“Control oil and you control nations,” said US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. “Control food and you control the people.”
Global food control has nearly been achieved, by reducing seed
diversity with GMO (genetically modified) seeds that are distributed by
only a few transnational corporations. But this agenda has been
implemented at grave cost to our health; and if the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) passes, control over not just our food but our health,
our environment and our financial system will be in the hands of
transnational corporations.
Profits Before Populations
Genetic engineering has made proprietary control possible over the seeds on which the world’s food supply depends. “
Terminator” genes enable the production of sterile seeds,
using a synthetic chemical catalyst appropriately called “Traitor” to
induce seed sterility. Farmers must therefore buy seeds from their
patent owners year after year. To cover these costs, food prices are
raised; but the harm is far greater than to our pocketbooks.
According to an Acres USA interview of
plant pathologist Don Huber, Professor Emeritus at Purdue University,
two modified traits account for practically all of the genetically
modified crops grown in the world today. One involves insect resistance.
The other, more disturbing modification involves insensitivity to
glyphosate-based herbicides (plant-killing chemicals). Often known as
Roundup after the best-selling Monsanto product of that name, glyphosate
poisons everything in its path except plants genetically modified to
resist it.
Glyphosate-based herbicides are now the most commonly used herbicides
in the world. Glyphosate is an essential partner to the GMOs that are
the principal business of the burgeoning biotech industry. Glyphosate is
a “broad-spectrum” herbicide that destroys indiscriminately, not by
killing unwanted plants directly but by tying up access to critical
nutrients.
Because of the insidious way in which it works, it has been sold as a
relatively benign replacement for the devastating earlier dioxin-based
herbicides. But a barrage of experimental data has now shown glyphosate
and the GMO foods incorporating it to pose serious dangers to health.
Compounding the risk is the toxicity of “inert” ingredients used to make
glyphosate more potent. Researchers have found, for example, that
the surfactant POEA can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells. But these risks have been conveniently ignored.
The widespread use of GMO foods and glyphosate herbicides helps explain the anomaly that
the US spends over twice as much per capita on healthcare as the average developed country, yet it is rated far down the scale of the world’s healthiest populations.
The World Health Organization has ranked the US LAST out of 17 developed nations for overall health.
Sixty to seventy percent of the foods in US supermarkets are
now genetically modified. By contrast, in at least 26 other
countries—including Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India,
France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy,
Mexico and Russia—
GMOs are totally or partially banned; and significant restrictions on GMOs exist in about sixty other countries.
A ban on GMO and glyphosate use might go far toward improving the
health of Americans. But the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a global trade
agreement for which the Obama Administration has sought Fast Track
status, would block that sort of cause-focused approach to the
healthcare crisis.
Roundup’s Insidious Effects
Roundup-resistant crops escape being killed by glyphosate, but they
do not avoid absorbing it into their tissues. Herbicide-tolerant crops
have substantially higher levels of herbicide residues than other crops.
In fact, many countries have had to increase their legally allowable
levels—by up to 50 times—in order to accommodate the introduction of GM
crops. In the European Union,
residues in food are set to rise 100-150 times if a new proposal by Monsanto is approved. Meanwhile,
herbicide-tolerant “super-weeds” have adapted to the chemical, requiring even more toxic doses and new toxic chemicals to kill the plant.
Human enzymes are affected by glyphosate just as plant enzymes are:
the chemical blocks the uptake of manganese and other essential
minerals. Without those minerals, we cannot properly metabolize our
food. That helps explain the rampant epidemic of obesity in the United
States. People eat and eat in an attempt to acquire the nutrients that
are simply not available in their food.
According to researchers Samsell and Seneff in
Biosemiotic Entropy: Disorder, Disease, and Mortality (April 2013):
Glyphosate’s inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an
overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play
crucial roles in biology . . . . Negative impact on the body is
insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages
cellular systems throughout the body. Consequences are most of the
diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include
gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease,
depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
More than 40 diseases have been linked to glyphosate use, and more keep appearing. In September 2013,
the National University of Rio Cuarto, Argentina, published research finding
that glyphosate enhances the growth of fungi that produce aflatoxin B1,
one of the most carcinogenic of substances. A doctor from Chaco,
Argentina, told Associated Press, “We’ve gone from a pretty healthy
population to one with a high rate of cancer, birth defects and
illnesses seldom seen before.” Fungi growths have increased
significantly in US corn crops.
Glyphosate has also done serious damage to the environment.
According to an October 2012 report by the Institute of Science in Society:
Agribusiness claims that glyphosate and
glyphosate-tolerant crops will improve crop yields, increase farmers’
profits and benefit the environment by reducing pesticide use. Exactly
the opposite is the case. . . . [T]he evidence indicates that glyphosate
herbicides and glyphosate-tolerant crops have had wide-ranging
detrimental effects, including glyphosate resistant super weeds,
virulent plant (and new livestock) pathogens, reduced crop health and
yield, harm to off-target species from insects to amphibians and
livestock, as well as reduced soil fertility.
Politics Trumps Science
In light of these adverse findings, why have Washington and the
European Commission continued to endorse glyphosate as safe? Critics
point to lax regulations, heavy influence from corporate lobbyists, and a
political agenda that has more to do with power and control than
protecting the health of the people.
In the ground-breaking 2007 book
Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation,
William Engdahl states that global food control and depopulation became
US strategic policy under Rockefeller protégé Henry Kissinger. Along
with oil geopolitics, they were to be the new “solution” to the threats
to US global power and continued US access to cheap raw materials from
the developing world. In line with that agenda, the government has shown
extreme partisanship in favor of the biotech agribusiness industry,
opting for a system in which the industry “voluntarily” polices itself.
Bio-engineered foods are treated as “natural food additives,” not
needing any special testing.
Jeffrey M. Smith, Executive Director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, confirms that
US Food and Drug Administration policy allows biotech companies to
determine if their own foods are safe. Submission of data is completely
voluntary. He concludes:
In the critical arena of food safety research, the
biotech industry is without accountability, standards, or peer-review.
They’ve got bad science down to a science.
Whether or not depopulation is an intentional part of the agenda,
widespread use of GMO and glyphosate is having that result.
The endocrine-disrupting properties of glyphosate have been linked to
infertility, miscarriage, birth defects and arrested sexual development.
In Russian experiments, animals fed GM soy were sterile by the third
generation. Vast amounts of farmland soil are also being systematically
ruined by the killing of beneficial microorganisms that allow plant
roots to uptake soil nutrients.
In Gary Null’s eye-opening documentary
Seeds of Death: Unveiling the Lies of GMOs,Dr.
Bruce Lipton warns, “We are leading the world into the sixth mass
extinction of life on this planet. . . . Human behavior is undermining
the web of life.”
The TPP and International Corporate Control
As the devastating conclusions of these and other researchers awaken
people globally to the dangers of Roundup and GMO foods, transnational
corporations are working feverishly with the Obama administration to
fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement that would
strip governments of the power to regulate transnational corporate
activities. Negotiations have been kept secret from Congress but not
from corporate advisors, 600 of whom have been consulted and know the
details.
According to Barbara Chicherio in
Nation of Change:
The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) has the potential to become the biggest regional Free Trade Agreement in history. . . .
The chief agricultural negotiator for the US is the former Monsanto
lobbyist, Islam Siddique. If ratified the TPP would impose punishing
regulations that give multinational corporations unprecedented right to
demand taxpayer compensation for policies that corporations deem a
barrier to their profits.
. . . They are carefully crafting the TPP to insure that citizens of
the involved countries have no control over food safety, what they will
be eating, where it is grown, the conditions under which food is grown
and the use of herbicides and pesticides.
Food safety is only one of many rights and protections liable to fall to this super-weapon of international corporate control.
In an April 2013 interview on The Real News Network, Kevin Zeese called the TPP “NAFTA on steroids” and “a global corporate coup.” He warned:
No matter what issue you care about—whether its wages,
jobs, protecting the environment . . . this issue is going to adversely
affect it . . . .
If a country takes a step to try to regulate the financial industry
or set up a public bank to represent the public interest, it can be sued
. . . .
Return to Nature: Not Too Late
There is a safer, saner, more earth-friendly way to feed nations.
While Monsanto and US regulators are forcing GM crops on American
families, Russian families are showing what can be done with
permaculture methods on simple garden plots.
In 2011, 40% of Russia’s food was grown on dachas (cottage
gardens or allotments). Dacha gardens produced over 80% of the
country’s fruit and berries, over 66% of the vegetables, almost 80% of
the potatoes and nearly 50% of the nation’s milk, much of it consumed
raw.
According to Vladimir Megre, author of the best-selling Ringing Cedars Series:
Essentially, what Russian gardeners do is demonstrate that gardeners
can feed the world – and you do not need any GMOs, industrial farms, or
any other technological gimmicks to guarantee everybody’s got enough
food to eat. Bear in mind that Russia only has 110 days of growing
season per year – so in the US, for example, gardeners’ output could be
substantially greater. Today, however, the area taken up by lawns in the
US is two times greater than that of Russia’s gardens – and it produces
nothing but a multi-billion-dollar lawn care industry.
In the US, only about 0.6 percent of
the total agricultural area is devoted to organic farming. This area
needs to be vastly expanded if we are to avoid “the sixth mass
extinction.” But first, we need to urge our representatives to stop Fast
Track, vote no on the TPP, and pursue a global phase-out of
glyphosate-based herbicides and GMO foods. Our health, our finances and
our environment are at stake.
Ellen Brown is an attorney, president of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books, including the best-selling Web of Debt. In The Public Bank Solution, her latest book, she explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her blog articles are at EllenBrown.com.
By Michael Snyder, on November 26th, 2013
