin lymphoma that persisted after adjustments to other pesticides.”

Teri’s husband, Jack, died shortly after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The evidence linking glyphosate to cancer is continuing to mount.

California’s Environmental Protection Agency issued plans in September of 2015 to add glyphosate to the state’s list of chemicals known to cause cancer — making it the first state in the U.S to do so.

And then, just weeks ago, a team of 94 scientists co-authored a report, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, which stated:

“The most appropriate and scientifically based evaluation of the cancers reported in humans and laboratory animals as well as supportive mechanistic data is that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen.”

Glyphosate is applied to 89% of U.S. corn crop and 94% of the soybeans, as well as being used with dozens of other crops. Since the herbicide (and the genetically engineered crops that were created to withstand its use) is a core component of today’s industrial farm landscape, the results of this debate will have far reaching consequences.

The United States now uses about 280 million pounds of glyphosate per year, compared to only about 30 million pounds a year before genetically engineered crops were first commercialized 20 years ago.

Thanks to genetic engineering, we’re now literally spraying our food crops with a pesticide that, increasing numbers of scientists believe, is causing cancer.

The truth is that Jack and Teri McCall are just the tip of the iceberg. How many farmers and consumers, are being exposed to glyphosate on a daily basis? And what is real the impact of 280 million pounds of a probable carcinogen being sprayed on our croplands?

Monsanto and its spokespeople insist that glyphosate is completely safe. Some have even said you can drink it. Although, as this hilarious video illustrates, they may not actually mean it.

Jump for Video and Links

If you want to avoid eating glyphosate, the top thing you can do is to choose organically grown foods. And when you avoid GMOs, you’re also making a big difference.

What’s for Breakfast? How About Some Monsanto Weed Killer?

A study finds the world’s most widely used herbicide turning up in a bunch of morning favorites.

Just how much of Monsanto’s most popular weed killer are you eating every morning for breakfast?

In an unsettling report released Tuesday by the Alliance for Natural Health, the nonprofit advocacy group details the results of a study that shows a host of breakfast foods—from cereal to eggs to coffee creamer—contain residues of glyphosate, the chemical herbicide more commonly known by Monsanto’s trade name for it, Roundup. The report comes one year after the cancer-research arm of the World Health Organization made headlines by classifying glyphosate, which has long been regarded by U.S. regulators as posing little risk to public health, as a probable human carcinogen.

The ANH tested 24 store-bought breakfast items, including organic products, and found glyophosate residues in almost half of them. Given that glyphosate is the most widely used agrochemical on the market, sprayed on upwards of 90 percent of staple crops such as corn and soybeans, the findings might at first glance seem like a surprise that really comes as no surprise.

But what’s alarming is that glyphosate residues were found on a bunch of products that either in and of themselves or based on their primary ingredients aren’t typically associated with heavy use of the herbicide. Conventionally grown wheat, for example, which would be used to make whole-wheat bread, isn’t a crop on which glyphosate is often heavily applied, and you’d certainly expect organic multigrain bagels to be free of the chemical. Yet both were shown to have traces of the herbicide. Furthermore, the ANH analysis found glyphosate in organic dairy-based coffee creamer and eggs—and the amount detected in cage-free organic eggs actually exceeded the federal government’s tolerance levels for the chemical. Overall, the results further underscore the out-of-control pervasiveness of glyphosate across the American farmscape.

JUMP for more

Monsanto’s Roundup Kills and Damages More than Weeds

Protests against Monsanto’s Roundup, with its poisonous, weed-killing glyphosate, have spread around the globe. An arm of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a probable cause of cancer in 2015. California’s Environmental Protection Agency (CA EPA) recently decided to label it as such.

Environmental groups and activists in Northern California, a region known for its wines, advocate a moratorium on this herbicide as health concerns mount. Roundup is the world’s most widely used pesticide.

Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, was the focus of a January 28 informational event. It was initiated by the Watertrough Childrens Alliance as a fundraiser for a lawsuit against winemaker Paul Hobbs for converting an apple orchard into a vineyard adjacent to schools, thus putting the health of around 500 children at risk by spraying Roundup. The Sierra Club, Sonoma Group, co-sponsored the evening.

Sebastopol Mayor Sarah Glade Gurney welcomed a panel of three experts and around 60 people from Sonoma and Napa counties attended and moderated an active discussion. Attorney Jonathan Evans of the Tucson, Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity, organizer Ella Teevan of the Washington, D.C.-based Food and Water Watch (FWW), and former Petaluma Vice-Mayor and City Council member Tiffany Renee spoke.

Monsanto also makes Roundup Ready, which are Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). “93% of soy beans and 80% of corn in the U.S. are grown with Monsanto GMO seeds,” reported Teevan. “Food and Water Watch wants a moratorium on more GMOs and their labeling.”

“Our food system and how we interact with our environment is broken. Instead of serving people, profit is served. We need to fix our food system,” Teevan added.

“Glyphosate has become a pervasive presence in the environment. 65% of water in some countries has traces of it,” said Evans. “Exposure can create a number of problems, including liver and kidney damage. It can even change ones DNA. Our goal is to protect health and keep these products out of the market.”

“After the CA EPA decision to label Roundup, Monsanto filed a lawsuit against them. They claimed that their First Amendment rights to free speech were being violated,” Evans reported.

“BECOME EDUCATED CONSUMERS”

“We need to become educated consumers and not buy these products. We need to empower elected officials to act, Evans suggested. “We need to get involved in grassroots actions and push for a just food system,” added Teevan. “Become active participants in democracy.”

“The California city of Richmond banned all pesticide a year ago,” reported Renée. “We advocate such a ban in Petaluma, which must include neonicotinoids. Portland, Oregon has banned neonicotinoids, systemic pesticides that damage bees. Glyphosate is a public health threat. The many costs are suffered by humans, animals, and plants. The benefits are only to a few humans,” she added.

“The highest use of glyphosate in Sonoma County is for winegrapes, yet non-toxic alternatives are available,” said Evans. “Monsanto is a bad actor. They sue farmers when GMO seeds blow onto their lands from neighbors,” he said.

The Huffington Post’s January 26 article “8 Reasons to Avoid Doing Business with Monsanto,” by business editor Alexander C. Kaufman, reports that the giant bioengineering firm has been dubbed “the world’s ‘most evil corporation.’”

Mounting criticism of Monsanto’s “litigious, secretive, and combative” practices have made it financially vulnerable, asserts Kaufman. It plans to cut 3,600 jobs, which would be 16% of its global workforce. Roundup and Roundup Ready constitute 90% of Monsanto’s revenue. “Several countries, cities, and retail chains worldwide have banned or severely limited glyphosate products,” notes Kaufman.

“Hundreds of Moms Across America groups exist nationwide,” he adds, and “more than 2 million people in 52 countries internationally took to the streets to ‘March Against Monsanto.’”

Monsanto is desperately seeking a merger, according to the January 25 issue of GMWatch from the United Kingdom (www.gmwatch.org). One of their goals seems to be to abandon their tarnished name.

CITIZENS SPEAK UP

When Mayor Gurney opened the discussion to the crowd, more than a dozen people promptly came to the microphone. The first speaker quoted a study of seven wines from Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake counties conducted by the Biochemical Working Group in Ukiah. It documented that traces of glyphosate exceeding EPA safe levels were found in all of them. People are drinking Roundup in their wine. Glyphosate has been banned in Europe.

“We’re tired of our children and babies being damaged by Roundup. We need to mandate a real school protection zone,” declared Janus Matthes of Wine and Water Watch (www.winewaterwatch.org). Instead, “the vineyards are being protected,” she added.

“It is so easy to use Roundup. The breads that you eat that are not organic have glyphosate in them,” noted geologist Jane Nielson, Ph.D.

“Roundup is an antibiotic that kills gut bacteria,” said Amy Martenson of Label GMOs Napa County. She added that “we are having problems with the vineyards. Napa County has the highest rate of cancer in California.”

“We want a GMO free zone up and down the coast. Most counties on the North Coast have prohibited growing GMO crops,” explained Pam Gentry of Citizens for Healthy Farms and Families. They are collecting signatures to place an initiative on this year’s ballot that would ban growing genetically engineered crops in Sonoma County

Monsanto controls an area in South America larger than California called “soybean republic.” Jim Stoops noted, “Sixty doctors have complained about higher cancer rates in that area.”

Meanwhile, GM Watch reported the following: “Monsanto’s attempts to build its GMO seed plant in Argentina have met with three years of unflinching popular opposition. Protesters received an eviction notice, but local activists mobilized to strengthen the blockade, and a prosecutor suspended the order. The demand was, ‘Monsanto, get out of Latin America!’

Back in the U.S., GM Watch reports the following: “Campbell Soup Company said it supports the enactment of federal legislation for a single mandatory labeling standard for GM foods. The company said, ‘Printing a clear and simple statement on the label is the best solution for consumers and for Campbell.’ Campbell says its prices will not increase as a result of labeling.”

The article “Half of All Children Will Be Autistic by 2025” appears in the December 23, 2014, newsletter of the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), with the subtitle “Warns Senior Research Scientist at MIT.”

MIT’s Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., “noted that the side effects of autism closely mimic those of glyphosate toxicity. Children with autism have biomarkers indicative of excessive glyphosate, including zinc and iron deficiency, low serum sulfate, seizures, and mitochondrial disorder.”

ANH describes “the revolving door between Monsanto and the federal government, with agency officials becoming high-paying executives—and vice versa! Money, power, prestige: it’s all there. Monsanto and the USDA scratch each others’ backs.”

Food and Water Watch’s booklet Monsanto: A Corporate Profile, further documents this: “Monsanto’s board members have worked for the EPA, advised the U.S. Department of Agriculture and served on President Obama’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations.”

Renee concluded that “we need activism. Eat locally, hopefully organic or biodynamic. Grow part of your own food.”

link

Our War of Shame (a letter to the editor)

To the Editor

Since our elected U.S. Legislators, Congress and Senate do not to seem to care about our Vietnam War Veterans who are sick from the herbicide Agent Orange Dioxin, I can say I am not proud of our government in the manner in which our Veterans are treated. However, we did our job and did not question our orders. We believed the Vietnam War was to free a country from communistic oppression. This is what America is about, freedom.

Freedom is not free; it is costly in lives and dollars. There is no dollar amount I know of that can replace a life. The real cost are those who died on both sides. The dollars mean nothing. Where the dollars do come into play are the dollars to care for those who came home broken and sick and those who came home in a box.

How do we get these dollars from the American taxpayer? Congress sets dollar amounts to pay for war, to pay for those who come home in a box, plus the wounded. What about those who are sick and broken? Now we have a new set of rules for those who fought the war and lived. Legislative bills must be introduced and dollar amounts agreed on to pay for the needs of the sick and broken who came home alive. It can take years and more legislation. In the meantime, these sick and broken war veterans die off one by one with no resolve from our government who sent them to war. Many get little to no health care and no compensation. A perfect example is the Vietnam War, our War of Shame.

I have often wondered, what if our Legislators were sent to war and had to defend themselves just like our troops on land, sailors at sea and airmen in the sky? A novel thought indeed!

John Bury, U.S. Navy, retired, Vietnam War Veteran Media

http://www.southphillyreview.com/opinion/Our_war_of_shame-366855621.html

Campbell's Decision to Label GMOs Destroys Monsanto's Main Argument Against Labeling

Monsanto claims food manufacturers will pass the cost of mandatory GMO labeling on to consumers. Campbell's says otherwise.

Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) have long defended their die-hard positions against mandatory GMO labeling laws, often by feigning concern about the financial impact labeling laws would have on consumers. Labeling will be costly for manufacturers, who will pass those costs on to consumers, they argue (despite studies suggesting otherwise). As if concern for consumers’ wallets had anything to do with Big Food’s determination to deceive.

So the first question we asked the Campbell Soup Co. following the announcement that Campbell's will label all of its products that contain GMOs, was, will you charge more for these products after you label them?


In an email to OCA, company spokesman Tom Hushen wrote, “To be clear, there will be no price increase as a result of Vermont or national GMO labeling for Campbell products.”

JUMP

Monsanto to be Finally Put on Trial for Crimes Against Humanity

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA), IFOAM International Organics, Navdanya, Regeneration International (RI), and Millions Against Monsanto, joined by dozens of global food, farming and environmental justice groups announced today that they will put Monsanto MON (NYSE), a US-based transnational corporation, on trial for crimes against nature and humanity, and ecocide, in The Hague, Netherlands, next year on World Food Day, October 16, 2016.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century according to the groups, Monsanto has developed a steady stream of highly toxic products which have permanently damaged the environment and caused illness or death for thousands of people.

These products include:

• PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl), one of the 12 Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP) that affect human and animal fertility;

• 2,4,5 T (2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid), a dioxin-containing component of the defoliant, Agent Orange, which was used by the US Army during the Vietnam War and continues to cause birth defects and cancer;

• Lasso, an herbicide that is now banned in Europe;

JUMP

Pesticide Peddler Monsanto Wins 2015 Rubber Dodo Award

TUCSON, Ariz.— Monsanto, producer and seller of Roundup and its toxic active ingredient glyphosate, is the recipient of the Center for Biological Diversity’s 2015 Rubber Dodo Award, given annually to those who have done the most to destroy wild places, species and biological diversity. Glyphosate is now used in more than 160 countries, and more than 1.4 billion pounds are applied each year. It has been classified as a “probable human carcinogen” by the World Health Organization and its heavy use, particularly on herbicide-resistant GMO crops, also developed by Monsanto, is considered a leading cause of the recent, drastic 80 percent decline in monarch butterflies.

Previous Rubber Dodo winners include U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services (2014), the Koch brothers (2013), climate denier James Inhofe (2012), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (2011), former BP CEO Tony Hayward (2010), massive land speculator Michael Winer (2009), Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (2008) and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne (2007).

“The science is increasingly clear that glyphosate is damaging wildlife and putting people at serious risk, yet Monsanto continues to aggressively peddle the stuff to farmers and really any customer it can find,” said Kierán Suckling, the Center’s executive director. “It’s hard to fathom the depth of the damage that glyphosate is doing, but its toxic legacy will live on for generations, whether it’s through threatening monarchs with extinction or a heightened risk of cancer for people where it’s spread.”

Earlier this week the Center released an analysis that found more than half of the glyphosate sprayed in California is applied in the state’s eight most impoverished counties, where the populations are predominantly Hispanic or Latino.

“Those sitting in Monsanto’s boardrooms and corporate offices won’t pay the price for this dangerous pesticide. It’s going to be people on the ground where it’s sprayed,” Suckling said. “This kind of callous pursuit of profits is at the core of what’s driving the loss of wildlife and diversity on a massive scale around the globe.”

More than 15,000 people cast their votes in this year’s Rubber Dodo contest. Other official nominees were Volkswagen, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Exxon and notorious Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy.

Background on the Dodo

In 1598 Dutch sailors landing on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius discovered a flightless, 3-foot-tall, extraordinarily friendly bird. Its original scientific name was Didus ineptus. (Contemporary scientists use the less defamatory Raphus cucullatus.) To the rest of the world, it’s the dodo — possibly the most famous extinct species on Earth after the dinosaurs. It evolved over millions of years with no natural predators and eventually lost the ability to fly, becoming a land-based consumer of fruits, nuts and berries. Having never known predators, it showed no fear of humans or the menagerie of animals accompanying them to Mauritius.

Its trusting nature led to its rapid extinction. By 1681 the dodo had vanished, hunted and outcompeted by humans, dogs, cats, rats, macaques and pigs. Humans logged its forest cover while pigs uprooted and ate much of the understory vegetation.

The origin of the name dodo is unclear. It likely came from the Dutch word dodoor, meaning “sluggard,” the Portuguese word doudo, meaning “fool” or “crazy,” or the Dutch word dodaars meaning “plump-arse” (that nation’s name for the little grebe).

The dodo’s reputation as a foolish, ungainly bird derives in part from its friendly naiveté and the very plump captives that were taken on tour across Europe. The animal’s reputation was cemented with the 1865 publication of Lewis Carroll’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Based on skeleton reconstructions and the discovery of early drawings, scientists now believe that the dodo was a much sleeker animal than commonly portrayed. The rotund European exhibitions were likely produced by overfeeding captive birds.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 900,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

Veteran calls himself an 'Agent Orange warrior'

After the war, Vietnam veteran Steve Dudich joined the Salvation Army as a lieutenant where he served impoverished neighborhoods in the Bay Area.

"Were you in Vietnam?"

That’s a haunting question Steve Dudich, of Arroyo Grande, has heard more times than he cares to remember.

Doctors asked when they detected his daughter had a rare cancer of the forehead, when his wife miscarried a child and when he developed ischemic heart disease, forcing his heart to beat 250 beats per minute, more than twice as fast as it should be beating.

A Serbian whose family fled to America, Dudich joined the Marines at 16 years old (his father, he said, forged his mother’s signature on the recruitment paperwork). As soon as he caught wind that the Russians were transporting missiles to Cuba, he vowed he would do whatever he could to fight communism.

He never imagined it would lead him into battle against his own government.

“I’ve been an Agent Orange warrior ever since I was first in (the) country. I was burned bad by that stuff,” Dudich said. “Agent Orange has destroyed my life. It has harmed my children, it has harmed my first wife … what they have done to us and put us through when we came home, there’s no excuse for what this government did.”

U.S. forces sprayed more than 19 million gallons of the herbicide throughout Vietnam between 1961 and 1972, using the powerful acid to cut down dense foliage enemies used for cover.

Dudich sprinted through a barrage of bamboo doused in Agent Orange. The splinters penetrated his skin, injecting the herbicide into his body hundreds of times. The pain became overwhelming. He stripped down to his skivvies.

“People thought I’d gone crazy. I looked like I’d been dipped in a vat of acid,” Dudich said. “That’s where I think I got my worst contamination.”

The effects are lasting.

He developed outbreaks of rashes and blisters throughout his body, repulsing his young daughters.

“They were scared of me," Dudich said. "My eyes would have blisters, my face would have blisters. I’d stay in my room and not come out.”

His daughters harbor resentment, Dudich said. Although not physically visible, they sustain secondary exposure to Agent Orange.

One of his daughters said she considers herself “tweaked.”

Dudich has spent his life advocating for veterans rights.

Before his exposure to the herbicide, Dudich was a brash soldier. He carried a Ruger Blackhawk 357 revolver and quick drew it like a cowboy. He would wear a white T-shirt instead of Army camouflage and a soft cover instead of hard helmet.

The bright target would flush out snipers, and as soon as Dudich found out where they were firing from, he’d call in an airstrike.

“I had every attitude at my young age that I could have. I’m ghetto born and bred, man.”

Years after the war, Dudich’s commanding officers offered to promote him to captain with retroactive pay, and award him the Navy Cross. He turned them down.

“What’s that do for me?” Dudich asked.

Eventually, Dudich would be commissioned as an officer, however. He joined the Salvation Army as a lieutenant where he served impoverished neighborhoods in the Bay Area.

“Never have I regretted going into the service,” Dudich said. “I learned so much through the war. Going forward, I can see the things other people just can’t see.”

LINK

Monsanto’s GMO Herbicide Doubles Cancer Risk

Glyphosate – the main ingredient in Monsanto’s widely used herbicide Roundup – is a colorless, odorless chemical and might seem innocuous to those who spray it on crops. But in the past few months the truth has come out: This chemical can be dangerous to farmers who are exposed to it and to people living close to farming areas.

In fact, glyphosate has been found to double the risk of one blood cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and increase the risk of a related cancer, multiple myeloma. (Multiple myeloma was recently classified as a sub-type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but they used to be considered distinct diseases.)

In a report released in late July, the world’s leading cancer experts at the International Agency for Research on Cancer shed new light on the cancer-causing properties of glyphosate. The report, which took an in-depth look at the latest research, concluded that glyphosate is definitely carcinogenic to animals in laboratory studies and that human exposure is linked to a higher risk of developing blood cancers such as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The report confirmed the findings of the Agency’s previous meta-analysis, which combined the results of several studies and concluded that occupational exposure to glyphosate doubles the risk of developing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The more recent report also highlighted studies that found that farm workers’ glyphosate exposure increases their risk of multiple myeloma by 70 to 100 percent.

It’s no wonder, then, that two farmers have filed lawsuits against Monsanto charging that they had been exposed them to a chemical that is “unreasonably dangerous.” Bottles of Roundup carry no warning that it is a probable human carcinogen.

In response to the International Agency’s recent findings, California has moved to add glyphosate to the state’s list of known carcinogens. This would require that Roundup bottles come with some sort of label warning of its dangers.

And farm workers aren’t the only ones exposed to the herbicide. Researchers have found glyphosate residues in food as well. The cancer research agency points out that a 2007 study found glyphosate residues on six of eight tofu samples made from Brazilian soybeans. Soybeans are the largest genetically modified crop produced globally and account for about half of the total area dedicated to growing GMO crops.

It’s time to label genetically modified food and let consumers decide whether they want to support an agricultural system that exposes farmers ­– and potentially themselves – to unreasonable risks.

Plenty of Links HERE

Risk of MGUS, multiple myeloma greater in Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange

Vietnam veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange appear to have an increased risk for developing monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, a precursor to multiple myeloma, according to results of a prospective study.

Researchers evaluated stored blood samples from U.S. Air Force personnel and found those who conducted Vietnam War missions that involved ‘Agent Orange’ herbicide had a more than twofold greater risk for developing monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS).

“Multiple myeloma has been classified as exhibiting ‘limited or suggestive evidence’ of an association with herbicides in Vietnam War veterans,” Ola Landgren, MD, PhD, chief of myeloma service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and colleagues wrote. “Occupational studies have shown that other pesticides (insecticides, herbicides, fungicides) are associated with excess risk of multiple myeloma and its precursor state MGUS; however, to our knowledge, no [previous] studies have uncovered such an association in Vietnam War veterans.”

Landgren and colleagues conducted this prospective cohort study to determine the prevalence of MGUS among Operation Ranch Hand veterans compared to a control population and to assess the risk of MGUS in relation to the Agent Orange contaminant and human carcinogen 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD).

Operation Ranch Hand was part of a U.S. military strategy from 1962 to 1971 that involved spraying approximately 20 million gallons of herbicides over rural areas of South Vietnam in an attempt to deprive the Viet Cong of food and vegetation cover.

Researchers evaluated data from the Air Force Health Study, which collected and stored serum samples and relevant exposure data. A follow-up examination of the Air Force Health Study was performed in 2002.

Landgren and colleagues tested all of the specimens in 2013 without knowledge of the exposure status. Their analysis included data from 958 male veterans, 479 of whom were part of Operation Ranch Hand and 479 comparison veterans who did not fly on those missions. All cases and controls had similar demographics, medical histories and lifestyle characteristics.

The prevalence of MGUS was 7.1% in Ranch Hand veterans compared with 3.1% in the control group. This equated to a 2.4-fold increased risk for MGUS in the Ranch Hand veterans after adjusting for age, race, BMI and the time of blood draw for TCDD measurement in 2002 compared to the control cohort (adjusted OR = 2.37; 95% CI, 1.27-4.44).

Further, the risk for MGUS was significantly greater among veterans aged younger than 70 years (OR = 3.4; 95% CI, 1.46-8.13).

The researchers acknowledged several study limitations. There were no objective measurements of exposure to phenoxy herbicides, so researchers used cohort status as a surrogate. Also, the first TCDD measures weren’t taken until 1987 and — with 25 years between exposure and measurement — the researchers could not account for individual variations in the whole-body elimination of TCDD.

A bias may also have been introduced because a greater proportion of Ranch Hand veterans had a TCDD level measured in 1987 than controls (86.6% vs. 74.1%).

http://www.healio.com/hematology-oncology/hematology/news/online/%7Bc2fb1c3b-a372-49af-a64f-58a8c66ee3f0%7D/risk-of-mgus-multiple-myeloma-greater-in-vietnam-veterans-exposed-to-agent-orange

Monsanto hid Roundup’s Cancer Risk According to California Lawsuit

Not that it is a stranger to product liability considering it was the primary maker of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, but St. Louis-based chemical giant Monsanto may be facing a plethora of class-action lawsuits over one of its flagship products, Roundup weed killer. In March, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the herbicide in Roundup, glyphosate, a “probable human carcinogen.” The declaration was followed-up by several countries banning or severely restricting the use of glyphosate, including the Netherlands, Bermuda, and Sri Lanka, with France banning it for use in gardens in June. Glyphosate is the world’s most common herbicide, with the most recent data from the U.S. Geological Survey estimating that 280 million pounds of it was used in the U.S. in 2012. Out of the 130 countries that still permit the product; the U.S. is by far the Monsanto’s largest consumer with over 20 percent of global sales.  That may change, however, as California has followed the WHO’s lead earlier in the month. The state’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) issued a “notice of intent” that it will also list glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, which is required by the state’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 for any product that the WHO’s cancer division lists as a carcinogen. The OEHHA classification requires companies with 10 or more employees in the state to provide a “clear and reasonable warning” of any product on the list of its dangers.

JUMP