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Say NO to GMOs in Your Food
Townhall.com ^ | June 4, 2013 | Chuck Norris

Posted on 06/04/2013 4:55:53 AM PDT by Kaslin

On Memorial Day weekend, 2 million people marched in protests against seed giant Monsanto for the purpose of bringing awareness to hazards from genetically modified food, which it and other companies manufacture. Organizer Tami Canal said protests were held in 436 cities in 52 countries.

Genetically modified plants are grown from genetically modified, or engineered, seeds, which are created to resist insecticides and herbicides so that crops can be grown to withstand a weed-killing pesticide or integrate a bacterial toxin that can ward off pests.

The Chicago Tribune reported that because genetically modified organisms are not listed on food or ingredient labels, few Americans realize they're eating GMO foods every day. Genetically modified crops constitute 93 percent of soy, 86 percent of corn and 93 percent of canola seeds planted in the U.S., and are used in about 70 percent of American processed food.

The Tribune reported that the Food and Drug Administration has permitted the sale and planting of genetically modified foods for 15 years and that the Obama administration has approved an "unprecedented number of genetically modified crops," such as ethanol corn, alfalfa and sugar beets. The Alliance for Natural Health USA added that the U.S. Department of Agriculture now wants to eliminate any regulatory controls from genetically altered corn and cotton.

And Monsanto, the world's largest seed-maker and a publicly traded American multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation, is leading the pro-GMO march and moving full steam ahead in being the No. 1 U.S. and global farm supplier.

CEO Hugh Grant said this past week, "We're in a growth mode, and with the combination of momentum in our core businesses and new layers of growth coming online from an increasingly global portfolio, we have the strategic drivers in place to continue our growth trajectory next year and beyond."

However, Europe's resistance against GMOs paid off, as Reuters reported last Friday that Monsanto is "not pushing for expansion of genetically modified crops in most of Europe, as opposition to its biotech seeds in many countries remains high."

And The Washington Post also reported the same day that South Korea recently joined Japan in suspending imports of U.S. wheat after an experimental and unapproved strain of GM wheat, designed to resist the deadly effects of Monsanto's most popular herbicide and weed killer, Roundup, was discovered growing on an Oregon farm. (Just this last Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture found the rogue Monsanto wheat sprouts in the Beaver State, when a farmer who was attempting to wipe out a field by spraying Roundup couldn't kill the wheat crops.)

There's good reason that most European countries, Japan, and South Korea are resisting GMO crops. Business columnist Al Lewis summarized the dilemma Monsanto faces in his column for Dow Jones Newswires: "For Monsanto, it comes down to saving the 9 billion people expected to populate the planet by 2050. Monsanto is the company that allows farmers to grow more food with less land, water and energy. But it is also the company that brought us products we now know were far more dangerous than advertised, including the insecticide DDT, the toxic industrial chemicals known as PCBs and the Vietnam-Era defoliant Agent Orange, which poisoned our own soldiers with dioxins. Monsanto also brought us saccharine -- sweet, yet artificial, and known to cause cancer in laboratory rats."

The Alliance for Natural Health USA cited the late George Wald, a Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine and one of the first scientists to speak out about the dangers of genetically engineered foods: "Recombinant DNA technology (genetic engineering) faces our society with problems unprecedented, not only in the history of science, but of life on the Earth. ... Now whole new proteins will be transposed overnight into wholly new associations, with consequences no one can foretell, either for the host organism or their neighbors. ... For going ahead in this direction may not only be unwise but dangerous. Potentially, it could breed new animal and plant diseases, new sources of cancer, novel epidemics."

So instead of eradicating the need for insecticides and herbicides, genetically modified plants eventually could warrant stronger and more intense pesticides in order to outwit and overcome superbugs and greater strains of diseases. And who's to say what GMOs will do -- now or in generations -- inside our bodies as we consume them on a greater scale and they become a part of the bacteria in our digestive tracts?

With more and more U.S. foods being grown, manufactured and imported from places like South America and Eastern Europe -- the precise areas outside the U.S. where Monsanto's biotech seeds are gaining their greatest foothold, food imports are quickly becoming a recipe for disaster. Remember, too, much of the GM crop grown around the world is used for livestock feed, so there's more than one way for GMOs to be ingested in your diet, such as from meat and dairy products.

Equally alarming is a study that was just published in the journal Neurology. According to Medical Daily, a review of 104 studies conducted around the world revealed that exposure to pesticides, insecticides, weed-killers, fungicides, solvents, etc., increased the risk of developing Parkinson's disease by 30 to 80 percent.

Dr. Emanuele Cereda -- author of the study, by researchers from the IRCCS University Hospital San Matteo Foundation in Pavia, Italy -- told the British newspaper Daily Mail: "We didn't study whether the type of exposure, such as whether the compound was inhaled or absorbed through the skin and the method of application, such as spraying or mixing, affected Parkinson's risk. However, our study suggests that the risk increases in a dose response manner as the length of exposure to these chemicals increases."

Eat local and organic, period. And fight GMOs invading U.S. food industries and American homes.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News
KEYWORDS: activists; agenda21; agriculture; anticapitalism; antiscience; bilderberg; billgates; boxeragenda; bt; btinjectedtoxin; cartel; dnadamage; emptynutrition; farming; fascism; fda; foodsupply; foolingthepublic; friendsofearth; getrees; gmo; greenpeace; greens; greenspropaganda; health; hiddenagenda; infertility; intestinehealth; leftists; liberty; luddites; monopolyonfood; monsanto; monsantoevil; no; nogmo; nosafetystudies; nwo; organicdrivel; pelosiagenda; populationcontrol; progressives; propaganda; roundup; sicknessincreasing; sierraclub; stealthsterilization; sterilization; unethicalmonsanto; unpopulationcontrol; wellness; zerohumanstudies
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To: Gen.Blather

And stuffing THAT many chickens into cages breeds diseases & infections that can only be controlled with antibiotics. Furthermore, how many of those chickens have been fed growth hormones so that they are ready to “harvest” at a younger age?

Little girls are starting their periods in kindergarten & boys are growing boobs while becoming increasingly more effeminate. You’re totally convinced beyond a doubt that the administration of these drugs in the food chain has no impact on human health?? Rrrrriiiiight.

You can keep your Frankenchickens. I’ll take a natural, free-range bird any day.


21 posted on 06/04/2013 5:51:19 AM PDT by surroundedbyblue (Why am I both pro-life & pro-gun? Because both positions defend the innocent and protect the weak.)
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To: Kaslin
Genetically modified crops constitute 93 percent of soy, 86 percent of corn and 93 percent of canola seeds planted in the U.S., and are used in about 70 percent of American processed food.

So we should simply burn all of that, retill the land, and start over?
22 posted on 06/04/2013 5:53:18 AM PDT by mmichaels1970
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To: kidd

Do your own reasearch and use some commonsense.


23 posted on 06/04/2013 5:53:37 AM PDT by surroundedbyblue (Why am I both pro-life & pro-gun? Because both positions defend the innocent and protect the weak.)
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To: tbpiper

So, then, God dislikes hybrid seeds? They won’t reproduce to kind, but lots of GMO seeds will.


24 posted on 06/04/2013 5:53:56 AM PDT by Mr. Lucky
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To: G Larry
Folks protest GMOs are the typical population control crowd.

Bullsh*t. Most are people who want to make their own choices about the food they eat. It's not population control but real food safety and sovereignty.

25 posted on 06/04/2013 5:54:45 AM PDT by tbpiper
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To: Kaslin

You people are nuttier than a fruiitcake!


26 posted on 06/04/2013 5:56:34 AM PDT by dalereed
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To: surroundedbyblue

There is no such thing as a natural diet in the present.

There are no current foods sold in stores that are not the result of genetic manipulation.


27 posted on 06/04/2013 5:59:08 AM PDT by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 .....Obama Denies Role in Government)
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To: Kaslin

The problem is that “GMO” varies considerably in relative risk. Some modifications are totally benign, a transfer of genes from within the genus for reasons of productivity. What is the problem with a fruit tree designed to bear at a particular time of year?


28 posted on 06/04/2013 5:59:09 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (An economy is not a zero-sum game, but politics usually is.)
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To: dalereed

Hey, I didn’t write the article, I only posted it


29 posted on 06/04/2013 6:03:24 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: muir_redwoods

30 posted on 06/04/2013 6:04:03 AM PDT by Daffynition (Stand Your Ground)
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To: Kaslin
What scares me is how Greenpeace/Sierra Club propaganda has infiltrated FR over the past few years. The same people who publish these so-called non-peer reviewed science studies (to be generous), are the same people who push the man-made global warming agenda. This is one of the progressive favourite agenda who want to push down population growth, especially in Africa and in the third world.
31 posted on 06/04/2013 6:04:30 AM PDT by Aussiebabe
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To: Kaslin

Opinion of that noted agronomist, agricultural biologist and plant geneticist Chuck Norris.


32 posted on 06/04/2013 6:05:58 AM PDT by artichokegrower
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To: bert

Define natural?? I don’t eat processed foods whose ingredient lust I can’t pronounce. The food I eat either came from the ground or had a mother. And the stuff that came from the ground is organic & non-GMO. The meat I buy is grass fed, free range, or wild caught fish. I don’t eat beef that’s been fed corn (GMO) because its high in omega 6, I don’t buy farm-raised fish because its filthy & laden with pharmaceuticals, and I eat free range chicken for the same reason.


33 posted on 06/04/2013 6:08:56 AM PDT by surroundedbyblue (Why am I both pro-life & pro-gun? Because both positions defend the innocent and protect the weak.)
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To: Aussiebabe

Um, wrong. The people creating & pushing GMOs are the progressives & the population control antagonists. Just look who is invested in Monsanto, how their lobby spends its $$, and where their political affiliations lie.

I’ll give you a hint: follow the money and you’ll find George Soros, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and......wait for it....
Barack Obama.


34 posted on 06/04/2013 6:11:23 AM PDT by surroundedbyblue (Why am I both pro-life & pro-gun? Because both positions defend the innocent and protect the weak.)
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To: PeterPrinciple

You hit the nail on the head.


35 posted on 06/04/2013 6:14:32 AM PDT by tiki
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To: muir_redwoods

I once believed as you do, but gradually came to realize that there is a credible scientific case for greater caution in regard to GMO foods, both as to their environmental impacts and as to their effects on human health. Notably, with the potential of safe and reliable traditional breeding techniques to improve crop yields not yet been exhausted, it should not be thought that the choice is between GMOs and starvation.


36 posted on 06/04/2013 6:16:04 AM PDT by Rockingham
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To: tbpiper
WILD VIRUSES ~ for example West Nile Virus ~ you want it, you can have it ~ truly free Free Range Chickens will give it to you at no extra charge.
37 posted on 06/04/2013 6:17:16 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: rstrahan

And the biggest misunderstanding is that the seeds are sterile, they aren’t, but they belong to the company and you can’t replant them without the threat of being sued.


38 posted on 06/04/2013 6:18:43 AM PDT by tiki
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To: surroundedbyblue
There's a bacteria in South America that is constantly at work creating new species of insects. It works the old fashioned way by changing the shape of their sex organs.

There are various molds, fungi and bacteria at work constantly reworking plant genomes. Then there's hard radiation from outerspace ~ hits this place all the time ~ sometimes it zip zaps the reproductive regions and there you go ~ another species, or variety, or harmful mutation!

39 posted on 06/04/2013 6:19:50 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: rstrahan

i understand all of that ~ but what did the farmers imaging they were purchasing ~ they are given all the information up front.


40 posted on 06/04/2013 6:21:04 AM PDT by muawiyah
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