Hillary Clinton: The Bride of Frankenfood —The Most Vocal Proponent of GM Food in the Race for President

Although during her tenure in the White House as first lady Hillary enjoyed the benefit of 8 years of organic non-GMO food by virtue of her residency in the White House, 2016 candidate Clinton has been perhaps the most vocal proponent of GM food to yet enter the race.

By Brandon Turbeville
According to Global Research writer Stephen Lendman, nearly all the food produced for the Clinton White House was obtained from local growers and suppliers, GMO-free, pesticide-free, and with a preference for organic.[1] That, preference, however, is not to be afforded the American people and the people of the Third World for whom Hillary is pushing every toxic GM variety known to man.

Hillary’s Big-Agra ties go back quite a long ways. As far back as the 1980s, Hillary was working at high levels within the Rose Law Firm, a law firm that itself was tied to a number of scandals. Although not a scandal at the time, it is now important to note that the Rose Law Firm, at which Clinton was a partner, maintained Monsanto and Tyson Foods as clients.[2]

Yet a mere association between law firms and such food giants was by no means the depths of Clinton’s connection to these institutions and the industry of Genetically Modified Organisms and “biotechnology.”

It has been speculated by many that Hillary’s ties to Monsanto and Tyson as a result of her career with Rose was yet another link in the chain pulling biotech giants together with the Bill Clinton administration in the 1990s. Indeed, Clinton’s disastrous presidency resulted in seeing a number of former-biotech giant employees being hired and appointed to the FDA, USDA, and other relevant regulatory posts within the US government. While being careful not to ascribe the blame of Bill Clinton’s either years of treachery to Hillary, it is nevertheless worthwhile to ask whether or not Hillary served as a middleman of sorts for major government-corporate collusion of this type.

After all, when Clinton became US Secretary of State, she acted as Monsanto’s promoter both domestically and across the world, continuing a policy of GMO promotion that preceded and, apparently, continued even after she left the office.

In December, 2010, WikiLeaks released sizable number of cables, about ten percent of which revealed that the US State Department was essentially acting as the marketing wing for biotech companies and “biotech” products across the world. The thousands of cables that were released spanned over 100 embassies and were, unfortunately, released just before Christmas. As a result, the story faded into the holiday madness.[3]

Thankfully, in 2013, the watchdog organization Food and Water Watch delved into the cables and released a report entitled “Biotech Ambassadors: How The U.S. State Department Promotes The Seed Industry’s Global Agenda.” According to Food and Water Watch, their study “reveals a concerted strategy to promote agricultural biotechnology overseas, compel countries to import biotech crops and foods they do not want, and lobby foreign governments — especially in the developing world — to adopt policies to pave the way to cultivate biotech crops.”[4]

Food and Water Watch wrote,

Food and Water Watch closely examined five years of State Department diplomatic cables from 2005 to 2009 to provide the first comprehensive analysis of the strategy, tactics and U.S. foreign policy objectives to foist pro-agricultural biotechnology policies worldwide. Food & Water Watch’s illuminating findings include:

The U.S. State Department’s multifaceted efforts to promote the biotechnology industry overseas: The State Department targeted foreign reporters, hosted and coordinated pro-biotech conferences and public events and brought foreign opinion-makers to the United States on high-profile junkets to improve the image of agricultural biotechnology overseas and overcome widespread public opposition to GE crops and foods.

The State Department’s coordinated campaign to promote biotech business interests: The State Department promoted not only pro-biotechnology policies but also the products of biotech companies. The strategy cables explicitly “protect the interests” of biotech exporters, “facilitate trade in agri-biotech products” and encourage the cultivation of GE crops in more countries, especially in the developing world.[5]

The State Department’s determined advocacy to press the developing world to adopt biotech crops: The diplomatic cables document a coordinated effort to lobby countries in the developing world to pass legislation and implement regulations favored by the biotech seed industry. This study examines the State Department lobbying campaigns in Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria to pass pro-biotech laws.

The State Department’s efforts to force other nations to accept biotech crop and food imports:The State Department works with the U.S. Trade Representative to promote the export of biotech crops and to force nations that do not want these imports to accept U.S. biotech foods and crops.[6]

FWW also provides a few Hillary quotes demonstrating the State Department’s push for GM crops worldwide such as her statements linking GMOs to solving “climate change” and world hunger.[7]

“We believe that biotechnology has a critical role to play in increasing agricultural productivity, particularly in light of climate change,” Clinton is quoted as stating.[8]

“[W]e want to shift our focus to agricultural sustainability, focusing on the small producers, helping them understand the value of GMOs — genetically modified organisms,” she also said while serving as Secretary of State.[9]

Clinton also extolled the virtues of GE technology upon her visit to Kenya when she stated that “With Kenya’s leadership in biotechnology and biosafety, we cannot only improve agriculture in Kenya, but Kenya can be leader for the rest of Africa.”[10]

While the FWW report can scarcely be dealt with in any reasonable detail within the scope of this article, it is recommended that the reader take advantage of the fact that it is freely available online at this link: http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Biotech_Report_US.pdf

It should be mentioned that, as Secretary of State, Hillary also helped promote the USAID –funded program “Feed the Future,” an initiative that promotes and introduces Round-up Ready®products all over the world.[11]

Yet, even as Hillary was acting as Monsanto and Big-Agra’s PR woman as Secretary of State, the Clinton Global Initiative was receiving sizable donations from Monsanto and Dow Chemical. As Judy Frankel of the Huffington Post writes in her article “Hillary vs. Bernie On Frankenfood,”

How is Hillary personally involved in supporting big agriculture? The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), which gathers leaders to solve the world’s problems, promotes Monsanto, the maker of RoundUp® and RoundUp Ready® seeds. Hugh Grant, Monsanto’s Chairman and CEO spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in September, 2014. Ms. Clinton’s top campaign advisor, Jerry Crawford, was a lobbyist for Monsanto for years and is now the political pro for her Super PAC, “Ready for Hillary.”[12] Clinton spoke in favor of the government’s Feed the Future (FtF) program, a USAID funded, corporate-partnered program that brings RoundUp Ready® technology to the most vulnerable populations of the world.[13] Monsanto and Dow Chemical support Hillary and Bill’s ‘Clinton Foundation’ with generous donations.

Last year, at a San Diego biotech conference, Hillary coached her audience in messaging. “Genetically modified sounds Frankensteinish. Drought-resistant sounds like something you’d want. Be more careful so you don’t raise that red flag immediately.”

It’s also highly unlikely for Hillary Clinton to stand up against her benefactors, saying she favors a review of RoundUp, 2,4-D, and the even more toxic poisons used by farmers worldwide when she has friends in the industry telling her that they will “feed the world” someday with their agricultural methods.[14]

According to Stephen Lendman,

Monsanto gave the Clinton Foundation from half a million to one million dollars – Ag giant Dow Chemical from one to five million dollars, according to Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation disclosures.

Numerous other corporate giants contributed large sums. Expect them donating handsomely to Hillary’s presidential campaign.[15]

The Washington Times echoes Lendman’s claims by stating that “Monsanto gave the foundation between $501,250 and $1 million. Dow Chemical Company, which is among the top GMO players, gave between $1 million and $5 million, according to financial disclosures by the Clinton Foundation.”[16]

Candidate Clinton is no better than Secretary, Senator, or First Lady Clinton. In fact, she may even be worse considering that, even when faced with election woes stemming from her support of GM foods, she is still stalwart and vocal in her support of them, going so far as to openly raise funds from Big-Agra donors and attend Big-Agra lobbying initiatives.[17]

Candidate Clinton in 2008 was bad enough. Back then, Clinton was supported by a group called Rural Americans For Hillary, an organization closely connected to the lobbying firm of Monsanto.[18]

Clinton’s “adviser” for her campaign for Secretary of State, 2008 Presidency, and both Senate runs was Mark Penn, a close adviser to Clinton as well as PR rep for Monsanto via his PR firm Burson-Marsteller. [19] [20] [21]

Linn Cohen-Cole suggests that it was Hillary Clinton who was the brainchild (at Penn’s instruction) to appoint notorious Monsanto henchman Michael Taylor to the position of head of the FDA, a man whom Bill Clinton had once appointed to the FDA and USDA.[22]

In 2015, when Hillary began assembling her 2016 campaign team, she tapped Monsanto lobbyist Jerry Crawford to act as an “adviser” to the Ready For Hillary Super PAC. Crawford was also co-chair of her 2008 campaign.[23]

As Zaid Jilani wrote for Alternet,

Before joining Clinton’s campaign in 2008, Crawford served in a variety of high-profile political roles. In addition to a variety of local positions, he served as the Iowa chair for the presidential campaigns of Mike Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry—each one the more conservative candidates in their Democratic presidential primaries.

So it was a natural fit for Crawford to sign up for the Hillary campaign. But after Clinton’s 2008 loss, Crawford spent his days at Crawford Muaro, his law and lobbying firm.[24] While there, he represented a variety of corporate clients, including Kraft and Altria (the parent company of Philip Morris USA). He also served as a lawyer for Jack DeCoster, a factory farm tycoon who infamously supplied eggs that led to a salmonella outbreak. His most prominent client, however, was Monsanto.[25]

Stephen Lendman also points out that Crawford was involved in fighting small farmers through the court system on behalf of Big-Agra.[26]

Hillary’s long history with Big Agra should have foretold the glowing praise she would leap upon GM crops and big Biotech companies at the world’s largest trade organization of biotechnology firms in San Diego in late June 2014.[27]

“I stand in favor of using seeds and products that have a proven track record,” Hillary said. She also added that pro-GMO advocates need to continue to hammer at those more skeptical of frankenfoods. “There is a big gap between what the facts are, and what the perceptions are,” she said, echoing a typical Big Agra talking point designed to be appealing to trendies and hipsters.[28]

Clinton also gave some marketing advice to the participants regarding how they present GM food to the public. “‘Genetically modified’ sounds Frankensteinish. ‘Drought resistance’ sounds really – something you want. So how do you create a different vocabulary to talk about what it is you’re trying to help people do,” she said.[29]

She also state:

We talk about drought-resistant seeds, and I’ve promoted them all over Africa. By definition, they have been engineered to be drought-resistant, I mean that’s the beauty of them. Maybe somebody can get their harvest done and not starve, and maybe there’s some left over to sell. And yet I’ve been involved in a lot of the political debates in other countries about whether or not to accept certain kinds of seeds.

. . . . .

We created a program called Feed the Future, which is trying to help the farmers be educated enough to know that drought-resistant seeds, for example, are not going to hurt them. And this is painstaking work, doesn’t get solved overnight. You have to be working at the top with the departments of agriculture, with finance ministries, with prime ministers and presidents’ offices, and you have to be working from the bottom up. I don’t see the short cut for it.

. . . . . .

I don’t want to see biotech companies or pharma companies moving out of our country simply because of some perceived tax disadvantage and potential tax advantage somewhere else.[30]

Clinton’s 2016 race has, as mentioned, gotten off to a great start thanks to donations from Monsanto lobbyists in the form of bundlers – fundraisers who are able to skirt election donation laws by convincing their contacts and associates to donate to a political candidate.

Jerry Crawford, the famed Iowa-based Monsanto lobbyist, has already raised $35,000 for Clinton.[32]

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 600 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

This article (Hillary Clinton: The Bride Of Frankenfood) can be republished under this share-alike Creative Commons license with attribution to Brandon Turbeville, the article link and Natural Blaze.com.


Notes:

[1] Lendman, Stephen. “Hillary Clinton Endorses GMOS. White House Meals Are Organic.” Global Research (Centre For Research On Globalization). May 25, 2015.http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-clinton-endorses-gmos-white-house-meals-are-organic/5451481 Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[2] Gerth, Jeff; Van Natta, Jr., Don (2007). Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-01742-6. p. 60.

[3] Hatfield, Leslie. “New Analysis Of Wikileaks Shows State Department’s Promotion Of Monsanto’s GMOs Abroad.” Huffington Post. July 20, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leslie-hatfield/new-analysis-of-wikileaks_b_3306842.html Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[4] “Biotech Ambassadors: How The U.S. State Department Promotes The Seed Industry’s Global Agenda.” Food and Water Watch. May, 2013.http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Biotech_Report_US.pdf Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[5] U.S. Department of State (U.S. DoS). “FY 2008 biotechnology outreach strategy and department resources.” Cable No. 07STATE160639. November 27, 2007.

[6] “Biotech Ambassadors: How The U.S. State Department Promotes The Seed Industry’s Global Agenda.” Food and Water Watch. May, 2013.http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Biotech_Report_US.pdf Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[7] Biotech Ambassadors: How The U.S. State Department Promotes The Seed Industry’s Global Agenda.” Food and Water Watch. May, 2013.http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Biotech_Report_US.pdf Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[8] U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee. Hearing on the President’s FY2009 War Supplemental Request. April 30, 2009.

[9] Lauritsen, Sharon Bomer, Executive Vice President of Food and Agriculture at BIO. Letter to Professeur De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. May 29, 2009 at 14.

[10] Clinton, Hillary. Remarks at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute. August 5, 2009

[11] Biotech Ambassadors: How The U.S. State Department Promotes The Seed Industry’s Global Agenda.” Food and Water Watch. May, 2013.http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Biotech_Report_US.pdf Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[12] Jilani, Zaid. “Hillary’s Pick For Her Political Fixer In Iowa Is A Classic Illustration Of America’s Political Corporate Insider Problem.” Alter Net. March 9, 2015. http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/hillarys-pick-her-political-fixer-iowa-classic-illustration-americas-political Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[13] Ishii-Eiteman, Marcia. “U.S. Looks To Monsanto To Feed The World.” Ground Truth. February 2, 2011. http://www.panna.org/blog/us-looks-monsanto-feed-world Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[14] Frankel, Judy. “Hillary Vs. Bernie On Frankenfood.” Huffington Post. June 23, 2015.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judy-frankel/hillary-vs-bernie-on-fran_b_7638846.htmlAccessed on September 2, 2015.

[15] Lendman, Stephen. “Hillary Clinton Endorses GMOS. White House Meals Are Organic.” Global Research (Centre For Research On Globalization). May 25, 2015.http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-clinton-endorses-gmos-white-house-meals-are-organic/5451481 Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[16] “Hillary’s Agribusiness Ties Give Rise To Nickname In Iowa: ‘Bride Of Frankenfood.” Washington Times. May 17, 2015. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/17/hillary-clinton-gmo-support-monsanto-ties-spark-ba/?page=1 Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[17] “Hillary’s Agribusiness Ties Give Rise To Nickname In Iowa: ‘Bride Of Frankenfood.” Washington Times. May 17, 2015. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/17/hillary-clinton-gmo-support-monsanto-ties-spark-ba/?page=1 Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[18] Parker, Jennifer. “Yee-Haw.” ABC News. December 17, 2007.http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2007/10/yee-haw.html Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[19] Sarich, Christina. “’Bride Of Frankenfood’ Hillary Clinton’s GMO Ties Spark Backlash In Iowa.” Natural Society. May 28, 2015. http://naturalsociety.com/bride-of-frankenfood-hillary-clintons-gmo-ties-spark-backlash-in-iowa/ Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[20] Johnson, Luke. “Mark Penn All But Out For Potential Hillary Clinton 2016 Run.” Huffington Post. May 20, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/20/mark-penn-hillary-clinton_n_3305808.html Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[21] Scarehuman. “Mark Penn, Taking A Break From Monsanto To Run Hillary Clinton’s Campaign.” Daily Kos. March 17, 2008. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/03/17/458386/-Mark-Penn-taking-a-break-from-Monsanto-to-run-Hillary-Clinton-s-campaign Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[22] Cohen-Cole, Linn. “Monsanto And Hillary Clinton’s Redemptive First Act As Secretary Of State.” OpEdNews. February 9, 2009. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-and-Hillary-Clint-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090209-290.html Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[23] Terris, Ben. “Jerry Crawford Has Two Goals: Delivering Iowa For Hillary Clinton And Winning The Kentucky Derby.” Washington Post. March 2, 2015.https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/hillary-clintons-iowa-horse-whisperer-jerry-crawford-aims-for-caucus-kentucky-derby/2015/03/02/9c93b638-be23-11e4-bdfa-b8e8f594e6ee_story.html Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[24] “Jerry Crawford.” Crawford Mauro Law Firm.” Crawford bio.http://www.crawfordlawfirm.com/attorneys/view.cfm?id=20 Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[25] Jilani, Zaid. “Hillary’s Pick For Her Political Fixer In Iowa Is A Classic Illustration Of America’s Political Corporate Insider Problem.” Alter Net. March 9, 2015. http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/hillarys-pick-her-political-fixer-iowa-classic-illustration-americas-political Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[26] Lendman, Stephen. “Hillary Clinton Endorses GMOS. White House Meals Are Organic.” Global Research (Centre For Research On Globalization). May 25, 2015.http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-clinton-endorses-gmos-white-house-meals-are-organic/5451481 Accessed on September 1, 2015.

[27] Lim, XiaoZhi. “Video: Hillary Clinton Endorses GMOs, Solution-focused Crop Biotechnology.” Genetic Literacy Project. July 3, 2014. http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/07/03/video-hilary-clinton-endorses-gmos-solution-focused-crop-biotechnology/ Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[28] Ocean, Max. “Hillary Clinton Goes To Bat For GMOs At Biotech Conference.” Common Dreams. July 3, 2014. http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/07/03/hillary-clinton-goes-bat-gmos-biotech-conference Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[29] Ocean, Max. “Hillary Clinton Goes To Bat For GMOs At Biotech Conference.” Common Dreams. July 3, 2014. http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/07/03/hillary-clinton-goes-bat-gmos-biotech-conference Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[30] Lim, XiaoZhi. “Video: Hillary Clinton Endorses GMOs, Solution-focused Crop Biotechnology.” Genetic Literacy Project. July 3, 2014. http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/07/03/video-hilary-clinton-endorses-gmos-solution-focused-crop-biotechnology/ Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[31] “Hillary Clinton At BIO Convention 2014.” Youtube. Posted by Ken Stone. June 27, 2014. Hillary Rodham Clinton, answering questions as if a presidential contender, speaks to thousands at the BIO International Convention on June 25, 2014, at the San Diego Convention Center. She was interviewed by Jim Greenwood, president and CEO of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hypwb_SYaAc&feature=youtu.be Accessed on September 2, 2015.

[32] Brody, Ben. “Lobbyists For Monsanto, ExxonMobil Raise Money For Hillary Clinton.” Bloomberg, July 17, 2015. http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-17/lobbyists-for-monsanto-exxon-mobile-raise-money-for-hillary-clinton Accessed on September 2, 2015.

Copyright © Brandon Turbeville, Natural Blaze, 2016

Monsanto's World Famous Herbicide 'Likely Cancerous' Says World Health Organization — It's In Your Food

Monsanto genetically engineers crops (like corn) so that Monsanto's herbicide will kill all plants except the crop genetically engineered to be immune to the herbicide. This allows food growers to saturate their crops with herbicides. It's possible the food you're eating has been awash in cancer causing herbicide manufactured by Monsanto.—Ronald David Jackson

Photo by Mike Mozart.

By Lucy Clarke-Billings
One of the world's most popular weed killers – and the most widely used kind in the US – can "probably" cause cancer, according to United Nations health chiefs.

RELATED STORY: Is carcinogenic Roundup in food supply?

The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) cancer arm has announced that best-selling 'Roundup', produced by Monsanto, contains an active ingredient that is "classified as probably carcinogenic to humans".

Amateur gardeners and professional farmers have been urged to “think very carefully” about using the popular herbicide after a report was published in clinical journal Lancet Oncology on Friday.

The report revealed glyphosate was “classified as probably carcinogenic to humans”.

It also said there was "limited evidence" that the key ingredient was carcinogenic in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, said scientific data does not support the conclusions and called on WHO to hold an urgent meeting to explain the findings.

The report was also posted on the website of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the France-based arm of the WHO.

[...]

The evidence for the organisation’s conclusion was from studies of exposure, mostly agricultural, in the United States, Canada, and Sweden that were published since 2001.

Read More

Agent Orange — As Food: Chemical Similar To Toxic Vietnam Era Defoliant To Be Spread On America's Agricultural Products

What a surprise – the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) plans to make a decision to fully deregulate Dow Chemical’s Enlist corn and soybeans, genetically engineered to be repeatedly sprayed with the herbicide 2,4-D and glyphosate.

By Christina Sarich
When does this agency ever choose to protect our food supply? Now, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) is condemning this action, though it isn’t much different from all the other ridiculous actions the USDA and FDA usually make.

Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of CFS, says:

“2,4-D resistant crops pose a monumental threat to our nation’s agricultural, environmental and human health. With this approval comes millions of more pounds of toxic herbicides dumped onto our land; it’s an unacceptable outcome. . .Center for Food Safety will pursue all available legal options to stop the commercialization of these dangerous crops.”

2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid), produced by Dow Chemical, was once a chemical combination used in Agent Orange, which was heavily sprayed in Vietnam. Unfortuantely, 2,4-D and other herbicides are in a class of toxins which cause deadly immune system cancers, Parkinson’s disease, endocrine disruption, and reproductive problems.

The only reason to use this group of chemicals as at all is because Monsanto’s RoundUp is basically ineffective on its own. It is no longer controlling weeds, and farmers who once counted on RoundUp are now growing more weeds than edible crops. Instead of first generation GE crops becoming immune to RoundUp, the weeds have.

Experts already agree that way too much glyphosate has been sprayed around the world on every conceivable crop – GMO and non-GMO. And though Dow claims 2,4-D crops are the solution to weed resistance, a recent peer-reviewed study published in the prestigious journal Bioscience concludes that these new GE crops will instead pour oil on the fire by triggering still more intractable weeds resistant to both glyphosate and 2,4-D.

Dow says one thing, food experts like kimbrell say another:

“This is not the solution to our superweed problem and will only spur the evolution of yet more herbicide-resistant weeds. We need a new direction for our agricultural system, not increased reliance on chemicals.”

Even the USDA reports without any seeming concern that the approval of 2,4-D resistant corn and soybeans will lead to an unprecedented 7 fold increase in spraying of 2,4-D chemicals by 2020, and this will be compounded with the glyphosate and RoundUp chemicals already heavily in use. As much as 176 millions lbs of 2,4-D will be in use per year. That doesn’t sound very safe, for anyone or anything.

Are they trying to grow crops, or freakish plants and poison people?

Reprinted with permission from Center for Research in Globalization.

The Coming Monsanto-Caused Agricultural Holocaust?: Monsanto's 'Super Herbicide' and its Herbicide-Resistant GMO Crops Could Create Un-Killable Super Weeds

(Click to see full-sized image)
Schematic showing possible routes of 2,4-D through the environment. (EPA)

By Brandon Keim
The first of a new generation of genetically modified crops is poised to win government approval in the United States, igniting a controversy that may continue for years, and foreshadowing the future of genetically modified crops.

The agribusiness industry says the plants—soy and corn engineered to tolerate two herbicides, rather than one—are a safe, necessary tool to help farmers fight so-called superweeds. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculture appear to agree.

However, many health and environmental groups say the crops represent yet another step on what they call a pesticide treadmill: an approach to farming that relies on ever-larger amounts of chemical use, threatening to create even more superweeds and flood America’s landscapes with potentially harmful compounds.

Public comments on the Environmental Protection Agency’s draft review of the crops will be accepted until June 30. As of now, both the EPA and USDA’s reviews favor approval. Their final decisions are expected later this summer.

“We’re at a crossroads here,” said Bill Freese, a science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, an advocacy group. “With these, we’re dramatically increasing farmer dependence on herbicides.” In a letter to the USDA, the Center and 143 other public-interest and environmental groups warned of a “chemical arms race with weeds,” in which the new crops offer “at best temporary relief.”

The crops under consideration were engineered by Dow AgroSciences, a Dow Chemical Company subsidiary. They’re part of what Dow calls the Enlist Weed Control System: Enlist, a proprietary mixture of glyphosate and 2,4-D herbicides, and the plants onto which Enlist can be sprayed without causing them harm as it kills surrounding weeds.

A similar approach to designing solely glyphosate-tolerant crops—Monsanto’s Roundup Ready trait—has made glyphosate the most widely-used herbicide in the United States. Those crops now account for more than 80 percent of U.S. corn and cotton, and 93 percent of all American soybeans.

When Roundup Ready crops were first introduced in the 1990s, some scientists warned that weeds would eventually evolve tolerance to glyphosate: After all, any herbicide-hardy weed would have an enormous reproductive advantage. Monsanto said that wouldn’t happen. It did, sooner rather than later. Such weeds are now an enormous problem, infesting roughly 75 million acres of fields, an area roughly equivalent to the size of Arizona.

Farmers have been sent scrambling for solutions, and products like Enlist and similar multiple herbicide-resistant crops developed by other companies are the agriculture industry’s solution. “Enlist Duo herbicide will help solve the tremendous weed control challenges growers are facing,” said Damon Palmer, the U.S. commercial leader for Enlist, in a press release accompanying the EPA’s draft announcement.

According to Dow, weed resistance can be forestalled this time around. But critics say it’s inevitable, and that applying 2,4-D at the anticipated landscape scales could harm both humans and the natural environment. The companies consider those fears to be overblown and based on a biased interpretation of the science. That is also what critics say of them.

If there’s any common ground, it’s this: If the Enlist system is approved, much more herbicide will be used in the United States. According to the USDA, somewhere between 78 and 176 million pounds of additional 2,4-D could be used on U.S. crops by 2020, up from 26 million in 2011.
Herbicides and Health

Among the galaxy of chemicals found in agriculture and everyday modern life, 2,4-D is comparatively well-researched. Scores of studies over the last several decades have looked for population-level patterns linking exposures to human health problems, or described the effects on animals experimentally exposed to 2,4-D.

Considerable disagreement exists, however, on how to interpret that research. Critics of the 2,4-D resistant crops emphasize the population-level epidemiology, which raises cause for concern. Dow and the EPA place much more weight on results from laboratory animal exposures, from which the effects of anticipated human exposures are extrapolated.

Based on the animal research, “we have looked at the possibility that Enlist could be used on every acre of corn and soybeans and concluded there would be no human health risk from such use,” the EPA said in a statement provided to WIRED.

Their evaluation fits with the state of the science as described by Dow toxicologist and former Society of Toxicology president James Bus, who said that even farm workers who handle 2,4-D on a daily basis are exposed to levels “that are 1,000-fold below doses which in animals cause no effect.”

“Almost all the key toxicology studies are in the peer-reviewed public literature. They’re not hidden in company files,” said Bus, who described the misgivings of Enlist’s critics as resulting from a lack of familiarity with the literature, or giving too much credence to findings of harm that involved unrealistically high doses or impure 2,4-D formulations.

In turn, the Environmental Working Group, an environmental advocacy group, said in a June 4 letter to the EPA that the agency’s health reviews were flawed, incomplete and “significantly underestimate the real harm to human health.”

Broadly speaking, health concerns fall into two categories: whether 2,4-d might cause cancer, and whether 2,4-D might disrupt the human endocrine system, perhaps causing reproductive or neurological damage. On a possible link to cancer, most research suggests otherwise: Both the EPA and World Health Organization’s International Agency for Cancer Research have previously declared that 2,4-D does not appear to be carcinogenic to humans.

A more recent review of the epidemiology by two WHO cancer researchers did find a significant link between 2,4-D exposures and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Dow’s own review of the epidemiology, published in Critical Reviews in Toxicology, found no connection.

On the risk of endocrine disruption, however, the science is more ambiguous. The EPA acknowledged in a 2005 evaluation of 2,4-D that, based on experimental effects on animal thyroids and gonads, “there is concern regarding its endocrine disruption potential.” But Bus pointed to a recent Dow-run study of rat exposures that figured prominently in the EPA’s evaluation and was published last September in the journal Toxicological Sciences. In those experiments, damage arose only at exposure levels far higher than is found in real-world settings.

Some research has pointed in a different direction, though. In a 2012 letter to the EPA, a group of 70 public health scientists and health professionals cited several population-level epidemiological studies that linked 2,4-D exposures and birth defects in several midwestern states.

Epidemiology shows statistical correlations, not cause-and-effect, and is necessarily messy: It can be hard to isolate one chemical’s signal from a sea of variable factors. On the other hand, epidemiology deals with real-world dynamics, and for 2,4-D resonates with some experimental observations. In a 2008Environmental Health article researchers wrote that “even though the evidence is sparse, some chlorophenoxy herbicides, in particular 2,4-D, have neurotoxic potentials and may cause developmental neurotoxicity.”

One of the study’s authors was environmental health professor Philippe Grandjean of the Harvard School of Public Health. Asked whether he still stood by that claim, Grandjean said that he does. “We know too little about the risks of developmental neurotoxicity” to dismiss concerns, he said.

A 2009 Archives of Neurology study also found suggestions of a link between 2,4-D exposures and Parkinson’s disease, though the number of cases was small. According to EPA, such reports will continue to be monitored as Enlist use is periodically reviewed, but may have resulted from older 2,4-D formulations that were contaminated by dioxin, an extremely toxic compound generated as a byproduct of 2,4-D manufacture.

Dioxin contamination is “no longer a factor in the modern manufacturing processes for 2,4-D,” said the EPA in its draft review. Again, critics are not reassured. “When you’re cooking it up, it’s inevitable that you’ll end up with dioxins being formed,” said Lynn Carroll, senior scientist at the nonprofit Endocrine Disruption Exchange.

A 2010 Environmental Science & Technology study by Australian toxicologists of dioxin contamination in 2,4-D found it to be an ongoing concern, though Enlist was not among the formulations evaluated. While buyers of Enlist seeds will be contractually obligated to use Dow’s reportedly cleaner formulations, Freese worries that farmers will evade those restrictions. “Based on general knowledge of enforcement of regulations in the field, it seems extremely likely that a lot of 2,4-D use will involve generic versions,” he said.

Environmental Impacts

In addition to possible human health impacts, many questions remain about the effects of 2,4-D on ecological health. In its statement to WIRED, the EPA said, “We are confident that there will be no off-site exposure to the choline salt of 2,4-D”—Dow’s new formulation—”that would be of concern for effects to plant or animals.”

But the agency’s own ecological risk assessment strikes a more uncertain tone: While stating that 2,4-D poses no direct poisoning threat to birds, fish, aquatic plants or insects, it noted a lack of empirical information about risks to mammals and terrestrial plants. “There is insufficient information to determine how the proposed new uses of 2,4-D choline salt will directly affect mammals … and terrestrial plants, and indirectly affect all taxonomic groups,” wrote the EPA’s ecologists.

That plants in areas adjacent to farm fields, or receiving soil-runoff water expected to contain 2,4-D, could be at risk seems self-evident: After all, 2,4-D is a herbicide, toxic to most plants that don’t have needles for leaves. “There are more and more concerns being raised about the drift problem,” said agroecologist Bruce Maxwell of Montana State University.

“These field edges are some of the last remaining harbors” of biodiversity in the midwestern United States, Maxwell said. They provide vital habitat and forage to many animals, in particular pollinators such as bees and butterflies, populations of which are in precipitous decline. The collapse of monarch butterflies has already been tied to the rise of glyphosate use.

The EPA’s draft review of Enlist, which emphasized the “practically non-toxic” direct effect of 2,4-D on bees, gave little weight to indirect effects, in part because the agency assumes farmers will use Enlist in ways that minimize its accidental spread beyond field edges. “If this product is used according to the label directions, no unreasonable adverse effects would result,” said the EPA in its statement.

It may be unreasonable, though, to expect farmers to always follow those directions, which include recommendations that Enlist not be sprayed closer than 30 feet to field edges, when wind is blowing above 2 and below 10 miles per hour, or when it’s too hot and dry. “Everyone knows these assumptions are unreal,” said Freese.

The Future of Superweeds

Such tensions between intentions and expediency are also evident in arguments over the potential for weeds to evolve in response to heavy 2,4-D and glyphosate use, just as they did in response to glyphosate alone.

According to Dow, this is unlikely, both because 2,4-D resistance is a relatively difficult trait for plants to acquire and because the company is committed to promoting growing practices—such as crop rotations and non-chemical weed control measures—that reduce selection pressures favoring herbicide-tolerant weeds.

Yet tolerance to 2,4-D has already been documented in several weed species that have elsewhere become glyphosate-resistant superweeds, including waterhempand horseweed. Particularly troubling, said Maxwell, is the existence of mutations that confer broad-spectrum herbicide tolerance. These could spread through weed populations much more rapidly than constellations of several mutations, each conferring a piecemeal defense.

Weeds that can survive doses of multiple herbicides have already been found—not 2,4-D and glyphosate, at least not yet, but the potential is clearly there. “Stacking up tolerance traits may delay the appearance of resistant weeds, but probably not for long,” concluded a recent Nature editorial, which also argued that real-world practicalities may preclude good intentions.

“A farmer making good money in the age of biofuel crop subsidies may be loath to switch to a different crop,” wrote Nature‘s editors. “And farmers may be hesitant to invest the money needed to properly manage weeds, when their farms could end up infested with weeds from less-assiduous neighbours.”

Herbicide resistance expert Pat Tranel of the University of Illinois said that multiple herbicide-resistant crops like Enlist could be useful tools for farmers, “but we’re concerned that, as with any new tool, it will be overused.”

Ideally, said Tranel, “we’d be using herbicides as part of a system, and using other strategies such as crop rotation and more-diversified cropping.” Indeed, research by Tranel’s colleague Adam Davis has demonstrated the industrial-scale potentialof such a balanced approach. But for now, said Tranel, “that’s not perceived as an economic alternative.”

The EPA’s draft assessment does not require farmers to rotate Enlist and non-Enlist crops. Instead, responsibility for slowing the rise of future superweeds is given largely to Dow. Farmers will be asked to scout their fields, reporting signs of Enlist-resistant weeds to Dow, which will investigate and decide whether to notify the EPA.

That raises obvious conflict-of-interest concerns, said Freese, citing as precedent Monsanto’s poor track record in monitoring the evolution of rootworm tolerance to genetically-engineered Bt corn. That was ultimately verified by independent academic researchers, not industry investigators. And even if Dow’s monitoring system is thorough, it may be insufficient.

“You can have the best surveillance system in the world, and the numbers are going to get you,” said Maxwell. “Resistance is going to be there. It will escape notice. And once it occurs at even a low, recognizable level, it’s going to continue to be there.”

Should that happen, the next logical step—at least from a commercial perspective—is to develop crops resistant to even more herbicides. Another of Dow’s soybean varieties, now being reviewed by the USDA, tolerates three herbicides; also in the regulatory pipeline are multiple herbicide-resistant crops from Monsanto and Syngenta, as well as crops that tolerate both herbicides and pesticides.

Freese pointed one of Dow’s patents, for a mechanism that would allow up to nine types of herbicide resistance to be engineered into a single plant. A patent claim is no guarantee that a technology will be used, but it may be an apt symbol for the near future of agricultural biotechnology.

“In the end, we’re going to render most of our chemical solutions obsolete,” said Maxwell. “In the meantime, unfortunately, we’re going to do some damage.”

Reprinted with permission from Center for Research in Globalization.

The Dangers of Gene Modified Corn Confirmed: Study Results on the Toxic Effects of Monsanto's Gene Manipulated Corn

#3044999 / gettyimages.com

By Oliver Tickell
A highly controversial paper by Prof Gilles-Eric Séralini and colleagues has been republished after a stringent peer review process.

The chronic toxicity study examines the health impacts on rats of eating a commercialized genetically modified (GM) maize, Monsanto’s NK603 glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup.

The original study, published in Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT) in September 2012, found severe liver and kidney damage and hormonal disturbances in rats fed the GM maize and low levels of Roundup that are below those permitted in drinking water in the EU.

However it was retracted by the editor-in-chief of the Journal in November 2013 after a sustained campaign of criticism and defamation by pro-GMO scientists.

Toxic effects were found from the GM maize tested alone, as well as from Roundup tested alone and together with the maize. Additional unexpected findings were higher rates of large tumours and mortality in most treatment groups.

Criticisms addressed in the new version

Now the study has been republished by Environmental Sciences Europe. The republished version contains extra material addressing criticisms of the original publication.

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