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071008geneticallymodifiedfoodsorganisms



Dear friends,

This
message contains highly revealing one-paragraph excerpts of important
articles on genetically modified foods and organisms from the mainstream
media. These articles highlight many potential dangers posed to our
health by genetic engineering and its widespread use. Links are provided
to the full articles on major media websites. If any link should fail to
function, click
here. By choosing to educate ourselves on these important issues and
to spread the
word,
we can and will build
a
brighter future.



With best wishes,

Tod Fletcher and Fred
Burks for PEERS and the WantToKnow.info Team







Food Conscious
2007-06-27, San Francisco Chronicle (San
Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/27/FDGFMQJFG21.DTL

Opponents
of GE [genetically engineered] food ... say problems suggested in some
health studies could take years to show up. Meanwhile, we're eating lots
of GE foods anyway, whether we know it or not -- especially in processed
foods, because corn, soy and canola are the Big 3 GE food
crops."
Since our government has refused to label these foods, how do we avoid
buying and eating these foods?" asks [Andrew] Kimbrell, an attorney who
heads the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Food Safety, a vocal opponent
of GE foods. His new book, Your
Right to Know: Genetic Engineering and the Secret Changes in Your
Food ... answers that question. For conscious eaters, the heart
of the book is a 14-page guide to your local supermarket. It tells you
which foods are the most likely to contain GE ingredients (chips, snacks
and baby formula), which aren't (fruits, vegetables, wheat), and how to
read labels for "hidden ingredients" derived from corn, soy or canola
(hint: look for high fructose corn syrup, soy lecithin and canola oil). A
passport-size version of the guide, small enough to slide into most
pockets or purses, comes along with the book. "I wanted to give people a
usable tool to avoid these foods so they don't feel so helpless," said
Kimbrell. The book isn't intended to present the pros and cons of GE
foods. Kimbrell is 100 percent against the technology and spends a lot of
time in court fighting companies like Monsanto, to keep GE crops from
spreading. The Center for
Food Safety also opposes irradiation and food animal cloning, and has
labored to keep industry from weakening federal organic standards.




[url=][/url]
[url=]When Organic Isn't Really Organic[/url][url=]
2007-03-14, Time
Magazine
[/url]http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1599110,00.html
When you
buy
a gallon of organic milk, you expect to get tasty milk from happy cows
who
haven't been subjected to antibiotics, hormones or pesticides. But you
might also unknowingly be getting genetically modified cattle feed.
Albert
Straus, owner of the Straus Family Creamery ... decided to test the feed
that he gives his 1,600 cows last year and was alarmed to find that
nearly
6% of the organic corn feed he received from suppliers was "contaminated"
by genetically modified (GM) organisms. Organic food is, by definition,
supposed to be free of genetically modified material. But as GM crops
become more prevalent, there is little that an organic farmer can do to
prevent a speck of GM pollen or a stray GM seed from being blown by the
wind onto his land. In 2006, GM crops accounted for 61% of all the corn
planted in the U.S. and 89% of all the soybeans. So Straus and five other
natural food producers, including industry leader Whole Foods, announced
last week that they would seek a new certification for their products,
"non-GMO verified," in the hopes that it will become a voluntary industry
standard for GM-free goods. In a few weeks, Straus expects to become the
first food manufacturer in the country to carry the label in addition to
his "organic" one. With Whole Foods in the ring, the rest of the industry
will soon be under competitive pressure to follow. Genetically
modified crops have become so prevalent in the U.S. that chances are
you've been buying and eating them for years. You just wouldn't know it
from the label: the U.S. Department of Agriculture, unlike agencies in
Europe and Japan, do not require GM foods to be labeled.

Note:
This article also states "scientists have not identified any
specific
health risks from eating GM foods." This is a clear lie, when two
sentences later the article mentions Jeffrey Smith, who has written an
entire book with excellent documentation showing many scientific studies
in which animals died shortly after consuming GM foods. To see an
excellent summary of this book including reliable footnotes, click here.




[url=][/url]
[url=]'The Future of Food'[/url][url=]
2005-09-30, San Francisco Chronicle (San
Francisco's leading newspaper)
[/url]http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/30/DDGHOEVICB1.DTL#f...
Food
insiders
may already know the disturbing facts highlighted by this film, but the
general public is in for a shock at how corporations are using misleading
campaigns -- and scare tactics -- to ensure that people around the world
become dependent on genetically modified food. Monsanto and other
corporate behemoths are motivated (not surprisingly) by profits,
according
to farmers, academics and others who talk to documentarian Deborah Koons
Garcia. Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser was targeted by Monsanto's
lawyers
because some of the corporation's patented seedlings were found on his
property. Schmeiser didn't plant them there; wind blew the
insecticide-resistant seeds onto his farm from another farm, or the seeds
fell off a passing truck. Monsanto didn't care, ordering Schmeiser to
kill
all his family's seed because they'd potentially been contaminated by its
patented product. Schmeiser ... fought Monsanto, spending his retirement
money against the sort of legal attack that has already scared farmers
throughout North America. Incredibly, a judge ruled in favor of Monsanto.
Garcia's documentary shows how much the U.S. federal government favors
these corporations, especially through lax oversight (the [FDA] and the
Department of Agriculture seem to rubber-stamp every corporate project
having to do with genetically modified food). In the past 20 years,
Monsanto's alumni have occupied the high reaches of American
power. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, for example, did legal work
for the corporation, while Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was
president of a Monsanto subsidiary.

Note:
To view this highly educational film, click
here. To read another excellent review of this important documentary,
click
here.




[url=][/url]
[url=]Biotech critics at risk : Economics calls the
shots in the debate[/url][url=]
2004-01-11, San Francisco Chronicle
(San Francisco's leading newspaper)
[/url]http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/01/11/INGH...
Between
1999
and 2001, unbeknownst to the others, each [of four scientists] made a
simple but dramatic discovery that challenged the catechism of the same
powerful industry -- biotechnology -- that by then had become the
handmaiden of industrial agriculture and the darling of venture
capitalists. When he was the principal scientific officer of the Rowett
Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, Hungarian citizen Arpad Pusztai fed
transgenically modified [GMO] potatoes to rodents in one of the few
experiments that have ever tested the safety of genetically modified
food.
Almost immediately, the rats displayed tissue and immunological damage.
After he reported his findings, which eventually underwent peer
review and were published in the United Kingdom's leading medical
journal,
Lancet, Pusztai's home was burglarized and his research files taken. Soon
thereafter, he was fired from his job at Rowett, and he has since
suffered
an orchestrated international campaign of discreditation. [Read
the full
article
for the other three disturbing stories of scientific suppression.] These
four men were not attacked because of flawed or imperfect experiments but
because the findings of their work have a potential economic effect. The
sad part is that the academies and other allegedly independent
institutions that once defended scientific freedom and protected
employees
like Hayes, Chapela, Losey and Pusztai are abandoning them to the wolves
of
commerce, the brands of which are being engraved over the entrances to a
disturbing number of university labs.

Note:
Big money is clearly stifling good science and keeping the public in the
dark about genetic modifications in the food we eat. To educate yourself
on this most important topic, click here.




[url=][/url]
[url=]Got rbST in your milk?[/url][url=]
2007-03-25, San Francisco Chronicle (San
Francisco's leading newspaper)
[/url]http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/25/BUGBROQASE1.DTL
Richard
Cotta, CEO of California Dairies Inc., the nation's second-largest dairy
cooperative, is guided by a simple business philosophy: "If you want milk
with little blue dots, you'll have it, as long as you are willing to pay
for it." So, when a string of major customers, including supermarket
giant
Safeway, came to his co-op saying they would no longer accept milk from
cows treated with a genetically engineered growth hormone, the co-op
bowed
to the inevitable. In January, California Dairies' board voted to ask its
members not to inject synthetic bovine growth hormone into their cows.
The action by a co-op that ships 50 million pounds of milk every day is
part of a sweeping, consumer-driven agricultural makeover. Demand
for natural foods is rising, while increasing numbers of consumers are
avoiding products that rely on antibiotics or growth hormones. And food
retailers are listening. Recombinant bovine somatotropin, or
rbST, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration 14 years ago. It
sustains lactation by stimulating cows' appetites so they eat more and
produce more milk, perhaps an extra 5 quarts per day. The European
Union,
Japan, Canada and Australia did not approve rbST. The reasons included
questions about human and animal safety, as well social and economic
considerations. Research that shows injections of rbST increase another
hormone, insulin-like growth factor 1, or IGF-1, in cows. Too much IGF-1
in humans is linked with increased rates of colon, breast and prostate
cancer. Synthetic hormone use also ... leads to increased use of
antibiotics, whose overuse is already a serious problem in the livestock
industry.