Guts and Grains

Posted on July 30, 2024 by marcia

The Hidden Harvest: Unveiling the Truth About Grains in Our Food System

July 30, 2024

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

“Non-GMO” labeling does not mean chemical-free farming. These crops may still be treated with pesticides and herbicides. Many nonorganic grains are heavily sprayed with toxic pesticides like glyphosate just before harvest, a practice called desiccation
A recent study found glyphosate in 44 out of 46 organic and nonorganic gluten-free products tested, with some at alarmingly high levels
Glyphosate exposure can disrupt gut health by killing beneficial bacteria and promoting the growth of harmful bacteria. Consuming organic food has been linked to reduced cancer risk, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine
The EPA’s acceptable daily intake for glyphosate is 7,000 times higher than European standards, raising concerns about regulatory oversight
Supporting organic and regenerative farming practices through consumer choices can help drive positive change in the food system

In an era where health consciousness is at an all-time high, many of us have become increasingly vigilant about the food we consume. We scrutinize labels, opt for organic produce when possible, and make concerted efforts to avoid processed foods. However, there’s a critical aspect of our food system that often flies under the radar … the production and processing of grains.

While many of us strive to make healthier choices, financial constraints often limit our ability to consistently purchase organic produce. (Check out the Environmental Working Group (EWG) “Clean 15,” the 15 produce items that had the lowest levels of pesticide residues, here).

However, when it comes to grains and grain legumes (wheat, oats, chickpeas, and more), the stakes are significantly higher. This overlooked component of our diet may be harboring more dangers than we realize, particularly when it comes to the use of pesticides and herbicides.

Unbeknownst to many consumers, numerous grains are heavily sprayed with toxic pesticides just before harvest, making the sourcing of organic grains, or at least knowing their origin, crucial for our health.

The Non-GMO Misconception

It’s important to note that organic agriculture isn’t without its flaws. While it generally involves fewer synthetic chemicals, some are still permitted. Moreover, organic farming often relies on tillage, a practice that involves mechanically manipulating the soil through plowing or cultivation. This process can be detrimental to soil health, degrading its structure, increasing erosion, and disrupting vital microbial populations.

A common misconception, however, is that “Non-GMO” labeling equates to chemical-free farming. In reality, this label merely indicates that the crops haven’t been genetically modified. It says nothing about the use of pesticides or herbicides during the growing process. This misunderstanding often leads consumers to believe they’re making a healthier choice when, in fact, they may still be exposing themselves to harmful chemicals.

While many people are aware that glyphosate and other toxic herbicides are used to control weeds, fewer realize that these chemicals are also employed as drying agents in some nonorganic farming operations — leading to higher levels of glyphosate in nonorganic products made from oats, wheat and other grains.¹

This practice, known as desiccation, involves spraying crops with glyphosate 1 to 2 weeks before harvest to accelerate the drying process, allowing farmers to harvest sooner.² It’s like giving crops a chemical spa day, except instead of coming out relaxed and rejuvenated, it comes out dead and potentially carcinogenic. Fancy!

The use of glyphosate as a pre-harvest desiccant has seen a dramatic increase in recent years. For example, even though wheat is not a GMO crop, glyphosate use on wheat has skyrocketed by 400% in the past two decades.³ This trend isn’t limited to wheat; it extends to a wide range of grains and legumes, including barley, oats, corn, soy, chickpeas, and more.

The practice of using glyphosate for crop desiccation can be traced back to Scotland in the 1980s. According to Charles Benbrook, Ph.D., farmers there struggled with uneven drying of wheat and barley crops. To solve this problem, they began using glyphosate to kill the crops shortly before harvest, accelerating the drying process.

And thus, the practice of spraying glyphosate on crops before harvest was born, soon spreading to other regions and crops. The use of glyphosate as a pre-harvest desiccant leaves chemical residues that are then processed into our food, significantly increasing our dietary exposure.⁴ While this practice isn’t universal, it’s particularly common in regions with short growing seasons and wetter harvests.

The Alarming Findings

Recent studies have revealed shocking levels of glyphosate in various grain products.⁵ The EWG conducted tests on popular breakfast cereals and snacks, finding significant amounts of glyphosate in many samples. The highest level was detected in Quaker Oatmeal Squares Honey Nut, which contained 2,837 parts per billion (ppb) of glyphosate — nearly 18 times the EWG’s benchmark.

Even more concerning, a study from March of this year⁶ tested 46 samples of organic and nonorganic gluten-free products for glyphosate and other pesticides.

The results were alarming: 44 out of 46 samples tested positive for glyphosate. The highest level was found in Banza Chickpea Pasta, at a staggering 2,693 parts per million (ppm), the highest amount ever recorded in human food by the lab conducting the study! (Also, some of the foods labeled as gluten-free in this study were found to contain gluten.)

While glyphosate has been the focus of much research and public concern, it’s not the only chemical we should be worried about. The same study from March of this year that found high levels of glyphosate also identified 2,4-D, a component of Agent Orange, as the most prevalent pesticide in the samples. Products like King Arthur’s Gluten Free Flour and Milton’s Sea Salt Crackers were found to have the highest levels of pesticides.

Decimation of Our Guts

The health consequences of glyphosate exposure are becoming increasingly clear, with one of the most significant concerns being its impact on our gut microbiome.⁷

The suffix “-cide” in “herbicide” (and other similar terms like pesticide, fungicide, etc.) comes from the Latin word “caedere,” which means “to kill” or “to cut down.” Therefore, in the context of herbicide, “cide” indicates that the substance is designed to kill.

Glyphosate is designed to kill weeds and microorganisms in the soil, but our digestive systems contain trillions of microorganisms! Studies have shown that glyphosate can hinder the growth of beneficial gut bacteria while promoting the growth of pathogenic bacteria, leading to dysbiosis.⁸

“Glyphosate residues on food could cause dysbiosis, given that opportunistic pathogens are more resistant to glyphosate compared to commensal bacteria.”⁹

The Human Microbiome Project found that 732 out of 941 bacteria species in our gut have at least one copy of the gene that glyphosate targets. This means that 55% of our gut bacteria are sensitive to glyphosate, 38% are resistant, and 7% are unclassified.¹⁰ The potential for glyphosate to disrupt our gut health is, therefore, significant and concerning!

Regulatory Shortcomings

But don’t worry, folks. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has got our backs. They’ve set the acceptable daily intake of glyphosate in our drinking water at a level that’s only … checks notes … 7,000 times higher than the European standard. Because nothing says “We care about public health” quite like allowing a generous helping of herbicide.

For food, the EPA in the United States has set the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for glyphosate at 1.75 mg/kg body weight/day, which is significantly higher than the standards in Europe (0.5 mg/kg) and Canada (0.3 mg/kg).¹¹ Even more alarming is that these standards only consider direct glyphosate toxicity, completely overlooking its potential impact on gut health.

Adding to the complexity of the issue is what researchers call the “cocktail effect.” While glyphosate is the active ingredient in many herbicides, crops are often treated with a mixture of agrochemicals. The synergistic effects of these chemical combinations are largely unknown and unstudied, particularly concerning their impact on the gut microbiome. This gap in our understanding poses significant risks to human health!

Another often-overlooked aspect of pesticide exposure is the cumulative effect. Even if individual foods contain “safe” levels of pesticides relative to the EPAs standards, regular consumption of multiple foods with residues can lead to a significant total exposure over time. This cumulative effect is rarely considered in regulatory decisions or public health guidelines.

“While glyphosate is the active ingredient, food crops are desiccated with GBH, which contain compounds in addition to glyphosate. Complicating matters further is the fact that most GBH are proprietary and their ingredients and the relative percentages are unknown.

This ambiguity poses a significant challenge for researchers as they do not know what they’re working with, the amount present and the synergistic effects of these chemicals when combined. Additionally, crops are often treated with a proverbial ‘cocktail’ of agrochemicals, including other herbicides, in addition to glyphosate and GBH.

The cytotoxic effects of glyphosate appear to increase when combined with other herbicides, including Paraquat … This synergistic phenomenon suggests that relatively low glyphosate residues within our food supply could have serious consequences when combined with other commonly used agrochemicals.”¹²

As awareness of glyphosate’s potential harm grows, some farmers are turning to alternative chemicals like Dicamba. However, this shift doesn’t necessarily represent an improvement in terms of health or environmental impact. It merely replaces one potentially harmful chemical with another, perpetuating a cycle of chemical dependency in agriculture.

It’s crucial to understand that the widespread use of toxic chemicals in farming is not the fault of individual farmers, but rather a result of the broken agricultural system shaped by government policies and industry influences over decades. Farmers often find themselves caught in a challenging situation, pressured by economic realities, market demands, and agricultural policies that have long favored high-yield, chemically intensive farming practices.

The current system, largely shaped by government subsidies, research funding priorities, and regulatory frameworks, has created an environment where conventional, chemical-dependent farming is often the most economically viable option for many farmers.

Additionally, years of specialized education and industry messaging (and propaganda) have reinforced these practices, making it difficult for farmers to transition to alternative methods without significant support and systemic change. Many farmers are simply trying to survive in a system that wasn’t designed with long-term environmental and health consequences in mind.

The Way Forward

The prevalence of glyphosate in our food system is alarming, with the chemical even being detected in women’s breast milk,¹³ indicating its ability to bio-accumulate in the human body.

But we can reduce our exposure significantly by paying attention to where our food comes from (ESPECIALLY when it comes to grains). And the research now supports that reducing consumption of foods high in glyphosate can lead to significant health improvements.

A review conducted by the University of Washington found that agricultural workers who used glyphosate extensively were 41% more likely to develop Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma during their lifetime compared to those who used it infrequently or not at all.¹⁴

Furthermore, a major study published in JAMA Internal Medicine revealed a significant reduction in cancer risk for individuals who consumed a diet rich in organic food.¹⁵

Conclusion

While sourcing organic produce isn’t always feasible, it’s crucial for consumers to be more aware of where their grains (wheat, oats, corn, rice, barley, chickpeas, etc.) or grain by-products (bread, baked-goods, cereal, crackers, etc.) come from. Just as many people advocate knowing your meat’s origin, the same principle should apply to grains and cereal crops.

It’s important to further emphasize that simply eliminating soy or wheat from one’s diet and choosing “gluten-free” doesn’t guarantee the elimination of glyphosate exposure, as many other nonorganic crops are desiccated before harvest.

For example, if you were regularly buying the Banza Chickpea pasta because you thought it was a healthier gluten-free option, you were unknowingly significantly increasing your glyphosate exposure.

Now, I know we’ve covered a lot of ground here, and you might be feeling a bit overwhelmed. You might even be eyeing your morning toast with suspicion, wondering if it’s plotting against you!

But remember, knowledge is power! And in this case, it’s the power to make better choices about what you put in your body. This will not be a “top-down” effort, as the government does not put public health first.

Instead, change will be from the “bottom-up” through consumer demand. Since public health is secondary to corporate interests, it is on us as consumers to educate ourselves about these issues, ask questions, and make informed choices about the foods we consume.

Organic is the better option relative to non-GMO for grains. However, the ideal solution would be sourcing from regenerative farms, although these can be harder to find.

Regenerative grain production involves minimal or zero chemical use and instead focuses on building soil health to produce healthy crops. This approach not only reduces chemical exposure but also improves soil health since tillage is not employed.

Supporting organic and regenerative farming practices and demanding transparency in food production from farmers, cooperatives, and food companies are crucial steps towards a healthier food system. It really is on us!

In the end, the question isn’t always just about what we eat, but about how our food is produced. By paying attention to these often-overlooked aspects of our food system, we can take control of our health and contribute to a more sustainable future for agriculture.

You can make a difference by supporting organic and regenerative farmers. Think of it as voting with your fork (or spoon). Every time you choose an organic grain product, you’re essentially voting against the chemical-based conventional farming system.

from: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2024/07/30/truth-about-grains-in-our-food-system.aspx?ui=f460707c057231d228aac22d51b97f2a8dcffa7b857ec065e5a5bfbcfab498ac&sd=20211017&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20240730_HL2&foDate=true&mid=DM1608961&rid=85574406

Let’s Protect Our Kids

Posted on January 6, 2023 by marcia

6 ‘Noncompliance’ Strategies for Protecting Kids and Teens in 2023

Since 2020, parents have had to contend with increasingly brazen efforts by governments, schools, foundations, Big Tech, Big Pharma and others to hijack, injure or destroy children’s minds and bodies. Here are some strategies for parents to help kids resist the pressure to comply.

protecting children noncompliance feature

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Far from being piecemeal or merely opportunistic responses to a convenient “pandemic,” these assaults on children — and adults, too — reflect a well-financed, long-term control agenda aimed at implementation of digital identities, social scoring and “full monitoring and tracking of every human being through … mechanisms already in place.”

At the “Defeat the Mandates” rally in January 2022, Children’s Health Defense Chairman and Chief Litigation Counsel Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., asserted, “Nobody in the history of the planet has ever complied their way out of totalitarian control” and reminded the public, “Every time you comply, you get weaker.”

Kennedy also warned, “they’re coming for our children.”

As if in confirmation, infants, kindergartners and college students were badgered throughout the year to get — and then suffered atrocious damage from — COVID-19 shots, despite overwhelming evidence that the jabs urgently needed to be withdrawn from the market.

Clued in to these and other dangers crowding around their children, a growing number of parents recognized the need for noncompliance.

Keeping noncompliance as the watchword for 2023, here are some actions that could make a real difference in the coming year.

Choose home schooling

In a nine-part series written earlier this year, journalist Corey Lynn of Corey’s Digs described comprehensive social engineering efforts — “obedience training” — rolling out in coordinated fashion in 110 countries, in part via school-based “Social and Emotional Learning” programs.

Implemented by educators, counselors and other professionals in “public schools, charter schools, after-school programs, summer camps, virtual schools and remote schooling,” the goal is, according to Lynn, “shaping minds, regulating emotions, controlling behaviors, instilling twisted beliefs, and building an obedient workforce.”

As Anna L. Noble put it in an April 2022 article in The Defender, “Schools provide a useful testing ground to experiment with ways to hold the attention of children, develop nudges, and elicit desirable behavioral responses.”

Scathing education whistleblower Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, a now-deceased former senior policy advisor for the U.S. Department of Education, decried the “deliberate dumbing down of America” and traced the education system’s shift “from academics to behavioral modification” back to at least 1965.

Iserbyt observed that the Department of Education did not exist prior to its 1979 creation under the Carter Administration, stating, “There is nowhere in the constitution that calls for a Department of Education.”

Even private schools, under the thumb of the agenda-driven National Association of Independent Schools, appear to have lost any vestiges of “independence,” with enrollment contracts reportedly prohibiting parents “from ‘[voicing] strong disagreement’ with school policy or curricula, under threat of expulsion.”

Instead of continuing to expect something different from an “abusive” educational system, Lynn suggests that home schooling can be a powerful form of noncompliance.

Many parents apparently agree — responding to schools’ disastrous imposition of measures like remote learning and masking in 2020, a record number of households turned to home schooling.

Prior to COVID-19, roughly 3.4% of school-age children were home-schoolers, but by the start of the 2020-2021 school year, the U.S. Census Bureau’s estimate had risen to 11.1%.

Home schooling is now the fastest-growing form of education in the U.S.

Stop the poisoning

Earlier this month, more than a third of parents surveyed (35%) — up from less than one-fourth (23%) in 2019 — questioned school vaccine mandates,

And this was only the latest in a string of reports addressing rising parental ambivalence about “routine” childhood vaccines.

These trends suggest that a critical mass of parents is coming to see vaccines as a “con man trick,” understanding that promises of vaccine safety were false and conflict-of-interest-riddled well before COVID-19 shots came along — and in fact, since the very inception of childhood vaccination programs.

The world’s vaccine experts conceded this point in a roundabout manner at a World Health Organization Global Vaccine Safety Summit in late 2019, as did Danish researcher and long-time vaccine insider Christine Stabell Benn at around the same time.

Benn commented, “Vaccination opponents are justified in being concerned [about safety],” adding:

“No vaccines have been studied for their non-specific effects on overall health, and before we have examined these, we cannot actually determine that the vaccines are safe.”

Benn’s colleague Peter Aaby admitted, also in 2019, “Most of you think that we know what all our vaccines are doing; we don’t.”

In mid-2021, Benn and Aaby cautiously argued against COVID-19 shots for children in the high-status BMJ scientific journal.

Given the shocking odds of vaccine injury that already prevailed prior to COVID-19 — conservatively estimated in a 2010 government-commissioned report at one in every 39 vaccines administered — it is not surprising that the carnage from COVID-19 jabs would now be swelling the ranks of questioners and “ex-vaxxers.”

However, vaccination — even with its payload of known and undisclosed toxic ingredients and apparent batch-to-batch variability — is far from the only vehicle for poisoning our most vulnerable.

Parents willing to do their own research and forge their family’s own nutritional and healthcare path will find that it may be within their reach to lessen, if not entirely eliminate, their children’s exposure to other common poisons such as food additives, glyphosate, organochlorine and organophosphate pesticides and over-the-counter drugs like acetaminophen, all of which come with vastly underreported dangers.

Reduce screen time

In 2006, author Richard Louv coined the term “nature-deficit disorder” in the subtitle to his book “Last Child in the Woods,” suggesting that today’s “wired generation,” with parents’ conscious or unconscious permission, has unwisely prioritized screens over time in nature.

With the worsening of children’s screen habits over the past several years, the nature deficit has become a “hot topic.”

Worried researchers also describe how screens are displacing “developmentally beneficial activities” as basic as sleep, physical activity, family interactions and book reading.

The related problem of screen or social media addiction — linked not just to sleeplessness but to eating disorders and outcomes like suicide — has become the focus of lawsuits alleging that social media companies “aggressively” deploy algorithms designed to addict children and adolescents.

Discovering the major role that “social influencers” seem to play in the exploding phenomenon of “rapid onset gender dysphoria” among girls, author Abigail Shrier’s top recommendation in her book, “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” is to not give one’s daughter a smartphone.

As “Financial Rebellion” and the Solari Report’s Catherine Austin Fitts explains, “Children are targets of some of the most powerful people and dangerous technology on the planet,” and it is parents’ job to “understand this and protect them.”

Teach kids to use cash, not plastic

In late 2020, Bank for International Settlements General Manager Augustín Carstens shared central bankers’ unfriendly vision of a monetary system enabling complete control of all transactions through central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) which, ominously, would also allow central banks to turn people’s money on and off at will.

Unfortunately, the younger generations are marching heedlessly toward this dystopian vision, with millennials, according to 2021 research by Capital One, “increasingly moving away from cash spending” in favor of digital payment systems.

Pushing a “convenience” narrative, some banks — seemingly unaware that CBDCs threaten their own future — are promoting the cashless agenda by offering high school debit cards that double as school ID cards, telling parents they’ll no longer have to “worry about lost lunch money.”

Fitts is a strong proponent of revitalizing the use of cash.

Parents can help by not only being cash role models themselves but by having their children “start handling cash when they are young.”

In 2015, Editor-at-Large Janet Bodnar of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance opined that “using cash is the best way to get young minds thinking wisely about money,” including older teens who can benefit from “the discipline of managing a stash of real cash.”

Bodnar dismissed as flawed the parental argument that plastic can teach kids “financial responsibility.”

A British math expert told The Guardian in 2021, “Being able to handle money and buy something yourself is very special: it builds up your confidence with money.”

Don’t fall for mental health traps

Over the years, many parents have learned to be wary of recommendations coming from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an agency so accustomed to conflicts of interest and fake science that it is not embarrassed to use the same PR firm as Big Pharma.

Thus, calls for more mental health screening and greater access to “care” — from birth through young adulthood — by CDC and CDC/pharma front groups like the American

Academy of Pediatrics deserve careful scrutiny.

As recently outlined in The Defender, cradle-to-grave psychiatric surveillance is a stealth tool for social control, and also risks stigmatizing and potentially life-threatening consequences like overdiagnosis, overmedicalization and overmedication.

Schools increasingly serve as the delivery mechanism for mental health screening and services, but as the Los-Angeles-based Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) — a mental health watchdog group — warned in a fact sheet, the “subjective and unscientific” mental health screening tools that schools are using are “developed by psychiatrists predominantly with financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.”

According to CCHR:

“Mental health screening asks young students embarrassing, personal and potentially upsetting questions that psychiatrists have worded in such a way that no student could escape being labeled mentally ill at some point during their education.”

CCHR adds, “These questionnaires can result in psychological or psychiatric intervention in the lives of a child and his or her family — often against their will or under threat.”

For households that are not home schooling, the watchdog group recommends that parents become aware of what is happening, sign exemption forms prior to mental health screening or counseling and “unite to get psychiatric screening expelled from schools.”

Stop financing the enemy

Author and researcher Dr. Naomi Wolf recently braved the cold in front of her alma mater Yale University to make the case that the university’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates turn students into “medical hostages” and constitute human trafficking.

In her Substack account of the Yale visit, Wolf described conversations with parents, who said “their children had begged them not to speak out, not to call the Dean, not to advocate for them to protect them from these injections, in any way,” due to the fear of reprisal and expulsion.

However, parents have a duty to make sure their young people understand what they are trading off for prestige — including, potentially, their health, their future fertility or their life.

Moreover, even if, as Wolf alleges, universities are now more beholden to government contracts than to those who pay tuition, college students and their parents still represent a powerful economic bloc capable of voting with their feet.

One tool at parents’ disposal, suggests Wolf, is to escrow potential donations to show universities the funds they are missing out on.

But parents who give their current or soon-to-be college students the permission and courage to shun any higher education institution that shows itself willing to poison them and deprive them of their constitutional freedoms can offer their children an even more powerful life lesson.

A high school student who recognized that “mandates will not end as long as we participate” developed a letter for college admissions offices (available as a template for others) that says:

“At this time, I’m only considering schools, colleges or universities that do not require a Covid-19 vaccine and that would mean the initial series, any boosters and including upcoming requirements to be considered ‘up to date.’ Medical freedom and body autonomy are my highest priority.”

Say no to the control grid

Although this article has focused on measures to protect young people, the control grid — in the form of interventions like digital IDs, vaccine passports and CBDCs — is also coming after adults.

As Kennedy wrote in the afterword to his bestseller, “The Real Anthony Fauci,” “We can bow down and comply … Or we can say no. We have a choice, and it is not too late.”

CHD.TV’s “Financial Rebellion” offers weekly suggestions on how to not comply.

In Kennedy’s words:

“We can say no to compliance with jabs for work, no to sending children to school with forced testing and masking, no to censored social media platforms, no to buying products from the companies bankrupting and seeking to control us. These actions are not easy, but living with the consequence of inaction would be far harder. By calling on our moral courage, we can stop this march towards a global police state.”

from: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/protecting-kids-teens-noncompliance/

“Philanthrocapitalism” -What’s That?

Posted on October 26, 2020 by marcia

Bill Gates’ ‘Web of Power’ Threatens Life on Earth, New Report Shows

Philanthrocapitalism — epitomized by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — has emerged over the last 30 years as a major force with the potential to “push the future of our planet towards extinction and ecological collapse,” according to a report launched Wednesday by Navdanya International.

“Gates to a Global Empire” sheds light on how philanthrocapitalism accelerates the corporate takeover of our seed, agriculture, food, knowledge and global health systems, and how it manipulates information and erodes democracies — all in the name of corporate profits.

The report explores how the Gates Foundation, powered by an “unholy alliance” between big capital, science and technology institutions and states, has established a global empire over life, through monocultures, patents and monopolies designed to destroy the natural world of diversity, self-organization and freedom.

In her introduction to the report, Navdanya International’s founder, Vandana Shiva, said:

“The European Court of Justice has ruled that gene-edited organisms are GMOs. However, Gates is hastily pushing for deregulation with no regard for caution or potentially dangerous consequences. His ‘Gates AgOne’ … initiative is a clear declaration of his intent to create an Empire over life and biodiversity, over food and farming, and over our daily bread.”

With a net worth of nearly $117 billion, Gates is now the most powerful philanthropist in modern history, according to a synthesis of the report. After making technology available to the masses through his popularization of the at-home personal computer, the founder of Microsoft has “taken to reinventing himself as a benevolent philanthropist who uses his technologic influence and private market savvy to solve the world’s most pressing problems through his and his wife’s foundation: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”

Through its various initiatives, sub-organizations, development schemes and funding mechanisms, Gates weaves, according to the report, “an intricate web of wide-ranging power and influence.”

The More You Know – Support Those Who Fight For The Truth

Posted on October 8, 2020 by marcia

6 Wikileaks Revelations Expose Corporate Abuse At The Expense of People & Planet

October 6, 2020 By. Children’s Health Defense

People around the world are watching as U.K. Judge Vanessa Baraitser hears arguments and decides whether or not to extradite Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange to the U.S.

While the Obama administration chose not to charge Assange, wary of the precedent it might set in criminalizing journalism, the Trump administration indicted him with 18 criminal charges that may land Assange in one of the U.S.’s most notorious prisons for 175 years.

Assange’s Wikileaks has won numerous journalism awards and has never had to retract a single publication despite releasing more than 10 million documents exposing, among other things, U.S. war crimes. Former CIA Director Leon Panetta recently indicated that the ongoing persecution of Assange is meant to “send a message to others not to do the same thing.”

As the world debates whether Assange is a hero or a traitor, Children’s Health Defense takes a step back to examine some of the things his organization has revealed for those fighting for health and environmental justice.

1. U.S. diplomatic efforts to overturn resistance to GMOs at the behest of Monsanto

Wikileaks published hundreds of diplomatic cables exhibiting attempts by the U.S. to quell opposition to genetically modified organisms or GMOs. As reported by The Guardian, “the cables show U.S. diplomats working directly for GM companies such as Monsanto.”

In a 2007 cable, Craig Stapleton, then U.S. Ambassador to France, advised the U.S. to prepare for economic war with countries unwilling to introduce Monsanto’s GM corn seeds. He recommended the U.S. “calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the E.U.”

Another dispatch, this one from 2009, demonstrated that the U.S. funded a GMO workshop in Mozambique that, according to the authors, helped advance biotech-friendly policies in the country.

In another cable from 2009, a U.S. diplomat stationed in Germany relayed intelligence on Bavarian political parties to several U.S. federal agencies and the U.S. Secretary of Defense, telling them which parties opposed Monsanto’s M810 corn seed and tactics that the U.S. could impose to resolve the opposition.

One cable from Hong Kong shows a State Department employee requesting $92,000 in U.S. public funds for “media education kits” to combat a growing popular movement calling for the labeling of GMO foods in Hong Kong. The cable indicates a desire to “make it much more difficult for mandatory labelling advocates to prevail.” The State Department’s Anita Katial, who wrote the cable, also recalled a time when her office facilitated the sending of pro-biotech and bio-agriculture DVDs to every high school in Hong Kong.

According to Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter, the trove of cables “really gets down to twisting the arms of countries and working to undermine local democratic movements that may be opposed to biotech crops, and pressuring foreign governments to also reduce the oversight of biotech crops.”

2. Multinational commodities trader dumping toxic waste in West Africa

In 2006, Trafigura, the world’s second largest oil trader, illegally discharged more than 500 tons of highly toxic oil waste near the Port of Abidjan in the Ivory Coast. Some of the dump sites were near agriculture fields or water supplies, and the UN estimates that more than 100,000 people sought medical treatment due to the incident. Wikileaks would later call this incident “possibly the most culpable mass contamination incident since Bhopal.”

Trafigura’s lawyer commissioned a confidential study that listed what the environmental and health impacts of the dumping incident would be after people living near the port started flooding hospitals.

The report explained that contact with the offloaded compounds could lead to eye damage, lung damage, skin burns, headaches, breathing difficulty, permanent skin ulceration, coma and death. The report also states that the chemical compounds would have a “severe and negative effect” on the environment.

As recently as 2016, residents were complaining about the smell of the waste, headaches, breathing problems and skin problems.

Wikileaks published the classified report in 2009, the first time the public could see the company’s true negligence.

3. Gates Foundation sees environmental activists as a threat

In 2008, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation hired an intelligence firm called Stratfor to put together a “threat assessment report” and determine current and future threats to the foundation.

Stratfor’s report saw environmental activists, indigenous farming groups, and peasant political parties in Asia and South America, as “potential threats” to the foundation.

“Threats to the foundation are likely to be directly related to the public association between the foundation and a controversial issue such as GMOs, animal testing, clinical trials and reproductive rights,” the report reads.

Stating that the primary threat to the foundation’s agriculture program comes from its work promoting GMOs, the report notes the rise of anti-GMO campaigning in developing countries, including a “staunch opposition to GMOs in India.” It even names specific activists, such as the U.S.-based anti-GMO campaigner Jeffrey Smith.

The report also mentions the work of large organizations like Greenpeace and PETA as well as alternative media outlets like the Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones, AlterNet and the LA Times, which had just published a series accusing the foundation of “reap[ing] vast financial gains from investments in companies that contribute to the human suffering in health, housing and social welfare.”

Wikileaks published the threat assessment as part of its release of more than 5 million Stratfor emails in 2012.

4. Pharma intel and espionage operation

In 1996, Pfizer, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, conducted clinical trials in Nigeria for an antibiotic called Trovan. The results were devastating, as Nigerian officials reported more than 50 children died in the experiment and dozens became disabled.

In 2006, a Nigerian government panel concluded that Pfizer violated international law and called the experiment “an illegal trial of an unregistered drug.” In 2007, Nigerian state and federal authorities sued Pfizer for $7 billion, alleging the company did not have proper consent from the children’s parents.

A 2009 U.S. diplomatic cable published by Wikileaks revealed that while the case was in federal court, Pfizer had hired a private intelligence firm to get blackmail on Nigerian Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa.

According to the cable, “Pfizer’s investigators were passing this information to local media,” who published articles on the attorney general’s “alleged” corruption. “Aondoakaa’s cronies were pressuring him to drop the suit for fear of further negative articles,” it reads.

A few months after the negative articles, the Nigerian ministry of justice signed a settlement with Pfizer.

5. U.S. is a climate bully

Cables disclosed by Wikileaks in 2010 present the U.S. using what The Guardian called “spying, threats and promises of aid” to get international support for the 2009 Copenhagen Accord — an industry-friendly international climate deal with non-binding agreements to lower emissions. (Climate activist Naomi Klein described, at the time, the accord as “nothing more than a grubby pact between the world’s biggest emitters”.)

The State Department sent a secret cable to foreign embassies seeking human intelligence, or “dirt,” on UN diplomats regarding climate policy. And, as reported by Democracy Now!, the cables also indicated that the U.S. cut funding to Bolivia and Ecuador after both governments opposed the accord.

Bill McKibben, founder of the climate organization 350.org, said the cables exposed that “the U.S. was both bullying and buying countries into endorsing their do-little position on climate.”

6. International organizations consulting with Big Pharma

In 2009, Wikileaks revealed documents that the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) gave its members a report by the UN’s World Health Organization(WHO)’s Expert Working Group on research and development financing.

IFPMA members include pharmaceutical giants like Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer and Sanofi, and the organization represents these entities when dealing with the UN. What makes the Wikileaks document dump significant is that the working group gave IFPMA access to these documents months before their scheduled public release, suggesting that the UN’s health expert group was more accountable to the pharmaceutical industry than to its own member states.

“The compilation of documents shows the influence of ‘Big Pharma’ on the policy making decisions of the WHO,” Wikileaks commented when publishing the files.

Written by Jeremy Loffredo.

from: https://www.collective-evolution.com/2020/10/06/6-wikileaks-revelations-expose-corporate-abuse-at-the-expense-of-people-planet/

First Came GMO’s And Now GDO”S

Posted on July 15, 2020 by marcia

NGOs call for moratorium on controversial ‘gene drive organisms’

By Natasha Foote | EURACTIV.com

Jul 3, 2020 (updated: Jul 6, 2020)

Synthetic gene drives are a new form of genetic engineering intended to permanently modify or eradicate populations, or even whole species, in the wild. [SHUTTERSTOCK]

After over 78 environmental and agricultural organisations signed a letter this week calling for a moratorium on gene drive technology, EURACTIV took a closer look at the controversial technology to find out about what it is and the implications it holds.

The letter, which was sent on Tuesday (30 June), urges the European Commission to outlaw the release of so-called ‘gene drive organisms’ (GDOs), calling the technology “incompatible” with the Commission’s proposed EU strategy on biodiversity protection. But scientists say the technology holds enormous potential for eradicating some of the world’s deadliest diseases.

Synthetic gene drives are a new form of genetic engineering, created via the genetic engineering method CRISPR/CAS9, and are intended to permanently modify or eradicate populations, or even whole species, in the wild.

They are currently defined as a system where genetic elements or traits have more than the usual 50% chance of being inherited, irrespective of whether they benefit or harm the organism inheriting them.

The idea of gene drive technology is to force the inheritance of detrimental genetic traits. In this way, scientists hope to reprogramme or eradicate species such as disease-carrying insects and invasive species.

This is a key distinction between GDOs and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which are explicitly designed to contain the spread of modified traits.

Debate about if and how GDOs could be safely employed is proceeding. As it currently stands, GDOs fall under the EU GMO directive but an EFSA expert working group, mandated by the Commission, is currently developing recommendations for regulations on gene drive modified organisms, expected by the end of 2020.

While it may sound far fetched, this is far from mere conjecture, with experiments already well underway both in the EU and elsewhere.

from: https://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/news/ngos-call-for-moratorium-on-controversial-gene-drive-organisms/

What is the UN’s Agenda 2030?

Posted on August 12, 2018 by marcia

Agenda 2030 Translator: How to Read the UN’s New Sustainable Development Goals

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

By Aaron and Melissa Dykes

It’s that time again: the United Nations is officially releasing the all new Agenda 2030 sustainable development plan, or what some have hailed as “the new Agenda 21 on steroids,” at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit kicking off today in New York City.

Since these supposedly non-binding international agreements can sometimes be a bit tricky to decode, what with all the weaponized buzz terms and semantics games, we’ve prepared a handy dandy translator on the 17 new Agenda 2030 goals below.

Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere
Translation: Centralized banks, IMF, World Bank, Fed to control all finances

Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Translation: GMO

Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Translation: Mass vaccination, Codex Alimentarius

Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Translation: UN propaganda, brainwashing through compulsory education from cradle to grave

Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Translation: Population control through forced “Family Planning”
Goal 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Translation: Privatize all water sources, don’t forget to add fluoride
Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Translation: Smart grid with smart meters on everything, peak pricing

Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Translation: TPP, free trade zones that favor megacorporate interests

Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Translation: Toll roads, push public transit, remove free travel, environmental restrictions

Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries
Translation: Even more regional government bureaucracy

Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Translation: Big brother big data surveillance state

Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Translation: Forced austerity

Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
Translation: Cap and Trade, carbon taxes/credits, footprint taxes (aka Al Gore’s wet dream)

Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Translation: Environmental restrictions, control all oceans including mineral rights from ocean floors

Goal 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Translation: More environmental restrictions, more controlling resources and mineral rights

Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Translation: More UN “peacekeeping” missions (ex 1, ex 2), remove 2nd Amendment in USA
Goal 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
Translation: Remove national sovereignty worldwide

This article Agenda 2030 Translator: How to Read the UN’s New Sustainable Development Goals by Aaron and Melissa Dykes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, meaning this article may be republished as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact. Thanks!

Aaron Dykes and Melissa Melton Dykes created TruthstreamMedia.com as an outlet to examine the news, uncover the deceptions, pierce through the fabric of illusions, know the real enemy, unshackle from the system, and begin to imagine the path towards taking back our lives, one step at a time, so that one day we might truly be free…

from: https://www.activistpost.com/2015/09/agenda-2030-translator.html

GMO’s, Health, Survival

Posted on July 23, 2018 by marcia

THE PERIL ON YOUR PLATE: FILM EXPLORES THE HUMAN HEALTH EFFECTS OF GENETIC ENGINEERING AND CHEMICAL AGRICULTURE

June 27, 2018

Dr. Mercola, Guest
Waking Times

After being told by her doctor that genetically engineered (GE) food and pesticides could be responsible for her son’s food allergies, Ekaterina Yakovleva set out to investigate. Her quest for answers was captured by the Russian Times in the featured film, “The Peril on Your Plate: Genetic Engineering and Chemical Agriculture.”

The film shows Yakovleva and her team traveling the world to meet “the people who lift the lid on the perils of GMOs and the chemicals used in the industry,” as well as proponents of GMOs who argue that genetic engineering is a “high-tech” solution to feeding the world’s growing population. Advocates for genetic engineering tell Yakovleva that the technology is beneficial to farmers in that it increases resistance to pests and disease, as well as produces higher yields. But Yakovleva isn’t convinced.

She learns nothing could be further from the truth after witnessing the devastation caused by mass farmer suicides in India as a result of the failure of Monsanto’s Bt cotton. Yakovleva visits the U.K. where she meets Lady Margaret, Countess of Mar, a member of the House of Lords and a former farmer who suffered from chemical use, and then to the U.S. where she meets with Zen Honeycutt of Moms Across America about the link between GMOs, pesticides and chronic disease in humans.

What Is Genetic Engineering?

In order to better understand genetic engineering and its impact on human health, Yakovleva starts to research the technique and how it’s used. She learns that genetic engineering enables DNA to be transferred not only between different kinds of plants, but even between different kingdoms, meaning scientists can take DNA from an insect or animal and insert it into the genome of a plant.

Many GMO proponents claim that genetic engineering is just an extension of natural breeding methods, and just as safe. Nothing could be further from the truth — on both counts. Genetic engineering is radically different from conventional breeding techniques used to improve a crop. For starters, it’s a laboratory-based technique allowing scientists to create a food that could never be created by nature.

Claire Robinson, editor of GM Watch and coauthor of the book, “GMO Myths and Truths: A Citizen’s Guide to the Evidence on the Safety and Efficacy of Genetically Modified Foods and Crops,” says:

US Leads World in GM Crop Production

Yakovleva learns that an estimated 190 million hectares (469.5 acres) of GE crops¹ — an area three times the size of France — are cultivated in 28 countries worldwide.² The U.S. leads the world in GM crop production, growing about 40 percent,³ while Brazil grows 27 percent and Argentina 13 percent. Canada and India each grow 6 percent.⁴ GE crops currently in production include squash/pumpkin, alfalfa, sugar beet, potato, papaya, rapeseed oil, corn, soy and cotton.

Monsanto, soon to forgo its name and merge with Bayer, controls a vast majority of GE crops including 80 percent of GE corn and 93 percent of GE soy in the U.S. The first GE crop to hit the market was tobacco. It was genetically modified in 1983 to be resistant to an antibiotic.⁵ It was later altered for other reasons, including to remove a gene that turns nicotine into a carcinogen in tobacco leaves,⁶and to increase the amount of nicotine in cigarettes.⁷

The first genetically engineered food crop was the Flavr Savr tomato, produced by Calgene, a California-based company later bought by Monsanto. The tomato was genetically modified to stay riper longer by inhibiting a gene responsible for producing a protein that makes a tomato soften.⁸ Calgene is reported to have been transparent in its marketing of the tomato, clearly labeling the product and adding an 800 number for people with questions. Monsanto later removed the Flavr Savr tomato from store shelves.

A Growing List of Countries Say No to GMOs

The film highlights regions that are completely GMO-free, including Romania, which stopped cultivating GE crops despite being the first country in geographical Europe to introduce them.⁹ Portugal and Spain have reduced the amount of areas under GE crop cultivation,¹⁰while a number have enacted a total ban including France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Greece, Switzerland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Russia forbids GE crop cultivation,¹¹ but does not prevent GMOs from entering the country’s food chain, according to the film. Yakovleva travels to the Agrarian University in Moscow to meet GMO proponent Arkady Zlochevsky, chairman of the Russian Grain Union. She confronts him about the human health effects of eating GE foods.

“There is absolutely no risk to the human body associated with eating GM foods compared to traditional equivalents, not a single one,” he says, adding that GMOs are “high-tech” and have “significant advantages.” He even went so far as to say that glyphosate, the key active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller, is safer than 100 percent manure.

Glyphosate Doubles as Herbicide and Suicide Poison in India

Unconvinced, Yakovleva travels to India where glyphosate doubles as a lethal human poison. The Punjab region, formally known as the bread basket of India, is now known for colossal suicides among farmers, particularly young farmers between the ages of 20 and 35.

Yakovleva meets with families of farmers who committed suicide. She learns that thousands of farmers have taken their own lives after agriculture corporations granted them loans they could never repay to purchase seeds and pesticides that ultimately failed to provide the profits that were promised.

Inderjit Singh Jaijee, chairman of Punjab’s Baba Nanak Educational Society, says farmers who commit suicide often take drugs, drink alcohol or even take a swig of glyphosate to muster up the courage to go through with it. Singh Jaijee, who is on a mission to raise awareness about the serious issue of suicides in Punjab, says that young farmers are more susceptible because they don’t yet have the experience older people do to survive.

Thousands of Indian Farmers Commit Suicide Over Faulty GE Crops

The amount of suicides in the Punjab region is so massive that some people are making a profit removing dead bodies from a local canal. Ashu Malik, an underwater diver, uses surveillance cameras to monitor the canal for floating bodies. If a body is not claimed, it’s placed back into the water, he says. Ending up in the canal as a result of suicide is so common in this region that families built a house on the canal’s shoreline for them to stay in while they search for their loved ones who are missing.

The exact number of suicides occurring annually in the Punjab region remains unknown. One estimation found the annual suicide rate to be about 2,200. However, Singh Jaijee’s research estimates it to be closer to 4,000 suicides per year, while farmer organizations estimate up to 6,000. Shocked by what’s become a normality for agricultural communities in India, Yakovleva interviews agricultural scientist Kiran Kumar Vissa to learn more about Monsanto’s Bt cotton, the crop responsible for placing so many farmers into debt.

Monsanto’s Bt cotton was marketed as a solution to the challenges faced by cotton farmers, many of whom were in crisis; however, it ended up causing farmers more problems. There are many places where Bt cotton is not suitable for cultivation, including dry, nonirrigated areas, explains Vissa. The packaging says that Bt cotton is suitable for both irrigated and nonirrigated conditions, but it’s not true, says Vissa, adding, that it’s deceptive to farmers.

Big Ag Uses Images of Rich, American Farmers to Sell GMOs Abroad

Next, Yakovleva meets with renowned scholar and environmental activist Vandana Shiva, who blames the mass suicides solely on the corporations that sell the seeds and chemicals. Monsanto spends huge amounts of money on advertising. Between the fiscal years 2011 to 2017, Monsanto spent more than $500 million on advertising worldwide.¹²

Shiva explains that seed and chemical agents show farmers in India images of American farmers with big tractors and promise them that if they just take this seed, which they can pay for later, they will be rich. But what they don’t tell the farmer is that they can’t save the seed and that it might fail because the seeds aren’t meant for dry, nonirrigated areas, says Shiva.

So, the farmer takes it on credit, not having a good understanding of the costs involved, and the seed fails, Vandana explains, adding that in two years’ time the agents who sold the seed and pesticide return and repossess the farmer’s land because he could not pay his loan. Shiva tells Yakovleva that she has personally spoken to widows whose farmer husbands committed suicide and when she asked what their debt was, they showed her packages of Monsanto’s Bt cotton seed.

Are Farmers Risking Their Health by Using Chemicals?

Yakovleva’s investigation proceeds to the U.K. where she meets with Lady Margaret, Countess of Mar, a member of the House of Lords and a former farmer who suffered from chemical use.

While serving organic tea and pudding, Lady Margaret says she had to give up farming after she was exposed to harmful chemicals while dipping sheep. The sheep dip contained organophosphates, the same class of chemicals to which glyphosate belongs. The chemicals are used as both flame retardants and pesticides. According to National Geographic:

Within weeks of being exposed, Lady Margaret says she began to suffer from intense fatigue and neurological problems. She even felt suicidal. At one point, she was forced to rely on an oxygen tank for up to 16 hours a day. Lady Margaret was ill for three years before doctors diagnosed her with organophosphate poisoning.

Most of Americans Have Glyphosate in Their Bodies

Humans are increasingly testing positive for residues of glyphosate.¹⁴ In tests conducted by a University of California San Francisco lab, 93 percent of the participants tested positive for glyphosate residues.¹⁵ In the European Union, when 48 members of Parliament volunteered for glyphosate testing, everyone one of them tested positive.¹⁶ Humans are exposed to glyphosate via the food they eat, the air they breathe, the water they drink and the lawns, gardens, parks and other environments they frequent.

What impact is this having on human health? To find out, Yakovleva and her team head to the U.S. to meet with Honeycutt, who blames chemicals in our food for the rise in chronic disease. A number of chronic diseases have been linked to pesticides, including autism, cancer, food allergies, endocrine disruption, diabetes and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.¹⁷

One in 4 females over the age of 30 now has a gluten intolerance, says Honeycutt; however, she believes it’s not gluten that’s the problem, but the glyphosate that’s applied to wheat as a drying agent prior to harvest.

“It’s destroying their gut lining. They can’t process it and then the body acknowledges it as a gluten intolerance,” says Honeycutt, adding that food today not only has more chemicals, but is also less nutritious. Chemical-intensive agriculture has depleted our soils of essential nutrients and has drawn out vitamins and minerals that make our food healthy, she adds.

Long-Term Safety Studies Are Sorely Lacking

Yakovleva and her team reached out to Monsanto regarding the public health concerns tied to its Roundup weed killer, but the company refused to comment, instead directing them to its website which, of course, states that all of their products are safe and environmentally friendly. The deceptive GMO talking points Yakovleva received from the seed and chemical industry failed to convince her that GE crops are safe for human consumption, as there’s no real evidence to support this claim.

While few in number, longer-term animal feeding studies have been published over the past several years showing there’s definite cause for concern. Liver and kidney toxicity and immune reactions tend to be the most prevalent. Digestive system, inflammation and fertility problems have also been seen. A major part of the problem is that safety studies conducted for regulatory purposes to gain market approval for a GE product are too short to show the damage that could occur from life-long consumption of the GE food.

Some independent studies looking at lifetime consumption of GMOs have found rather dramatic health effects, whereas the safety studies used to promote GE foods as safe have all been short-term. There seems to be an agreement among biotech scientists to not test GE foods longer than 90 days in rats, which is only about seven to nine years in human terms. That’s nothing when you consider the average human life span is somewhere in the 70s, and the current generation is fed GMO food from Day 1.

How to Protect Yourself From Toxic Agriculture

The biotech giants have deep pocketbooks and political influence and are fighting to maintain their position of dominance. At the end of the day, we must shatter Monsanto’s grip on the agricultural sector. There is no way to recall GMOs once they have been released into the environment. The stakes could not be higher. Will you continue supporting the corrupt, toxic and unsustainable food system that Monsanto and its industry allies are working so hard to protect?

For more and more people, the answer is no. Consumers are rejecting genetically engineered and pesticide-laden foods. Another positive trend is that there has been strong growth in the global organic and grass-fed sectors. This just proves one thing: We can make a difference if we steadily work toward the same goal.

One of the best things you can do is to buy your foods from a local farmer who runs a small business and uses diverse methods that promote regenerative agriculture. You can also join a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, where you can buy a “share” of the vegetables produced by the farm, so that you get a regular supply of fresh food.

I believe that joining a CSA is a powerful investment not only in your own health, but in that of your local community and economy as well. In addition, you should also adopt preventive strategies that can help reduce the toxic chemical pollution that assaults your body. I recommend visiting these trustworthy sites for non-GMO food resources in your country as well:

Organic Food Directory (Australia)	Eat Wild (Canada)
Organic Explorer (New Zealand)	Eat Well Guide (United States and Canada)
Farm Match (United States)	Local Harvest (United States)
Weston A. Price Foundation (United States)	The Cornucopia Institute
Demeter USA	American Grassfed Association

Monsanto and its allies want you to think that they control everything, but they are on the wrong side of history. It’s you, the informed and empowered, who hold the future in your hands. Let’s all work together to topple the biotech industry’s house of cards. Remember — it all starts with shopping smart and making the best food purchases for you and your family.

Biotech Companies Are Gaining Power by Taking Over the Government

to read the rest of the article, go to: http://www.wakingtimes.com/2018/06/27/the-peril-on-your-plate-film-explores-the-human-health-effects-of-genetic-engineering-and-chemical-agriculture/

How Safe is the Impossible Burger?

Posted on July 21, 2018 by marcia

News Release: “Bleeding” veggie burger has “no basis for safety,” according to FDA

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Creators of a fake-meat burger made with a high-profile genetically engineered ingredient may have landed their experimental industry in a sizzling food safety mess, casting doubt on a Silicon Valley foodtech investor bubble.

As reported on in today’s New York Times, recently obtained documents from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reveal that Impossible Foods, maker of the Impossible Burger, the meatless burger that supposedly “bleeds,” was told by FDA officials that it hadn’t provided adequate proof of safety for a genetically engineered protein that gives the burger its meat-like taste and color. Impossible Foods put the genetically engineered product on the market for public consumption even though the company privately admitted to the FDA that it had not conducted or designed safety tests. The FOIA-produced documents state that the “FDA believes that the arguments presented, individually and collectively, do not establish the safety of SLH for consumption, nor do they point to a general recognition of safety.”

“The FDA told Impossible Foods that its burger was not going to meet government safety standards, and the company admitted it didn’t know all of its constituents. Yet it sold it anyway to thousands of unwitting consumers. Responsible food companies don’t treat customers this way,” said Jim Thomas of ETC Group. “Impossible Foods should pull the burgers from the market unless and until safety can be established by the FDA and apologize to those whose safety it may have risked.”

“Under no circumstances should any food company ignore FDA safety warnings and put consumers’ health at risk,” Dana Perls, senior food and technology campaigner at Friends of the Earth. “The FDA must be the authority when it comes to determining food safety, and that means overhauling the broken regulatory process so that companies like Impossible Foods cannot self-regulate and rubber stamp their products as safe.”

The FDA’s safety designation of “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) allows a manufacturer, like Impossible Foods, to decide for itself, without FDA input, whether or not a product is safe. The self-determination does not require notice to the public or the FDA, and may apply to food chemicals regardless of industry conflicts of interest, or whether the chemicals are new or not widely studied.

U.S. government documents, obtained by ETC Group and Friends of the Earth U.S. through the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Impossible Foods was warned by FDA officials that its key genetically engineered ingredient, “soy leghemeglobin” (SLH), would not meet the basic FDA GRAS status. SLH, or “heme,” is a bio-engineered protein additive that adds meat-like taste and color. Impossible Foods recognizes that SLH has never been widespread in the human diet in its natural or genetically engineered form. Despite touting the color properties of the engineered “heme,” Impossible Foods did not seek FDA approval as a color additive, which has stricter safety regulations.

In discussion with FDA, Impossible Foods also admitted that up to a quarter of its “heme” ingredient was composed of 46 “unexpected” additional proteins, some of which are unidentified and none of which were assessed for safety in the dossier.

The case of Impossible Burger raises concerns that surpass this one patty and implicates the extreme genetic engineering field of synthetic biology, particularly the new high-tech investor trend of “vat-itarian” foods (meat, dairy, and other animal proteins grown in a biotech vat instead of from an animal). While Impossible Burger is the poster child for this vat-grown approach, other companies such as Perfect Day (synthetic biology cow milk) and Clara Foods (synthetic biology egg whites) appear also to be racing to market. Just as biofuels were pitched as a “clean tech” fix to climate change a decade ago, the vat-itarian venture capitalists are now attempting to capitalize on animal welfare concerns through “molecular farming.”

While the health and environmental damage caused by large-scale industrial livestock production should not be minimized, the success of non-animal burgers like the non-GMO Beyond Burger demonstrates that plant-based animal substitutes can succeed without resorting to genetic engineering.

A 2013 US National Survey by Hart Research found that 61% of respondents felt negative about synthetic biology-produced food additives. Polls also show that consumers increasingly want GMOs to be labeled as such, but so far, most companies selling products with synthetic biology ingredients, including Impossible Foods, are not labeling on the products or menus.

Friends of the Earth and ETC Group reached out last week to Impossible Foods, inviting the company to a discussion on the safety of the Impossible Burger.

###

Impossible Burger FOIA documents are available here.

For further information and analysis see ETC Group’s on-line searchable database of synthetic biology derived ingredients, including Impossible Food’s “heme”.

See Friends of the Earth’s blog on synthetic biology animal replacement products “Is ‘Food-Tech’ the Future of Food?” and website for additional information on synthetic biology’s risks to our health and environment.

from: http://www.synbiowatch.org/2017/08/bleeding-veggie-burger-has-no-basis-for-safety-according-to-fda/?lores

Human GMO Chimera

Posted on March 26, 2017 by marcia

Chimera: Scientists have grown a Pig-Human hybrid creature in a lab

Written By: Vicki Batts February 6, 2017

It seems that myth has finally become reality, now that scientists have crafted up the first human-animal hybrid recently in a lab experiment. Researchers from Salk Institute have defied the laws of nature by growing embryos that featured both pig and human DNA.

The creation of human-animal hybrids has been a controversial topic that has been the subject of countless debates. Twelve years ago, National Geographic reported on the contentious topic of chimeras when Chinese scientists from the Shanghai Second Medical University successfully merged human cells with rabbit DNA in 2003. After several days of development, the scientists destroyed the embryos so they could harvest their stem cells. Shortly thereafter, researchers from the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood running through their veins. [RELATED: Learn more about questionable scientific research at Scientific.news]

According to experts, the intent behind such experiments is drug testing and organ-growing. Scientists say that the more human-like the animal is, the better suited it is for testing purposes — and for growing “spare parts.”

The latest research from Salk Institute suggests that science is one step closer to reaching its goal, no matter how disturbing some people find it to be.

Creating the first chimera embryos

Though scientists have been trying for decades, encouraging growing stem cells to mature into fully functional adult cells has been a struggle — the growing organs for use in humans seems eons away.

The study’s lead investigator Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor in the Salk Institute of Biological Studies’ Gene Expression Laboratory, explains, “We thought growing human cells in an animal would be much more fruitful. We still have many things to learn about the early development of cells.”

Izpisua Belmonte and staff scientist Jun Wu have been working on chimera creation for a long time; their first step was to create mouse-rat hybrid embryos. After that, their next choice was to use CRISPR genome editing techniques to direct the rat cells to grow in certain “developmental niches” within the mouse. Essentially, the researchers turned off certain genes in the mouse DNA, like turning off their ability to grow a liver. Then, the team add the rat stem cells to see if they would “fill” the opening. Sure enough, it worked. [RELATED: Learn more about genetic modification GMO.news]

When moving onto their most recent experiment — pig and human DNA — the team explains that their choice was easy: they were looking for an animal with organs similar in size to humans, and pig embryos had proven themselves to be far more affordable and easier to work with than cow embryos.

Pigs and humans are about five times more distant in evolution than mice and rats are, which made things quite challenging for the researchers. Delicacy and exact timing were needed to successfully introduce human DNA into the pig embryos. The team utilized a number of different human stem cell forms in their experiment, to see which type would survive the best.

They found that the cells that survived best and showed the most potential for continued development were “intermediate” human pluripotent stem cells.

When the human cells survived and formed a human-pig hybrid, the researchers then took the newly formed embryos and implanted them into a sow. The embryos were allowed to develop in the mother pig for a period of three or four weeks.

“This is long enough for us to try to understand how the human and pig cells mix together early on without raising ethical concerns about mature chimeric animals,” says Izpisua Belmonte.

Some would argue that even creating and implanting chimeric embryos into non-consenting living animals is ethically concerning too.

Wu says that the contribution of human DNA to the hybrid embryo was fairly low, which is fortunate. The researchers say that one of the big concerns about chimera creation is the potential for the hybrid animal to become too human. As Science Daily reports, “For instance, researchers don’t want human cells to contribute to the formation of the brain.”

from: http://gmo.news/2017-02-06-chimera-scientists-have-grown-a-pig-human-hybrid-creature-in-a-lab-for-study.html

Watch What Goes Into Your Body

Posted on July 12, 2016 by marcia

Top 7 diseases, disorders, and syndromes brought on and EXACERBATED by GMOs, antibiotics, and a slew of toxic vaccinations

Tuesday, July 12, 2016 by: S. D. Wells

(NaturalNews) The majority of diseases and disorders that exist in the world today are either of the contagious, infectious kind or the type that are brought on by consuming carcinogens and neurotoxins. Regarding the latter and the term “consuming,” we are describing anything toxic in food, beverages, vaccines, or personal care products that find their way into the bloodstream, and thus affect the heart, brain, organs, cells, and central nervous system.

It is also very important to note that infectious diseases are often prevented from being spread and/or beaten down by a normal, functioning immune system, and again, a system that is not heavily burdened by noxious chemicals that are “consumed.” Moreover, most humans are NOT born with autism, or cancer, or irritable bowels, or central nervous system (CNS) disorders, or malfunctioning cleansing organs. Yet many MDs label health problems as “genetic” (which they are), even though they are NOT inherited. There is a difference.

It has been proven time and time again that the majority of today’s diseases and disorders are not only preventable, but curable with a plant-based diet and by filtering common chemicals from our daily intake.

So, then, where do we start? Good question. The onslaught of toxins in American food is relentless. It includes very dangerous chemical-based pesticides, including insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, algaecides, and even fertilizers that make the food toxic, from beginning to end–meaning from seed, stem, and leaf to fruit and vegetable, and finally onto the breakfast, lunch and dinner tables. Even most baby food and infant formula sold in America is toxic. Remember, nothing kills good gut bacteria and natural immunity faster than consuming chemical-based pesticides and herbicides, including glyphosate.

Then there’s the water. More than 80% of all municipal taps in America are infested with sodium fluoride, another noxious chemical derived as a by-product of China’s immense chemical industrial complex and exported to America for dripping into the taps, all while being touted as “good for your teeth” – an insidious LIE purported by propaganda ever since WWII.

Speaking of the second world war, that’s when American medicine took a sharp turn for the worse. Nazi scientists were hired to manufacture chemicals to be used as food additives (that cause allergies), food preservatives (that warp and kill brain cells), pharmaceuticals (that don’t help anything), vaccine adjuvants (carriers and preservatives that destroy immunity and disrupt the CNS), and chemotherapy (that makes cancer tumors recede, only to come back with a vengeance).

Lastly, there’s the most popular prescription of all times, that MDs dish out like candy at the front doors on Halloween–and that’s antibiotics. Not only are antibiotics killers of good bacteria and immunity in general, but they are prescribed across the board for viral infections that have symptoms of bacterial infections, because at first, most doctors can’t even tell the difference. Plus, as you probably do NOT know, there are antibiotics in many vaccines. Oh yes, there are! They’re used during production to prevent the growth of bacteria during storage of the vaccine. Oops.

So, the first and last line of defense against all of this mayhem is to STOP consuming chemicals. This requires a strict regimen of organic (or clean locally grown) food, filtered water (or natural spring water), and clean, natural medicine (never cooked up or altered in a laboratory).

Dissipate, dissolve, and disappear your health problems by ending chemical consumption

Remember, the majority of diseases, disorders, and syndromes popular today in America are all brought on and EXACERBATED by GMOs, antibiotics, and a slew of toxic vaccinations. Here are the top 7 aggravators and instigators of health problems for the masses:

#1. Asperger’s Syndrome: Biomarkers of abnormal immune function are associated with behavior impairments–core features of Asperger syndrome, a disorder considered on the “high functioning” end of the autism spectrum, but still exhibiting restricted range of interests and usually repetitive behaviors. Flu shots are a major cause of Asperger’s due to the high mercury content (50,000 parts per million).

#2. Irritable Bowel Syndrome: Stems mainly from the destruction of good gut bacteria and annihilation of enzymes by pesticides and vaccines.

#3. Autism Spectrum Disorder: Science and gene replacement studies in mice point right at synaptic dysfunction as a cause of autism spectrum disorder, specifically synaptic pathways–those associated with cell adhesion. There is strong evidence ASD arises early in development, but AFTER birth, hence the name autism spectrum “development” disorder. Many parents first become aware of autistic symptoms immediately following routine combination vaccinations with flu shots.

#4. Cancer: hardly any forms of cancer are contagious or inherited. Most cancer forms after birth and those cells multiply when fed chemicals. Period. Stop consuming chemicals and the cancer cells are destroyed by healthy cells. Look into natural remedies like turmeric, cannabis, garlic, aloe, and hemp seed oil.

#5. Auto-immune Disorder: vaccines are injected into muscle tissue, conjuring unnatural, hyper-immune responses in babies which leads directly to the immune system attacking itself.

#6. Anxiety, Depression, and Central Nervous System Disorders: Continuous chemical consumption can contribute to or worsen these conditions.

#7. Alzheimer’s, Strokes, and Dementia: the three major causes of dementia and strokes are coagulating saturated fat in the blood, aluminum in the blood, and lack of oxygen to the brain. Aluminum is commonly found in antacids, vaccines and flu shots.

To suffer most chronic health problems, you not only have to consume chemicals, but you have to continually consume chemicals. There’s a cumulative effect that no MDs or oncologists EVER talk about, and that’s how they stay in business and make so much damn money. End the onslaught of chemical consumption and watch your health issues dissipate, dissolve, and disappear. Remember, the top 7 diseases, disorders, and syndromes are all brought on and EXACERBATED by GMOs, antibiotics, and a slew of toxic vaccinations, including flu shots. Get smart. Eat clean and research natural medicine. The rewards are endless!

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/054627_chronic_diseases_GMOs_vaccine_toxins.html#ixzz4EDPy2eL0