Farmers Busted for Marketing Conventional Crops as Certified Organic

ACSH  October 12, 2018

Three farmers in Nebraska just plead guilty to a food fraud scheme in which they were selling conventionally grown corn and soybeans as organic. They pulled off this scheme from 2010 to 2017 and made nearly $11 million in the process. How could they get away with it for so long?

For starters, nobody can tell the difference between conventional and organic food. It's not as if organic corn and soybeans look, smell, or taste differently compared to their conventional counterparts. So, the only way to catch food fraud is by doing a chemical analysis. In this case, the analysis would look for the presence of pesticides that are banned according to organic agriculture's (completely arbitrary) rules.

These rules are supposedly enforced by the National Organic Program (NOP), which is part of the USDA. Obviously, it isn't doing a particularly good job. According to the Washington Post:

"[T]he [organic food] system suffers from multiple weaknesses in enforcement: Farmers hire their own inspection companies; most inspections are announced days or weeks in advance and lack the element of surprise; and testing for pesticides is the exception rather than the rule."

In other words, the USDA's policy is just to trust farmers and suppliers if they say their food is organic. As a result of such a lax attitude toward regulation, food fraud occurs, not just with homegrown crops but with imported ones, as well.

The organic industry is built upon a gigantic lie: that is, the notion that "natural" farming methods are safer and healthier while "unnatural" methods are dangerous. Worse, the organic industry perpetuates a myth that it does not use pesticides, when it absolutely does. It should surprise no one, therefore, that such a deceptive industry would attract its fair share of hucksters.

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Supplements Put Your Health at Risk

Dietary supplements are not regulated the same way as medications. This lack of oversight puts consumers' health at risk.

By Jeneen Interlandi

July 27, 2016 

Calvin Jimmy Lee-White was tiny. He was born on Oct. 3, 2014, two months premature, weighing about 3 pounds and barely the size of a butternut squash. There are standards of care for treating infants that fragile, and as an attorney for the baby’s family later acknowledged, doctors at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut followed them. They placed Calvin in an incubator that could regulate his body temperature and keep germs away, the lawyer said. And they administered surfactant drugs, which help promote crucial lung development in premature infants. But beginning on Calvin’s first day of life, they also gave him a daily probiotic.
Probiotics are powders, liquids, or pills made up of live bacteria thought to help maintain the body’s natural balance of gut microorganisms. Some neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) have been giving them to preemies in recent years based on evidence that they can help ward off deadly intestinal disease.
Some doctors are concerned about that trend. Because probiotics can be classified as dietary supplements, they don’t have to be held to the same regulatory standards as prescription or even over-the-counter drugs. Manufacturers don’t have to secure Food and Drug Administration approval to sell their products, and their facilities aren’t policed the same way as pharmaceutical companies.
But the NICU at Yale-New Haven chose what looked to be a safe product. It was made by a large, seemingly reputable company, marketed specifically for infants and children, and available at drugstores across the country.
Calvin struggled anyway. His abdomen developed bulges, and surgery revealed that his intestines were overrun by a rare fungus. The infection spread quickly from his gut to his blood vessels, where it caused multiple blockages, and then into his aorta, where it caused a clot.
On Oct. 11, at just 8 days old, baby Calvin died. Government officials then launched a mournful investigation. Where did the fungus come from? And how did it get into this premature baby’s tiny body?         Consumer Reports

Nearly half of US honey hives collapsed in past 12 months

Published time: 12 May, 2016 15:11

The shocking, and seemingly irreversible, destruction of the US honeybee population took a huge hit in the past year, with 44 percent of all hives collapsing between April 2015 and April 2016.

This was the second worst year for colony losses since the "Beepocolypse" started a decade ago, according to The Bee Informed Partnership, the collaboration between the US Department of Agriculture, research labs, and universities that is tracking the alarming numbers.
Honeybee hives are generally inactive during the winter before being rejuvenated in the summer in a natural cycle, but this past season, colony collapses were three times higher than the "acceptable rate".

The varroa mite, first introduced to the US via Florida in 1995, and pesticides are thought to be the main causes of the collapse, although shipping them in trucks across the country to pollinate monocropped farms is also thought to stress them out.

While the crisis is largely caused by humans, they also suffer since honeybees pollinate US$15 billion worth of food crops in the US, one third of the supply.
The little yellow and black insects are also vulnerable to lobbying from the pesticide industry, led by the controversial American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which downplayed the bee genocide last year, saying "the issue has been way overblown" anddescribing it as "hype."
"We’re not in a battle against nature," Angela Logomasini of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Guardian. "It’s an agricultural management issue."
Unlike in the US, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) introduced a EU-wide ban on pesticides known as neonicotinoids, which are known to attack the nervous and immune systems of bees, leaving them open to disease.
While Logomasini argues that "the Europeans jumped the gun" on the matter, Friends of the Earth says ALEC is "trying to manufacture doubt and spin the science to downplay the role of pesticides."   RT

The Dirty Secrets of the Big Food Giants Hormone Disruptors

The Big Food giants, the pesticide and genetic engineering corporations such as Monsanto, the chemical, cosmetics, body care, food packaging, bottled water, and home furnishings industries—they all have a dirty secret.
All of these industries make products that are routinely laced with dangerous, often deadly chemicals called hormone (or endocrine) disruptors. These chemicals can make you (and your children) fat, diabetic, susceptible to cancer and infertility. They can cause damaging mental and behavioral changes. Pregnant women who ingest even tiny amounts of these chemicals can give birth to boys with genital deformities, and girls who will reach puberty at an alarming young age.
All these “Better Living Through Chemistry” companies and their PR firms and trade associations, bolstered by their minions in the mass media and academia, like to reassure us that these toxic, carcinogenic, gender-bending compounds in their products have been thoroughly tested and approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and other regulatory bodies.
They spend millions of dollars in advertising and lobbying to convince the public and the regulatory agencies not to worry about what they describe as “a tiny amount” of Roundup/glyphosate/atrazine/2,4 D weed killer, phthalate, flame retardant, triclosan, or other hormone disruptor in your food, plastic toy, water bottle, perfume, mattress, anti-bacterial hand soap, or other household product, (and of course your urine and your blood stream). It’s just a little poison. Just like that little bit of  lead or pesticide or nitrogen fertilizer residue in your tap water, hormone disruptors are something you can learn to live with, right?
No wonder millions of consumers, especially pregnant women and parents of young children, have lost faith in big corporations and the government, and are switching to organic food and other truly natural, non-chemically tainted products.
There’s mounting evidence that genetically engineered and chemically sprayed crops can pose great danger to people’s health—danger that starts at the hormonal level. New research shows that the additives (co-formulants) used in glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, may have damaging endocrine-disrupting effects. That’s sobering news, given that billions of pounds of Roundup are sprayed on both GMO and non-GMO crops every year, everywhere in the world.
We don’t have any trouble understanding the potential of a chemical to cause brain damage, or birth defects, or cancer. But damage to the hormone/endocrine system? That’s less obvious to those of us who don’t have a clear understanding of the role hormones play in the human body—or how even tiny amounts of agrichemical and industrial compounds can disrupt those hormones, wreaking havoc with our health.

Biology 101: the endocrine system

Before you can understand how endocrine disruptors work, it’s crucial to learn first what the endocrine system does. This exquisitely balanced yet complex system of glands and hormones regulates vital functions, such as:

• Body growth
• Stress response
• Insulin production and utilization
• Intelligence and behavior
• Sexual development and reproduction
• Metabolism
• Immunity

The endocrine glands, which include the thyroid, pituitary, adrenal, pancreas, thymus, ovaries, and testes, release carefully measured amounts of hormones into your bloodstream. These act as natural chemical messengers that travel to different parts of the body in order to control and adjust many life functions.
Once endocrine disruptors enter the picture, this harmonious process is thrown off balance.

What are hormone/endocrine disruptors?

Endocrine disruptors (also called endocrine-disrupting compounds or EDCs) are synthetic, man-made chemicals used in everyday applications and products, such as personal care and household products, agricultural chemicals, plastics and more. These external substances affect your body by mimicking, antagonizing or complexly disrupting specific endocrine pathways.
There are different ways endocrine disruptors can affect your health. In some cases, they can mimic a natural hormone which then fools the body into over-responding to the stimulus. A good example of this would be if you ingested the IGF-1 growth hormone factor found in Monsanto’s (now Elanco’s) genetically engineered recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH). This hormone, injected into dairy cows to force them to produce more milk, can potentially cause the proliferation of cancer cells in humans consume rBGH-derived milk. (More here).
Other hormone-disrupting chemicals can cause the human body to respond at inappropriate times, for instance by triggering insulin production at times when the body doesn’t actually need it.
Other EDCs can block growth hormones needed for normal development. Some directly stimulate or inhibit the endocrine system, causing overproduction or underproduction of hormones. Too much or too little of a hormone, caused by chemicals outside the body that disrupt the endocrine system, can damage your health in multiple ways.

Associated with a wide range of health problems 

The adverse consequences of EDCs have been proven by scientific research on laboratory animals, fish and wildlife and human epidemiology. In humans, endocrine disruptors are said to cause reproductive health problems (such as poor sperm quality, abnormalities in male sex organs, infertility, and even precocious puberty), affect immune, thyroid and nervous system function, and even raise your risk of certain diseases like cancer.
The World Health Organization (WHO), along with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), released a report in 2013 on the effects of EDCs. Touted as one of the most comprehensive reports on these chemicals, the findings revealed a wide variety of health problems associated with these synthetic substances. These include:

• Non-descended testes in young males
• Developmental effects on the nervous system in children
• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children
• Prostate cancer in men
• Breast cancer in women
• Thyroid cancer

Endocrine disruptors have also been associated with other health problems, such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease and impaired mental development. Unborn children are at a particularly high risk, as animal studies found that exposure to even small amounts of certain EDCs during pregnancy may trigger childhood or adult obesity. There are some EDCs that can target beta and alpha cells in the pancreas, as well as liver and fat cells, which may lead to insulin-resistance and Type 2 Diabetes.

Lurking in your home right now?

What really makes endocrine disruptors so dangerous is how ubiquitous they are. There are hundreds of these pervasive chemicals today. Your body can absorb them through inhalation, through your skin or by ingesting them directly from food. And they are everywhere—in food tainted with pesticides, personal care products, antibacterials, electronics, textiles and clothing. Plastics, laundry detergents and cleaning products, and even office supplies may all contain EDCs.
So that means that the food you eat, the water you drink, the bed you sleep in, and even the cookware you use every day may be exposing you to some type of endocrine disruptor.
What are the most common hormone disruptors to watch out for? These include:

• Pesticide residues in foods. Most non-organic grocery store or restaurant foods, including produce, processed foods, meat and animal products contain pesticide residues, many of which are endocrine or hormone disruptors.
• Flame-retardant chemicals like polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are used in household goods, furniture, and even mattresses. These are said to mimic thyroid hormones, which can lead to decreased fertility. Exposure to PBDEs in utero and during childhood was also associated with neurodevelopmental delays in school-age children.
• Phthalates, commonly used in personal care products like perfumes, hair spray, mousse and gel, and lotions are gender-bending chemicals that can disrupt the endocrine systems of animals, leading to testicular cancer, infertility, and genital deformation.
• Bisphenol-A (BPA) mimics estrogen and may cause brain damage, hyperactivity, poor immune function and prostate health and early puberty. BPA is one of the most widely used chemicals, found in plastics, receipts, and canned goods (it coats 75 percent of cans in North America). Its supposedly “safe” counterpart, bisphenol-S (BPS), is harmful as well.
• Triclosan, found in antibacterial products, soap, and certain toothpaste brands, can alter hormone regulation, interfere with fetal development and increase your risk of cancer. 

Are you consuming EDC-loaded foods?

Going back to pesticides, remember that unless you’re consuming raw, organic fruits and vegetables from trustworthy sources that don’t use pesticides, then you’re at risk of exposure to endocrine disruptors.  
One study clearly demonstrates this. Conducted by British scientists and published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, the study revealed that many agricultural pesticides disrupt male hormones. The study found that 30 of 37 widely used pesticides tested by researchers either blocked or mimicked male hormones. Sixteen of the 30 had no known hormonal activity until now, while 14 had some previous evidence of this effect. None of these 16 pesticides are included in the EPA’s Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program, which will test 200 chemicals in food and water for their hormone-disrupting abilities.
Of the tested compounds, fenitrothion, an organophosphate insecticide used on orchard fruits, rice and other grains, vegetables, was the most potent in terms of blocking androgens. Unsurprisingly, the EPA plan to study fenitrothion faces strong opposition from the pesticide industry.
R. Thomas Zoeller, chairman of the Biology department at the University of Massachusetts, said the British study was very important, as it reveals that the pesticides most prevalent in the human population affect the androgen receptor:

"Considering all the evidence that human male reproduction is exhibiting troubling secular trends (sperm count and quality, hypospadias, cryptorchidism, testis cancer), this is highly troubling."  

Exposure to EDCs isn’t limited to consuming pesticide residue on fruits and vegetables. Meat, dairy and other animal products may put you at risk of EDCs. Animals raised on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) typically consume antibiotics, hormones and other industrial chemicals that may have hormone-disrupting properties. Even farmed fish and seafood harvested from polluted waters and exposed to heavy metals may also have dangerously high levels of endocrine-disrupting contaminants.

How to reduce your exposure

As the saying goes, prevention is always better than cure. According to the 2013 WHO and UNEP report, the effects of EDCs may not show up until decades later–when it may be too late.
Instead of waiting for the effects of EDCs to strike, you should make a conscious effort to avoid them in the first place. Here are some of the easiest ways to do this:

• Reduce your exposure to EDC-containing pesticides and fertilizers by buying only organic produce and 100% grass-fed, free-range, organic meats. Avoid processed, prepackaged foods as well, as these are common sources of BPA and phthalates.
• Buy products that come in glass jars or bottles, rather than plastic containers or cans.
• Use only natural cleaning products at home. Better yet, make your own. Baking soda, vinegar and lemon are some ingredients you can use.
• Opt for organic personal care brands, like shampoos, toothpaste, cosmetics and antiperspirants. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has a comprehensive database on safe and high-quality products that are free of EDCs and other potentially harmful chemicals.  
• Avoid products with artificial fragrances like fabric softeners, dryer sheets and air fresheners. Opt instead for those that are fragrance-free.

The best way to avoid endocrine disruptors is to choose products that are made by companies that support sustainability, and that are Earth-friendly and certified organic. By making smart consumer choices, you can limit your exposure to these damaging chemicals and protect your health in the long run.
Elaine Catherine R. Ferrer is a contributing writer to the Organic Consumers Association and Mercola.com.
Ronnie Cummins is international director of the Organic Consumers Association.      Organic Consumers

The packaging used for certain food products can impact hormones.

By April M. Short / AlterNet April 23, 2016

As if it weren’t already enough of a headache to find non-toxic, safe and healthy food to eat, a recent study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspective reveals that the packaging used for certain food products can impact hormones. Researchers for the study found that people who eat more fast food have significantly increased rates of phthalates—industrial chemicals used to make plastics—in their systems. The study authors attribute the trend to chemicals seeping from plastic packaging into foods.

The study asked 8,877 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examinations Surveys between 2003 and 2010 to report all the food they had eaten within last 24 hours. Participants also donated a urine sample to the study. Researchers tested each urine sample for the industrial chemicals di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), diisononyl phthalate (DiNP) and bisphenol A (BPA)—all of which are suspected to impact health and hormones.

The results showed people for whom fast food made up 35% or more of their daily food consumption had higher rates of DEHP (24%) and DiNP (40%), compared to those who did not eat fast food. There was no significant correlation between BPA and fast food.

Fast foods often comes in packaging that contains phthalates, as do a number of processed grocery store items, according to the American Chemistry Council.

While the study did not show a correlation between BPA in the blood and fast-food consumption, researchers concluded in 2008 that plastics containing BPA can and do seep into foods, and then into the bloodstream. Since then, BPA has been banned by many food packaging manufacturers, which could potentially explain its absence in the recent study.

A Time article on April 13 discussed the recent study results in detail, and spoke with study author Ami Zota, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. Zota told Time,"The same range of concentrations measured in this [group] overlaps with the range of concentrations that have been measured in some of epidemiological studies that find adverse health effects.”

Thanks to efforts to educate the public that date back to the '50s, most people now know chemicals are entering our food supply in a number of ways. Studies continue to link chemicals with common cancers, like breast cancers, as well as other health issues like reproductive abnormalities in men and women. Despite mass efforts to rein in the big companies like Monsanto that are responsible for the creation of many chemical poisons, toxins continue to make their way into our food supply all the time via packaging, pesticides sprayed on crops, and antibiotics and hormones given to poultry, pigs and cattle in industrial factory farm operations.

Many people are generally aware that fast food is unhealthy (toxic chemicals aside, fast food contributes to high rates of diabetes, heart disease and obesity), and it’s likely the average person has heard that processed foods contain cancer-causing carcinogens. Still, Americans continue to consume these foods at perversely high rates. According to the United States Healthful Food Council, the average American adult buys a meal or snack from a restaurant 5.8 times a week and more than 30 percent of children eat fast food on any given day. Americans spend an average of $100 billion on fast food each year. 

Ami Zota spoke to this piece of the puzzle in the Time interview, which points out that “about a third of all the people in the study had eaten fast food in the prior day.”

“That’s a lot,” Zota said. “That alone tells you the public health impact of this type of food preparation.”

Zota also told Time that in addition to chemicals leaching into food through packaging, “plastic gloves and conveyer belts could also be sources.”

The study concludes that, “Fast food may be a source of exposure to DEHP and DiNP. These results, if confirmed, could inform individual and regulatory exposure reduction strategies.”     Alternet

The Japanese lettuce production company Spread believes the farmers of the future will be robots.

The Japanese lettuce production company Spread believes the farmers of the future will be robots.

So much so that Spread is creating the world's first farm manned entirely by robots. Instead of relying on human farmers, the indoor Vegetable Factory will employ robots that can harvest 30,000 heads of lettuce every day.

Don't expect a bunch of humanoid robots to roam the halls, however; the robots look more like conveyor belts with arms. They'll plant seeds, water plants, and trim lettuce heads after harvest in the Kyoto, Japan farm. 

"The use of machines and technology has been improving agriculture in this way throughout human history," J.J. Price, a spokesperson at Spread, tells Tech Insider. "With the introduction of plant factories and their controlled environment, we are now able to provide the ideal environment for the crops."

The Vegetable Factory follows the growing agricultural trend of vertical farming, where farmers grow crops indoors without natural sunlight. Instead, they rely on LED light and grow crops on racks that stack on top of each other.

In addition to increasing production and reducing waste, indoor vertical farming also eliminates runoff from pesticides and herbicides — chemicals used in traditional outdoor farming that can be harmful to the environment.

The new farm, set to open in 2017, will be an upgrade to Spread's existing indoor farm, the Kameoka Plant. That farm currently produces about 21,000 heads of lettuce per day with help from a small staff of humans. Spread's new automation technology will not only produce more lettuce, it will also reduce labor costs by 50%, cut energy use by 30%, and recycle 98% of water needed to grow the crops.

The resulting increase in revenue and resources could cut costs for consumers, Price says.

"Our mission is to help create a sustainable society where future generations will not have to worry about food security and food safety," Price says. "This means that we will have to make it affordable for everyone and begin to grow staple crops and plant protein to make a real difference."

Spread

Spread is also developing sensors to provide data about how specific type of crops grow. These sensors would alert human workers if a crop is not growing correctly, allowing them to adjust techniques as necessary.

Farm robots will certainly eliminate some human jobs, but they could also create new and more interesting jobs for people. Spread's human farmers, for example, will be able to concentrate on developing sustainable farming methods and learning how to produce higher quality vegetables.

The Vegetable Factory will open next year, and eventually, Spread hopes to build similar robot farms around the world.            TechInsider