Barack Obama's New World Order
By Michael Scherer / Strasbourg Friday, Apr. 03, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
GMO Food Proliferation Bills
GMO Food Proliferation Bills
By Stephen Lendman
4-4-9
Four in all so far plus another authorizing funding under a 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act. One is HR 875: "Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009." Introduced in the House on February 4 by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, (D, CT) whose husband has ties to Monsanto, with 39 co-sponsors, it's been referred to the Agriculture and Energy and Commerce Committees for consideration as follows:
-- discussion,
-- possible hearings,
-- "mark-up" to make changes and add amendments,
-- then a vote on further action - to either table or send to the full chamber for a vote, the regular procedure for House and Senate legislation.
The bill's text is deceptively innocuous. Its header reads:
"To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illnesses, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes."
Related bills include:
S 425: "Food Safety and Tracking Improving Act." Introduced on February 12 and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. It purports: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for the establishment of a traceability system for food, to amend the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Inspections Act, the Egg Products Inspection Act. and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for improved public health and food safety through enhanced enforcement, and for other purposes."
HR 814: "Trace Act of 2009." Introduced on February 3 and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It's: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Inspection Act, and the Egg Products Inspection Act to improve the safety of food, meat, and poultry products through enhanced traceability, and for other purposes."
HR 759: "Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009." Introduced on January 28 and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It's: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to improved the safety of food, drugs, devices, and cosmetics in the global market, and for other purposes."
If its critics are right, HR 875 (and the others) are what Linn Cohen-Cole calls "Monsanto's dream bill" to proliferate the world with GMO contamination and control its entire food supply.
In 2007, F. William Engdahl wrote an important book on the topic called "Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation." He explained how Washington and four agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting all life forms to control food production globally - everything, crops and animals.
In 2003, Jeffrey Smith's "Seeds of Deception" explained the dangers of untested and unregulated GM foods exposing those who eat them to potential health risks. Reliable studies show that rats fed GM potatoes had smaller livers, hearts, testicles, brains, damaged immune systems, and showed structural changes in their white blood cells making them more susceptible to infection and disease than other rats fed non-GM potatoes. They also had thymus and spleen damage, enlarged tissues, including the pancreas and intestines, liver atrophy, and other serious problems.
Humans may be harmed the same way because GMOs saturate our diet. Over 80% of all processed foods contain them as well as rice, corn, soybeans, soy products, vegetable oils, soft drinks, salad dressings, vegetables, fruits, dairy products, meat, and other animal products plus an array of hidden additives and ingredients in products like tomato sauce, ice cream and peanut butter.
Because labeling in America is prohibited, consumers don't know what they're eating or the risks from foods they believe safe. It makes everyone part of a mass human experiment, the results of which are unknown. Health problems may take years to show up. They'll be no way to trace the cause, and they may be serious, irreversible, and potentially life threatening.
Wheat so far is GM-free, and according to an April 1 Reuters report, Monsanto formally withdrew "submissions for its genetically modified wheat from all regulatory agencies except the US Food and Drug Administration, a company spokeswoman said. The withdrawal is the last step in Monsanto's (earlier) announcement that it would" delay but not shelve plans to introduce the world's first GM wheat.
Monsanto sought approval in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa and Colombia. It's now delayed, not halted. The company wants GM control over wheat and all other foods, but its official pronouncements deny it.
GMOs on the G20 Agenda
According to Mark Henderson, science editor of the UK-based The Times, GMOs may have been discussed by G20 leaders, specifically a new genetically modified "super maize (with) the potential to not only ensure an unending era of cheap food but to make the world's food supply far more nutritious, while providing low cost energy, reducing environmental degradation, and promoting sustainable agriculture."
It's so ambitious, it's been dubbed "a multi F-ing super food" because of its claimed potential. Take that with a grain of salt, but according to Monsanto's CEO, Hugh Grant, in a press release: "While not in anyway a silver bullet, this is a remarkable breakthrough in terms of putting plentiful ultra-nutritious food on the world's table while eliminating environmental overload and petroleum dependence...."
The project's chief, professor Pingo Detritus, added: "This breakthrough is of such monumental importance, that it's vital that the G20 leaders now unite behind (it) and start to remove all regulatory barriers." Critics need to back off as well.
The Washington-based Biotechnology Industry Organization said: "We don't need regulation of a technology that can feed, fuel and heal the world. The G20 leaders need to recognize that GM....is the solution" to a pressing world need. Company profits perhaps, not global hunger and malnutrition.
Past claims about nutrition were overblown, and as stressed above, GMOs are hazardous to human health. To organic and other independent farming as well to be explained below.
Monsanto Answers Its Critics
"Monsanto According to Monsanto" is a company blog site. Responding to critics on March 20, it headlined, "HR 875: Monsanto's Dream Bill - Or Just a Hallucination?" It dismisses the notion that it's behind the bill that will "give incredible power to Monsanto by criminalizing seed banking, requiring 24 hour GPS tracking of animals, stripping away of property rights, and forcing industrialized farming on America."
Not so it says or that "Monsanto is behind the bill. (Further), nowhere is there any mention of seed banks, loss of property rights, or GPS tracking of animals. The bill seems to be nothing more egregious than a well-intentioned effort to improve food safety laws and processes."
The bill's presumed intentions will be discussed below, but one thing is clear. Businesses, not politicians, write and/or control virtually all legislation affecting them to assure their interests are served. Monsanto is an influential Ag giant, directly involved in all food-related laws, the company's denials notwithstanding. It's so powerful, it has virtual veto power over anything related to its operations and laws affecting them.
Yet it dismissively claims that the bill stems from "public concerns with relatively recent incidents with peanut butter, ground beef, (and) spinach, etc." False. The way to deal with these and related problems is simply enforce existing laws, not enact new ones. They're not because food giants object at a time they matter, not public health and safety that's of no concern to lawmakers.
Case in point: the USDA is woefully understaffed, under-budgeted, and only perfunctorily carries out inspections. A recent OMB Watch report highlights the problem. Headlined, "Federal Meat Inspectors Spread Thin as Recalls Rise," it explains that USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is charged with ensuring safe meat, poultry and eggs, but its budget and staff haven't kept pace with its mandate.
In FY 1981, it had about 190 workers per billion pounds of meat and poultry inspected. By FY 2007, it was fewer than 88 or less than half as many. Yet under federal law, FSIS must inspect all meat, poultry, and egg products intended for commercial use. Its web site states: "Slaughter facilities cannot operate if FSIS inspection personnel are not present (and) Only Federally inspected establishments can produce products that are destined to enter commerce."
Reality, however, belies the mandate as processors and manufacturers easily circumvent procedures, and according to inspectors interviewed, understaffing and lax policies contribute to the problem. An unsafe food supply results. Government policy is to blame, and current legislation is for other purposes, not a way to fix things. HR 875 and companion bills are for agribusiness, not improved food safety.
Some Likely Truths about HR 875
Several recent articles and the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) offered their analyses. They believe this and companion bills are vehicles to let agribusiness control the entire US food supply, destroy independent local farming, and end the production of healthy organic food. They may be right.
Linn Cohen-Cole calls HR 875 "monstrous on level after level - the power it would give to Monsanto (and other Ag giants), the criminalization of seed banking, the prison terms and confiscatory fines for farmers, the 24 hour GPS tracking of animals, the easement on their property to allow for warrantless government entry, the stripping away of their property rights, the imposition (of) "industrial" standards, (and) planned elimination of (independent) farmers through all (the above) means."
It's no secret that Ag giants want all foods to be GMOs so they have total control. It's an agenda going back decades that Engdahl explained in his book. The science came out of US research labs in the 1970s when no one noticed or paid attention. It became apparent when the Reagan administration decided to make America dominant in a friendly unregulated environment, unmindful of safety and public health concerns, that's persisted ever since under Republican and Democrat administrations.
Monsanto is the dominant producer, a company with a long record of fraud, cover-up, bribery, deceit, and disdain for the public interest, yet it has enormous clout in Washington. In the 1980s, and especially under GHW Bush, it got unregulated free reign for its operations. A Bush Executive Order assured it. It ruled GMO plants and food to be "substantially equivalent" to ordinary ones of the same varieties, such as corn, wheat or rice. "Substantial equivalence" became the standard for the GMO revolution by sweeping away all regulatory restraints in spite of early concerns about safety that were confirmed overwhelmingly later on.
PASA says don't be fooled by the bill's deceptive language that hides its true intentions. Code words like "traceability, source verification, and best farming practices with proven scientific results" will force farmers to tag every animal (the requirement for industrial farms is one per 800,000) and use drugs, pesticides and GM seeds.
Already an Ohio state agricultural department swat team raided an organic food coop. The same thing happened to Pennsylvania Mennonite farmers and Wisconsin Amish ones. Other independents have been terrorized by home break-ins, burglaries, and treetop helicopter over-flights scaring animals to death. Conventional seed farmers like North Dakota's Rodney Nelson have been sued by Monsanto for infringing on its patent rights because wind currents landed GM seeds on his land. In Poland, pro-agribusiness laws eliminated 60% of small farmers. Ones in the UK led to 60 suicides and in India to over 180,000.
From 1996 - 2004, worldwide GMO plantings expanded to 167 million acres, a 40-fold increase on 25% of global arable land. Over two-thirds of US farmland grows GMOs, more than 106 million acres. Argentina has 34 million acres, and production is expanding in Brazil, China, Canada, South Africa, Indonesia, Spain, Eastern Europe, and wherever else Ag giants have clout. They want it all, everywhere, and have complicit government allies to help them, here and abroad.
In Iraq, Paul Bremer's Order 81 covers patents, their duration, and stated: "Farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties or any (designated) variety." It gave Ag giants absolute control over farmers' seed usage for 20 years. They're now GMO, owned by the transnationals, and Iraqi farmers had to sign an agreement to pay a "technology fee" as well as an annual license fee. Plant Variety Protection (PVP) made seed saving and reuse illegal, and even "similar" seed plantings can result in severe fines and imprisonment. Agribusiness wants the same rights everywhere, including in America. If they get it, the future of organic and independent farming will be threatened.
PASA says HR 875 doesn't regulate, prohibit or penalize private gardens or farmers markets directly. It focuses solely on ensuring supermarket food safety. But it regulates seeds, harvesting, transporting, seed storage facilities, and seed cleaning equipment under "food safety" provisions to prevent contamination - from agricultural water and manure, not pesticides, fertilizers, or unsafe GM seeds.
Seed cleaning equipment is crucial as it's how organic seed is saved. It's used after plants "go to seed" to separate them from plant material so farmers can harvest and store them for future plantings. HR 875 doesn't mention seeds but PASA believes its intent is to criminalize their banking through code language and bill provisions. Already, some areas of the country ban seed cleaning. Monsanto is likely involved, and the scheme is to claim the equipment produces contamination.
To prevent it, Ag giants want provisions that require expensive storage facilities, per line of seed. Organic farmers can't afford them, and this has nothing to do with food safety. But HR 875 claims it does.
PASA says FDA and USDA targeted organic and other independent farmers for years, at least since the early 1980s when high interest rates drove many out of business. Today, pro-industry laws have the same effect because Ag giants like Monsanto demand them. If they succeed, biodiversity and organic farming are at risk along with public health and safety to a greater degree than already given the amount of tainted and dangerous foods allowed, not addressed in HR 875.
While bill language doesn't prohibit organic or independent farming, that's the likely aim. Its provisions are Ag business-friendly, but destructive to small competitors by establishing heavy fines, imprisonment, onerous rules, and letting regulators interpret them as they wish.
Bill language also doesn't mandate a national animal ID system (NAIS) but does it by claiming it's in current law. It's so deceptive that Congress and consumer and food safety groups support it. But some are industry funded so look the other way when they should know better.
HR 875 and its companion bills are under consideration in committees, not yet voted into law. Activists feel now is the time to stop them before it's too late. Agribusiness wants total control over every step in the production, processing, distribution, storage, and marketing of foods to consumers.
Using the ruse of food safety and security, they aim to eliminate competition to have it all and replace wholesome foods with unsafe GMOs. Congress is willing to go along. And why not. Representatives like DeLauro get large Ag business contributions. In return, they assure bills like HR 875 are passed. It's for concerned people to stop them.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Center of Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
By Stephen Lendman
4-4-9
Four in all so far plus another authorizing funding under a 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act. One is HR 875: "Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009." Introduced in the House on February 4 by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, (D, CT) whose husband has ties to Monsanto, with 39 co-sponsors, it's been referred to the Agriculture and Energy and Commerce Committees for consideration as follows:
-- discussion,
-- possible hearings,
-- "mark-up" to make changes and add amendments,
-- then a vote on further action - to either table or send to the full chamber for a vote, the regular procedure for House and Senate legislation.
The bill's text is deceptively innocuous. Its header reads:
"To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illnesses, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes."
Related bills include:
S 425: "Food Safety and Tracking Improving Act." Introduced on February 12 and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. It purports: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for the establishment of a traceability system for food, to amend the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Inspections Act, the Egg Products Inspection Act. and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for improved public health and food safety through enhanced enforcement, and for other purposes."
HR 814: "Trace Act of 2009." Introduced on February 3 and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It's: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Inspection Act, and the Egg Products Inspection Act to improve the safety of food, meat, and poultry products through enhanced traceability, and for other purposes."
HR 759: "Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009." Introduced on January 28 and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It's: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to improved the safety of food, drugs, devices, and cosmetics in the global market, and for other purposes."
If its critics are right, HR 875 (and the others) are what Linn Cohen-Cole calls "Monsanto's dream bill" to proliferate the world with GMO contamination and control its entire food supply.
In 2007, F. William Engdahl wrote an important book on the topic called "Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation." He explained how Washington and four agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting all life forms to control food production globally - everything, crops and animals.
In 2003, Jeffrey Smith's "Seeds of Deception" explained the dangers of untested and unregulated GM foods exposing those who eat them to potential health risks. Reliable studies show that rats fed GM potatoes had smaller livers, hearts, testicles, brains, damaged immune systems, and showed structural changes in their white blood cells making them more susceptible to infection and disease than other rats fed non-GM potatoes. They also had thymus and spleen damage, enlarged tissues, including the pancreas and intestines, liver atrophy, and other serious problems.
Humans may be harmed the same way because GMOs saturate our diet. Over 80% of all processed foods contain them as well as rice, corn, soybeans, soy products, vegetable oils, soft drinks, salad dressings, vegetables, fruits, dairy products, meat, and other animal products plus an array of hidden additives and ingredients in products like tomato sauce, ice cream and peanut butter.
Because labeling in America is prohibited, consumers don't know what they're eating or the risks from foods they believe safe. It makes everyone part of a mass human experiment, the results of which are unknown. Health problems may take years to show up. They'll be no way to trace the cause, and they may be serious, irreversible, and potentially life threatening.
Wheat so far is GM-free, and according to an April 1 Reuters report, Monsanto formally withdrew "submissions for its genetically modified wheat from all regulatory agencies except the US Food and Drug Administration, a company spokeswoman said. The withdrawal is the last step in Monsanto's (earlier) announcement that it would" delay but not shelve plans to introduce the world's first GM wheat.
Monsanto sought approval in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa and Colombia. It's now delayed, not halted. The company wants GM control over wheat and all other foods, but its official pronouncements deny it.
GMOs on the G20 Agenda
According to Mark Henderson, science editor of the UK-based The Times, GMOs may have been discussed by G20 leaders, specifically a new genetically modified "super maize (with) the potential to not only ensure an unending era of cheap food but to make the world's food supply far more nutritious, while providing low cost energy, reducing environmental degradation, and promoting sustainable agriculture."
It's so ambitious, it's been dubbed "a multi F-ing super food" because of its claimed potential. Take that with a grain of salt, but according to Monsanto's CEO, Hugh Grant, in a press release: "While not in anyway a silver bullet, this is a remarkable breakthrough in terms of putting plentiful ultra-nutritious food on the world's table while eliminating environmental overload and petroleum dependence...."
The project's chief, professor Pingo Detritus, added: "This breakthrough is of such monumental importance, that it's vital that the G20 leaders now unite behind (it) and start to remove all regulatory barriers." Critics need to back off as well.
The Washington-based Biotechnology Industry Organization said: "We don't need regulation of a technology that can feed, fuel and heal the world. The G20 leaders need to recognize that GM....is the solution" to a pressing world need. Company profits perhaps, not global hunger and malnutrition.
Past claims about nutrition were overblown, and as stressed above, GMOs are hazardous to human health. To organic and other independent farming as well to be explained below.
Monsanto Answers Its Critics
"Monsanto According to Monsanto" is a company blog site. Responding to critics on March 20, it headlined, "HR 875: Monsanto's Dream Bill - Or Just a Hallucination?" It dismisses the notion that it's behind the bill that will "give incredible power to Monsanto by criminalizing seed banking, requiring 24 hour GPS tracking of animals, stripping away of property rights, and forcing industrialized farming on America."
Not so it says or that "Monsanto is behind the bill. (Further), nowhere is there any mention of seed banks, loss of property rights, or GPS tracking of animals. The bill seems to be nothing more egregious than a well-intentioned effort to improve food safety laws and processes."
The bill's presumed intentions will be discussed below, but one thing is clear. Businesses, not politicians, write and/or control virtually all legislation affecting them to assure their interests are served. Monsanto is an influential Ag giant, directly involved in all food-related laws, the company's denials notwithstanding. It's so powerful, it has virtual veto power over anything related to its operations and laws affecting them.
Yet it dismissively claims that the bill stems from "public concerns with relatively recent incidents with peanut butter, ground beef, (and) spinach, etc." False. The way to deal with these and related problems is simply enforce existing laws, not enact new ones. They're not because food giants object at a time they matter, not public health and safety that's of no concern to lawmakers.
Case in point: the USDA is woefully understaffed, under-budgeted, and only perfunctorily carries out inspections. A recent OMB Watch report highlights the problem. Headlined, "Federal Meat Inspectors Spread Thin as Recalls Rise," it explains that USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is charged with ensuring safe meat, poultry and eggs, but its budget and staff haven't kept pace with its mandate.
In FY 1981, it had about 190 workers per billion pounds of meat and poultry inspected. By FY 2007, it was fewer than 88 or less than half as many. Yet under federal law, FSIS must inspect all meat, poultry, and egg products intended for commercial use. Its web site states: "Slaughter facilities cannot operate if FSIS inspection personnel are not present (and) Only Federally inspected establishments can produce products that are destined to enter commerce."
Reality, however, belies the mandate as processors and manufacturers easily circumvent procedures, and according to inspectors interviewed, understaffing and lax policies contribute to the problem. An unsafe food supply results. Government policy is to blame, and current legislation is for other purposes, not a way to fix things. HR 875 and companion bills are for agribusiness, not improved food safety.
Some Likely Truths about HR 875
Several recent articles and the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) offered their analyses. They believe this and companion bills are vehicles to let agribusiness control the entire US food supply, destroy independent local farming, and end the production of healthy organic food. They may be right.
Linn Cohen-Cole calls HR 875 "monstrous on level after level - the power it would give to Monsanto (and other Ag giants), the criminalization of seed banking, the prison terms and confiscatory fines for farmers, the 24 hour GPS tracking of animals, the easement on their property to allow for warrantless government entry, the stripping away of their property rights, the imposition (of) "industrial" standards, (and) planned elimination of (independent) farmers through all (the above) means."
It's no secret that Ag giants want all foods to be GMOs so they have total control. It's an agenda going back decades that Engdahl explained in his book. The science came out of US research labs in the 1970s when no one noticed or paid attention. It became apparent when the Reagan administration decided to make America dominant in a friendly unregulated environment, unmindful of safety and public health concerns, that's persisted ever since under Republican and Democrat administrations.
Monsanto is the dominant producer, a company with a long record of fraud, cover-up, bribery, deceit, and disdain for the public interest, yet it has enormous clout in Washington. In the 1980s, and especially under GHW Bush, it got unregulated free reign for its operations. A Bush Executive Order assured it. It ruled GMO plants and food to be "substantially equivalent" to ordinary ones of the same varieties, such as corn, wheat or rice. "Substantial equivalence" became the standard for the GMO revolution by sweeping away all regulatory restraints in spite of early concerns about safety that were confirmed overwhelmingly later on.
PASA says don't be fooled by the bill's deceptive language that hides its true intentions. Code words like "traceability, source verification, and best farming practices with proven scientific results" will force farmers to tag every animal (the requirement for industrial farms is one per 800,000) and use drugs, pesticides and GM seeds.
Already an Ohio state agricultural department swat team raided an organic food coop. The same thing happened to Pennsylvania Mennonite farmers and Wisconsin Amish ones. Other independents have been terrorized by home break-ins, burglaries, and treetop helicopter over-flights scaring animals to death. Conventional seed farmers like North Dakota's Rodney Nelson have been sued by Monsanto for infringing on its patent rights because wind currents landed GM seeds on his land. In Poland, pro-agribusiness laws eliminated 60% of small farmers. Ones in the UK led to 60 suicides and in India to over 180,000.
From 1996 - 2004, worldwide GMO plantings expanded to 167 million acres, a 40-fold increase on 25% of global arable land. Over two-thirds of US farmland grows GMOs, more than 106 million acres. Argentina has 34 million acres, and production is expanding in Brazil, China, Canada, South Africa, Indonesia, Spain, Eastern Europe, and wherever else Ag giants have clout. They want it all, everywhere, and have complicit government allies to help them, here and abroad.
In Iraq, Paul Bremer's Order 81 covers patents, their duration, and stated: "Farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties or any (designated) variety." It gave Ag giants absolute control over farmers' seed usage for 20 years. They're now GMO, owned by the transnationals, and Iraqi farmers had to sign an agreement to pay a "technology fee" as well as an annual license fee. Plant Variety Protection (PVP) made seed saving and reuse illegal, and even "similar" seed plantings can result in severe fines and imprisonment. Agribusiness wants the same rights everywhere, including in America. If they get it, the future of organic and independent farming will be threatened.
PASA says HR 875 doesn't regulate, prohibit or penalize private gardens or farmers markets directly. It focuses solely on ensuring supermarket food safety. But it regulates seeds, harvesting, transporting, seed storage facilities, and seed cleaning equipment under "food safety" provisions to prevent contamination - from agricultural water and manure, not pesticides, fertilizers, or unsafe GM seeds.
Seed cleaning equipment is crucial as it's how organic seed is saved. It's used after plants "go to seed" to separate them from plant material so farmers can harvest and store them for future plantings. HR 875 doesn't mention seeds but PASA believes its intent is to criminalize their banking through code language and bill provisions. Already, some areas of the country ban seed cleaning. Monsanto is likely involved, and the scheme is to claim the equipment produces contamination.
To prevent it, Ag giants want provisions that require expensive storage facilities, per line of seed. Organic farmers can't afford them, and this has nothing to do with food safety. But HR 875 claims it does.
PASA says FDA and USDA targeted organic and other independent farmers for years, at least since the early 1980s when high interest rates drove many out of business. Today, pro-industry laws have the same effect because Ag giants like Monsanto demand them. If they succeed, biodiversity and organic farming are at risk along with public health and safety to a greater degree than already given the amount of tainted and dangerous foods allowed, not addressed in HR 875.
While bill language doesn't prohibit organic or independent farming, that's the likely aim. Its provisions are Ag business-friendly, but destructive to small competitors by establishing heavy fines, imprisonment, onerous rules, and letting regulators interpret them as they wish.
Bill language also doesn't mandate a national animal ID system (NAIS) but does it by claiming it's in current law. It's so deceptive that Congress and consumer and food safety groups support it. But some are industry funded so look the other way when they should know better.
HR 875 and its companion bills are under consideration in committees, not yet voted into law. Activists feel now is the time to stop them before it's too late. Agribusiness wants total control over every step in the production, processing, distribution, storage, and marketing of foods to consumers.
Using the ruse of food safety and security, they aim to eliminate competition to have it all and replace wholesome foods with unsafe GMOs. Congress is willing to go along. And why not. Representatives like DeLauro get large Ag business contributions. In return, they assure bills like HR 875 are passed. It's for concerned people to stop them.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Center of Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
Friday, April 3, 2009
Should President Obama have the power to shut down domestic Internet traffic during a state of emergency?
Thu April 2, 2009 12:33 PM PST
Should President Obama have the power to shut down domestic Internet traffic during a state of emergency?
Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) think so. On Wednesday they introduced a bill to establish the Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor—an arm of the executive branch that would have vast power to monitor and control Internet traffic to protect against threats to critical cyber infrastructure. That broad power is rattling some civil libertarians.
The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF) gives the president the ability to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any "critical" information network "in the interest of national security." The bill does not define a critical information network or a cybersecurity emergency. That definition would be left to the president.
The bill does not only add to the power of the president. It also grants the Secretary of Commerce "access to all relevant data concerning [critical] networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access." This means he or she can monitor or access any data on private or public networks without regard to privacy laws.
Rockefeller made cybersecurity one of his key issues as a member of the Senate intelligence committee, which he chaired until last year. He now heads the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which will take up this bill.
"We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs—from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records—the list goes on," Rockefeller said in a statement. Snowe echoed her colleague, saying, "if we fail to take swift action, we, regrettably, risk a cyber-Katrina."
But the wide powers outlined in the Rockefeller-Snowe legislation has at least one Internet advocacy group worried. "The cybersecurity threat is real," says Leslie Harris, head of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), "but such a drastic federal intervention in private communications technology and networks could harm both security and privacy."
The bill could undermine the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), says CDT senior counsel Greg Nojeim. That law, enacted in the mid '80s, requires law enforcement seek a warrant before tapping in to data transmissions between computers.
"It's an incredibly broad authority," Nojeim says, pointing out that existing privacy laws "could fall to this authority."
Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that granting such power to the Commerce secretary could actually cause networks to be less safe. When one person can access all information on a network, "it makes it more vulnerable to intruders," Granick says. "You've basically established a path for the bad guys to skip down."
The bill's scope, she says, is "contrary to what the Constitution promises us." That's because of the impact it could have on Internet users' privacy rights: If the Commerce Department uncovers evidence of illegal activity when accessing "critical" networks, that information could be used against a potential defendant, even if the department never had the intent to find incriminating evidence. And this might violate the Constitutional protection against searches without cause.
"Once information is accessed, it can be used for whatever purpose, no matter the original reason for accessing something," Granick says. "Who's interested in this [bill]? Law enforcement and people in the security industry who want to ensure more government dollars go to them."
Nojeim, though, thinks it's possible the bill's powers could be trimmed as it moves through Congress. "We will be working with them to clarify just what is needed and how to accomplish that," he says. "We're hopeful that some of the very broad powers that the bill would confer won't be included."
Should President Obama have the power to shut down domestic Internet traffic during a state of emergency?
Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) think so. On Wednesday they introduced a bill to establish the Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor—an arm of the executive branch that would have vast power to monitor and control Internet traffic to protect against threats to critical cyber infrastructure. That broad power is rattling some civil libertarians.
The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF) gives the president the ability to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any "critical" information network "in the interest of national security." The bill does not define a critical information network or a cybersecurity emergency. That definition would be left to the president.
The bill does not only add to the power of the president. It also grants the Secretary of Commerce "access to all relevant data concerning [critical] networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access." This means he or she can monitor or access any data on private or public networks without regard to privacy laws.
Rockefeller made cybersecurity one of his key issues as a member of the Senate intelligence committee, which he chaired until last year. He now heads the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which will take up this bill.
"We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs—from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records—the list goes on," Rockefeller said in a statement. Snowe echoed her colleague, saying, "if we fail to take swift action, we, regrettably, risk a cyber-Katrina."
But the wide powers outlined in the Rockefeller-Snowe legislation has at least one Internet advocacy group worried. "The cybersecurity threat is real," says Leslie Harris, head of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), "but such a drastic federal intervention in private communications technology and networks could harm both security and privacy."
The bill could undermine the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), says CDT senior counsel Greg Nojeim. That law, enacted in the mid '80s, requires law enforcement seek a warrant before tapping in to data transmissions between computers.
"It's an incredibly broad authority," Nojeim says, pointing out that existing privacy laws "could fall to this authority."
Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that granting such power to the Commerce secretary could actually cause networks to be less safe. When one person can access all information on a network, "it makes it more vulnerable to intruders," Granick says. "You've basically established a path for the bad guys to skip down."
The bill's scope, she says, is "contrary to what the Constitution promises us." That's because of the impact it could have on Internet users' privacy rights: If the Commerce Department uncovers evidence of illegal activity when accessing "critical" networks, that information could be used against a potential defendant, even if the department never had the intent to find incriminating evidence. And this might violate the Constitutional protection against searches without cause.
"Once information is accessed, it can be used for whatever purpose, no matter the original reason for accessing something," Granick says. "Who's interested in this [bill]? Law enforcement and people in the security industry who want to ensure more government dollars go to them."
Nojeim, though, thinks it's possible the bill's powers could be trimmed as it moves through Congress. "We will be working with them to clarify just what is needed and how to accomplish that," he says. "We're hopeful that some of the very broad powers that the bill would confer won't be included."
GMO Proliferation Bills
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 3, 2009
GMO Proliferation Bills
By Stephen Lendman
Four in all so far plus another authorizing funding under a 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act. One is HR 875: "Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009." Introduced in the House on February 4 by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, (D, CT) whose husband has ties to Monsanto, with 39 co-sponsors, it's been referred to the Agriculture and Energy and Commerce Committees for consideration as follows:
-- discussion,
-- possible hearings,
-- "mark-up" to make changes and add amendments,
-- then a vote on further action - to either table or send to the full chamber for a vote, the regular procedure for House and Senate legislation.
The bill's text is deceptively innocuous. Its header reads:
"To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illnesses, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes."
Related bills include:
S 425: "Food Safety and Tracking Improving Act." Introduced on February 12 and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. It purports: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for the establishment of a traceability system for food, to amend the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Inspections Act, the Egg Products Inspection Act. and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for improved public health and food safety through enhanced enforcement, and for other purposes."
HR 814: "Trace Act of 2009." Introduced on February 3 and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It's: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Inspection Act, and the Egg Products Inspection Act to improve the safety of food, meat, and poultry products through enhanced traceability, and for other purposes."
HR 759: "Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009." Introduced on January 28 and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It's: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to improved the safety of food, drugs, devices, and cosmetics in the global market, and for other purposes."
If its critics are right, HR 875 (and the others) are what Linn Cohen-Cole calls "Monsanto's dream bill" to proliferate the world with GMO contamination and control its entire food supply.
In 2007, F. William Engdahl wrote an important book on the topic called "Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation." He explained how Washington and four agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting all life forms to control food production globally - everything, crops and animals.
In 2003, Jeffrey Smith's "Seeds of Deception" explained the dangers of untested and unregulated GM foods exposing those who eat them to potential health risks. Reliable studies show that rats fed GM potatoes had smaller livers, hearts, testicles, brains, damaged immune systems, and showed structural changes in their white blood cells making them more susceptible to infection and disease than other rats fed non-GM potatoes. They also had thymus and spleen damage, enlarged tissues, including the pancreas and intestines, liver atrophy, and other serious problems.
Humans may be harmed the same way because GMOs saturate our diet. Over 80% of all processed foods contain them as well as rice, corn, soybeans, soy products, vegetable oils, soft drinks, salad dressings, vegetables, fruits, dairy products, meat, and other animal products plus an array of hidden additives and ingredients in products like tomato sauce, ice cream and peanut butter.
Because labeling in America is prohibited, consumers don't know what they're eating or the risks from foods they believe safe. It makes everyone part of a mass human experiment, the results of which are unknown. Health problems may take years to show up. They'll be no way to trace the cause, and they may be serious, irreversible, and potentially life threatening.
Wheat so far is GM-free, and according to an April 1 Reuters report, Monsanto formally withdrew "submissions for its genetically modified wheat from all regulatory agencies except the US Food and Drug Administration, a company spokeswoman said. The withdrawal is the last step in Monsanto's (earlier) announcement that it would" delay but not shelve plans to introduce the world's first GM wheat.
Monsanto sought approval in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa and Colombia. It's now delayed, not halted. The company wants GM control over wheat and all other foods, but its official pronouncements deny it.
GMOs on the G20 Agenda
According to Mark Henderson, science editor of the UK-based The Times, GMOs may have been discussed by G20 leaders, specifically a new genetically modified "super maize (with) the potential to not only ensure an unending era of cheap food but to make the world's food supply far more nutritious, while providing low cost energy, reducing environmental degradation, and promoting sustainable agriculture."
It's so ambitious, it's been dubbed "a multi F-ing super food" because of its claimed potential. Take that with a grain of salt, but according to Monsanto's CEO, Hugh Grant, in a press release: "While not in anyway a silver bullet, this is a remarkable breakthrough in terms of putting plentiful ultra-nutritious food on the world's table while eliminating environmental overload and petroleum dependence...."
The project's chief, professor Pingo Detritus, added: "This breakthrough is of such monumental importance, that it's vital that the G20 leaders now unite behind (it) and start to remove all regulatory barriers." Critics need to back off as well.
The Washington-based Biotechnology Industry Organization said: "We don't need regulation of a technology that can feed, fuel and heal the world. The G20 leaders need to recognize that GM....is the solution" to a pressing world need. Company profits perhaps, not global hunger and malnutrition.
Past claims about nutrition were overblown, and as stressed above, GMOs are hazardous to human health. To organic and other independent farming as well to be explained below.
Monsanto Answers Its Critics
"Monsanto According to Monsanto" is a company blog site. Responding to critics on March 20, it headlined, "HR 875: Monsanto's Dream Bill - Or Just a Hallucination?" It dismisses the notion that it's behind the bill that will "give incredible power to Monsanto by criminalizing seed banking, requiring 24 hour GPS tracking of animals, stripping away of property rights, and forcing industrialized farming on America."
Not so it says or that "Monsanto is behind the bill. (Further), nowhere is there any mention of seed banks, loss of property rights, or GPS tracking of animals. The bill seems to be nothing more egregious than a well-intentioned effort to improve food safety laws and processes."
The bill's presumed intentions will be discussed below, but one thing is clear. Businesses, not politicians, write and/or control virtually all legislation affecting them to ensure their interests are served. Monsanto is an influential Ag giant, directly involved in all food-related laws, the company's denials notwithstanding. It's so powerful, it has virtual veto power over anything related to its operations and laws affecting them.
Yet it dismissively claims that the bill stems from "public concerns with relatively recent incidents with peanut butter, ground beef, (and) spinach, etc." False. The way to deal with these and related problems is simply enforce existing laws, not enact new ones. They're not because food giants object at a time they matter, not public health and safety that's of no concern to lawmakers.
Case in point: the USDA is woefully understaffed, under-budgeted, and only perfunctorily carries out inspections. A recent OMB Watch report highlights the problem. Headlined, "Federal Meat Inspectors Spread Thin as Recalls Rise," it explains that USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is charged with ensuring safe meat, poultry and eggs, but its budget and staff haven't kept pace with its mandate.
In FY 1981, it had about 190 workers per billion pounds of meat and poultry inspected. By FY 2007, it was fewer than 88 or less than half as many. Yet under federal law, FSIS must inspect all meat, poultry, and egg products intended for commercial use. Its web site states: "Slaughter facilities cannot operate if FSIS inspection personnel are not present (and) Only Federally inspected establishments can produce products that are destined to enter commerce."
Reality, however, belies the mandate as processors and manufacturers easily circumvent procedures, and according to inspectors interviewed, understaffing and lax policies contribute to the problem. An unsafe food supply results. Government policy is to blame, and current legislation is for other purposes, not a way to fix things. HR 875 and companion bills are for agribusiness, not improved food safety.
Some Likely Truths about HR 875
Several recent articles and the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) offered their analyses. They believe this and companion bills are vehicles to let agribusiness control the entire US food supply, destroy independent local farming, and end the production of healthy organic food. They may be right.
Linn Cohen-Cole calls HR 875 "monstrous on level after level - the power it would give to Monsanto (and other Ag giants), the criminalization of seed banking, the prison terms and confiscatory fines for farmers, the 24 hour GPS tracking of animals, the easement on their property to allow for warrantless government entry, the stripping away of their property rights, the imposition (of) "industrial" standards, (and) planned elimination of (independent) farmers through all (the above) means."
It's no secret that Ag giants want all foods to be GMOs so they have total control. It's an agenda going back decades that Engdahl explained in his book. The science came out of US research labs in the 1970s when no one noticed or paid attention. It became apparent when the Reagan administration decided to make America dominant in a friendly unregulated environment, unmindful of safety and public health concerns, that's persisted ever since under Republican and Democrat administrations.
Monsanto is the dominant producer, a company with a long record of fraud, cover-up, bribery, deceit, and disdain for the public interest, yet it has enormous clout in Washington. In the 1980s, and especially under GHW Bush, it got unregulated free reign for its operations. A Bush Executive Order assured it. It ruled GMO plants and food to be "substantially equivalent" to ordinary ones of the same varieties, such as corn, wheat or rice. "Substantial equivalence" became the standard for the GMO revolution by sweeping away all regulatory restraints in spite of early concerns about safety that were confirmed overwhelmingly later on.
PASA says don't be fooled by the bill's deceptive language that hides its true intentions. Code words like "traceability, source verification, and best farming practices with proven scientific results" will force farmers to tag every animal (the requirement for industrial farms is one per 800,000) and use drugs, pesticides and GM seeds.
Already an Ohio state agricultural department swat team raided an organic food coop. The same thing happened to Pennsylvania Mennonite farmers and Wisconsin Amish ones. Other independents have been terrorized by home break-ins, burglaries, and treetop helicopter over-flights scaring animals to death. Conventional seed farmers like North Dakota's Rodney Nelson have been sued by Monsanto for infringing on its patent rights because wind currents landed GM seeds on his land. In Poland, pro-agribusiness laws eliminated 60% of small farmers. Ones in the UK led to 60 suicides and in India to over 180,000.
From 1996 - 2004, worldwide GMO plantings expanded to 167 million acres, a 40-fold increase on 25% of global arable land. Over two-thirds of US farmland grows GMOs, more than 106 million acres. Argentina has 34 million acres, and production is expanding in Brazil, China, Canada, South Africa, Indonesia, Spain, Eastern Europe, and wherever else Ag giants have clout. They want it all, everywhere, and have complicit government allies to help them, here and abroad.
In Iraq, Paul Bremer's Order 81 covers patents, their duration, and stated: "Farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties or any (designated) variety." It gave Ag giants absolute control over farmers' seed usage for 20 years. They're now GMO, owned by the transnationals, and Iraqi farmers had to sign an agreement to pay a "technology fee" as well as an annual license fee. Plant Variety Protection (PVP) made seed saving and reuse illegal, and even "similar" seed plantings can result in severe fines and imprisonment. Agribusiness wants the same rights everywhere, including in America. If they get it, the future of organic and independent farming will be threatened.
PASA says HR 875 doesn't regulate, prohibit or penalize private gardens or farmers markets directly. It focuses solely on ensuring supermarket food safety. But it regulates seeds, harvesting, transporting, seed storage facilities, and seed cleaning equipment under "food safety" provisions to prevent contamination - from agricultural water and manure, not pesticides, fertilizers, or unsafe GM seeds.
Seed cleaning equipment is crucial as it's how organic seed is saved. It's used after plants "go to seed" to separate them from plant material so farmers can harvest and store them for future plantings. HR 875 doesn't mention seeds but PASA believes its intent is to criminalize their banking through code language and bill provisions. Already, some areas of the country ban seed cleaning. Monsanto is likely involved, and the scheme is to claim the equipment produces contamination.
To prevent it, Ag giants want provisions that require expensive storage facilities, per line of seed. Organic farmers can't afford them, and this has nothing to do with food safety. But HR 875 claims it does.
PASA says FDA and USDA targeted organic and other independent farmers for years, at least since the early 1980s when high interest rates drove many out of business. Today, pro-industry laws have the same effect because Ag giants like Monsanto demand them. If they succeed, biodiversity and organic farming are at risk along with public health and safety to a greater degree than already given the amount of tainted and dangerous foods allowed, not addressed in HR 875.
While bill language doesn't prohibit organic or independent farming, that's the likely aim. Its provisions are Ag business-friendly, but destructive to small competitors by establishing heavy fines, imprisonment, onerous rules, and letting regulators interpret them as they wish.
Bill language also doesn't mandate a national animal ID system (NAIS) but does it by claiming it's in current law. It's so deceptive that Congress and consumer and food safety groups support it. But some are industry funded so look the other way when they should know better.
HR 875 and its companion bills are under consideration in committees, not yet voted into law. Activists feel now is the time to stop them before it's too late. Agribusiness wants total control over every step in the production, processing, distribution, storage, and marketing of foods to consumers.
Using the ruse of food safety and security, they aim to eliminate competition to have it all and replace wholesome foods with unsafe GMOs. Congress is willing to go along. And why not. Representatives like DeLauro get large Ag business contributions. In return, they assure bills like HR 875 are passed. It's for concerned people to stop them.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Center of Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday - Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues.
click here
Author's Bio: I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
Back
April 3, 2009
GMO Proliferation Bills
By Stephen Lendman
Four in all so far plus another authorizing funding under a 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act. One is HR 875: "Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009." Introduced in the House on February 4 by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, (D, CT) whose husband has ties to Monsanto, with 39 co-sponsors, it's been referred to the Agriculture and Energy and Commerce Committees for consideration as follows:
-- discussion,
-- possible hearings,
-- "mark-up" to make changes and add amendments,
-- then a vote on further action - to either table or send to the full chamber for a vote, the regular procedure for House and Senate legislation.
The bill's text is deceptively innocuous. Its header reads:
"To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illnesses, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes."
Related bills include:
S 425: "Food Safety and Tracking Improving Act." Introduced on February 12 and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. It purports: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for the establishment of a traceability system for food, to amend the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Inspections Act, the Egg Products Inspection Act. and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for improved public health and food safety through enhanced enforcement, and for other purposes."
HR 814: "Trace Act of 2009." Introduced on February 3 and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It's: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Inspection Act, and the Egg Products Inspection Act to improve the safety of food, meat, and poultry products through enhanced traceability, and for other purposes."
HR 759: "Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009." Introduced on January 28 and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It's: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to improved the safety of food, drugs, devices, and cosmetics in the global market, and for other purposes."
If its critics are right, HR 875 (and the others) are what Linn Cohen-Cole calls "Monsanto's dream bill" to proliferate the world with GMO contamination and control its entire food supply.
In 2007, F. William Engdahl wrote an important book on the topic called "Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation." He explained how Washington and four agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting all life forms to control food production globally - everything, crops and animals.
In 2003, Jeffrey Smith's "Seeds of Deception" explained the dangers of untested and unregulated GM foods exposing those who eat them to potential health risks. Reliable studies show that rats fed GM potatoes had smaller livers, hearts, testicles, brains, damaged immune systems, and showed structural changes in their white blood cells making them more susceptible to infection and disease than other rats fed non-GM potatoes. They also had thymus and spleen damage, enlarged tissues, including the pancreas and intestines, liver atrophy, and other serious problems.
Humans may be harmed the same way because GMOs saturate our diet. Over 80% of all processed foods contain them as well as rice, corn, soybeans, soy products, vegetable oils, soft drinks, salad dressings, vegetables, fruits, dairy products, meat, and other animal products plus an array of hidden additives and ingredients in products like tomato sauce, ice cream and peanut butter.
Because labeling in America is prohibited, consumers don't know what they're eating or the risks from foods they believe safe. It makes everyone part of a mass human experiment, the results of which are unknown. Health problems may take years to show up. They'll be no way to trace the cause, and they may be serious, irreversible, and potentially life threatening.
Wheat so far is GM-free, and according to an April 1 Reuters report, Monsanto formally withdrew "submissions for its genetically modified wheat from all regulatory agencies except the US Food and Drug Administration, a company spokeswoman said. The withdrawal is the last step in Monsanto's (earlier) announcement that it would" delay but not shelve plans to introduce the world's first GM wheat.
Monsanto sought approval in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa and Colombia. It's now delayed, not halted. The company wants GM control over wheat and all other foods, but its official pronouncements deny it.
GMOs on the G20 Agenda
According to Mark Henderson, science editor of the UK-based The Times, GMOs may have been discussed by G20 leaders, specifically a new genetically modified "super maize (with) the potential to not only ensure an unending era of cheap food but to make the world's food supply far more nutritious, while providing low cost energy, reducing environmental degradation, and promoting sustainable agriculture."
It's so ambitious, it's been dubbed "a multi F-ing super food" because of its claimed potential. Take that with a grain of salt, but according to Monsanto's CEO, Hugh Grant, in a press release: "While not in anyway a silver bullet, this is a remarkable breakthrough in terms of putting plentiful ultra-nutritious food on the world's table while eliminating environmental overload and petroleum dependence...."
The project's chief, professor Pingo Detritus, added: "This breakthrough is of such monumental importance, that it's vital that the G20 leaders now unite behind (it) and start to remove all regulatory barriers." Critics need to back off as well.
The Washington-based Biotechnology Industry Organization said: "We don't need regulation of a technology that can feed, fuel and heal the world. The G20 leaders need to recognize that GM....is the solution" to a pressing world need. Company profits perhaps, not global hunger and malnutrition.
Past claims about nutrition were overblown, and as stressed above, GMOs are hazardous to human health. To organic and other independent farming as well to be explained below.
Monsanto Answers Its Critics
"Monsanto According to Monsanto" is a company blog site. Responding to critics on March 20, it headlined, "HR 875: Monsanto's Dream Bill - Or Just a Hallucination?" It dismisses the notion that it's behind the bill that will "give incredible power to Monsanto by criminalizing seed banking, requiring 24 hour GPS tracking of animals, stripping away of property rights, and forcing industrialized farming on America."
Not so it says or that "Monsanto is behind the bill. (Further), nowhere is there any mention of seed banks, loss of property rights, or GPS tracking of animals. The bill seems to be nothing more egregious than a well-intentioned effort to improve food safety laws and processes."
The bill's presumed intentions will be discussed below, but one thing is clear. Businesses, not politicians, write and/or control virtually all legislation affecting them to ensure their interests are served. Monsanto is an influential Ag giant, directly involved in all food-related laws, the company's denials notwithstanding. It's so powerful, it has virtual veto power over anything related to its operations and laws affecting them.
Yet it dismissively claims that the bill stems from "public concerns with relatively recent incidents with peanut butter, ground beef, (and) spinach, etc." False. The way to deal with these and related problems is simply enforce existing laws, not enact new ones. They're not because food giants object at a time they matter, not public health and safety that's of no concern to lawmakers.
Case in point: the USDA is woefully understaffed, under-budgeted, and only perfunctorily carries out inspections. A recent OMB Watch report highlights the problem. Headlined, "Federal Meat Inspectors Spread Thin as Recalls Rise," it explains that USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is charged with ensuring safe meat, poultry and eggs, but its budget and staff haven't kept pace with its mandate.
In FY 1981, it had about 190 workers per billion pounds of meat and poultry inspected. By FY 2007, it was fewer than 88 or less than half as many. Yet under federal law, FSIS must inspect all meat, poultry, and egg products intended for commercial use. Its web site states: "Slaughter facilities cannot operate if FSIS inspection personnel are not present (and) Only Federally inspected establishments can produce products that are destined to enter commerce."
Reality, however, belies the mandate as processors and manufacturers easily circumvent procedures, and according to inspectors interviewed, understaffing and lax policies contribute to the problem. An unsafe food supply results. Government policy is to blame, and current legislation is for other purposes, not a way to fix things. HR 875 and companion bills are for agribusiness, not improved food safety.
Some Likely Truths about HR 875
Several recent articles and the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) offered their analyses. They believe this and companion bills are vehicles to let agribusiness control the entire US food supply, destroy independent local farming, and end the production of healthy organic food. They may be right.
Linn Cohen-Cole calls HR 875 "monstrous on level after level - the power it would give to Monsanto (and other Ag giants), the criminalization of seed banking, the prison terms and confiscatory fines for farmers, the 24 hour GPS tracking of animals, the easement on their property to allow for warrantless government entry, the stripping away of their property rights, the imposition (of) "industrial" standards, (and) planned elimination of (independent) farmers through all (the above) means."
It's no secret that Ag giants want all foods to be GMOs so they have total control. It's an agenda going back decades that Engdahl explained in his book. The science came out of US research labs in the 1970s when no one noticed or paid attention. It became apparent when the Reagan administration decided to make America dominant in a friendly unregulated environment, unmindful of safety and public health concerns, that's persisted ever since under Republican and Democrat administrations.
Monsanto is the dominant producer, a company with a long record of fraud, cover-up, bribery, deceit, and disdain for the public interest, yet it has enormous clout in Washington. In the 1980s, and especially under GHW Bush, it got unregulated free reign for its operations. A Bush Executive Order assured it. It ruled GMO plants and food to be "substantially equivalent" to ordinary ones of the same varieties, such as corn, wheat or rice. "Substantial equivalence" became the standard for the GMO revolution by sweeping away all regulatory restraints in spite of early concerns about safety that were confirmed overwhelmingly later on.
PASA says don't be fooled by the bill's deceptive language that hides its true intentions. Code words like "traceability, source verification, and best farming practices with proven scientific results" will force farmers to tag every animal (the requirement for industrial farms is one per 800,000) and use drugs, pesticides and GM seeds.
Already an Ohio state agricultural department swat team raided an organic food coop. The same thing happened to Pennsylvania Mennonite farmers and Wisconsin Amish ones. Other independents have been terrorized by home break-ins, burglaries, and treetop helicopter over-flights scaring animals to death. Conventional seed farmers like North Dakota's Rodney Nelson have been sued by Monsanto for infringing on its patent rights because wind currents landed GM seeds on his land. In Poland, pro-agribusiness laws eliminated 60% of small farmers. Ones in the UK led to 60 suicides and in India to over 180,000.
From 1996 - 2004, worldwide GMO plantings expanded to 167 million acres, a 40-fold increase on 25% of global arable land. Over two-thirds of US farmland grows GMOs, more than 106 million acres. Argentina has 34 million acres, and production is expanding in Brazil, China, Canada, South Africa, Indonesia, Spain, Eastern Europe, and wherever else Ag giants have clout. They want it all, everywhere, and have complicit government allies to help them, here and abroad.
In Iraq, Paul Bremer's Order 81 covers patents, their duration, and stated: "Farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties or any (designated) variety." It gave Ag giants absolute control over farmers' seed usage for 20 years. They're now GMO, owned by the transnationals, and Iraqi farmers had to sign an agreement to pay a "technology fee" as well as an annual license fee. Plant Variety Protection (PVP) made seed saving and reuse illegal, and even "similar" seed plantings can result in severe fines and imprisonment. Agribusiness wants the same rights everywhere, including in America. If they get it, the future of organic and independent farming will be threatened.
PASA says HR 875 doesn't regulate, prohibit or penalize private gardens or farmers markets directly. It focuses solely on ensuring supermarket food safety. But it regulates seeds, harvesting, transporting, seed storage facilities, and seed cleaning equipment under "food safety" provisions to prevent contamination - from agricultural water and manure, not pesticides, fertilizers, or unsafe GM seeds.
Seed cleaning equipment is crucial as it's how organic seed is saved. It's used after plants "go to seed" to separate them from plant material so farmers can harvest and store them for future plantings. HR 875 doesn't mention seeds but PASA believes its intent is to criminalize their banking through code language and bill provisions. Already, some areas of the country ban seed cleaning. Monsanto is likely involved, and the scheme is to claim the equipment produces contamination.
To prevent it, Ag giants want provisions that require expensive storage facilities, per line of seed. Organic farmers can't afford them, and this has nothing to do with food safety. But HR 875 claims it does.
PASA says FDA and USDA targeted organic and other independent farmers for years, at least since the early 1980s when high interest rates drove many out of business. Today, pro-industry laws have the same effect because Ag giants like Monsanto demand them. If they succeed, biodiversity and organic farming are at risk along with public health and safety to a greater degree than already given the amount of tainted and dangerous foods allowed, not addressed in HR 875.
While bill language doesn't prohibit organic or independent farming, that's the likely aim. Its provisions are Ag business-friendly, but destructive to small competitors by establishing heavy fines, imprisonment, onerous rules, and letting regulators interpret them as they wish.
Bill language also doesn't mandate a national animal ID system (NAIS) but does it by claiming it's in current law. It's so deceptive that Congress and consumer and food safety groups support it. But some are industry funded so look the other way when they should know better.
HR 875 and its companion bills are under consideration in committees, not yet voted into law. Activists feel now is the time to stop them before it's too late. Agribusiness wants total control over every step in the production, processing, distribution, storage, and marketing of foods to consumers.
Using the ruse of food safety and security, they aim to eliminate competition to have it all and replace wholesome foods with unsafe GMOs. Congress is willing to go along. And why not. Representatives like DeLauro get large Ag business contributions. In return, they assure bills like HR 875 are passed. It's for concerned people to stop them.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Center of Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday - Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues.
click here
Author's Bio: I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
Back
GMO Proliferation Bills - by Stephen Lendman
April 3, 2009 at 05:14:51
GMO Proliferation Bills
by Stephen Lendman Page 1 of 4 page(s)
www.opednews.com
SAVE FAVORITESVIEW FAVORITES
GMO Proliferation Bills - by Stephen Lendman
Four in all so far plus another authorizing funding under a 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act. One is HR 875: "Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009." Introduced in the House on February 4 by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, (D, CT) whose husband has ties to Monsanto, with 39 co-sponsors, it's been referred to the Agriculture and Energy and Commerce Committees for consideration as follows:
-- discussion,
-- possible hearings,
-- "mark-up" to make changes and add amendments,
-- then a vote on further action - to either table or send to the full chamber for a vote, the regular procedure for House and Senate legislation.
The bill's text is deceptively innocuous. Its header reads:
"To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illnesses, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes."
Related bills include:
S 425: "Food Safety and Tracking Improving Act." Introduced on February 12 and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. It purports: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for the establishment of a traceability system for food, to amend the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Inspections Act, the Egg Products Inspection Act. and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for improved public health and food safety through enhanced enforcement, and for other purposes."
HR 814: "Trace Act of 2009." Introduced on February 3 and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It's: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Inspection Act, and the Egg Products Inspection Act to improve the safety of food, meat, and poultry products through enhanced traceability, and for other purposes."
HR 759: "Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009." Introduced on January 28 and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It's: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to improved the safety of food, drugs, devices, and cosmetics in the global market, and for other purposes."
If its critics are right, HR 875 (and the others) are what Linn Cohen-Cole calls "Monsanto's dream bill" to proliferate the world with GMO contamination and control its entire food supply.
In 2007, F. William Engdahl wrote an important book on the topic called "Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation." He explained how Washington and four agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting all life forms to control food production globally - everything, crops and animals.
In 2003, Jeffrey Smith's "Seeds of Deception" explained the dangers of untested and unregulated GM foods exposing those who eat them to potential health risks. Reliable studies show that rats fed GM potatoes had smaller livers, hearts, testicles, brains, damaged immune systems, and showed structural changes in their white blood cells making them more susceptible to infection and disease than other rats fed non-GM potatoes. They also had thymus and spleen damage, enlarged tissues, including the pancreas and intestines, liver atrophy, and other serious problems.
Humans may be harmed the same way because GMOs saturate our diet. Over 80% of all processed foods contain them as well as rice, corn, soybeans, soy products, vegetable oils, soft drinks, salad dressings, vegetables, fruits, dairy products, meat, and other animal products plus an array of hidden additives and ingredients in products like tomato sauce, ice cream and peanut butter.
GMO Proliferation Bills
by Stephen Lendman Page 1 of 4 page(s)
www.opednews.com
SAVE FAVORITESVIEW FAVORITES
GMO Proliferation Bills - by Stephen Lendman
Four in all so far plus another authorizing funding under a 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act. One is HR 875: "Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009." Introduced in the House on February 4 by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, (D, CT) whose husband has ties to Monsanto, with 39 co-sponsors, it's been referred to the Agriculture and Energy and Commerce Committees for consideration as follows:
-- discussion,
-- possible hearings,
-- "mark-up" to make changes and add amendments,
-- then a vote on further action - to either table or send to the full chamber for a vote, the regular procedure for House and Senate legislation.
The bill's text is deceptively innocuous. Its header reads:
"To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illnesses, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes."
Related bills include:
S 425: "Food Safety and Tracking Improving Act." Introduced on February 12 and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. It purports: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for the establishment of a traceability system for food, to amend the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Inspections Act, the Egg Products Inspection Act. and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for improved public health and food safety through enhanced enforcement, and for other purposes."
HR 814: "Trace Act of 2009." Introduced on February 3 and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It's: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Inspection Act, and the Egg Products Inspection Act to improve the safety of food, meat, and poultry products through enhanced traceability, and for other purposes."
HR 759: "Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009." Introduced on January 28 and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It's: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to improved the safety of food, drugs, devices, and cosmetics in the global market, and for other purposes."
If its critics are right, HR 875 (and the others) are what Linn Cohen-Cole calls "Monsanto's dream bill" to proliferate the world with GMO contamination and control its entire food supply.
In 2007, F. William Engdahl wrote an important book on the topic called "Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation." He explained how Washington and four agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting all life forms to control food production globally - everything, crops and animals.
In 2003, Jeffrey Smith's "Seeds of Deception" explained the dangers of untested and unregulated GM foods exposing those who eat them to potential health risks. Reliable studies show that rats fed GM potatoes had smaller livers, hearts, testicles, brains, damaged immune systems, and showed structural changes in their white blood cells making them more susceptible to infection and disease than other rats fed non-GM potatoes. They also had thymus and spleen damage, enlarged tissues, including the pancreas and intestines, liver atrophy, and other serious problems.
Humans may be harmed the same way because GMOs saturate our diet. Over 80% of all processed foods contain them as well as rice, corn, soybeans, soy products, vegetable oils, soft drinks, salad dressings, vegetables, fruits, dairy products, meat, and other animal products plus an array of hidden additives and ingredients in products like tomato sauce, ice cream and peanut butter.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Obama Goes to Europe: Presidential Entourage 500 People
Home
Editorial: An entourage more royal than the Queen's
Submitted by SHNS on Tue, 03/31/2009 - 16:35. An editorial / By Dale McFeatters, Scripps Howard News Service editorials and opinion
The heads of government in London for the G-20 summit are discussing serious and weighty issues, which in time will be duly reported on, but right now the British press is entranced by the sheer size of President Obama's traveling entourage. And no wonder.
Obama arrived with 500 staff in tow, including 200 Secret Service agents, a team of six doctors, the White House chef and kitchen staff with the president's own food and water.
And, according to the Evening Standard, he also came with "35 vehicles in all, four speech writers and 12 teleprompters." For sure, our president is not going to be at a loss for words.
The press duly reported on Air Force One and all its bells and whistles but also on the presence of the presidential helicopter, Marine One, and a fleet of identical decoys to ferry him from Stansted airport to central London.
Among all those vehicles is the presidential limousine, which one local paper mistakenly called Cadillac One, but is universally referred to as the Beast. The limo, reinforced with ceramic and titanium armor, carries tear gas cannon, night vision devices, its own oxygen and is resistant to chemical and radiation attack. It is, marveled one reporter, a sort of mobile panic room. The Guardian called it "the ultimate in heavily armored transport."
The president is entitled to all the security, communications and support he feels necessary to do his job but surely, when we're trying to project a more restrained, humble image to the world, the president's huge retinue could be scaled back to something less than the triumphal march from "Aida."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
Editorial: An entourage more royal than the Queen's
Submitted by SHNS on Tue, 03/31/2009 - 16:35. An editorial / By Dale McFeatters, Scripps Howard News Service editorials and opinion
The heads of government in London for the G-20 summit are discussing serious and weighty issues, which in time will be duly reported on, but right now the British press is entranced by the sheer size of President Obama's traveling entourage. And no wonder.
Obama arrived with 500 staff in tow, including 200 Secret Service agents, a team of six doctors, the White House chef and kitchen staff with the president's own food and water.
And, according to the Evening Standard, he also came with "35 vehicles in all, four speech writers and 12 teleprompters." For sure, our president is not going to be at a loss for words.
The press duly reported on Air Force One and all its bells and whistles but also on the presence of the presidential helicopter, Marine One, and a fleet of identical decoys to ferry him from Stansted airport to central London.
Among all those vehicles is the presidential limousine, which one local paper mistakenly called Cadillac One, but is universally referred to as the Beast. The limo, reinforced with ceramic and titanium armor, carries tear gas cannon, night vision devices, its own oxygen and is resistant to chemical and radiation attack. It is, marveled one reporter, a sort of mobile panic room. The Guardian called it "the ultimate in heavily armored transport."
The president is entitled to all the security, communications and support he feels necessary to do his job but surely, when we're trying to project a more restrained, humble image to the world, the president's huge retinue could be scaled back to something less than the triumphal march from "Aida."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Your Old Man
BY LISA BELKIN
Published: April 1, 2009
Read between the lines of a recent study out of Australia and you can see hints of a coming shift in the gender conversation. Researchers at the University of Queensland found that children born to older fathers have, on average, lower scores on tests of intelligence than those born to younger dads. Data they analyzed from more than 33,000 American children showed that the older the man when a child is conceived, the lower a child’s score is likely to be on tests of concentration, memory, reasoning and reading skills, at least through age 7.
It was a small difference — just a few I.Q. points separated a child born to a 20-year-old and a child born to a 50-year-old. But it adds weight to a new consensus-in-the-making: there is no fountain of youth for sperm, no “get out of aging free” card. The little swimmers, scientists are finding, one study at a time, get older and less dependable along with every other cell in the male body.
And men don’t have to be all that old to be “too old.” French researchers reported last year that the chance of a couple’s conceiving begins to fall when the man is older than 35 and falls sharply if he is older than 40. British and Swedish researchers, in turn, have calculated that the risk of schizophrenia begins to rise for those whose fathers were over 30 when their babies were born. And another Swedish study has found that the risk of bipolar disorder in children begins to increase when fathers are older than 29 and is highest if they are older than 55. British and American researchers found that babies born to men over the age of 40 have significantly greater risk of autism than do those born to men under 30. (The age of the mother, in most of these studies, showed little or no correlation.)
Lay this latest I.Q. news atop the pile, and you find yourself reaching the same conclusion as Dr. Dolores Malaspina, a professor of psychiatry at New York University Medical Center, who has done some of the schizophrenia research: “It turns out the optimal age for being a mother is the same as the optimal age for being a father.”
For decades men have been diligently discovering their feminine side, and couples have been announcing “we’re pregnant”; yet the hows and whens of having a baby are still juggled primarily by women. We are the ones who hold the time lines and calendars in our heads, who have to surrender space in our bodies and clear time in our lives. Too soon could derail a career. Too late could risk infertility. Becoming a mother means compromising with biology — “settling” for a mate or for single-parenthood or for an ill-timed career interruption — in order to beat that clock...
Published: April 1, 2009
Read between the lines of a recent study out of Australia and you can see hints of a coming shift in the gender conversation. Researchers at the University of Queensland found that children born to older fathers have, on average, lower scores on tests of intelligence than those born to younger dads. Data they analyzed from more than 33,000 American children showed that the older the man when a child is conceived, the lower a child’s score is likely to be on tests of concentration, memory, reasoning and reading skills, at least through age 7.
It was a small difference — just a few I.Q. points separated a child born to a 20-year-old and a child born to a 50-year-old. But it adds weight to a new consensus-in-the-making: there is no fountain of youth for sperm, no “get out of aging free” card. The little swimmers, scientists are finding, one study at a time, get older and less dependable along with every other cell in the male body.
And men don’t have to be all that old to be “too old.” French researchers reported last year that the chance of a couple’s conceiving begins to fall when the man is older than 35 and falls sharply if he is older than 40. British and Swedish researchers, in turn, have calculated that the risk of schizophrenia begins to rise for those whose fathers were over 30 when their babies were born. And another Swedish study has found that the risk of bipolar disorder in children begins to increase when fathers are older than 29 and is highest if they are older than 55. British and American researchers found that babies born to men over the age of 40 have significantly greater risk of autism than do those born to men under 30. (The age of the mother, in most of these studies, showed little or no correlation.)
Lay this latest I.Q. news atop the pile, and you find yourself reaching the same conclusion as Dr. Dolores Malaspina, a professor of psychiatry at New York University Medical Center, who has done some of the schizophrenia research: “It turns out the optimal age for being a mother is the same as the optimal age for being a father.”
For decades men have been diligently discovering their feminine side, and couples have been announcing “we’re pregnant”; yet the hows and whens of having a baby are still juggled primarily by women. We are the ones who hold the time lines and calendars in our heads, who have to surrender space in our bodies and clear time in our lives. Too soon could derail a career. Too late could risk infertility. Becoming a mother means compromising with biology — “settling” for a mate or for single-parenthood or for an ill-timed career interruption — in order to beat that clock...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
