Archive for April, 2008

GM Files: Summary of GM Risks.2

Friday, April 18th, 2008

The Natural Solutions Foundation, the leading Global Health Freedom organization, is proud to present this information to you. We protect your right to know about – and to use – natural ways to maintain and regain your health, no matter where in the world you live. Among your freedoms is the right to clean, unadulterated food free of genetic manipulation, pesticides, heavy metals or other contaminants and access to herbs, supplements, frequency devices and other means as therapies that may benefit or to protect your well-being without drugs and other dangerous interventions, if you choose.

For more information on our global programs, including the International Decade of Nutrition, and our US based ones, please visit us at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org and www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org and join the free email list for the Health Freedom eAlerts to keep you in the loop, informed and active defending your right to make your own decisions about your health and wellbeing!
Our activities are supported 100% by your tax deductible donations. Please give generously (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189) to the Natural Solutions Foundation. Thank you for your support.
Feel free to disseminate this information as widely as possible with full attribution.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.organics4U.org

This article summarizes the findings in Jeffrey Smith’s “Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods.”

Potential Health Hazards of Genetically Engineered Foods

by Stephen Lendman

Global Research, February 22, 2008

This article discusses the potential health risks of genetically engineered foods (GMOs). It draws on some previously used material because its importance bears repeating. It also cites three notable books and highlights one in particular – Jeffrey Smith’s “Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods.” Detailed information from the book is featured below.

Genetically engineered foods saturate our diet today. In the US alone, over 80% of all processed foods contain them. Others include grains like rice, corn and wheat; legumes like soybeans and soy products; vegetable oils, soft drinks; salad dressings; vegetables and fruits; dairy products including eggs; meat, chicken, pork and other animal products; and even infant formula plus a vast array of hidden additives and ingredients in processed foods (like in tomato sauce, ice cream, margarine and peanut butter). Consumers don’t know what they’re eating because labeling is prohibited, yet the danger is clear. Independently conducted studies show the more of these foods we eat, the greater the potential harm to our health.

Today, consumers are kept in the dark and are part of an uncontrolled, unregulated mass human experiment the results of which are unknown. Yet, the risks are enormous, it will take years to learn them, and when we finally know it’ll be too late to reverse the damage if it’s proved conclusively that genetically engineered foods harm human health as growing numbers of independent experts believe. Once GM seeds are introduced to an area, the genie is out of the bottle for keeps. There is nothing known to science today to reverse the contamination already spread over two-thirds of arable US farmland and heading everywhere unless checked.

This is happening in spite of the risk because of what F. William Engdahl revealed in his powerfully important, well documented book titled “Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation.” It’s the diabolical story of how Washington and four Anglo-American agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting animal and vegetable life forms to gain worldwide control of our food supply, make it all genetically engineered, and use it as a weapon to reward friends and punish enemies.

Today, consumers eat these foods daily without knowing the potential health risks. In 2003, Jeffrey Smith explained them in his book titled “Seeds of Deception.” He revealed that efforts to inform the public have been quashed, reliable science has been buried, and consider what happened to two distinguished scientists – UC Berkeley’s Ignacio Chapela and former Scotland Rowett Research Institute researcher and world’s leading lectins and plant genetic modification expert, Arpad Pusztai. They were vilified, hounded, and threatened for their research, and in the case of Pusztai, fired from his job for doing it.

He believed in the promise of GM foods, was commissioned to study them, and conducted the first ever independent one on them anywhere. Like other researchers since, he was shocked by his findings. Rats fed GM potatoes had smaller livers, hearts, testicles and brains, damaged immune systems, and showed structural changes in their white blood cells making them more vulnerable to infection and disease compared to other rats fed non-GMO potatoes. It got worse. Thymus and spleen damage showed up; enlarged tissues, including the pancreas and intestines; and there were cases of liver atrophy as well as significant proliferation of stomach and intestines cells that could be a sign of greater future risk of cancer. Equally alarming, results showed up after 10 days of testing, and they persisted after 110 days that’s the human equivalent of 10 years.

Later independent studies confirmed what Pusztai learned, and Smith published information on them in his 2007 book called “Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods.” The book is encyclopedic in depth, an invaluable comprehensive source, and this article reviews some of the shocking data in it.

Compelling Evidence of Potential GMO Harm

In his introduction, Smith cites the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) policy statement on GM food safety without a shred of evidence to back it. It supported GHW Bush’s Executive Order that GMOs are “substantially equivalent” to ordinary seeds and crops and need no government regulation. The agency said it was “not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.” That single statement meant no safety studies are needed and “Ultimately, it is the food producer” that bears responsibility “for assuring safety.” As a consequence, foxes now guard our henhouse in a brave new dangerous world.

FDA policy opened the floodgates, and Smith put it this way: It “set the stage for the rapid deployment of the new technology,” allowed the seed industry to become “consolidated, millions of acres (to be) planted, hundreds of millions to be fed (these foods in spite of nations and consumers objecting, and) laws to be passed (to assure it).” The toll today is contaminated crops, billions of dollars lost, human health harmed, and it turns out the FDA lied.

The agency knew GM crops are “meaningfully different” because their technical experts told them so. As a result, they recommended long-term studies, including on humans, to test for possible allergies, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems. Instead, politics trumped science, the White House ordered the FDA to promote GM crops, and a former Monsanto vice-president went to FDA to assure it.

Today, the industry is unregulated, and when companies say their foods are safe, their views are unquestioned. Further, Smith noted that policy makers in other countries trust FDA and wrongly assume their assessments are valid. They’re disproved when independent studies are matched against industry-run ones. The differences are startling. The former report adverse affects while the latter claim the opposite. It’s no secret why. Agribusiness giants allow nothing to interfere with profits, safety is off the table, and all negative information is quashed.

As a result, their studies are substandard, adverse findings are hidden, and they typically “fail to investigate the impacts of GM food on gut function, liver function, kidney function, the immune system, endocrine system, blood composition, allergic response, effects on the unborn, the potential to cause cancer, or impacts on gut bacteria.” In addition, industry-funded studies creatively avoid finding problems or conceal any uncovered. They cook the books by using older instead of younger more sensitive animals, keep sample sizes too low for statistical significance, dilute the GM component of feeds used, limit the duration of feeding trials, ignore animal deaths and sickness, and engage in other unscientific practices. It’s to assure people never learn of the potential harm from these foods, and Smith says they can do it because “They’ve got ‘bad science’ down to a science.”

The real kinds show GMOs produce “massive changes in the natural functioning of (a) plant’s DNA. Native genes can be mutated, deleted, permanently turned off or on….the inserted gene can become truncated, fragmented, mixed with other genes, inverted or multiplied, and the GM protein it produces may have unintended characteristics” that may be harmful.

GMOs also pose other health risks. When a transgene functions in a new cell, it may produce different proteins than the ones intended. They may be harmful, but there’s no way to know without scientific testing. Even if the protein is exactly the same, there are still problems. Consider corn varieties engineered to produce a pesticidal protein called Bt-toxin. Farmers use it in spray form, and companies falsely claim it’s harmless to humans. In fact, people exposed to the spray develop allergic-type symptoms, mice ingesting Bt had powerful immune responses and abnormal and excessive cell growth, and a growing number of human and livestock illnesses are linked to Bt crops.

Smith notes still another problem relating to inserted genes. Assuming they’re destroyed by our digestive system, as industry claims, is false. In fact, they may move from food into gut bacteria or internal organs, and consider the potential harm. If corn genes with Bt-toxin get into gut bacteria, our intestinal flora may become pesticide factories. There’s been no research done to prove if it’s true or false. Agribusiness giants aren’t looking, neither is FDA, consumers are left to play “Genetic Roulette,” and the few animal feeding studies done show the odds are against them.

Arpad Pusztai and other scientists were shocked at their results of animals fed GM foods. His results were cited above. Other independent studies showed stunted growth, impaired immune systems, bleeding stomachs, abnormal and potentially precancerous cell growth in the intestines, impaired blood cell development, misshaped cell structures in the liver, pancreas and testicles, altered gene expression and cell metabolism, liver and kidney lesions, partially atrophied livers, inflamed kidneys, less developed organs, reduced digestive enzymes, higher blood sugar, inflamed lung tissue, increased death rates and higher offspring mortality as well.

There’s more. Two dozen farmers reported their pigs and cows fed GM corn became sterile, 71 shepherds said 25% of their sheep fed Bt cotton plants died, and other reports showed the same effects on cows, chickens, water buffaloes and horses. After GM soy was introduced in the UK, allergies from the product skyrocketed by 50%, and in the US in the 1980s, a GM food supplement killed dozens and left five to ten thousand others sick or disabled.

Today, Monsanto is the world’s largest seed producer, and Smith notes how the company deals with reports like these. In response to the US Public Health Service concerning adverse reactions from its toxic PCBs, the company claims its experience “has been singularly free of difficulties.” That’s in spite of lawsuit-obtained records showing “this was part of a cover-up and denial that lasted decades” by a company with a long history of irresponsible behavior that includes “extensive bribery, highjacking of regulatory agencies, suppressing negative information about its products” and threatening journalists and scientists who dare report them. The company long ago proved it can’t be trusted with protecting human health.

In his book, “Seeds of Destruction,” Engdahl names four dominant agribusiness giants – Monsanto, DuPont, Dow Agrisciences and Syngenta in Switzerland from the merger of the agriculture divisions of Novartis and AstraZeneca. Smith calls these companies Ag biotech and names a fifth – Germany-based Bayer CropScience AG (division of Bayer AG) with its Environmental Science and BioScience headquarters in France.

Their business is to do the impossible and practically overnight – change the laws of nature and do them one better for profit. So far they haven’t independent because genetic engineering doesn’t work like natural breeding. It may or may not be a lot of things, but it isn’t sex, says Smith. Michael Antoniou, a molecular geneticist involved in human gene therapy, explains that genetic modification “technically and conceptually bears no resemblance to natural breeding.” The reproduction process works by both parents contributing thousands of genes to the offspring. They, in turn, get sorted naturally, and plant breeders have successfully worked this way for thousands of years.

Genetic manipulation is different and so far fraught with danger. It works by forcibly inserting a single gene from a species’ DNA into another unnaturally. Smith puts it this way: “A pig can mate with a pig and a tomato can mate with a tomato. But this is no way that a pig can mate with a tomato and vice versa.” The process transfers genes across natural barriers that “separated species over millions of years of evolution” and managed to work. The biotech industry now wants us to believe it can do nature one better, and that genetic engineering is just an extension or superior alternative to natural breeding. It’s unproved, indefensible pseudoscience mumbo jumbo, and that’s the problem.

Biologist David Schubert explains that industry claims are “not only scientifically incorrect but exceptionally deceptive….to make the GE process sound similar to conventional plant breeding.” It a smoke screen to hide the fact that what happens in laboratories can’t duplicate nature, at least not up to now. Genetic engineering involves combining genes that never before existed together, the process defies natural breeding proved safe over thousands of years, and there’s no way to assure the result won’t be a deadly unrecallable Andromeda Strain, no longer the world of science fiction.

The industry pooh-pooh’s the suggestion of potential harm, and unscientifically claims millions of people in the US and worldwide have eaten GM food for a decade, and no one got sick. Smith’s reply: How can we know as “GM foods might already be contributing to serious health problems, but since no one is monitoring for this, it could take decades” to find out. By then, it will be too late and some industry critics argue it already may be or dangerously close.

Today, most existing diseases have no effective surveillance systems in place. If GM foods create new ones, that potentially compounds the problem manyfold. Consider HIV/AIDS. It went unnoticed for decades and when identified, many thousands worldwide were infected or had died.

Then there’s the problem of linkage. In the US and many countries, GM foods are unlabeled so it’s impossible tracing illness and diseases to specific substances ingested even if thousands of people are affected. It can plausibly be blamed on anything, especially when governments and regulatory agencies support industry claims of reliability and safety.

It’s rare that problems like the L-Tryptophan epidemic of the late 1980s are identified, but when it was thousands were already harmed. L-Tryptophan is a natural amino acid constituent of most proteins and for years was produced by many companies including Showa Denko in Japan. The company then got greedy, saw a way to increase profits from a product designed to induce sleep naturally, and gene-spliced a bacterium into the natural product to do it. The result was many dozens dead, over 1500 crippled, and up to 10,000 afflicted with a blood disorder from a new incurable disease called Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome or EMS.

It’s a painful, multi-system disease that causes permanent scarring and fibrosis to nerve and muscle tissues, continuing inflammation, and a permanent change in a person’s immune system. It cost the company two billion dollars to settle claims. Hundreds have since died, in all likelihood from contracting EMS.

This is the known toll from a single product. Consider the potential harm with Ag biotech wanting all foods to be unlabeled GMOs worldwide and governments unable to balk because WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) and Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) rules deny them. They’re also prevented under WTO’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (SPS). It states that national laws banning GMO products are “unfair trade practices” even when they endanger human health. Other WTO rules also apply – called “Technical Barriers to Trade.” They prohibit GMO labeling so consumers don’t know what they’re eating and can’t avoid these potentially hazardous foods.

The 1996 Biosafety Protocol was drafted to prevent this problem, and it should be in place to do it. Public safety, however, was ambushed by Washington, the FDA and the agribusiness lobby. It sabotaged talks and insisted biosafety measures be subordinate to WTO trade rules that apply regardless of other considerations, including public health and safety. The path is thus cleared for the unrestricted spread of GMO seeds and foods worldwide unless a way is found to stop it.

Independent Animal Studies Showing GMO Harm

Rats fed genetically engineered Calgene Flavr-Savr tomatoes (developed to look fresh for weeks) for 28 days got bleeding stomachs (stomach lesions) and seven died and were replaced in the study.

Rats fed Monsanto 863 Bt corn for 90 days developed multiple reactions typically found in response to allergies, infections, toxins, diseases like cancer, anemia and blood pressure problems. Their blood cells, livers and kidneys showed significant changes indicative of disease.

Mice fed either GM potatoes engineered to produce Bt- toxin or natural potatoes containing the toxin had intestinal damage. Both varieties created abnormal and excessive cell growth in the lower intestine. The equivalent human damage might cause incontinence or flu-like symptoms and could be pre-cancerous. The study disproved the contention that digestion destroys Bt-toxin and is not biologically active in mammals.

Workers in India handling Bt cotton while picking, loading, weighing and separating the fiber from seeds developed allergies. They began with “mild to severe itching,” then redness and swelling, followed by skin eruptions. These symptoms affected their skin, eyes (got red and swollen with excessive tearing) and upper respiratory tract causing nasal discharge and sneezing. In some cases, hospitalization was required. At one cotton gin factory, workers take antihistamines daily.

Sheep grazing on Bt cotton developed “unusual systems” before dying “mysteriously.” Reports from four Indian villages revealed 25% of them died within a week. Post mortems indicated a toxic reaction. The study raises questions about cottonseed oil safety and human health for people who eat meat from animals fed GM cotton. It’s crucial to understand that what animals eat, so do people.

Nearly all 100 Filipinos living adjacent to a Bt corn field became ill. Their symptoms appeared when the crop was producing airborne pollen and was apparently inhaled. Doing it produced headaches, dizziness, extreme stomach pain, vomiting, chest pains, fever, and allergies plus respiratory, intestinal and skin reactions. Blood tests conducted on 39 victims showed an antibody response to Bt-toxin suggesting it was the cause. Four other villages experienced the same problems that also resulted in several animal deaths.

Iowa farmers reported a conception rate drop of from 80% to 20% among sows (female pigs) fed GM corn. Most animals also had false pregnancies, some delivered bags of water and others stopped menstruating. Male pigs were also affected as well as cows and bulls. They became sterile and all were fed GM corn.

German farmer Gottfried Glockner grew GM corn and fed it to his cows. Twelve subsequently died from the Bt 176 variety, and other cows had to be destroyed due to a “mysterious” illness. The corn plots were field trials for Ag biotech giant Syngenta that later took the product off the market with no admission of fault.

Mice fed Monsanto Roundup Ready soybeans developed significant liver cell changes indicating a dramatic general metabolism increase. Symptoms included irregularly shaped nuclei and nucleoli, and an increased number of nuclear pores and other changes. It’s thought this resulted from exposure to a toxin, and most symptoms disappeared when Roundup Ready was removed from the diet.

Mice fed Roundup Ready had pancreas problems, heavier livers and unexplained testicular cell changes. The Monsanto product also produced cell metabolism changes in rabbit organs, and most offspring of rats on this diet died within three weeks.

The death rate for chickens fed GM Liberty Link corn for 42 days doubled. They also experienced less weight gain, and their food intake was erratic.

In the mid-1990s, Australian scientists discovered that GM peas generated an allergic-type inflammatory response in mice in contrast to the natural protein that had no adverse effect. Commercialization of the product was cancelled because of fear humans might have the same reaction.

When given a choice, animals avoid GM foods. This was learned by observing a flock of geese that annually visit an Illinois pond and feed on soybeans from an adjacent farm. After half the acreage had GM crops, the geese ate only from the non-GMO side. Another observation showed 40 deer ate organic soybeans from one field but shunned the GMO kind across the road. The same thing happened with GM corn.

Inserting foreign or transgenes is called insertional mutagenesis or insertion mutation. When done, it usually disrupts DNA at the insertion site and affects gene functioning overall by scrambling, deleting or relocating the genetic code near the insertion site.

The process of creating a GM plant requires scientists first to isolate and grow plant cells in the laboratory using a tissue culture process. The problem is when it’s done it can create hundreds or thousands of DNA mutations throughout the genome. Changing a single base pair may be harmful. However, widespread genome changes compound the potential problem manyfold.

Promoters are used in GM crops as switches to turn on the foreign gene. When done, the process may accidently switch on other natural plant genes permanently. The result may be to overproduce an allergen, toxin, carcinogen, antinutrient, enzymes that stimulate or inhibit hormone production, RNA that silences genes, or changes that affect fetal development. They may also produce regulators that block other genes and/or switch on a dormant virus that may cause great harm. In addition, evidence suggests the promoter may create genetic instability and mutations that can result in the breakup and recombination of the gene sequence.

Plants naturally produce thousands of chemicals to enhance health and protect against disease. However, changing plant protein may alter these chemicals, increase plant toxins and/or reduce its phytonutrients. For example, GM soybeans produce less cancer-fighting isoflavones. Overall, studies show genetic modification produces unintended changes in nutrients, toxins, allergens and small molecule metabolism products.

To create a GM soybean with a more complete protein balance, Pioneer Hi-Bred inserted a Brazil nut gene. By doing it, an allergenic protein was introduced affecting people allergic to Brazil nuts. When tests confirmed this, the project was cancelled. GM proteins in other crops like corn and papaya may also be allergenic. The same problem exists for other crops like Bt corn, and evidence shows allergies skyrocketed after GM crops were introduced.

Another study of Monsanto’s high-lysine corn showed it contained toxins and other potentially harmful substances that may retard growth. If consumed in large amounts, it may also adversely affect human health. In addition, when this product is cooked, it may produce toxins associated with Alzheimer’s, diabetes, allergies, kidney disease, cancer and aging symptoms.

Disease-resistant crops like zucchini, squash and Hawaiian papaya may promote human viruses and other diseases, and eating these products may suppress the body’s natural defense against viral infections.

Protein structural aspects in GM crops may be altered in unforeseen ways. They may be misfolded or have added molecules. During insertion, transgenes may become truncated, rearranged or interspersed with other DNA pieces with unknown harmful effects. Transgenes may also be unstable and spontaneously rearrange over time, again with unpredictable consequences. In addition, they may create more than one protein from a process called alternative splicing. Environmental factors, weather, natural and man-made substances and genetic disposition of a plant further complicate things and pose risks. They’re introduced as well because genetic engineering disrupts complex DNA relationships.

Contrary to industry claims, studies show transgenes aren’t destroyed digestively in humans or animals. Foreign DNA can wander, survive in the gastro-intestinal tract, and be transported by blood to internal organs. This raises the risk that transgenes may transfer to gut bacteria, proliferate over time, and get into cells DNA, possibly causing chronic diseases. A single human feeding study confirmed that genes, in fact, transferred from GM soy into the DNA gut bacteria of three of seven test subjects.

Antibiotic Resister Marker (ARM) genes are attached to transgenes prior to insertion and allow cells to survive antibiotic applications. If ARM genes transfer to pathogenic gut or mouth bacteria, they potentially can cause antibiotic-resistant super-diseases. The proliferation of GM crops increases the possibility. The CaMV promoter in nearly all GMOs can also transfer and may switch on random genes or viruses that produce toxins, allergens or carcinogens as well as create genetic instability.

GM crops interact with their environment and are part of a complex ecosystem that includes our food. These crops may increase environmental and other toxins that may accumulate throughout the food chain. Crops genetically engineered to be glufosinate (herbicide)resistant may produce intestinal herbicide with known toxic effects. If transference to gut bacteria occurs, greater problems may result.

Repeated use of seeds like Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybeans results in vicious new super-weeds that need far greater amounts of stronger herbicides to combat. Their toxic residues remain in crops that humans and animals then eat. Even small amounts of these toxins may be endocrine disruptors that can affect human reproduction adversely. Evidence exists that GM crops accumulate toxins or concentrate them in milk or animals fed GM feed. Disease-resistant crops may also produce new plant viruses that affect humans.

All type GM foods, not just crops, carry these risks. Milk, for example, from cows injected with Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone (rbGH), has much higher levels of the hormone IGF-1 that risks breast, prostate, colon, lung and other cancers. The milk also has lower nutritional value. GM food additives also pose health risks, and their use has proliferated in processed foods.

Potential harm to adults is magnified for children. Another concern is that pregnant mothers eating GM foods may endanger their offspring by harming normal fetal development and altering gene expression that’s then passed to future generations. Children are also more endangered than adults, especially those drinking substantial amounts of rbGH-treated milk.

Conclusion

The above information is largely drawn from Smith’s “Genetic Roulette.” The data is startling and confirms a clear conclusion. The proliferation of untested, unregulated GM foods in the span of a decade is more a leap of faith than reliable science. Microbiologist Richard Lacey captures the risk stating: “it is virtually impossible to even conceive of a testing procedure to assess the health effects of (GM) foods when introduced into the food chain, nor is there any valid nutritional or public interest reason for their introduction.” Other scientists worldwide agree that GM foods entered the market long before science could evaluate their safety and benefits. They want a halt to this dangerous experiment that needs decades of rigorous research and testing before we can know.

Unchecked and unregulated, human health and safety are at risk because once GMOs enter the food chain, the genie is out of the bottle for keeps. Thankfully, resistance is growing worldwide, many millions are opposed, but reversing the tide won’t be easy. Washington and Ag biotech are on a roll with big unstated aims – total control of our food, making it all genetically engineered, and scheming to use it as a weapon to reward friends and punish enemies.

Smith is hopeful that people will prevail over profits. Hopefully he’s right because human health and safety must never be compromised. Resistance already halted the introduction of new crop varieties, and Smith believes that with enough momentum existing ones may end up withdrawn. He cites an example he calls a “Shift away from GM foods in the United States” in 2007. Leading it is an initiative launched last spring to remove GM ingredients from the entire natural food sector. It’s led by a coalition of natural food products producers, distributors and retailers along with the Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT). It’s called the Campaign for Healthier Eating in America, and its aims are big – to educate consumers about GM food risks and promote healthy alternatives through shopping guides.

A Pew survey reported that 29% of Americans, representing 87 million people, strongly oppose these foods and believe they’re unsafe. That’s a respectable start if backed up with efforts to avoid them, and more information how is at ResponsibleTechnology.org. Jeffrey Smith founded IRT in 2003 “to promote the responsible use of technology and stop GM foods and crops through both grassroots and national strategies.” It seeks safe alternatives and aims to “ban the genetic engineering of our food supply and all outdoor releases of (GM) organisms, at least until (or unless scientific opinion) believes such products are safe and appropriate based on independent and reliable data.”

IRT urges consumers to become educated about the risks, mobilize to combat them and act in our mutual self-interest. It’s beginning to happen, and Smith believes “there is an excellent chance that food manufacturers will abandon GM foods in the near future” if a public groundswell demands it. He ends his book saying: “Although GMOs present one of the greatest dangers, with informed, motivated people, it is one of the easiest global issues to solve.” Hopefully he’s right.

Global Research Associate Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hours on RBN Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions of world and national topics with distinguished guests.

Stephen Lendman is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Stephen Lendman

Why is Hanna Poling Autistic? Doctor Dad Tells Why

Friday, April 18th, 2008

The Natural Solutions Foundation, the leading Global Health Freedom organization, is proud to present this information to you. We protect your right to know about – and to use – natural ways to maintain and regain your health, no matter where in the world you live. Among your freedoms is the right to clean, unadulterated food free of genetic manipulation, pesticides, heavy metals or other contaminants and access to herbs, supplements, frequency devices and other means as therapies that may benefit or to protect your well-being without drugs and other dangerous interventions, if you choose.

For more information on our global programs, including the International Decade of Nutrition, and our US based ones, please visit us at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org and www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org and join the free email list for the Health Freedom eAlerts to keep you in the loop, informed and active defending your right to make your own decisions about your health and wellbeing!
Our activities are supported 100% by your tax deductible donations. Please give generously (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189) to the Natural Solutions Foundation. Thank you for your support.
Feel free to disseminate this information as widely as possible with full attribution.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.organics4U.org

Dr. Jon Polling is a Neurologist. he is also the father of the most famous autistic child in America right now, Hannah Poling. In a historic concession, US Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler and other Justice Department officials conceded on November 9 that Hanna “had a pre-existing mitochondrial disorder that was ‘aggravated’ by her shots, and which ultimately resulted in an ASD diagnosis” or, more specifically, in a diagnosis of “regressive encephalopathy (brain disease) with features consistent with autistic spectrum disorder, following normal development.”

While they did not go as far as saying that vaccination caused the neurological collapse of the previously healthy child, they did admit that for a child with a mitochondrial disorder, the shots could “aggrivate” a tendency toward autism. It is the first time that the US has come even this close to acknowledging the role of vaccines in any chronic neurological injury.

For the approximately 1000 cases behind this one, DR. JON POLING TO DR. STEVEN NOVELLA ON AGE OF AUTISM

PolingsBy Dr. Jon Poling, father of Hannah Poling.

OPEN LETTER TO DR. STEVEN NOVELLA
IN RESPONSE TO “Has the Government Conceded Vaccines Cause Autism?”

Dr. Novella,

Thank you for generating interesting discussion regarding my little girl,
Hannah Poling. I would like to give you additional information in order to
generate further productive discussions on this matter amongst the neurology
community. This information should assist you, Dr. DiMauro, and Dr.
Trevethan, who have also commented publicly, to formulate better theories as
to the significance of Hannah’s mitochondrial dysfunction in relation to her
autism.

1. Mito Dysfunction or Mito Disease? Chicken or Egg?

To begin with, I would like to point out that the spectrum of mitochondrial
dysfunction is probably considered more broad and complex than the spectrum
of neurobehavioral abnormalities seen with autism. Dysfunction of the
mitochondria, specifically dysfunction of the oxidative phosphorylation
pathway, most likely contributes, but may not be the cause of many
diseases—including Parkinson’s disease, Friedreich’s Ataxia, Alzheimer
disease, etc. Thus, it is probably incorrect to refer to mitochondrial
dysfunctional and mitochondrial disease interchangeably. Indeed, the role of
the dysfunctional mitochondrial are yet to be clarified in these diseases.
Thus, I will refer to Hannah’s metabolic condition as a mitochondrial
dysfunction, not a mitochondrial disease.

2. Mito Genetic Finding? Mito mtDNA ‘red herring’ ?

ADDITIONAL GENETIC TESTING NOT AVAILABLE IN THE J CHILD NEUROL CASE REPORT:
Dr. Shoffner performed genetic testing on both Hannah’s muscle and her
mother’s leukocytes subsequent to our case report. Hannah (muscle mtDNA) and
her mother (leukocyte mtDNA) were both found to be HOMOPLASMIC for the mtDNA
T2387C transition mutation.
Our analysis of this genetic finding in the mtDNA was significantly
different than those of other physicians that I’ve seen in scientific blogs
or commentary. I suspect it would have been fatal to both Hannah and her
mother if this homoplasmic mutation was pathogenic since (as I am sure you
are aware) the mutation is on the 16S ribosomal subunit which is highly
conserved. Thus, this mutation probably represents a benign polymorphism
rather than pathogenic mutation. It is unlikely, but possible, that the
mutation is significant to Hannah, but in such a case, it must work in
concert with other nuclear genes to cause her mitochondrial dysfunction. To
our knowledge, this point mutation has not been reported in cases similar to
Hannah’s.

3. Encephalitis? Metabolic Encephalopathy? Or “Regressive Encephalopathy
with Features of Autism Spectrum Disorder”

The other interesting term you used was encephalitis rather than
encephalopathy. We are not sure that she had an “-itis” but we did clearly
document a regressive encephalopathy based on not only our parental
reporting, but also based on the pediatrician’s documents, affidavits from
other family members, and the growth curve measurements (injury pattern).
Early on in the regression we did note back arching (opisthotonus), fever,
and disrupted sleep. Although fever occurred a lumbar puncture was not
performed.

An interesting developing story in autism research is the
immune/inflammatory connection. In her senior resident thesis, Dr. Anne
Comi, a former JHU colleague, along with Dr. Andy Zimmerman, reported, the
increased prevalence of autoimmune disease in families of autistic
offspring. Interesting, Hannah also has a maternal family history of
autoimmune disease. Dr. Carlos Pardo, another one of my former chief
residents, along with Andy and Dr. Vargas, published a beautiful study in
the Archives of Neurology, demonstrating neuroinflammation on autopsy of
brain samples and inflammation cytokine markers in the CSF of individuals
with Autism. The interesting thing was that inflammation was demonstrated in
autopsy specimens from adults as old as 44 years of age. The conclusion was
that further research would be required to determine if inflammation was a
primary disorder in autism or; alternatively, if inflammation and microglial
activation was secondary to neurodegeneration. Dr. Sudhir Gupta at UC Irvine
has a nice model of how the two pathways of neuroinflammation and mito
dysfunction may not be mutually exclusive. This remains to be seen; however,
study of mitochondrial dysfunction and neuroinflammation hold the promise of
treatment development. The two avenues of research deserve funding at the
highest levels.

4. How many Hannah Polings are out there?

The short answer is that nobody knows. However, there is emerging data to
suggest that she is not alone.

Dr. Shoffner will be presenting his experience with 37 patients with
combined autism and mitochondrial dysfunction at the AAN meeting in Chicago
this April. 65% of his referrals are positive for mitochondrial dysfunction.
Of course, his yield is subject to referral bias as a mito expert, so the
prevalence of mitochondrial dysfunction in Autism is surely less than 65%.

The best estimate to date of the prevalence of mitochondrial dysfunction in
autistic patients comes from Oliviera et al. in a population of 120, 5 of 69
(or 7.2%) showed mitochondrial dysfunction. If this is generalized to the US
estimate of 1 million patients with ASDs, then the number of kids like
Hannah could be 72,000! Isn’t this worth further study?

Dr. Shoffner furthermore advocates, along with us, that vaccination is
important even for kids with mitochondrial dysfunction. I would argue that
you should not give nine at one time and that none of them should contain
Thimerosal (mercury).

5. Thimerosal—On or Off the Table?

I don’t want to dwell on mercury, as this theory is not why HHS conceded
Hannah’s case (imo). Dr. DiContanzo just wrote an interesting blog about how
his opinion of mercury in vaccines has changed
(http://drugs.about.com/b/2008/03/08/mercury-in-vaccines-and-autism-the-burd
en-of-proof-may-shift.htm).

My opinion is that mercury is a potent neurotoxin. Therefore, don’t inject
it into kids! Interestingly, basic research studies have shown that
Thimerosal toxicity occurs through mitochondrial pathways. Officials point
to the large epidemiology studies as proof that there is no link between
thimerosal and autism. However, these studies are not powered to disprove
the null hypothesis when considering that the mitochondrial autistic
population may be just a small percent of the case totals. Remember that
while the CDC sponsored Verstraten study is hyped as a negative study, it
DID find a statistically significant increase in childhood tics in those
exposed to higher doses of thimerosal.

6. Hannah was destined to regress? Or was she?

Some experts have already stated that ‘mitochondrial disease’ is
degenerative so the vaccine reaction was just the start of an inevitable
decline. This was neither the opinion of Dr. Richard Kelley at KKI nor Dr.
John Shoffner. In fact, the markers that led us down the mitochondrial trail
(inc AST but not ALT, low serum bicarbonate, and slight increased CK,
increase in the alanine to lysine ratio on PAA) are no longer present.
Furthermore, in our pilot study (unpublished but mentioned in the J child
neurol paper), Dr. Frye (the statistician for our study and also a child
neurologist) found a non-significant trend that AST decreased toward normal
with increasing age. With further studies we hoped to examine the hypothesis
that this abnormality may be representative of a developing/immature
biochemical pathway present in some children.

7. Triple Hit Hypothesis—#1Underlying genetic susceptibility #2Insult must
occur during specific developmental period #3 A certain vaccination or
combination thereof is the environmental trigger (?vaccine component like
thimerosal ?direct immune stim/fever reaction ?live virus reaction?)

The implication is that Hannah’s type of autism requires a genetic
susceptibility and properly timed insult to manifest disease. We have not
subjected Hannah to another muscle biopsy or re-examined ox phos functional
assays that were published in the paper. I can inform your readers though
that the serum biochemical markers have resolved, growth resumed and
continues along a normal trajectory, and there have been no other episodes
of regression since 2000. We are however left with autism and later in 2006,
epilepsy.
It is recommended that studies be initiated immediately to screen siblings
of cases to identify biochemical markers so as to identify potential
screening tests.

I agree with the mainstream that my daughter’s case has raised many
intelligent discussions and questions. I’m very proud of her for starting
this discussion. Our hope is that further research into this case and others
like it, we will be also to find screening tests to prevent what happened to
my daughter from happening to anybody else.

(Dr. Poling acknowledges the editorial comments and insightful suggestions
of Dr. Richard E. Frye. He also would like to declare his conflicts of
interest. First of all, he is the father of Hannah Poling. Dr. Poling has
also accepted consultancy or speakers honoraria from Pfizer, Eisai,
Ortho-McNeil, Biogen, Teva, Immunex (now Amgen), and Allergan.)

PS While I thought it useful to clarify some of the neurological issues
raised by the government’s concession of my daughter’s case, please
understand that I will not be able to respond to individual comments posted.
Thank-you. Jon

Eat Your Vaccine, Dear

Friday, April 18th, 2008

The Natural Solutions Foundation, the leading Global Health Freedom organization, is proud to present this information to you. We protect your right to know about – and to use – natural ways to maintain and regain your health, no matter where in the world you live. Among your freedoms is the right to clean, unadulterated food free of genetic manipulation, pesticides, heavy metals or other contaminants and access to herbs, supplements, frequency devices and other means as therapies that may benefit or to protect your well-being without drugs and other dangerous interventions, if you choose.

For more information on our global programs, including the International Decade of Nutrition, and our US based ones, please visit us at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org and www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org and join the free email list for the Health Freedom eAlerts to keep you in the loop, informed and active defending your right to make your own decisions about your health and wellbeing!
Our activities are supported 100% by your tax deductible donations. Please give generously (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189) to the Natural Solutions Foundation. Thank you for your support.
Feel free to disseminate this information as widely as possible with full attribution.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.organics4U.org

Natural Solutions Foundation is deeply concerned by the human experimentaion which vaccinations, some of which are genetically modified, are introduced into the food chain without labeling. Residues of drugs and vaccines are eaten and serve as unclear stimuli of various sorts on an experimental basis.

Since consumers are receiving experimental brews of vaccines, drugs and GMO components without fully informed consent, international human rights treaties are being violated and the statutory responsibility of various agencies, including the FDA, are likewise being violated and abrogated.

The Natural Solutions Foundation urges regulatory and legal change to protect consumers from inaccurate information about the wholesome nature of foods so treated and urges full and complete disclosure and informed consent before consumption of these highly altered foods.

As an example, pigs are heavily vaccinated and their flesh is then eaten without any labeling of the contents of that flesh. This is neither good public health nor consumer policy. The Natural Solutions Foundation urges changes in national and state laws and regulatory practices in the USDA, FDA, EPA, FTC and other relevant agencies to protect consumer rights and health.

Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.organics4U.org

http://www.thepigsite.com/pighealth/contents/Fig%203-5.gif
Details the vaccines commonly given to pigs. Vaccination schedules vary by country. Source: The Pig Site, http://www.thepigsite.com/pighealth/article/41/vaccination

Vaccination
(66) Vaccines contain antigens from viruses, bacteria, bacterial toxins, or parasites. They are given to pigs, usually by injection, to stimulate an immune response which will protect the pigs against later natural infection with the organism from which the vaccine was derived. Most stimulate both a humoral response and a cell-mediated response.

Vaccines can be live, containing living organisms which will multiply in the pig, or inactivated, containing only killed organisms which will not multiply in the pig.

In live vaccines the organisms has usually been attenuated (i.e. its virulence has been reduced) so that although it will multiply in the pig it will not normally cause any cause disease. Examples are the PRRS vaccine (although some may cause mild reactions), aujeszky’s disease (pseudorabies) vaccines and classical swine fever vaccines. Live attenuated vaccines have the advantage that because they multiply in the pig they give a bigger antigenic stimulus resulting in stronger longer-lasting immunity. They have the disadvantage that they may die in wrong storage conditions (e.g. heat) or during dosing (e.g. by exposure to antiseptics or disinfectants) and are then useless. It is also important that they are stable and not able to return to full virulence.

Inactivated (dead) vaccines may contain whole organisms, antigenic parts of organisms or antigens which have been synthesised chemically. An example of a commonly used whole organism vaccine is the erysipelas vaccine. (In North America such vaccines are often called Bacterins).

For example : – Erysipelas vaccine

This is made by growing the erysipelas bacteria in a liquid nutrient broth (several strains may be used).

1. The bacteria are then killed.
2. A liquid or adjuvant is added to the bacterial suspension.
3. This produces the vaccine.
4. A predetermined number of bacteria are injected into the pig. The first dose (usually 2ml).
5. A 2nd dose is required to complete the immune response, usually given 14 to 24 days after the first.
6. 7 days after the second dose the pig is protected.

Synthesised antigen vaccines are still largely in the experimental stage.

The immunity produced by inactivated vaccines can be enhanced by adding substances or adjuvants such as aluminium hydroxide or certain types of oil. You should take care, however, if you use vaccines with oily adjuvants because they can cause serious local reactions if you accidentally inject yourself, e.g. your hand.

Inactivated vaccines may also contain toxins which have been modified so that they still stimulate an immune response but are no longer toxic to the animal. Toxins which have been modified in this way are called toxoids. The classic vaccine of this type is the tetanus toxoid which is used commonly in horses but rarely in pigs. In pigs, some of the E. coli vaccines against piglet diarrhoea and the clostridial vaccines against piglet dysentery also contain toxoids.

Live vaccines are usually ones where the gene for the actual production of disease is deleted (gene deleted vaccines). The vaccine response can be differentiated from the actual disease and thus carrier animals removed. An example would be Aujeszky’s disease or Pseudorabies vaccines.

Autogenous vaccines

Autogenous vaccines are bacterial vaccines that are manufactured from the specific pathogenic bacteria isolated from the diseased pig. They are usually made under a licence for use only on that farm. You should consult with your veterinarian. These are available from Salus (QP) Ltd.. They can be useful when serious disease outbreaks occur and standard commercial vaccines are not available.

Such vaccines could be made from most bacteria including :-

* Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae
* E. coli
* Haemophilus parasuis
* Pasteurella
* Salmonella
* Streptococcus suis
* Staphylococcus hyicus (Greasy pig disease)

One drawback to vaccinating a herd is that you cannot then use blood tests to check whether the organism is present in the herd or not. All the pigs will test positive which has obvious implications for an eradication programme based on blood tests, for example the eradication of swine fever or aujeszky’s disease (pseudorabies). To get over this, gene-deleted vaccines have been developed. A part of the organism’s gene which codes for an antigen has been removed so that when the organism multiplies in the pig it does not stimulate antibodies against that antigen. Special blood tests can then distinguish between the array of disease antibodies and those stimulated by the vaccine. A new generation of such gene manipulated vaccines, and possibly also synthetic polypeptide vaccines, can be anticipated.

Autogenous vaccines are those prepared with infectious pathogens from the herd which is to be vaccinated. The causal organisms has to be isolated, grown up, killed, and made into a safe vaccine form. Autogenous vaccines may be useful when serious disease outbreaks occur and standard commercial vaccines are not available.

Vaccine usage

Fig.3-5 lists the pig diseases for which vaccines are available. This list is not exhaustive and some vaccines will be available in some countries and not in others. However they are used in most countries both to protect against disease and to assist in eradication programmes. Some examples of commercial vaccines available are shown in chapter 4 these are but a few of the many available.

Vaccines commonly used on pig farms throughout the world include erysipelas, parvovirus infection (SMEDI syndrome), E. coli diarrhoea, clostridial dysentery of piglets, enzootic pneumonia caused by Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, necrotic pleuropneumonia caused by Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae and atrophic rhinitis caused by toxigenic Pasteurella multocida. In many countries, vaccines against diseases, such as, salmonellosis, PRRS and TGE are also used depending on commercial availability.

In the European Union vaccination against classical swine fever has been stopped in a programme aimed at stamping the disease out. Vaccination against foot-and-mouth disease has also been stopped for a similar reason. Aujeszky’s disease (pseudorabies) virus is widespread everywhere in the EU except in the UK and Denmark. With the exception of these two countries vaccination is widely practised. A blanket vaccination regime for all herds is being applied in some countries such as the Netherlands in an attempt to build up a national herd immunity resulting in the eradication of the virus.

North America is free from FMD and CSF so vaccination is not practised but PR vaccines are widely used in conjunction with eradication programmes. Elsewhere in the world, the situation regarding these three diseases varies, so vaccination policies also vary.

The effectiveness of vaccines

This varies, because of the need to stimulate mucosal immunity locally. As mentioned earlier, vaccines given by injection against respiratory and intestinal disease are generally not as effective as those against systemic or generalised diseases. An exception to this is the vaccine for enzootic pneumonia (M. hyopneumoniae) because it stimulates cell-mediated immunity. If, however, they are fed or sprayed into the upper respiratory tract they may produce a stronger local immunity. The vaccine against piglet dysentery is a toxoid and if given routinely to sows in adequate doses is usually reasonably effective in providing passive protection via the colostrum.

Sometimes vaccines do not work particularly well on a farm and in such cases the following possibilities need to be considered:

* The vaccine was contaminated.
* The vaccine was not capable of producing the required immunity.
* The pig was already incubating the disease when it was vaccinated.
* The vaccine had been incorrectly stored. High temperatures reduce the effectiveness. (Always keep vaccines in a refrigerator but do not freeze).
* The vaccine had been exposed to sunlight.
* The vaccine had gone out of date.
* The needle and syringe were dirty or faulty.
* Chemical sterilisation destroyed the vaccine.
* The animal had inadvertently missed being vaccinated. This is particularly common with parvovirus vaccination in the gilt.
* Vaccine response was poor because there was maternal antibody present.
* The vaccine was deposited in fat and was not absorbed. Faulty injection techniques

The management of vaccines

* Check the expiry date.
* Store in a fridge.
* Monitor the temperature daily with a max/min thermometer. Freezing destroys vaccines.
* Don’t overstock the fridge.
* Don’t store food in the fridge.
* Follow the instructions.
* Ideally use a fresh needle for each pig but change at least every 5 pigs.
* Do not mix vaccines or medicines.
* Dispose needles in a sharps box.
* Clean out syringes immediately after use.
* Only use vaccines licensed in your country.
* Clean bottle tops before and after use.

GM Files: Submission to South African Parliament

Friday, April 18th, 2008

The Natural Solutions Foundation, the leading Global Health Freedom organization, is proud to present this information to you. We protect your right to know about – and to use – natural ways to maintain and regain your health, no matter where in the world you live. Among your freedoms is the right to clean, unadulterated food free of genetic manipulation, pesticides, heavy metals or other contaminants and access to herbs, supplements, frequency devices and other means as therapies that may benefit or to protect your well-being without drugs and other dangerous interventions, if you choose.

For more information on our global programs, including the International Decade of Nutrition, and our US based ones, please visit us at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org and www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org and join the free email list for the Health Freedom eAlerts to keep you in the loop, informed and active defending your right to make your own decisions about your health and wellbeing!
Our activities are supported 100% by your tax deductible donations. Please give generously (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189) to the Natural Solutions Foundation. Thank you for your support.
Feel free to disseminate this information as widely as possible with full attribution.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.organics4U.org

This document was submitted to the South African Parliament by Ingrid Blank during a discussion period on GMO impact on Human and Environmental Health Risks posed by GMOs.

SUBMISSION TO THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS AND TOURISM

BY MS. INGRID BLANK 7 MODDER ROAD MERRIVALE 3291
Tel: 033 3302722

RISKS TO THE ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN HEALTH POSED
BY GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS

Preface

While I appreciate the Portfolio Committee’s invitation for public comment, it is nevertheless disturbing to note that according to Ms. Kakaza the invitation had only been sent to various “stakeholders’ – whoever the latter might be – and had not been published in all major regional newspapers thus affording ordinary citizens, who, after all, are the ones most adversely affected by GMOs, an opportunity to voice their opinion and outrage at having been force-fed for years with untested and highly dangerous GM organisms without their knowledge and consent. The latter, one would assume, is the underlying concept of a democratic government elected by and for the people, resting upon the consent of the governed. Instead, by blatantly refusing to apply the precautionary principle, although the latter ironically constitutes an essential element of its own party manifesto, the decision-makers of this government have violated and keep violating the constitutional rights of its citizens, i.e. the right to a healthy environment and healthy food, the right of informed choice and consent and participation in decision-making processes relating to this contentious issue, the right to information and above all the individual’s human right to bodily integrity, the latter being the most significant provision of the Nuremberg Code, which sets forth the legal requirements for human experimentation, i.e. “ voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential”. Likewise, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares bodily integrity central to both human rights and human dignity and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights unmistakably declares that “no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation”. By deliberately ignoring the precautionary principle and refusing to implement mandatory labeling of GM products, this government allows its citizens to be used as guinea pigs, sacrificing the nation’s health for corporate greed.

Surely nobody can be that naïve and intelligence-compromised as to believe that the heads of biotech companies woke up one morning overcome by the pressing urge to alleviate poverty in third-world countries. This is yet another myth spread by biotech-proponents which has already been debunked and I am hereby submitting some comments in this respect to the Committee for their review.

Introduction

There is no relationship between the prevalence of hunger in a given country and its population. For every densely populated and hungry nation like Bangladesh or Haiti, there is a sparsely populated and hungry nation like Brazil and Indonesia. The world today produces more food per inhabitant than ever before. Enough is available to provide 4.3 pounds every person everyday: 2.5 pounds of grain, beans and nuts, about a pound of meat, milk and eggs and another of fruits and vegetables. The real causes of hunger are poverty, inequality and lack of access. Too many people are too poor to buy the food that is available (but often poorly distributed) or lack the land and resources to grow it themselves (Lappe, Collins and Rosset l998). (Lappe, F.M., J. Collins and P. Rosset (1998). World Hunger: twelve myths, p. 270. Grove Press, NY. As cited in: “Ten reasons why biotechnology will not ensure food security, protect the environment and reduce poverty in the developing world”; Miguel A. Altieri, UC Berkeley and Peter Rosset, Institute for Food and Development Policy, Oakland, CA)

Dr. Geoffrey Clements (physicist and leader of the Natural Law Party, UK): “Perfectly safe natural alternatives are readily available, and no one believes the propaganda that GE crops are essential to help feed the hungry or to secure food stocks for the future. In fact, if the GE revolution is not halted and if the balance of Nature continues to be disrupted, we would well see the worst famines and disease of all time.”

Far from being a solution to the world’s hunger problem, the rapid introduction of GE crops may actually threaten agriculture and food security. First, widespread adoption of HT seeds may lead to greater use of chemicals that kill weeds. Yet, many noncrop plants are used by small farmers in the third world as supplemental food sources and as animal feed. In the United States, the Fish and Wildlife Service has found that Roundup already threatens 74 endangered plant species. Biological pollution from GE organisms may be another problem. Monsanto is poised to acquire the rights to a genetic engineering technique that renders a crop’s seeds sterile, insuring that farmers are dependent on Monsanto for new seed every year. Farming in the 3rd world could be crippled if these genes contaminate other local crops that the poor depend on. And such genes could unintentionally sterilize other plants, according to a study by Martha Crouch, an associate professor of biology at Indiana University. Half the world’s farmers rely on their own saved seed for each year’s harvest. (Peter Rosset, “World Hunger: Twelve Myths”)

Substantial Equivalence

After the long walk to freedom and having freed itself of the shackles of first colonialism and then apartheid, it is absolutely inconceivable that the decision makers in this unholy and fundamentally flawed process delivered our beautiful country into bondage again – this time into the shackles of multi-national biotech companies. Even more pathetic is the fact that the puppets of the puppet masters live under the arrogant misconception that any educated person would actually believe in the broken-record slogans of corporate yarn spinners, true to the motto of Hitler’s quotes in “Mein Kampf “ “the broad mass of a nation will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one” and “ the greater the lie the greater the chance that it will be believed” , e.g.. “GM food is safe”, “there is no difference between conventional breeding and genetic engineering” and that “genetically engineered foods are “substantially equivalent” to their natural counterparts. If that were the case, then there would be no need to patent GMOs, right?! In fact, their unscientific ramblings prove one thing beyond reasonable doubt, namely that the consumption of GM food inevitably leads to the Pinocchio syndrome and they must all be tripping over their long noses by now. The alleged “safety” of GM food has never been established and Monsanto’s safety claim was recently rebuked by the Advertising Standards Authority, which also mandated Monsanto to provide independent verification of such safety claim. In fact, Monsanto is not in the least concerned about the safety of their genetically engineered concoctions, as once so aptly expressed by Phil Angell, Monsanto’s director of corporate communications “ Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring it’s safety is the FDA’s job” .

The concept of substantial equivalence is by no means based on evidence-based science, but was coined by scientifically illiterate lawyers of the biotech industry, in particular Michael Taylor of Monsanto and in 1992 written into law by the likewise scientifically-illiterate H.W. Bush who issued an Executive Order proclaiming GM plants (soya, corn) to be “substantially equivalent” to its traditional counterparts and therefore not needing any special health safety study or testing. Ethical scientists and researchers, including my own daughter who is a genetic researcher with a BSc Honours degree in molecular genetics and a BSc Master’s degree in genetics, refute the validity of the substantial equivalence principle and consider it the biggest farce and fraud ever committed in the science field. The FDA, supposedly established to protect peoples’ health, and other regulatory bodies such as EPA blindly adopted this ill-begotten ruling, which, however, is not surprising given the amply documented corrupt symbiosis between the FDA and pharma and biotech companies. And anyone involved in the GM debacle, as I have been for the past ten years, is well aware of the meanwhile legendary revolving door at the FDA, the best example of which was the approval of aspartame and Monsanto’s rBGH drug, which was approved against the advice and conscience of the FDA’s own scientists thanks to the moles planted in the FDA by Monsanto, such as Michael Taylor mentioned above. The wording of the approval, i.e. “the risks to animals and humans is MANAGEABLE” goes down in history as the most appalling case of total disregard to human health by the very agency that is supposed to protect the latter and is the first time ever that a veterinary drug had been approved for human consumption because the risk was considered manageable. Of course, it will be “manageable”, namely by the billion-dollar cancer industry, given the fact that according to independent researchers, scientists and physicians NOT bought and funded by bio-tech companies rBGH may cause colon, prostrate and breast cancer. Think of all the wonderful blockbuster drugs that will subsequently be invented and approved by FDA “scientists” who have financial stakes in the very drug or biotech companies whose drug they blindly approve and unleash on the unsuspecting public and – oops – too bad when such drugs then kill 70,000 people as happened in Merck’s Vioxx case.

I urge this committee to read the article written by F. William Engdahl (March 29, 2006) and published in Global Research, which clearly exposes the dirty politics behind the GMO industry:

WTO, GMO and Total Spectrum Dominance

WTO rules put free-trade of agribusiness above national health concerns

Quote

In February, a private organization with unique powers over world industry, trade and agriculture, issued a Preliminary Draft Ruling on a three-year-old case. The case was brought by the Bush Administration in May 2003 against European Union rules hindering the spread of genetically-engineered plants and foods. The WTO ruling, which is to be final in December, will have more influence over life and death on this planet than most imagine.

The ruling was issued by a special three-man tribunal of the World Trade Organization, in Geneva Switzerland. The WTO decision will open the floodgates to the forced introduction of genetically-manipulated plants and food products– GMO, or genetically-modified organisms as they are technically known– into the world’s most important agriculture production region, the European Union.

The WTO case arose from a formal complaint filed by the governments of the United States, Canada and Argentina—three of the world’s most GMO-polluted areas.

The WTO three-judge panel, chaired by Christian Haberli, a mid-level Swiss Agriculture Office bureaucrat, ruled that the EU had applied a ‘de facto’ moratorium on approvals of GMO products between June 1999 and August 2003, contradicting Brussels’ claim that no such moratorium existed. The WTO judges argued the EU was ‘guilty’ of not following EU rules, causing ‘undue delay’ in following WTO obligations.

The secretive WTO tribunal also ruled, according to the leaked document, that in terms of product-specific measures, the completion of formal EU government approval to plant specific GMO plants had also been unduly delayed in the cases of 24 of 27 specific GMO products that the European Commission in Brussels had before it.

The WTO tribunal recommended that the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), the world trade policeman, call on the EU to bring its practices ‘into conformity with its obligations under the (WTO’s) SPS Agreement.’ Failure to comply with WTO demands can result in hundreds of millions dollars in annual fines.

Trade über Alles

SPS stands for Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. On the surface it sounds as if health concerns were part of the WTO considerations. The reality is the opposite. Only minimal health standards are to be allowed to be enforced under WTO free trade rules, and any nation attempting anything more strict, such as the EU ban on import of US hormone-fed beef, can be found guilty by WTO of an ‘unfair restraint of trade.’

Today the EU must pay a fine of $150 million yearly to maintain its ban on the US hormone-fed beef. WTO rules in effect put free-trade interests of agribusiness above national health concerns. That means, de facto, that the EU Commission must complete its approval process for the 24 outstanding applications to plant GMO crops in Europe once the final ruling is made later this year.

That will mean a flood of new GMO products in EU agriculture. Monsanto, Syngenta and other GMO multinationals have already taken advantage of lax national rules in new EU member countries such as Poland to get the GMO ‘foot-in-the door.’ Now it will be far easier for them. Pro-GMO governments such as that of Angela Merkel in Germany can claim they are only following WTO ‘orders.’

What is the significance of this WTO ruling, assuming it remains as is in final form by December? It represents a major, dangerous wedge into largely GMO-free EU agriculture, permitting powerful agribusiness multinationals such as Monsanto, Dow Chemicals or DuPont to overrun national or regional efforts to halt the march of GMO. For this reason, it is potentially the most damaging decision in the history of world trade agreements.

A strategic Washington matter

The case first came before the World Trade Organization in a filing made by the Bush Administration in May 2003, just as the military occupation of Iraq was entering a new phase. The US President held a rare press conference to tell the world that the US was formally charging the EU, accusing the EU ‘moratorium’ on GMO approval of being a cause of starvation in Africa. Their twisted logic argued that so long as a major industrialized region such as the EU resisted planting GMO crops domestically, it caused sceptical African governments to harden their resistance to US food aid in the form of GMO crops. That, Bush charged, was causing unnecessary ‘starvation’ in Africa because some countries refused USDA food aid in form of GMO crop surpluses.

The issue of breaking resistance barriers in the European Union to the proliferation of GMO crops has been a matter of the highest strategic priority for those controlling policy in Washington since 1992 when then-President George H.W. Bush , the father of the current President, issued an Executive Order proclaiming GMO plants such as soybeans or GMO corn to be ‘substantially equivalent’ to ordinary corn or soybeans, and, therefore, not needing any special health safety study or testing.

That ‘substantial equivalence’ ruling by President Bush in 1992 opened the floodgates to the unregulated spread of GMO across the American agriculture landscape. As basis for its 2003 WTO filing against the EU, Washington, on behalf of agribusiness interests including Monsanto, Dow, DuPont and others, charged the EU with violation of the American ‘substantial equivalence’ doctrine!

So long as the world’s second most powerful agriculture trade region, the EU, firmly resisted the introduction of untested GM plants, the global spread of the GMO revolution would remain strategically crippled. For the past decades, breaking up the system of domestic agriculture protection of the EU, centered around its Common Agriculture Program, has been a strategic political and trade goal of the US Government and US-based agribusiness. The creation of the WTO in 1995, a result of the GATT Uruguay Round trade talks during the 1980’s, opened the possibility for the first time of forcing the EU to drop its defenses on US threat of sanctions.

The secret process behind WTO

When the final WTO Panel ruling is published and official this coming December, assuming no major changes take place in the 1,050 page preliminary ruling of February 7, a major barrier to the global spread of largely untested and highly unstable genetically modified foods will be gone. This will become unstoppable, as it was in the USA, unless political pressure from a sceptical European population forces the EU Commission to pay a WTO fine or penalty, in lieu of acceding to the demands of the WTO.

It’s relevant to ask what is this body, WTO which exercises such enormous power over laws of nations? What is its mandate and who controls its policies?

The negotiations of world trade since the establishment of the Bretton Woods postwar monetary system at the end of World War II, had been made through a General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a series of trade rounds on specific issues between specific member countries. In September 1986, on US -led pressure, the Uruguay Round of GATT was launched in Punta del Este Uruguay. The result was creation of a new, powerful private international agency, the WTO.

In late 1994 the US Congress voted to join the WTO, the new permanent trade body established by the GATT Uruguay Round. There was almost no debate. It was clear in Washington who would dominate the new body. Unlike GATT which had no enforcement power, and which required unanimous member vote for sanctions, the WTO would be given tough sanction and enforcement powers. More important, how it reached decisions was to remain secret, with no democratic oversight. The most vital issues of economic life on the planet were to be decided behind closed doors in Geneva WTO headquarters or in Washington and Brussels. It could choose its ‘experts’ as it saw fit and ignore what evidence it saw fit. In the EU GMO dispute, three of four initial scientific experts chosen were from either US or UK institutions, two countries most in favour of GMO. (1)

Two years earlier, in 1992, at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Rio, 175 UN governments signed a convention to on the safe handling and treatment of GMOs, a major vote of the world community to examine the health and economic impacts of GMO agriculture before it could be allowed in a country. The US Government of President George Bush Sr. aggressively opposed the CBD, arguing that a Biosafety Protocol was unnecessary. Under the CBD agreement, a country could prohibit GMO imports.

The GMO industry, led by Monsanto, DuPont and Dow of the US, sabotaged this agreement. A group of six countries controlling the world Biotech or GMO market—Canada, Argentina, Uruguay, Australia Chile and USA– forced a clause into the CBD text which would subordinate the Biosafety Protocol to the WTO. They argued that limiting trade based on ‘unproven’ biosafety concerns should be considered a ‘barrier to trade’ under WTO rules!

Traditional liability law holds that a new product must first be proven safe before being allowed on market. This WTO rule placing the burden of proof not on the producer of a new GMO product, but on the potential victims, turned prudence and health safety issues on its head. In the end the US destroyed the Biosafety Protocol by refusing to include soybeans and corn, 99% of all GMO products, making the Protocol near worthless regarding GMO health issues.

The WTO serves as the weapon for the powerful coalition of Washington and the powerful private GMO giants, led by Monsanto. Earlier in 1992, Bush, on advice of Monsanto and the emerging US GM giant companies, ruled that GM organisms were ‘substantially equivalent’ to ordinary seeds for soybeans or corn and such. As ‘substantially equivalent,’ GM seeds required no special testing or health controls before being put on the market. This was crucial to the future of Monsanto and the GMO lobby.

By Presidential Executive Order, the US had defined GMO seeds as harmless and hence not needing to be regulated for health and safety. It made sure this principle was carried over into the new WTO in the form of the WTO’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (SPS), which stated, ‘Food standards and measures aimed at protecting people from pests or animals can potentially be used as a deliberate barrier to trade.’ The US charge against the EU in the present GMO dispute charged the EU with violation of the SPS agreement of WTO.

Other WTO rules in the Agreement to Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) forbid member countries from using domestic standards or testing, food safety laws, product standards, calling them an ‘unfair barrier to trade.’

The impact of those two US-mandated WTO rulings meant that Washington could threaten that any government restricting import of GM plants on grounds they might pose threats to health and safety of their population, could be found to be in violation of WTO free trade rules! This is what the US Government, on behalf of its agribusiness private corporations has done against the EU restrictions on GMO.

Under the WTO’s Technical Barriers to Trade, the US has argued that no labelling of GMO plants was required, as the plants have not been ‘substantially transformed’ from normal or non-GM soya, corn or other plants. This conveniently ignored the fact that Washington simultaneously insisted that GMOs, due to the genetic engineering process, are sufficiently transformed, i.e. NOT equivalent, to be patented as ‘original’, and protected under WTO TRIPS intellectual property patent rights. (2).

The Agreement on Agriculture

The heart of the WTO machinery is the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), which under the sheep’s wool of ‘free trade,’ hides the wolf of private agri-business GMO monopoly power. Under AoA rules, since 1995 poorer developing countries have been forced to eliminate quotas and slash protective tariffs, at the same time the Bush Administration voted to increase its subsidies to US agribusiness farming by $80 billions.

The net effect has been to allow the powerful monopoly of five grain trading giants—Cargill, ADM, Bunge, Andre (formerly) and Louis Dreyfus—to dramatically increase the dumping of food commodities globally, ruining millions of family farmers worldwide in the process, while maximizing their private corporate profits.

The AoA of WTO ignores the reality of agriculture markets which are qualitatively different from, say, the market for cars or CD’s. Agriculture and national food safety and security are at the heart of a nation’s sovereignty, and its obligation to its own citizens to support the basics of life. Agriculture is unique in this respect, along with water rights.

The AoA was written by the US-dominated agribusiness giants such as Cargill, ADM, Monsanto and DuPont, to serve the agenda of these global supranational private companies, whose sole aim is to maximize profits and market monopoly, regardless of human consequences. Their focus is the domination of the $1 trillion global agriculture trade. The actual author of the AoA of WTO was Daniel Amstutz, a former Vice President of Cargill Grain, who was at the time in the Washington US Trade Representative’s Office, before going back to the grain trade.(3).

Who controls WTO?

The essential control of WTO decisions, decisions which have the full power of international law and can force governments to repeal local laws for health, safety and such is held by private interests, by a global US-centered agribusiness cartel. There are no public or democratic checks on the power of WTO.

On paper, WTO rules are made by a consensus of all 134 member countries. In reality, four countries, led by the United States, decide all important agriculture and other trade issues. As in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, Washington exercises decisive control behind the scenes. And it does so in the interest of the private agribusiness cartel.

The four WTO controlling countries, known as the QUAD countries, are USA, Canada, Japan and the EU. In the QUAD, in turn, the giant agri-business multinationals exercise controlling influence, most clearly in Washington.

The WTO is designed to impose the wishes of giant private companies over the legitimate democratic will of entire nations and duly-elected governments. WTO has one mission: enforce rules of a ‘free trade,’ an agenda which is in no way genuinely ‘free’ but rather suits the needs of agribusiness giants.

Under the secretive WTO rules, countries can challenge another’s laws for restricting their trade. The case is then heard by a tribunal or court of three trade bureaucrats. They are usually influential corporate lawyers with pro-free trade bias. The lawyers have no conflict of interest rules binding them, such that a Monsanto lawyer can rule on a case of material interest to Monsanto.

Further, there is no rule that the judges of WTO respect any national laws of any country. The three judges meet in secret without revealing the time or location. All court documents are confidential and are not published unless one party releases it. It is a modern version of the Spanish Inquisition, but with far more power.

The EU banned the import of US beef treated with growth and other hormones, and the US lodged a formal WTO complaint. There was a long report from independent scientists showing that the hormones added to US beef were ‘cancer-causing’. The WTO three judge panel ruled that the EU did not present a ‘valid’ scientific case to refuse import, and the EU was forced to pay $150 million annually for lost US profits. (4).

The powerful private interests who control WTO agriculture policy prefer to remain in the background as little-publicized NGO’s. One of the most influential in creating the WTO is a little-publicized organization called the IPC– the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council, shortened to International Policy Council.

The IPC was created in 1987 to lobby for the GATT agriculture rules of WTO at the Uruguay GATT talks. The IPC demanded removal of ‘high tariff’ barriers in developing countries, remaining silent on the massive government subsidy to agribusiness in the USA.

A look at the IPC membership explains what interests it represents. The IPC Chairman is Robert Thompson, former Assistant Secretary US Department of Agriculture and former Presidential economic adviser. Also included in the IPC are Bernard Auxenfans, Chief Operating Officer, Monsanto Global Agricultural Company and Past Chairman of Monsanto Europe S.A.; Allen Andreas of ADM/Toepfer; Andrew Burke of Bunge (US); Dale Hathaway former USDA official and head IFPRI (US).

Other IPC members include Heinz Imhof, chairman of Syngenta (CH); Rob Johnson of Cargill and USDA Agriculture Policy Advisory Council; Franz Fischler Former Commissioner for Agriculture, European Commission; Guy Legras (France) former EU Director General Agriculture; Donald Nelson of Kraft Foods (US); Joe O’Mara of USDA, Hiroshi Shiraiwa of Mitsui & Co Japan; Jim Starkey former Assistant US Trade Representative; Hans Joehr, Nestle’s head of agriculture; Jerry Steiner of Monsanto (US). Members Emeritus include Ann Veneman, former Bush Administration Secretary of Agriculture and former board member of Calgene, creator of the Flavr Savr genetically-modified tomato.

The IPC is controlled by US-based agribusiness giants which benefit from the rules they drafted for WTO trade. In Washington itself, the USDA no longer represents interests of small family farmers. It is the lobby of giant global agribusiness. The USDA is a revolving door for these private agribusiness giants to shape friendly policies. GMO policy is the most blatant example.

Brussels also dominated by GMO lobby

The power of the giant GMO companies and US-centered agribusiness companies extends to control of key policies in Brussels at the European Commission. Typical is the fact that former EU Agricuolture Commissioner Franz Fischler is a member of the powerful pro-GMO IPC.

For years it has been common knowledge among EU farm experts that grain policy was not set by national governments but by the Big Five private grain traders led by Cargill and ADM. Now the powerful weight of Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta and the GMO lobby has been added. This is clear in the recent announcement of a new EU program, SAFEFOODS, a successor to the controversial pro-GMO ENTRANSFOOD project. ENTRANSFOOD was set up to ‘facilitate market introduction of GMO’s in Europe, and therefore to bring the European (sic) industry into a competitive position.’

ENTRANSFOOD, now called the more innocuous SAFEFOODS, claims to combine different views on GMO food. In reality, its key Working Group 1, responsible for ‘Safety Testing of Transgenic Foods’ consists of representatives not from independent consumer organizations, but from Monsanto, Unilever, Bayer Corp., Syngenta and BIBRA International, a consultancy close to agribusiness and the pharmaceutical industry. As well, Dr. Harry Kuiper, a Dutch scientist member of the food safety GMO group of SAFEFOODS in Brussels, is Coordinator of SAFEFOODS. Kuiper chairs the EU European Food Safety Authority GMO Panel. He also has also been leading the vicious slander attack campaign to discredit genetic scientist Dr Arpad Pusztai who dared to go public with alarming evidence of organ damage from rats fed GMO potatoes and was fired on the intervention of Monsanto in 1999.(5). The WTO today is nothing more than the global policeman for the powerful GMO lobby and the agribusiness firms tied to it.

With the new German coalition government under Chancellor Angela Merkel and Agriculture Minister Horst Seehofer now officially on record supporting the role of Germany as a future leader in biotech crops and GMO, the impact of the latest WTO ruling on food safety in the EU and beyond has put European and hence, world food safety world in danger. UNQUOTE

___________________________

In view of the revelations above, I urge this committee to remember our president’s objective of the African Renaissance, which will never materialize if we do not stand proud and blindly walk into new slavery created by the greedy puppet masters revealed in the article above instead.

Cauliflower mosaic virus and HIV infection

In the context of the South African landscape and that of other countries ravaged by HIV infections and AIDS, it is inconceivable and grossly negligent that South Africa allows our staple food, white maize, to be grown in genetically modified form without prior testing as to the impact on human health, in particular the health of those people – mostly poor and black – whose health and particularly the immune system has already been compromised by malnutrition, the typical infections prevalent in Africa and above all HIV! Monsanto’s GM maize NK603 is and has been eaten in SA for years. Results of an analysis of Monsanto’s test data, carried out by the French scientific research institute CRIIGEN, showed that rats that were fed the GM maize exhibited differences in their kidney, brain, heart and liver measurements, as well as significant weight differences compared to those fed with normal maize. Almost 70 statistically significant differences were observed and reported – 12 for hematology parameters, 18 for clinical chemistry parameters, nine for urine chemistry parameters, six for the organ weights (brain, heart, liver), 14 for body weights and body weight changes, and eight for food consumption. These could be warning signs of toxicity, but further tests still need to be done to confirm this.

Imperative would and should be the immediate commissioning of independent studies conducted by ethical researchers and scientists to confirm whether or not the cauliflower mosaic virus was used as a promoter in genetic engineering of all GM crops currently in circulation in SA. World-renowned scientists and researchers, such as Prof. Joe Cummins and Dr. Mae-Wan Ho have warned against the use of this virus as a promoter in genetic engineering and the probability of the devastating impact on human health for years. It goes without saying that their findings have been vilified by the academic mouthpieces of the biotech industry, particularly by their handsomely rewarded Prof. C.S. Prakash who receives multi-million dollar funding for his vilification exercises, as revealed in the article of GMWatch. Org. below:

Prof Channapatna Prakash, the great deceiver

QUOTE Prof CS Prakash, Director of the Center for Plant Biotechnology Research at the Tuskegee Institute in Texas and a roving GM ambassador for the US State Dept, is a man who knows how to tempt poor farmers. Last summer Prof Prakash told the Tanzanian press that GM “doubles production”, whle in the Philippines he told a press conference, “most genetically-modified crops have longer shelf life”. For resource poor farmers struggling with poor infrastructure these are enticing claims.

The fake claims come packaged with manufactured smears. Prakash told the assembled journalists in Manila that Greenpeace could be getting money for opposing GM crops from “some companies that think their business operations will be greatly affected by widespread use of genetically modified crops.” Who could these secret backers be? According to the Philippine Star, “Prakash would not say if pesticide companies are financing the operations of Greenpeace.”

Such lies and smears are far from the full extent of the Prakash fraud, however. Take Prof Prakash’s “AgBioWorld Foundation”. Prakash presents this as a mainstream science campaign, in support of “agbiotech”, that has “emerged from academic roots and values” and which eschews corporate support. The centre piece of AgBioWorld’s campaign is Prakash’s petition supporting the “judicious” use of genetically engineered crops in the developing world. This declaration has always been presented by Prakash as a Third World scientist’s rallying point for fellow academics. But according to the annual report of the Competitive Enterpise Institute (2000), the petition formed a key part of the CEI’s much wider campaign against “death by regulation”!

Recently, Prakash has been more open about the fact that Greg Conko of the CEI was a “co-founder” of his campaign. The midwifery of an organisation described by PR Watch as “a well funded corporate front”, and which opposes restrictions on smoking just as vociferously as it does those on GM foods, sits a little oddly with Prakash’s claims of AgBioWorld’s “academic roots and values”!

Prakash also runs the AgBioView e-mailing list which has accused critics of genetic engineering, variously, of fascism, communism, imperialism, nihilism, murder, corruption, terrorism, and even genocide; not to mention being worse than Hitler and on a par with the mass murderers who destroyed the World Trade Centre.

In 2002 AgBioView worked flat out to label the biotech industry’s critics as “killers of the hungry” over their criticism of USAID and its tied GM aid for Africa. Unmentioned by Prakash was the fact that he is an advisor to USAID or that his university enjoys multi-million dollar contracts with the agency. In autumn 2002 Prakash and Conko issued an AgBioWorld press release falsely implying the activities of anti-GM activists on the food aid issue had been responsible for the deaths of 10,000 people in the Indian state of Orissa. In reality, all the deaths were due to a super-cyclone.

The fakery and sleight of hand doesn’t even stop there. In April 2002 the journal Nature, in an unprecedented move, disowned the research of UC Berkeley scientists, Ignacio Chapela and David Quist, which had demonstrated the contamination of traditional maize landraces in a remote part of Mexico. Prakash has been quite happy to admit that AgBioWorld “played a fairly important role in putting public pressure on Nature” and has even claimed, in a fund-raising e-mail, that AgBioWorld’s campaign led directly to the disavowal of the research.

Certainly the AgBioView list took the lead in promoting and coordinating the attacks on the Berkeley researchers. The inflammatory series of e-mail attacks that kicked off AgBioView’s campaign came from a “Mary Murphy” and an “Andura Smetacek”. These e-mails claimed Chapela was politically motivated and that his research could only be understood in the light of his collusion with “fear-mongering activists” with whom, it was insinuated, he had designed the research. And Smetacek even asked how much money Chapela was getting in “expenses” from the anti-biotech “industry”.

Both “Murphy” and “Chapela” were fronts. “Mary Murphy” was run by Monsanto’s PR company, Bivings, while the postings of “Andura Smetacek” have been traced back directly to Monsanto in St Louis. In all Prakash posted around 70 of their poison pen attacks on his list. And their attacks on Chapela were all placed at the top of Prakash’s AgBioView bulletins. Yet according to CS Prakash, he and AgBioWorld have absolutely no connections with any PR companies or biotech corporations. In reality, however, his connections with both are more direct than even the Murphy/Smetacek mails might suggest. An error message received while we were searching the messages in Prakash’s original AgBioView archive – now closed – showed that this AgBioView database was hosted on Bivings’ main apollo server. A technical audit of AgBioWorld’s website showed it had all the hallmarks of having been designed by Bivings. Monsanto’s front persona for circulating attacks on the internet, “Andura Smetacek”, even created an online petition clling for the jailing of Jose Bove that stated it had been created by Smetacek *on behalf of Prakash’s AgBioWorld* – Prakash was amongst that petition’s early signatories.

A Monsanto PR “phantom” can speak on behalf of AgBioWorld because Prakash’s AgBioWorld is, in reality, just one of a series of virtual shopwindows created by Monsanto and Bivings in order to influence the GM debate. Smetacek and Prakash even speak from the same script. When claims made about Greenpeace by Smetacek on Prakash’s AgBioView list ended up in a Scottish newspaper, it resulted in a libel case. One of the claims at the centre of the case, which Greenpeace won, was that Greenpeace was getting financial backing from companies. It was agreed in the High Court that this claim was without foundation. Yet this is exactly the claim that Prakash made in the Philippines – the added twist being that Prakash who fronts for an agrochemical giant “would not say if pesticide companies are financing the operations of Greenpeace.”

CS Prakash speaks Monsanto’s script just as readily as Monsanto’s own fake persona. He is the mannequin in Monsanto’s virtual shopwindow and one who seems prepared to go anywhere and say or do almost anything to promote the interests of the US biotech industry. Witness his fake claims and smears in Manila which occurred in the build up to the approval of Monsanto’s Bt corn in the Philippines. The deceit that Prakash has been involved in has been on such a monumental scale that his smoking undergarments have burnt their way into the record books. UNQUOTE

I would like to draw the Committee’s urgent attention to Prof. Joe Cummins research on the use of the cauliflower mosaic virus:

The Use of Cauliflower Mosaic Virus 35S Promoter (CaMV) in Calgene’s Flavr Savr Tomato Creates Hazard

Joseph E. Cummins 3jun94

QUOTE Joseph E. Cummins, Professor Emeritus (Genetics) Dept. of Plant Sciences University of Western Ontario

The majority of crop plant constructions for herbicide or disease resistance employ a Promoter from cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV). Regardless of the gene transferred, all transfers require a promoter, which is like a motor driving production of the genes’ message. Without a promoter, the gene is inactive, but replicated, CaMV is used because it is a powerful motor which drives replication of the retrovirus and is active in both angiosperms and gymnosperms. The CaMV pararetrovirus replication cycle involves production vegetative virus containing RNA which is reverse transcribed to make DNA similar to HIV, Human Leukemia Virus and Human hepatitis B. (Bonneville et al. RNA Genetics Vo.11, Retroviruses, Viroids and RNA Recombination pp. 23-42, 1988). CaMV is closely related to hepatitis B and is closely related to HIV (Doolittle et al. Quart.Rev.Biol. 64,2, 1989; Xiong and Eickbush, EMBO Joumal 9, 3353, 1990).

The CaMV promoter is preferred above other potential promoters because it is a more powerful promoter than others and is not greatly influenced by environmental conditions or tissue types. CaMV has two Promoters 19S and 35S, of these two the 35S promoter is most frequently used in biotechnology because it is most powerful. The 35S promoter is a DNA (or RNA) sequence about 400 base pairs in length. The use of the CaMV promoter in plants is analogous to the use of retrovirus LTR promoters in retrovirus vectors used in human gene therapy. The majority of human gene therapy trials employ LTR promoters to provide motors to activate genes.

Antisense genes are genes constructed to have a complementary sequence to a target gene, thus producing a product that combines with a gene message to inactivate it. Antisense is analogous to an antibody which combines with an antigen like a key fitting a lock. Antisense is being used to treat human cancer and HIV infection. Antisense is used to prevent spoilage in tomatos, either by targeting an enzyme degrading cell walls (polygalacturonase), or production of ethylene a hormone promoting ripening (P. Oeller et al. Genetic Engineering 49, 1989; R. Fray and D. Grierson, Trends Genetics 9, 438, 1993). Most frequently antisense targets production of a chemical metabolite producing ethylene. The antisense gene also influenced polyamines spermine and spermidine production through S-adenosylmethionine. The implication is that the plant antisense gene product should be tested in animals to ensure that critical functions including gene replication, sperm activity and gene imprinting are not disrupted.

The perceived hazards of CaMV in crop plants include the consequences of recombination and pseudo recombination. Recombination is the exchanges of parts of genes or blocks of genes between chromosomes. Pseudorecombination is a situation in which gene components of one virus are exchanged with the protein coats of another. Frequently viruses may incorporate cellular genes by recombination or pseudorecombination, it has been noted that such recombinants have selective advantages (Lai, Micro. Rev. 56, 61, 1992).

It has been shown that the CaMV genes incorporated into the plant (canola) chromosome recombine with infecting virus to produce more virulent new virus diseases. The designers of the experiment questioned the safety of transgenic plants containing viral genes (S. Gal et al., Virology 187: 525, 1992). Recombination between CaMV viruses involves the promoter (Vaden and Melcher, Virology 177: 717, 1992) and may take place either between DNA and DNA or RNA and RNA and frequently creates more severe Infections than either parent (Mol. Plant-Microbe Interactions 5, 48, 1992). Recently related experiments suggest altered plants may breed deadlier diseases (A. Green and R. Allison, Sciences 263: 1423, 1994). DNA copies of RNA Viruses are frequently propagated using the CaMV 35S promoter to drive RNA virus production (J.Boyer and A. Haenni, Virology 198: 4l5, 1994 and J.Desuns and G.Lomonossoff, J. Gen. Vir. 74: 889, 1993). In conclusion CaMV promoters recombine with the infecting viruses to produce virulent new diseases. CaMV viruses and promoter may incorporate genes from the host creating virulent new diseases.

CaMV can recombine with insect viruses and propagated in insect cells (D. Zuidema et al. J. Gen. Vir. 71: 312, 1990). Thus it is likely that as large numbers of humans consume CaMV modified tomatos recombination between CaMV and hepatitis B viruses will take place creating a supervirus propagated in plants, insects and humans.

Plant biotechnology has grown out of recombinant DNA research that began in the early 1970’s. The special nature of recombination has been debated since that time. In recent years, government regulators on the American and European continents, under pressure from well-funded lobby representing the biotechnology industry, have chosen to ignore the special nature of recombination. They have chosen instead to base regulations on existing frameworks for toxic chemicals and pathogenic organisms. Ignoring the special nature of recombination is likely to have costly, if not terminal, environmental consequences. A worst-case example includes the complete cloning of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) on an E. coli plasmid. When the plasmid is used to transform animal cells, intact HIV viruses are released from the cells. A careless (but legal) release of HIV bacteria to the environment would allow the plasmid to transfer to Salmonella as well as E. coli. Thus, numerous mammals and birds could contain HIV bacteria which could transform the animals, which would in turn produce HIV particles unable to target the animals T-cell receptors but easily transmitted to humans. When all the animals are HIV carriers, human survival would be marginal. The special concerns of recombination in plant biotechnology include the viruses and bacteria used in crop plant construction and gene flow between related crop plants and weeds in the field.

Currently most experts agree that virus diseases such as influenza gain strength for epidemics by alternating between animal hosts (pigs and ducks) and man. Epidemics begin when rare combinations appear in large closely associated populations such as in asia. CaMV can propagate in plant and insect hosts following recombination. It may not be outlandish to predict that CaMV may recombine with related Hepatitis B or for that matter HIV to create a most powerful disease. The salient feature being large number of people or animals consuming large numbers of virus genes incorporated into crop plants making up a major part of human and animal diet.

The use of CaMV promoter is seldom an issue in reviews of safety of gene tinkered crops. Few people have raised the important issue and more often than not their concerns are ignored by government officials “protecting” public safety. This omission may be a fatal one because it has potentially the most damaging impact, and the one perceived at the beginning of gene splicing.

Comment

CaMV promoter genes are used both in Monsanto’s Roundup Ready Soy and in Ciba’s Bt Maize. About 15 percent of the soy crop in USA is expected to be RR-soy.

The FlavrSavr tomato brand has been withdrawn because it turned out to have unexpected deficiencies that did not make it useful for commercial production. UNQUOTE

According to five researchers of the John Inns Centre and Sainsbury Laboratory in the U.K. , “the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (CaMV) and the HIV virus have interchangeable components. If they meet in nature they could recombine to form chimeric viruses with potentially devastating properties. This can happen, for example, if pollen from a GE plant is inhaled by an HIV-infected or AIDS-stricken person.

The same warning was published as early as in December 1999 by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, Angela Ryan and Prof. Joseph Cummins “Cauliflower Mosaic Viral Promoter – A Recipe for Disaster? Microbal Ecology in Health and Disease:

QUOTE The use of the cauliflower mosaic viral promoter has the potential to reactivate dormant viruses or create new viruses in all species to which it is transferred. CAMV is known to be found in practically all current transgenic crops released commercially or undergoing field trials . This transgenic instability increases the possibility of promotion of an inappropriate over-expression of genes to the transferred species. The development of cancer may be one consequences of such over-expression of genes. The scientists behind the research strongly recommend that all transgenic crops containing CaMV 355 or similar promoters which are recombigenic should be immediately withdrawn from commercial production or open field trials. All products derived from such crops containing transgenic DNA should also be immediately withdrawn from sale and from use for human consumption and animal feed.UNQUOTE

Given the scientifically-based evidence provided by the eminent scientists cited above, in particular the close relation between the cauliflower mosaic virus and the HIV virus, it would not only be wise but imperative to check the rise in HIV infections since Monsanto’s GM maize was unleashed on the unsuspecting public without the latter’s knowledge and consent. Furthermore, if the decision-makers in this country were and are aware of the severe health implications, including the probability of HIV infection caused by the cauliflower mosaic virus, then those responsible for unleashing these toxins, including the manufacturer, may not only be accused of gross negligence but also of willful intent and culpable homicide. The only way to negate such probability would be long-term human safety studies, a moratorium on all GM trials and imports of GM products and mandatory labeling of all GM food products currently in circulation.

Finally, I want to draw the committee’s attention to an allegedly “new discovery” made by researchers, i.e. that “the human genome might not be a tidy collection of independent genes after all, with each sequence of DNA linked to a single function, but appear to operate in a complex network” – facts, which the scientists cited above have already claimed years ago – published in the New York Times on July 1, 2007. This blows the presumption of independently operating genes, on which the entire biotech technology industry is built and above all the patentability of such genes straight out of the sky.

A Challenge to Gene Theory, a Tougher Look at Biotech

Last month, a consortium of scientists published findings that challenge the traditional view of how genes function. The exhaustive four-year effort was organized by the United States National Human Genome Research Institute and carried out by 35 groups from 80 organizations around the world. To their surprise, researchers found that the human genome might not be a “tidy collection of independent genes” after all, with each sequence of DNA linked to a single function, such as a predisposition to diabetes or heart disease.

Instead, genes appear to operate in a complex network, and interact and overlap with one another and with other components in ways not yet fully understood. According to the institute, these findings will challenge scientists “to rethink some long-held views about what genes are and what they do.” Biologists have recorded these network effects for many years in other organisms. But in the world of science, discoveries often do not become part of mainstream thought until they are linked to humans.

With that link now in place, the report is likely to have repercussions far beyond the laboratory. The presumption that genes operate independently has been institutionalized since 1976, when the first biotech company was founded. In fact, it is the economic and regulatory foundation on which the entire biotechnology industry is built.

Innovation begets risk, almost by definition. When something is truly new, only so much can be predicted about how it will play out. Proponents of a discovery often see and believe only in the benefits it will deliver. But when it comes to innovations in food and medicine, belief can be dangerous. Often, new information is discovered that invalidates the principles — thus the claims of benefit and, sometimes, safety — on which proponents have built their products. For example, antibiotics were once considered miracle drugs that, for the first time in history, greatly reduced the probability that people would die from common bacterial infections. But doctors did not yet know that the genetic material responsible for conferring antibiotic resistance moves easily between different species of bacteria. Overprescribing antibiotics for virtually every ailment has given rise to “superbugs” that are now virtually unkillable.

The principle that gave rise to the biotech industry promised benefits that were equally compelling. Known as the Central Dogma of molecular biology, it stated that each gene in living organisms, from humans to bacteria, carries the information needed to construct one protein.

Proteins are the cogs and the motors that drive the function of cells and, ultimately, organisms. In the 1960s, scientists discovered that a gene that produces one type of protein in one organism would produce a remarkably similar protein in another. The similarity between the insulin produced by humans and by pigs is what once made pig insulin a life-saving treatment for diabetics.

The scientists who invented recombinant DNA in 1973 built their innovation on this mechanistic, “one gene, one protein” principle. Because donor genes could be associated with specific functions, with discrete properties and clear boundaries, scientists then believed that a gene from any organism could fit neatly and predictably into a larger design — one that products and companies could be built around, and that could be protected by intellectual-property laws. This presumption, now disputed, is what one molecular biologist calls “the industrial gene.”

“The industrial gene is one that can be defined, owned, tracked, proven acceptably safe, proven to have uniform effect, sold and recalled,” said Jack Heinemann, a professor of molecular biology in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and director of its Center for Integrated Research in Biosafety.

GM FILES: GM Alfalfa Banned in US Over Environmental Concerns

Friday, April 18th, 2008

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Feel free to disseminate this information as widely as possible with full attribution.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.organics4U.org

Human rights and international law are at issue when a GMO crop or animal is released. There is little doubt that unlabeled GMOs fed to animals, who incorporate the novel DNA into their own bodies and then feed them to humans when they are eaten, and crops, both edible and non edible, impact both those who ingest them and those who contact them, as they impact the environment.

The World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki makes clear that human experimentation in the absence of fully informed consent violates human rights and international law. The Nuremberg Code begins with the statement “The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonable to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.

The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.”

Unlabeled GMOs violate both of these important principles since the FDA refuses to assess safety of patented organisms and similarly refuses to allow accurate labeling. Without accurate labeling of the ingredients and products which have been modified, and in what way their have been modified, there is no possibility of treaceability.

Without traceability there is no possibility of epidemiology of contact or ingestion of GMOs. Without epidemeology there is no liability and with liability there is no corporate accountability.

This violates human rights, Precautionary Principle requirements, statutory responsibility and common sense. The Natural Solutions Foundation urges national and international policy and legal changes which protect the consumer, the consumer’s right to know, the principle of Informed Consent and legal right of ownership and trespass redress.

In the Court case concerning GMO alfalfa, the issue of one of environmental, animal health, human health and other impacts. In this case, the courts have chosen to protect the capacity of non GMO alfalfa growers to protect their fields from contamination. The natural alfalfa growers are asking to have the approval of the GMO variety until the USDA conducts an impact assessment. Such impact assessments are not required before a crop or animal can be grown or raised.
The FDA, operating on the unproven assumption that GMOs are equivalent in every way (with the exception of patent rights) to non GMOs, refuses safety data and prohibits labeling. The lack of GMO labeling, in turn, makes it impossible to determine health impacts and thus determine liability.

Opponents of GMO technology prior to clear demonstration of safety and without clear traceability of specific GMO strains, like the Natural Solutions Foundation cheer the Court’s action but want to see stronger protections in place along with sanctions against companies and others who permit escapes of technology which contaminates other crops and materials.

Current law in the United States permits the owner of the patent in the contaminating organism to demand compensation from the farmer whose land and property has been trespassed upon. Monsanto, for example, sues about 500 farmers a year whose lands are contaminated by their “volunteer” crops for intellectual property (IP) compensation for the contaminated crops which they have harvested. Typically, they win these cases.

The profound injustice of these laws pales in the face of the even more profound contamination of natural genetic stock and the fact that these escapes make it clear that conventional and GMO genotpes cannot co-exhist under current practices. Since the health and environmental damage brought about by GMOs is severe and the benefits, other than corporate profits, are illusory, it would behove municipaolities, States and national governments to make this technology illegal until the Precautionary Principle is satisfied and the safety of these organisms has been demonstrated.

Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.organics4U.org

Effects of genetically engineered alfalfa cultivate a debate
By Elizabeth Weise
Feb 18 2007
Source: USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO – The government was premature in deregulating production of alfalfa that is genetically engineered to resist a weed-killing herbicide, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture should not have acted as it did in 2005 without assessing the environmental effect of crops genetically modified to resist the herbicide Roundup, ruled U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer of the Northern District of California. The suit against the USDA was filed by the anti-biotech Center for Food Safety, the Sierra Club and organic alfalfa (hay) farmers. It accused the USDA of violating federal law by not requiring the environmental assessment.

Opponents of biotech crops, which are genetically engineered to have certain qualities, such as resistance to weed killers, have expressed concerns that they could interbreed with wild plants and create herbicide-resistant weeds.

Alfalfa is the nation’s fourth-largest crop and is fed to farm animals, especially dairy cattle.

“There’s potential for these crops to contaminate non-genetically engineered alfalfa,” says Will Rostov, senior attorney for the Center for Food Safety. This is particularly a concern for organic farmers, because genetically engineered plants cannot be sold as organic.

The Roundup Ready alfalfa cited in the suit was developed and sold by Forge Genetics of Minnesota, using technology from Monsanto. It allows growers to spray fields with Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, in which the chemical glyphosate is the active ingredient, killing weeds without hurting the alfalfa.

Monsanto submitted a detailed environmental analysis of the alfalfa to USDA, says company spokesman Chris Horner. “Reading the ruling, it’s unclear how much of that was taken into consideration.” All weeds built up resistance to herbicides over time, he says.

Breyer ruled that both sides must sit down together and propose remedies to him by Feb. 26.

Rostov says his group plans to push for an injunction on the planting, sale and distribution of Roundup Ready alfalfa until the USDA has done an impact assessment.

Only about 197,600 acres of the 22 million acres of the alfalfa grown in the USA in 2006 was genetically engineered, according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications.

The USDA is “very committed to protecting the environment” and is evaluating the ruling, says spokeswoman Rachel Iadicicco.

However, even if the USDA does an environmental assessment, it’s unclear that it would have any effect on whether or not Roundup Ready alfalfa can be sold.

The judge ruled that under the National Environmental Policy Act, the USDA must do an assessment if there was the potential for “a significant environmental impact.”

But under the Plant Protection Act, the basis for USDA’s regulatory authority, it can adopt regulations only to prevent the introduction and dissemination of plant pests.

“If they find that the only thing it does is cause organic farmers harm, that may be an environmental impact, but under the Plant Protection Act, it may not be something that (USDA) can take into consideration,” says Greg Jaffe, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s biotechnology project.