March Against Monsanto Will Be Beginning Of The End For Monsanto

March Against Monsanto Will Be Beginning Of The End For Monsanto

This is also not a partisan issue. The Monsanto Protection Act was written by "Republican" Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri and Monsanto officials and very quietly became the law with a "Democratic" president's signature after the approval of a Democrat-led Senate. Monsanto has been in the pockets of both parties for decades and it is time to stand up to all of it. Some things are simply more important than divisive partisan grousing... like our lives, our biodiversity, our health, our children...

I have my flyer ready and will be handing them out around my town on May 25th. This is something we can all do. Knowledge is power. We WILL take our food system, our health and our environment back.



March Against Monsanto TIME TO MARCH.



Are you in?

Corporate Control: Supreme Court Rules Monsanto Owns Life

Corporate Control: Supreme Court Rules Monsanto Owns Life

In a decision that comes as no surprise to anyone who knows the cronyism between the USSC and Monsanto, U.S. farmers signing contracts with these toxic dealers are now little more than indentured servants to those who own the patents on our life and the lives of those to come in perpetuity. This is a disgraceful decision that aptly illustrates the corruption that exists at the highest levels of jurisprudence and government.

This decision is not just about this one farmer. This decision is about all farmers and the freedom to grow and save seeds. As anyone following this knows seed saving is slowly being displaced by an industrial agricultural mafia intent on owning life, something that they did not create. It is absolutely absurd to think that Monsanto, et al have the right to OWN seeds in any way. Of course, in my view granting these patents already proves there is no "substantial equivalence" and that is simply a ruse perpetrated by their lawyers to allow them to profit without regulation.

As it is already, Monsanto has sued hundreds of farmers while raising their prices. They have sent out spies, goon squads and done nothing but harass farmers in the attempt to extort money out of them. From where I sit, they are terrorists in their behavior against farmers and those who practice organic farming.

In this instance, Mr. Bowman claims he bought the seeds he used from a grain elevator. This is something we are seeing daily as well, transgenic contamination as far as these seeds mingling with conventional seeds. This was something Monsanto and other companies knew full well would happen, but they downplay this as a way to sue farmers for profit. A group of farmers tried to preemptively sue Monsanto based on transgenic contamination in order to protect their crops and livelihoods, but once again the judge came down for Monsanto.

This decision has the potential to now influence every other decision on patenting of life forms into perpetuity with any effects from long-term exposure to these untested organisms dismissed by collusion. It is patently immoral. This is a serious slippery slope and people need to be aware of the repercussions of this decision. The patenting of life is the end of life as we know it as well as true freedom. It is obvious lawsuits are not going to be where progress on taking back our food system is made. Farmers in the US need to reject Monsanto and all other companies that claim to own a patent on our lives and our food.

BOYCOTT Monsanto seeds

BOYCOTT Glyphosate

Plant organic seeds only from reputable sources and send a clear message to these goons that they will no longer be allowed to control our food, our lives and our futures. The health effects of these organisms are being seen with more and more independent testing. The precautionary principle in science must also be applied to economics.

We can only bring the world back by working with nature not those who seek it's death at their own profit.

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Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has 'Control Over Product of Life'

Indiana farmer must pay agribusiness giant $84,000 for patent infringement

- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of biotech giant Monsanto, ordering Indiana farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman, 75, to pay Monsanto more than $84,000 for patent infringement for using second generation Monsanto seeds purchased second hand—a ruling which will have broad implications for the ownership of 'life' and farmers' rights in the future.

Indiana grain farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman walks past the US Supreme Court on February 19, 2013 in Washington (AFP/File, Mandel Ngan) In the case, Bowman had purchased soybean seeds from a grain elevator—where seeds are cheaper than freshly engineered Monsanto GE (genetically engineered) seeds and typically used for animal feed rather than for crops. The sources of the seeds Bowman purchased were mixed and were not labeled. However, some were "Roundup Ready" patented Monsanto seeds.

The Supreme Court Justices, who gave Monsanto a warm reception from the start, ruled that Bowman had broken the law because he planted seeds which naturally yielded from the original patented seed products—Monsanto's policies prohibit farmers from saving or reusing seeds from Monsanto born crops.

Farmers who use Monsanto's seeds are forced to buy the high priced new seeds every year.

Ahead of the expected ruling, Debbie Barker, Program Director for Save Our Seeds (SOS), and George Kimbrell, staff attorney for Center for Food Safety (CFS), asked in an op-ed earlier this year, "Should anyone, or any corporation, control a product of life?":

Bowman vs. Monsanto Co. will be decided based on the court's interpretation of a complex web of seed and plant patent law, but the case also reflects something much more basic: Should anyone, or any corporation, control a product of life?

[Monsanto's] logic is troubling to many who point out that it is the nature of seeds and all living things, whether patented or not, to replicate. Monsanto's claim that it has rights over a self-replicating natural product should raise concern. Seeds, unlike computer chips, for example, are essential to life. If people are denied a computer chip, they don't go hungry. If people are denied seeds, the potential consequences are much more threatening.

end of excerpt.

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Also see:

Bowman Vs. Monsanto

New Study Shows BT Toxins And Effect On Mammalian Blood

New Study Shows BT Toxins And Effect On Mammalian Blood

Another study regarding toxicity of BT toxin (endotoxins) in non target species.

"According to a new study, the ‘Cry’ toxins that Monsanto’s GMO crops have been genetically modified to produce are a lot more toxic to mammals than previously thought, primarily to the blood."

Report on BT toxins

This is very important due to the prevalence of BT in the majority of our food crops and the fact that people are ingesting much more than this study even covered, specifically animals as well through their feed. And also because studies show we eat our weight in GMOs every year. The effects of this over years is something we should definitely be concerned with! It is obvious the precautionary principle has been ignored by those simply profiting from these potentially dangerous organisms!

Study links Glyphosate to Autism, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's

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Study Links Glyphosate to Autism, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Disease

A new review of hundreds of scientific studies surrounding glyphosate—the major component of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide—sheds light on its effects within the human body. The paper describes how all of these effects could work together, and with other variables, trigger health problems in humans, including debilitating diseases like gastrointestinal disorders, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

Glyphosate impairs the cytochrome P450 (CYP) gene pathway, which creates enzymes that help to form and also break down molecules in cells. There are myriad important CYP enzymes, including aromatase (the enzyme that converts androgen into estrogen) and 21-Hydroxylase, which creates cortisol (stress hormone) and aldosterone (regulates blood pressure). One function of these CYP enzymes is also to detoxify xenobiotics, which are foreign chemicals like drugs, carcinogens or pesticides. Glyphosate inhibits these CYP enzymes, which has rippling effects throughout our body.

Because the CYP pathway is essential for normal functioning of various systems in our bodies, any small change in its expression can lead to disruptions. For example, humans exposed to glyphosate have decreased levels of the amino acid tryptophan, which is necessary for active signaling of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Suppressed serotonin levels have been associated with weight gain, depression and Alzheimer’s disease.

This paper does not claim to yield new scientific discoveries. Instead, it looks at older studies in a new light. Critics will say the links between glyphosate and health problems made in this paper are purely correlational, but this work is important because it brings all of the possible health effects of glyphosate together and discusses what could happen: something the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration have failed to do.

Link To Abstract

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I have been saying for years that I suspect that chemicals and pesticides can be correlated to the increase in these diseases as well as diabetes and obesity and that Glyphosate specifically should be banned. They couldn't kill us all with Agent Orange but they keep trying don't they? I hope we do see more unbiased independent testing on this now because I also believe if they are allowed to continue we will see causation.

US Proposal Would Require Labeling On Genetically Modified Foods

US Proposal Would Require Labeling On Genetically Modified Foods



A decades-long push to require the labeling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients in the United States received a significant boost Wednesday, when bipartisan bills on the issue were simultaneously proposed in the House and Senate.

Advocates of such measures are reacting with excitement, noting that the new bills appear to be far better positioned than previous such attempts, in terms of both public and Congressional support. If the bills pass, the United States would join 64 other countries that have already put in place similar laws or regulations.

The legislative moves mark the first time that such a bill has been proposed in the U.S. Senate in more than a dozen years, a period during which the use of genetically modified crops has expanded exponentially.

Further, while that earlier iteration, from 2000, was the work of just a single Democratic senator and was unable to attract any additional co-sponsors, the new bill has already received official support from nine senators and 21 representatives, including two Republicans.

“Americans have the right to know what is in the food they eat so they can make the best choices for their families,” Senator Barbara Boxer, a key sponsor of the new bill and author of the 2000 proposal, said Wednesday.

“This legislation is supported by a broad coalition of consumer groups, businesses, farmers, fishermen and parents who all agree that consumers deserve more – not less – information about the food they buy.”

Indeed, public opinion on the matter appears to be overwhelmingly on the side of the new proposal, which would direct the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the main government regulator on food-related issues, to require food producers to clearly label their products if they contain genetically engineered (GE) components.

According to multiple polls in recent years (including here and here), more than 90 percent of people in the United States favor the FDA requiring the labeling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients.

Yet for years, the FDA has pushed back against such requests, despite having the legal authority to mandate such a change. Rather, today’s policy continues to be informed by 1992 guidance in which FDA administrators stated that GE foods were not “materially” different from conventional foods.

The rationale for this stance was simply that consumers were unable to physically sense the difference between conventional and genetically modified foods.

“Unfortunately, the FDA’s antiquated labeling policy has not kept pace with 21st century food technologies that allow for a wide array of genetic and molecular changes to food that can’t be detected by human senses,” according to a press release put out by the bill’s main sponsors, Senator Boxer and Representative Peter DeFazio.

Further, such a test appears inconsistent with regard to the 3,000 other substances for which the FDA does require labeling.

“The fact of the matter is that, for far too long, the FDA has been playing politics over science,” Colin O’Neil, the director of government affairs at the Center for Food Safety, a Washington advocacy group, told IPS.

“Corn that produces its own insecticide, or a fish that grows twice as fast as normal, or an apple that doesn’t turn brown for 30 days – we know these are material changes and that those are novel foods.”

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I know, don't get your hopes up. But at least this is something that may actually have legs to it. Substantial equivalence is being challenged. It's about time...



WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW!

Support The New Federal Labeling Bill

UPDATE: NJ GMO labeling bill sent to committee

On February 6, 2012, S1367, which requires the labeling of foods containing genetically modified material was introduced and referred to the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee. Please contact the chair of this committee to express your support and request that he post the bill.

I just received correspondence from one of the sponsors and this is not a dead issue. This is the contact information for the Committee chair. I have already written him. If you live in NJ, please do the same. NJ can lead the way to doing what is necessary to protect the health of our citizens and our environment. Monsanto and these other companies have huge bucks and PR firms to influence votes. Let's show them that our voices are in greater numbers and we are not forgetting about this.

Thank you!

Senator Joseph Vitale

Phone: (732) 855-7441

Email: SenVitale@njleg.org

NJ Puts Forth Bill To Label Genetically Engineered Foods

"Monsanto Protection Act" Sneaks Through Senate

"Monsanto Protection Act" Sneaks Through Senate

"When the Senate passed a budget resolution Wednesday that appears to prevent some of the potential damage from sequestration, the Continuing Resolution included several food- and agriculture-related earmarks.

But one inclusion in particular is especially controversial. The “biotech rider” would require the USDA to approve the harvest and sale of crops from genetically modified seed even if a court has ruled the environmental studies on the crop were inadequate. This aspect of the bill infuriated many sustainable food and agriculture groups, who nicknamed the bill the “Monsanto Protection Act.”

If signed into law by President Obama, here’s what the Monsanto Protection Act would do: It will allow farmers to plant, harvest and sell genetically engineered plants even if the crops have been ruled upon unfavorably in court. A Center for Food Safety statement called the rider “an unprecedented attack on U.S. judicial review of agency actions” and “ a major violation of the separation of powers.”

But perhaps more frightening, other critics say, is that the Monsanto Protection Act threatens the health and wellbeing of the public by undermining the federal courts’ ability to protect farmers and the environment from potentially hazardous genetically engineered (GE) crops.

The Monsanto Protection Act was slipped into the bill while it sat in the Senate Appropriations Committee, chaired by Maryland Democrat Barbara Mikulski. According to the Center for Food Safety, the committee held no hearings on this controversial biotech rider and many Democrats were unaware of its presence in the larger bill.

“In this hidden backroom deal, Senator Mikulski turned her back on consumer, environmental, and farmer protection in favor of corporate welfare for biotech companies such as Monsanto,” Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety, said in a statement. “This abuse of power is not the kind of leadership the public has come to expect from Senator Mikulski or the Democrat Majority in the Senate.”

end of excerpt

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This proves that both parties are guilty of precipitating this downward spiral in our democratic process. Dysfunctional is not the word to be used to describe what is going on in Washington DC. The word is criminal. However, some partisans will now only focus on the "right" regarding influence and some others will focus on "free markets" in excusing this gross violation against freedom and the environment. This is the crux of all of the problems we now see in this country. Everything is made political and everything is based on ideology rather than morality, principle and sound science.

And this decision is a blatant slap in the face to the farmers of this country and the world who work their land sustainably; consumers who deserve the right to know what they are eating; the court system and most importantly the checks and balances our founders died to institute because they are what keep us from falling into Fascism. But we have done just that... we have fallen into Food Fascism.

Looking at how sneakily this was backdoored to circumvent the people and the courts reveals as well that they in this Senate and Congress know that a majority of Americans OVERWHELMINGLY oppose GMOs and with good reason. As one of those Americans who have been reporting on this stealth attack on our food system and biodiversity I am here to say, you have laid the gauntlet down now.

You are now all accomplices in the monoculture destruction of our biodiversity and the destruction of any shred of democracy that may have been left in this country. You support pesticide poisoning of children. You support death squads. You support poverty. You support famine. You and your benefactors at Monsanto and other biotech/chemical companies may think you have won, but showing the world that you have to sneak around because this "substantially equivalent" garbage which is anything but substantial or equivalent tells the real tale.

How many more farmer suicides will it take? How many more failed experiments? This fight has just begun.

Now, Obama has a chance to veto this by today and tell them to take out Section 735...

(Leaving space to report on the outcome of that.)

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OK. Well, to no surprise Obama signed it late last night because in essence he doesn't care about your children (while his children of course eat from an organic garden) only about being part of the machine.

Obama Signs Monsanto Protection Act/Take Action

My message sent to President Obama:

This is blatantly undemocratic and a danger to the biodiversity of our planet. Citizens have the right to know what they are eating. Your children Mr President eat from an organic garden. Many in this country cannot afford that. Relegating them to pesticide ridden untested GMOs is a doorway to more diabetes and obesity. We need a leader who will put them before corporate welfare. And really, you can't say you care about healthcare if you sign bills like this. How very disappointing.

Please, go to this link and sign this and demand GMOS be labeled!