First, the company had been selling Roundup for years without any
problems. Second, and perhaps most important, the company’s
scientists had just spent more than a decade, and many millions of
dollars, trying to create the Roundup-resistant plants that they
desperately wanted — soybeans and cotton and corn. It had been
incredibly difficult. When I interviewed former Monsanto scientists
for my book on biotech crops, one of them called it the company’s
“Manhattan Project.”
Considering how hard it had been to create those crops, “the
thinking was, it would be really difficult for weeds to become
tolerant” to Roundup, says Rick Cole, who is now responsible for
Monsanto’s efforts to deal with the problem of resistant weeds.
So they thought small scale would be the same as saturating
90+% of every corn, soybean, peanut, and cotton field in the U.S.
and numerous other countries with virulent poisons.
Because they wanted the money.
Natural Society has awarded Monsanto the Worst Company of 2011 award
for its ongoing work to threaten human health and the environment.
Currently responsible for 90 percent of all genetically-modified (GM)
seed in the US, the biotechnology giant is also the leader in developing
genetically-modified (GM) seeds and the resulting crops worldwide.
But Monsanto is perhaps best known for its herbicide Roundup, which
many experts link to soil damage and herbicide-resistant superweeds,
not to mention potential health problems.
“We were very much surprised by our findings. Until now, it
has been thought almost impossible for Bt proteins to be toxic to
human cells. Now further investigations have to be conducted to find
out how these toxins impact the cells and if combinatorial effects
with other compounds in the food and feed chain have to be taken
into account,” says Gilles-Eric Séralini from the University
of Caen, who supervised the experiments. “In conclusion, these
experiments show that the risks of Bt toxins and of Roundup have
been underestimated.”
The toxicity of the corn itself may have been a surprise,
but not that of Roundup:
These findings are in accordance with several other investigations
highlighting unexpected health risks associated with glyphosate
preparations.
Previous studies,
including ones by Dr. Séralini,
already showed exposure to glysophate (the active ingredient in Roundup)
to be “a risk factor for developing Non-Hodgkin lymphoma”,
and to be toxic to human umbilical, placental, and placental cells with a
that
“is far below agricultural recommendations and corresponds to low levels
of residues in food or feed.”
In Argentina,
Prof. Andrés Carrasco has demonstrated birth defects in amphibians
and there is increasing evidence of human birth defects.
Now we have even more hard evidence of the toxicity of Monsanto’s GM corn
and of Monsanto’s Roundup.
The journal article
is available through Wiley online.
A supermarket shopper buying hamburger, eggs or milk has every reason,
and every right, to wonder how they were produced. The answer, in
industrial agriculture, is “behind closed doors,” and that’s how
the industry wants to keep it. In at least three states — Iowa, Florida,
and Minnesota — legislation is moving ahead that would make undercover
investigations in factory farms, especially filming and photography,
a crime. The legislation has only one purpose: to hide factory-farming
conditions from a public that is beginning to think seriously about
animal rights and the way food is produced.
Would people really want to eat CAFO chicken, beef, or pork if they
knew it came from animals that are kept in pens so small they can’t
move and fed antibiotics constantly to keep them from dying of diseases
they give each other from standing in their own feces?
Also, I’m a Farm Bureau members, but this makes me ill:
And they are supported by the big guns of industrial agriculture:
Monsanto, the Farm Bureau, the associations that represent pork
producers, dairy farmers and cattlemen, as well as poultry, soybean,
and corn growers.
Farming used to be something to be proud of, not something to hide.
Jill Richardson
publishes a letter
from Col. (Ret.) Don M. Huber,
Emeritus Professor, Purdue University,
who is
APS Coordinator, USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System (NPDRS).
It begins:
Dear Secretary Vilsack:
A team of senior plant and animal scientists have recently brought to
my attention the discovery of an electron microscopic pathogen that
appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and
probably human beings. Based on a review of the data, it is widespread,
very serious, and is in much higher concentrations in Roundup Ready (RR)
soybeans and corn-suggesting a link with the RR gene or more likely the
presence of Roundup. This organism appears NEW to science!
The documentary points out many products in German stores that
include GM soy.
In Argentina, it’s even worse, with increasing numbers of birth defects.
They interview
Prof. Andrés Carrasco about his research on amphibians:
“The hemispheres do not separate, like you can see here.
If you look closely you can see one brain.
Glyphosate can cause this kind of mechanisms, for it is an enzymatic toxin.”
“To human cells glyphosate is already toxic in a very low dose.
A farmer uses a much higher dose on the field.
Roundup is even more toxic than glysophate,
for that is only one of the ingredients in Roundup.”
Roundup says none of this applies to humans and Roundup is safe.
Seralini
says:
Who should you believe?
A corporation repeatedly convicted of deception,
or scientists who say that GM crops
cause liver and kidney damage in animals,
according to research using Monsanto’s own data.
An insecticide used in genetically modified (GM) crops grown extensively
in the United States and other parts of the world has leached into the
water of the surrounding environment.
The insecticide is the product of a bacterial gene inserted into GM
maize and other cereal crops to protect them against insects such as
the European corn borer beetle. Scientists have detected the insecticide
in a significant number of streams draining the great corn belt of the
American mid-West.
The researchers detected the bacterial protein in the plant detritus that
was washed off the corn fields into streams up to 500 metres away. They
are not yet able to determine how significant this is in terms of the
risk to either human health or the wider environment.
Forbes made Monsanto the company of the year last year in The Planet
Versus Monsanto. I know because I wrote the article. Since then
everything that could have gone wrong for the genetically engineered
seed company….has gone wrong. Super-weeds that are resistant to its
RoundUp weed killer are emerging, even as weed killer sales are being
hit by cheap Chinese generics. An expensive new bioengineered corn seed
with eight new genes does not look impressive in its first harvest. And
the Justice Department is invesigating over antitrust issues. All this
has led to massive share declines. Other publications are making fun of
our cover story.
Maybe Forbes should improve its “invesigating” [sic] skills.
problems. Second, and perhaps most important, the company’s scientists had just spent more than a decade, and many millions of dollars, trying to create the Roundup-resistant plants that they desperately wanted — soybeans and cotton and corn. It had been incredibly difficult. When I interviewed former Monsanto scientists for my book on biotech crops, one of them called it the company’s “Manhattan Project.”
