by Arjun Walia, Collective Evolution:
- The Facts:Glyphosate, an active ingredient within Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, was recently re-licensed and approved by the European Parliament. However, MEPs found the science given to them was plagiarized, full of industry science written by Monsanto.
- Reflect On:With so much science showing it’s harmful to humans and the environment, and the fact that several dozen countries have made it illegal, why is it still approved in the UK, Canada, and US? Among a few other places.
The GMO lobby, led by Bayer/Monsanto, Syngenta and others have begun to develop a counter-attack to try to neutralize the unexpected and, for them, devastating EU European Court of Justice ruling in July requiring that plants modified through so-called gene-editing DNA techniques must submit to the same licensing risk-assessment procedures as all other GMO plants. The ruling caught the GMO industry off-guard. Now they prepare a counter-attack as we might expect from the developers of Agent Orange, neonicotinoids or similar toxins.
The Facts:Glyphosate is a carcinogenic chemical that can be found in an alarming number of food products. Traces have even been found in companies that employ the “Organic” label.
As the U.S. Department of Agriculture works to establish a uniform national standard for labeling foods that may be genetically engineered, critics continue to call out the dangers of putting the federal government in charge of the situation. The federal government was first granted this authority in July 2016 when former President Obama signed into law a bill which amended the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 to require the Secretary of Agriculture to establish the national standard for labeling GE foods. The bill was hailed as a victory for activists, and a boost for the economy as it would help keep food costs down for low income families. Unfortunately, the bill was neither.
In 2005, the rate of patients with chronic diseases almost doubled from seven percent to 13 percent – this started to happen nine years earlier when genetically modified organisms (GMO) were introduced. While the U.S. government approves of genetically modified food, even they can’t hide that fact that it has a lot of adverse effects on humans, animals, and the environment. Such products have caused numerous health problems which often led to more serious and long-term complications due to their high toxicity levels. What’s worse is how GM products leave traces inside the body which only negatively affects the system – for instance, a pregnant woman and her unborn child were found to be carrying toxic insecticide from GM corn inside their bodies.