The world’s largest human experiment: GMOs, Roundup and the Monsanto monstrosity

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