60 Minutes on the artifical sweetner Aspartame

Dr Mercola interviews Dr Huber about GMO

Dr Huber describes the hazards of using glyphosate herbicide (Roundup by Monsanto) and the “Roundup Ready” glyphosate-resistant genetically modified line of crops.  This is particularly relevant now due to the recent deregulation of glyphosate resistant GMO alfalfa for animal feed.

He also announces the discovery of a novel pathogenic organism which is associated with GMO-induced infertility in animals and humans.

Hopefully this will inspire farmers to rethink their use of Round Up and consumers to demand proper labeling of GMO foods.

Monsanto running U.S. agriculture into crisis

This came to me in an email from a family member who works in environmental health.

According to renowned plant pathologist Don Huber of Purdue University, Monsanto’s GMO Roundup Ready corn and soybean feeds have been linked to shocking 20% rates of infertility in cattle and hogs, and up to 45% spontaneous abortion rates in cattle and dairy operations, putting many farmers out of business. The cause appears to be associated with increased corn and soybean plant infection rates from a tiny soil-dwelling organism Fusarium oxysporum that can only be seen under an electron microscope. Dr. Huber is leading a charge to put a stop to sale and planting of Roundup Ready alfalfa that was recently approved by USDA head Tom Vilsack.

This news is hardly surprising, given the countless of warnings from ecologists that Monsanto’s rash practices would put our crops at increased risk for a disease. Ecological risk is something often overlooked or underrated in the industry, to the benefit of sheer financial gain. Unfortunately for us all, Monsanto literally owns 93% of soybeans, 82% of corn in the U.S., which quite likely means it is (and we are) recklessly blundering into an epic food crisis.

At the crux of this crisis is a soil organism Fusarium oxysporum that decreases manganese (a micro-nutrient) uptake in plants – and manganese deficiency leads to infertility and spontaneous abortion in livestock. The organism has been consistently isolated from the feed in operations plagued with fertility problems. In addition to a generally lower plant nutritional value, Roundup (glyphosate) use is linked to increased infection rates of Fusarium oxysporum, which causes sudden death syndrome in soybeans.

Despite these ominous findings, Secretary of Agriculture and Obama appointee Tom Vilsack certified Monsanto’s new genetically-modified organism (GMO) “Roundup-Ready” alfalfa earlier this year, after 6 years of lawsuits from farmers concerned with contamination in their fields of the plant due to inevitable cross-pollination. This decision legalizes the sale and planting of the Roundup Ready alfalfa, which will dominate the market within 5 years on the same scale as Monsanto corn and soybeans under business as usual. Because alfalfa is the nation’s staple feed crop, any similar pattern of Fusarium oxysporum infection in alfalfa would leave the beef and dairy industry in shambles.

Dr. Huber is so alarmed with the ramifications of Roundup Ready alfalfa on our agricultural system that he is publicly calling for president Obama to halt the sale and planting of the crops (sign the petition!). He’s putting his long, prestigious career on the line in favor of swift action that is not possible in the inherently slow, arduous debates of peer-reviewed journals. Not to mention, he is sticking out his neck in the line of fire of corporate behemoth Monsanto, who has already started a smear campaign against him.

Whenever crop production is turned to a field of clones, as is the case with Roundup-Ready systems, there is an inherent vulnerability to disease. The use of glyphosate, the herbicidal ingredient of Roundup, causes a shift in the types of organisms that are represented in the soil microbial populations. Some important species’ functions become absent, such as those that promote plant uptake of nutrients including Mn, or those that are effective biological control against plant diseases. As a result, plants may become less nutritious and more vulnerable to massive crop failures.

Here are two PDF’s of articles on the link between glyphosates and crop micronutrient deficiencies:

http://www.agweb.com/assets/import/files/58P20-22.pdf

http://www.btny.purdue.edu/weedscience/2010/GlyphosateMn.pdf

USDA Certified Organic’s Dirty Little Secret: Neotame

By Barbara H. Peterson

Farm Wars

Just when we thought that buying “Organic” was safe, we run headlong into the deliberate poisoning of our organic food supply by the FDA in collusion with none other than the folks who brought us Aspartame. NutraSweet, a former Monsanto asset, has developed a new and improved version of this neurotoxin called Neotame.

Neotame has similar structure to aspartame — except that, from it’s structure, appears to be even more toxic than aspartame. This potential increase in toxicity will make up for the fact that less will be used in diet drinks. Like aspartame, some of the concerns include gradual neurotoxic and immunotoxic damage from the combination of the formaldehyde metabolite (which is toxic at extremely low doses) and the excitotoxic amino acid. (Holisticmed.com)

But surely, this product would be labeled! NOT SO!!! For this little gem, no labeling required. And it is even included in USDA Certified Organic food.

The food labeling requirements required for aspartame have now been dropped for Neotame, and no one is clear why this was allowed to happen. Neotame has been ruled acceptable, and without being included on the list of ingredients, for:

• USDA Certified Organic food items.
• Certified Kosher products with the official letter k inside the circle on labels. (Janet Hull)

I told you not to drink that crap when you were pregnant

Danish population study shows link between diet soda consumption and pre-term birth.

(Natural News) Regular consumption of artificial sweeteners by pregnant women may increase their risk of premature birth, according to a study funded by the European Union and published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Researchers interviewed almost 60,000 pregnant Danish women about their soft-drink consumption, then compared these data with the results of the women’s births. They found that drinking one can of diet soda per day increased her risk of giving birth prematurely by 38 percent compared with women who never drank diet soda. Drinking four or more of the beverages per day increased the risk of preterm birth by 78 percent.

A preterm birth is defined as taking place before the 38th week of pregnancy.

No connection was found between sugared soda consumption and premature birth, suggesting that artificial sweeteners may be playing a role in the effect. The researchers suggested that premature births may be triggered in part by the neurotoxin methanol, which is generated by some artificial sweeteners. Sweeteners may also generate formaldehyde, another known toxin.

Read more on Natural News…

I’ll move this rant down below cause I’m not trying to make this all about myself, but my blood is boiling right now so I’ll tell you about my personal experience with methanol pop and pregnancy..

I literally BEGGED my (now x) wife when she was pregnant with our son to stop consuming diet coke.  The “compromise” we arrived at was to reduce it to 1 can per day.  Luckily he wasn’t premature but the toxic effects of methanol and formaldehyde are well known so it would be foolish to assume it had no effect.

It was as obvious to me then as it is now that pregnant women should not consume the stuff at all.  Nobody should, but when you hold someone else’s future in your hand/womb, please try to use common sense.   I know the phenylalanine in it is addictive, but you can quit, especially if it means protecting your baby and placenta from methanol and formaldehyde.

Being vindicated by this study is no consolation at all.  I’m just sorry for my son that I wasn’t able to confince his mom to do the right thing.  He’s totally healthy, but I find it pathetic that some women don’t want to give their children every possible advantage in life.  Diet coke is disgusting, and has no redeeming value.  Aspartame is addictive and poisonous and was rammed thru the FDA by some nasty political maneuvering on the part of president Ronald Reagan and Monsanto/Searle.

So congratulations.  I told you and you refused to listen.  You put our kid at risk for some tangy chemical soda, and mark my words, increased preterm birth risk is only the tip of the iceberg when poisoning a fetus with methanol and formaldehyde.  We may not know the impact of what you did for years. We may never know.  Hope it was worth it!

Note to other expecting parents:  Formaldehyde is what we use to embalm DEAD babies. We don’t feed it to the live ones.

Here’s a documentary about it:

Groundbreaking Study Shows Roundup Link to Birth Defects

Organicconsumers.org

• International scientists confirm dangers of Roundup at GMO-Free Regions Conference in Brussels
  GMO Free Regions, Sept 16, 2010
  Straight to the Source

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the world’s best-selling weedkiller Roundup, causes malformations in frog and chicken embryos at doses far lower than those used in agricultural spraying and well below maximum residue levels in products presently approved in the European Union. This is reported in research (1) published by a group around Professor Andrés Carrasco, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Embryology at the University of Buenos Aires Medical School and member of Argentina’s National Council of Scientific and Technical Research.

Carrasco was led to research the embryonic effects of glyphosate by reports of high rates of birth defects in rural areas of Argentina where Monsanto’s genetically modified “Roundup Ready” (RR) soybeans are grown in large monocultures sprayed from airplanes regularly. RR soy is engineered to tolerate Roundup, allowing farmers to spray the herbicide liberally to kill weeds while the crop is growing.

At a press conference during the 6th European Conference of GMO Free Regions in the European Parliament in Brussels Carrasco said, “The findings in the lab are compatible with malformations observed in humans exposed to glyphosate during pregnancy.” Reporting of such problems started in 2002, two years after large scale introduction of RR soybeans in Argentina. The experimental animals share similar developmental mechanisms with humans. The authors concluded that the results raise “concerns about the clinical findings from human offspring in populations exposed to Roundup in agricultural fields.” Carrasco added, “I suspect the toxicity classification of glyphosate is too low. In some cases this can be a powerful poison.”

Read more

The Future of Food

Unnatural Selection: Genetically Modified Canola growing wild in North Dakota

Bayer (IG Farben) and Monsanto (/Searle), two of the most evil companies in history, join forces to pollute our gene pool with their profit-motivated genetic tinkering.

Our society desperately needs to move to a techno-agrarian model using local food production and clean energy (solar and wind), domestic manufacturing, responsible mining, and renewable materials, with severely limited imports.  This is getting ridiculous.  It’s death to our environment by a thousand cuts.

For billions of years on this planet, there has not been the means to program genes manually and deliberately.   All mutations to genes have been due to random forces such as radiation or chemical damage.  Now we bring into the equation the psychology of profit combined with the ability to construct new organisms with specific purposes.  This is a quantum leap forward in terms of evolution.  In a sense it bypasses evolution since natural selection is not imposed on these new organisms.

It’s artifical,  unnatural selection, imposed by some sick, sick people.  We’re talking about the same companies that created Agent Orange defoliant (Monsanto) that caused horriffic birth defects, and Zyklon B Gas (IG Farben) used to kill concentration camp inmates in Germany during WW2.  Do we really trust them to be engaging in this sort of reckless activity that will surely have unforeseen consequences?  The biggest class action law suit you can imagine wouldn’t begin to recoup the cost of permanently removing GM plants and animals that have escaped into the wild.   There is no amount of money that can fix these problems.

From GM crop escapes into the American wild (Nature)

“The extent of the escape is unprecedented,” says Cynthia Sagers, an ecologist at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, who led the research team that found the canola (Brassica napus, also known as rapeseed).

Sagers and her team found two varieties of transgenic canola in the wild — one modified to be resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide (glyphosate), and one resistant to Bayer Crop Science’s Liberty herbicide (gluphosinate). They also found some plants that were resistant to both herbicides, showing that the different GM plants had bred to produce a plant with a new trait that did not exist anywhere else.