Sunday, June 12, 2011

As It Stands: Food conspiracy of government and chemical companies grows every year

monsanto1

By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard

Posted: 06/12/2011 02:40:43 AM PDT

Who would have ever guessed a food fight would bring together the alternative health left and the Tea Party right in opposition against anything? But the Food Safety Modernization Act (S510) accomplished that feat when President Obama signed it into law on January 4th.

Basically, the act precludes the public's right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes.

This strange alliance of ideological enemies is not that surprising because both sides fear the total control and power government can achieve by regulating our food supply and taking away our ability to feed ourselves.

When the White House ordered the FDA to promote biotechnology in 1991, a step was taken toward an unholy alliance between government and the chemical companies that continues to this day.

Instead of watching out for us, they are poisoning our food supply for profit. Call me a conspiracy nut, or whatever, but read on for the reasons I believe that. The first warning sign was when a new position was created: Deputy Commissioner for Policy to supervise government policy on genetically modified foods (GMOs).

Who do you think the Clinton White House wanted for the new position? Someone who had no “irons in the fire,” so to speak? Sorry. The White House recruited attorney Michael Taylor, a lawyer who represented Monsanto and other members of the biotech industry, to head up the formation of GMO policy.

Talk about selling the people out. Our government allowed this incestuous relationship to affect our food chain by hiring biotech industries employees to carry out their agenda.

All the independent testing around the world reveals that GMO foods contain bacteria, toxins and/or viruses that are transmitted to humans within the foods' DNA. Every independent test reveals a negative secret about genetically modified organisms despite Monsanto's efforts to quash their opposition.

The result is the U.S. is the only developed nation to allow milk or other dairy products from cows given artificial growth hormone. With the exception of items labeled “organic,” GMOs are in almost every dairy product sold in our stores. The hormones are also fed to livestock to fatten them faster for market.

The FDA and USDA will continue to misrepresent facts about the safety of our food products to support food and drug industries' goals. History proves that.

What bothers me is that one man's actions have such a huge impact on the food you and I eat. Taylor was the one who declared all GMOs, including rBGH/rBST, to be essentially identical to the natural product and therefore safe for human consumption, even though no safety studies were done. Sure, others are also responsible, but he's the poster boy for introducing GMOs into our food chain.

So what happens? To my utter disgust, President Obama appointed Taylor to the position of FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods in 2010, despite his clear conflict of interest with Monsanto. Call it cronyism. I call it a conspiracy.

Their complicity was never more obvious than when Wikileaks released documents on how Monsanto and the U.S. government teamed up to compel Spain to lift their ban on GMO products. At one point, Monsanto and the U.S. government used the World Bank to threaten Ireland. Irish ministers were told that if they did not permit GMO foods to be sold in Ireland, they would not be eligible to receive loans.

When some of our farmers decided the health of their cows was not worth the increased profits and began to market products as not containing milk from rBGH- or rBST-treated cows, the FDA moved fast (with Monsanto's insistence) and made them re-label their products.

The new label now has to say, “No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST- and non-rBST-treated cows.” This, despite the preponderance of evidence that shows otherwise, is just another example of the control they have over our food.

Something to keep in mind: when ideological opposites unite on the same issue, such as the safety of our food chain, it's no longer about politics. It's about survival.

As It Stands, if this arrangement between the chemical companies and our government isn't a conspiracy, then what is it?

Websites carrying this column:

Food Safety News Feed

Product Lawyer Reviews

Investigating the New Imperialism12 June page

NewsBlogged12 June page

Alternative Medicine and Holistic Health12 June page

Accountability-Central.com12 June page

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1 comment:

Tom Sebourn said...

Exploding Watermelons in China and deadly cucumbers in Germany.

Those two stories were just in the last couple of weeks.

Great post Dave. The online version is even better because it has pictures.

It's Time to Pay Up Donnie!

It's looks like there will be some prime real estate going on the market soon in New York City. Convicted rapist and former president ...