Source: RT
July 17, 2017
Mike then speaks to Farron Cousins, Executive Editor of The Trial Lawyer Magazine, about California’s battle against Monsanto’s cancer causing ingredient in Roundup.
Tag: Monsanto
WIN! California to List Glyphosate as a Carcinogen
Source: NaturalSociety.com
Julie Fidler
June 29, 2017
California will add glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s blockbuster herbicide RoundUp, to its list of chemicals known to cause cancer, effective July 7, 2017. [1]
Monsanto promises to fight the listing, required under state law Proposition 65, calling the decision “unwarranted on the basis of science and the law.”
The seeds and chemical company unsuccessfully tried to block the listing in trial court and requests for stay were denied by a state appellate court and the state’s Supreme Court. Monsanto has appealed the trial court decision.
Monsanto is entrenched in legal problems at the moment, including hundreds of lawsuits filed by people who allege glyphosate caused them cancer. The biotech giant and its products have always been controversial, but the company’s problems snowballed after the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) declared the chemical “probably carcinogenic” to humans.
In addition, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) inspector general is currently investigating whether a former staffer colluded with Monsanto to “kill” a study linking glyphosate to cancer.
Scott Partridge, Monsanto’s vice president of global strategy, said:
“This is not the final step in the process, and it has no bearing on the merits of the case. We will continue to aggressively challenge this improper decision.”
Glyphosate’s designation as a carcinogen under Proposition 65 means that companies selling the weed-killing chemical in California would be required to add warning labels to packaging. Additionally, warnings will need to be issued if glyphosate is sprayed at levels deemed harmful by regulators. The majority of glyphosate applicators are landscapers, golf courses, orchards, vineyards, and farms.
Monsanto and other glyphosate manufacturers will have about a year from the listing date to add the warnings to their products or pull them from the market if it is unsuccessful in challenging the decision.
It’s not clear whether RoundUp will receive a warning label. State regulators must still decide if the name brand weed killer contains high enough levels of glyphosate to endanger human health. More than 1,300 public comments have flooded state regulators on the matter. [2]
Sam Delson, a spokesman for California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), said:
“We can’t say for sure. We’re reviewing those comments.”
Glyphosate, an odorless, colorless chemical, was introduced by Monsanto in 1974, and skyrocketed in popularity for its ability to kill weeds without harming other plants. It is sold in 160 countries, and it is applied to 250 types of crops in California alone.
The fight to protect Californians from toxic substances like glyphosate is far from over, says Michael Baum, an attorney who represents more than 300 people who have filed suit against Monsanto, claiming glyphosate caused a loved one to get sick or die due to exposure to RoundUp.
Nathan Donley, a former cancer researcher and senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, in an emailed statement, echoed similar sentiments. He said:
“California’s decision makes it the national leader in protecting people from cancer-causing pesticides. The U.S. EPA now needs to step up and acknowledge that the world’s most transparent and science-based assessment has linked glyphosate to cancer.” [3]
Sources:
[1] Reuters
[2] ABC News
[3] Newsweek
Institute for Responsible Technology
Monsanto shill proclaims “there is no ‘right to know’ if a food is Genetically Modified [GMO] considering that GMOs are practically impossible to define”
Source: NaturalNews.com
Isabelle Z
June 16, 2017
Life is full of frustrations, from rush hour traffic to overly complex tax codes. However, if you’re Forbes contributor Kavin Senapathy, even the mere act of going to the grocery store is torture. It’s not the bad music they play or a shortage of cashiers that makes this mundane task so annoying for her – it’s Non-GMO Project Verified Labels.
Yes, you read that correctly: This woman claims these Non-GMO labels are “ruining” her shopping experience. They are just a few words slapped onto food packaging with an image of an unassuming-looking butterfly, yet somehow they are turning her trips to the supermarket into an unbearable undertaking.
What’s even more outrageous, this easily frustrated individual says that people do not have a “right to know” if food is GMO because she feels that GMOs are essentially “impossible to define.” She also says these labels don’t tell us anything meaningful. That’s funny; GMOs are a huge topic of debate throughout the world and everyone on both sides seems to know exactly what people are referring to when they use the term.
She might not want to know if her food contains GMOs, but plenty of other people certainly do. Why else would 3,000 brands go to the trouble of having 43,000 products verified by them? Granted, the label is not quite the same as an organic certification, but it does give peace of mind that a company has avoided GMOs in all aspects of food production. It doesn’t consider whether or not a product was exposed to chemical fertilizers or other synthetic substances like the USDA organic label does, but it’s still a good mark to look out for when deciding between two products that otherwise appear to be similar.
We don’t have a right to know?
Consumers do indeed have a right to know what the products they are buying contain. If you don’t care whether you consume GMOs or not, that’s your right. In that case, don’t look for the label, buy whatever you want, go home and eat it and roll the dice with your health. There is no reason to get worked up over a label on packaging – unless, of course, you are being paid to make a point about it.
She’s taking this really hard for someone who ostensibly has no vested interest in the matter. A quick scroll through some of the author’s past articles for Forbes, however, brings up an interesting and wholly unsurprising trend: She’s quite fond of defending Monsanto.
One of her articles, “Monsanto Found Guilty in Fake Trial that Distracted from Real Problems”, calls the firm a “symbolic scapegoat.” Another piece, “The Anti-Vaccine and Anti-GMO Movements Are Inextricably Linked and Cause Preventable Suffering” tries to cast people who are against dangerous practices like eating food doused in carcinogenic herbicides in a negative light. She also wrote an article telling America to “break up with Dr. Oz,” a vocal GMO critic with a huge television audience.
More Monsanto propaganda
What do all of these pieces have in common? Senapathy’s articles all read like pro-GMO propaganda. In fact, it’s not out of the question that Monsanto itself penned the pieces, as we found out is common practice at the world’s most-hated firm. Internal emails released in a court case showed that staffers hire ghost writers to craft stories inaccurately portraying its products as safe and then pay scientists to sign off on them.
They also have a team of trolls who are paid to find any negative mentions of their products online and post some fake science in their defense. Therefore, it would not be surprising at all if they were enlisting writers like Senapathy to promote their business by discouraging people from seeking such labels.
Of course, none of this should come as any surprise from Forbes, a publication that published attack pieces by unethical individuals like PR operative Jon Entine against researchers who have the audacity to try to warn the public about GMO dangers. We see you, Forbes, and we know what you’re trying to do.
Sources:
Despite links to cancer, the EU proposes a 10-year license renewal for key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup
Source: NaturalNews.com
Amy Goodrich
June 7, 2017
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” which is the second-highest classification for substances that can cause cancer. Glyphosate is the main ingredient of Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Roundup.
Instead of protecting public health and removing it from their products, Monsanto hired an army of fraudulent scientists and industry lobbyists to push their agenda. Backed up by the government and mainstream media, fake stories flooded the internet to cast doubts on the cancer-causing properties associated with glyphosate, allowing Monsanto to continue selling their toxic products.
Last July, the European Union (EU) granted an 18-month extension of glyphosate’s approval after a proposal for a full license renewal met opposition from member states and campaign groups. Despite the strong opposition from environmental groups, a new study by the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) has reopened the negotiations with EU nations over renewing the license for glyphosate, Reuters reported.
After Europe forced a delay in the decision to renew the license of glyphosate for commercial use, the European Commission is now proposing to extend its use by 10 years. According to the EU body, which regulates chemicals and biocides, glyphosate should not be classified as a cancer-causing substance.
After taking the latest state of scientific research into account, a spokeswoman for the Commission said that they will start to “work with the Member States to find a solution that enjoys the largest possible support.”
Doubts over glyphosate’s safety remain
In 2015, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose carcinogenic or mutagenic properties and has no toxic effect on fertility, reproduction, or embryonic development.
As reported by Reuters, the ECHA study has been welcomed by the EFSA and lobby groups for farmers who use glyphosate-containing products on their fields. No date has been set for the start of the discussions between member states, so there is still hope Europe will maintain its strict safety standards and ban this health damaging chemical from its lawns and fields.
Bart Staes, a Green Party group member of the European Parliament, said that it makes no sense at all to ignore the wide range of risks associated to glyphosate. Despite the clear link between glyphosate and cancer, the decision to seek a 10-year rather than a long-term approval was criticized by glyphosate opponents such as the European Crop Protection group. They called the decision “short-sighted,” claiming it pandered to activists.
Will Europe fall for the bad science practices of the agricultural industry and fake media reports? Or will it make the right decision, putting people before profit? Only time will tell. Since glyphosate was registered in over 130 countries as one of the world’s most heavily used weed killers in 2010, Monsanto will not give up its biggest money-generating product without putting up a big fight. According to analysts, Monsanto is looking at a loss of up to $100 million if Europe bans the use of glyphosate.
Stay informed about the real science behind glyphosate and learn the undeniable truth about the risks associated with this widely used herbicide at Glyphosate.news.
Sources:
Monsanto quietly announces they are investing heavily in gene editing
Source: NaturalNews.com
Vicki Batts
June 2, 2017
Is anyone surprised that Monsanto is moving on from “conventional” genetically modified organisms to gene editing? It seems that the world’s most evil corporation is convinced that the new gene editing technology that’s been taking the globe by storm will somehow ease consumer concerns about eating GMOs.
Whether or not the difference between the two is substantial enough to assuage the many fundamental issues that surround GMO seeds, which extend far beyond just concerns about the effects of consumption, has yet to be seen. Personally, this writer feels that the alleged differences between “genetically modified” and “gene-edited” are not going to be very moving.
Dr. Robert Fraley, Monsanto’s chief technology officer, recently told Fox Business, “I see gene editing very differently [than GMOs] because it’s being used today broadly by pharmaceutical, agricultural companies, universities and hundreds of startup companies — and I think there is broad support for this science and I think that is going to make a big difference.”
Supposedly, the key difference between GMOs and “gene-edited crops” is that while GMOs rely on genes from different species (resulting in transgenic organisms), these gene-edited versions will be “generated through precise editing of an organism’s native genome,” as Business Insider explains.
Monsanto has recently announced that they would be investing heavily into new gene editing technology, known as CRISPR/Cas-9, which is a gene editing technique that essentially allows scientists to select, snip and replace certain genetic components. It’s essentially a genetic “find and replace” tool — but there are many questions about its safety.
This technology purportedly allows scientists to manipulate a plant’s DNA without having to pull foreign DNA from other species, like current GMOs. However, you may recall that this same CRISPR-Cas9 technology was used to create human-pig embryos — which are, obviously, transgenic organisms.
The use of CRISPR-Cas9 technology in crops, therefore, would not implicitly guarantee that any creations derived from it would be free of foreign DNA. The potential for transgenic creations is absolutely still quite real.
Fraley says that the CRISPR technology allows them to precisely edit a gene without having to replace it entirely. However, there will still likely be concerns about where the replacement parts for snipped genes are coming from. According to Fraley, we can expect to see the first gene-edited creations on the market within the next five years.
Megan Westgate, the executive director of Non-GMO Project, explained to Fox Business, “While these new technologies are touted to be more precise than older genetic engineering technologies, it is widely accepted in the scientific community that there can be ‘off target’ effects to the genome when the technologies are utilized. GMOs, including the products of these new technologies, have not been adequately tested—no long-term feeding studies have been conducted—and people are starting to connect these experimental technologies to health concerns.”
Fraley, like other GMO proponents, claims that the skepticism of GMOs is due to the fact that Monsanto failed to educate people about the “science” of GMOs early on. And of course, by education he means “brain-washing.” They didn’t realize that the public would be smart enough to ask pertinent questions not just about the safety of GMOs, but everything that tends to come along with them: Pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers,and monocrop farming techniques — all of which can be harmful to the environment.
Claiming that there are “vast” differences between “genetically modified” and “gene-edited” crops could be seen as an exercise in semantics. The fact of the matter is that many people feel strongly about not eating food that has been modified in a lab, by humans who think they know what they’re doing. This is not likely to change just because a new label has been slapped on it.
Regardless of how you feel about genetically modified organisms, or their new “edited” counterparts, the fact remains that every person should have the right to choose what kind of food they want to consume — and the call to label these new “gene-edited” foods needs to begin before they hit the shelves.
Sources:
Thousands march worldwide against the world’s most hated company, Monsanto
Source: NaturalNews.com
Isabelle Z.
May 26, 2017
How can you tell if a company is truly evil? If actively covering up the fact that their highly profitable products cause cancer wasn’t your first clue, the knowledge that thousands of people around the world stage protests against them every year should illustrate the extent of their depravity quite nicely.
Of course, you might not have heard much about the 6th International March Against Monsanto, which was held on May 20, because the mainstream media simply does not cover it. The same outlets that are all too happy to show up when even small protests are held against Trump are conspicuously absent when people take to the streets in more than 200 cities across six continents to draw attention to a company that has caused irreparable harm to our planet and the life on it.
Why are they the world’s most hated company? Let’s count the ways. Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide contains the chemical glyphosate, which the World Health Organization labeled a “probable carcinogen.” It is so pervasive that it’s been found in rain samples, vaccines, baby formula, prenatal vitamins, breast milk and around 90 percent of our conventional food supply.
It’s now at the center of a slew of lawsuits that were filed by cancer patients or their loved ones, and it has also been linked to infertility and birth defects. It is also impacting the environment, leading to mass die-offs of butterflies and bees and polluting soil, water and air. Its use has risen 16-fold since GMO crops were introduced in the mid-90s, and it earned Monsanto nearly $4.76 billion in sales in 2015.
Taking evil to new heights
Promoting and selling a product to the public that you know is dangerous is bad enough, but the way that Monsanto has conducted itself in its dealings with the government, regulators, researchers, and the public takes their nefariousness to another level entirely.
Monsanto colluded with the EPA to cover up Roundup’s toxicity, resorting to such abhorrent measures as threatening and bullying scientists, smearing journalists who dare speak out against them, writing favorable research studies and paying scientists to sign off on them, and hiring a crew of trolls to search every corner of the internet – including people’s personal social media pages – for negative mentions of their products and counter them with false science. It’s easy to see why people all around the world from all walks of life are so riled up.
The Twitter hashtag #MarchAgainstMonsanto was flooded with pictures of peaceful protests around the planet. Around 1,500 people showed up in Basel, Switzerland, while 300 people took to the streets in Lyon, France. Protestors in Bordeaux, France held signs that said: “With nature, not against it.”
A crowd marched near Monsanto’s office in Buenos Aires, while demonstrators shouted anti-Monsanto sentiments in Ghana. People in cities from Lisbon and Miami to San Antonio and London voiced their concerns about the firm. Large demonstrations in Montreal and Toronto prompted a Monsanto Canada public affairs director to defend the firm on Twitter, where she quite predictably claimed there is no scientific proof that glyphosate causes cancer.
The message in all these places was the same regardless of location and language: Buy organic and local, or better yet, grow your own food. Eating food with an unknown origin is simply not worth the risk. Be sure to express your outrage over Monsanto by joining in next year’s march!
Sources:
Monsanto & EPA: toxic bedfellows
Source: RT
May 18, 2017
More than 700 lawsuits have been filed against Monsanto claiming that their popular weed-killer, ‘Roundup,’ is carcinogenic. The lawsuits bring attention to bogus studies and apparent collusion between Monsanto and the EPA, further damaging the credibility of the already embattled agency. RT America’s Manila Chan has the details. Then, Mike Papantonio, host of “America’s Lawyer,” joins “News with Ed” to offer his legal expertise and insights.
Monsanto Employing Troll Army To Silence Online Dissent?
Source: CorbettReport
James Corbett
May 15, 2017
New court documents allege that Monsanto is employing an army of internet trolls to literally “Let Nothing Go”–no article, no comment, no social media post is to be left unanswered by these third party proxies. Find out about the court case from which these documents have emerged, the history and context of the accusations, and what it all means in today’s thought for the day.
SHOW NOTES:
Monsanto Accused of Hiring Army of Trolls to Silence Online Dissent – Court Papers
Plaintiff Motion in court case – April 24, 2017
Internal Monsanto emails related to case
Monsatan On Trial For Roundup Cancer
Project Censored award for Corbett Report on Monsanto
Monsanto funneled money to front groups to attack anti-GMO activists like the Health Ranger, court documents reveal
Source: NaturalNews.com
Vicki Batts
May 7, 2017
Things just keep getting worse for Monsanto: Not only has the biotech firm been found guilty of crimes against humanity by the International Monsanto Tribunal, the corporation has also recently been involved in a number of scandals. First, it came to light that the world’s most hated company had been colluding with the EPA, and now they’re being accused of yet another misdeed.
Recently obtained court documents have revealed that Monsanto has been secretly feeding money to “think tanks,” such as the infamous Genetic Literacy Project. From the document obtained by US Right To Know:
Monsanto quietly funnels money to “think tanks” such as the “Genetic Literacy Project” and the “American Council on Science and Health,” organizations intended to shame scientists and highlight information helpful to Monsanto and other chemical producers.
For example, the American Council on Science and Health has recently published articles accusing the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of ignoring the “science” on glyphosate. The Genetic Literacy Project, led by exposed wife beater and former Forbes.com writer Jon Entine, has also published articles calling for the IARC to possibly be abolished and has even gone so far to accuse the US of “unwittingly funding” conspiracies against Monsanto.
Sources say that these allegations are backed up by a string of emails which were used in court as evidence. Some of these exchanges even involved Monsanto executives instructing their staff to “ghost write” material on their products and then have some phony “independent scientists” sign their names to cut back on costs. One such exchange occurred between Monsanto’s William Heydens and his colleagues:
A less expensive/more palatable approach might be to involve experts only for the areas of contention, epidemiology and possibly MOA (depending on what comes out of the IARC meeting), and we ghost-write the Exposure Tox & Genetox sections. An option would be to add Greim and Kier or Kirkland to have their names on the publication, but we would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing and they would just edit & sign their names so to speak. Recall that is how we handled Williams Kroes & Munro, 2000.
In addition to the emails and evidence of Monsanto’s collusion with government agencies and “think tank” organizations, there is also reason to believe that Monsanto has been hiring “trolls” to defend the company on the web — and to attack anyone who dares speak out against them.
Evidence presented in the pretrials of Monsanto court cases at the US District Court in San Francisco has revealed that under their ever-so-aptly titled “Let Nothing Go” program, Monsanto reportedly hired individuals who appeared to have no relation to the company for the sole purpose of trolling the internet with positive comments, defend Monsanto, and praise their toxic chemicals and GMO crops.
The goal of the “Let Nothing Go” program is “to leave nothing, not even Facebook comments, unanswered…” and the plaintiffs say that Monsanto has been targeting all forms of social media and other online materials under this initiative. Even comments on social networks that merely mention the potential hazards of things like glyphosate or genetically modified crops have been targeted by Monsanto’s trolls.
Anti-GMO activists like Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, have been particularly susceptible to these attacks. Unsurprisingly, Adams has been a prime target for GMO trolls: The Genetic Literacy Project and other shills have published hit pieces on him and other activists — all with the goal of trying to discredit them and silence journalists who expose Monsanto’s nefarious operations.
The evidence revealed in these court documents certainly leaves Monsanto with a lot of explaining to do. But it seems that they are already losing in the court of public opinion. (RELATED: Learn more about Monsanto at MonsantoMafia.com)
Sources:
USRTK.org [PDF]
Monsanto back in court over misleading Roundup ads
Source: NaturalNews.com
Ethan Huff
April 27, 2017
A new lawsuit claims that Monsanto, the world’s most evil corporation, has been lying about the nature of its Roundup herbicide by claiming that it only targets an enzyme found in weeds, but not in people or pets. Challenging the very basis upon which Roundup was even granted approval in the first place, this latest suit represents yet another among many alleging that the chemical and GMO giant has been falsely advertising its products, putting the public at risk.
Now that Roundup is being detected at “extreme levels” in the nation’s food supply, it is more critical than ever that the truth be revealed about the world’s most widely used chemical herbicide, glyphosate. Filed in the Superior Court in the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.), this latest suit could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Plaintiffs in the case, which include the D.C.-based advocacy group Beyond Pesticides and the Minnesota-based Organic Consumers Association, point to scientific evidence published back in 2013 showing that glyphosate, the primary active ingredient in Roundup, does, in fact, act upon enzymes in the human body contrary to what Monsanto claims. This research, entitled “Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases,” is published in the peer-reviewed journal Entropy.
According to the paper, glyphosate’s inhibition of this important human enzyme, which also goes by the name of CYP, represents “an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals” because CYP’s role in human biologics is a critical one. For one, CYP’s purpose is to detoxify the body of xenobiotics, which is basically just a fancy word for describing any foreign chemical substance that’s not supposed to be in the body.
The paper goes on to explain how glyphosate’s interference with CYP manifests over time as a gradual buildup of inflammation throughout the body, including within the various cellular systems that support life. This interference with CYP, the paper explains, “acts synergistically with disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids by gut bacteria, as well as impairment in serum sulfate transport.”
The result? Serious chronic illness, including almost every major condition that people living in areas where Roundup is sprayed now suffer – conditions like gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, infertility, depression, autism, dementia, and cancer.
“It is now beyond any scientific doubt that glyphosate is extremely hazardous to human health,” explains the Health Ranger, lab science director of CWC Labs and producer of the Health Ranger Science podcast. “The mass poisoning of the food supply must be halted, or the costs to humanity and the ecosystem will be devastating.”
A full abstract of this damning study is available to view online.
Fact: Monsanto has been LYING to the public for years about Roundup’s toxicity to humans
This is all a very stark detraction from the advertising claims long made by Monsanto that Roundup and glyphosate are completely safe, and that people shouldn’t be making such a big deal about them because doing so is just “anti-science.” Such an argument won’t fly anymore now that real scientific evidence conducted by independent scientists is proving, without a doubt, that Roundup is a serious threat to people and the environment.
This latest lawsuit intends to convey to the courts that Monsanto has been blatantly lying about this fact as it continues to rake in billions of dollars in profits based on false information. If the court agrees, such an indictment could – and should – lead to serious consequences for Monsanto, not the least of which include the company’s undoing. In a just world, Monsanto executives and anyone else complicit in perpetuating these lies, will also be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and sent to prison.
“Consumers have been deceived into believing that Roundup targets an enzyme found only in plants and not in people or pets,” the suit definitively declares. “Monsanto misrepresented the nature of Roundup and/or failed to adequately disclose the fact that Roundup’s key ingredient targets an enzyme found in the gut bacteria of people and pets, which was and is false, misleading, and/or likely to deceive reasonable consumers.”
Sources:
TheBreakAway 