Russia bans all GM corn imports; EU may also ban Monsanto GMO in wake of shocking cancer findings

Russia has now officially banned all imports of genetically modified corn, citing concerns from a recent study by French researchers showing rats grew massive cancer tumors when fed a lifetime of Monsanto's genetically modified corn.

Russia's consumer protection group, Rospotrebnadzor, said it was halting all imports of GM corn while the country's Institute of Nutrition will be evaluating the results of the study.

The Russian ban is the latest blow to Monsanto, a company desperately clinging to the myth that its genetically modified crops are "no different" than traditional crops and therefore long-term safety testing is completely unnecessary. Monsanto has assaulted the French study, claiming it did not use enough rats and that the duration of the study was too short -- an absurd claim, given that Monsanto's own studies on animals are only 90 days in duration, while the French study looked at the effects of rats eating GM corn (and drinking trace levels of Roundup herbicide) for two years.

Notably, the large cancer tumors did not begin to appear until after the rats reached adulthood. Monsanto's GM corn has been in the U.S. food supply for more than a decade, and its corn is found in many popular breakfast cereals.

A European ban, too?

In addition to the Russian ban, Monsanto may also soon be facing a European ban. France is reported asking for a European-wide ban on GM corn if its national health agency confirms the findings of French scientists.

On top of that, if Proposition 37passes in California, food producers will be required to label GMO on foods sold in that state. This is widely expected to cause U.S. food producers to abandon to use of GMO in foods, since virtually all consumers who know anything about GMO would refuse to buy items labeled as containing genetically engineered ingredients.

Toxicity of GMO now scientifically established

CRIIGEN.org has issued a statementsummarizing its findings of the recent rat study, saying:

The implications are extremely serious. They demonstrate the toxicity, both of a GMO with the most widely spread transgenic character and of the most widely used herbicide, even when ingested at extremely low levels, (corresponding to those found in surface or tap water). In addition, these results call into question the adequacy of the current regulatory process, used throughout the world by agencies involved in the assessment of health, food and chemicals, and industries seeking commercialization of products.

Here's one of the photos released by researchers in the recent study, demonstrating the massive cancer tumors found in rats who were fed GM corn:

Government regulators have been infiltrated by Monsanto; scientists bought off

In truth, Monsanto has managed to influence food regulators all around the world. It has paid money to numerous scientists in the USA, and it has essentially "placed" GMO-pushing iividuals such as Michael Taylorinto influential positions in government.

The European Union's Food Safety Agency (FSA) is also staffed by decision makers with financial ties to genetic engineering seed companies.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich has called for a national GMO labeling law. He says: "The FDA has received over a million comments from citizens demanding labeling of GMOs. Ninety percent of Americans agree. So, why no labeling? I'll give you one reason: The influence and the corruption of the political process by Monsanto. Monsanto has been a prime mover in GMO technology, a multi-million dollar GMO lobby here and a major political contributor."


Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/037328_Russia_GMO_Monsanto.html#ixzz2FcvuBul3

The top 10 breakfast cereals most likely to contain Monsanto's GMO corn

(NaturalNews) By now, nearly everyone interested in healthy living is aware of the recent research linking Monsanto's GMO corn to cancer tumors and an increase risk of premature death in both men and women. News of the research is spreading like wildfire across the 'net, and support for Proposition 37 -- which seeks to label GMOs in foods -- is growing by the day.

But the media has not yet reported on the everyday foods being sold in grocery stores right now and made with Monsanto's genetically modified corn (GM corn). Which foods are most likely to contain Monsanto GM corn? To answer this question, I visited a local grocery store in Austin, Texas and purchased 10 breakfast cereals made with high levels of non-organic corn.

According to the Center for Food Safety, up to 85% of the corn grown in the United States is genetically modified. This means corn-based cereals that use non-organic corn have a very high likelihood of containing GM corn.

The following list presents the top 10 popular breakfast cereals most likely to contain Monsanto's genetically modified corn. For the record, none of these cereals claim to be GMO-free, nor made with organic corn. The exact GMO content of these cereals remains a mystery precisely because manufacturers of these cereals refuse to label them with their GMO content. This lack of full disclosure by the food industry underscores the urgent need for a labeling law so that consumers can make an informed decision.

Legal note: In no way are we claiming these cereals will cause cancer tumors to grow in your body or that they pose an immediate risk to your health. Those studies have not yet been done on humans. GM corn is an experimental crop with unknown long-term effects of humans. Breakfast cereals made with GM corn may turn out to pose a significant long-term risk to human health, but that has not yet been determined. This article is presented in the public interest, reflecting reasonable caution over a common food ingredient which French scientists have now convincingly linked to cancer and premature death in studies conducted on rats.

The top 10 popular breakfast cereals most likely to contain Monsanto's GM corn

Cocoa Puffs and Corn Chex


Frosted Flakes and Honey Graham Oh's


Honey Nut Chex and Kashi Heart to Heart


Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Kellogg's Corn Pops


Kix and Barbara's Bakery Puffins Peanut Butter

Which cereals contain no GMOs? Nature's Path

There is only one brand of breakfast cereal I know of that's 100% non-GMO and 100% organic across their entire product line. That company is Nature's Path:

If you buy breakfast cereal, and you don't want to eat Monsanto's GM corn, always choose cereals from Nature's Path. This is my No. 1 most highly trusted cereal company.

Many "natural" brands that appear to be healthful and natural are actually not organic or GMO-free. For example, "Barbara's Bakery" cereals are not organic. Although they are positioned in store shelves alongside other organic cereals, they are actually made with conventional crops grown with pesticides which may include Monsanto's Roundup.

You may also notice that most of the cereals most likely to contain GM corn are children's cereals. It is the children in America who are being fed the most GMOs. This represents a highly unethical food experiment being conducted on an entire generation, and the long-term effects of human consumption of GMOs are simply not known.

What we do know is that rats fed this very same Monsanto GM corn developed shockingly large cancer tumors.

The photo released by the French research team, showing large cancer tumors growing at a strongly heightened risk in rats fed a "lifetime" of Monsanto's GM corn, is shown below. According to that study, 70% of females died premature and showed significant damage to their liver, kidneys and other organs.



Pretty crazy, huh?

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/037315_Monsanto_GM_corn_breakfast_cereals.html#ixzz2FQlWb0Yq

The GMO debate is over; GM crops must be immediately outlawed; Monsanto halted from threatening humanity

Friday, September 21, 2012 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com

(NaturalNews) The GMO debate is over. There is no longer any legitimate, scientific defense of growing GM crops for human consumption. The only people still clinging to the outmoded myth that "GMOs are safe" are scientific mercenaries with financial ties to Monsanto and the biotech industry.

GMOs are an anti-human technology. They threaten the continuation of life on our planet. They are a far worse threat than terrorism, or even the threat of nuclear war.

As a shocking new study has graphically shown, GMOs are the new thalidomide. When rats eat GM corn, they develop horrifying tumors. Seventy percent of females die prematurely, and virtually all of them suffer severe organ damage from consuming GMO. These are the scientific conclusions of the first truly "long-term" study ever conducted on GMO consumption in animals, and the findings are absolutely horrifying. (See pictures of rats with tumors, below.)

What this reveals is that genetic engineering turns FOOD into POISON.

Remember thalidomide? Babies being born with no arms and other heart-breaking deformities? Thalidomide was pushed as "scientific" and "FDA approved." The same lies are now being told about GMO: they're safe. They're nutritious. They will feed the world!

But the real science now coming out tells a different picture: GMOs may be creating an entire generation of cancer victims who have a frighteningly heightened risk of growing massive mammary gland tumors caused by the consumption of GM foods. We are witnessing what may turn out to be the worst and most costly blunder in the history of western science: the mass poisoning of billions of people with a toxic food crop that was never properly tested in the first place.

Remember: GMOs are an anti-human technology. And those who promote them are, by definition, enemies of humankind.

GMOs are unfit for human consumption

The evidence keeps emerging, day after day, that GMOs are absolutely and without question unfit for human consumption. France has already launched an investigation that may result in the nation banning GM corn imports. It's already illegal to grow genetically modified crops in France, but the nation still allows GMO imports, meaning France still allows its citizens to be poisoned by imported GM corn grown in America.

The GMO industry, not surprisingly, doesn't want any independent research conducted on GMOs. They don't want long-term feeding trials, and they most certainly do not want studies conducted by scientists they can't control with financial ties.

What they want is to hide GMOs in products by making sure they're not listed on the labels. Hence the biotech industry's opposition to Proposition 37 (www.CArighttoknow.org).

The tactics of the biotech industry are:

• HIDE genetically modified ingredients in foods
• FALSIFY the research to claim GMOs are safe
• MANIPULATE the scientific debate by bribing scientists
• DENY DENY DENY just like Big Tobacco, DDT, thalidomide, Agent Orange and everything else that's been killing us over the last century

Monsanto is now the No. 1 most hated corporation in America. The company's nickname is MonSatan. It is the destructive force behind the lobbying of the USDA, FDA, scientists and politicians that have all betrayed the American people and given in to genetically modified seeds.

These seeds, some of which grow their own toxic pesticides right inside the grain, are a form of chemical brutality against children and adults. This is "child abuse" at its worst. It's an abuse of all humans. It is the most serious crime ever committed against nature and all of humankind.

Science for sale

That's what you get with payola science... science "for sale" to wealthy corporations. Nearly all the studies that somehow conclude GMO are safe were paid for by the biotech industry. Every one of those studies is unreliable and most likely fraudulent. Every scientist that conducts "research" for Monsanto is almost certainly a sellout at minimum... and more likely a jackal operative working for an industry of death.

Corporate science is fraudulent science. When enough money is at stake, scientists can be bought off to even declare smoking cigarettes to be safe. And they did, throughout the 1950's, 60's and 70's. Some of those very same scientists are now working for the Monsantos of the world, peddling their scientific fraud to the highest bidder (which always happens to be a wealthy corporation).

There is no poison these scientists won't promote as safe -- even "good for you!" There is no limit to their evil. There are no ethics that guide their actions.

GMO-promoting scientists are the most despicable humanoid creatures to have ever walked the surface of this planet. To call them "human" is an insult to humanity. They are ANTI-human. They are demonic. They are forces of evil that walk among the rest of us, parading as authorities when in their hearts and souls they are actually corporate cowards and traitors to humankind. To pad their own pockets, they would put at risk the very future of sustainable life on our planet... and they do it consciously, insidiously. They feed on death, destruction, suffering and pain. They align with the biotech industry precisely because they know that no other industry is as steeped in pure evil as the biotech industry. GMO pushers will lie, cheat, steal, falsify and even mass-murder as many people as it takes to further their agenda of total global domination over the entire food supply... at ANY cost.

This is war at the genetic level. And this kind of war makes bullets, bombs and nukes look downright tame by comparison. Because the GMO war is based on self-replicating genetic pollution which has already been released into the environment; into the food supply; and into your body.

The hundreds of millions of consumers who eat GMO are being murdered right now, with every meal they consume... and they don't even know it. GMO-pimping scientists are laughing at all the death they're causing. They enjoy tricking people and watching them die because it makes their sick minds feel more powerful. These were the geeks in school who were bullied by the jocks. But now, with the power of genetic manipulation at their fingertips, they can invoke their hatred against all humankind and "bully" the entire world with hidden poisons in the food. That makes them smile. It's the ultimate revenge against a world that mistreated them in their youth. Death to everyone!

Society must respond in defense of life on Earth

The sheer brutality of what the GMO industry has committed against us humanity screams out for a decisive response. It is impossible to overreact to this. No collective response goes too far when dealing with an industry that quite literally threatens the very basis of life on our planet.

To march government SWAT teams into the corporate headquarters of all GMO seed companies and shut down all operations at gunpoint would be a mild reaction -- and fully justified. To indict all biotech CEOs, scientists, employees and P.R. flacks and charge them with conspiring to commit crimes against humanity would be a small but important step in protecting our collective futures. To disband all these corporations by government order have their assets seized and sold off to help fund reparations to the people they have harmed is but a tiny step needed in the defense of life.

The truth is that humanity will never be safe until GMO seed pushers and manufacturers are behind bars, locked away from society and denied the ability to ever threaten humanity again.

What the Nuremberg trials did to IG Farben and other Nazi war crimes corporations, our own government must now do to Monsanto and the biotech industry.

It is time for decisive intervention. Monsanto must be stopped by the will of the People. The mass poisoning of our families and children by an evil, destructive corporation that seeks to dominate the world food supply must be halted.

The GMO debate is over. The horrors are now being revealed. The truth can no longer be hidden, and the reaction from the public cannot be stopped.

Prediction: Activist attacks on GM seeds and the criminals who promote them

The era of GMO deception is history. A food revolution is upon us. And if governments will not halt the mass poisoning of our world by evil corporations, I have no doubt that the People will, by themselves, eventually invoke other necessary methods of halting this great evil.

I predict a future where -- and for the record I DO NOT encourage this -- shipments of GM seeds to farmers are raided and destroyed by activists. I predict Monsanto employees being publicly named and shamed on websites. I predict -- but DO NOT CONDONE -- scientists who conduct research for Monsanto being threatened, intimidated and even physically attacked. Again, for the record, I DO NOT IN ANY WAY condone such behavior, but I predict it will emerge as an inevitable reaction to the unfathomable evil being committed by the GMO industry and all its co-conspirators. The "Army of the 12 monkeys" may become reality. (See the sci-fi movie "12 monkeys" starring Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis.)

What we are fighting for here is the protection of our species. We are fighting for the sanctity of life on our planet. Those who threaten that life must be stopped from continuing to harm us. This evil must be put back in its box and prevented from ever threatening us again.

Even Congress is starting to state the obvious on how evil Monsanto really is. Just yesterday, Congressman Dennis Kucinich demanded GMO labeling in a powerful speech. Watch that at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J_YvtbSSqg


Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/037262_GMO_Monsanto_debate.html#ixzz2FQN7kQyH

Will Monsanto destroy Mexico's corn?

In 2007, Mexico's Chambers and Congress passed the "Law of Seeds" that prohibits farmers from trading or selling seeds they had cultivated [EPA]

Felipe Calderon, the president of Mexico until the start of this month, has already relocated to his Cambridge, Massachusetts, home to fulfill his year-long fellowship at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. On the way out of his country, he left the door open for multinational biotech companies, including Monsanto, DuPont and Dow Chemicals, that are on the prowl for new land to plant their genetically engineered crops after being all but booted from the European markets. When GE corn was introduced in the mid-90s, Mexico was inhospitable to the new-fangled crop. The country's National Biosecurity Commission established a (non-legally binding) moratorium on genetically engineered corn in 1998 as a means to safeguard what is considered to be the planet's cradle of maize cultivation. Corn has been carefully tended in Mexico for eight millennia and environmental conservationists report that thousands of peasant varieties are still grown throughout the country. With an estimated 75 per cent of the planet's biodiversity vanished as of 1995, Mexico's heterogeneous corn fields are a rare vestige of the age prior to the "Green Revolution" era that is responsible for the artificially and unhealthily homogenous industrial agriculture that is prevalent now. Introducing GE corn to Mexico would sound the death knell for this precious ecology as it is widely agreed that GE crops cannot co-exist with conventionally bred seeds. Traces of GE in corn Despite institutional protections against GE corn, neoliberal policies have already enabled certain strains of GE corn to intermingle with Mexican maize, a fact that was discovered in 2001 by UC Berkeley Professor, Ignacio Chapela. Mexico's 'people of corn' Thousands of tonnes of corn that began inundating Mexico from, primarily, the US (mostly for non-human consumption) after the signing of NAFTA in 1994 ensured that the promiscuous plant's pollen blew onto the pristine fields of small farms. As of today, it is estimated that at least one per cent of Mexico's corn has traces of GE. But perhaps of more immediate threat to the magnificent biodiversity of Mexico's maize is the country's politicians' willingness to succumb to the pressure of big biotech companies. Over his past six years in office, Calderon has overseen the whittling away of the above-mentioned safeguards. In 2007, Mexico's Chambers and Congress passed the "Law of Seeds" that prohibits farmers from trading or selling seeds they had cultivated. And two months after Calderon met with the president of Monsanto, Hugh Grant, at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2009, he lifted the 1998 moratorium on GE corn. This triggered a flood of applications for permits - the first of which came from Monsanto - to begin planting genetically modified maize. And, earlier this year, Mexican legislators came close to passing a bill that would modify the Federal Law on Plant Varieties which would promote privatising patents of certain breeds of plants. Comparable to how the enclosure acts in England created a landless working class, this legislation in Mexico would create a class of seedless farmers, planting the "property" (seeds) of transnational corporations that have monopolised the market for maize seeds. Thus, what is now controlled by the country's farmers would become the private property of corporations. However, Mexican farmers, small and large, responded to the proposed bill with forceful opposition, knowing full well the devastation that mono-cropping with bioengineered seeds would have on them - the examples provided by South and East Asia doubtless providing a stark warning. Veronica Villa, from the Colonia Insurgentes Mixcoac in Mexico City, explained to me that both commercial farmers of maize in the North and small indigenous farmers in the South (whose agricultural fields remain largely collective property and are used primarily to feed themselves) both fear the onslaught of GE corn. Those in the North fear the high costs and debts associated with transgenic corn, while the farmers in the South are the primary protectors of thousands of ancient varieties. Ecological destruction On the eve of elections, in a small but important victory, the highly unpopular bill was not presented to Congress, and the grassroots agricultural movement succeeded in keeping their own demise at bay for that moment. However, the bill is still pending and will likely be floated before Congress at a more politically opportune time. "While biotech companies have tried to float their products as being necessary in an era of climate-change, empirical studies have shown that the best defence for corn-farmers is diversity." Also still pending approval are requests by Monsanto and DuPont to plant 2,500,000 hectares of GM corn, which would signal a watershed in the agricultural landscape of Mexico. While Calderon left office before granting his blessing on the arrangement, all signs indicate that new President of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto, will be happy to put his imprimatur on the sweetheart deal for Big Biotech. Mexico's deputy agriculture secretary, Mariano Ruiz, told the press that the new president supported the introduction of large-scale GMO corn cultivation, saying, "I think we are in agreement generally over the importance of having this instrument, and that farmers have the tool of genetically modified organisms". Of course, farmers have all the tools they need without the meddling of chemical companies. While biotech companies have tried to float their products as being necessary in an era of climate-change, empirical studies have shown that the best defence for corn-farmers is diversity. Doug Gurian-Sherman, Senior Scientist with the Union for Concerned Scientists, warns of the far-reaching impact that supplanting Mexico's diverse maize plants with an industrial model could have. "Their diverse seeds contains many important traits like drought tolerance and pest resistance that we need going forward. If we lose them, we're going reduce our ability to respond to climate change and other threats to maize." Meanwhile, as Monsanto burrows into Mexico's cornfields, the biotech giant digs its rapacious claws further into the US - its single largest source of profits. The US Congress is expected to pass the FY 2013 Agriculture Appropriations Bill with the disturbingly anti-democratic "Monsanto-rider" embedded in the 90-page agreement, which would require the Secretary of Agriculture to override any federal court injunction on a GE crop and grant it a temporary permit. As long as politicians do not stand up for the health of their citizens or their land, biotech companies will reap profits in the grim wake of human and ecological destruction. Charlotte Silver is a journalist based in San Francisco and the West Bank. She is a graduate of Stanford University. Follow her on Twitter: @CharEsilver 1194 The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Russia completely suspends use of Monsanto's GM corn

 What does Russia know about genetically modified corn that we don't? Well, maybe not much, but the difference is Moscow is at least prepared to act on the information it has.

According to recent reports, the Russian consumer-rights watchdog agency, Rospotrebnadzor, said recently it made the decision to suspend importation and use of genetically engineered corn made by Monsanto Co., after release of a study alleging that the crop causes cancer.

Rospotrebnadzor said in a statement that Russia's Institute of Nutrition has been asked to gauge the validity of the study's results, while the European Commission's Directorate General for Health & Consumers has also been contacted, in order to lay out the European Union's position on the issue.

The study was conducted by the University of Caen in France and published earlier this month. Researchers alleged that rats that were fed over a two-year period with the U.S. crop-biotech company's GMO corn, called NK603 and marketed under the brand name "Roundup Ready," "developed more tumors and other severe diseases than a test group fed with regular corn," Fox Business reported.

French government to decide whether it will also ban GMO corn importation

The study also proffered that rats fed with the modified corn and then exposed to the St. Louis-based Monsanto's Roundup weed killer tended to suffer more pathologies that did the test group.

The corn variety is genetically engineered to stave off glyphosate, a weed killer that Monsanto offers under the Roundup brand, the report said.

As expected, a number of scientists and nutritionists discounted the study, greeting it with skepticism. For example, the Science Media Centre, a London-based independent organization that gathers reactions to published research, posted a number of comments by several experts that were critical of the research. Most said the sample size was too small while the data was incomplete, among other concerns.

The study prompted the French government to order its food-safety agency to quickly review its results. Officials said they planned to seek an immediate ban on EU imports of the crop if the findings of the study were deemed to be legitimate and conclusive.

Again, as expected, Monsanto repeated earlier claims that nothing in the French study warranted any sort of ban of the company's biotech-engineered seed.

In particular, the company bashed the study in a statement released shortly after the research published its findings, saying they did "not meet minimum acceptable standards for this type of scientific research," adding that "the findings are not supported by the data presented, and the conclusions are not relevant for the purpose of safety assessment."

Call for GMO labeling in the U.S. by congressman

Fox Business went on to report that an unnamed spokesman from Monsanto downplayed the effect of the Russian ban, pointing out that Moscow imports little American-grown corn anyway.

"Russia is a net exporter of grain, so the actual impact of their temporary suspension, if any, is likely to be small," the spokesman said.

Further, the company said any impact on its sales of corn seed to farmers will also be similarly limited, most likely because the Russian government doesn't allow farmers to plant transgenic crops.

The Health Ranger, Mike Adams, wrote this week that U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, has called for a national GMO labeling law here in the U.S.

"The FDA has received over a million comments from citizens demanding labeling of GMOs. Ninety percent of Americans agree," Kucinich has said. "So, why no labeling? I'll give you one reason: The influence and the corruption of the political process by Monsanto. Monsanto has been a prime mover in GMO technology, a multi-million dollar GMO lobby here and a major political contributor."

Sources:

http://www.foxbusiness.com

http://www.naturalnews.com/037328_Russia_GMO_Monsanto.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/037290_Zyklon_B_GMO_food_weapons.html

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/037370_Russia_GM_corn_Monsanto.html#ixzz2F8a3mFnP