Hawaii is Ground Zero

Hawaii is ground zero: banning, not labeling GMOs

Let me put it this way. It would mean a lot more than winning a few GMO-labeling initiatives.

“The right to choose what’s in your food” does not stop the ongoing gene drift, from GMO crops to non-GMO, across America. This drift is well on its way to making organic crops into genetically modified food, whether we like it or not.

And the blown-on-wind spread of tons and tons of Roundup, the poisonous Monsanto herbicide so “vital” to GMO farming…well, that’s straight-out chemical warfare.

As it continues, what organic farmer will be able to guarantee his crops are pristine?

In Hawaii, we have a far different situation. Voters on the Big Island, Maui, and Kauai, against all odds, have managed to pass measures that would block Monsanto (and other biotech giants) from continuing their GMO/pesticide operations.

In other words, ban, not label.

However, on the Big Island and Kauai, the corrupt court system has (so far) rendered the voters’ decisions null and void. On Maui, the same tactic is in progress.
Hawaii isn’t just a small biotech center. Huge numbers of GMO seeds are produced and shipped out around the world.

Monsanto, Dow, Pioneer, and BASF are doing intensive R&D to develop new GMO seeds and new poisonous pesticides (which they are spraying on the people of Hawaii).
Cutting off their work in Hawaii would be a major victory.

However, if you did an overall survey of news sites, including independent centers of reporting, you’d find GMO labeling has been garnering far more coverage than the bans enacted in several US counties or the struggle in Hawaii.

Why is that?

One reason: the anti-Monsanto movement in America has been shaped and funded to be about product-labeling.

Because it’s about shopping and choosing and buying and consuming, it seems to have more “broad appeal.”

But how well is that soft approach going work in the face of the biotech fait accompli—gene drift plus pesticide drift, blanketing the whole country, penetrating all food crops?

According to “received wisdom,” banning GMOs and their attendant pesticides is a much harder sell.
In past articles, I’ve outlined an attack strategy against the biotech giants that could have worked at the outset of the anti-GMO movement—and could still work. I won’t run it all down here. Suffice to say, it is predicated on the understanding that we are in a late-game situation, and the clock is ticking.
The biotech crime bosses are running the show—our show—into the ground. The sane response is to go all-out on the offensive. This is miles beyond avoiding a potato in the market labeled “GMO.”
And by the way, who would be in charge of putting those GMO labels on foods? The state governments where the labeling initiatives pass? Really? You would trust that process to be both honest and competent?

The leaders of the labeling movement apparently welcome the prospect of Monsanto and their allies suing states in which labeling initiatives or laws pass. This is a chance to expose the shady tactics of the biotech giants.

I would point out, though, that such court battles would ultimately impact only the labeling issue, nothing more.

Yes, it would represent another small step in educating the public about these monster corporations—but small steps that come too late are not useful.

In Hawaii, however, there is an authentic spark. The fight centers around the possibility of a partial ban on GMOs and dangerous pesticides—in the heart of the enemy’s camp.

The outcome would be helped considerably, if enough people shifted their focus to the Islands, where the real action is. Now.

In Hawaii, the reality-egg has cracked. The Monsanto facade of GMO/pesticide safety and humane intentions has been blatantly rejected, on the record, by voters.

This has set off a parade of biotech/political/judicial/land-baron counter-attacks. The players are, as usual, arrogant, self-entitled, devious, slimy, fake Jesuses who want to save the world and lift up the less fortunate and less informed.

“We’ll help you. Just let us run things.”

Hawaii could be a candle that is quickly snuffed out, or it could become a sun that illuminates the truth.

The point is, the struggle there is about the right thing. Stopping the poisoners. Not labeling them.

Source: Jon Rappoport with NoMoreFakeNews.com

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Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at http://www.nomorefakenews.com

90% of the food in the supermarket is grown using Roundup... Organic food is now allowed to contain a percentage of GMO.Soon the corporations will push the FDA into allowing Roundup on organic food.

Monsanto’s Roundup Herbicide Found To Be 125X More Toxic Than Regulators Claim

Roundup herbicide was manufactured by Monsanto and is one of the worlds most widely used herbicides around the world. Within the past few years, numerous studies have emerged linking its main ingredient, glyphosate, to a number of health ailments that include cancer, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and more. Sri Lanka recently joined the long list ( and growing) of countries who have completely banned it, citing a link to deadly kidney disease. You can read more about that and view other studies here. Russia also became the latest country to completely ban GMOs, you can read more about that here. 

A new study published in the journal Biomedical Research International  shows that Roundup herbicide is 125 times more toxic than its active ingredient glyphosate studied in isolation.(1)  The eye opening abstract reads as follows:

“Pesticides are used throughout the world as mixtures called formulations. They contain adjuvants, which are often kept confidential and are called inerts by the manufacturing companies, plus a declared active principle, which is usually tested alone. We tested the toxicity of 9 pesticides, comparing active principles and their formulations, on three human cell lines. Glyphosate, isoproturon, fluroxypyr, pirimicarb, imidacloprid, acetamiprid, tebuconazole, epoxiconazole, and prochloraz constitute, respectively, the active principles of 3 major herbicides, 3 insecticides, and 3 fungicides.  Despite its relatively benign reputation, Roundup was among the most toxic herbicides and insecticides tested. Most importantly, 8 formulations out of 9 were up to one thousand times more toxic than their active principles. Our results challenge the relevance of the acceptable daily intake for pesticides because this norm is calculated from the toxicity of the active principle alone. Chronic tests on pesticides may not reflect relevant environmental exposures if only one ingredient of these mixtures is tested alone.” (1)

Greenmedinfo describes it perfectly, stating that this just further illustrates the “deceptive semantics of pesticide formulations and their regulation.” This paper does indeed prove that the agrochemical industry conceals the truth about how toxic their chemicals really are, is this not a crime? Is this not mass poisoning through deception? Who exactly is setting the ‘acceptable’ amount when it’s clear there should be no acceptable amount at all?

It’s also worth mentioning here that the African Center for Bio-safety orders Monsanto to stop making false claims about GMOs, you can find out more about that here.

“The problem of underestimated toxicological risk is so severe that the researchers describe previous research which found unexpected toxicity in so-called ‘inert’ adjuvants that were up to 10,000 times more toxic than the so-called active principle glyphosate itself, revealing them to be a greater source for secondary side effects than the main ingredient itself. They also note that this ‘synergistic toxicity’ may explain the results of previous long-term animal research where glyphosate-based formulations showed toxicity in the parts per trillion range that could not be explained by glyphosate alone” (2)(3)

If you think about it, it seems insidious that Roundup herbicide is still heavily used in North America despite the numerous studies that have surfaced illustrating its extreme toxicity. It’s time for North America to do what what many other countries have already done, completely ban these pesticides and the GMOs that go with them.

 

Sources:

(1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3955666/

(2) http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-herbicide-125-times-more-toxic-regulators-say

(3) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23756170

Read more at Collective-Evolution:
Author:  Arjun Walia

UPDATE 3-Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning in France

* Case against Monsanto 1st such claim to reach French court
    * Monsanto lawyer says "disappointed", envisages appeal
    * Pesticide makers see no evidence of major health risk


    By Catherine Lagrange and Marion Douet 
    LYON/PARIS, Feb 13 (Reuters) - A French court on
Monday declared U.S. biotech giant Monsanto guilty of
chemical poisoning of a French farmer, a judgment that could
lend weight to other health claims against pesticides. 
    In the first such case heard in court in France, grain
grower Paul Francois, 47, says he suffered neurological problems
including memory loss, headaches and stammering after inhaling
Monsanto's Lasso weedkiller in 2004. 
    He blames the agri-business giant for not providing adequate
warnings on the product label.  
    The ruling was given by a court in Lyon, southeast France,
which ordered an expert opinion of Francois's losses to
establish the amount of damages. 
    "It is a historic decision in so far as it is the first time
that a (pesticide) maker is found guilty of such a poisoning,"
François Lafforgue, Francois's lawyer, told Reuters. 
    Monsanto said it was disappointed by the ruling and would
examine whether to appeal the judgment. 
    "Monsanto always considered that there were not sufficient
elements to establish a causal relationship between Paul
Francois's symptoms and a potential poisoning," the company's
lawyer, Jean-Philippe Delsart, said. 
    Previous health claims from farmers have foundered because
of the difficulty of establishing clear links between illnesses
and exposure to pesticides. 
    Francois and other farmers suffering from illness set up an
association last year to make a case that their health problems
should be linked to their use of crop protection products. 
    The agricultural branch of the French social security system
says that since 1996, it has gathered farmers' reports of
sickness potentially related to pesticides, with about 200
alerts a year. 
    But only about 47 cases have been recognised as due to
pesticides in the past 10 years. Francois, who suffers from
neurological problems, obtained work invalidity status only
after a court appeal. 
     
    LESS INTENSIVE NOW 
    The Francois case goes back to a period of intensive use of
crop-protection chemicals in the European Union. The EU and its
member countries have since banned a large number of substances
considered dangerous.   
    Lasso, a pre-emergent soil-applied herbicide that has been
used since the 1960s to control grasses and broadleaf weeds in
farm fields, was banned in France in 2007 following an EU
directive after the product had already been withdrawn in some
other countries.  
    Though it once was a top-selling herbicide, it has gradually
lost popularity, and critics say several studies have shown
links to a range of health problems. 
    Monsanto's Roundup is now the dominant herbicide used to
kill weeds. The company markets it in conjunction with its
biotech herbicide-tolerant "Roundup Ready" crops. The Roundup
Ready corn, soybeans, cotton and other crops do not die when
sprayed directly with the herbicide, a trait that has made them
wildly popular with U.S. farmers. 
    But farmers are now being encouraged to use more and
different kinds of chemicals again as Roundup loses its
effectiveness to a rise of "super weeds" that are resistant to
Roundup. 
    And while the risks of pesticide are a generally known and
accepted hazard of farming in most places, and farmers are
cautioned to take care when handling the chemicals, increased
use of pesticides will only cause more harm to human health and
the environment, critic say.  
    "The registration process does not protect against harm.
Manufacturers have to be held liable for adverse impacts that
occur," said Jay Feldman, director of Beyond Pesticides, a
non-profit group focused on reducing pesticide use. 
    France, the EU's largest agricultural producer, is now
targetting a 50 percent reduction in pesticide use between 2008
and 2018, with initial results showing a 4 percent cut in farm
and non-farm use in 2008-2010. 
    The Francois claim may be easier to argue than others
because he can pinpoint a specific incident - inhaling the Lasso
when cleaning the tank of his crop sprayer - whereas fellow
farmers are trying to show accumulated effects from various
products. 
    "It's like lying on a bed of thorns and trying to say which
one cut you," said a farmer, who has recovered from prostate
cancer and asked not to be named. 
    The French association of crop protection companies, UIPP,
says pesticides are all subject to testing and that any evidence
of a cancer risk in humans leads to withdrawal of products from
the market. 
    "I think if we had a major health problem with pesticides,
we would have already known about it," Jean-Charles Bocquet,
UIPP's managing director, said. 
    The social security's farming branch this year is due to add
Parkinson's disease to its list of conditions related to
pesticide use after already recognising some cases of blood
cancers and bladder and respiratory problems. 
    France's health and environment safety agency (ANSES),
meanwhile, is conducting a study on farmers' health, with
results expected next year.

Source:  http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/13/france-pesticides-monsanto-idUSL2E8DDE4U20120213