1. Introduction

They call them “wet scrubbers” – the pollution control devices used by the phosphate industry to capture fluoride gases produced in the production of commercial fertilizer.

In the past, when the industry let these gases escape, vegetation became scorched, crops destroyed, and cattle crippled.

Today, with the development of sophisticated air-pollution control technology, less of the fluoride escapes into the atmosphere, and the type of pollution that threatened the survival of some communities in the 1950s and 60s, is but a thing of the past (at least in the US and other wealthy countries).

However, the impacts of the industry’s fluoride emissions are still being felt, although more subtly, by millions of people – people who, for the most part, do not live anywhere near a phosphate plant.

That’s because, after being captured in the scrubbers, the fluoride acid (hydrofluorosilicic acid), a classified hazardous waste, is barreled up and sold, unrefined, to communities across the country. Communities add hydrofluorosilicic acid to their water supplies as the primary fluoride chemical for water fluoridation.

Even if you don’t live in a community where fluoride is added to water, you’ll still be getting a dose of it through cereal, soda, juice, beer and any other processed food and drink manufactured with fluoridated water.

Meanwhile, if the phosphate industry has its way, it may soon be distributing another of its by-products to communities across the country. That waste product is radium, which may soon be added to a roadbed near you – if the EPA buckles and industry has its way.

2. Effects of Fluoride Pollution

Central Florida knows it well. So too does Garrison Montana, Cubatao Brazil, and any other community where phosphate industries have had inefficient, or non-existent, pollution control: Fluoride.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) called the phophate industry a “pandora’s box.” While the industry brought wealth to rural communities, it also brought ecological devastation. The CBC described the effects of one particular phosphate plant in Dunville, Ontario:

“Farmers noticed it first… Something mysterious burned the peppers, burned the fruit, dwarfed and shriveled the grains, damaged everything that grew. Something in the air destroyed the crops. Anyone could see it… They noticed it first in 1961. Again in ’62. Worse each year. Plants that didn’t burn, were dwarfed. Grain yields cut in half…Finally, a greater disaster revealed the source of the trouble. A plume from a silver stack, once the symbol of Dunville’s progress, spreading for miles around poison – fluorine. It was identified by veterinarians. There was no doubt. What happened to the cattle was unmistakable, and it broke the farmer’s hearts. Fluorosis – swollen joints, falling teeth, pain until cattle lie down and die. Hundreds of them. The cause – fluorine poisoning from the air.”

Fluoride has been, and remains to this day, one of the largest environmental liabilities of the phosphate industry. The source of the problem lies in the fact that raw phosphate ore contains high concentrations of fluoride, usually between 20,000 to 40,000 parts per million (equivalent to 2 to 4% of the ore).

When this ore is processed into water-soluble phosphate (via the addition of sulfuric acid), the fluoride content of the ore is vaporized into the air, forming highly toxic gaseous compounds (hydrogen fluoride and silicon tetrafluoride).

A cow crawling on his front two legs as a result of crippling fluoride poisoning.

In the past, when the industry had little, if any, pollution control, the fluoride gases were frequently emitted in large volumes into surrounding communities, causing serious environmental damage.

In Polk County, Florida, the creation of multiple phosphate plants in the 1940s caused damage to nearly 25,000 acres of citrus groves and “mass fluoride poisoning” of cattle. It is estimated that, as a result of fluoride contamination, “the cattle population of Polk County dropped 30,000 head” between 1953 and 1960, and “an estimated 150,000 acres of cattle land were abandoned” (Linton 1970). According to the former president of the Polk County Cattlemen’s Association:

“Around 1953 we noticed a change in our cattle… We watched our cattle become gaunt and starved, their legs became deformed; they lost their teeth. Reproduction fell off and when a cow did have a calf, it was also affected by this malady or was a stillborn.”

In the 1960s, air pollution emitted by another phosphate plant in Garrison, Montana was severe enough to be branded “the worst in the nation” by a 1967 National Air Pollution Conference in Washington, D.C.

As in Polk County, and other communities downwind of fluoride emissions, the cattle in Garrison were poisoned by fluoride. As described in a 1969 article from Good Housekeeping:

“The blight had afflicted cattle too. Some lay in the pasture, barely able to move. Others limped and staggered on swollen legs, or painfully sank down and tried to graze on their knees… Ingested day after day, the excessive fluoride had caused tooth and bone disease in the cattle, so that they could not tolerate the anguish of standing or walking. Even eating or drinking was an agony. Their ultimate fate was dehydration, starvation – and death.”

3. Litigation from Fluoride Damage

Damage to vegetation and livestock, caused by fluoride emissions from large industry, has resulted, as one might expect, in a great deal of expensive litigation. In 1983, Dr. Leonard Weinstein of Cornell University, stated that “certainly, there has been more litigation on alleged damage to agriculture by fluoride than all other pollutants combined” (Weinstein 1983). While Weinstein was referring to fluoride pollution in general, his comments give an indication of the problem facing the phosphate industry – one of the most notorious emitters of fluoride – in its early days.

So too does an estimate from Dr. Edward Groth, currently a Senior Scientist at Consumers Union. According to an article written by Groth, fluoride pollution between the years 1957 to 1968, “was responsible for more damage claims against industry than all twenty (nationally monitored air pollutants) combined.”

The primary reason for the litigation against fluoride emitters was “the painful, economically disastrous, debilitating disease” that fluoride causes to livestock (Hodge & Smith 1977). As noted in a 1970 review by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA),

“Airborne fluorides have caused more worldwide damage to domestic animals than any other air pollutant” (Lillie 1970).

Another review on air pollution reached the same conclusion. According to Ender (1969):

“The most important problem concerning damage to animals by air pollution is, no doubt, the poisoning of domestic animals caused by fluorine in smoke, gas, or dust from various industries; industrial fluorosis in livestock is today a disorder well known by veterinarians in all industrialized countries.”

According to a review discussing “Fluorine toxicosis and industry”, Shupe noted that:

“Air pollution damage to agricultural production in the United States in 1967 was estimated at $500,000,000. Fluoride damage to livestock and vegetation was a substantial part of this amount” (Shupe 1970).

4. Scrubbing away the problem

Due to the inevitable liabilities that fluoride pollution presented, and to an increasingly stringent set of environmental regulations, the phosphate industry began cleaning up its act. As noted by Ervin Bellack, a chemist for the US Public Health Service:

“In the manufacture of super-phosphate fertilizer, phosphate rock is acidulated with sulfuric acid, and the fluoride content of the rock evolves as volatile silicofluorides. In the past, much of this volatile material was vented to the atmosphere, contributing heavily to pollution of the air and land surrounding the manufacturing site. As awareness of the pollution problem increased, scrubbers were added to strip particulate and gaseous components from the waste gas…” (Bellack 1970)

A 1979 review, published in the journal Phosphorous & Potassium, added:

“The fluorine compounds liberated during the acidulation of phosphate rock are now rightly regarded as a menace and the industry is now obliged to suppress emissions-containing vapors to within very low limits in most parts of the world… In the past, little attention was paid to the emission of gaseous fluorine compounds in the fertilizer industry. But today fluorine recovery is increasingly necessary because of stringent environmental restrictions which demand drastic reductions in the quantities of volatile and toxic fluorine compounds emitted into the waste gases. These compounds now have to be recovered and converted into harmless by-products for disposal or, more desirably, into marketable products” (Denzinger 1979).

5. A Missed Opportunity: Little Demand for Silicofluorides

Considering the great demand among big industry for fluoride chemicals as a material used in a wide variety of commercial products and industrial processes, the phosphate industry could have made quite a handsome profit selling its fluoride wastes to industry. This was indeed the hope among some industry analysts, including the authors of the review noted above (Denzinger 1979).

However, the US phosphate industry has thus far been unable to take advantage of this market. The principal reason for this failure stems from the fact that fluoride captured in the scrubbers is combined with silica. The resulting silicofluoride complex has, in turn, proved difficult for the industry to separate and purify in an economically-viable process.

As it now stands, silicofluoride complexes (hydrofluorosilicic acid & sodium silicofluoride) are of little use to industry. Thus, while US industry continues to satisfy its growing demand for high-grade fluoride chemicals by importing calcium fluoride from abroad (primarily from Mexico, China, and South Africa), the phosphate industry continues dumping large volumes of fluoride into the acidic wastewater ponds that lie at the top of the mountainous waste piles which surround the industry. In 1995, the Tampa Tribune summed up the situation as follows:

“The U.S. demand for fluorine, which was 400,000 tons, is expected to jump 25 percent by next year… Even though 600,000 tons of fluorine are contained in the 20 million tons of phosphate rock mined in Florida, the fluorine market has been inaccessible because the fluorine is tied up with silica, a hard, glassy material.”

Of course, not all of the phosphate industry’s fluoride waste is disposed of in the ponds. As noted earlier, the phosphate industry has found at least one regular consumer of its silicofluorides: municipal water-treatment facilities. According to recent estimates, the phosphate industry sells approximately 200,000 tons of silicofluorides (hydrofluorosilicic acid & sodium silicofluoride) to US communities each year for use as a water fluoridation agent (Coplan & Masters 2001).

6. Fluoridation: “An ideal solution to a long-standing problem”?

In 1983, Rebecca Hanmer, the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water at the US Environmental Protection Agency, described the policy of using the phosphate industry’s silicofluorides for fluoridation as follows:

“In regard to the use of fluosilicic acid as the source of fluoride for fluoridation, this agency regards such use as an ideal solution to a long standing problem. By recovering by-product fluosilicic acid from fertilizer manufacturing, water and air pollution are minimized, and water authorities have a low-cost source of fluoride available to them.” (See letter)

Another EPA official, Dr. J. William Hirzy, the current Senior Vice-President of EPA Headquarters Union, recently expressed a different view on the matter. According to Hirzy:

“If this stuff gets out into the air, it’s a pollutant; if it gets into the river, it’s a pollutant; if it gets into the lake it’s a pollutant; but if it goes right into your drinking water system, it’s not a pollutant. That’s amazing… There’s got to be a better way to manage this stuff.”

7. Recent Findings on Silicofluorides

Adding to Hirzy’s, and the EPA Union’s, concerns are three recent findings.

A tank of hydrofluosilicic acid (a form of silicofluoride) at water treatment plant.

First and foremost are two recent studies reporting a relationship between water treated with silicofluorides and elevated levels of lead in children’s blood (Masters & Coplan 1999, 2000). The authors of these studies speculate that the silicofluoride complex may increase the uptake of lead (derived from other environmental sources, such as lead paint) into the bloodstream.

The second finding is the recent, and quite remarkable concession from the EPA, that despite 50 years of water fluoridation, the EPA has no chronic health studies on silicofluorides. All safety studies on fluoride to date have been conducted using pharmaceutical-grade sodium fluoride, not industrial-grade silicofluorides. A similar concession has also been obtained from the respective authorities in England.

The defense made by agencies promoting water fluoridation, such as the US Centers for Disease Control, to the lack of such studies, is that when the silicofluoride complex is diluted into water, it dissociates into free fluoride ions or other fluoride compounds (e.g. aluminum-fluoride), and thus the treated water, when consumed, will have no remaining silicofluoride residues (Urbansky & Schock, 2000).

This argument, while supported by a good deal of theoretical calculation is at odds with a recently obtained and translated PhD dissertation from a German chemist. (Westendorf 1975). According to the dissertation, not only do the silicofluorides not fully dissociate, the remaining silicofluoride complexes could be more potent inhibitors of cholinesterase, an enzyme vital to the functioning of the central nervous system.

The third finding is that the silicofluorides, as obtained from the scrubbers of the phosphate industry, contain a wide variety of impurities present in the process water – particularly arsenic and possibly radionuclides. While these impurities occur at low concentrations, especially after dilution into the water, their purposeful addition to water supplies directly violates EPA public health goals. For instance, the EPA’s Maximum Contaminant Level Goal for arsenic, a known human carcinogen, is 0 parts per billion. However, according to the National Sanitation Foundation, the addition of silicofluorides to the water supply will add, on average, about 0.1 to 0.43 ppb, and as much as 1.6 ppb, arsenic to the water.

As noted by the Salt Lake Tribune,

“Those who had visions of sterile white laboratories when they voted for fluoride weren’t thinking of fluorosilicic acid. Improbable as this sounds, much of it is recovered from the scrubbing solution that scours toxins from smokestacks at phosphate fertilizer plants.”

8. Gypsum Stacks & ‘Slime Ponds’

Fluoride-contaminated wastewater sitting on top of “gypsum stack.”To make 1 pound of commercial fertilizer, the phosphate industry creates 5 pounds of contaminated phosphogypsum slurry (calcium sulfate). This slurry is piped from the processing facilities up into the acidic wastewater ponds that sit atop the mountainous waste piles known as gypsum stacks.

According to the EPA, 32 million tons of new gypsum waste is created each year by the phosphate industry in Central Florida alone. (Central Florida is the heart of the US phosphate industry). The EPA estimates that the current stockpile of waste in Central Florida’s gypsum stacks has reached “nearly 1 billion metric tons.” (The average gypsum stack takes up about 135 acres of surface area – equal to about 100 football fields – and can go as high as 200 feet.)

9. Radiation Hazard

It is sort of a misnomer, however, to call these stacks “gypsum” stacks. Indeed, if the stacks were simply gypsum, they probably wouldn’t exist, as gypsum can be readily sold for various purposes (e.g. as a building material). What can’t be readily sold, however, is radioactive gypsum, which is about the only type of gypsum the phosphate industry has to offer.

The source of the gypsum’s radioactivity is the presence of uranium, and uranium’s various decay products (i.e. radium), in raw, phosphate ore. As noted by the Sarasota Herald Tribune

“there is a natural and unavoidable connection between phosphate mining and radioactive material. It is because phosphate and uranium were laid down at the same time and in the same place by the same geological processes millions of years ago. They go together. Mine phosphate, you get uranium.”

Phosphate ore can contain high concentrations of uranium, as evident by this sign at IMC Agrico’s plant in Polk County.

While uranium, and its decay-products, naturally occur in phosphate ore, their concentrations in the gypsum waste, after the extraction of soluble phosphate, are up to 60 times greater.

The gypsum has therefore been classified as a “Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material“, or NORM waste, although some, including the EPA, have questioned whether this classification understates the problem. According to the Tampa Tribune, the gypsum “is among the most concentrated radioactive waste that comes from natural materials.”

It is so concentrated, in fact, that “it can’t be dumped at the one landfill in the country licensed to take only NORM waste.”

Thus, according to US News & World Report, the EPA is currently “weighing whether to classify the gypsum stacks as hazardous waste under federal statutes, which would force the industry to provide strict safeguards” (to nearly 1 billion tons of waste).

One of EPA’s main concerns with gypsum stacks centers around the fact that radium-226 breaks down into radon gas. When radon gas is formed, it can become airborne, leading to potentially elevated exposures downwind of the stacks. Such airborne exposures are of particular concern to areas like Progress Village, Florida, where “a new gypsum stack is rising a few hundred yards from a grade school.” According to US News & World Report, there is evidence to suggest cancer rates downwind of the stacks may be elevated:

“Some epidemiological studies suggest that lung cancer rates among nonsmoking men in the phosphate region are up to twice as high as the state average. Acute leukemia rates among adults are also double the average. An industry-sponsored study of male phosphate workers, however, found lung cancer rates no higher than the state average. There is no proof that mine wastes cause cancer, but the evidence is worrisome.”

10. Will radioactive gypsum be added to roads?

Rail cars carrying sulfur to process phosphate rock, with giant gypsum stack looming in background.

With the growing realization that gypsum stacks represent a serious environmental threat to Central Florida, both now and for generations to come, the phosphate industry has been looking into ways of reducing the size of the stacks (and the size of their liability.)

In an interesting parallel to fluoride, the phosphate industry is looking to turn its gypsum waste into a marketable product: as a potential cover for landfills, as a soil conditioner, and as a base material for roads.

According to Robert Vanderslice, head of Phosphate Management for Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection, the gypsum is a “good material to replace lime rock in roads. Lime rock will run out at some time, and we’re still building a lot of roads. Building roads with phosphogypsum would consume quite a bit of gypsum.”

In 1995, a “Phosphogypsum Fact-Finding Forum” organized by the Florida Institute of Phosphate Research, presented a “message aimed straight at Washington: Relax the rules on using gypsum and the mountains will gradually disappear.”

As of yet, however, the EPA does not appear willing to relax its rules and lift its ban on commercial uses of gypsum. According to the Tampa Tribune, “EPA’s limit for use is 10 picocuries of radium per gram, well below the levels usually found in the mounds.”

A recent statement from the EPA reads:

“Only two uses (for the gypsum) are permitted: limited agricultural use and research. Other uses may be proposed, but otherwise the phosphogypsum must be returned to mines or stored in stacks.”

11. Commercial Uranium Production

While the presence of uranium decay-products makes gypsum a tough sell for the phosphate industry, the uranium has, at various times, presented the industry with a business opportunity of its own.

One of the lesser-known-facts about the phosphate industry is that its processing facilities have produced and sold sizeable quantities of uranium.

In 1997, just two phosphate plants in Louisiana produced 950,000 pounds of commercial uranium, which amounted to roughly 16% of the domestically produced uranium in the US.

In 1998, the same two plants produced another 950,000 pounds, but due to declining market prices for uranium, both plants have since ceased production.

If market prices improve, however, 4 US phosphate plants (2 in Louisiana & 2 in Florida) would have the capacity to produce a combined 2.75 million pounds of uranium per year, according to the Department of Energy (DOE). The DOE has termed these 4 facilities “Nonconventional Uranium Plants.”

12. Cold War Secrets & Worker Health

The Department of Energy has not always been so open about the uranium-making potential of the phosphate industry. During the Cold War, its predecessor institution, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), kept this fact closely under wraps – even to the workers who were, unknowingly, handling large quantities of the radioactive material.

In Joliet, Illinois, it has only recently come to light that the local phosphate plant had secretly produced some 2 million pounds of uranium for the US government in the years 1952 to 1962. According to local newspaper reports, the cancer rates of people who worked at the plant, especially “Building 55” where the uranium was processed, are unusually high.

“We used to kind of joke that if you worked for Blockson, you got cancer,” quipped Vince Driscoll, the son of a cancer-stricken worker.

Today, with the Cold War over, it is becoming clear that workers in the phosphate industry need special protection. According to a report from the European Commission:

“Processing and waste handling in the phosphate industry is associated with radiation levels of concern for workers and the public. The level of protection for these groups should be more similar to the level of protection that is state of the art in other industries, particularly the nuclear industry.”

13. Wastewater Issues

Sinkhole in gypsum stack. (AP Photo).

While the radioactivity of the gypsum stacks has probably been the key health concern of the EPA, it is not the only one.

Resting atop the phosphate industry’s gypsum piles are highly-acidic wastewater ponds, littered with toxic contaminants, including fluoride, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, and the various decay-products of uranium. This combination of acidity and toxins makes for a poisonous, high-volume, cocktail, which, when leaked into the environment, wreaks havoc to waterways and fish populations. As noted by the St. Petersburg Times, “Spills from these stacks have periodically poisoned the Tampa Bay environs. ”

One spill, in 1997, from a now-defunct gypsum stack in Florida, “killed more than a million fish.”

“Strike the Alafia River off your list of fishing spots,” wrote one journalist after the spill. “It’s gone, dead as a sewer pipe, killed by the carelessness of yet another phosphate company.”

Today, the same gypsum stack which caused this particular spill, is considered by Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection to be “the most serious pollution threat in the state.” That’s because tropical rains over the past couple of years have brought the wastewater to the edge of the stack’s walls.

As noted by the Tampa Tribune, “The gypsum mound is near capacity, and a wet spring or a tropical storm could cause a catastrophic spill.”

To prevent such a spill, which was all but inevitable, the EPA recently agreed to let Florida pursue “Option Z“: To load 500-600 million gallons of the wastewater onto barges and dump it directly into the Gulf of Mexico.

The dumping of the wastewater into the Gulf represents the latest in a series of high-profile embarrasments for Florida’s phosphate industry; one of the most dramatic of which happened on June 15, 1994.

On that day, a massive, 15-story sinkhole appeared in the middle of an 80 million ton gypsum stack. The hole was so big that, according to US News & World Report, it

“could be as big as 2 million cubic feet, enough to swallow 400 railroad boxcars. Local wags call it Disney World’s newest attraction — ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth.’”

But, as US News noted,

“there’s nothing amusing about it. The cave-in dumped 4 million to 6 million cubic feet of toxic and radioactive gypsum and waste water into the Floridan aquifer, which provides 90 percent of the state’s drinking water.”

And so it goes. As summarized by the Tampa Tribune:

“It’s not like you can padlock the doors and walk away. The complexities of keeping a phosphate processing plant operating are becoming clear to government regulators now overseeing two of them. Ponds full of 1.5 billion gallons of acid and three mountains of radioactive waste mean you just can’t shut off the machinery and turn out the lights. The state could be stuck with the plants for years. And taxpayers would be stuck with the tab.”

Photographs of the Phosphate Industry

Photographs of the Photographs of the phosphate industry are available here.

References

Full-text copies of all newspaper articles cited in this article can be accessed by clicking on the links within the text. Additional newspaper articles on the phosphate industry can be accessed here. The references for the other cited documents in this article are as follows:

Bellack E, Baker RJ. (1970). Fluoridation chemicals – the supply picture. Journal of the American Water Works Association 62: 223-224.

Coplan MJ, Masters RD. (2001). Silicofluorides and fluoridation. Fluoride 34(3): 161-220.

Denzinger HF, et al. (1979). Fluorine recovery in the fertilizer industry – a review. Phosphorus & Potassium Sept/Oct: 33-39.

Ender F. (1969). “The effect of air pollution on animals.” pp. 245-254. In: Air Pollution – Proceedings of the First European Congress on the Influence of Air Pollution on Plants and Animals, Wageningen, April 22 to 27, 1968. Centre for Agricultural Publishing & Documentation, Wageningen.

Hirzy JW. (2000). Video-taped interview with Dr. J. William Hirzy, Senior Vice President, EPA Headquarters Union. Interview by Michael Connett. July 3.

Hodge HC, Smith FA. (1977). Occupational fluoride exposure. Journal of Occupational Medicine 19: 12-39.

Lillie RJ. (1970). Air Pollutants Affecting the Performance of Domestic Animals: A Literature Review. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Agricultural Handbook No. 380. Washington D.C.

Masters R, et al. (2000). Association of Silicofluoride Treated Water with Elevated Blood Lead. Neurotoxicology 21(6): 1091-1099.

Masters RD, Coplan M. (1999). Water treatment with Silicofluorides and Lead Toxicity. International Journal of Environmental Studies 56: 435-449.

Shupe JL. (1970). Fluorine toxicosis and industry. American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal 31: 240-247.

Urbansky ET, Schock MR. (2000). Can Fluoridation Affect Water Lead(II) Levels and Lead(II) Neurotoxicity? United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Research and Development, National Risk Management Research Laboratory, Water Supply and Water Resources Division, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Weinstein LH. (1983). “Effects of Fluorides on Plants and Plant Communities: An Overview.” pp. 53-59. In: Shupe JL, Peterson HB, Leone NC, (Eds). Fluorides: Effects on Vegetation, Animals, and Humans. Paragon Press. Salt Lake City, Utah.

Westendorf J. (1975). The kinetics of acetylcholinesterase inhibition and the influence of fluoride and fluoride complexes on the permeability of erythrocyte membranes. Ph.D. Dissertation in Chemistry, University of Hamburg, Germany.

---

What are GMOs?

GMOs, or “genetically modified organisms,” are plants or animals that have been genetically engineered with DNA from bacteria, viruses or other plants and animals. These experimental combinations of genes from different species cannot occur in nature or in traditional crossbreeding.

Virtually all commercial GMOs are engineered to withstand direct application of herbicide and/or to produce an insecticide. Despite biotech industry promises, none of the GMO traits currently on the market offer increased yield, drought tolerance, enhanced nutrition, or any other consumer benefit.

Meanwhile, a growing body of evidence connects GMOs with health problems, environmental damage and violation of farmers’ and consumers’ rights.

Are GMOs safe?

Most developed nations do not consider GMOs to be safe. In more than 60 countries around the world, including Australia, Japan, and all of the countries in the European Union, there are significant restrictions or outright bans on the production and sale of GMOs. In the U.S., the government has approved GMOs based on studies conducted by the same corporations that created them and profit from their sale. Increasingly, Americans are taking matters into their own hands and choosing to opt out of the GMO experiment.

Are GMOs labeled?

Unfortunately, even though polls consistently show that a significant majority of Americans want to know if the food they’re purchasing contains GMOs, the powerful biotech lobby has succeeded in keeping this information from the public. In the absence of mandatory labeling, the Non-GMO Project was created to give consumers the informed choice they deserve.

Where does the Non-GMO Project come in?

The Non-GMO Project is a non-profit organization with a mission of protecting the non-GMO food supply and giving consumers an informed choice. We offer North America’s ONLY third party verification for products produced according to rigorous best practices for GMO avoidance (for more info, click here). Our strategy is to empower consumers to make change through the marketplace. If people stop buying GMOs, companies will stop using them and farmers will stop growing them.

Do Americans want non-GMO foods and supplements?

Polls consistently show that a significant majority of North Americans would like to be able to tell if the food they’re purchasing contains GMOs (a 2008 CBS News Poll found that 87% of consumers wanted GMOs labeled). And, according to a recent CBS/New York Times poll, 53% of consumers said they would not buy food that has been genetically modified. The Non-GMO Project’s seal for verified products will, for the first time, give the public an opportunity to make an informed choice when it comes to GMOs.

How common are GMOs?

In the U.S., GMOs are in as much as 80% of conventional processed food. Click here for a current list of GMO risk crops.

Why does the Non-GMO Project verify products that have a low risk of containing GMOs?

Some ingredients that seem low-risk may have less-visible high-risk ingredients.  Take, for example, dried fruit.  Raisins and similar fruit are sometimes packed with a small quantity of oil to keep them moist.  This oil, when used, is sometimes high-GMO-risk.  As such, it is critical that we do take the time to look carefully at ingredient spec sheets during the verification process, to ensure that risks like this are effectively mitigated, even in apparently low-risk products.

Contamination incidents have occurred with seemingly “low-risk” products (rice, starling corn, flax). Non-GMO Project Verification supports manufacturers in being able to quickly and proactively respond to unexpected contamination issues.

Verifying only high-risk products puts a heavy burden on consumers to know what products are at risk of containing GMOs.  Many people, even in the world of Natural Foods, don’t know what a GMO is, let alone which crops and processed ingredients are high-risk.  As such, labeling only products that contain high-risk ingredients could give an unfair competitive advantage to products that contain ingredients containing corn, soy, etc.  Taking the cereal aisle for our example, if we verified only high-risk products, a shopper might see the seal on a box of verified corn flakes, but not on the wheat-based cereal box next to them, produced with the same high standards by the same company. This could leave them thinking the corn flakes were non-GMO, but that they should avoid the wheat product, even though there’s no GMO wheat on the market.  Given the lack of understanding of the issue, this presents some serious issues.

Through verifying low-risk products, the Non-GMO Project’s work builds consumer interest and industry investment in Non-GMO, even for crops that aren’t genetically engineered yet.  Biotech is constantly working to patent and commercialize new organisms (salmon, apples, etc.), and the more companies that have committed to Non-GMO production, the more resistance these new developments will see prior to release.

What are the impacts of GMOs on the environment?

Over 80% of all GMOs grown worldwide are engineered for herbicide tolerance. As a result, use of toxic herbicides like Roundup has increased 15 times since GMOs were introduced. GMO crops are also responsible for the emergence of “super weeds” and “super bugs:’ which can only be killed with ever more toxic poisons like 2,4-D (a major ingredient in Agent Orange). GMOs are a direct extension of chemical agriculture, and are developed and sold by the world’s biggest chemical companies. The long-term impacts of GMOs are unknown, and once released into the environment these novel organisms cannot be recalled.

How do GMOs affect farmers? Because GMOs are novel life forms, biotechnology companies have been able to obtain patents with which to restrict their use. As a result, the companies that make GMOs now have the power to sue farmers whose fields are contaminated with GMOs, even when it is the result of inevitable drift from neighboring fields. GMOs therefore pose a serious threat to farmer sovereignty and to the national food security of any country where they are grown, including the United States.

How can I avoid GMOs?

Choose food and products that are Non-GMO Project Verified! Click here to see a complete list.

 

See original here: http://www.nongmoproject.org/learn-more/

The immense dangers associated with exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide are becoming incontrovertible, with the latest indictment of this deadly chemical cocktail coming from a new paper published in the open access, peer-reviewed journal Entropy. A scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and her colleague found that, contrary to industry claims, the active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, interferes with human digestion and the biosynthesis of nutrients, which can cause a host of fatal diseases.

Most of the chronic illnesses that plague Western society, in fact, are the same residual consequences that can arise due to exposure to Roundup. This stunning fact raises some serious questions about the safety of the general food supply, much of which is derived from or contains ingredients made from genetically-modified (GM) crops that are sprayed with Roundup. In other words, when the vast majority of today’s most prevalent diseases can be traced to the same long-term side effects brought about by exposure to Roundup, we have a very real public health crisis on our hands.

To arrive at this conclusion, independent scientist and consultant Anthony Samsel and MIT researcher Stephanie Seneff evaluated a plethora of scientific research on glyphosate, including data showing that the toxin disrupts microbial balance in the gut; impairs the transport of sulphate; and suppresses the normal activity of various members of the cytochrome P450 (CYP) family of enzymes, which are used by the body to break down toxins and produce blood. And in the process of their quest, these two inquiring minds determined that the negative effects of glyphosate on mammals, which includes humans, have been greatly underestimated.

“Glyphosate’s inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals,” write the authors in their abstract. “Residues are found in the main foods of the Western diet, comprised primarily of sugar, corn, soy and wheat … Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.”

Roundup exposure linked to brain disorders, reproductive problems, and cancer

The discovery that glyphosate directly inhibits CYP enzyme activity is noteworthy, as this class of enzymes is responsible for regulating proper metabolism. When CYP enzymes are blocked from functioning as intended, in other words, a condition known as gut dysbiosis can result, which in turn can lead to inflammatory bowel disease and other chronic gastrointestinal disorders. Such disorders, as you may already know, are often linked to autism spectrum disorders and various other brain conditions.

Beyond this, glyphosate has also been shown to directly interfere with reproductive function. A known chelator, the spraying of Roundup on crops has been shown to not only deplete nutrients from crops, but also block their absorption from soil. When ingested, glyphosate and glyphosate residues can cause similar damage in humans, as it both depletes and decreases the bioavailability of important reproductive nutrients like cholesterol sulfate and zinc. Glyphosate has also been shown to cross the placental barrier and damage developing human life in mothers’ wombs.

“Contrary to the current widely-held misconception that glyphosate is relatively harmless to humans, the available evidence shows that glyphosate may rather be the most important factor in the development of multiple chronic diseases and conditions that have become prevalent in Westernized societies,” explain the authors in their discussion.

“While glyphosate is obviously not the only environmental toxin to contribute to these diseases and conditions, glyphosate’s ability to disrupt the gut bacteria, to impair serum transport of sulfate and phosphate, and to interfere with CYP enzymes, logically progresses to this multitude of diseased states, through well-established biological processes.”

You can read the study’s abstract here: http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416

You can read the complete study here: http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416/pdf

Sources for this article include: http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416 http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416/pdf http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Read the original here: http://www.naturalnews.com/040226_monsanto_roundup_glyphosate.html#ixzz2SdIroiTB

Informed consent is one of the most basic aspects of patient-physician  relations, as well as subject-researcher relations in the case of research studies. This involves making the patient aware of  and verifying that they understand the risks, benefits, facts, and the future  implications of the procedure or test they are going to be subjected to.

In the case of genetically modified organisms we have not been made aware of  the risks. In fact, the GMO industry has deliberately hidden the real dangers  behind the seeds and herbicides they  peddle.

The Food and Drug Administration of the United States of America has defined informed consent in the following bureaucratic  jargon:

Except as provided in 50.23 and 50.24, no investigator may involve a human  being as a subject in research covered by these regulations unless the  investigator has obtained the legally effective informed consent of the subject  or the subject’s legally authorized representative. An investigator shall seek  such consent only under circumstances that provide the prospective subject or  the representative sufficient opportunity to consider whether or not to  participate and that minimize the possibility of coercion or undue influence.  The information that is given to the subject or the representative shall be in  language understandable to the subject or the representative. No informed  consent, whether oral or written, may include any exculpatory language through  which the subject or the representative is made to waive or appear to waive any  of the subject’s legal rights, or releases or appears to release the  investigator, the sponsor, the institution, or its agents from liability for  negligence.

Under all of these definitions, including the exceptions which you can peruse  at the above linked official website,  what Monsanto is doing with GM crops and their Roundup products are ethically  wrong and illegal.

Some might say, “So what? It doesn’t matter since genetically modified  products are perfectly safe! Why would I care, if it helps farmers, and it is  safe, then what is wrong with doing it without informed consent?”

Well, so many people disagree that after much argumentation, the United  States was forced to drop their opposition to the labeling of products that have  genetically modified ingredients. Unfortunately, this step forward was a very  small one, as this is completely voluntary. Since many consumers do not want to  eat these products, it is almost guaranteed that we won’t see them on the  ingredient list on our food labels any time soon.

This would be quite hilarious if it wasn’t so dangerous: the new “guidance” approved by the Codex Alimentarius  Commission simply “allows countries to label genetically modified foods  without [breaching] international free trade laws.”

That is, of course, unless the people of America start realizing the real  dangers that these products pose and demand that all companies be legally  required to identify if any ingredients were genetically modified anywhere along  the line of production.

This means that if corn was grown from a Monsanto GM seed,  the producer would be forced to identify that the corn is indeed genetically  modified on the label.

Are there real health risks, or is this just a bunch of hype attempting to  defame the good name of the multinational giant known as Monsanto?

In this article we will review the scientific findings and compare them to  what we are told by the media and government about the total safety of these  products.

In a report published in June 2011 in Earth Open Source, written by several  professors and researchers from across the world entitled, Roundup and birth  defects: Is the public being kept in the dark? significant evidence is  presented showing that the best-selling herbicide Roundup is indeed linked with  birth defects.

Roundup, a product of Monsanto, is comprised mostly of the isopropylamine  salt of glyphosate, which is the most used herbicidal chemical in America.  Monsanto’s Roundup has been outselling every other herbicide worldwide since  four years after its introduction to the market in 1976. For those who are not  familiar with the history of Monsanto and their Roundup product, I highly  recommend the documentary entitled The World According to Monsanto.

Roundup is far from the only dangerous GM product, as you will see as this  article continues.

So what exactly are the dangers of Roundup? Should you be worried about your  food source using it or using “Roundup” ready genetically modified seeds?

To put it simply: yes, in fact you should be very concerned and this article  will lay it out so anyone can understand exactly why we need to get active and  fight back against the monster that is Monsanto and the gargantuan genetically  modified organism market.

First I must describe what a “Roundup ready” genetically modified crop  entails. The GM plant has been specially engineered to be able to handle the  incredibly toxic herbicide Roundup. It does not resist the herbicide but instead  it has been modified so it can uptake the poison and still live. The Roundup  then makes its way into your system, and anyone will tell you that eating a ton  of glyphosate is not a good idea.

Roundup is not backed by any impartial, independent, rigorous scientific  research. The studies used to back up the claims of governments around the world  and especially in the EU are unpublished industry studies.

The real research shows a very different picture.

In 2002, a scientific research paper was published in Chemical Research  in Toxicology, a publication of the American Chemical Society, entitled Pesticide Roundup Provokes Cell Division Dysfunction at the  Level of CDK1/Cyclin B Activation. This bombshell paper reveals the  real inherent dangers of the world’s most popular systemic herbicide.

The model they used to test the effects of the glyphosate based Roundup was  an embryonic sea urchin in the first cell divisions after successful  fertilization. This is suitable for an analog study (meaning that it can be  applied to human cell division) because these first divisions represent the  universal cell cycle regulation.

They found that a solution containing just 8 mM (millimolar, or 8/1000 moles)  of glyphosate “induces a delay in the kinetic of the first cell cleavage of the  sea urchin embryos.” This means that the initial cell division, which starts  with cleavage of the single cell zygote is delayed, something which could prove  destructive in human beings.

Anyone who has taken a biology course can tell you that the human  reproductive cycle is a beautiful, finely tuned, and remarkably elegant system.  When this system is upset, say by toxins in the mother’s blood, the results are  not pretty.

They further reveal, “The delay in the cell cycle could be induced using  increasing glyphosate concentrations (1-10 mM) in the presence of a subthreshold  concentration of Roundup 0.2%, while glyphosate alone was ineffective, thus  indicating synergy between glyphosate and Roundup formulation products.” While  the effects of the toxin were “not lethal,” it still induced “a delay into  M-phase of the cell cycle.”

CDK1 and cyclin B universally regulate the cell’s M-phase, and Roundup  delayed the activation of these compounds in vivo. Furthermore, “Roundup  inhibited also the global protein synthetic rate” and “affects cell cycle  regulation by delaying activation of the CDK1/cyclin B complex” which leads to  the ominous conclusion: “our results question the safety of glyphosate and  Roundup on human health.”

Why is this not headline news? Why are the people of the world not up in arms  about these toxins being present in our foods, possibly affecting the embryonic  development of our children?

Shockingly, this is not the only scientific study published in the  prestigious journal Chemical Research in Toxicology showing the danger  of GMOs. In 2009, two French researchers at the University of Caen in  France out of the Laboratory for Estrogens and Reproduction in the Institute of  Biology published Glyphosate Formulations Induce Apoptosis and Necrosis in Human  Umbilical, Embryonic, and Placental Cells.

For those unfamiliar with the terms, Apoptosis is the natural process of  programmed cell death that allows human fetuses to develop fingers, toes and  other features. This is distinct from necrosis because the cells break up into  fragments that are easily consumed by phagocytic cells (cells that consume other  cells) which quickly remove the dead cell fragments before they can cause damage  to surrounding cells.

Necrosis, on the other hand, is the premature death of living cells and  living tissues, which is not naturally occurring and necessary process like  apoptosis. Unlike the vital process of apoptosis, necrosis can prove fatal.  Necrotic tissues are not consumed by the phagocytic cells, which means that the  tissues usually have to be “debrided” which is the surgical removal of the  necrotic tissue.

If you want to witness the effects of necrosis and have a strong stomach, you  might want to search for images of necrosis online; although I must emphasize  that you should have a strong stomach before viewing these images.

This study was especially conservative, evaluating the toxicity of four  different glyphosate-based herbicides in Monsanto’s Roundup products in  solutions diluted 100,000 times. This is clearly far below the level at which it  is used in agricultural applications, which therefore corresponds to the low  levels detected in food for human consumptions as well as animal feeds.

To make the study even more scientifically rigorous, they tested it on three  distinct human cell types, embryonic, placental, and umbilical as well as  testing both glyphosate alone and the Roundup formula.

Unlike glyphosate alone, all of the heavily diluted Roundup formations caused  total cell death within twenty four hours through necrosis. It was also found  that Roundup induces apoptosis, causing DNA fragmentation, shrinkage of the  nucleus, and fragmentation of the nucleus.

As I briefly outlined above, apoptosis is a necessary part of the human  development process, however, when it is artificially induced, danger  arises.

While Roundup induced complete cell death, glyphosate alone induced only  apoptosis. They found conclusive evidence that the Roundup adjuvants (an agent  that modifies the behavior and activity of another agent, while having few  effects on its own) change the permeability of the three human cells  studied.

This amplifies the toxicity already induced via glyphosate, proving that the  adjuvants in Roundup are not inert.

They conclude the abstract of the paper with the following ominous  sentence,

“Moreover, the proprietary mixtures available on the market could cause cell  damage and even death around residual levels to be expected, especially in food  and feed derived from [Roundup] formulation-treated crops.”

Now that you know the horrors of Roundup and the inherent dangers of this  systemic herbicide, would you like to eat it? I doubt it. If you don’t like the  idea of consuming this necrosis-inducing toxin, you must know what contains the  poison and what does not.

Unfortunately, without proper labeling practices, you cannot be sure unless  you buy all of your food from farmers you know and trust and/or have a home  garden that can sustain you.

Until these practices are put in place, I highly recommend that you seek out  as much locally grown organic food as humanly possible. Inform your friends and  family about the real dangers of Roundup and the hard science this is based  upon.

When more people around the world start demanding that their food be properly  labeled with warnings just like cigarettes or alcohol, some real change can  occur. If we continue to sit back and hope our governments will actually  represent us instead of their corporate interests, we will continue to be  subjected to the largest human experiment in history, in which you never have to  give informed consent.

By: Madison Ruppert, Editor of End the Lie

 

See original here: http://endthelie.com/2011/07/10/the-worlds-largest-human-experiment-gmos-roundup-and-the-monsanto-monstrosity-part-one-2/#axzz2NpLC4iC9

What are Genetically Modified Organisms or GMO Foods?

Scientists have been and are currently introducing genetic material into organisms to alter, create and affect changes in living plants and animals. These radical changes scientists are developing create specific, desirable traits that might never evolve naturally and in my opinion are extremely dangerous.

Collectively called recombinant DNA technology, this practice changes the core genetic make-up of organisms. This genetic manipulation gives scientists the ability to create any trait that they wish, or suppress natural traits they don’t want. There are several reasons this unnatural genetic manipulation may affect you.

1. It’s usually not clear which consumables have been genetically manipulated.
2. You don’t know the long term health effects of these genetically modified foods. Initial research has shown that short-term reactions can be severe.
3. Agro-chemical companies and the government are planning to charge farmers fees to grow their GMO crops, thereby negatively affecting the economy and environment.

Cultivated Genetically Modified Foods

From bacteria (E. coli) and fungus, fruits and vegetables to animals, genetic manipulation is becoming more and more common in our society. In the US market now, 60-70% of the processed foods are genetically modified.  In 2006, United States GMO crops reached just shy of 135 million acres, with the total global area exceeding 250 million acres!¹

This is a short list of the genetically modified food crops that are grown in the US today:

And each week more are being created at an alarming rate!

Processed Consumer Goods Made With GMO Ingredients

The bio-chemical industry is fiercely going after two crops, corn and soy, because of their high demand for use throughout our processed goods and biofuel industries.

For companies to increase and control the yield of these crops, it would mean controlling a large part of the processed goods and biofuels markets. It would also mean considerable profit as they can patent these crops and technically OWN THEM!

For now, you won’t see GMO on the labels of foods in the US. Currently, producers are not required to tell you, because, believe it or not, the Federal government has declared it’s their choice to determine what is good for you and what foods are safe for your consumption — and we know how far that is gotten us.

Following is a short list of processed foods made with genetically modified organisms:

The list of GMO products on the market today is long and growing. So, I recommend doing your research because the USDA made the following determination:  These products don’t need to be labeled with GMO content information unless the product presents the threat of causing allergic reactions in humans. Amazing, huh?

Several sites on the internet today are working hard to track and compile such information regarding these man-made foods. The items above are compiled from several lists including the 2003 food guide from The True Food Network².

The long-term dangers of Genetically Modified Foods are uncertain, but we have already seen severe short-term reactions

In 1989, a Japanese company paid out a $2 billion dollar settlement to several thousand American citizens who became ill from a genetically modified version of L-Tryptophan³. Several dozen Americans died from ingesting L-Tryptophan before it was taken off the market. Today, some health practitioners are returning to non-GMO L-Tryptophan for use in treating sleep disorders.

In 1996, animal tests, conducted after the danger was inflicted on humans, proved that there was a severe danger from genes spliced from Brazil nuts and soybeans. The danger: allergic reactions so severe that the individuals could suffer anaphylactic shock, possibly leading to death⁴.

In 2006, Japan suspended long grain rice imports from the US after tests revealed that the rice contained trace amounts of GMO that were not approved for human consumption. In the US, we still accept variations of the banned genetic modification to the rice⁵.

It all started by the government giving blanket approval to the “Frankenstein” tomato. You see, by 1994, the government made a stunning decision, one that reeks of something foul. They decided that since the Flavr Savr® performed “so well in its tests” that its results would stand for any further GMO produce. Because of that, no further testing would be required before presenting it to consumers for consumption.⁶

Are there fees that farmers will have to pay to grow GMO crops?

Genetically Modified Foods are now being marketed as the crops of the future. You can have everything you want in produce, meat and milk, and they can make it happen. Don’t doubt the economic gain that these agro-chemical companies are seeking.

The following two plans are under development by Monsanto of the US, and AstraZeneca of Britain. They fall under the trait-specific technology, called Genetic Use Restriction Technology (T-GURT).

“Technology Protection,” is how they sell it. “Terminator” technology makes plants that would produce sterile seeds after one season. This means, farmers have to buy more seeds for the next harvest.

“Traitor” technology is a trait-specific technology that develops traits which would remain dormant in crops. Farmers can choose to activate this trait by spraying their crops with a proprietary chemical compound. This means, they’ll have to buy the proprietary compound to treat their crops in order to activate it. There are even biochemical companies requiring farmers to sign agreements to not save any of their seeds for re-planting. This means that instead of using the seeds for the next planting season, they have to get rid of them and buy more seeds.

Why would business and the government do something like this?

The USDA, Monsanto and AstraZeneca, have contrived a way to make money on two fronts: First they make money on gene modification. Second, they make money because farmers have to pay them annually to continue to grow crops. It’s apparently dollars and cents all the way, no sense of human protection involved. The USDA is actually in business with Monsanto in owning some of the genetic engineering technology patents.

How Are GMO Foods Toxic?

Genetically modified foods affect the human physiology. A study of people in the Philippines reported that their bodies developed antibodies to Bt toxin. What this means is that, the human body processed these engineered traits into their guts and reacted to them. These same consumers of the GMO corn in the Philippines also developed a resistance to the antibiotic ampicillin.

This antibiotic resistance is something that science hadn’t foreseen-which is indicative of questionable experimentation and not enough testing. And it makes me wonder if there is a bigger picture at hand. Maybe to create more illness and sell you more pharmaceuticals?

Recommended Reading:

• Genetically Modified Foods: Why You Should Avoid Them
• Is the UK conducting secret crop trials using Genetically Modified Foods?

---

REFERENCES

Biotech Industry Ups Propaganda Efforts with Undercover Ambassadors? By Dr. Mercola

For years now I’ve warned of the many potential dangers of genetically engineered (GE) foods, pointing out that such crops might have wholly unforeseen consequences.

In recent years, such suspicions have increasingly proven correct, forcing the biotech industry to up the ante of their propaganda campaign.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal titled, “Monsanto: Battered, Bruised, and Still Growing  sets the stage for the discussion that follows. The dark heart of Monsanto has been exposed in recent years, and they’re in dire need of an image makeover.

I bet they probably have the best and brightest propaganda experts on speed dial these days. In the featured article, the company is lauded for “fending off” California Proposition 37 last November, as labeling foods containing genetically engineered ingredients would be “befuddling” to consumers.

“I’d be up for the dialogue around labeling. Maybe we’ll look back and say [Prop 37] was the start of a more reasonable debate. But it was a confusing proposition,” Monsanto Chief Executive Hugh Grant tells the Wall Street Journal.

Grant goes on to talk about how the company is now going “back to the basics of reconnecting” with their customers, and how consistency in messaging and predictable pricing is helping turn the tide that has threatened to engulf them over the past three years.

Biotech Industry Ups Propaganda Efforts with Undercover Ambassadors

Part of this makeover program appears to be the recruitment of seemingly independent “ambassadors” to covertly lobby the GE agenda. The appearance of being an independent voice is imperative for the role to be effective, SpinWatch² said in a recent article.

According to an October 2011 article in the Guardian, leaked emails from a PR company working with EuropaBio listed potential candidates for the role³, including Lord Patten, chancellor of Oxford University and BBC Trust chairman; Sir Bob Geldof; former Irish EU commissioner and attorney general David Byrne; former UN secretary general Kofi Annan; and Mark Lynas, an environmentalist and writer who claims to have helped create the anti-GE movement back in the mid-1990’s. According to the Guardian:

“The 10 or more ambassadors will not be paid directly, but the lobbyists have offered to write, research and place articles in their names, arrange interviews and speaking engagements with the Financial Times and other international media, and secure for them what could be lucrative speaking slots at major conferences.

In addition, EuropaBio says it will introduce them to the highest-level European bureaucrats and MEPs in order for them to make the case for GM within EU institutions.”

In 2011, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas responded to the news by saying:

“This brazen attempt by EuropaBio to recruit covert ‘ambassadors’ to ‘change the debate’ on GM is yet further proof that the powerful GM lobby will stop at nothing to push its hugely unpopular and unnecessary products onto European citizens. We need far stronger regulation on corporate lobbyists across the EU to prevent this kind of insidious behind-the-scenes maneuvering from seriously undermining our democratic system.”

The Art of Spin, and the World of ‘War Craft’

When confronted, the above named candidates denied knowledge of EuropaBio⁴, known as “the voice for the biotech industry at the EU level.” Most, including Mark Lynas, also claimed they’d reject the offer to peddle GMO policy should they be asked.

What a difference a year makes. While Lynas suddenly began writing about his “conversion” in 2010, he recently took to the stage as a veritable born-again proselytizer of genetically engineered crops at the January 3 Oxford Farming Conference⁵.

What better ambassador for the tattered and bruised Monsanto than a “former foe” having “seen the light of science” and, of his own free will (supposedly), deciding to mend his ways and right the wrongs he’s done against the biotech industry?

“I want to start with some apologies,” Lynas says. “For the record, here and upfront, I apologize for having spent several years ripping up genetically modified (GM) crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonizing an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment.

As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely.

So I guess you’ll be wondering – what happened between 1995 and now that made me not only change my mind but come here and admit it? Well, the answer is fairly simple: I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist.”

Gimme a break… If you believe the conversion of Lynas was based on scientific enlightenment, I have a religion of my own you might be interested in. To me, this has all the hallmarks of a carefully crafted propaganda campaign. People have likened Lynas’ opening statements to Martin Luther King apologizing for the civil rights movement, or the Pope renouncing Catholicism. Indeed.

But while many choose to see his new stance as evidence that concerns about genetically engineered foods have been unfounded and overblown, all I see is someone who has sold their soul to the proverbial Devil. You can tell that this is part of a spin campaign for the sheer fact that Lynas goes to great lengths to take as much credit as possible for founding and steering the anti-GM movement. This way, his conversion becomes far more powerful.

Spin and Propaganda Techniques — Are You Still Deaf and Blind to Them?

As SpinWatch points out in its revealing article⁶, concerns about genetically engineered foods began decades before Lynas entered the scene. Crediting him as “the mastermind of the anti-biotechnology campaign” is PR talk. It’s the jargon of propaganda. And it has one sole purpose — to build up Lynas as a trustworthy independent voice on issues relating to genetically engineered foods.

“… while Lynas says he co-founded the anti-GM movement in 1995, the first wave of resistance to the possible uses of genetic engineering in food and farming began two decades earlier in the mid-1970s,” SpinWatch notes.

“By the early 1980s concerned US scientists and academics had founded the Council for Responsible Genetics, and by the late 1980s a US network called the Biotechnology Working Group was meeting regularly to plan joint strategies and actions regarding the new technology. It was composed of approximately 20 national and local NGOs, and included regular participation by representatives of the European Greens and an Australian NGO, GenEthics. By the early 1990s the Consumers Union and the Union of Concerned Scientists were also on the case.

Concern over GMOs had also begun to appear on the international policy agenda in the years running up to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, which called for the establishment of a Biosafety Protocol. It was also at Rio that the first international workshop on GMOs took place. Among those addressing it was Vandana Shiva. This is worth noting because Lynas implies in his speech that it was the movement that he supposedly co-founded in the UK in 1995 which “exported” GM opposition worldwide. In reality, concerns over GM in food and farming were already well established on the world stage.”

… After hearing how Lynas was portraying himself, Sue Mayer contacted him⁷ to say, ‘I think I can lay claim to having been one of the leaders of the campaign in the UK thoughout the 1990s and until 2007 when I left GeneWatch. It’s strange that although we did speak on the phone once in the late 90s we never met and I missed the fact that you helped start the anti-GM movement!!’ Mayer added, ‘I think this is a very misleading claim and you should feel ashamed of yourself. I wouldn’t normally worry about people puffing themselves up like this but I am concerned that you are letting this be used to promote yourself and the biotech industry.’

Mayer is not alone. Nobody we have spoken to among the many leading figures of the 1990s counts Lynas as either a founder or a leader. Indeed, if he was even involved in the grassroots actions of 1995-1996, then nobody we spoke to remembers it.

Beware: Front Groups with an Aim to Mislead You

Now that Washington State has been confirmed with enough signatures to allow voters to take a stand on GMO labeling, Monsanto and their henchmen are revving up their propaganda campaign, which also includes friendly-sounding front groups⁸ paid to spead misleading information and industry propaganda, while pretending to serve you.

“We think labeling is really intended to frighten people away from a technology,” said Healther Hansen of Washington Friends of Farms and Forests. “It’s implying that there is something wrong with the food and we think that’s misleading to the consumer,” Komo News writes⁹. Who is Heather Hansen? She’s a contract lobbyist from the William Ruckelshaus Center at WSU¹⁰. And, William Ruckelshaus¹¹ was a board member for — you guessed it — Monsanto…

Why GE Crops are NOT the ‘Most Tested’ Product in the World

Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant claims genetically engineered crops are “the most-tested food product that the world has ever seen.” What he doesn’t tell you is that:

1. Industry-funded research predictably affects the outcome of the trial. This has been verified by dozens of scientific reviews comparing funding with the findings of the study. When industry funds the research, it’s virtually guaranteed to be positive. Therefore, independent studies must be done to replicate and thus verify results
2. The longest industry-funded animal feeding study was 90 days, which recent research has confirmed is FAR too short. In the world’s first independently funded lifetime feeding study, massive health problems set in during and after the 13th month, including organ damage and cancer
3. Companies like Monsanto and Syngenta rarely if ever allow independent researchers access to their patented seeds, citing the legal protection these seeds have under patent laws. Hence independent research is extremely difficult to conduct
4. There is no safety monitoring. Meaning, once the GE item in question has been approved, not a single country on earth is actively monitoring and tracking reports of potential health effects

All in all, if their genetically altered seeds have something wrong with them that potentially could cause consumer illness, Monsanto would rather NOT have you find out about it. Not through independent research, nor through a simple little label that would allow you to opt out of the experiment, should you choose not to take them on their word.

Why don’t they want labeling? Because you might sue them for putting your health in danger! Doesn’t this remind you of the public health debate that went on for decades over another multi-billion dollar industry — cigarettes?

For decades the companies producing this cancer-causing product denied they caused any harm, denied nicotine was addictive, and even ran advertisements featuring doctors claiming cigarettes were good for your cough. They produced study after study by their own scientists claiming there was no health threat whatsoever from cigarettes. Executives from every major cigarette company even lied to Congress under oath, claiming they had no knowledge cigarettes were addictive, when in fact they did know — they even manipulated the nicotine content¹² of cigarettes to keep you hooked! Bet you didn’t know that, did you?

Genetically engineered foods are just another wolf in the same old sheep’s clothing. The propaganda and the fraud have worked so well for so long, why bother changing something that works so well? Don’t fall for the same old scheme! Instead, read what the few independent researchers are really saying about the science behind genetically engineered foods. You can find all previous articles on this topic on my dedicated GMO News page.

Keep Fighting for Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods

While California Prop. 37 failed to pass last November, by a very narrow margin, the fight for GMO labeling is far from over. The field-of-play has now moved to the state of Washington, where the people’s initiative 522, “The People’s Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act,” will require food sold in retail outlets to be labeled if it contains genetically engineered ingredients. As stated on LabelitWA.org:

“Calorie and nutritional information were not always required on food labels. But since 1990 it has been required and most consumers use this information every day. Country-of-origin labeling wasn’t required until 2002. The trans fat content of foods didn’t have to be labeled until 2006. Now, all of these labeling requirements are accepted as important for consumers. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also says we must know with labeling if our orange juice is from fresh oranges or frozen concentrate.

Doesn’t it make sense that genetically engineered foods containing experimental viral, bacterial, insect, plant or animal genes should be labeled, too? Genetically engineered foods do not have to be tested for safety before entering the market. No long-term human feeding studies have been done. The research we have is raising serious questions about the impact to human health and the environment.

I-522 provides the transparency people deserve. I-522 will not raise costs to consumers or food producers. It simply would add more information to food labels, which manufacturers change routinely anyway, all the time. I-522 does not impose any significant cost on our state. It does not require the state to conduct label surveillance, or to initiate or pursue enforcement. The state may choose to do so, as a policy choice, but I-522 was written to avoid raising costs to the state or consumers.”

Remember, as with CA Prop. 37, they need support of people like YOU to succeed. Prop. 37 failed with a very narrow margin simply because we didn’t have the funds to counter the massive ad campaigns created by the No on 37 camp, led by Monsanto and other major food companies. Let’s not allow Monsanto and its allies to confuse and mislead the people of Washington and Vermont as they did in California. So please, I urge you to get involved and help in any way you can, regardless of what state you live in.

• No matter where you live in the United States, please donate money to these labeling efforts through the Organic Consumers Fund.
• If you live in Washington State, please sign the I-522 petition. You can also volunteer to help gather signatures across the state.
• For timely updates on issues relating to these and other labeling initiatives, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
• Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the Washington initiative.

See original here: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/02/17/biotech-industry-increases-propaganda-plans.aspx?