Understanding the world you live in is extremely important in terms of staying healthy and living a long and prosperous life.
Part of that understanding is knowing how large corporate interests are working against your efforts to feed your body nutrition and to eat healthy, natural foods.
One of these corporations that needs more exposure is Monsanto.
Monsanto is the company that brought us Agent Orange and was accused of fraud in assessing the risks of dioxin, Agent Orange's by-product.
Said William Sanjour, Policy Analyst at the EPA, "This kind of cold-blooded analysis is bad enough when the product is used by the general public, but it is insufferable when used on our own armed forces who were exposed in combat.... The issue wasn't false science, but allegedly using false science to cover-up a callous hard-hearted decision to continue poisoning our GIs and their children because it was cheaper to do so."
In addtion, the Guardian has uncovered corruption involving Monsanto payments to Sir Richard Doll for over 20 years. Doll "backed up" Monsanto's claim that Agent Orange didn't cause cancer while on their payroll.
Doll was also paid by "Chemical Manufacturers Association and two other major companies, Dow Chemicals and ICI, for a review that largely cleared vinyl chloride, used in plastics, of any link with cancers apart from liver cancer - a conclusion with which the World Health Organization disagrees".
Monsanto is now one of the leading companies in the field of genetically modified food. Corruption abounds here also, i.e. very little to no research concerning the health hazards of GM food to humans as well as efforts to patent natural processes (such as the pig-Google patent WO 2005/017204).
Monsanto also markets bovine somatotropin, or bst under the name of Posilac.
This growth hormone is injected into a cow's pituitary gland in order to gain a 25% increase in milk output. Monsanto won't allow farmers or retailers who sell milk without bst to label it as so! Monsanto threatens legal action against such efforts, as well as holding off any government induced labeling of bst.
Monsanto is blackmailing many farmers by threatening to sue over the use of their "patented" seed.
In a Centre for Food Safety (CFS) report called "Monsanto vs. U.S. Farmers", it's revealed that as of 2005, Monsanto had been awarded over $15 million by suing farmers.
In fact, Kem Ralph of Covington, Tennessee, spent four months in jail in 1998 and owed Monsanto $1.8 million in penalties for replanting Monsanto's Roundup Ready soy seed.
Part the strategy here is to force farmers into using their "terminator seed", meaning instead of using centuries old farming techniques that keep farmers independent of corporate control, they're now being forced to buy from Monsanto each growing season (look up the number of Indian farmers committing suicide over the GM food issue!).
What does this have to do with your health?
Genetically modified food has barely been tested. And in the limited testing done, things don't look good.
"Rats fed on a diet rich in genetically modified corn developed abnormalities to internal organs and changes to their blood, raising fears that human health could be affected by eating GM food. The Independent on Sunday can today reveal details of secret research carried out by Monsanto, the GM food giant, which shows that rats fed the modified corn had smaller kidneys and variations in the composition of their blood.
"According to the confidential 1,139-page report, these health problems were absent from another batch of rodents fed non-GM food as part of the research project." - The Independent May 22, 2005
You should educate yourself on this issue and seek out non-GM food if you value a long and healthy life.
Published by Matt Z. on November 12, 2007 05:13 PM
