80% OF WHAT'S IN YOUR CART – DR. TIM O'SHEA
Since the 1990s, global agriculture and food production have undergone the most radical transformation in history. In just a few years, genetically modified foods have invaded global agriculture and supermarket shelves, often without the public being fully aware.
What are genetically modified foods? What are their effects on human health and nutrition?
What are their effects on human health and nutrition?
What are their effects on human DNA?
What have we done to our food?
This chapter is intended to serve as an introduction to the gigantic new sector of activity that is the biotechnology industry. Does it really hold the promise of “feeding the hungry” of the world, as is often heard, or is there something else here?
HISTORY OF GMOs
Here is a brief summary of GMOs.
GMOs are genetically modified organisms, whether plants or animals. Smith does a pretty good job of laying out the story of the evolution of biotechnology. It turns out that the chemical companies that were producing megatons of nitrogen for bombs during World War I and World War II wanted to use that same technology after the war. This marked the beginning of the global market for agricultural pesticides and fertilizers.
Over the last 100 years, the chronological sequence was as follows: :
The same companies, the same industry, the same societies over the decades.
The post-war transition from bombs to fertilizers was very successful, until the early 1990s, when they came up with the idea that an even larger market could be created for a chemical weed killer that would kill every plant in a field except the crop itself. But to withstand such a powerful poison, that crop would have to have a specific immunity or resistance to the weed killer.
How could such immunity have been made possible? This is where GM comes in.
After years of experimentation, they found a way to breed soybeans that were resistant to a very powerful herbicide called Roundup. You know the American cowboy image? Anyway, even though the immunity only lasted a few generations, while it lasted, it allowed for efficient farming—very clean fields. You could spray the whole field with poison—even the crop itself. And the only thing left standing was the crop!
Genetically modified soy was the first large-scale crop to undergo massive genetic modification. How big is the experiment? Think about this. In 1996, there was not a single acre of genetically modified soy in the United States. After just 20 years, virtually all American soy is considered genetically modified!457 million acres.
As far as global agriculture is concerned, in 1996, almost no hectares of GM crops had been planted. After just 20 years, 42% of the world's arable land was planted with GM crops! That should give you an idea of the scale of the GM experiment. It's brand new.
10 major American crops are now GMO. Four of them are primarily GMO:
BIODIVERSITY VS. MONOCULTURE
To understand the GMO phenomenon in the United States, we need to add two new words to our vocabulary: biodiversity and monoculture.
Biodiversité: This simply means that nature strives to propagate and multiply as many versions of a plant species as possible, which are slightly different in their ability to survive different environments. This will give each species the best chance of surviving a cataclysmic environmental change. Or a few small local changes.
Natural selection: The more versions of a plant species there are, the better its chances of long-term survival.
Monoculture On the other hand, this means that by using new farming practices in which only GMO seeds are sown, there is only one exact artificial species growing. Why? First, because all GMO seeds of a given crop are of exactly the same strain.
Next, GM crops typically have a terminator gene inserted into their DNA that makes them sterile. This means that for the first time in history, the seeds of these crops will not germinate into the next crop and will not be able to benefit from tiny self-improvements year after year in response to environmental changes.
Why did companies want GMO crops to be sterile? For money. They wanted to force farmers to come back to them every season to buy new seeds. The company owns the patent on the GMO version of the plant AND they own the seeds. Integrated marketing. It’s all about total profit.
HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE
The four major global multinationals responsible for the trillion dollar global GMO agribusiness are of course
In Engdahl’s book and elsewhere, we can look at these companies’ track record of fines and citations for global pollution over the last century. It’s no secret that they don’t even bother to deny it. Try Googling “Monsanto global pollution.” Do the phrases sulfuric acid, PCB creation, Agent Orange, birth defects, dioxin, Lysol, bribery, etc. come up over and over again? Who invented napalm? DuPont. Who paid huge fines for dumping old Agent Orange on land in New Zealand? Dow Chemical. Monsanto and Dow paid $63 million in damages to Korean veterans and $180 million to American veterans, but not a single cent to the Vietnamese people themselves.
In the reference DVD The Future of Food , we are presented with evidence of how the world works.
The revolving door between Monsanto and top positions in U.S. government regulatory agencies is summarized:
Here are some of the career developments of some of Monsanto's top executives in recent years:
Below we will seeMichael Taylor, formerly one of Monsanto’s top lawyers, and his role in banning the labeling of genetically modified foods. Taylor was also responsible for protecting all risk assessment data on soybeans or any other genetically modified experiments by the FDA through a nondisclosure clause protecting Monsanto’s proprietary intellectual property. That’s lawyer-speak for a virtual license to poison the general public.
Taylor also ensured that no hormones in commercial dairy products were ever labeled.
By the way, guess where Taylor went after his years of selfless service to the FDA? That's right. Right back to Monsanto as a vice president.
Since George Herbert, every American president has gone out of his way to support, and even be proactive, putting absolutely no obstacles in the way of the advancement of GMOs. And that leaves a trail of money, but that is beyond the scope of this chapter.
MORAL DILEMMA: THE ABILITY TO PATENT LIFE
The patenting of life – this is a completely new suggestion for human jurisprudence with the advent of GMOs.
Wow – we’re going to have to decide now whether or not humans or corporations can hold patents on living things. A few weak voices raised an objection:
« The plants, animals and microorganisms that make up life on earth are part of the natural world into which we are all born. Converting these species, their molecules or their parts into corporate property through patent monopolies is contrary to the interests of the peoples of the world. »
« No individual, institution or company should be able to claim ownership of species or varieties of living organisms. Nor should they be able to hold patents on organs, cells or proteins.” – Council for Responsible Genetics
Nice, but a little too warm and fuzzy for the world at this particular point apparently – this moral dilemma took about 5 minutes to resolve. Even though our Constitution includes a ban on patenting life, small obstacles like that were no match for corporate legal teams. It was time for smart East Coast lawyers to invent a few new words, that’s all.
HOW CAN THEY SUCCEED IN THIS HUGE EXPERIMENT?
Proper Planning. GMOs have been on the drawing board since the early 1950s. It’s a long story. We can trace it back to 1986 at a strategy meeting at the White House. GHW Bush, Monsanto and the Department of Agriculture met to lay the groundwork for the GMO industry. They then gave the green light to the whole project, from now until eternity. Or as long as it would work. At that meeting, it was decided that this brand new and unknown biotech industry that was about to unleash the greatest agricultural experiment in history, would require no government regulation or control!
Why not? The new legal mantra for GMOs that they invented is “substantial equivalence.” Here’s how this particularly twisted passage of law played out: New genetically modified organisms are just extensions of natural selection in plants and animals, which occur naturally and therefore require no regulation or government oversight, they bleated. Like Gregor Mendel and rose grafting and all that. This magic slogan has been upheld in every decision, even to this day, and is the reason why NO LAW has ever been passed regarding the regulation of GMOs.
But then a new problem arose: patenting. Okay, so if GMOs are exactly the same as natural plants, how can they be patented? If their natural version is supposed to be substantially equivalent, how could a seed be any different?
Lawyers can stoop to any position. The solution is simple: another slogan. Even if GMOs are “substantially equivalent” to the natural version, lawyers will now claim that the GMO versions are “substantially transformed” enough to allow the industrial giant to obtain a patent.
These guys are good.
This ridiculous and simplistic little sleight of hand has proven inconceivable in every GMO lawsuit over the past decade. This is exactly how Bush's impenetrable doctrine of GMO protection has been applied so far without problem.
THE PRIMARY MYTH
In 1954, Watson and Crick devised the double helix model of DNA, which still dominates popular perception of human genetics.
Remember?
So, in every single cell of yours, there is a DNA molecule that is exactly the same as the DNA in every other cell of yours, and that is what makes each of us unique. You think we all have that, right? Each species also has unique DNA characteristics that have evolved over the centuries that limit reproduction to its own species. In fact, that was Darwin’s original definition of a distinct species—the ability to mate. Once natural evolution caused the DNA to become so divergent that two creatures could no longer mate, they became two separate species.
The collective DNA of each species is called itsgénome.
Today, the conventional wisdom on Wikipedia about genetics is that DNA is a double string of genes, and that each gene determines a single genetic trait. Like blue eyes, or alcoholism, or being six feet tall, or artistic talent, or a strong immune system, or good teeth, or a tendency toward autism, etc. In the new pseudo-science of biotechnology, this idea is constantly reinforced – that this is a one-gene-one-trait situation. And all we have to do is figure out which gene does what, tweak it a bit, recombine the new genes in the sequence we want, and voilà – we’ve just created a watermelon that can play chess, or a blue rose, or a congressman who isn’t primarily interested in looting. Or a bean that resists weed killers.
Something that lies outside of nature. If only we could change things a little. Unfortunately, nature is not that simple.
The human genome was only recently deciphered, in 2007. Scientists were surprised to discover that there were only 35,000 genes in human DNA, not millions as they had always believed. This small number poses some problems for the original model.
The first problem is that there are at least 10 million possible antigens that your immune system must be able to recognize. There is no way that a single 35,000 genes could be that versatile.
Further complications arose when they discovered that each gene can code for literally thousands of different proteins in the body. This fact alone shatters the single gene/trait model.
Then there is the concept of the promoter gene, which is a gene responsible for turning on or off an entire sequence of genes, which together can determine a single trait or characteristic.
Things got even more complicated when they learned that gene sequences – some long, some short – also encode specific commands.
This is an oversimplification, but even at this level we can see that the idea of one gene/one trait is no longer an option except at the sci-fi/Animatronix/Fox News level. One gene can be involved in countless commands and sequences.
But against all science, biotech company after biotech company continues to claim that their genetically modified product is different, that they have figured out exactly what a gene does – all its possible effects on the new organism – and that they are the only ones to have solved the riddle.
And they get away with it because most people in this country have lost the capacity for abstract thought.
NOT LIKE GREGOR MENDEL
Let’s be clear: today’s biotech industry is doing nothing remotely resembling Gregor Mendel’s pioneering methods of grafting and hybridization in the 19th century. The obvious difference is that GMOs bypass all natural reproduction and avoid all natural progression of generations. Natural selection is a slow process involving sexual reproduction generation after generation. GMOs are abrupt. Boom! A new species in two weeks.
The other discrepancy you may have noticed is that Gregor Mendel never tried to cross an iguana with a water lily – the old methods didn’t even think about crossing the species barrier. This is a glaring feature of GMOs that is quietly ignored. By the unobservant.
Once these new species are created, they can become more or less permanent if they are released into the wild and allowed to mix with the natural species of plants or animals. And once that happens, they can no longer be regenerated. DNA in a test tube is stable and linear. But in a living organism, DNA is unstable, non-linear, complex, and unpredictable. The same is true in the real world.
With the emergence of new species, which have bypassed centuries of natural selection and immunity, comes the real possibility of new diseases, new cancers, new epidemics.
So keep that in mind the next time you read something that compares GMOs to the natural selection and grafting of old. Or tells you how scientific GMOs are. This is opinion propaganda, at the highest level.
GENETIC MODIFICATION METHODS
As we saw above, one of the first experiments with GMOs involved crossing the DNA of a flounder with that of a tomato. This was done to make the tomato able to withstand colder temperatures. Oh, did we mention that? In the biotech industry, pieces of DNA can theoretically be transferred from any plant to any animal, vice versa, or any combination of the two.
Segments of DNA from one species are randomly inserted into the DNA of the other species hundreds and hundreds of times until the desired effect is achieved. The manner in which this cross-species DNA insertion is accomplished is a little less than scientific. The two most common methods of DNA modification are:
Scientists call it the position effect when they refer to the impossibility of predicting where inserted fragments will end up in the genetic sequence. The result is limitless possibilities: recombination of genetic sequences can activate or deactivate life processes that took thousands of years to perfect.
In the gene gun method, tiny golden bullets are fired into the cells of the target organism using a .22 caliber pistol. No kidding. Hundreds of times. This way, the host organism's DNA can be used to splice new fragments of the donor species. Of course, this method is imprecise and unpredictable and anything but scientific. Of course, only a tiny percentage of the destroyed foreign DNA ends up in the host's DNA. But if you do it enough times, you can eventually get the desired recombination. This is how the plaice and tomato genes were combined.
The most common method, however, is to use bacteria and viruses as vectors for donor DNA fragments that can then invade the host's DNA and insert new fragments. We have long known that viruses have this ability to invade and insert themselves into the host's DNA. Both of these methods of genetic modification result in random scrambling of the host's DNA, which has virtually unlimited unpredictable consequences.
We are talking about a fatal disruption of the genetic blueprint.
DNA Instability - Insertion Mutation - Carcinogenesis
In terms of cancer, GM using the viral carrier method is thought to be part of the explanation for the meteoric rise of colon cancer in recent years, which is now the third most common cancer in the United States. Pusztai's co-author, Dr. Stephen Ewen, explains how a growth factor effect from the inserted GM fragment could very likely act on colon cells, causing them to divide uncontrollably.
PROBLEMS WITH PROMOTER GENES
Promoter genes, let us recall, are triggers that activate certain gene sequences in order to cause a certain action or cellular event. The biotech industry saw a marketing niche in using a promoter gene to activate a certain characteristic in a genetically modified product that it had created. This would be useful to protect its original invention: in order to use the genetically modified plant seed that it had already sold, the promoter or “key” gene would also have to be present. Nice marketing, but it has some drawbacks.
SHOOT THE MESSENGER
In the early 1990s, when the biotech industry was still uncertain about its future, companies were still naive enough to believe that they should actually study how animals would react to GM foods. So they commissioned one of the UK’s leading researchers to create a model for testing GM foods on animals – Dr Arpad Pusztai. He began feeding GM potatoes to laboratory rats and carefully recording the results. He found that almost all of them had adverse effects, including:
– decrease in the size of the heart, brain and reproductive organs
– damaged immune system
– white blood cells
– lesions of the thymus and spleen
– enlargement of the intestines and pancreas
– precancerous changes in the stomach and intestines
Pusztai considered these changes significant, especially since these were his findings after only 10 days!
While writing up his findings for publication, Pusztai was contacted by a prominent British radio show to discuss the issue. It was August 1999. A two-hour interview was edited down to two minutes, but it was enough to cause a huge scandal in England. No one realized how sensitive a topic genetically modified foods were until Pusztai appeared on air and made some critical comments about what he had observed.
He was concerned because he realised that his studies were the only ones to have been conducted on animals concerning genetically modified foods, but worse, that these foods had already been on the shelves of supermarkets in the UK and US for years and no one knew anything about them. He said he feared that the British were being used as “guinea pigs” for genetically modified foods.
The timing was perfect: Tony Blair had just drafted plans for the new UK Food Safety Agency, which was investing heavily in genetically modified foods. So when Pusztai came on air, it sparked a national scandal that had to be immediately hushed up. But that was the most attention-grabbing part. Pusztai was sacked, repudiated, silenced and ostracised from the scientific community. He was one of the most respected scientists in the UK.
The Pusztai affair sparked a major media war in England that lasted for months and ultimately painted the government in a very unfavourable light, as it had clearly been secretly trying to introduce untested dangerous foods into the British diet. The British Medical Association eventually came out in favour of Pusztai and completely exonerated him. The end result was a moratorium on GM foods in the UK.
It is incredible that during all this, there was not a single whisper about it in the American press, even though it went on for months. Pusztai can never be mentioned in the mainstream media in the United States. No one has ever reproduced his work anywhere, and never will. You understand? – there can be no scientific testing of the physical effects of GM foods on humans. Or on animals, for that matter. It is not allowed. And of course, there is no limit on GMOs in American foods, and no testing has ever been done because, remember, NOT A SINGLE LAW has ever been passed to regulate GM foods in America.
Got it? Maybe you should go back and reread that last paragraph.
We have only skimmed over the highlights of the Pusztai scandal here, but the reader is directed to Jeffrey Smith and Dr Ewen for more on this astonishing story.
HOW MUCH OF THE AMERICAN DIET IS GMO TODAY?
By best estimates, 80% of processed foods on supermarket shelves contain at least some GMOs, and at least 60% of them are the main ingredient.
Additionally, virtually all animals in captivity are fed almost exclusively genetically modified foods, most of which are genetically modified soybeans.
TO LABEL OR NOT TO LABEL?
In 1991, the FDA's (Food and Drug Administration) political commissioner was Michael Taylor. Under his personal direction, the decision to never label genetically modified (GMO) foods in the United States was enshrined in policy and entrenched in an unwavering position. This decision has never been challenged.
Taylor's position just before joining the FDA? Chief legal counsel for Monsanto.
Despite the fact that 94% of the public supports GMO labels, we will never see them in the United States. Even with 50% of people saying they would not eat them if they knew they were genetically modified. With 80% of the food in supermarkets now GMO, does this all fit the profile of a hidden agenda?
Although the organic label is supposed to mean “non-GMO,” in reality it is simply unregulated. Giant strawberries, vegetables that don’t rot, grapefruit with segments that are 90% rotated compared to normal, etc. – these unnatural growth patterns, evident in much of our produce today, including organic, don’t require much imagination to realize what is happening.
AGRO-INDUSTRY REPLACES AGRICULTURE
Since the 1950s, agriculture has undergone a revolution in which food production has become increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer farms. This process has led to a massive consolidation of agriculture, leaving less and less room for small family farms.
For example, in 1935, there were 6.8 million farms in the United States. By 2007, that number had dropped to 2 million (according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture). Between 1979 and 1999, more than 300,000 farmers were forced out of business. Increasingly indebted to large agricultural corporations for production costs, farmers could not keep up and were driven out of business.
Today, agribusiness is an $800 billion-a-year market in the United States, making it the second most lucrative industry after pharmaceuticals.
Here are some examples of this concentration of food production:
The list goes on and on, highlighting extreme concentration in the food industry. The companies that dominate this sector are well-known names: Monsanto, Hormel, Danone, Dupont, etc. For the complete list, just consult the books of Smith and Engdahl.
PLAN B – THE END OF DAY SEED VAULT
At the beginning of the era of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), some major players in the global agribusiness industry realized that the GM crop experiment might not go as well as they had hoped in the long run. Their scientists found that the increased yields per acre often promised by these technologies only lasted a few years before they began to decline. They also realized that new genetic mutations in plants and crops, once released into the world, were indeed irrevocable and would forever contaminate the natural lines with which they could be crossed. This posed a major problem, especially when they introduced technologies like the “terminator gene” into the world’s natural agriculture.
Aware of the potential risks, leading scientists decided to take precautions—to have a Plan B in place in case GM crops caused a large-scale catastrophe, comparable to an Armageddon scenario. So they held a meeting attended by the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto, Bill Gates, Syngenta, the Norwegian government, and a few others. They agreed to collect as many original, untouched varieties of seeds from as many plants around the world as possible, and then store them in a huge refrigerated vault in a secure location, in case the GM experiment led to irreparable contamination of all vegetation on Earth.
The location chosen for this storage was a small icy island off the coast of Norway in the North Sea called Svalbard. There they dug this vault into the side of a mountain in this remote location. You can see images of Svalbard on the Crop Trust website.
Their goal: to store seeds of up to 3 million different plant varieties from all over the world. The project is almost complete. As strange as it may sound, this story is absolutely true. And if you don't believe it, you can visit Svalbard the next time you're in Oslo. (Bring your own nightlife plan!)
Why Norway? Because it was smart enough not to join the European Union, which banned GM seeds in 1997. The point here is that the global agricultural experiment with GM crops is so drastic and potentially catastrophic that the world's largest corporations have deemed it necessary to build a sort of Noah's Ark for the world's seeds, in case they accidentally destroy most of the world's agriculture. The term "Doomsday" is actually their own word—that's what they call it!
No American media outlet has ever covered this story. Who would believe it? It sounds like a script from a movie likeAustin Powers…
GREEN REVOLUTION
Long ago, Henry Kissinger, the One-World gopher, said:
« If you control the oil, you control the country; if you control the food, you control the population.. »
The global GMO movement has always been driven by hidden agendas, hidden under misleading slogans like the “Green Revolution,” a term popularized by the Rockefeller Foundation years ago to mask the true intent behind the expansion of genetically modified (GMO) foods. The idea was to make it appear that the main goal of this expansion was to “feed the hungry” of the world. However, this phrase should always be taken with a grain of salt, as it often hides underlying interests. When someone claims to want to help a country for free, it is usually a sign of distrust.
In fact, more and more people are wary of government officials who accept bribes from corporations to sell their country's interests. For example, in 2003, George Bush's Initiative to End Hunger in Africa failed resoundingly. Many African nations chose to face starvation rather than accept Bush's offer of free GMO food, illustrating their distrust of such practices.
Propaganda techniques, often inspired by the work of E.L. Bernays, are used to psychologically prepare the incursion of agro-industry into poor countries, using slogans such as:
When reading these phrases, it's essential to look for the subtext: it's likely promoting GMO foods.
Another propaganda technique is to claim that countries that oppose the import of GM foods are actually supporting “genocide” because they are preventing people from being fed. Similarly, companies justify “terminator” seed technology by claiming that it is necessary not to force farmers to buy seeds from Monsanto every year, but to “protect companies from unscrupulous farmers.”.
This propaganda strategy seeks to portray traditional farmers, who use ancestral techniques to survive, as fraudsters. But in reality, all these maneuvers have succeeded in destroying indigenous agriculture in developing nations and replacing it with corporate agriculture, a success that exceeds even the wildest expectations of the Rockefeller Foundation and the biotech companies.
WHAT IS THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION?
William Engdahl offers a powerful analysis of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which he describes as a puppet organization, seemingly dedicated to making restrictive statements about global agriculture while systematically defending the interests of the biotech industry against the claims of poor countries or private farmers.
Originally based in Washington, D.C., the WTO was later moved to Geneva to give it the appearance of an independent international organization. However, Engdahl argues that the WTO continues to follow Washington’s lead largely. One such guideline states that individual countries do not have the power to impose their own food safety laws on GM producers and importers. This text of the agreement was reportedly co-written by industry giants such as Cargill, Nestlé, DuPont and Monsanto, which he says reveals the WTO to be nothing more than a police agency tasked with “forcing GM crops on a skeptical world.”
The process of enforcing these rules has become almost routine: if a small country objects to the import of GM foods, the WTO immediately steps in to declare these objections “unfair trade practices,” a scenario worthy of Aldous Huxley or George Orwell. Similarly, if a country wants to require labeling of GMOs, the WTO’s standard attack is to label them “technical restrictions on trade.”
According to Engdahl, the WTO's policies are easy to understand if we look at their decisions and initiatives: they always protect the giants of agribusiness. In this light, the WTO seems to consider that sovereign nations have no right to protect their own populations from imports of GMO products.
POSILAC – THE FIRST MASS-MARKETED GMO PRODUCT
In the early 1990s, Monsanto was at the forefront of the movement toward corporatization of the dairy industry, driven by a relentless pursuit of profit. The focus was solely on maximizing milk production, with no regard for milk quality, nutritional benefits to consumers, or the welfare of the cows themselves. In this profit-driven environment, cows were viewed as mere production units in a factory, their sole purpose being to produce as much milk as possible.
Monsanto scientists developed a synthetic hormone called recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), marketed as Posilac. Approved by the FDA in 1994 after minimal testing—only 90 days on 30 rats—Posilac was touted as a revolution for the dairy industry. Despite recommendations from the FDA’s own scientists to conduct long-term safety studies, none were conducted before approval. This synthetic hormone allowed cows to lactate continuously, even without calving, effectively turning them into milk-producing machines.
Under the influence of rBGH, cows could be driven to produce milk nonstop for about three years before their bodies, depleted of their natural reserves and subjected to a diet loaded with drugs, antibiotics, and hormones, gave up the ghost. In many cases, the cows remained permanently attached to milking machines, reduced to mere components of a high-intensity industrialized dairy operation. This approach marked a significant departure from traditional farming, where a natural dairy cow might lactate for more than a decade while raising calves.
The rush to approve Posilac was marked by controversy. FDA scientists who expressed concerns about the speed of the approval process were reportedly fired. They were forced to assert that rBGH did not persist in milk or that if it did, it would be destroyed in the human digestive tract—claims that have since been debunked. In reality, rBGH does remain in milk and, when consumed, can enter the human circulatory system, disrupting the endocrine system and leading to serious health consequences.
Furthermore, the studies that Monsanto conducted to test rBGH were grossly inadequate. They injected only 10 mg of rBGH per day into three cows and based their conclusions on these limited trials. However, in practice, modern dairy cows are given 500 mg of rBGH every two weeks, resulting in hormone levels in their bodies 1,000 times higher than normal. This massive hormonal imbalance not only wreaks havoc on the cows, but also poses significant risks to human health when rBGH-contaminated milk is consumed.
This case illustrates the dangers of prioritizing corporate profits over the health of animals and consumers, and the lengths companies will go to force their products onto the market, even when serious health risks are at stake.
IGF-1 - INSULAR GROWTH FACTOR TYPE 1
It was soon discovered by scientists that once in the cow's body, much of the synthetic rBGH was converted into another hormone called insulin-like growth hormone 1, or IGF-1. This hormone is actually normal in cows and humans, in small amounts.
IGF-1 is a hormone that limits certain physiological activities, including milk production. In nature, IGF-1 is the switch in the cow's body that stops milk production when it is time to wean the calf. Only a small amount is needed to do this.
And therein lies the problem: small amounts. rBGH stimulates the level of IGF-1 in the cow to 1,000 times normal, or more. What this does to the cow is inhibit the cell death of lactocytes. In other words, the hormone prevents the natural course from taking place: the milk-producing cells should die when the calf is weaned. Imagine something in your body inhibiting the cell death of a tissue that should be regulated—in other words, promoting the unregulated and uncontrolled reproduction of a certain type of cell.
What disease does this remind you of?
And this brings us to the scariest fact of all: the transfer of IGF-1 to humans through commercial milk. All of these cellular effects have been introduced into human physiology in large quantities since the mid-1990s, when rBGH began to be used on most commercial dairy farms.
Which age group is most recommended milk? Children. What has the childhood cancer incidence curve looked like since 1994? It's skyrocketing.
In Jeffrey Smith's book we learn some more facts about IGF-1:
Have you ever heard of this in the media? Of course not. All we hear are slogans like “You’re never too old to need milk,” or various opinion pieces written under fictitious names by dairy industry writers, which are presented as investigative reporting on the health values of pasteurized commercial milk. Which, in this country, is the result of cows on rBGH.
We are actually the only country that allows the sale of so much rBGH-containing milk. Canada banned Posilac in 1999—not because of the danger to humans, but because of the damage this dangerous hormone causes to cows! So rBGH is banned, not on supermarket shelves, but in dairy cows themselves in Canada.
In the European Union, after finding overwhelming evidence of breast and prostate cancer in humans due to high amounts of IGF-1, Posilac was banned.
In 1999, the UN banned Posilac.
In 2007, Starbucks did the same!
The United States is the only country in the world where an unregulated supply of milk containing IGF-1 and rBGH is offered in stores. We are also the only country where discussion of rBGH has been effectively banned in the media.
MILK WITH ANTIBIOTICS
When commercial dairy cows began suffering from massive rates of infections of all kinds due to the new inhumane milking procedures, the amount of antibiotics had to be increased by a factor of 100. The FDA authorized this monumental increase virtually overnight, even though it had extremely dangerous consequences for the effects of human intestinal probiotics after consumption of this over-medicated milk. Guess who pushed through this regulation: FDA Deputy Director Margaret Miller, a former Monsanto executive.
OTHER NEW ANIMAL PRACTICES IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY
Similar to the way domestic dairy cows are treated, many new animal practices have emerged in the brave new world of raising animals for industrial food production:
- Chickens raised their entire lives in tiny cages barely bigger than they are — fed a diet of genetically engineered soy, loaded with hormones, antibiotics, and arsenic {for parasites}, then slaughtered for your supermarket or the Colonel after 7 weeks. The hormones and antibiotics remain intact.
- Pigs raised their entire lives crammed into small cages—never seeing the light of day—slaughtered at 600 pounds. Same hormones and antibiotics. Diet based on genetically modified soy.
These industrial animal farms are heavily guarded. No visitors, no cameras, no disclosure. You can drive past them for miles without seeing a single animal — just miles and miles of long, low buildings. Ask people north of Ames, Iowa, where 10 percent of the world’s pork is produced. Ask them if they ever see pigs.
In these secret meat factories, from birth to slaughter, there are no health and safety regulations. They are virtually unmonitored for food contamination. Injured animals are routinely not treated, simply left to suffer and die, because treating them would disrupt production and increase costs. They are run like any other business: focused on profits above all else.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture cites figures ranging from 10 to 28 percent for “animal loss” for injured and maimed animals that die as a result of production procedures that are completely indifferent to the care of the animals themselves. It makes you realize what a joke the SPCA really is—these guys would rather hang out on Hollywood sets so they can put their little stamp at the end of the movie saying that no dogs or cats were harmed during filming, while this whole systematic horror show is going on every day on a global scale that we just described...
In reality, the companies, through their lobbying, have officially exempted themselves from the SPCA's laws, although that in no way excuses the odious nature of the whole process.
Have you ever thought about the cumulative karmic debt that the human race is accumulating? ...this animal problem is just a small corner. These are living beings that we are violating.
Mother Nature always has the last word.
Some of the consequences of the modern system of animal confinement practices by companies:
Massive concentrations of animal waste in local landfills, contaminating groundwater and water tables.
The CDC cites at least 40 new human diseases resulting from exactly this source, including the increase in spontaneous abortions — so many women unable to carry their pregnancies to term.
The surge in all types of human cancers in Maryland's Eastern Shore region, where the majority of the nation's commercial chickens are raised, rose from 200 cases per 100,000 people for all types of cancer — the national average — to 275 cases per 100,000 after the FDA approved the addition of large amounts of arsenic to chicken feed.
And it goes on and on. Check out the sources cited below for more, if you can stand it.
BREMER'S 100 ORDERS: WHY IRAQ HATES THE UNITED STATES
Besides blaming them for 9/11, occupying their country, decimating their population and littering their landscape with depleted uranium, there is another major reason why Iraq will hold the United States in very low esteem for generations to come: Bremer's 100 Orders.
As part of Iraq's "reconstruction" legislation, Bremer's 100 orders were incorporated into Iraq's new constitution, imposed by the influence of the US Pentagon. Never mentioned in the US media.
Bremer's Order #81 states that "Iraqi farmers will be prohibited from reusing seeds of protected varieties, or any other varieties." Protected varieties means they protect Monsanto.
Cet ordre … "granted plant patent holders [Monsanto] absolute rights over farmers using their GMO seeds for 20 years."
Farmers are forced to buy new seeds every year from Monsanto, which had modified native Iraqi plants slightly – just enough to patent them.
Farmers must also sign a contract stating that they owe Monsanto an annual "technology fee" as payment for Monsanto stealing their native plants and modifying them enough to own the new varieties!
This "law" was never negotiated between two sovereign nations. It was imposed directly on Iraq by the Pentagon.
The author of Order 81? Monsanto.
There is more. Abu Ghraib was famous long before it made headlines as America's first torture center. For years, Abu Ghraib had kept a seed bank of all the indigenous crops of Iraq. After the Americans came, the seed bank mysteriously disappeared. Immediately after, GMO seeds were introduced by Monsanto and Sungene. Soybeans, wheat and sunflowers.
Ultimately, under our reconstruction program for Iraq, receipt of the money was conditioned on acceptance of the terms that Monsanto executives had drafted for the Pentagon, particularly regarding the role of GMOs in all future agriculture.
There is no polite way to say this: we stole this country's agricultural heritage and gave it to Monsanto, permanently enslaving Iraqi farmers to Monsanto.
Have you ever heard this on Fox News?
So who protects the public from GMOs?
With no laws ever passed to regulate the vast biotech industry, and no government agency created for that purpose, the macabre joke is that these multinationals, which collectively share the worst overall contamination and pollution record of any group in history, are left to regulate themselves! The famous quote from Monsanto's Phil Angell perfectly illustrates the seriousness with which they would take an imaginary responsibility for internal regulation:
« Monsanto should not have to guarantee the safety of biotech foods. Our interest is to sell as much as possible. Responding to its safety is the FDA's job.. »
In 1987, the EPA arbitrarily increased the toxicity limits for glyphosate from 6 parts per million to 20 parts per million without additional testing. Why? Monsanto asked for it!
As Roundup development continued to exceed even these expanded safety levels, in 1993 Monsanto was granted an "exemption from further review or monitoring" for Roundup Ready Soybeans by the EPA!
Environmental protection?
So, with no one to oversee this new experiment in global agriculture, when would we really know that we had reached the point of no return? It took 40 years for the carcinogenic effects of engineered tobacco to be recognized. And it is still legal. The poisonous insecticide DDT was used unrestricted from 1948 to 1972 around the world, before it was finally banned. Before we dumped 20 million gallons of Monsanto’s defoliant Agent Orange on the jungles of Vietnam, causing tens of thousands of birth defects and cancers, they assured us it was harmless. Remember that?
OTHER GMO FOODS
In The Magic Bean we listed foods that primarily contained genetically modified ingredients:
These are just a few examples, but you can see that the 80% figure is not an exaggeration. Obesity is just a side effect of the DNA-altering diet we bring home in our grocery bags every weekend. Are we seeing any overall differences in the overall health of Americans since genetically modified foods began to predominate?
RECENT CHANGES IN THE SOCIAL FABRIC
CONCLUSION
This has been the briefest of introductions to the field of genetically modified foods (GMOs), their prevalence and what they mean in this country today. The reader is encouraged to consult the references in the appendix for more information, including the DVDThe Future of Food and books by Jeffrey Smith.
So if you are perfectly healthy, have boundless energy, never catch colds or feel tired, maybe you have the constitution of Keith Richards and are impervious to any level of toxicity. You can choose to ignore this entire chapter. But if you have physical imbalances or illnesses that seem to get worse every year, you will never get back into balance until you have:
• stopped accumulating DNA-altering foods
• detoxified what remains in your tissues
As for solutions, the first step to eliminating GMO foods is to carefully read all labels before putting anything in your shopping cart. Look for the clues mentioned above. For detoxification of bioaccumulated GMO residues in your tissue cells after 10 or 15 years of an uninformed lifestyle, the reader is directed to the chapters titledThe Last Resort etThe 60 Day Program.
In any holistic program where a patient is trying to recover from a serious physical imbalance and has lost confidence in traditional drug regimens, the elimination of GMO foods from the diet is absolutely essential. No miracle cure ever invented can keep the weakened patient moving forward on this path of unregulated ingestion of refined, hydrogenated, pasteurized, and genetically modified foods.