(http://www.salon.com)The checks and balances that are meant to protect our system of government are under attack. The Farmer Assurance Provision, better known as the Monsanto Protection Act, which was passed last March, was extended for three months when the US House of Representatives' approved a spending bill on Tuesday.
The Monsanto Protection Act was snuck into the House Agriculture Appropriations Bill for 2013, a short-term funding bill to avoid a government shutdown, at the last minute and had barely been read by members of congress when they first approved it.
The current three-month extension is part of the short-term FY14 Continuing Resolution spending bill.
The Monsanto Protection Act has drawn much criticism across a broad spectrum. The provision would allow farmers and companies to continue to plant and use GMOs even if health problems or risks emerge and protects them from lawsuits related to such damages. Opponents of the bill say that it is an unprecedented attack on US judicial review, prohibiting Americans from protection by the judicial system and curtailing its responsibility to keep the government in check. Hundreds of thousands of Americans participated in the March Against Monsanto in May and made their voices heard to their "representatives" after Obama signed the provision into law. Congress apparently doesn't care about the American people, as evidenced by the fact that they refused to remove this completely unnecessary provision from the spending bill.
According to the Center for Food Safety, the provision "could override any court-mandated caution and could instead allow continued planting. Further, it forces USDA to approve permits for such continued planting immediately, putting industry completely in charge by allowing for a 'back door approval' mechanism." This is a serious affront to public safety and the democratic process.
The passed House appropriations bill will fund the government through December. All Americans should be concerned about this attack on democracy, health and food freedom. If you want to get involved, you can contact government officials here or send a letter urging representatives to strike the Monsanto Protection Act from the FY 2013 Agriculture Appropriations bill here.
(http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com)Yesterday, Just Label It, a coalition of 650 organizations in support of labeling genetically engineered food products, released a new independent study showing that GMO labeling would not cause higher food prices.
The study author, Kai Robertson, used publicly available information and her own experience as a food marketing expert who worked for the Food Marketing Institute in the past to reach these results.
"This just confirms what most consumers already know," Just Label It executive director Scott Farber said while announcing the study during a conference call, according to foodnavigator-usa.com. "Adding a few words to the back of a package won't add prices at the supermarket shelf; in particular, there is no evidence that label changes increase the cost of making food."
According to Robertson's study, "Why Label Changes Don't Affect Food Prices," supermarket pricing is based on a variety of complex factors, most important of which are consumer demand and competition, not the wholesale cost of a product. Furthermore, product label changes have little to no effect on the product pricing. In fact, food manufacturers often change their labels for many reasons, such as for marketing purposes, reflecting a change in ingredients or updating regulatory information. Because of this, companies generally order less than a year's worth of product labeling at a time.
GMO labeling would allow consumers to know what they're spending their money on and putting into their bodies. The only possible negative consequence of this is that big biotech companies like Monsanto, who has recently contributed $4.6 million to the No on 522 GMO labeling campaign in Washington, might see a decline in sales, as people choose to pay for and eat foods that are actually good for them.
(http://www.hngn.com)To combat rising rates of drug abuse and overdose deaths, the Food and Drug Administration announced on Tuesday their plans for new warning labels on all extended-release and long-acting opioid painkillers.
"The FDA is invoking its authority to require safety labeling changes and post market studies to combat the crisis of misuse, abuse, addiction, overdose, and death from these potent drugs that have harmed too many patients and devastated too many families and communities," said Margaret A. Hamburg, FDA Commissioner.
In addition to expressing concern over the risks of opioids, Hamburg acknowledged the benefits they provide to some patients in extreme pain.
Thanks to Big Pharma's ceaseless drug promotion and downplaying of side effects and risks, prescription rates for painkiller medications have shot up to worrying levels. The amount of people addicted to painkillers has reached epidemic levels, with a 2009 finding that 2 million Americans were addicted to these drugs.
Douglas Throckmorton, deputy director for regulatory programs in the FDA's center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said, "These labeling changes describe more clearly the risks and safety concerns associated with ER/LA opioids and will encourage better, more appropriate, prescribing, monitoring and patient counseling practices involving these drugs."
(http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/43821)On Monday, Burma initiated a nationwide vaccination program in attempts to prevent elephantiasis. Elephantiasis is a disease characterized by the thickening of the skin and underlying tissues, especially in the legs. A major cause of the disease is roundworms transmitted to humans through mosquito bites. Elephantiasis is relatively rare; a random test of 3,000 people in Rangoon by the Department of Heath this year showed that only five people had contracted the disease.
In some places throughout the country, officials for the vaccination campaign have reportedly described the risks of elephantiasis without giving adequate information about the vaccine. In other places, people are told that they might develop a reaction to the vaccine and that they should visit a doctor if serious symptoms occurred.
One man complained that no nurses or health care experts were present when he received his vaccine. The local leaders and social workers he received the vaccine tablets from failed to tell him that that they could be harmful for people with high-blood pressure, diabetes or asthma. No one told him that children should receive smaller doses; his 5-year-old received the same doses as him, two and a half tablets. He was told one of the tablets was a vitamin supplement to prevent dizziness when it was actually used to treat roundworms.
Side effects of the vaccine include dizziness, drowsiness, nausea and vomiting. According to a physician from Rangoon General Hospital, "Pregnant women, lactating mothers, infants and people with chronic diseases such as liver infection, kidney problems and heart disease should avoid the vaccine, because it can cause life-threatening side effects such as acute inflammation of the brain, visual loss, disorder of the eye due to bleeding in the retina, and severe skin allergy."
(http://www.minnpost.com)For decades, some land within the Detroit Lakes Wetland Management District, which is part of the National Wildlife Refuge System, has been cultivated under cooperative agreements between farmers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The refuge is important for the preservation of America's natural habitat and the continuation of several species of waterfowl and other birds.
In recent years, genetically modified crops have begun to be farmed on refuges, resulting in a sharp spike in pesticide and neonicotinoid usage in the area. This has triggered a series of lawsuits by environmental groups which allege that the FWS has failed to meet legal requirements for reviewing the environmental impact of such practices before permitting them, especially since it has been allowed in areas set aside for wildlife protection. In addition to the Detroit Lakes WMD, the lawsuit seeks to protect four other refuges for a total of 11,000 farmed acres of land.
Of particular concern in this case is the heavy use of "Roundup Ready" crops and the pesticide glyphosate, which has been shown to be persistent in the environment, cause health problems to animals and cause herbicide-resistant superweeds to proliferate. Another important issue is the growing use of neonicotinoids in the region, which have been implicated in America's devastating bee colony collapse disorder.
(http://www.reuters.com)On Thursday, 73 U.S. farmers, seed companies and public advocacy groups have joined forces to appeal against Monsanto in the Supreme Court. Their case seeks to challenge the company's patent claims on GMO seeds and to halt their aggressive lawsuits against anyone whose fields are contaminated by their GMOs.
Over 100 farmers have been sued by Monsanto for patent infringement and the company has won cases against farmers who "used" their seeds without paying royalties.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a previous ruling which states that organic and non-GMO farmers have no legal standing to prohibit Monsanto from suing them if their fields are contaminated with the company's manufactured genetic traits, "because Monsanto has made binding assurances that it will not 'take legal action against growers whose crops might inadvertently contain traces of Monsanto biotech genes."
Daniel Ravicher, Executive Director of the Public Patent Foundation, says that Monsanto's patents on GM seeds don't meet the "usefulness" requirement of patent law. The plaintiffs have cited evidence proving that GM seeds have adverse economic and health effects and limited benefits.
(http://www.thehindu.com)In 2010, former Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told his then apex regulator of genetically modified organisms that it had failed to properly use available science to determine the safety of Bt brinjal. His decision to do so was based in science and validated by the esteemed scientists that made up the Supreme Court Technical Expert Committee who have advised the Court on the need for better research before continuing to release GM crops in the environment or use them as food.
Many scientists view questions and concerns about GM crop technologies as an assault on science, but this simply is not true. For over 30 years, GM technology has promised to produce plants that will resist the stresses of drought, heavy metals and salt, increase yield, reduce the use of toxic pesticides and even fix their own nitrogen, but none of these promises have been sustainably delivered to farmers. GM crops have also still not been proven to be safe. Over 1,000 applications were approved to test stress-tolerant GM plants in field trials in the United States. None ever made it out of the testing phase.
GM technology is an attempt to use genetics to overcome the environment, which never works for long and will soon be seen as just a distraction from investing in real solutions to the problems faced by farmers. Countries that choose to innovate in agriculture using GM have demonstrated lower productivity increases and a greater dependence on chemicals compared to other countries that do not use GM crops, such as Western European countries like France. Better solutions to the problems faced by farmers would include using technology to build up their soils and manage pests with little or no application of pesticide while expanding the variety of crops grown and increasing nutrition. That is why we should halt the use and spread of GM crops until further testing is done and science has made attempts to come up with real, sustainable solutions.
(http://www.usatoday.com)The Food and Drug Administration has completed a new study in which they found samples of rice to be contaminated with arsenic. The FDA tested more than 1,300 samples of rice and rice products. Average levels of inorganic arsenic found in rice ranged from 2.6 to 7.2 micrograms per serving, with instant rice at the low end and brown rice at the high end. Average levels of inorganic arsenic found in rice products ranged from 0.1 to 6.6 micrograms per serving, with infant formula at the bottom and rice pasta at the top.
Arsenic comes in two types, organic and inorganic. Organic arsenic passes through the body and is not known to be very harmful. Inorganic arsenic is found in some pesticides and is a toxic substance that may increase one's risk of cancer if consumed at high levels or over a long period. Arsenic is found naturally present in low levels in water, air, soil, and, subsequently, food.
"These amounts of detectable arsenic are not high enough to cause any immediate or short-term adverse health effects," the FDA's website reads. However, they are unsure of what long-term effects may occur from consuming low levels of arsenic.
The FDA says that it now intends to conduct a risk assessment for consumption of arsenic in rice and is also conducting additional sampling to broaden its data on infant and toddler products. In the meantime, the agency advises consumers to eat a well-balanced diet, vary their grains and consider diversifying infant foods.
(http://www.reuters.com)On Friday, South Korea extended a ban on Japanese fishery imports to a larger area around the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant due to growing concerns over radiation contamination.
The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), said it is "very concerned" that radioactive water could flow towards a bypass it is digging to divert clean groundwater around the damaged reactors and into the sea, further fueling concerns.
A spokesman for the South Korean Prime Minister's office said the measures were due to "the sharply increased concern in the public about the flow of hundreds of tons of contaminated water into the ocean" at Fukushima. The ban takes effect on Monday and will cover imports from eight Japanese prefectures, including Fukushima. It will be in place for an indefinite amount of time, adding international pressure to solve the problems at the Fukushima plant.
Since the disaster, China has banned dairy, vegetable and seafood product imports from at least five Japanese prefectures, including Fukushima.
Japan's top government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, insists that the country's fish exports are safe for consumption, claiming that the contamination is isolated to one area where radiation readings are within permissible levels.
"We have been providing relevant information to the South Korean government," Suga told reporters. "We would like South Korea to take steps based on scientific evidence."
Its difficult for any sensible person, including South Korea's government officials, to fully take such statements seriously, considering the fact that TEPCO and the Japanese government have routinely denied or downplayed aspects of the crisis and the effects of radiation ever since the plant was struck by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
(http://www.nbcdfw.com)An undercover sting operation has led to the arrest of at least two Transportation Security Administration officers at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The officers were arrested in connection to stolen parking passes for employee parking lots. The probe was begun several months ago by the airport's Department of Public Safety.
Investigators found that an American Airlines worker had stolen 100 parking passes for employee parking lots and recruited TSA officers to sell them to coworkers for $100 each. One source says that as many as 20 TSA officers are suspected of buying or selling the passes, another source claims that the number of officers involved is closer to 40.
TSA officers at DFW airport are required to pay $102 each quarter for employee parking, by contrast, the stolen passes being sold for $100 in the investigation were good for one year.
It not currently clear whether or not the airlines employee was arrested. Airport spokespersons are declining to comment on the investigation or confirm arrests.
(http://news.xinhuanet.com)A new research study published in the U.S. journal Science has shown that human gut microbes can help fight obesity.
In the study, researchers recruited four human twin pairs with different obesity levels and transferred gut microbes from their fecal samples into the guts of germ-free mice that had been raised under sterile conditions. They found that, when fed a normal diet, the mice who received microbes from the obese twins gained more fat than mice who received microbes from the lean twins.
When mice who received microbes from an obese twin were housed with mice who received microbes from a lean twin, the obese-microbe mice lost weight, but the lean-microbe mice were unaffected. An analysis of the bacterial communities revealed that certain bacteria can pass from the lean mice and colonize in the obese mice, suggesting that these bacteria are largely responsible for protection from weight gain. However, microbes from the obese mice were unable to colonize the lean mice.
When the researchers changed the mice's diet to be representative of modern Western diets with low fiber and high saturated fats, they found that neither the obese mice nor the lean mice were affected by each other's gut microbes. Meanwhile, a healthy, high-fiber, low-fat human diet showed the same results as a regular diet.
The findings highlight the fact that human metabolism relies on a variety of complex interactions between diet, body mass and gut flora. And that these microbes have much more to do with weight loss than previously thought.
(http://globalbem.com)The 2013 Breakthrough Energy conference is well on its way. The event will feature more than 30 speakers and is set to take place at University of Colorado Boulder on October 10 through October 12.
It's clear that humanity faces grand challenges. Old ways of doing and thinking have become increasingly unsustainable and unviable and are in need of great transformation. In essence, we have forgotten how to care for our planet and one another.
The Breakthrough Energy conference promises to show humanity how to break this trend. The conference organizers are attempting to unite forces to create a movement to activate global consciousness. Experts from various fields will speak about new technologies and the energy revolution to take place in the near future. Unwilling and uneducated leaders and energy policy makers have caused years of delays for advanced clean and sustainable energy technologies and applications, but that is all about to change. Solving the world's energy crisis would change everything and allow humanity to focus on other goals and look forward to the future.
The Breakthrough Energy Movement is a non-profit volunteer driven organization that seeks to educate the public about clean, sustainable breakthrough energy technologies. You can visit the Breakthrough Energy Movement website to learn more about energy technologies, buy tickets to the upcoming conference or contribute to their world-changing project.
(http://www.westonaprice.org)The Food and Drug Administration recently issued a draft guidance document that will make it all but impossible for farmers with 3,000 or more laying hens to keep the birds on pasture. The goal of this rule is to prevent the spread of salmonella from wild animals to the hens, despite the fact that all major incidents of salmonella in eggs have come from confinement factory farms.
The FDA issued a rule in 2007, requiring that farms with more than 3,000 hens must take extensive steps to address the risk of salmonella contamination, including testing both the birds and the hen houses. The FDA now has several years of data on where salmonella has occurred, but its new guidance document doesn't mention any cases of salmonella being connected to pastured hens.
Hens that are able to spend time outside receive more sunlight, exercise and diversity in their diet, making them healthier and able to produce more nutritional eggs than hens that are cramped indoors.
The FDA fears exposure to wild animals as the only significant health risk and suggests in its draft guidance document that farmers must cover outdoor pastures with roofing or netting or use noise cannons to scare away wild birds. There are obviously several problems with these suggestions: they are not based on evidence; they are cost-prohibitive; roofing a pasture would block rain and sunlight and defeat the purpose of raising hens in a pasture in the first place; and noise cannons that would scare away wild birds would also scare the laying hens.
Eggs labeled "organic" must come from birds with outdoor access, and FDA regulations allow large-scale factory farms that attach small "porches" to their facilities to label their eggs as such. The FDA clearly favors the mainstream approach, approving this practice while penalizing farmers who try to provide true access to pasture.
(http://ecowatch.com)A new generation of genetically modified (GM) crops that are even more resistant to toxic herbicides has been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The first of these crops to pass the low regulatory bar was a Bayer soybean variety genetically engineered to withstand direct application of the herbicide isoxaflutole (IFT), which the Environmental Protection Agency classifies as a "probable human carcinogen."
According to the Center for Food Safety, the national use of this toxic herbicide is expected to increase by 400% due to the new GE soybeans.
Tests have shown that IFT induces liver and thyroid tumors in rats. The chemical and its breakdown products persist in surface waters and are already frequently detected in tests. It is also toxic to aquatic organisms, wild plants and many important crops. In fact, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota all rejected the Bayer-EPA label for this herbicide because of its insufficiency to protect human health, the environment and neighboring crops.
The first generation of GM crops is resistant to the herbicide glyphosate. This unnatural resistance skyrocketed the use of glyphosate, destroying biodiversity, threatening Monarch butterfly populations and the rest of the environment and triggering an epidemic of glyphosate-resistant weeds.
We should expect no less from the second generation of GM crops, designed to be used in even more toxic conditions.
Other similar second generation GMOs waiting for approval include Dow AgroSciences' 2,4-D-resistant corn and soybeans. 2,4-D was introduced in the 1940s, was used in Agent Orange and has been linked to fatal immune system cancers in farmers, among other adverse effects.
Although scientists continue to genetically modify plants to be more resistant to pesticides, humans have undergone no such alteration. As a result, the massive amounts of poison that leave crops unaffected causes a plethora of health problems following human consumption. Studies show that prenatal exposure to pesticides is linked to ADHD-like behaviors, slowed mental development and lower IQ scores in children. Many pesticides are also known to cause cancer and hormonal disruptions in humans.
GM crops designed to be more resistant to pesticides are inherently more toxic to consumers and unsustainable. As more pesticides are used, weeds and pests will continue to develop natural resistance, necessitating - in the eyes of the agricultural industry - the need for GM crops with greater resistance to more toxic poisons.
(http://www.charlotteobserver.com)Last week, Chobani, a Greek yogurt company, began contacting some retail stores and asking them to remove its products after realizing they were contaminated with mold. The company has recently issued a recall, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating the matter.
Chobani became aware of the problem from consumer complaints over social media citing off-tasting yogurt, bloated containers, gastrointestinal distress and unusual yogurt consistency.
On Tuesday, Chobani told Food Navigator, an industry publication, that they have "investigated the cause of the (swelling/bloating) and have identified a type of mold commonly found in the dairy environment."
The FDA says that the company has handled the issue unusually and is in discussions with them to assess the problem's nature, public risk level, containment and whether Chobani is doing enough to communicate any risk to the public.
Chobani says that the issue has affected less than 5 percent of its production and previously stated that it would not issue a recall because it does not believe there is a safety risk. Since then, Chobani has issued a recall and advises customers to throw away containers with expiration dates from Sept. 9 to Oct. 7 and a code of 16-012.
(http://www.foxnews.com)An Ohio judge has ruled in favor of the parents of a 10-year-old Amish girl with leukemia who are refusing to continue her chemotherapy.
After little Sarah Hershberger was diagnosed with leukemia, her parents agreed to start chemotherapy treatment at Akron Children's Hospital. Following a month of chemotherapy, her tumors saw reduction in size. But the pain was too much, and she begged her parents to cease treatments.
After much prayer, her parents accepted her decision and have since turned to God and natural medicine. The hospital was greatly displeased by this and challenged the Hershberger's parental rights in courts, attempting to assign a hospital employee as Sarah's legal guardian and force her to continue chemotherapy.
Judge John Lohn initially blocked the hospital's attempts, but an appeals court asked him to reconsider, after which, he reaffirmed his original decision. Now, Sarah's parents can be a little bit happier knowing that their rights to protect their daughter in their own way are no longer being usurped.
"They are good parents," Lohn said. "They understand completely the grave situation their daughter is in and the consequences of their choice to refuse chemotherapy for Sarah at this time."
Sarah's parents have taken great care with their daughter's health. They have consulted with a wellness center and have begun to treat her with natural medicine in addition to seeing another doctor to monitor her progress. Sarah's father said that they have not ruled out returning to Akron Children's Hospital if Sarah's health worsens.
(http://bigislandnow.com)A County Council committee will take up two new bills today, Wednesday, involving the growing of genetically modified crops on Hawaii's Big Island.
One of the bills to be heard by the Committee on Public Safety & Mass Transit, Bill 109, would ban the growing of transgenic papayas, including the Rainbow and SunUp varieties developed in response to the ringspot virus. If passed, this bill would give GM papaya growers 30 days to cease operations before facing several penalties, including a fine of up to $1,000 per day.
The committee, which meets in the Hilo council chambers at 1:30 PM, will also consider Bill 113, which would allow the cultivation of GM papayas but ban all other GMOs.
(http://www.reuters.com)According to Japan's nuclear regulator, radiation readings around the tanks holding contaminated water at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant have spiked by more than a fifth, from 1,800 millisieverts (mSv) to 2,200 mSv, the highest level it has been.
The Japanese government said on Tuesday that it would spend almost $500 million to fix the growing levels of contaminated water at the plant, addressing fears of rising radiation levels and leaks.
Last month, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said that one of the tanks holding the contaminated water was leaking. Another leak that was later found and rising radiation levels have contributed to fears of further contamination.
"There's a strong possibility these tanks also leaked, or had leaked previously," said Hiroaki Koide, Assistant Professor at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute. "We have to worry about the impact on nearby groundwater...These tanks are not sturdy and have been a problem since they were constructed two years ago."
It's also possible the radiation readings are increasing because of more frequent monitoring and inspections by TEPCO employees, indicating the hotspots and leaks have been there for some time, Koide said.
"The government has finally said they will be involved in this problem but they are still not going to be fully involved in the decommission," he said. "It is too little, too late."
TEPCO has stored enough radioactive water in its weak, faulty tanks to fill more than 130 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The government ordered the company to transfer all the water held in those tanks to more reliable tanks with welded seams.
(http://thehill.com)Environmental and animal welfare groups have filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration for dropping a rule in 2012 that would have let the Environmental Protection Agency collect information about industrial livestock farms.
"The animal agriculture industry has benefited from EPA's lack of information for decades, and has successfully opposed efforts to increase transparency," Jonathon Lovvorn, a senior vice president at the Humane Society, one of several groups alleging that the administration's choice to ignore this rule lacked legal basis, said in a statement this week."This certainly is not good for animals, humans or the environment; it is only good for massive industrialized farms."
The rule, initially proposed in 2011, would have given the EPA the ability to collect information about industrial livestock farm's addresses and size and the number of animals kept at the facilities.
The groups suing the EPA say that many of those facilities, which often house animals in packed conditions, can discharge pollutants like hormones, metals and antibiotics into the water.
Livestock groups feared that the rule constituted a regulatory overreach and would have provided opportunities for farmers to be harassed and attacked by activists. The EPA withdrew the rule last summer and has since stated that it would gather such information from state and other federal agencies.
However, that information is insufficient to ensure that both animals and the public are adequately protected. "The data from the states is inconsistent, incomplete and, ultimately, will not allow the agency to finally begin the process of properly regulating these highly polluting facilities," said Wenonah Hauter, the executive director of Food & Water Watch, which is also taking part in the lawsuit.