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Saturday, September 12, 2015


THE GMO SCRAPBOOK: NEW STUDY ON ROUNDUP SUGGESTS LINK TO KIDNEY AND LIVER DAMAGE

There's a new study out on the effects of the consumption of Mon(ster)santo's "roundup" pesticide, and damage to kidney and livers, and, not surprisingly, it's RT that's reporting it (I'll bet you didn't see in on Faux News, SeeBS, CNoNews, or the New York Grimes):
Long exposure to tiny amounts of Monsanto’s Roundup may damage liver, kidneys – study
In case you didn't really latch on to what the study showed, here it is again:
The research, conducted by an international group of scientists from the UK, Italy and France, studied the effects of prolonged exposure to small amounts of the Roundup herbicide and one of its main components – glyphosate.
In their study, published in Environmental Health on August 25, the scientists particularly focused on the influence of Monsanto’s Roundup on gene expression in the kidneys and liver.
In the new two-year study, which extended the findings from one conducted in 2012, the team added tiny amounts of Roundup to water that was given to rats in doses much smaller than allowed in US drinking water.
Scientists say that some of the rats experienced “25 percent body weight loss, presence of tumors over 25 percent bodyweight, hemorrhagic bleeding, or prostration.”
The study’s conclusions indicate that there is an association between wide-scale alterations in liver and kidney gene expression and the consumption of small quantities of Roundup, even at admissible glyphosate-equivalent concentrations. As the dose used is “environmentally relevant in terms of human, domesticated animals and wildlife levels of exposure,” the results potentially have significant health implications for animal and human populations, the study warned. (Boldface emphasis added)
The article also notes that besides being done by an international group of scientists and researchers, Mon(ster)santo of course had no comment.
And indeed, how could they? What can one say to the fact that one's company has been poisoning people, and doing so via contaminated corporate-sponsored "science" and a bought-off "government" which votes it special status and privilieges (hmmm...seems I recall something to that effect in the Constitution).
The real news here, however, is not the contents of the article. After all, I suspect that all of us here - regular readers and/or contributers of articles to this website - more or less expected all along that the science in favor of GMOs was badly tainted, and hardly objective. At the minimum, it was never sufficiently intergenerational nor was a wide enough net cast on its long term environmental and health impacts. For the big agribusiness giants like IG Farbensanto, Syncrudda, and BASF (a real-life component of the old Farben cartel, let us always remember), the problem was never about the science. The bottom line was never science. Or for that matter, people. All of that was simply being mouthed. The bottom lines were twofold: (1) profits and (2) control of the human food supply via the application of patent law. If you don't believe me, then compare what I wrote about patent law in Genes, Giants, Monsters and Men and more recently in The THird Way: The Nazi International, the European Union, and Corporate Fascism.   There is, after all, no affirmation of any basic human right as recognized in the Bill of RIghts, and maybe it's high time that they be included in corporate charters, retroactively, with a "dissolution" and "forfeiture of assets" clause if they are found in violation of any right or law. After all, if they want to be legal persons with all the rights thereof, they also should be subject to the same laws, recognize the same rights, and carry the same responsibilities, including that of not committing manslaughter or wilfully or negligently inducing disease. Such legal adjustments is not something I am advocating, but rather, something I think needs to be seriously examined and discussed, both pro and con (and don't look for any real academic, religious, corporate, or government forums to do it in any genuine fashion). In a way, the process may have already begun, at least in the USA, where the Supremes recently decided corporations have the same rights of free speech as persons. Do they therefore have the right to keep and bear arms? Are they subject to the requirement that they recognize the individual's rights? and so on.
Thus far, Mon(ster)santo and IG Farbensanto's - our term and symbol for the whole miserable GMO "industry - track record is abysmal. Increased productivity (and even that is now in dispute) is not a good thing if what one is increasing is poison.
But there's more real news here. I've been argued for many years that the GMO issue is set to become a viral and global geopolitical issue, and it certainly looks like that prophecy is being fulfilled, as more and more nations - in and outside of Europe - question their utility. Russia, as we know, has put into place some sharp regulatory measures, and also intends to conduct the type of long-term intergenerational studies that were never done when the GMO bill of goods was being sold to the US government under the aegis of "substantial equivalency", a doctrine which allowed GMOs to skirt regulatory requirements for testing (after all, it was just specially modified corn, right?) while being able at the same time to patent the product, and haul farmers off to court if their fields were found to contain it, ever if there was no intention to plant them on the part of the farmer. These cases were what earned IG Farbensanto its well-deserved reputation for sharp and duplicitous pratice from Canada to Australia.
The real news here is that RT keeps hammering on the issue. Expect, sooner or later, that the issue will be raised in those summit meetings and trade agreements, and when they are, the geopolitical game over humanity's food supply is afoot.

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