Monsanto Jews lying desperately against up-coming labeling prop. in Cal.

[Apollonian]

Friday, August 24, 2012

Monsanto’s Top 7 Lies About GMO Labeling and Proposition 37 ​

Link: http://www.activistpost.com/2012/08/monsantos-top-7-lies-about-gmo-labeling.html

Dees Illustration
Mike Barrett
Activist Post

Due to the near future voting on November 6, 2012 for California’s Proposition 37, there has been a lot of heat going back and forth concerning GMO foods. Up until now, 10′s of million of dollars have been funneled into the opposing side of the bill, with biotechnology giant Monsanto dishing out a whopping $4.2 million alone. Monsanto has even recently published a page on their site titled ”Taking a Stand: Proposition 37, The California Labeling Proposal,” where the GMO giant attempts to logically explain why it is against GMO labeling.

Needless to say, the post reeks of false and misleading statements, and oftentimes downright deception. Here are the top 7 lies Monsanto wants you to believe regarding GMO labeling and Prop 37.

1. The bill "would require a warning label on food products."

GMO foods will not require a warning label (although they ought to!) Actually, foods made with GMOs would say ”partially produced with genetic engineering” or “may be partially produced with genetic engineering,” – not a warning label, but a clear warning sign to those of us who want to avoid GMOs. The whole idea of the GMO labeling bill is to make consumers aware of what they are consuming, not to bash GMOs on every label. We have a right to know.



2. "The safety and benefits of these ingredients are well established."

This may be the most comical statement of all. While no long-term studies portray the dangers or benefits of GMOs, countless studies using a ‘shorter’ time interval show not only how GMOs are a danger to humans, but also the environment and the biosphere. One study published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences shows that GMO corn and other GM food is indeed contributing to the obesity epidemic and causing organ disruption.

Through the mass genetic modification of nature via GMO crops, animals, biopesticides, and the mutated insects that are created as a result, mega biotechnology corporations are threatening the overall genetic integrity of the environment as well as all of humankind. This is just one reason that GMO crops are continuously banned around the world in nations such as France, Peru, Hungary, and Poland.

3. “FDA says that such labeling would be inherently misleading to consumers.”

While the FDA may think that labeling GMO foods would be misleading, in reality the exact opposite is true. Most consumers are in the dark when it comes to GMOs residing in their purchased foods. Foods being sold that contain hidden GMOs are much more misleading than letting the consumer be aware.

The FDA may call it ‘misleading’ since ‘GMOs are safe,’ but research shows that this is far from the truth.

4. “The American Medical Association just re-affirmed that there is no scientific justification for special labeling of bioengineered foods.”

Although true, the American Medical Association also recently called for mandatory premarket safety studies for GMOs – a decision virtually polar opposite of the above quote. It seems that the AMA is being inconsistent no matter which view is taken. Here is a quote from Consumers Union recently noted in its reaction to AMA’s announcement:

The AMA’s stance on mandatory labeling isn’t consistent with its support for mandatory pre-market safety assessments. If unexpected adverse health effects, such as an allergic reaction, happen as a result of GE, then labeling could perhaps be the only way to determine that the GE process was linked to the adverse health effect.
5. "…the main proponents of Proposition 37 are special interest groups and individuals opposed to food biotechnology who are not necessarily engaged in the production of our nation’s food supply."

Not engaged in the production of our nation’s food supply? Countless farmers, food producers, and consumers who are engaging with their hard-earned dollar support Proposition 37. In fact, many farmers have taken legal action against Monsanto in the past for widespread genetic contamination.

Here is a growing list of endorsements for the GMO labeling bill.

6. "The California proposal would serve the purposes of a few special interest groups at the expense of the majority of consumers."

Monsanto says “at the expense of the majority of consumers.” Maybe the biotech giant isn’t aware that GMO labeling is so desired that the pro-labeling side has a 3-to-1 advantage, based on recent polls. The majority of consumers actually want GMO foods to be labeled. It is no secret that government organizations such as the FDA and USDA are in bed with Monsanto, but this is a decision for the people – not any government organizations.

It has also been revealed that Monsanto has control of virtually all U.S. diplomats, and the company has even used its massive influence to force other nations to accept their genetically modified crops through economic threats and political pressure.



7. "Consumers have broad food choices today, but could be denied these choices if Prop 37 prevails."

There is absolutely no reason to think that because of Proposition 37, food choices would become more limited. Actually, the bill would add value to the purchase by consumers, as no one would need to ‘eat in the dark’ and unknowingly consume GMOs.

You can support this information by voting on Reddit HERE

Additional Sources:
The Huffington Post

Explore More:
Fake Eco-Friendly Corporations Shell out Millions of $ to Stop GMO Labeling (Infographic)
FDA Deletes 1 Million Signatures for GMO Labeling Campaign
Genetically Modified Food Labeling Initiative Gains Momentum
Obama Promised GMO Labeling in 2007
Vermont Introduces Monumental GMO Labeling Legislation
Even the American Medical Association (AMA) May Back Labeling of GMOs

This article first appeared at Natural Society, an excellent resource for health news and vaccine information.

 

[Apollonian]

Monsanto – Menace to Society​

Posted on August 25, 2012 by # 1 NWO Hatr

Link: http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/monsanto-menace-to-society/20071/

Monsanto.

If ever there was a corporation spawned in the deepest pits of hell, in my opinion, it would be this one. The only other company I can think of that could rival their evil would be the I.G. Farben Co., the makers of Malathion, Zyklon B, and cyanide gas for the Nazi regime.

Founded in1901, in St. Louis, MS. as a chemical company ( as opposed to an agricultural one ), Monsanto has a long history of creating toxic chemicals ( like I.G. Farben ). The list includes PCB’s, RGBH, Agent Orange and Aspartame.

PCB (Polychlorinated Biphenyl ) is generally considered one of the most carcinogenic substances known to man. It was used in plastics, transformers, capacitors, hydraulic systems, motors, and oil-based paints, among other things. Created in 1929, it was not until 1979 that it was finally banned. 20,000 residents of Anniston, AL, where Monsanto’s plant was located, sued them in 2001, and won a $700 million lawsuit, due to the toxic effects of PCB’s. In 1966, scientists placed fish in Anniston’s Snow Creek, and all were dead within 3 ½ minutes. Finally forced to go to court, internal documents showed that they knew PCB’s were toxic all along, but of course the ‘government’ sided with them, until the lawsuit. A 1970 internal memo revealed their mindset – “We can’t afford to lose one dollar of business”. So much for their humanitarian agenda.

2,4,5-T, a herbicide created by Monsanto, was the main ingredient in Agent Orange, the defoliant used in Vietnam. In 1949, the plant producing this herbicide in Nitro, W, VA, had an explosion which caused an illness in 248 workers there, caused by one of the ingredients in 2,4,5-T, dioxin. Monsanto was accused of falsifying scientific studies done on dioxin, downplaying its carcinogenic effects on humans.

During the Vietnam war, 40 million liters of Agent Orange, containing 400 kilograms of pure dioxin, were sprayed as a defoliant. 3 million people were contaminated, including U.S. soldiers. The effects of this madness are still being seen today. William Sanjour, an expert on dioxin, stated that had Monsanto’s studies been properly conducted, they would have shown the opposite conclusions.

Aspartame is another real piece of work. A study done on the most violent criminals in our prisons across the country discovered they ALL had one thing in common – diets high in Aspartame and MSG. No rocket science is necessary to figure this one out.

Now we come to GMO’s, the crown jewel in Monsanto’s arsenal of deadly creations. They were created to withstand their toxic herbicide, Round-Up, first introduced in 1974. It was advertised as being biodegradable, until they were sued, first in New York in 1996, then again a few years later in France, for false advertising. They lost both cases, forcing them to remove the word biodegradable from their labels.

It was in 1996 that they revealed their latest bio-engineered marvel to the rest of the world – soybeans. Due to huge investments in GMO’s by big agriculture, in 1992 the FDA decided NOT to create a special category for GMO’s, thereby bypassing the need to create new laws to regulate them. Dan Glickman, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture ( 1995 – 2000 ) under the Clinton administration stated that anyone not in favor of the rapid approval of bio-tech products and GMO crops was considered anti-science and anti-progress. James Maryanski, the Biotechnology Coordinator at the FDA from 1985 – 2006, admitted that GMO regulation was based on politics, not science. Principle 2 in an FDA report on GMO’s states “In most cases, the substances expected to become components of food as a result of genetic modification of a plant will be the same as or substantially similar to substances found in food.” Essentially, they are saying it’s no different than it’s natural counterpart. This is known as the ‘principle of substantial equivalence’. GMO labeling is not allowed on the 70% or more of the foods sold in stores in the U.S., due to this ‘principle of substantial equivalence’ designation.

I could on and on about the foul schemes of this Satanic corporation, in fact, I could write a lengthy essay on them, but I believe that I’ve covered as much as possible in as condensed a form as is feasible. Monsanto is infamous for suing their detractors, so if they wish to sue me for posting this information, they’ll come to find that I’ve barely got a pot to piss in, they’re more than welcome to it, preferably chock full, and aimed squarely at their miserable blood-sucking heads.

 

[Apollonian]

Thursday, August 30, 2012

6 New GMO Crops that May Soon Hit Your Dinner Table ​

Link: http://www.activistpost.com/2012/08/6-new-gmo-crops-that-may-soon-hit-your.html

Lisa Garber
Activist Post

Remember when the USDA gave Monsanto’s new GMO crops the fast track to approval? Regardless of the numerous accounts of organ damage, pesticide-resistant weeds, and unintentionally mutated organisms like resistant insects, our own government is manipulating the game to let “biotech bullies” like Monsanto get speedier regulatory reviews. Consequently, the environment, livestock, and consumers will be exposed to even greater danger.

As stated in their press release, the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, envisions transforming the USDA “into a high-performing organization that focuses on its customers.” We’d like to think that we, the consumers, are those customers. The likes of Monsanto, Dow, and Syngenta, however, would probably disagree.

6 New GMO Crops to Act Against

Here’s your chance to tell the USDA otherwise. The first two crops on this list have been on the old, slower-track approval process, which allows 60 days for the public to comment. The remaining four are new additions but are on the fast track, meaning we still only have until September 11th of 2012 to have our say before these seeds hit the soil and, maybe, your dinner table.



Dow 2,4-D and Glufosinate Tolerant Soybean - Since the US first began using GM crops, our herbicide usage has been boosted by 300 million pounds, despite claims by biotech behemoths that other plants like weeds would not grow resistant to glyphosate – commonly known as RoundUp. And now, we have “superweeds.” Of course, biotech (and seemingly the USDA) doesn’t care, and they plan on adding the 2,4-D herbicide and dicamba (see number 4) to the list. Take action here.

Syngenta Corn Rootworm Resistant Corn - Plenty of nations have banned Syngenta’s GM Bt crops—but not the US. This type of corn produces its own pesticides and kills all bugs, good or bad, which also means livestock can get sick from eating it. Research says that 80% of pregnant women have Bt toxins in their blood. Take action here.

Okanagan Non-Browning Apple - Conventional apples are covered in pesticides.

That’s why we buy organic, but Okanagan has produced the first GM apple. Take action against genetically modified apples right here.

Monsanto Dicamba Tolerant Soybean - Take action here.
Dow 2,4-D, Dlyphosate and Glufosinate Tolerant Soybean - Take action here.

Genective Glyphosate Tolerant Corn

GM foods are bad news for the earth and all of us who live on it. Have your voice heard while you can.

Additional Sources:
I-sis.org.uk
Organic Consumers
Biolsci.org

Explore More:

Monsanto’s GMO Crops Ravage US, USDA Ignores Dangers

Report: Nature May Soon Overcome Monsanto as ‘Super Rootworms’ Destroy Crops

USDA to Give Monsanto’s New GMO Crops Special ‘Speed Approval’

Gates Foundation Gives $10 Million to Support Genetically Modified Cereal Crops

4 Proofs the USDA Doesn’t Care About Your Health

GMO Crops Continually Banned Around the World in Display of Health Freedom

 

[Apollonian]

USDA Offers the Biotech Industry Blanket Immunity for Contaminating Organic Crops​

Link: http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.c...munity-for-contaminating-organic-crops/20641/

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Angel - NYC


Alliance for Natural Health USDA calls it “coexistence,” but it’s just a way for GMO farmers to harm whomever they like—without consequence. Action Alert!

Many countries across the globe ban genetically engineered crops and foods. The USDA, rather than banning GMOs, aggressively supports them and claims that GMO crops will coexist alongside non-GMO crops.

The USDA’s Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture (AC21) was formed in 2003 but met infrequently after 2008. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack recently revived it; the committee plans to meet three or four times a year from now on, and ANH-USA attended the August 27–28 meeting. The committee is composed of members from the biotechnology industry, the organic food industry, the seed industry, the food manufacturing industry, and consumer and community development groups.

Given the assumption that GE crops and non-GE crops have to coexist—no one even considered the possibility that GE crops would not be allowed—the committee was asked whether there should be compensation mechanisms to address economic losses by farmers where the value of their crops was reduced “by the unintended presence of GE materials.” That’s code for transgenic contamination, where the wind carries spores or toxic pesticides from a farm growing genetically engineered crops and blows them to a farm growing organic crops, rendering them non-organic and thus worthless.

This contamination happens easily. In the past, Monsanto and other GMO producers have had the gall to sue adjacent farmers, accusing them of stealing the GMO seeds, and even found courts sympathetic to this argument. The idea was apparently to intimidate farmers who didn’t have the money to fight in court and persuade them to convert to GMO.

More recently the worm turned and there have been a number of lawsuits filed by non-GE farmers who found that their crops were getting contaminated by pesticides, herbicides, and GE materials, thereby diminishing the value of their produce. Now that there are counter-suits, USDA says the agency “wants to avoid an overly litigious environment” by creating a compensation mechanism. More likely, this scheme is intended to protect biotech companies from taking responsibility for the contamination, and thus keep them from being financially liable or in any way accountable for the negative impact on consumers’ health.

The AC21 is currently working on a draft report for discussion. The recommendation the committee seems to be heading toward is an insurance program that non-GE farmers have to buy into that would compensate them in case their crops were contaminated by GE materials.

This proposal, concocted solely to let GMO producers off the hook, is troubling for many reasons.

First, the discussion is purely on economic terms. There is no conversation about the safety of GMOs, since the USDA’s stance is that GMOs are safe, despite the mounting evidence that they are not safe. Given this initial assumption of safety, they only want to consider whether the economic value of non-GMO crops is diminished through contamination, not whether the safety of non-GMO crops is diminished—there has been no discussion whatsoever of the public health implications of transgenic contamination. Worse, it accepts as a given that GMO crops will inevitably contaminate non-GMO crops.

Second, contamination might not only reduce the economic value of other crops. It could simply destroy the possibility of organic agriculture. Crops that are contaminated cannot be certified organic. So in one stroke, the organic industry can be destroyed.

Third, it takes all the responsibility away from GE farmers. They would not be responsible for paying into a fund for compensation, much less face any liability in court. The entire burden rests with non-GE farmers, who must purchase the insurance for themselves.

And fourth, committee members from the biotech industry keep saying that there is “no actual data” that the value of non-GE crops is diminished because of contamination. They repeat that this is “just based on a hypothetical.” Of course, they ignore the fact that data is scarce because in all likelihood non-GE farmers and organic famers would not want to publicly admit that their crops might be contaminated. But if it is difficult to document the damage, how will farmers who have bought the insurance ever be able to collect?

Action Alert! The AC21 is now accepting public comments on the draft report. Please contact USDA immediately and tell them their “coexistence” premise is wrong—GE crops are not safe, and should be banned altogether—but if GE and non-GE crops must coexist, then it is the GE farmers who should be personally responsible for the contamination of non-GE crops! Otherwise they will have zero incentive to limit contamination.

Please take action today—a new draft will be circulated in just a few weeks, so these comments need to be considered right away!

 

[Ensis]

The Monsanto family, a family of filthy, irredeemable jews, started out in the jiggaboo slave business. They may have had a big hand in the White slave trade business before switching exclusively to jigs, before Lincoln ended slavery and foisted the jigs upon us.
Jews are nothing but trouble in the kwa and in any country they infest.

 

[reset]

Texas: Monsanto's GM Grass May Have Produce Cyanide

"Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are trying to determine if an unexpected mutation in a popular GM grass, Tifton 85, is responsible for the sudden deaths of a small herd of cattle in Elgin, Texas three weeks ago. The grass has been used for grazing since 1992 without incident, however after a severe drought last year in Texas, the grass started producing cyanide in sufficient quantities to kill a small herd of cattle in Elgin, Texas. Testing has found the cyanide-producing grass in nearby fields as well."

http://science.slashdot.org/story/1...ducing-gm-grass-linked-to-texas-cattle-deaths

 

[Apollonian]

Busted: Co-Author of Flawed Stanford Organic Study Has Deep Ties to Big Tobacco’s Anti-Science Propaganda​

Link: http://www.infowars.com/busted-co-a...ties-to-big-tobaccos-anti-science-propaganda/


Mike Adams & Anthony Gucciardi
Infowars.com
Sept 7, 2012

Over the last several days, the mainstream media has fallen for an elaborate scientific hoax that sought to destroy the credibility of organic foods by claiming they are “no healthier” than conventional foods (grown with pesticides and GMOs). NaturalNews and NaturalSociety have learned one of the key co-authors of the study, Dr. Ingram Olkin, has a deep history as an “anti-science” propagandist working for Big Tobacco. Stanford University has also been found to have deep financial ties to Cargill, a powerful proponent of genetically engineered foods and an enemy of GMO labeling Proposition 37.


The New York Times, BBC and all the other publications that printed stories based on this Stanford study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine have been victims of an elaborate scientific hoax carried out by corporate propagandists posing as “scientists.”

The evidence we show here (see below) demonstrates how this study was crafted under the influence of known anti-science fraudsters pushing a corporate agenda. Just as Big Tobacco sought to silence the emerging scientific evidence of the dangers of cigarette smoke, the biotech industry today is desperately seeking to silence calls for GMO labeling and honest, chemical-free food. The era is different, but the anti-science tactics are the same (and many of the quack science players are the same!).

Flawed organic food study author Ingram Olkin chief statistical ‘liar’ for Big Tobacco

Here’s a document from 1976 which shows financial ties between Philip Morris and Ingram Olkin, co-author of the recent organic foods study.

The so-called “research project” was proposed by Olkin, who was also at one time the chairman of Stanford’s Department of Statistics.

Olkin worked with Stanford University to develop a “multivariate” statistical algorithm, which is essentially a way to lie with statistics (or to confuse people with junk science). As this page describes on the use of these statistical models: “Obviously, if one chooses convenient mathematical functions, the result may not conform to reality.”

This research ultimately became known as the “Dr. Ingram Olkin multivariate Logistic Risk Function” and it was a key component in Big Tobacco’s use of anti-science to attack whistleblowers and attempt to claim cigarettes are perfectly safe.

This research originated at Stanford, where Ingram headed the Department of Statistics, and ultimately supported the quack science front to reject any notion that cigarettes might harm human health. Thanks to efforts of people like Ingram, articles like this one were published: “The Case against Tobacco Is Not Closed: Why Smoking May Not Be Dangerous to Your Health!” (http://andrewgelman.com/2012/09/cigarettes/)

By the way, if today’s “skeptics” and “science bloggers” were around in the 1950′s and 60′s, they would all be promoters of cigarette smoking because that was the corporate-funded scientific mythology being pushed at the time. Back then it was tobacco, today it’s vaccines and pesticides. New century, new poisons, same old quack science.

The evil Council of Tobacco Research

As the evidence clearly shows, Ingram Olkin has a history of collaboration with tobacco industry giants who sought to silence the physicians speaking out regarding the dangers of cigarettes. One such entity known as the Council of Tobacco Research (CTR) has been openly exposed as paying off publication companies and journalists with more than $500,000 (about $3,000,000 today after adjusting for inflation) as far back as 1968 in order to generate pro-smoking propaganda. The kind of “dark propaganda” serves only to deceive and confuse consumers with phony, fabricated “scientific evidence.”

It all seems eerily similar to the organics-bashing story that just recently appeared in the New York Times, written by proven liar Roger Cohen .

CTR was part of the massive Tobacco Institute, which was essentially a colossal group of cigarette corporations using quack science to attempt to hide the true effects of cigarettes from the public. CTR was a key player in attempting to defeat the monumental case known as the Framingham Heart Study (http://www.framinghamheartstudy.org/) — a historical research project that linked cigarette smoking to heart disease. It was during this time that Olkin applied to the CTR in order to oversee and conduct a project smearing and ‘disproving’ the Framingham study.

This can be proven simply by examining the words of the cigarette manufacturer lawyers who were desperate to defeat the potentially devastating heart study. In their own documents, they state:


“I met with Dr. Olkin and Dr. Marvin Kastenbaum [Tobacco Institute Statistics Director] on December 17, 1975, at which time we discussed Dr. Olkin’s interest in multivariate analysis statistical models. Dr. Olkin is well qualified and is very articulate. I learned, in visiting with Dr. Olkin, that he would like to examine the theoretical structure of the “multivariate logistic risk function.”

In an even more telling statement, Olvin’s “sidekick” Dr. Kastenbaum, was revealed to be highly knowledgeable “tobacco industry’s participation in the public disinformation regarding the health hazards of tobacco use, the manipulation of nicotine in tobacco products and the marketing of tobacco products to children.” In other words, these scientists were part of a massive deception campaign intended to smear any real information over the serious dangers of cigarette smoking using ‘black ops’ disinformation techniques.

This deception campaign is being paralleled once again, in 2012, with the quack science assault on organics (and a simultaneous defense of GMOs). Biotech = Big Tobacco. “GMOs are safe” is the same as “cigarettes are safe.” Both can be propagandized with fraudulent science funded by corporate donations to universities.

Dr. Kastenbaum, by the way, went on to become the Director of Statistics for the Tobacco Institute intermittently from 1973 to 1987. Another name for his job role is “corporate science whore.”

Organics study co-author was hired to perform scientific “hatchet jobs”

Further documents (http://tobaccodocuments.org/bliley_bw/521028845-8850.html) go on to state that Olkin then received a grant from the CTR for his work alongside disinformation specialist Dr. Katenbaum in an effort to perform “deliberate hatchet jobs” on the heart study as described by author Robert N. Proctor Golden in his book entitled Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition. Golden explains how Olkin was paid off along with others to falsely testify in Congress that cigarette smoking did not harm the heart:


“George L. Saiger from Columbia University received CTR Special Project funds ‘to seek to reduce the correlation of smoking and disease by introduction of additional variables’; he also was paid $10,873 in 1966 to testify before Congress, denying the cigarette-cancer link…”

This was the same organization that paid what amounts after inflation to over one million dollars to journalists and major publications to disseminate phony information supporting their claims. It’s also important to note that during this time Olkin was still prominently placed within Stanford, remaining so even after openly concealing the truth about the cigarette heart disease link from the public.

Now, Olkin’s newest research fails to address any real factors in the difference between conventional GMO-loaded food and organic. At the same time, it absolutely reeks of the similar ‘black ops’ disinformation campaigns from the 1960′s and 70′s in which he was heavily involved.

Make no mistake: The Stanford organics study is a fraud. Its authors are front-men for the biotech industry which has donated millions of dollars to Stanford. The New York Times and other publications that published articles based on this research got hoaxed by Big Tobacco scientists who are documented, known liars and science fudgers.

Stanford secrecy, plus ties to Monsanto and Cargill

Stanford receives more secret donations than any other university in the U.S. In 2009 alone, these donations totaled well over half a billion dollars.

There’s little doubt that many of these donations come from wealthy corporations who seek to influence Stanford’s research, bending the will of the science departments to come into alignment with corporate interests (GMOs, pesticides, etc.).

Who is George H Poste?

• Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
• Member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
• Served on the Monsanto board since February 2003.
• Former member of the Defense Science Board of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Stanford University has also accepted $5 million in donations from food giant Cargill (a big supporter of the biotech industry) in order to expand Stanford’s Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE). “Food security” is a euphemism for genetically engineered crops. Much of the research conducted there is done to try to advocate GMOs.

Cargill has also donated big dollars to try to defeat Proposition 37 in California.

The “scientific” Hall of Shame – a list of scientists funded by the Tobacco industry to fake scientific results

The CRT is the Council of Tobacco Research — essentially a scientific front group that was set up to attempt to invoke “science” to “prove” that cigarettes were not bad for your health.

This list just proves how easily scientists sell out to corporate interests when given grant money. Remember: What Big Tobacco pulled off with fake science in the 20th century, Big Biotech is pulling off yet again today.

Source: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCOURTS-dcd-1_99-cv-02496/pdf/USCOURTS-dcd-1_99-cv-02496-4.pdf

Documents reflect that, at a minimum, the following individuals and organizations received funding through Special Account No. 4 beginning in the 1960s and ending in the 1990s:

Able-Lands, Inc.; Lauren Ackerman; ACVA Atlantic Inc.; George Albee; Aleph Foundation; Arthur D. Little, Inc.; Aspen Conference; Atmospheric Health Sciences; Domingo Aviado; James Ballenger; Alvan L. Barach; Walter Barker; Broda 0. Barnes; Battelle Columbus Laboratories; Battelle Memorial Institute; Walter Becker; Peter Berger; Rodger L. Bick; Billings & Gussman, Inc.; Richard Bing; BioResearch Laboratories; Theodore Blau; Irvin Blose; Walter Booker; Evelyn J. Bowers; Thomas H. Brem; Lyman A. Brewer, III; Brigham Young University; Oliver Brooke; Richard Brotman; Barbara B. Brown; K. Alexander Brownlee; Katherine Bryant; Victor B. Buhler; Thomas Burford; J. Harold Burn; Marie Burnett; Maurice Campbell; Carney Enterprises, Inc.; Duane Carr; Rune Cederlof; Domenic V. Cicchetti; Martin Cline; Code Consultants Inc.; Cohen, Coleghety Foundation, Inc.; Colucci, & Associates, Inc.; Computerland; W. Clark Cooper; A. Cosentino; Daniel Cox; Gertrude Cox; CTR; Geza De Takato; Bertram D. Dimmens; Charles Dunlap; Henry W. Elliott; Engineered Energy Mgt. Inc.; Environmental Policy Institute; J. Earle Estes; Frederick J. Evans; William Evans; Expenses related to Congressional Hearings in Washington D.C.; Hans J. Eysenck; Eysenck Institute of Psychiatry; Jack M. Farris; Sherwin J. Feinhandler; Alvan R. Feinstein; Herman Feldman; Edward Fickes; T. Finley; Melvin First; Edwin Fisher; R. Fisher; Merritt W. Foster; Richard Freedman; Herbert Freudenberger; Fudenberg; Arthur Furst; Nicholas Gerber; Menard M. Gertler; Jean Gibbons; Carl Glasser; Donald Goodwin; B. Greenberg; Alan Griffen; F. Gyntelberg; Harvard Medical School; Hearings-Kennedy-Hart Bill; William Heavlin; Norman Heimstra; Joseph Herkson; Richard J. Hickey; Carlos Hilado; Charles H. Hine; Hine, Inc.; Harold C. Hodge; Gary Huber; Wilhelm C. Hueper; Darrell Huff; Duncan Hutcheon; Industry Research Liaison Committee; Information Intersciences, Inc.; International Consultancy; International Technology Corporation; International Information Institute, Inc.; J.B. Spalding Statistical Service; J.F. Smith Research Account; Jacob, Medinger & Finnegan; Joseph Janis; Roger Jenkins; Marvin Kastenbaum; Leo Katz; Marti Kirschbaum; Kravetz Levine & Spotnitz; Lawrence L. Kuper; Mariano La Via; H. Langston; William G. Leaman; Michael Lebowitz; Samuel B. Lehrer; William Lerner; Edward Raynar Levine; G.J. Lieberman; S.C. Littlechild; Eleanor Macdonald; Thomas Mancuso; Nathan Mantel; R. McFarland; Meckler Engineering Group; Milton Meckler; Nancy Mello; Jack Mendelson; Michigan State University; Marc Micozzi; Irvin Miller; K. Moser; Albert Niden; Judith O’Fallon; John O’Lane; William Ober; J.H. Ogura; Ronald Okun; Ingram Olkin; Thomas Osdene (Philip Morris); Peat, Marwick Main & Co.; Thomas L. Petty; Pitney, Hardin & Kipp; Leslie Preger; Walter J. Priest; R. Proctor; Terrence P. Pshler; Public Smoking Research Group; R.W. Andersohn & Assoc.; L.G.S. Rao; Herbert L. Ratcliffe; Attilio Renzetti; Response Analysis Project; Response Analysis Consultation; R.H. Rigdon; Jay Roberts; Milton B. Rosenblatt; John Rosencrans; Walter Rosenkrantz; Ray H. Rosenman; Linda Russek; Henry Russek; Ragnar Rylander; George L. Saiger; D.E. Sailagyi; I. Richard Savage; Richard S. Schilling; Schirmer Engineering Corp.; S. Schor; G.N. Schrauzer; Charles Schultz; John Schwab; Carl L. Seltzer; Murray Senkus (Reynolds); Paul Shalmy; R. Shilling; Shook, Hardy & Bacon; Henry Shotwell; Allen Silberberg; N. Skolnik; JF Smith; Louis A. Soloff; Sheldon C. Sommers (CTR); JB Spalding; Charles Spielberg; Charles Spielberger; Lawrence Spielvogel; St. George Hospital & Medical School; Stanford Research Institution Project; Russell Stedman; Arthur Stein; Elia Sterling; Theodor Sterling; Thomas Szasz; The Foundation for Research in Bronchial Asthma and Related Diseases; The Futures Group; Paul Toannidis; Trenton, New Jersey Hearings; Chris P. Tsokos; University of South Florida; Helmut Valentin; Richard Wagner; Norman Wall; Wayne State University; Weinberg Consulting Group; Roger Wilson; Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation; Jack Wiseman; George Wright; John P. Wyatt; J. Yerushalmy; and Irving Zeidman.

This post originally appeared at Natural Society



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[Apollonian]

Mitt Romney, Monsanto Man ​

Link: http://truth-out.org/news/item/11531-mitt-romney-monsanto-man

Friday, 14 September 2012 09:06 By Wayne Barrett, The Nation | News Analysis

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan ordering food in Johnson Creek, Wisconsin. (Photo: Eric Thayer / The New York Times)Though Mitt Romney has been campaigning for president since 2006, it’s alarming how little is known about critical chapters of his business biography. Nothing spells that out more clearly than his ties to Monsanto—the current target of a mid-September Occupy nationwide action—whose dark history features scandals involving PCBs, Agent Orange, bovine growth hormone, NutraSweet, IUD, genetically modified (GM) seed and herbicides, reaching back to the 1970s and ’80s. That’s when Monsanto was the largest consulting client of Romney’s employer, Bain & Company, and when Romney helped move Monsanto from chemical colossus to genetic giant, trading one set of environmental controversies for another.

This history matters not just because of the light it sheds on Romney’s self-ballyhooed business experience but because of the litany of Monsanto corporate objectives that clash with planetary concerns. If Romney is elected, this bête noire of environmentalists will have a very old friend in a very high place.

The romance between Romney and Monsanto began back in 1977, when the recently minted Harvard Law and Business School graduate joined Bain, the Boston-based consulting firm launched in 1973, the same year Monsanto became one of its first clients. One of Bain’s founding partners, Ralph Willard, described to the Boston Globe in 2007 how “Romney learned the technical aspects of the chemical business so thoroughly that he sounded as if he had gone to engineering school instead of business school,” and that Monsanto executives soon began “bypassing” him to go directly to Romney.

John W. Hanley, the Monsanto CEO at the time, has said how “impressed” he was with the 30-year-old Mitt. Hanley became so close to Romney that he and Romney’s boss Bill Bain devised the idea of creating Bain Capital as a way of keeping Romney in the fold. Unless Mitt was allowed to run this spin-off venture firm, Hanley and Bain feared, he would leave. Hanley even contributed $1 million to Romney’s first investment pool at Bain Capital. Monsanto’s Hanley is in fact the only business executive outside of the Bain founding family to so shape Romney’s career—jumpstarting the two companies, Bain & Company and Bain Capital, that account for all but two years of Romney’s much-ballyhooed business experience. Bain and Romney whispered in Monsanto’s ear until 1985, when Hanley’s successor Richard Mahoney says he “fired” them and when Romney moved on to Bain Capital.

A year before Romney began to work with Monsanto, Congress passed a 1976 bill banning PCBs, a liquid chemical monopoly of Monsanto’s, exposing the company to an onslaught of litigation throughout the Bain years. Monsanto was also besieged by charges that its decade of Vietnam War defoliation with Agent Orange dioxins—branded by a Yale environmentalist “the largest chemical warfare operation” in human history—had contaminated as many as 10 million Vietnamese and American people, leading to a $180 million settlement covering the claims of 52,000 troops in 1984.

Dr. Earl Beaver, who was Monsanto’s waste director during the Bain period, says that Bain was certainly “aware” of the “PCB and dioxin scandals” because they created “a negative public perception that was costing the company money.” So Bain recommended focusing “on the businesses that didn’t have those perceptions,” Beaver recalls, starting with “life science products that were biologically based,” including genetically engineered crops, as well as Roundup, the hugely profitable weed-killer. “These were the products that Bain gave their go-ahead to,” Beaver contends, noting that Romney was a key player, “reviewing the data collected by other people and developing alternatives,” talking mostly to “the higher muckety-mucks.”

But Beaver, who left Monsanto and eventually became chair of the Institute for Sustainability in New York, said that the Monsanto/Bain teams “did not put an adequate emphasis on esoteric or societal factors” because they were “focused on this quarter or that quarter or next year’s financials.” People who have a long-term horizon, Beaver concluded, “consider different factors than what’s going to be reported in the stock section of the newspaper.”

The first Monsanto biotech product, bovine growth hormone, became another headache for the firm, crippling cows, alarming parents concerned about the health effect on kids, meeting with rejection among developed countries outside the United States and sparking bans by American retailers from Starbucks to Walmart. Monsanto announced it invented the hormone in 1981, midway through the Bain period, but didn’t get FDA clearance for it until 1993. By 2008, the company got out of the business altogether, ostensibly selling it for far less than it invested in the technology.

Now the king of GM corn, soybean, alfalfa and other seeds, engineered to resist Roundup and increase yield, Monsanto is awash in global disputes, having lost two recent, at least $2 billion, court decisions in Brazil, for example, where 5 million soy farmers sued them. The Brazilian farmers’ issue is also a source of frustration for US farmers—the contracts farmers are forced to sign pledging not to save seeds for future harvests, a common farm custom that resale-fixated Monsanto has hired a seed police army to stop.

While Monsanto can trot out its own and FDA findings to support its seed safety claims, there are independent studies linking its corn to organ damage, obesity, diabetes and allergies. The company’s profits plunged in 2010 as evidence mounted that GM seeds, 90 percent of which originate with Monsanto, weren’t boosting yields as promised. Consumer resistance has already forced Monsanto to retreat from the GM potato, tomato, wheat, rice, flax seed and bio-pharmaceutical crops. Peru recently banned GM products for ten years and Hungary destroyed all its Monsanto cornfields, joining ninety countries that aggressively monitor and restrict, or ban, GM imports, according to the Center for Food Safety.

The Union of Concerned Scientists criticized the absence of independent and long-term research findings on GM safety, charging that we are placing “a huge wager” on this little-examined technology. Monsanto’s onetime communications director shrugged his shoulders to this kind of concern, telling the New York Times: “Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.” In fact, Monsanto pressured the Reagan administration, starting during the Bain years, to develop a friendly regulatory framework it could exploit as a seal of approval.

The critical shift to “life sciences” started in 1979, when Monsanto installed a University of California biologist, Howard Schneiderman, as its research director and began investing hundreds of millions a year in biotech hormones and seeds. Monsanto’s website reports that by 1981—when Bain was intimately involved in determining the company’s strategic direction—biotech was “firmly established as Monsanto’s strategic research focus.”

Roundup Ready seeds, of course, are inextricably tied to the success and safety of Roundup itself. But “super-weeds” are developing a Roundup tolerance, requiring more and more spraying to work, which is harmful ecologically and financially damaging for farmers. Introduced in the Bain years with Bain boosting, Roundup’s supposedly “biodegradable” and “nontoxic” claims have led to false advertising findings in France and by the Attorney General of New York. Studies are also now beginning to link Roundup to cancer and birth defects, the first indication that it may be going the way of Lasso, another Monsanto herbicide endorsed by Bain that was forced from the market because of health hazards.

* * *

During the presidential primaries this past March, Romney named an eleven-member Agricultural Advisory Committee that was packed with Monsanto connections, including its principal Washington lobbyist Randy Russell, whose firm has represented Monsanto since its founding in the 1980s and has been paid $2.4 million in lobbying fees since 1998.

Among those also appointed to the panel were another Russell client and Monsanto partner in the marketing of GM alfalfa, Land O’ Lakes CEO Chris Policinski; and Chuck Conner, whose National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC) is closely linked to Land O’ Lakes. Conner and Policinski, an NCFC director, publicly supported Monsanto’s 2010 attempts to win USDA approval for its alfalfa. Other members of the initial Romney council were Tom Nassif, whose Western Growers Association receives annual grants from Monsanto, and A.G. Kawamura, the former California agriculture secretary who championed Monsanto’s alfalfa despite a federal court ruling in the state against it.

Romney has also cultivated close relations with three Republicans who hail from Monsanto’s home state of Missouri—Senator Roy Blunt, former governor Matt Bluntand former senator Jim Talent. In 2011, Romney picked Roy Blunt to be his campaign’s point man in the Senate and named Talent to his four-member economic policy team. Matt Blunt, son of the senator, became a senior adviser at Solamere Capital, the investment firm headed by one of Romney’s sons. (Roy Blunt’s wife Abigail, a Romney bundler, is the in-house lobbyist for Kraft Foods, also represented by Russell and a sometimes ally of Monsanto’s on key food issues.) Monsanto, its spinoff Solutia, and Russell’s firm have long been top donors to the three, contributing a combined $246,170 to them over the years (Monsanto executives are modest donors to Romney but give nothing to Obama).

Katie Smith, a Talent aide for four years who was director of Missouri’s agriculture department under Governor Matt Blunt until 2008, was also named to Romney’s council. Smith is now director of public affairs for Osborn & Barr, a Missouri-based public relations firm created by Monsanto executives whose founding client was Monsanto. Matt Blunt was such a champion of Monsanto’s GM products that its CEO presented him with the annual leadership award of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a Monsanto-backed group. Talent is the co-chair of a Washington lobbying and strategic advice firm whose clients include Land O’ Lakes and was once a partner in a Missouri lobbying firm that represents Monsanto now.

Nebraska senator Mike Johanns, a beneficiary of $9,500 in Monsanto-related contributions, was selected by Romney to co-chair the advisory group. Johanns was George Bush’s agriculture secretary in between his six years as Nebraska governor and three years in the Senate. In 2002–03, he headed two associations of governors, one of which included Romney, and went abroad to push GM foods and assail European Union efforts to require labeling of them. While Johanns ran USDA in 2005, it approved Monsanto’s alfalfa without obtaining the minimal environmental impact statement required under Reagan’s regulatory framework, a decision overturned by the federal courts. Johanns’s agency did the same for Monsanto’s sugar beets.

Johanns and Blunt joined all but one Republican in the Senate, and many Democrats, in defeating Bernie Sanders’s bill amendment this year to require GM labeling—disclosure that’s favored by more than 90 percent of polled Americans, the food safety arm of the United Nations and sixty-one countries. Monsanto has so far spent $4.2 million to defeat a labeling referendum on the ballot in California this November, more than any other opponent, and several of the organizations connected to members of Romney’s advisory council have also opposed the referendum. President Obama supports a labeling requirement, though he’s done nothing to make it happen, while Romney’s campaign declined to respond to The Nation’s questions about his position on labeling or the California referendum.

Romney won’t answer our questions, or anyone else’s, about where he stands on the two pending farm bills—the Senate version backed by Obama that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support (including Johanns and Blunt), or the House bill that made it through the agriculture committee with two Republican amendments dubbed “Monsanto riders.” Having lost the alfalfa and other GM lawsuits, Monsanto spent more on lobbyists, including Russell, than any other non-tobacco agribusiness and convinced House Republicans to add these riders, which would virtually immunize its products from regulation, allowing farmers to plant crops even if a court has ordered an environmental review and short-circuiting the reviews, as Johanns tried to do.

Congressmen Jack Kingston and Frank Lucas, each of whom sponsored a Monsanto rider, were listed in August as national co-chairs of a new general election committee called the Farmers and Ranchers for Romney coalition, which also includes all eleven members of the March group and Roy Blunt. Johanns, Conner and Nassif are among the six National Chairs of the group, as is Romney’s recent Iowa tour guide Bill Northey, the elected agriculture secretary whose biggest donors include Monsanto ($12,000). In a hotly contested 2010 race, Republican Northey was backed by Democratic lobbyist Jerry Crawford, whose firm made almost $1 million as Monsanto’s top Iowa-based lobbyist.

The Romney coalition also includes John Block, Russell’s mentor who appointed him deputy secretary when Block was Reagan’s agriculture secretary in the ’80s and now hosts a national radio show that’s sponsored by Monsanto and features denunciations of Monsanto opponents as “environmental wackos.” The president of the United Fresh Produce Association and the past president of the National Pork Producers Council—two other Russell clients and Monsanto allies—are also part of the Romney group. And the list includes the past head of the American Soybean Association, which backed Monsanto’s riders to the farm bill; and Steve Troxler, North Carolina’s agriculture commissioner, who collected $3,000 in Monsanto contributions, grows GM soybeans (probably Monsanto’s) on his own farm, and sponsored a bill to stop counties from banning GM foods.

Another coalition member, Jay Vroom, heads a Monsanto-funded, aggressively pro-GM trade association of pesticide makers called CropLife America, a large donor to Kingston and Lucas. The two top directors of CropLife’s regional partner in St. Louis e-mailed associates that they “shuddered” when they learned that Michelle Obama was planting an organic garden on the White House lawn, writing her a letter suggesting that she was impugning chemical agriculture. Monsanto itself has been coy about Obama, especially after he appointed its longtime ally former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack as agriculture secretary. Unlike his USDA predecessor Johanns, Vilsack put Monsanto’s alfalfa through a court-mandated EIS process, but then deregulated it entirely. Close to Monsanto lobbyist Crawford, Vilsack has also partially deregulated sugar beets.

As deliberately vague as Romney is, he’s moved publicly in Monsanto’s direction on the company’s genetically engineered ethanol and farm subsidies, appears aligned with it on labeling, and his spokesman Shawn McCoy said this month that the candidate was “concerned by the effect that the Obama administration’s crushing onslaught of regulations is having on agriculture,” a suggestion that he might favor the regulatory relief in the Kingston/Lucas riders.

* * *

Frank Reining, the Monsanto executive who was designated by Hanley in 1973 to interface with Bill Bain and his partners, says Bain’s “relationship with Monsanto” began “before Bain even existed,” noting that it was among the firm’s first and biggest clients. Patrick Graham, a Bain founder, agrees that Monsanto was an “early client,” soon delivering millions in annual fees. According to Reining and eleven other former Monsanto and Bain executives interviewed for this article, Bain took a companywide approach to its restructuring of Monsanto, focusing over the succeeding years on one product after another—“confirming,” as Reining put it, the corporate consensus to get out of polyester, plastics and synthetic fibers.

Just as job reductions would later become a common, controversial result of Bain Capital investment, Monsanto went from a peak of 64,000 employees in 1979 to 20,000 today, a consequence in part of the $4 billion of businesses that Bain, Hanley and others decided to dump. While the press office at Monsanto refused to answer most of our questions, one current official said that Bain “worked in divestitures, acquisitions, streamlining, layoffs and cost reductions.”

Earle Harbison, who ran five divisions of Monsanto during the Bain years and eventually became its president, says: “Romney was part of the team that came in to study the whole company, and they worked day and night. They were down in the factories, the sales offices, accounting systems, the whole works.” Harbison says he and Romney “had at least a dozen meetings,” and that the Bainies were “armed with a bunch of flip charts.”

Arthur Fitzgerald, another former top executive, says: “Romney was involved in several individual projects. I remember Romney only because he was one of the leaders and stuck out as someone who was particularly curious.” Hanley’s successor Mahoney said Bain “did some good work” but that he dumped them because “the consultants were getting in my hair.” Asked about Romney, the press-shy Mahoney would only say: “One presidential person made calls on occasion as did many Bain executives.”

Graham, who claims credit for recruiting Romney to Bain, described him as “an important guy in delivering the work” at Monsanto, saying he “cut his teeth” at the company. Graham also laid out how he and the Bain team worked with Monsanto: “We worked on the seed business, the herbicide business, some of the basic chemical businesses. We’re kind of the right-hand man. We present to the board of directors. We’re friends and partners. We understood it down to its roots.” Bain’s brass, recalled Graham, would meet “Hanley and his five top people every time we went to St. Louis,” which he said was as often as “two to three times a week.”

Dan Quinn, another former partner recruited at Bain by Romney in 1983, called Monsanto a “prized” client that Bain “thought of as one of their biggest successes.” Romney, says Quinn, was “a key framer “ of the continuing conversation with Monsanto, especially “on the marketing side,” where he was “in charge of several of those teams,” just a notch below the Bain founders in the chain of command.

The most important contribution Bain made to Monsanto, Graham contends, was concluding that “the biggest opportunity” was to bring “an entirely new value product,” namely biotech and herbicides, “to the whole farming industry in America, soybeans and stuff.” Graham exalts in what Bain did—saying it “completely changed the economics of farming in America” and made Monsanto “the biggest agricultural business in the world.” He concedes that the GM seeds, herbicides and other products were “Hanley’s vision,” adding “we did the analysis to make him comfortable that it was right and how to do it.”

John Qualls, who worked closely with Bain in Monsanto’s office of economic forecasting, credits the consulting firm with looking “at the whole schmear,” but adds they were particularly focused on getting “the cash cow” product lines, mostly chemicals, to “funnel” their profits into “the wildcats, the comers,” like biotech. “The major thing that I think Bain contributed to was the division of Monsanto into two major units and spinning them off,” says Qualls, though he acknowledges that the actual spinoff didn’t occur until 1997, when Monsanto created a freestanding company called Solutia, run by ex–Monsanto brass and selling Monsanto’s remaining chemical commodities. “It was a natural evolution” of Bain’s strategy, he said, with “Bain picking the stars” early on, including biotech and Roundup, that wound up staying with Monsanto, while Solutia was left with “the superfund cleanup stuff and the environmental disasters.” (Solutia, which filed for bankruptcy in 2003, was recently acquired by Eastman Chemical.)

Combined with Graham’s analysis, this would make Bain, and consequently Romney, the doctors whose surgery eons ago is responsible for the Monsanto we know today, a financial giant whose biotechnology products are enormously controversial all over the world.

When The Nation questioned Monsanto spokeswoman Kelli Powers about the role played by Bain and Romney at the company, she said that “Monsanto is a different company than the one” of the Bain period. That’s partially because of the Solutia spinoff and partially because the “Old Monsanto” briefly went through two acquisitions around 2000, only to recreate itself in 2002. But the “New Monsanto” has many of the same product lines, facilities and executives as the old one, and much of the same problems. Geneva-based Covalence ranked the company dead last of 581 multinationals in its 2010 reputation and ethics index, which is distributed by Reuters and Bloomberg. Powers said a search of its archives found “no reference to Bain anywhere.”

This article was reported in collaboration with the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute, where Barrett is a reporting fellow.

Research assistance was provided by Danielle Bernstein, Loretta Chin, Alina Mogilyanskaya, Joseph O'Sullivan, Nadia Prupis, Stephanie Rogan and Elizabeth Terry.
This story originally appeared in The Nation.
Copyright © 2012 The Nation 2013 distributed by Agence Global.

 

[Apollonian]

Kucinich Calls Out Monsanto: Americans Demand GMO Labeling​

Link: http://www.infowars.com/kucinich-calls-out-monsanto-americans-demand-gmo-labeling/


September 20, 2012



“In 1992 the Food and Drug Administration decided that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are the functional equivalent of conventional foods. They arrived at this decision without testing GMOs for allergenicity, toxicity, anti-biotic resistance and functional characteristics. As a result hundreds of millions of acres of GMO crops were planted in America without the knowledge or consent of the American people: no safety testing and no long term health studies.

“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.

“There is a chance that Monsanto’s grip will be broken in California where a GMO labeling initiative is on the ballot. And here in Congress, my legislation HR 3553 will provide for a national labeling law. Americans have a right to know if their food is genetically engineered. It’s time for labeling and for people to know how their food is being produced.”



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[Apollonian]

Monsanto, pesticide companies have now spent more than $19 million to kill Prop. 37​

Link: http://www.prisonplanet.com/monsant...ent-more-than-19-million-to-kill-prop-37.html

Ethan A. Huff
Natural News
September 21, 2012

(NaturalNews) The latest campaign finance disclosure records released by California’s Secretary of State reveal that the most evil corporation in the world, Monsanto, has forked over another $2.89 million to kill Proposition 37, the historic bill that, if passed, will require genetically-modified (GM) foods and food ingredients to be labeled at the retail level in California.

Combined with its other recent contributions of more than $4.2 million (http://www.naturalnews.com), Monsanto has now officially shelled out a total of more than $7.1 million to prevent consumers from knowing the truth about what is really contained in the foods they buy.

Along with Monsanto’s latest contributions were similar contributions by the other five of the “Big Six” pesticide firms — DuPont, Bayer, Dow, BASF, and Syngenta — which together gave more than $2.6 million to the No on 37 campaign as part of their most recent contributions. To date, the “Big Six” have collectively contributed nearly $20 million to keep Californians in the dark about GMOs.

“Monsanto wants to buy this election so they can keep hiding what’s really in our food,” said Gary Ruskin, campaign manager for Yes on Prop. 37, about Monsanto’s efforts to stamp out the potential for mandating food transparency. “(But) they are on the losing side of history. Californians want the right to know what’s in our food, and we will win it.”

Most of the funding for ‘No on 37′ is coming from GMO companies not even located in California

Interestingly, none of the “Big Six” pesticide companies are even located in California, which just goes to show how far-reaching the scope of Prop. 37 will be once it is passed. Only one of the top ten antagonists in the fight for honesty in food labeling, Nestle USA, is based out of California, and even this company has its roots overseas in Switzerland.

Below is a list of the top ten contributors to the No on 37 campaign, which is trying to stop GMO labeling in California:

1) Monsanto Company, St. Louis, MO, $7,100,500
2) E.I. DuPont De Nemours & Co., Washington, DC, $4,900,000
3) BASF Plant Science, Research Triangle Park, NC, $2,000,000
4) Bayer CropScience, Research Triangle Park, NC, $2,000,000
5) Dow Agrosciences LLC, Indianapolis, IN, $2,000,000
6) PepsiCo, Inc., Purchase, NY, $1,716,300
7) Nestle USA, Inc., Glendale, CA, $1,169,400
8) Coca-Cola North America, Atlanta, GA, $1,164,400
9) ConAgra Foods, Omaha, NE, $1,076,700
10) Syngenta Corporation, Washington, DC, $1,000,000

As you will notice, every single one of these companies has a critical stake in making sure that you do not know what is in the food you eat, because every single one of these companies either produces GMOs or uses GMOs in their product formulations.

If GMO labeling is mandated in California, the “Big Six” will lose significant market share as many large food companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi will have to either reformulate their products to exclude GMOs, or risk losing much of their customer base by labeling GMOs, which Monsanto admitted many years ago is akin to putting “a skull and crossbones” on the food label. (http://www.naturalnews.com/035578_Monsanto_petition_biotechnology.html)

And since large food conglomerates distribute their offerings nationwide, mandatory labeling in California, the world’s eighth largest economy, will cause sweeping changes across the country as well. This is why it is crucial for Californians get out to the polls on November 6 and vote YES on Prop. 37.

You can learn more about the Yes on Prop. 37 campaign by visiting:
http://www.carighttoknow.org/