Big Money Wins Out In New Bogus GMO Labeling Law

John Phillips: Bio-geneticist and nutrition specialist, has shown links between GMO foods and Alzheimer's.

Perhaps too many citizens are unaware that a new GMO labeling law has been passed, but it is littered with loopholes large enough to drive a metaphorical Mack truck through.  The cynical corporate and government masterminds behind it realized they had to provide some cover for themselves given the uproar in this country concerning the lack of GMO labeling. 

Thus,  multinational and corporate "big food" and its allies spent $100 million to get a bogus labeling law passed in order to counter the anti-GMO labeling movement.  Much of their effort was forced by Vermont's GMO labeling law - now rendered null - which would have spread  to other states had the bogus federal law not emerged  (After all, the M.O. in this country is whenever a serious political challenge or movement arises, create front groups to defuse the issues, the movement or both)

Millions have justifiably expressed concern at this tactic given that - as John Phillips (Barbadian bio -geneticist) has found, Glyphosate (the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide) is present in all genetically engineered foods. And it’s not something that can be washed off or taken out of the food by cooking or purification – it’s integrated into the plant on a fundamental level.   Monsanto- the maker-  was also a manufacturer of the pesticide DDT, which now has been conclusively linked to the development of Alzheimer’s, as well as many other degenerative diseases in humans.

Experts like Mr. Phillips now believe that glyphosate is even worse than DDT. It decimates beneficial bacteria in the gut, disrupts immune function, and has been correlated with shocking precision to the rise in autism and other cognitive diseases and conditions. 

But let's return to the bogus labeling law, which on the surface sounds legit. After all, as Mark Bittman in the NY Times has pointed out (9/10): "it mandates that the Department of Agriculture define what constitutes a genetically modified food ingredient and then requiring food manufacturers to label products that contain them". What's not to like?  Well, the loopholes and latitude allowed including (ibid.):

- As a label, food producers can substitute a "toll -free number" for consumers to call to get further information on their own.

- Or they can scan a UPC code using a smartphone to get the info needed

As Bittman puts it,  the message to the American consumer is "You deserve to know what's in your food", but to food producers, "Feel free to make the information as difficult to find as you'd like"

The FDA, as I noted before, has declared GMOs not to be harmful, hence no need for labeling. But the feds have still failed to apply the precautionary principle, that it is the GMO producers' job to prove their products are safe, not for outside observers to disprove it. Further, offering a simple declaration based on research done by those linked to Monsanto and other GMO producers, doesn't make the proof standard. As Bittman puts it: "Our system for declaring products safe leaves much to be desired" - which is putting it mildly.

Bittman goes on to note that while it is true GMO crops, like soybeans and corn, "have led to fewer applications of herbicides"  they have "also encouraged the growth of weeds that have become resistant to herbicides after years of exposure."

And most to the point:

"GMOs have become an indispensable crutch for the fertilizer and pesticide-dependent monoculture that is wrecking our land and water and generating the execrable excess of corn and soy-based junk food that is sickening our population and decreasing our life spans":

Which reinforces local Dem candidate Electra Johnson's recent take (Colorado Springs Independent, Aug. 18-19, p. 20 ):

"Our leaders are not looking after us....we are not cared for at the level of our very survival".

What are our leaders looking after? Well, the profits for the corporations - businesses that give them most of their political campaign largesse. God forbid these poltroons "bite the hand that feeds them".

Bitmann avers that now that we're "allowed" to know at least some of what's in our foods (if we dig deep enough) there are other questions we may have to ask including:

-  Where are the ingredients from?

- Were antibiotics routinely administered to animals?

- What pesticides and other chemicals were used?

- What farming practices were used?

- How much water was required?

Bittman acknowledges all this information and more could be made available and also that "some people may care while others don't" but the point is that whether maximal info content is used ought to be a choice of the consumer - not the product manufacturer.   As Bittman puts it at the end of his piece:

"Companies doing things well should seize the chance to put whatever they can on the package ...companies that don't disclose information could be assumed to have something to hide."

This is well put, and something all of us ought to seriously consider when we make our next food purchase, and as Bittman notes "we're long overdue for a transparency revolution"

Indeed!

"The Green Scare Problem" - Or the Toxic Coverup Problem?

Do we really have a "green scare" problem in this country, or is it the case that the toxic industrialists and capitalists concocted it since they don't want us to know how messed up our environment really is?  The fact that what we're leaving to future generations will be essentially a vast, toxic landfill?

Matt Ridley in his WSJ piece, 'The Green Scare Problem' (July 25-26. p. C4) seeks to portray those who raise cautionary warnings about our depredations of the environment as scare mongers. The real fact, is that it is the PR purveyors - like those exposed in the book 'Toxic Sludge Is Good For You', who need to be brought up for critical scrutiny and judgment. They've been getting away with their disinformation games too long as I noted in my Aug. 26 post on how the fossil fuel climate deniers were outed.


On the issue of climate change, for example, Ridley writes:


"Many exaggerated early claims about the dangers of climate change have now been debunked. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has explicitly abandoned previous claims that malaria will likely get worse, that the Gulf Stream will stop flowing, and the Greenland or West Antarctic Ice sheet will disintegrate...or droughts will become more likely."


I don't know where Ridley gets this stuff, as he hasn't cited any documents or reports. I am aware of the Gulf Stream stopping retraction - but to my knowledge all the others are still in play, including the malaria spread, increased droughts, and collapse of ice sheets. Hell, most of this isn't rocket science to anyone who grasps the essential physics.  (Also, let us bear in mind the IPCC was wrong in its assessment of the reality of the global warming hiatus - as I previously noted).


The spread of tropical diseases with increasing temperatures is a given, and I hate to have to break this to Ridley. We know the details were laid out nearly 20 years ago in the excellent paper, Global Climate and Infectious Disease:The Cholera Paradigm, in Science, Vol. 274, 20 December, 1996, p. 2025.


And indeed, the author of Parasite REX bears this out, noting the human population alone may carry within it up to 2 billion worm parasites, including: hook worm, one of 5,000 forms of tape worm, round worm, trypanosomes, schistosomiasis- with warmer climate causing flukes e,g,





 to multiply as well as the protozoan that causes Toxoplasma (which over 1 billion may carry, mostly in their brains,and malaria!


As for the disintegration of the Antarctic ice sheet that is well underway, e.g.


http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/w-antarcrtic-ice-sheet-melting-at-twice.html


As well as for Greenland.


http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/05/greenland-arctic-ice-acceleratingso-why.html


Clearly, it seems Ridley is either highly selective in what he chooses to accept or is deaf, dumb and blind to the real science clarion calls in his midst. Maybe he is simply another one of the brainwashed millions who believe it's all under control or that climate change is a big hoax as bellowed by long time global warming idiot James Inhofe - who ought to be in a sanatorium as opposed to holding a Senate Committee seat on the environment.


Not content to diminish the import of global warming and its effects, he next goes on to GMO foods and insists:


"After twenty years and millions of meals there is still no evidence that they harm human health and ample evidence of their environmental and humanitarian benefits ."


Which is redolent public relations blather every bit as egregious as that exposed in the book 'Toxic Sludge is Good For You' (wherein industry puppets insisted that toxic sludge cast off from industrial waste would make excellent fertilizer for crops)


A lot of this bollocks was shot down by Mark Bittman (Food columnist for the NY Times) who noted, "Yields are not up and pesticide use is not down. So when you talk about feeding a hungry world, GMOs have not moved us in that direction."


Worse, the evidence is now increasing that GMOs might be responsible for a lot of the Alzheimer's epidemic we're seeing, as my friend, geneticist John Phillips,  has shown:


http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/07/as-alzheimers-disease-numbers-rise-even.html


Then there is Ridley's claim with respect to pesticides, i.e. that "pesticides are not causing a cancer epidemic"  - but a detailed wealth of statistical data contradicts this.

Devra Davis in her excellent monograph,  'Secret History of the War on Cancer' correctly exposed the PR underbelly of the American "Cancer wars" and their beneficiaries (see. e.g. Chapters 1-4), while also naming the American Cancer Society (ACS)  as having conflicts of interest and mixed motives (Chapter 5, 'Fear Sells)

While Davis accurately notes that people get told over and over (by the likes of the ACS and their physician enablers, apologists) that "too much fat" is causing their cancers - whether of lungs, bladders, prostate gland or breasts - and hence they bear greatest responsibility. ( Never mind the evidence from more than 80 years of cumulative data which discloses it's chemicals in the environment that contribute more than fifty times as much.

We also note from another author, Lauretta Schwarz-Nobel, in Poisoned Nation, St. Martin's Press, 2007).


"The Cancer industry includes organizations like the ACS that downplay the risk of cancer from pesticides and other environmental factors and which have historically refused to take a stand on environmental regulation".


Adding:

"The Cancer industry consists of corporations, organizations, and agencies that diminish or mask the extent of the cancer problem, fail to protect our health or divert attention away from finding the causes of breast cancer...this includes drug companies that, in addition to profiting from cancer treatment drugs, also produce toxic chemicals that may be contributing to the high rates of cancer in this country and increasing rates throughout the world".


Ridley, who ought to know better, insists:

"Virtually every environment threat of the past few decades has been greatly exaggerated."

But I would say that every such threat has actually been vastly understated so that people feel the entire burden for their illnesses or infirmities is on them.  But this is what the chemical polluters and toxic industrial complex want because they don't wish to be held to account. They prefer people apply the fundamental attribution error to themselves - blaming themselves for their pancreatic, prostate, and breast as well as colon cancers, as well as their Alzheimer's disease.

Can't have anyone going after the "profits before people" capitalists after all. Better that people make a few bucks while they can before croaking from an incurable cancer!

People can accept this or not, but for my take, Ridley is the one underestimating the magnitude of the environmental calamity facing us.

The rest of us shouldn't!

The Physician Whores Going After Mehmet Oz - WHY Are They Doing It?

Last week a group of "doctors" (maybe whores is more like it, as I will show) dispatched a letter to Columbia University, asking them to remove Dr. Mehmet Oz from their staff. What had their panties in a twist? According to the news segment this morning, shown on CBS, the statement says in part:

"Dr. Oz has repeatedly shown disdain for science and for evidence -based medicine, as well as baseless and relentless opposition to the genetic engineering of food crops."

Pay special attention to the very last part because that is really what this asinine complaint is all about (and to a lesser extent likely Oz' maintaining that eliminating all vitamin supplements is not a good idea, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/03/believe-anti-vitamin-scolds-and-you-may.html

And WHO is the top physician -"researcher" whore trying to get rid of Oz?  None other than Henry Miller - a pro-corporate worm ensconced at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank which has also harbored a bunch of lamebrains who've done numerous anti-global warming screeds. In other words, some of the biggest anti-scientific assholes on the planet.  One of these turds actually - according to an ABC News report - served 22 months in prison for Medicaid fraud. Four of the other smearing degenerates have been linked to the "American Council on Science and Health" (ACSH) and received money from companies that sell GMOs. In other words, craven sellout whores.

Oz obviously came into the target sights of Miller and his clique of knuckle dragger "physician" henchmen because of highlighting the dangers of GMO foods, which - of course -  would  mean less money for the likes of Monsanto. In one of his shows, in fact, Dr Oz noted the dangers of glyphosate used in these damned foods and the havoc it can wreak on human health.

For example, on his Sept. 19, 2014 show we beheld a "health calamity" to use Oz's expression, as non-Hodgkins lymphoma, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's and other conditions spread as the horrific weedicide Enlist entered our food supply via GMO foods.

Oz began by putting up on the screen a section of a letter put out by dozens of worried scientists, physicians. The letter began by stating:

"We the undersigned scientists, medical professionals, and researchers are writing to urge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency not to register a double herbicide mix of 2,4- D and glyphosate - the 'Enlist DUO weed killer"

In the letter all the probable health risks were detailed, as noted in the first paragraph. In terms of the horrors of glyphosate and how it wreaks havoc on foods, I already discussed this in a previous post, e.g.   http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/03/alzheimers-epidemic-fro-eating-gmo.html

In that post I quoted Barbadian biogenetic researcher John Phillips:

"Among other toxins and other health-disrupting contaminants, GMO foods contain glyphosate, a horrifically destructive chemical that saps nutrients from foods and quite literally makes them toxic to consume."

The worst part is that GMO foods are everywhere…if something is not explicitly labeled as organic and GMO-free, you should assume that it contains glyphosate. The most damnable shame is that our own Neoliberal government refuses to justify labeling these foods - so consumers have no way of knowing.






















John Phillips: Bio-geneticist and nutrition specialist, has found new links between GMO foods and Alzheimer's

Experts like Mr. Phillips now believe that glyphosate is even worse than DDT. It decimates beneficial bacteria in the gut, disrupts immune function, and has been correlated with shocking precision to the rise in autism and other cognitive diseases and conditions.  The moral of the story is that you should stop eating GMO foods at all costs. Do not consume anything (especially soy and corn) that isn’t specifically labeled as non-GMO.  Wonder why Alzheimer's keeps ramping up - blame the GMO foods, and now - with Entry DUO - the potential to add on other diseases like Parkinson's.

In his opening segment  on 9/19/14  Dr. Oz set out the facts as we know them:

1- Seventy to Eighty percent of the foods we eat today contain GMOs.

2- There are 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides used per year, used on GMO crops - because those crops are designed to survive the poisons.

3- 70 - 170 million pounds of additional highly toxic pesticides will be used if the FDA approves Enlist.

One of the worst scourges is how glyphosate is now in the blood of many kids, and triggering outbreaks of autism (which too many blame on vaccines). As one mom featured on Oz's show observed, her son showed all the symptoms and when she had his blood tested she found inordinate levels of glyphosate. She then went totally organic and the symptoms subsided.

One claim made by the GMO makers (like Monsanto) and promoters is GMOs are crucial to feed a hungry world - by offering higher yields. But as Oz's other guest, Mark Bittman (Food columnist for the NY Times) noted, "Yields are not up and pesticide use is not down. So when you talk about feeding a hungry world, GMOs have not moved us in that direction."

Indeed, it is precisely because of the widespread pesticide-herbicide use connected with GMO foods, that a more powerful toxin has been demanded - by agri-business, and farmers in the maw of the GMO giants. This is because the herbicide overuse has led to the invasive weeds becoming adapted to the toxins and being more difficult to put down. The bottom line: glyphosate alone isn't enough to do the job.

2,4 - D, let us bear in mind, was also used in Agent Orange - the dastardly chemical used to devastate millions of acres of crops in South Vietnam and which left thousands of U.S. military personnel with debilitating conditions,  and tens of thousands of Vietnamese infants with hideous birth defects the country is still dealing with today.

One of the other worrisome effects Oz presented was the dispersive and diffusive potential from GMO crops - say in the proximity of schools, other public places. Oz demonstrated this dispersal as when winds blow to drive it off onto bordering areas - schools, homes, towns. He stated: "It's just hard to put a fence around it. The Environmental Working Group found that over 5500 schools within 200 feet of these pesticides drift range and GMO farms, potentially putting thousands of children and their families at risk of serious health problems.."

This drift and dispersal scenario is also one with which John Phillips concurs - which is why he's vigorously argued against the use of GMO crops in Barbados.

The corporate whore kingdom often cites the FDA or other government agencies to bestow benediction on GMO foods, i.e. that they are "safe" - but of course these federal agencies have already been bought out long ago and become de facto PR- whore extensions for the corporatocracy. This is why they incessantly fight to keep labels off GMO foods.

And while anti-GMO folks are lampooned by the Neoliberal governmental -business estate and its lackeys, let's bear in mind 64 countries already require labeling of GMO foods or ban them outright. Why is the U.S. different? Or better, why is the U.S. the exceptional dumb nation here? Could it be the corporate state has our gov't by the balls, lock, stock and barrel? Maybe! As Heather White observed on Oz' s 9/19/14 show, they are only willing to "rubber stamp" what the corporations want and most of our agencies are in their maw. That makes them corporate whores!

Meanwhile, kudos to Columbia University for showing support of Dr. Mehmet Oz so he can continue his position there while also speaking out against the rampant poison of GMOs. In a statement released yesterday the university wrote:

"Columbia is committed to the principle of academic freedom and to upholding faculty members' freedom of expression for statements they make in public discussion."


As for Oz complainer Henry Miller: he needs to remove his brain from the corporate propaganda axis, stop emulating tools like John McAdams, and try to learn about the real dangers of GMO foods - minus all the BS and tomfoolery.

Anti-GMO Labelers Wage Massive Disinformation Campaign in Colorado

How much money does it take – most from outside interests – to take down an effort to label GMO-based foods? Better perhaps, how much disinformation does it take to alter voters’ minds to force them to subvert their own nutrition –food choices?  It turns out the answers may be much more than we believed for the first ($9.7m vs. $330,000 for proponents), and much less for the second. The latter since now the Denver Post has tossed its hat into the GMO labeling ring and given a rousing endorsement to vote down Proposition 105 in its Sunday editorial.

But then we already knew the Denver Post – while allowing a few liberal memes – did staunchly also wage a brief for unlimited fracking over a year ago – arguing it was critical for the state’s economy. Can we call ‘bollocks’ on that too? I believe so, especially after surreal gloating and smug satisfaction fairly oozed from the paper’s pages after Jared Polis removed from the Nov. ballot  the initiatives to give local control of fracking to Colorado communities.

The image attached was taken from a flyer delivered in the mail. The flyer included canards that have been repeated in assorted ads on TV and also by the Denver Post in its editorial.  Some of the more prominent include:

1) Farmers and food producers would be required to separate, repackage and re-label ingredients from throughout the country – just for our state.

2) Proposition 105 would cost Colorado taxpayers millions by requiring a new state bureaucracy to enforce its Colorado-only regulations for tens of thousands of products.

3) Proposition is so full of exemptions it would not tell consumers which foods are produced with GMOs.

Responses:

The first is overblown fear mongering. Most of Colorado’s foods are locally grown as people have become more aware of the advantages. Many places (e.g. Whole Foods) already have GMO labeling which conforms with the law. Any residual issues are not as huge a problem as portrayed as Vermont has already found out, as well as Switzerland – not exactly a backwater nation! (See my posts on it from last month). The Swiss have the sense to use a threshold for labeling GMO which is that samples tested contain less than 0.9 percent GMO products. We can do the same!

The Second complaint  is more hype and the regulatory body needed can be modeled again after Vermont – after mandating their own GMO labeling law, or after Switzerland. “Enforcement” is another bugbear as consumers will basically do the “enforcing” with their food purchase choices.  No special “police” or “code violation” body will be needed.

As for (3),  yes, there are exemptions, because over-ambitious labeling demands would not have gotten the signatures needed and likely invited even more lawsuits than the ones planned. As progressives always harp on in elections: “You cannot make the perfect the enemy of the good!” 

Given the progressives' clarion call, of course meat and dairy aren’t forced to be labeled since the animals are only raised on GMO foods, they are not themselves genetically re-configured animals (e.g. cows actually being engineered from rat, skunk or vampire bat DNA).  Restaurants also don’t need GMO labeling because many (e.g. Chipotle) are already doing it and finding a competitive edge because of it. As for Alcoholic beverages, these also need no special GMO labels. For one thing, most everyone conscious knows it is a drug and also the ill effects, including on the liver and brain. Whether in fact GMOs play any role in alcoholic beverages is therefore akin to worrying about whether the cancer sticks you’re smoking have bisphenol –A filters.

Other objections to Proposition 105 are even more ludicrous, such as Colorado commissioner of agriculture Don Ament arguing (Denver Post, Sept. 28) that genetic engineering has been going on for thousands of years – actually referring to hybridization, e.g. of cattle. In this way, many have been led to believe voting for the Proposition is ridiculous and redundant because – hey!  - those things have been with us like forever.

But there’s a huge difference. In hybridization, similar species can be cross-bred because they share similar genetic traits. (Such as two types of cow being mammals and ungulates).  Hybrids can occur naturally or they can be created by grafting and cross-pollination.

By contrast, genetic engineering involves splicing of two distinct species (e.g. cows and alligators, or tomatoes and mice) that would never occur naturally in a million years – or ten million. Since the GMOs are not natural – they don’t represent natural creatures that would have evolved, or plants, and we simply don’t know what the health consequences might be.

We do know there were some earlier studies, such as  Arpad Pusztai’s in Britain. This study processed the results over several years and found that the rats which consumed GMO potatoes showed evidence of organ (liver, stomach) damage and poor brain development. Pusztai's study went down as the very first independent study (i.e. one not sponsored by a biotech corporation) to examine the effects of bio-engineered food on mammals. Alas, after he tried to publish the results he lost his job  - see:

http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/24/03/bleifuss2403.html

More recently, families have been made aware of glyphosate in these foods and how it reduces their nutritive value and also raises the specter of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease  and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. This will be particularly pronounced if the new Enlist DUO Weedicide is approved for use with GMO crops, as Dr. Oz Mehmet already exposed – as well as others, see e.g.

 http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/09/more-powerful-toxins-associated-with.html

For Colorado's premium newspaper, The Denver Post gets many things wrong as well in its Anti-105 editorial. Thus, the issue of “cost” is again carped about despite the fact David Byrne – former European commissioner for health and consumer protection - declared that GMO labeling “did not result in increased costs despite the horrifying predictions of some interests.”

The Post also complained that some would ban GMOs which “ironically have resulted in a large decrease in the use of insecticides etc.”

But as Mehmet Oz  observed:

-        There are 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides used per year, used on GMO crops - because those crops are designed to survive the poisons.

 70 - 170 million pounds of additional highly toxic pesticides will be used if the FDA approves Enlist.

Oz then flatly skewered the notion that “less” toxins are being used, and in fact the very design of GMO crops encourages the use of MORE toxins because they are designed to survive them.  As Oz’ guest, journalist Mark Bittman  also noted:

“Yields are not up and pesticide use is not down. So when you talk about feeding a hungry world, GMOs have not moved us in that direction."

Do you really want the residues of 2,4 –D, the chemical used in Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, splotched all over your food if Enlist is approved by the multinational-compromised EPA?

The bottom line here is one of buyer choice: Do you deserve to know if that tomato you’re purchasing is the product of the natural tomato being spliced with mouse genes, or not?  (The aim being to increase its shelf life).  Sixty four European nations already have a ban or moratorium and strict regulation of GMO foods including labeling.

Switzerland, probably a European nation more advanced than many:

“ funded thirty projects to investigate the risks and benefits of GMOs. These projects concluded that there were no clear health or environmental dangers associated with planting GMOs. However, they also concluded that there was little economic incentive for farmers to adopt GMOs in Switzerland.” (Wikipedia)

Our Swiss friend Rolf told us that the main concern of farmers in Switzerland is the accidental dispersion of GMOs (from areas dedicated to their cultivation)  to outside farms and crops – thereby contaminating them. The worries he cites are well worth noting, but he also averred no Swiss citizen wished to be kept in the dark over what he’s eating.

As he asked me while we were staying in Appenzell,

“If it’s good enough for we Swiss, why isn’t it good enough for Americans to have your food labeled?”

Indeed!

 See also:

http://www.salon.com/chromeo/article/the_real_dangers_of_gmos_dow_chemical_doesnt_want_you_to_know_about_partner/

 

Powerful Toxin 'Enlist'- If Approved By FDA For GMO Foods - Poses Serious Health Risks

John Phillips: Bio-geneticist and nutrition specialist, has found new links between GMO foods and Alzheimer's.


The warning went out loud and clear on Dr. Mehmet Oz's show on Sept. 19th. But one wonders how many are paying attention, as the potential nears to poison most of the nation - and we behold a "health calamity" to use Oz's expression, as non-Hodgkins lymphoma, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's and other conditions spread as the horrific weedicide Enlist enters our food supply via GMO foods.

Oz began by putting up on the screen a section of a letter put out by dozens of worried scientists, physicians. The letter began by stating:

"We the undersigned scientists, medical professionals, and researchers are writing to urge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency not to register a double herbicide mix of 2,4- D and glyphosate - the 'Enlist DUO weed killer"

In the letter all the probable health risks were detailed, as noted in the first paragraph. In terms of the horrors of glyphosate and how it wreaks havoc on foods, I already discussed this in a previous post, e.g.   http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/03/alzheimers-epidemic-fro-eating-gmo.html

In that post I quoted Barbadian biogenetic researcher John Phillips:

"Among other toxins and other health-disrupting contaminants, GMO foods contain glyphosate, a horrifically destructive chemical that saps nutrients from foods and quite literally makes them toxic to consume."


The worst part is that GMO foods are everywhere…if something is not explicitly labeled as organic and GMO-free, you should assume that it contains glyphosate. The most damnable shame is that our own Neoliberal government refuses to justify labeling these foods - so consumers have no way of knowing.

Experts like Mr. Phillips now believe that glyphosate is even worse than DDT. It decimates beneficial bacteria in the gut, disrupts immune function, and has been correlated with shocking precision to the rise in autism and other cognitive diseases and conditions.  The moral of the story is that you should stop eating GMO foods at all costs. Do not consume anything (especially soy and corn) that isn’t specifically labeled as non-GMO.  Wonder why Alzheimer's keeps ramping up - blame the GMO foods, and now - with Entry DUO - the potential to add on other diseases like Parkinson's.

In his opening segment Oz set out the facts as we know them:

1- Seventy to Eighty percent of the foods we eat today contain GMOs.

2- There are 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides used per year, used on GMO crops - because those crops are designed to survive the poisons.

3- 70 - 170 million pounds of additional highly toxic pesticides will be used if the FDA approves Enlist.

One of the worst scourges is how glyphosate is now in the blood of many kids, and triggering outbreaks of autism (which too many blame on vaccines). As one mom featured on Oz's show observed, her son showed all the symptoms and when she had his blood tested she found inordinate levels of glyphosate. She then went totally organic and the symptoms subsided.

One claim made by the GMO makers (like Monsanto) and promoters is GMOs are crucial to feed a hungry world - by offering higher yields. But as Oz's other guest, Mark Bittman (Food columnist for the NY Times) noted, "Yields are not up and pesticide use is not down. So when you talk about feeding a hungry world, GMOs have not moved us in that direction."

Indeed, it is precisely because of the widespread pesticide-herbicide use connected with GMO foods, that a more powerful toxin has been demanded - by agri-business, and farmers in the maw of the GMO giants. This is because the herbicide overuse has led to the invasive weeds becoming adapted to the toxins and being more difficult to put down. The bottom line: glyphosate alone isn't enough to do the job.

2,4 - D, let us bear in mind, was also used in Agent Orange - the dastardly chemical used to devastate millions of acres of crops in South Vietnam and which left thousands of U.S. military personnel with debilitating conditions.

One of the other worrisome effects Oz presented was the dispersive and diffusive potential from GMO crops - say in the proximity of schools, other public places. Oz demonstrated this dispersal as when winds blow to drive it off onto bordering areas - schools, homes, towns. He stated: "It's just hard to put a fence around it. The Environmental Working Group found that over 5500 schools within 200 feet of these pesticides drift range and GMO farms, potentially putting thousands of children and their families at risk of serious health problems.."

This drift and dispersal scenario is also one with which John Phillips concurs - which is why he's vigorously argued against the use of GMO crops in Barbados.

Introducing Heather White, executive director of the  Environmental Working Group -  she made it clear that 2, 4 -D will "coat corn and soybean crops across the country, and those are the raw materials for the highly processed foods we eat." She expressed the greatest concern for school kids in the proximity of these GMO fields, and going out inhaling the stuff.

Thankfully, we in Colorado at least will have the ability come November to have control of what we eat - by knowing whether the food we buy has GMOs. This is not a "ban" as the hysterical GMO promoters insist, but merely providing the labeling identifying the basis of the food, so we know what we are purchasing.

And while anti-GMO folks are lampooned by the Neoliberal governmental -business estate and its lackeys, let's bear in mind 64 countries already require labeling of GMO foods or ban them outright. Why is the U.S. different? Or better, why is the U.S. the exceptional dumb nation here? Could it be the corporate state has our gov't by the balls, lock, stock and barrel? Maybe? As Heather White observed on Oz' show, they are only willing to "rubber stamp" what the corporations want and most of our agencies are in their maw.

Passing Colorado Proposition 105 will at least put an end to the continued food ignorance of Colorado's citizens. What we really need is a national referendum to enable all our citizens to have the same choice. No one ought to be denied information which may well determine whether Alzheimer's, Parkinson's or autism is in their future.