Are you a living organism? Of course you are…

When you go to Home Depot and walk through the garden shop there are all sorts of products made to kill bugs, mold, fungi and weeds. They are labeled with warnings that their ingredients are poisonous and may cause cancer. It’s not the same when you go to Whole Foods, Safeway or Piggly Wigglies. I find it crazy that food labels don’t carry the same warnings when they contain many of the same ingredients!

The Environmental Working Group (ewg.org), a watchdog nonprofit agency tells us “every year, as acknowledged by U.S. and international government agencies, different pesticides have been linked to a variety of health problems, including:

• Nervous system toxicity
• Cancer
• Hormone system effects
• Skin, eye and lung irritation

“Pesticides are unique among the chemicals we release into the environment. They are designed to kill living organisms — insects, plants, and fungi that are considered “pests.” Because they are toxic by design, many pesticides pose health dangers to people, risks that have been established by independent research scientists and physicians across the world.”

It’s not enough to just eat fruits and vegetables to stay healthy any more. You have to eat the varieties that are not poisoned by chemicals  designed to kill living organisms. YOU are a living organism, aren’t you? Why would you want to eat this stuff day after day?

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people are routinely exposed to hundreds of industrial chemicals. The EWG tells us, “Most safety tests done for regulatory agencies are not designed to discover whether exposures to low doses of MIXTURES of pesticides and other toxic chemicals are safe, particularly during critical periods of development. True public health protection would require consideration of cumulative risks of exposure to multiple toxic chemicals over time.”

The next time you go to the store and stare at a head of lettuce or a basket of shiny red apples, try to look into the food as if you had Superman’s vision. If you’re successful, you’ll see the poisons and wonder why conventional food distributors aren’t made to warn you and your family about the hazards of eating bug sprays and weed killers.

photo credit: gamene

With the cost of food recently skyrocketing – hitting not just shoppers but the poor and hungry in the developing world – genetically modified (GM) foods are once again being promoted as the way to feed the world. But this is little short of a confidence trick. Far from needing more GM foods, there are urgent reasons why we need to ban them altogether.
1. GM foods won’t solve the food crisis
A 2008 World Bank report concluded that increased biofuel production is the major cause of the increase in food prices.[1] GM giant Monsanto has been at the heart of the lobbying for biofuels (crops grown for fuel rather than food) — while profiting enormously from the resulting food crisis and using it as a PR opportunity to promote GM foods!
“The climate crisis was used to boost biofuels, helping to create the food crisis; and now the food crisis is being used to revive the fortunes of the GM industry.” — Daniel Howden, Africa correspondent of The Independent[2]
“The cynic in me thinks that they’re just using the current food crisis and the fuel crisis as a springboard to push GM crops back on to the public agenda. I understand why they’re doing it, but the danger is that if they’re making these claims about GM crops solving the problem of drought or feeding the world, that’s bullshit.” – Prof Denis Murphy, head of biotechnology at the University of Glamorgan in Wales[3]
2. GM crops do not increase yield potential
Despite the promises, GM has not increased the yield potential of any commercialised crops.[4] In fact, studies show that the most widely grown GM crop, GM soya, has suffered reduced yields.[5]
A report that analyzed nearly two decades worth of peer reviewed research on the yield of the primary GM food/feed crops, soybeans and corn (maize), reveals that despite 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization, genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase US crop yields. The author, former US EPA and US FDA biotech specialist Dr Gurian-Sherman, concludes that when it comes to yield, “Traditional breeding outperforms genetic engineering hands down.”[6]
“Let’s be clear. As of this year [2008], there are no commercialized GM crops that inherently increase yield. Similarly, there are no GM crops on the market that were engineered to resist drought, reduce fertilizer pollution or save soil. Not one.” – Dr Doug Gurian-Sherman[7]
3. GM crops increase pesticide use
US government data shows that in the US, GM crops have produced an overall increase, not decrease, in pesticide use compared to conventional crops.[8]
“The promise was that you could use less chemicals and produce a greater yield. But let me tell you none of this is true.” – Bill Christison, President of the US National Family Farm Coalition[9]
4. There are better ways to feed the world
A major UN/World Bank-sponsored report compiled by 400 scientists and endorsed by 58 countries concluded that GM crops have little to offer global agriculture and the challenges of poverty, hunger, and climate change, because better alternatives are available. In particular, the report championed “agroecological” farming as the sustainable way forward for developing countries.[10]
5. Other farm technologies are more successful
Integrated Pest Management and other innovative low-input or organic methods of controlling pests and boosting yields have proven highly effective, particularly in the developing world.[11] Other plant breeding technologies, such as Marker Assisted Selection (non-GM genetic mapping), are widely expected to boost global agricultural productivity more effectively and safely than GM.[12] [13]
“The quiet revolution is happening in gene mapping, helping us understand crops better. That is up and running and could have a far greater impact on agriculture [than GM].” – Prof John Snape, head of the department of crop genetics, John Innes Centre[14]
6. GM foods have not been shown to be safe to eat
Genetic modification is a crude and imprecise way of incorporating foreign genetic material (e.g. from viruses, bacteria) into crops, with unpredictable consequences. The resulting GM foods have undergone little rigorous and no long-term safety testing, but animal feeding tests have shown worrying health effects.[15] Only one study has been published on the direct effects on humans of eating a GM food.[16] It found unexpected effects on gut bacteria, but was never followed up.
It is claimed that Americans have eaten GM foods for years with no ill effects. But these foods are unlabeled in the US and no one has monitored the consequences. With other novel foods like trans fats, it has taken decades to realize that they have caused millions of premature deaths.[17]
“We are confronted with the most powerful technology the world has ever known, and it is being rapidly deployed with almost no thought whatsoever to its consequences.” — Dr Suzanne Wuerthele, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) toxicologist
7. Stealth GMOs in animal feed — without consumers’ consent
Meat, eggs and dairy products from animals raised on the millions of tons of GM feed imported into Europe do not have to be labelled. Some studies show that contrary to GM and food industry claims, animals raised on GM feed ARE different from those raised on non-GM feed.[18]  Other studies show that if GM crops are fed to animals, GM material can appear in the resulting products[19] and that the animals’ health can be affected.[20] So eating “stealth GMOs” may affect the health of consumers.
8. GM crops are a long-term economic disaster for farmers
A 2009 report showed that GM seed prices in America have increased dramatically, compared to non-GM and organic seeds, cutting average farm incomes for US farmers growing GM crops. The report concluded, “At the present time there is a massive disconnect between the sometimes lofty rhetoric from those championing biotechnology as the proven path toward global food security and what is actually happening on farms in the US that have grown dependent on GM seeds and are now dealing with the consequences.”[21]
9. GM and non-GM cannot co-exist
GM contamination of conventional and organic food is increasing. An unapproved GM rice that was grown for only one year in field trials was found to have extensively contaminated the US rice supply and seed stocks.[22] In Canada, the organic oilseed rape industry has been destroyed by contamination from GM rape.[23] In Spain, a study found that GM maize “has caused a drastic reduction in organic cultivations of this grain and is making their coexistence practically impossible”.[24]
The time has come to choose between a GM-based, or a non-GM-based, world food supply.
“If some people are allowed to choose to grow, sell and consume GM foods, soon nobody will be able to choose food, or a biosphere, free of GM. It’s a one way choice, like the introduction of rabbits or cane toads to Australia; once it’s made, it can’t be reversed.” – Roger Levett, specialist in sustainable development[25]
10. We can’t trust GM companies
The big biotech firms pushing their GM foods have a terrible history of toxic contamination and public deception.[26] GM is attractive to them because it gives them patents that allow monopoly control over the world’s food supply. They have taken to harassing and intimidating farmers for the “crime” of saving patented seed or “stealing” patented genes — even if those genes got into the farmer’s fields through accidental contamination by wind or insects.[27]
“Farmers are being sued for having GMOs on their property that they did not buy, do not want, will not use and cannot sell.” – Tom Wiley, North Dakota farmer[28]
References

1. A Note on Rising Food Prices. Donald Mitchell, World Bank report, 2008. http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Environment/documents/2008/07/10/Biofuels.PDF
2. Hope for Africa lies in political reforms. Daniel Howden, The Independent, 8 September 2008, http://www.independent.co.uk:80/opinion/commentators/daniel-howden-hope-for-africa-lies-in-political-reforms-922487.html
3. GM: it’s safe, but it’s not a saviour. Rob Lyons, Spiked Online, 7 July 2008, http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/5438/
4. The adoption of bioengineered crops. Jorge Fernandez-Cornejo and William D. McBride, US Department of Agriculture Report, May 2002, http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer810/aer810.pdf
5. Glyphosate-resistant soyabean cultivar yields compared with sister lines. Elmore, R.W. et al., Agronomy Journal, Vol. 93, No. 2, 2001, pp. 408–412
6. Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops. Doug Gurian-Sherman, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2009, http://tiny.cc/eqZST
7. Genetic engineering — a crop of hyperbole. Doug Gurian-Sherman, The San Diego Union Tribune, 18 June 2008, http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080618/news_lz1e18gurian.html
8. Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use: The First Thirteen Years. Charles Benbrook, Ph.D., The Organic Center, November 2009, http://www.organic-center.org/science.pest.php?action=view&report_id=159
9. Family Farmers Warn of Dangers of Genetically Engineered Crops. Bill Christison, In Motion magazine, 29 July 1998, http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/genet1.html
10. International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development: Global Summary for Decision Makers (IAASTD). Beintema, N. et al., 2008, http://www.agassessment.org/index.cfm?Page=IAASTD%20Reports&ItemID=2713
11. International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development: Global Summary for Decision Makers (IAASTD). Beintema, N. et al., 2008, http://www.agassessment.org/index.cfm?Page=IAASTD%20Reports&ItemID=2713
12. Marker-assisted selection: an approach for precision plant breeding in the twenty-first century. Collard, B.C.Y. and D.J. Mackill, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, Vol. 363, 2008, pp. 557-572, 2008
13. Breeding for abiotic stresses for sustainable agriculture. Witcombe J.R. et al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 2008, Vol. 363, pp. 703-716
14. Gene mapping the friendly face of GM technology. Professor John Snape, Farmers Weekly, 1 March 2002, p. 54
15. Here is a small selection of such papers: Fine structural analysis of pancreatic acinar cell nuclei from mice fed on GM soybean. Malatesta, M. et al., Eur. J. Histochem., Vol. 47, 2003, pp. 385–388; Ultrastructural morphometrical and immunocytochemical analyses of hepatocyte nuclei from mice fed on genetically modified soybean. Malatesta, M. et al., Cell Struct Funct., Vol. 27, 2002, pp. 173-180; Ultrastructural analysis of testes from mice fed on genetically modified soybean. Vecchio L. et al., Eur. J. Histochem., Vol. 48, pp. 448-454, 2004; A long-term study on female mice fed on a genetically modified soybean: effects on liver ageing. Malatesta M. et al., Histochem Cell Biol., Vol. 130, 2008, pp. 967-977; Effects of diets containing genetically modified potatoes expressing Galanthus nivalis lectin on rat small intestine. Ewen S.W. and A. Pusztai, The Lancet, Vol. 354, 1999, pp. 1353–1354; New Analysis of a Rat Feeding Study with a Genetically Modified Maize Reveals Signs of Hepatorenal Toxicity. Séralini, G.-E. et al., Arch. Environ. Contam. Toxicol., Vol. 52, 2007, pp. 596-602.
16. Assessing the survival of transgenic plant DNA in the human gastrointestinal tract. Netherwood T. et al., Nature Biotechnology, Vol. 22, 2004, pp. 204–209.
17. Trans Fats: The story behind the label. Paula Hartman Cohen, Harvard Public Health Review, 2006, http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/review/rvw_spring06/rvwspr06_transfats.html
18. Report on animals exposed to GM ingredients in animal feed. Professor Jack A. Heinemann, PhD. Prepared for the Commerce Commission of New Zealand, 24 July 2009, http://bit.ly/4HcJuJ
19. Detection of Transgenic and Endogenous Plant DNA in Digesta and Tissues of Sheep and Pigs Fed Roundup Ready Canola Meal. Sharma, R. et al., J. Agric. Food Chem., Vol. 54, No. 5, 2006, pp. 1699–1709; Assessing the transfer of genetically modified DNA from feed to animal tissues. Mazza, R. et al., Transgenic Res., Vol. 14, No. 5, 2005, pp. 775–784; Detection of genetically modified DNA sequences in milk from the Italian market. Agodi, A., et al., Int. J. Hyg. Environ. Health, Vol. 209, 2006, pp. 81–88
20. Report on animals exposed to GM ingredients in animal feed. Professor Jack A. Heinemann, PhD. Prepared for the Commerce Commission of New Zealand, 24 July 2009, http://bit.ly/4HcJuJ
21. The Magnitude and Impacts of the Biotech and Organic Seed Price Premium. Dr Charles Benbrook, The Organic Center, December 2009, http://www.organic-center.org/reportfiles/Seeds_Final_11-30-09.pdf
22. Risky business: Economic and regulatory impacts from the unintended release of genetically engineered rice varieties into the rice merchandising system of the US. Blue, Dr E. Neal, report for Greenpeace, 2007, http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/risky-business.pdf
23. Seeds of doubt: North American farmers’ experience of GM crops. Soil Association, 2002, http://www.soilassociation.org/seedsofdoubt
24. Coexistence of plants and coexistence of farmers: Is an individual choice possible? Binimelis, R., Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, Vol. 21, No. 2, April 2008
25. Choice: Less can be more. Roger Levett, Food Ethics magazine, Vol. 3, No. 3, Autumn 2008, p. 11, http://www.foodethicscouncil.org/node/384
26. See, for example, Marie-Monique Robin’s documentary film, Le Monde Selon Monsanto (The World According to Monsanto), ARTE, 2008; and the website of the NGO, Coalition Against Bayer-Dangers, www.cbgnetwork.org
27. GM company Monsanto has launched many such lawsuits against farmers. A famous example is the case of the Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser. Just one article on this case is “GM firm sues Canadian farmer”, BBC News Online, 6 June 2000, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/779265.stm
28. Monsanto ”Seed Police” Scrutinize Farmers. Stephen Leahy, InterPress Service, 15 January 2004, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0115-04.htm

We’ve been trained to think that our government is here to serve our best interests. Thankfully, this is partially true. On the other hand, as more and more corporations have brought pressure to bear on our government process, as citizens, patients and consumers, we come second to profit margins. This creates quite a conflict because it allows for bad, dangerous and health-defying food to line the shelves of every grocery store across the country.

To state things clearly: Our government does not protect us from disease and symptom-causing foods appearing in grocery stores. YOU must become your own watchdog. YOU must become informed because we live in a free enterprise system wherein artificial ingredients, pesticides and refined sugar is allowed to be sold and eaten without any warning statements appearing on labels or literature.

The Organic Consumer Association reports:

Millions of health-minded Americans, especially parents of young children, now understand that cheap, non-organic, industrial food is hazardous. Not only does chemical and energy-intensive factory farming destroy the environment, impoverish rural communities, exploit farm workers, inflict unnecessary cruelty on farm animals, and contaminate the water supply; but the end product itself is inevitably contaminated. Routinely contained in nearly every bite or swallow of non-organic industrial food are pesticides, antibiotics and other animal drug residues, pathogens, feces, hormone disrupting chemicals, toxic sludge, slaughterhouse waste, genetically modified organisms, chemical additives and preservatives, irradiation-derived radiolytic chemical by-products, and a host of other hazardous allergens and toxins. Eighty million cases of food poisoning every year in the US, an impending swine/bird flu pandemic (directly attributable to factory farms), and an epidemic of food-related cancers, heart attacks, and obesity make for a compelling case for the Organic Alternative.

Would you eat bug spray? Our government agencies DO NOT protect us from eating bug sprays on our food. This is the reason why people are eating organics and biodynamic fruits and vegetables.

Monsanto, the leader in genetically engineered foods, so far, has our government’s stamp of approval for their unproven, unnatural GMO crops. If your food is not marked organic or biodynamic, there is a HUGE chance that the corn you eat at a restaurant or buy at your grocery store is genetically engineered.

The next time you eat fast food, candy or a bag of Doritos, just remember that there’s no government protection when it comes to keeping bad food out of your shopping cart.

Sources:

1. Cummins, Ronnie, The Organic Monopoly and the Myth of “Natural” Foods: How Industry Giants Are Undermining the Organic Movement, Organic Consumers Association, July 8, 2009

For 13 years I have had to read editorials like the one that appeared a few days ago in the Mercury News, a newspaper that supposedly serves San Jose, California.  Editorials like this are typical of the way that fluoridation is slipped into unsuspecting communities. First, comes an announcement that fluoridation is being considered – or – that at long last money is now available to finance the scheme – or – that several groups of “highly respected” dentists as well as local professional bodies and social organizations have got together to endorse fluoridation. A few days later comes the editorial in the local paper, containing the usual rhetoric: “Our town is behind the times.” “Every scientific body says that fluoridation is the best thing since sliced bread.” “All the scientists and professional bodies say it is ‘safe and effective’” and “only a vocal minority is holding us back” blah blah blah.

For those who know the issue it is nauseating that supposedly “professional” journalists can do so much damage while doing so little – if any -homework. For those who do not know the issue it must be so easy to go along with the honeyed words and be deluded into thinking that “progress” is being served and rampant tooth decay among the children of low-income families is going to be cured. They will probably feel that it is great that money has been found to finance such a worthy cause!

[If you oppose fluoride, here's a good model article you can send to your local newspaper when they, like so many others, decide to push the fluoridation agenda without doing any research in order to serve the public with balanced reporting of the facts]…

Dear Editor,

Like every citizen in a democracy you are entitled to your opinion. However, your readers are entitled to expect you to behave professionally. Lest you have forgotten, that means that you are expected to visit both sides of a controversial issue before you issue your opinion. In the case of your fluoridation editorial (August you have not done this. You have simply parroted one side without making any effort to investigate the other. If you honestly believe what you wrote then you have been duped.

It only takes a very little effort to get the other side of this issue. All you needed to do was to type 21 characters into your computer:  www.FluorideAlert.org There you could have watched 15 professionals talk about the “science” and the “ethical” issues involved in this debate and explain why fluoridation is a very bad idea.

You could have also read the statement now signed by over 2500 professionals calling for an end to fluoridation worldwide. Even better you might have investigated the document on which this statement is largely based, namely the 507-page review by a panel, appointed by the National Research Council, entitled “Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Review of EPA’s Standards” published in March 2006. This is accessible from the same web site (scroll down on the right hand side). If time was you might simply have read a short article published in the Scientific American in January, 2008 entitled “Second Thoughts about Fluoride” by Dan Fagin. In that article there is a short statement by the chairman of the NRC panel, Dr. John Doull, which might have given you pause before you wholeheartedly and unreservedly recommended that fluoridation be imposed on the unsuspecting citizens of San Jose. Here is the section in which Dr. Doull was quoted:

“What the committee found is that we’ve gone with the status quo regarding fluoride for many years-for too long, really-and now we need to take a fresh look,” Doull says. “In the scientific community, people tend to think this is settled. I mean, when the U.S. surgeon general  comes out and says this is one of the 10 greatest achievements of the 20th century, that’s a hard hurdle to get over.  But when we looked at the studies that have been done, we found that many of these questions are unsettled and we have much less information than we should, considering how long this [fluoridation] has been going on. I think that’s why fluoridation is still being challenged so many years after it began. In the face of ignorance, controversy is rampant.”

I believe that you owe your readers an apology for your rash assumptions in this matter.  If professional journalism means anything to you – and of course, it may not – you need to go back and do your homework. Among the many things a democracy needs to survive is a strong and objective Fourth Estate. Without it corruption is allowed to flourish and sadly, as in this case, foolish public health policies can continue without being informed by sound science.  I do not say these things lightly. I am a scientist and I have spent 13 years investigating this issue and I am appalled by the way newspapers like yours treat this matter and how badly editors like yourself represent your profession.

Dr. Paul Connett,
Professor Emeritus of Environmental Chemistry,
St. Lawrence University, Canton NY
Executive Director, Fluoride Action Network

Vic Shayne, PhD, Author, Illness Isn't Caused by a Drug Deficiency!

by Vic Shayne, PhD

I agree with this statement made by Andrew Weil, MD, about impending heath care reform in our country “… what’s missing, tragically, is a diagnosis of the real, far more fundamental problem, which is that what’s even worse than its stratospheric cost is the fact that American health care doesn’t fulfill its prime directive — it does not help people become or stay healthy. It’s not a health care system at all; it’s a disease management system, and making the current system cheaper and more accessible will just spread the dysfunction more broadly.

It’s true, at least in my opinion, that the biggest problem we have is our approach to health care. We have drug care, surgery care and disease care, but not health care. And, NO PREVENTION at all. Such things are not covered, because Big Pharma, medical doctors, hospitals and diagnostics companies can’t make money on it; and they cannot bilk the system — insurance companies, consumers and government. The further complication is that too many congressmen and government officials are making money off these giants of industry involved in anything but health care. The American public is the loser.

There’s plenty said about new cancer treatment, new drugs, new findings and other such information. But nothing ever comes of this. For the past forty years we’ve been hearing, on the news, that a cure for cancer is around the corner. It’s just lip service to keep the public hopeful. In the meantime, little is done to curtail the big corporations knowingly causing cancer with pesticides, fertilizers, chemicals, toxic waste, medical radiation, drugs and other fully legal means. And worse, the cancer rate has been escalating without cessation. One look at the Mississippi or the Great Lakes will give you a quick reason why.

The average American eats an atrocious, depleted, disease-causing diet, but don’t dare try to go after General Mills, Dean Foods or Monsanto because they react with an all-too-familiar response reminiscent of a tragic period in world history — “We’re just doing our jobs.” And the scientists and PR people in these companies? “We are just following orders.” Bad answer.  The responsibility not to add to the weight of disease cannot be shouldered by the government or private individuals alone. Profiteering in disease is ethically and morally reprehensible, but the corporations behind this sort of activity are not called on the carpet for their dubious behavior.

Take a good hard look at the labels in your grocery store and you’ll read the names of artificial chemicals galore on the packaging of crackers, breads, cereals, sauces, drinks, shampoo, laundry detergent, makeup, deodorants, dog food, bug sprays and so on. These chemicals cause cancer and the companies that make them know it. But they are allowed to create these horrible products anyway. And when the public doesn’t know what they are putting in, on and over their bodies, it’s an understatement to proclaim that ignorance is NOT bliss.

If you want to curb health costs, cancer rates, disfigurement and obesity, you have to start by getting rid of the chemicals and return to natural health care that begins not in the doctor’s office but on the kitchen table!

Are human beings, like you and your family, meant to eat bug sprays and deadly chemicals saturated into your food? Would you spray some Raid on your tomatoes and green beans then eat them? Well, this is what the nonorganic farmers are doing to your food.

A recent column by Mark Morford in the San Francisco Chronicle told it like it is about organic foods…

One large study has dared come forth to claim that organic food is really no better for you than “regular” food, implying that the organic thing is all a big sham, a multibillion-dollar lie, that the giant, watery, flavorless Safeway tomato doused in chemicals and gene-spliced goodness is really no worse for you than that fragrant, delicious, organic heirloom from Rainbow Grocery, or that the chem-blasted asparagus shipped in from Mexico in November has the same nutritional value as the organic goodness you should be getting in April from the local farm.

Is it tempting to believe? Not in the slightest. For one thing, going organic is only partially about basic, keep-you-alive nutrients. It’s just as much about the various toxins, chemicals, refined sugars and hormones slapped all over corporate foodstuffs in general; not to mention the brutal, earth-stabbing, industrial manufacturing and farming practices that go into most crappy mainstream foods.

In other words, yes, in terms of basic nutritional values, maybe some organic foods are no better for you than their “normal” industrial-produced equivalents. Unless you count the vicious environmental impact. And the chemicals. And the cancer. And the death. Otherwise, same.

Dammit. Wait a second. It also turns out that “USDA Certified Organic” label is just all sorts of mealy BS, too, and can’t really be trusted. Turns out the USDA has been so pressured by various industrial food titans to loosen the definition of “organic,” that the label has been rendered, if not meaningless, then more watered down than that same Safeway tomato. Are the USDA’s standards still a huge improvement over what came before? Hell yes. But they’re far from ideal.

Solution: Learn to read the ingredients yourself. Figure it out. Understand what you eat, and where it really comes from. It’s not really very difficult. Or, pretend that it is, that it’s too weird and you don’t have the time to care and it’s just too complicated. You are probably lying. But that’s OK.

You go to a restaurant and on the menu there is fish. But where does it come from? The sea, of course, right?? Not necessarily, and in many cases, not likely. The fact about fish is that it is too often factory farmed. What does this mean? It means it’s grown in a pen in the water, like a chicken couped up inhumanely in a cage. Maybe worse. Whole Foods sells a lot of factory farmed fish. So much for being a “health food” store.

A recent article about Chile’s farmed fish factories, in the Huffington Post, by Dan Imhoff, stated:

Salmon are not indigenous to Chile, but grown in crowded cages installed in the bays and estuaries of the country’s otherwise beautiful southern fjord region. These “farmed” Atlantic salmon are fed a steady diet of wild fish—perfectly edible for humans, but more profitable when converted into “value-added” finfish. The approximately three pounds of wild fish needed to produce each pound of farmed salmon has caused some people to refer to finfish aquaculture operations as “reverse protein factories.” Equally alarming, salmon farms have become excessively dependent upon toxic pesticides to combat sea lice and antibiotic medicines to thwart viruses that can run rampant among the high concentrations of rapidly growing, penned fish—not unlike industrial-scale hog, poultry, and cattle CAFOs on land.

The Vegan Society (United Kingdom) doesn’t like farmed fish, or any fish for that matter. But they do serve up some interesting facts:

Fish farms can be as intensive as anything found on terra firma. Up to 50,000 salmon are crowded in a single sea cage where they often swim in constant circles like caged zoo animals. Often suffering blinding cataracts, fin and tail injuries, body deformities, alarmingly high mortality, and infested with parasites, salmon are now raised intensively on the ‘forgotten’ factory farms under the sea. Off the Scottish west coast, for instance, salmon are reared at stocking densities equivalent to each three-quarter metre long (2.5 ft) salmon being allocated a bathtub of water. Crowding and confinement cause the fish to suffer stress, leading to greater susceptibility to disease. Wave after wave of serious disease outbreaks have caused the deaths of millions of farmed salmon, with official figures showing overall death rates of 10-30%. Such high mortality would sound alarm bells in other types of animal farming.

There are two sides to the factory farming, or farm-raised fish, picture. And neither side is very appealing. On the one side is that the fish are mistreated and there’s a tremendous environmental cost, as we discussed. Secondly, there is a cost in terms of your health. Farm raised fish are bad for you! Environmental Working Group reports:

Farm-raised salmon, a popular fish in American supermarkets, is so contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals that people should eat it no more than once a month, a new study says. The 14 chemicals studied, most of them pesticides, all are banned in the United States. But they can linger for decades in the environment and in the human body, and are present in the smaller fish that are ground up and fed to salmon raised in giant ocean cages. Wild salmon have much lower levels of contaminants and are safer to eat, the study found.

The toxic residue in the human body is lingering. To give you an example, If a little girl that’s 10 years old eats salmon [containing these
contaminants], when she’s 20 she’s going to have half that in her body.

Ontario protects health and the environment through pesticide ban

OTTAWA – Ontario has set a new standard for protecting citizens and the environment against harmful lawn and garden pesticides.   Hundreds of toxic chemicals will be pulled off store shelves by this spring thanks to regulations announced today under the Cosmetic Pesticide Act.

“We congratulate the Ontario government for raising the bar on protecting people and the environment from needless pesticide exposure,” says Dr. David Suzuki, co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.  “Ontario should be commended for putting the health and opinions of its citizen first and resisting the powerful lobbying of chemical companies.  I hope this action will stimulate a discussion about the role of chemicals from all sources in our lives.”

Ontario’s new regulations surpass existing restrictions on pesticides in Quebec – the only other province that bans lawn chemicals.
Today’s announcement will pull more than 250 toxic pesticides off store shelves by the end of April.  The Cosmetic Pesticide Act was originally passed last June and recognizes that the ‘cosmetic’ use of pesticides to improve the appearance of lawns and gardens presents health and environmental risks.  Today’s announcement specifies exactly which pesticides will be pulled from store shelves and when the ban will take effect.

“Now that the details of Ontario’s ban have been finalized, the province needs to follow through with a comprehensive public education campaign,” says Lisa Gue, environmental health policy analyst for the David Suzuki Foundation.  “The government also needs to put in place a robust and effective enforcement program to ensure its success.”

There are areas for improvement in the legislation.  For instance, golf courses are exempt from the ban and sale restrictions on certain products will not take effect for two years.

The Suzuki Foundation challenges other provinces to “meet or beat” Ontario’s ban on cosmetic pesticides to ensure a high standard of protection for human health and the environment across the country.

- END -

For more information, contact:

Leanne Clare
Communications Specialist
Office:  (613) 594-5410
Cell:  (613) 286-0182

Lisa Gue
Environmental Health Policy Analyst
Office: (613) 594-5428
Cell:  (613) 796-7699

GMOs Aren’t Safe! Don’t Let Obama Put GMO Boosters in Charge of Food Safety!

Genetically modified foods are not safe. The only reason they’re in our food supply is because government bureaucrats with ties to industry suppressed or manipulated scientific research and deprived consumers of the information they need to make informed choices about whether or not to eat genetically modified foods.

Now, the Obama Administration is putting two notorious biotech bullies in charge of food safety! Former Monsanto lobbyist Michael Taylor has been appointed as a senior advisor to the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner on food safety. And, rBGH-using dairy farmer and Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff is rumored to be President Obama’s choice for Under-Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety. Wolfe spearheaded anti-consumer legislation in Pennsylvania that would have taken away the rights of consumers to know whether their milk and dairy products were contaminated with Monsanto’s (now Eli Lilly’s) genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH).

Use the form (linked) to send a message to President Obama, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (oversees FDA) demanding Michael Taylor’s resignation, and letting them know that you oppose Dennis Wolff’s appointment.

About Michael Taylor

Michael Taylor is a lawyer who has spent the last few decades moving through the revolving door between the employ of GMO-seed giant Monsanto and the FDA and USDA. Taylor is widely credited with ushering Monsanto’s recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) through the FDA regulatory process and into the milk supply — unlabeled. A Government Accounting Office (GAO) investigated whether Taylor had a conflict of interest and or had engaged in ethical misconduct in the approval of rBGH. The report’s conclusion that there was no wrongdoing conflicted with the 30 pages of evidence that Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) described as proof that “the FDA allowed corporate influence to run rampant in its approval” of the drug.

Taylor is also responsible for the FDA’s decision to treat genetically modified organisms as “substantially equivalent” to natural foods and therefore not require any safety studies. The “substantially equivalent” rule allowed the FDA to ignore evidence that genetically engineered foods, including soy, are in fact very different from natural foods and pose specific health risks.

In November 2008, Tom Philpott reported that Taylor was among President-Elect Obama’s “team members” looking at energy and natural resources agencies, including USDA. In March 2009, President Obama announced the creation of a White House Food Safety Working Group to improve and coordinate the government’s approach to the nationwide food safety crisis. Agri-Pulse reported that Taylor was “the leading candidate to staff the White House [food safety] working group.” While anti-GMO activists, including the Organic Consumers Association, protested — OCA members sent 13,435 letters to USDA Sec. Tom Vilsack, who co-chairs the Food Safety Working Group with HHS Sec. Sebelius — Taylor laid low. He was nowhere to be found at the White House Food Safety Working Group’s May 13th Listening Session. But, the rumor proved true. On July 7, 2009, the FDA announced that Taylor had joined the agency as senior adviser to the commissioner.

As Philpott describes in a July 8th article, Taylor’s food safety agenda is to “shift much more of the burden for funding food-safety operations to the state and local level” and to promote HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) systems where the points in a process that pose the most risk are identified and “fixed” with remedies like ammonia washes and irradiation. Taylor’s approach — putting a few bandaids on an industrialized food system gone wrong — is in direct conflict with organic practices and is likely to unduly burden small producers.

Taylor has long been hostile to real food safety. While working as a lobbyist, Taylor authored more than a dozen articles critical of the Delaney Clause, a 1958 federal law prohibiting the introduction of known carcinogens into processed foods, which had long been opposed by Monsanto and other chemical and pesticide companies. When Taylor rejoined the federal government, he continued advocating that Delaney should be overturned. This was finally done when President Clinton signed the so-called Food Quality Protection Act on the eve of the 1996 elections.

Taylor is featured in the documentary,  The World According to Monsanto, which you can watch on OCA’s Millions Against Monsanto page.

About Dennis Wolff

Dennis Wolff is the Secretary of Agriculture for the State of Pennsylvania. Wolff also is a dairy farmer and owns Pen-Col Farms, a 600-acre dairy cattle operation. Wolff has championed agribusiness interests as Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Agriculture, including banning local dairies from marketing their products as free of Monsanto’s rBGH. Wolff is a member of the Agriculture Technical Advisory Committee to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO has been largely credited with forcing so-called “free trade” on farmers and consumers around the globe, undermining national sovereignty and food safety. Finally, Wolff  was a strong proponent of the “ACRE” initiative (Agriculture, Communities and Rural Environment), which gives the Pennsylvania state attorney general’s office the authority to sue municipalities over local farm ordinances deemed to exceed state law, depriving communities the right to ban toxic sewage sludge, factory farms, and GMOs.

Aside from having absolutely no experience in meat inspection, the chief food safety responsibility of the USDA, Dennis Wolff should be rejected for any post within the Obama Administration for the hostile position he has taken, as Pennsylvania’s Agriculture Secretary, against consumers’ right to know what is in our food. According to the Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Wolff:

* Tried to ban all labeling of dairy products that didn’t use genetically engineered growth hormone (rBGH or rBST). This was an outright violation of freedom of speech of the dairy processors and the farmers who supplied them.

* Said that consumers were “concerned or confused” about the labeling and said his department received “many calls” about it. Yet when a New York Times reporter asked him about this, Wolff couldn’t provide any surveys showing consumers were confused and could not come up with the name of ONE CONSUMER who had complained.

* Held one meeting of the so-called Food Labeling Advisory Committee and said they recommended the labeling ban. Yet the committee never voted on anything and never made any recommendations specific to dairy. Moreover, the group most affected by the rules and most opposed to them, the PA Association of Milk Dealers, was never even invited to the meeting.

We at Nutrition Research Center, Inc.  do not do consultations over the web

Here’s an excerpt from Discover Card:

From: “Discover Network” <discovernetwork@email.discovernetwork.com>
Date: April 20, 2009 4:33:33 PM MDT
Subject: Important Changes to Your Merchant Program Documents
Reply-To: “Discover Network” <discovernetwork@email.discovernetwork.com>

Important Changes to Your Merchant Operating Regulations, Dispute Rules Manual, and Technical Specifications
Dear Merchant:

Prohibited Merchant Categories. You may not accept Cards for payment of online medical consultations that result in a prescription without an in-person examination of the patient by a medical doctor to determine that medication is appropriate.

© 2009 DFS Services LLC  We respect your right to privacy.  View our privacy policy.
www.DiscoverNetwork.com

Essentially, Discover card is refusing to provide credit card service if you work with people over the internet. The question remains: What, in their book, constitutes medical consultation versus health consultation? This is dangerous territory. If you are a health coach or even a medical doctor who works with clients or patients around the country, it’s not a good sign.