The Monsanto Papers: Getting dirty

EHN  Mar 12, 2021

The book tells the true life tale of Lee Johnson, a California groundskeeper who was diagnosed with terminal cancer he alleged was caused by his exposure to Monsanto's Roundup herbicides.

Lee wouldn't think about the sprayer accident again until many months later, when an odd-looking scaly lesion popped up just above his right knee. It itched and cracked and oozed. As time passed, the patch near his knee was matched by another on his arm. And another on his torso. Small bumps the size of BB pellets sprouted out of his skin. Lee changed the laundry soap and dryer sheets his family used and tried an assortment of creams, but nothing helped. Dread grew with every new spot that erupted. Eventually, nearly Lee's entire body, including his face and scalp, was covered in painful sores. Some became infected, including one on his head.

As his condition progressed, Lee's once unmarred skin broke open at the slightest touch in some places, and wearing clothing became almost unbearably painful. A lesion even developed on one of his eyelids, making it impossible for him to open the eye without grimacing in pain. The softer the skin where the lesions sprouted, the more searing the pain, Lee learned.

Strangers started to stare when Lee went out. His sons' friends asked if he'd been burned in a fire or suffered from some disfiguring disease. "What's wrong with your dad?" became a common question for Ali when Lee attended a football practice. He took to wearing long sleeves, long pants, and large sunglasses in public, hoping to avoid the pitying glances from strangers.

In the early stages, when the skin eruptions were fewer, flatter, and less painful, Lee could still sometimes tell himself they might just be part of a weird rash. He kept going to work as usual and kept doing his regular rounds, including spraying weed killer. He convinced himself that the skin problems would resolve themselves, just as the bee stings and bloody scrapes he suffered on the job always had. But when the sores spread to his face, Lee had had enough. It was time to see a doctor and, he hoped, find a medicine that would clear it all up.

Glyphosate is everywhere

Global Research    April 27, 2019

As new studies continue to point to a direct link between the widely-used glyphosate herbicide and various forms of cancer, the agribusiness lobby fights ferociously to ignore or discredit evidence of human and other damage. A second US court jury case just ruled that Monsanto, now a part of the German Bayer AG, must pay $ 81 million in damages to plaintiff Edwin Hardeman who contracted non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer. The ruling and a line-up of another 11,000 pending cases in US courts going after the effects of glyphosate, have hit Bayer AG hard with the company announcing several thousand layoffs as its stock price plunges.

In a trial in San Francisco the jury was unanimous in their verdict that Monsanto Roundup weed-killer, based on glyphosate, had been responsible for Hardeman’s cancer. His attorneys stated,

“It is clear from Monsanto’s actions that it does not care whether Roundup causes cancer, focusing instead on manipulating public opinion and undermining anyone who raises genuine and legitimate concerns about Roundup.” 

It is the second defeat for the lawyers of Monsanto after another jury ruled in 2018 that Glyphosate-based Roundup was responsible for the cancer illness of a California school grounds-keeper who contracted the same form of cancer after daily spraying school grounds with Roundup over years, unprotected. There a jury found Monsanto guilty of “malice and oppression” in that company executives, based on internal email discovery, knew that their glyphosate products could cause cancer and suppressed this information from the public.

A new independent study shows that those with highest exposure to glyphosate have a 41% increased risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) cancer. A meta-analysis of six studies containing nearly 65,000 participants looked at links between glyphosate-based herbicides and immune-suppression, endocrine disruption and genetic alterations. The authors found “the same key finding: exposure to GBHs (glyphosate-based herbicides) are associated with an increased risk of NHL (Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma).” Further, they stated that glyphosate “alters the gut microbiome,” and that that could “impact the immune system, promote chronic inflammation, and contribute to the susceptibility of invading pathogens.” Glyphosate also ”may act as an endocrine disrupting chemical because it has been found recently to alter sex hormone production” in both male and female rats.

In a long-term animal study by French scientists under Gilles Eric Seralini, Michael Antoniou and associates, it was demonstrated that even ultra-low levels of glyphosate herbicides cause non-alcoholic liver disease. The levels the rats were exposed to, per kg of body weight, were far lower than what is allowed in our food supply. According to the Mayo Clinic, today, after four decades or more pervasive use of glyphosate pesticides, 100 million, or 1 out of 3 Americans now have liver disease. These diagnoses are in some as young as 8 years old.

A new study finds that bacteria develop antibiotic resistance when exposed to Roundup

Phys October 12, 2018

A new study finds that bacteria develop antibiotic resistance up to 100,000 times faster when exposed to the world's most widely used herbicides, Roundup (glyphosate) and Kamba (dicamba) and antibiotics compared to without the herbicide. 

This study adds to a growing body of evidence that herbicides used on a mass industrial scale, but not intended to be antibiotics, can have profound effects on bacteria, with potentially negative implications for medicine's ability to treat infectious diseases caused by bacteria, says University of Canterbury scientist Professor Jack Heinemann, one of the study's authors. 

 "The combination of chemicals to which bacteria are exposed in the modern environment should be addressed alongside antibiotic use if we are to preserve antibiotics in the long-term," he says. 

An important finding of the new study was that even in cases where the herbicides increase the toxicity of antibiotics they also significantly increased the rate of antibiotic resistance, which the study's authors say could be contributing to the greater use of antibiotics in both agriculture and medicine.

The Monsanto Papers

Is gluten in the wheat really the problem or is it actually the glyphosate residue sprayed on the wheat?

The Healty Economist May 24, 2018

Pre-harvest application of herbicides as a (toxic) drying agent on wheat is an established practice on many conventional farms. The method was first suggested as early as 1980, becoming routine in North America over the past 15 years or so. Use is also widespread in the UK.

Applying herbicides like Roundup 7-10 days before harvest is viewed as especially helpful for wheat that ripens unevenly, a common occurrence. It is also considered a helpful tool to initiate an earlier harvest when weather conditions threaten plant viability. Other benefits are earlier ripening for earlier replanting and reducing the green material in the field. This puts less strain on farm machinery during harvest.

Farmers euphemistically call the practice “desiccation”. When used during wheat harvest, it can result in slightly greater yield by triggering plants to release more seeds.

The result? Most non-organic wheat in North America is now contaminated with glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and similar herbicides.

WHO: Glyphosate a Probable Carcinogen

A March 2015 report by the World Health Organization identified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen. Several EU countries have banned it as a result with more in the works.

However, in North America, glyphosate use shockingly continues to remain a popular farming tool.

And, as it turns out, use of Roundup as a drying agent on wheat prior to harvest is just the tip of the iceberg.

Dozens of other food crops are subjected to glyphosate dousing prior to harvest as well.

But Wait! Isn’t Roundup Just for GMO Crops?

It is well known that Roundup is sprayed directly on GMO crops like corn and soy because they are genetically engineered to withstand the toxic onslaught without withering. So much Roundup is used on GMO crops, in fact, that herbicide-resistant “superweeds” are now a huge problem little more than a decade later (1).

“If Roundup kills plants that aren’t genetically modified to resist it, then why use it on nonGMO crops?”

“Wouldn’t glyphosate kill a nonGMO crop?”

“Why would a farmer do this?”

Indeed, these common consumer questions indicate the ultimate irony of using Roundup for desiccation purposes on a food crop producing farm. Killing the crop and/or the greenery around it is actually the whole idea. For crops like wheat, it evens up the field, allows for an earlier harvest, protects machinery and/or increases profit.

The bottom line?

Pre-harvest treatment of crops with glyphosate helps farmers to harvest their crops more efficiently and at less cost (2)

Crazy as it may seem, Roundup is used everywhere in the North American conventional food supply and not just on GMO crops or to kill weeds!

Glyphosate is applied directly to dozens of nonGMO food crops, in many cases, right before they are harvested. This is the worst possible time to apply a herbicide because it causes the glyphosate to be absorbed into the food crop directly. In other words, the glyphosate can’t be washed off later as it has become part of the food. This toxin will then be ingested by those who consume it either directly as a “whole food” or via processed foods that contain it as an ingredient.

According to the Cornucopia Institute:

Ubiquitous in food production, glyphosate is used not just with row crops like corn, soybeans and wheat but also a range of fruits, nuts and veggies. Even spinach growers use glyphosate (3).

Monsanto Guilty Verdict Is Only Beginning

Journal Neo. 15.08.2018

A jury trial in California has resulted in a guilty verdict against the agrichemical and GMO giant, Monsanto, now Bayer/Monsanto. The judge has ordered Monsanto to pay damages of USD 289 Million to former school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, who has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. His lawyer argued it was caused by Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weed-killer Roundup. Not surprisingly Monsanto plans to appeal the verdict. The impact of the ruling, regardless the outcome of the appeal, will unleash worldwide consequences that spell huge problems for the entire GMO agrochemicals business model.

The Johnson trial, Dewayne Johnson v. Monsanto Co., CGC-16-550128, in California Superior Court in San Francisco,is the first of more than 5,000 such cases across the United States awaiting trial for claims that Roundup ingredients cause cancer.

Johnson, age 46, is a former pest control manager for a California county school system, where he applied Roundup and Monsanto’s Ranger Pro on school grounds across the county up to 30 times per year for more than two and a half years.

According to the magazine Insurance Journal, the guilty verdict could influence the outcome of thousands of similar cases against Monsanto glyphosate-based Roundup. Notably, the same law firm, California-based Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, PC is involved as part of the legal team in many of the other cases awaiting trial.

The merging of Bayer and Monsanto

Corbettreport  06/23/2018

It is hardly surprising that the first thing Bayer did after completing their takeover of Monsanto earlier this month was to announce that they were dropping the Monsanto name, merging the two companies’ agrichemical divisions under the Bayer Crop Science name. After all, as everyone knows, Monsanto is one of the most hated corporations in the world. But Bayer itself has an equally atrocious history of death and destruction. Together they are a match made in hell.

The Bayer-Monsanto Alliance Is Bad News for the Planet

Truthdig   Apr 03, 2018

Two new studies from Europe show that the number of birds in agricultural areas of France has crashed by a third in just 15 years, with some species being almost eradicated. The collapse in the bird population mirrors the discovery last October that more than three quarters of all flying insects in Germany have vanished in just three decades. Insects are the staple food source of birds, the pollinators of fruits and the aerators of the soil.

The chief suspect in this mass extinction is the aggressive use of neonicotinoid pesticides, particularly imidacloprid and clothianidin, both made by the Germany-based chemical giant Bayer. These pesticides, along with toxic glyphosate herbicides such as Roundup, have delivered a one-two punch to monarch butterflies, honeybees and birds. But rather than banning these toxic chemicals, on March 21 the EU approved the $66 billion merger of Bayer and Monsanto, the U.S. agribusiness giant that produces Roundup and the genetically modified (GMO) seeds that have reduced seed diversity globally. The merger will make the Bayer-Monsanto conglomerate the largest seed and pesticide company in the world, giving it enormous power to control farm practices, putting private profits over the public interest.

Monsanto Poisoning Indians with Arsenic, new scientific study

Seed Freedom January 8, 2018

New Delhi, January 8, 2018: A shocking discovery from the French scientific group CRIGEN led by world renowned toxicology and biosafety scientist Dr Gilles-Eric Seralini reveals that Monsanto’s Round up (Glyphosate based herbicide) and other types of Glyphosate based herbicides(GHB) contain universally banned heavy metals like arsenic, etc., in the formulant which are a thousand times more harmful than the active compound Glyphosate(G) itself. G is a herbicide and a “green killer” which is used to extensively all over the world including India. Worldwide, 9.4 million tons of the chemical has been sprayed onto field.

Levels of the herbicide glyphosate have soared in older Americans in 23 years

San Diego Union Tribune  October 24, 2017

Levels of the herbicide glyphosate have soared in older Americans in 23 years, according to a study led by University of California researchers.

The study wasn’t designed to detect any potential harm from the increased exposure, but it will help with future studies to determine if any such link exists, said Paul J. Mills, a UC San Diego professor of family medicine and public health.

The study used data from the long-running and influential Rancho Bernardo Study of Healthy Aging, established in 1972. It was published as a research letter Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study can be found at j.mp/roundupucsd.

Environmental activists have attacked the widespread use of glyphosate as causing cancer and other diseases. Some studies have suggested a potential link, but none have actually demonstrated a causal effect in humans. Other studies have found no correlation.

Opponents say animal research shows the potential for harm.

“There's a lot of animal work, but few if any on people,” Mills said. “And I was surprised to see that, given how much the chemical is in the environment, and that's what inspired us to just start researching it so we can fill in that gap.”

Unlike other studies on glyphosate, the data from the Rancho Bernardo study has been collected for decades, providing a time window to examine glyphosate exposure and any effects in individuals. Also importantly, glyphosate levels were directly measured; other studies relied on interviews to assess exposure.

The study examined urinary levels of glyphosate in 100 people from 1993 to 2016. Very few had detectable levels in 1993, but by 2016 70 percent had detectable levels, Mills said. Of those with detectable amounts, in 1993-1996, the average level was 0.203 nanograms per liter. By 2014-2016, the level had risen to 0.449 nanograms per liter.

Ongoing research at UCSD is conducted at the Herbicide Awareness & Research Project. Go to j.mp/ucsdharp for more information.

Glyphosate is widely available as the active ingredient in Roundup, sold by Monsanto, a St. Louis-based agricultural company. Roundup is considered safe by federal regulators within normal levels of use. It enables farmers to quickly kill weeds without using more toxic herbicides. Monsanto also sells crops seeds that are genetically modified to resist Roundup.

The Global Food and Health Crisis: Monsanto’s Science Is Bogus

Globalresearch     October 19, 2017

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is the new director general of the World Health Organization (WHO). With a $4 billion annual budget, WHO’s decisions affects us all and its decisions also affect the bottom line of some of the most powerful corporations on the planet.

Health is political. And health is big business. For instance, WHO makes dietary and nutrition recommendations that can affect the likes of Nestle, Unilever, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, General Mills and Kellogg’s. WHO devises a list of essential medicines that governments should stock for the health of their people, thereby affecting the sales of major pharmaceutical companies. It also helps other UN agencies procure billions of dollars of pharmaceutical products by vetting manufacturers to ensure they meet WHO standards and specifications.

WHO wants to place restrictions on the use of antibiotics in food and livestock production, and it also reviews scientific evidence to appraise the cancer-risk of agricultural chemicals, including Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup and Dow’s 2,4-D.

As you might imagine, WHO recommendations can have massive ramifications for big corporations, which can fight tooth and nail to attack and discredit any WHO decision that could damage their strategic market positions and financial bottom line. And this is exactly what we are witnessing right now as Monsanto battles to protect is multi-billion-dollar money spinner Roundup with yet another smear campaign, this time against US toxicologist Dr Christopher Portier. Given what happened to Seralini and his team’s study, it’s all highly predictable.

Rosemary Mason writes to the WHO

Due the pivotal role of WHO, Dr Rosemary Mason has contacted Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus through an open letter expressing major concerns about role of transnational agrochemical/agritech corporations and the impacts of their products on human health and the environment.

With the focus clearly on Monsanto, Mason brings to the attention of Ghebreyesus the many lawsuits filed against the company alleging that Roundup causes cancer. These cases have forced Monsanto to reveal emails that show it employed ghost-writing, used scientists as paid lobbyists and targeted those that produced evidence that challenged the company in order to keep Roundup, its flagship herbicide, on the market by fraudulent science.

More than 250 lawsuits are pending against Monsanto in US District Court in San Francisco, filed by people alleging that exposure to Roundup herbicide caused them or their loved ones to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that Monsanto covered up the risks  (Roundup is linked to cancers of the bone, colon, kidney, liver, melanoma, pancreas and thyroid). Additionally, at least 1,100 plaintiffs have made similar claims against Monsanto in state courts, and US attorneys recently came to the European Union with two plaintiffs to support the Members of the European Parliament in their Public Hearing on The Monsanto Papers and glyphosate.

WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has declared glyphosate as a 2A carcinogen. As glyphoaste comes up for re-licensing in Europe, in a public hearing in Brussels this month, Dr Christopher Portier and Dr Kate Guyton defended IARC’s position. Dr Portier drew attention to the significance of statistically significant tumor findings that have not been discussed in any of the existing reviews on glyphosate. 

Portier concluded that as the regulatory bodies, the European Food Safety Authority and the European Chemicals Agency’s analyses were scientifically flawed. These organisations had also used industry studies that were not in the public domain for ‘reasons of commercial confidentiality’ to support their case that glyphosate was not carcinogenic.

Mason presents a strong case to argue that the US Environmental Protection Agency and European regulators are colluding with Monsanto and the European Glyphosate Task Force: despite the evidence (see Mason’s fully-referenced document ‘Monsanto’ Science is Fraudulent’), they all deny that glyphosate causes cancer.

Corporate hijack of food and farming

Dr Mason goes on to discuss the ‘Green Revolution’ – chemical warfare on plants, soil and biodiversity – which has been a financially lucrative venture for Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta and the other major agrochemical companies.

She identifies the now well-document links between the Rockefeller Foundation and the Green Revolution and how J.D. Rockefeller’s ‘philanthropy’ was instrumental in helping to destroy traditional health care practices  by having pharmaceutical corporations and allopathic medicine take over healthcare with chemical ‘cures’.

By referring to my recent article, Mason brings the director general’s attention to how powerful, unscrupulous interests have hijacked and redefined both food and agriculture to the detriment of human health and the environment. Global corporations have destroyed thousands of years of agriculture; an ongoing destruction that today rests heavily on the renewal of the license for glyphosate!

She also documents at length scientific fraud, corruption by regulatory agencies and collusion at the highest levels of government that have all conspired to destroy human health. In doing so, she presents a good deal of scientific evidence that highlights the deleterious impacts of various agrochemicals on health.

Who controls what we eat in the food industry?

Most of us have little to no idea how behind-the-scenes forces control the food we buy, and the depth of the corruption involved. Philip Howard, Ph.D., author of "Concentration and Power in the Food System: Who Controls What We Eat?," studies food system changes, with an emphasis on visualizing these trends.¹

"My motivation [for writing the book] was to uncover what's going on, to help people understand who owns what and all the strategies these dominant firms use to further increase their power," he says.

His work has been featured by many prominent media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and Chicago Tribune. He's an associate professor in the department of community sustainability at Michigan State University and holds a Ph.D. in rural sociology.

Endgame: Global Monopolization

One fact that many don't realize is just how few firms control the global food system, from seeds to supermarkets. As noted by Howard:

"The trend in most industries is for fewer and fewer firms to increase their power. One really dramatic example is the beer industry. Four firms headquartered in Europe brew about half the world's beer. That's going to go down to three very soon, because Anheuser-Busch InBev is acquiring SABMiller.

Even if you're a very dominant firm, you're caught up in this system where you have to get bigger or become acquired by your big competitors. But it's resulting in less and less people making decisions about the food we eat. There's even speculation that InBev is not increasing its sales enough, even with this acquisition, so they're going to have to acquire a big soft drink firm, perhaps even Coke or Pepsi."

With its $103 billion acquisition of SABMiller, InBev is now one of the three largest food firms in the world. InBev also owns Anheuser-Busch, which produces Budweiser, one of the most well-known beer brands in the world. In some parts of the world, such as in Africa and Latin America, InBev has already established a monopoly.
Antitrust rules and regulations enacted by the federal government are meant to prevent these types of monopolies. In fact, when large corporations want to buy other large corporations, a rigorous evaluation process is required before they're authorized to merge. So how is it that this kind of monopoly-building is still happening? Howard explains:

"In the early 1900s, there were a number of laws passed to prevent these trusts, these combinations that resulted in monopolies in these markets. That changed dramatically beginning in the 1980s. Reagan was elected. He directed the heads of federal agencies to take a very different view towardtowards mergers and acquisitions.

At the same time, federal judges were being indoctrinated into the Chicago School of Economics. They got paid to go on these junkets to Arizona, Florida, places like that. They played golf. Then they attended these seminars where they were taught mergers and acquisitions that, unless they immediately raised prices for consumers, were good for everyone.

As a result of just one of those programs, by the early '90s, two-thirds of federal judges had participated. It's essentially impossible to win an antitrust case in the federal courts now."

The truth is, monopolies really only benefit the corporations in question, not the population at large. It merely reinforces the company's power, including their political clout. Many multinational corporate executives even serve on federal advisory committees and global trade agreement working groups.
Some of these international trade deals are kept secret even from the U.S. Congress, yet executives from large multinational firms are present during the negotiations. When large companies are able to influence the very regulatory agencies that are chartered to regulate them, they're able to circumvent the regulatory process, forming what is essentially a cartel.

"A good example is the seed industry. It was taken over by big chemical companies beginning in the 1980s. We got down to just six firms. Previously, there were over 30 firms. These big six chemical companies, which are also seed companies, have cross-licensing agreements for genetically engineered (GE) technologies.

The commodity farmers that want these GE traits, like herbicide resistance — the independent seed companies cannot access those technologies. They either become acquired by these firms or end up going out of business. Right now, it's possible that those big six will be reduced to just three.

BASF … has gotten out of the seed sales. Bayer's trying to acquire Monsanto, Dow and DuPont are planning to merge … [and] ChemChina, a Chinese-owned chemical company, is acquiring Syngenta."

Seed Monopolies Created by Chemical Companies

Monsanto is the classic example of the revolving door between government and industry. "There are people who just go back and forth between Monsanto and the agencies that are supposed to be regulating that firm," Howard notes. Without a doubt, this influence is part of Monsanto's success.
The patenting of seeds and the subsequent restrictions on seed have led to what is essentially a takeover of the farming industry by chemical companies. The patenting of seeds benefits these companies in multiple ways. Not only do farmers have to purchase new seed each year, since the patents do not allow for saving or sharing of seeds, these GE crops also demand certain chemicals to be used with them, which of course these companies also make and sell.

"Monsanto is using very strong intellectual property protections on seeds in the U.S. and trying to extend that model all over the world. With the trade agreements, they're forcing other countries to change their laws to protect companies like Monsanto, rather than allowing farmers to save and replant seeds. In the U.S., some farmers have even gone to prison for saving seeds, not to mention the millions of dollars in fines," Howard says.

There are many reasons to suspect GE seeds were developed to increase chemical sales, as most of the stated benefits of GE seeds have actually turned out to be false. As just one example, Monsanto insisted it was biologically impossible for weeds to develop resistance against glyphosate, yet resistant superweeds have now taken over more than 60 million acres of U.S. croplands.²
The chemical biotechnology industry's answer is to develop crops resistant to more toxic herbicides, but anyone with half a brain should realize that this "solution" will only aggravate the problem, creating weeds resistant to these more potent toxins as well. Sooner or later, we have to get off the chemical treadmill or foods will be too toxic to eat even in the short term.

Despite Grave Concerns, Beneficial Changes Are Also Afoot

In his book, Howard explores the entire supply chain, from seed to farm, to processing and distribution to the retail market, looking at how things have changed over the years. For example, in 1937, there were nearly 6.8 million farmers in the U.S., which at that time had a population of about 100 million. Today, we have fewer than 2 million farmers, with a population of more than 325 million.³
What's worse, an estimated two-thirds of the farm commodities sold in the U.S. come from just 100,000 farms, and these middle-to-large-scale farms just keep getting bigger. The reasons for this trend are manifold, but government subsidies play a significant role. About 85 percent of federal subsidies go to the top 10 percent of farms, which reinforces their advantages, allowing them to expand and buy out neighboring farms.
There are some very clear and real concerns about our food distribution system. But while the situation can seem depressing, beneficial changes are also occurring. As noted by Howard:

"There are a lot of efforts to resist these trends … [B]ig firms are getting bigger … because they have no other way to grow. Beer sales in the U.S., for example, are really leveled off, except for the craft brew segment. We've had this dramatic increase in the number of breweries in the U.S., thousands and thousands now.

Their percentage in sales is well over 10 percent. If you just look at the beer aisle in your supermarket, there's a lot more choice than there was 10 or definitely 20 years ago. One response the big brewers have tried, just in the last few years, is buying up some of those craft breweries.

But the genie is out of the bottle. People have moved away from those macrobrews. They're not increasing their sales at all — that's why they're having to look at other parts of the world for growth.

There are many [other] examples like [that] in other parts of the food system. Heritage breed turkeys, for example. The numbers have gone way up even though in the 2000s, there were less than 2,000 turkeys in the entire U.S. that weren't broad-breasted white. People are creating more and more of these alternatives. It's just hard to find them and support them."

Needless to say, one alternative is to grow some of your own food. We cannot all grow all kinds of food or raise all of our own livestock, but most people can grow something. At present, I grow about half of all the food I eat in any given week. As noted by Howard:

"Even if you have no space, you can grow some sprouts, for example. You just become a little bit self-sufficient in that way. If you don't have any space at all to even have a container garden, then you can make connections with local farmers.

There are more and more community-supported agriculture farms and cooperatives where farmers come together at a drop-off point once a month, and buy-ing clubs. It's really encouraging to see that people are really fed up with the industrial food system and are finding all these alternatives and we're creating more spaces for them to thrive."

How Corporate Takeovers and Mergers Impact Food Quality

Howard discusses many interesting case samples in his book, including that of Silk Soy milk, which is a powerful illustration of how food quality is impacted when a small, integrity-based brand is acquired by a large conventional entity. Personally, I do not recommend drinking soy milk. It's unhealthy for a number of very good reasons, its lectin content being a major detriment.
Nevertheless, Steve Demos, who started the Silk brand sincerely believed soy milk was a healthy product. One of the limitations he faced was breaking into conventional supermarkets, because they charge slotting fees to the tune of billions of dollars per year. To get a single product into a regional supermarket chain can cost tens of thousands of dollars. The way Demos was able to implement his vision was by approaching big firms like Coca-Cola.
One of the companies he secured funding from was Dean Foods. They paid the slotting fees to get Silk soy milk into the supermarkets. The brand grew exponentially, and at one point, Silk had over three-quarters of all soy milk sales, which is more or less a monopoly. The price Demos paid was losing control of his company to his investors. Dean Foods eventually acquired 100 percent of the company, and Demos was unable to block the takeover.

"Not surprisingly, Dean Foods reduced its commitment to organic ingredients. They reduced the commitment to sourcing North American soybeans. They started sourcing soybeans from China and Brazil. They went from a 100 percent organic firm to maybe 6 percent organic today," Howard says.

Stonyfield is another example of a company whose founder was an idealistic and altruistic person dedicated to providing the best product possible, but who eventually lost control of the company in his effort to grow. In the process, the quality of the product was lowered as well.

"Stonyfield was an interesting case because Gary Hirshberg, the founder, had to pay off all his investors, his friends and family that helped him create this firm. He also wanted to make those products available to more consumers.

He spent a long time negotiating a buyout with Danone, the French yogurt company. But its contention was on increasing sales, so they had to water down some of their ideals, like their commitment to organic, to increase sales. Now, they're very vulnerable. They could end up becoming a part of a foreign firm."

Examples of Companies That Refused to Sell Out

On a more positive note, some firms have resisted tremendous buyout offers, refusing to sacrifice their ideals. One example is Clif Bar. At the last minute, Gary Erickson walked away from a $60 million offer by Quaker Oats, a division of Pepsi, because he saw that many of the promises made early on in the negotiations were being reneged. He didn't feel confident they would maintain the commitment to his ideals. So, Clif Bar is still independent, and the company is giving money to a number of environmental causes.
Another intriguing example is Eden Foods, which has held very high organic standards right from the start — so high, in fact, they refused to put the USDA organic label on their food, even though it was organic, because they thought the organic label had been compromised. According to Howard:

"They're a firm that's had a commitment to sourcing from local suppliers and not [using] a lot of synthetic processing aids. They were opposed to the watering down of organic processing standards to allow synthetics. They still don't put the USDA organic label on their products. They were pretty fortunate.

They've been around so long — since the '70s — that their integrity is well-known to a certain number of consumers. They were able to get into a distribution system. It's very likely if they were trying to start out today, they would never make it. It's unfortunate more people don't know which companies are independent, companies like Nature's Path and Bob's Red Mill.

Bob actually hired someone specifically to fend off buyout offers. They would just tell people who inquired 'no.' They never even told Bob the amounts he was being offered. Bob's Red Mill and Clif Bar have both gone into an employee stock ownership program rather than to just sell out to the highest bidder."

Distribution Monopolies

The manufacturing and distribution parts of the supply chain are somewhat mysterious behind-the-scenes components of the food system that few people fully understand. First, the base ingredients have to be made, and then someone has to combine them and put them in a box. Oftentimes, different companies are hired to do certain steps of the process.
When you delegate these responsibilities to other companies, you can easily run into problems, even if they're well-intentioned, as everyone is looking for ways to cut costs. Some ethically challenged companies may sell you subpar ingredients, for example. But even when the ingredients are high quality, the food is still processed, which affects the food's nutritional value. Part of the solution is preparing your foods from scratch. Then you can bypass these hidden pitfalls.
Next, the food has to be distributed from the manufacturing facility to storage facilities and, ultimately, to stores. Howard explains some of the complexities involved, and the problem with monopolization in this area:

"You're getting things from point A to point B, sometimes with refrigeration. We had a cooperative distribution system in the 1980s. We had dozens of cooperatively owned distributors across the U.S. that distributed organic and natural foods. But as the industry grew, they couldn't keep up. They didn't have the capital to buy more trucks and warehouses and so on.

A company called United Natural Foods swooped in and acquired the two largest remaining cooperative distributors back in 2002. They're now publicly traded. Their main customer is Whole Foods. For the broader national distribution of foods, there's Sysco. At just about any restaurant you go to, you will see a Sysco truck.

They have one major competitor — U.S. Foods. At the time I wrote the book, Sysco was planning to acquire U.S. Foods. Meaning, all of these people who pitted them against each other to get better deals weren't going to have that option.

This is one of those things I wasn't expecting, but it was so clear that there were only two firms at that scale that the U.S. government actually undid that acquisition. So, there are still two, although they both continue to acquire a number of other smaller distributors."

Helpful Resources

Even though the facts are quite disheartening, there is something you, your family and friends can do to change this sad state of affairs. Remember, you have a very powerful resource — you can vote with your pocketbook, which is the ultimate arbiter of corporate behavior. Howard ends his book with resources you can use to help you make more educated choices, including the following:

• GoodGuide.com, which is also available as an app, has a database covering 75,000 products. You can take a picture of a barcode or type in the product name and get a score for the company's environmental, social and health impact, compared to other products in that category. It'll also provide ownership information, so you can see which parent company you're actually supporting with your purchase
• Buycott.com has both a website and an app that allow you to vote with your wallet by learning a product's history and ownership, and avoid companies that are being boycotted for various reasons, such as those using chocolate produced by child slaves, or those using genetically modified ingredient              Dr Mercola

Monsanto’s Cancer-Causing Herbicide Detected In Organic Foods

Michelle Toole

Think you can avoid glyphosate by buying organic? Think again. A new investigation by Tropical Traditions reveals that many products in the organic grain market in the U.S. contain glyphosate residue at levels almost the same as conventional grains.

You and your loved ones likely ingested Monsanto’s cancer-causing herbicide with breakfast this morning and the FDA couldn’t care less.

The FDA is demonstrating their incompetence yet again by completely ignoring a critical report that shows how ubiquitous Monsanto’s carcinogenic Roundup has truly become.

According to the report released by the Alliance for Natural Health USA, detectable levels of glyphosate, the chief ingredient in Roundup, were found in numerous breakfast food items. Glyphosate, which has been linked to cancer by the World Health Organization, was found in bread products, cereals and coffee creamers.

What is really concerning, and exemplifies the need for an immediate ban on the carcinogenic herbicide, is that some of the highest levels of the toxic chemical were found in organic foods, such as eggs and breads. The organic eggs tested were especially tainted with glyphosate, far exceeding regulatory standards.

Microbe Infotech Laboratories, founded by former Monsanto scientist Bruce Hemming, conducted the testing. For 25 years, Microbe has been well-respected and is the go-to lab for glyphosate testing by food companies and consumer groups.

The report confirms what many have feared for a long time. Glyphosate is making its way into our food in ways that we may not realize. For example, last year a separate study found 75% of rain and air samples tested positive for Monsanto’s cancer-causing poison. What kind of ramifications do you think this will have for those growing organic gardens? (via march against monsanto)

“The fact that it is showing up in foods like eggs and coffee creamer, which don’t directly contact the herbicide, shows that it’s being passed on by animals who ingest it in their feed,” said Gretchen DuBeau, executive director of ANH-USA. “This is contrary to everything that regulators and industry scientists have been telling the public.”

Why Should We be Concerned about Glyphosate?

Glyphosate is in 80% of our food supply in the U.S., and some scientists believe it may well be the most toxic chemical ever approved for commercial use. Glyphosate is now linked to kidney disease, antibiotic resistant bacteria, inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, depression, ADHD, autism, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, multiple sclerosis, cancer, cachexia, infertility, and developmental malformations. It destroys the microbiome of humans and plants, which is the root cause of many modern diseases.(health impact news)       HHL

The British Government Colludes with Monsanto. Crimes against Humanity and “Ecocide”

Colin Todhunter Global Research, January 27, 2017

“The British Government has colluded with Monsanto and should be held accountable in the International Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity and ecocide.” Dr Rosemary Mason.

The British public and the environment are being poisoned with a deadly cocktail of 320 pesticides. Moreover, Wales has become a storage dump for Monsanto’s most toxic chemicals. These are the messages conveyed by Dr Rosemary Mason in her recent open letter to Councillor Rob Stewart, the leader of Swansea City and County Council.

Dr Mason adds that Swansea has over the years been a testing ground for glyphosate with the outcome being a huge spike in illness and disease among the local population as well as ongoing environmental devastation. There has been a long-term reckless use of a glyphosate-based weedkiller in Swansea, regardless of EU recommendations.

Dr Henk Tennekes, an independent toxicologist from the Netherlands, and Dr Pierre Mineau, an expert on ecotoxicology from Canada, both prophesied environmental catastrophe from the self-regulated and unsustainable use of pesticides by the agrochemical industry.    Read more

Lawsuits Against Monsanto’s Roundup

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By Catherine J. Frompovich November 11, 2016

When I published the article, “Glyphosate Contaminates the Global Ecosystem: The Damning New PAN Report,”  I mentioned a law firm as a resource because of the lawsuits it has filed on behalf of persons damaged by the use of Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup®. Roundup’s prime active ingredient is glyphosate, a chemical that the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer [IARC] designated a “probable human carcinogen.”

That law firm is Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman, Consumer Attorneys of Los Angeles, California.  The firm’s Director of Public Relations and Marketing emailed a thank you for mentioning that lawsuit. Robin McCall’s email prompted me to want to know more about their clients and the lawsuits, so I asked her some questions about the firm’s glyphosate case load.

Incidentally, there is a Spanish language link “Demanda Monsanto Roundup” for folks who may want to access the law firm’s information in that language.

What follows are the questions I asked that Ms. McCall so graciously answered, which I think ought to give readers some “food for thought,” especially if you have used Roundup® and have contracted non-Hodgkin lymphoma.                         Read More

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