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Surely, Timothy Litzenburg is a wealthy man. As one of the lead plaintiffs' attorneys suing Monsanto over the alleged (but factually incorrect) claim that its product Roundup (glyphosate) causes cancer, he likely has had several nice paydays in recent years as the company has been slammed with one jackpot verdict after another. Lawsuits have cost its parent company, Bayer, billions of dollars. The trouble with money, however, is that no matter how much you have, you never really have enough. You always want more. Litzenburg wanted more, too, and he knew just how to do it. After seeing how easy...

Media stories about topics such as GMOs and pesticides may convince some consumers that it's not safe to eat certain fruits and vegetables Eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables can help lower calorie intake, reduce risks for heart disease, obesity and Type 2 diabetes, and protect against certain cancers. With all these benefits, why do some consumers choose to avoid produce? Approximately three-quarters of people in the US don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables.

We live in the information age, which is called that for the same reason the ice age got its name: an overwhelming proliferation of the stuff. We automatically assume that more information is better than less. But as the dinosaurs learned about ice, even something useful can be dangerous in excess. The lesson is, so far, lost on most lawmakers and regulators. In July, President Barack Obama signed a bill requiring foods containing genetically modified organisms to be labeled as such. It's an outwardly innocuous requirement that is supposed to leave consumers better informed but will actually cause many...

During these hectic weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, many of us think a lot not only about family, but about food. As we gather around tables to talk, so many of our holiday rituals centers around eating: cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, applesauce for Chanukah latkes, honey-glazed ham for Christmas and — especially in the South — black-eyed peas and greens for good luck on New Year’s Day. Kwanzaa literally translates to “first fruits.” Yet many of these holiday favorites are endangered, because the bees they depend upon are dying by the millions. You may have heard about this...

Austin Kasso posted on his own Facebook page that he is disgusted that Memories Pizza of Walkerton, Indiana, has raised over $100,000 on a GoFundMe.com pageset up to help the restaurant get over the attacks on it fostered by the militant gay lobby and the media. But Kasso–the founder of Red Giant, a non-GMO food activist group–went further to vent his rage at Christians by going to the GoFundMe page to warn the pizza shop that he intended to rob them of the $100,000. St. Louis radio host Dana Loesch discovered Kasso’s threat and Tweeted it out… -snip Kasso, though, came...

The government on Friday approved the commercial planting of genetically engineered apples that are resistant to turning brown when sliced or bruised.

Like anything relating to GMOs, Neil deGrasse Tyson’s recent off the cuff remarks on GMOs and his exhortation to ‘chill out’ was met with competing choruses of cheers and jeers. I watched the reaction unfurl on his Facebook page and on Chris Mooney’s posts in Mother Jones. These were interesting vantage points for related reasons. Chris Mooney writes about the politics of science and is particularly interested in how political loyalties tend to scramble our brains when it comes to picking and choosing which science we choose to accept (or even understand). Neil deGrasse Tyson is a great champion of...

July 16, 2014 (LocalOrg) - Corporate biotechnology monopolies like Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, and others have met increasing resistance to their attempts to patent and control global agriculture. They have spent untold fortunes attempting to sway the public but to no avail. Local, organic agriculture is growing in popularity and proliferating across all social-strata. The introduction of technology to automate and augment organic farming is making it as competitive and accessible or more so than the capital-intensive models of monopoly employed by big-ag. In response, big-ag has attempted several distasteful public relation stunts, including "super bananas for Africa" and "Golden Rice" to allegedly...

A German farmer has revealed shocking GMO company tactics to silence him in an exclusive interview with RT Op-Edge. German dairy farmer, Gottfried Glöckner, has told William Engdahl about attempted blackmail, character assassination and, ultimately, wrongful imprisonment he suffered when he refused to back off his charges that the Anglo-Swiss GMO company, Syngenta, had provided him with highly toxic GMO Maize seeds that ruined his prize dairy herd and his land. After spending two years in prison, Glöckner is traveling round the world to tell the story and warn the public of the extreme danger of GMO seeds....

After nearly 30 years studying how plants use their genes to defend against viruses, Vicki Vance, a professor at the University of South Carolina, doesn’t see genetically modifying plants as a malevolent or arrogantly God-like endeavor. “There’s DNA in the world and it gets passed from one organism to another and it’s the natural thing. If that’s the problem you have with transgenic plants, that’s not a good reason to be against them,” Vance says. She does, however, have a problem with mega corporations allegedly using their money and power to hide the risks of new forms of genetic technology....

A new bill introduced in Congress looks to ban states from implementing their own labeling laws when it comes to food containing genetically engineered ingredients. According to Reuters, US Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) introduced the legislation on Wednesday, which is intended to head off bills in about 24 states that would require companies to inform customers when their food is produced using genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Titled the “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act,” the proposal would forbid states from enacting such proposals....

"Anybody you see around here dressed in a Tyvek suit will be someone from Greenpeace," David Stoltzfus joked as we surveyed the thousands of carefully numbered corn plants growing in the stony rust-colored soil of a former sugar cane plantation just a few miles inland from the spectacular Wailea Beach. Stoltzfus, who heads Monsanto's Piilani seed production farm on Maui, was referring to the white disposable coveralls that protesters wear for the TV cameras when "decontaminating" biotech crop fields. Hawaii is the epicenter of a furious campaign to shut down production farms that yield genetically modified seed. It was September,...

Rigid criteria exist for a serious scientific journal to accept a peer-reviewed paper and to publish it. As well there exist strict criteria by which such an article can be withdrawn after publication. The Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology has apparently decided to violate those procedures, announcing it is retracting a long-term study on the toxic effects of Monsanto Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)—GMO Maize it published a year ago. The bizarre reports come only six months after Elsevier created a special new position, Associate Editor for Biotechnology (i.e. GMO), and filled it with a former Monsanto employee who worked...

The school lunch drama continues, this time in Manitoba, Canada. Close on the heels of a federally sponsored preschool in Virginia disallowing homemade lunches without a doctor’s note, a mom in Manitoba was given this note and a $10 fine when her children’s preschool felt that the lunch she sent from home required “supplemental” Ritz Crackers.

The Institute for Responsible Technology, an organization opposed to crop biotechnology, has published a list of reasons to avoid GMOs—that is, genetically modified food. It’s a mish-mash of misinformation and disinformation. All of the institute’s assertions are unfounded, but here are the five most dubious claims on the list. 1. GMOs Are UnhealthyEvery independent scientific body that has ever evaluated the safety of biotech crops has found them to be safe for humans to eat.Credit: Library of CongressA 2004 report from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) concluded that “no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented...

•EU watchdog reveals approval for GM foods fails to identify poisonous gene •54 of the 86 GM plants approved contain the dangerous gene •Gene found in food for farm animals producing meat, milk and eggs •Biotech supporters argue there is no evidence that GM foods are harmful A virus gene that could be poisonous to humans has been missed when GM food crops have been assessed for safety. GM crops such as corn and soya, which are being grown around the world for both human and farm animal consumption, include the gene. A new study by the EU’s official food...

Australian scientists are expressing grave concerns over a new type of genetically engineered wheat that may cause major health problems for people that consume it. University of Canterbury Professor Jack Heinemann announced the results of his genetic research into the wheat, a type developed by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), at a press conference last month. "What we found is that the molecules created in this wheat, intended to silence wheat genes, can match human genes, and through ingestion, these molecules can enter human beings and potentially silence our genes," Heinemann stated. "The findings are absolutely assured....

The case for mandatory GMO labeling - even if you believe in limited government and the free market (NaturalNews) Now that the GMO labeling ballot measure has been officially accepted onto the California ballot, Monsanto is gearing up its propaganda campaign that aims to convince people you don't need to know what you're eating! Trust us, we're the food companies! We never lie, do we? For the record, I'm an opponent of most government mandates against individuals. When the government says you have to give your children vaccine shots, that's a violation of your liberty. When Mayor Bloomberg says you...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT "Does Organic Food Turn People into Jerks?" What do you think, folks? When I think of organic food, I think of vegetarians. I think of militant vegetarians. Now, a liberal vegetarian is not content to just eat his vegetables. You have to, too. A conservative vegetarian will eat his vegetables and leave you alone. A liberal vegetarian will eat his and then demand that you only eat vegetables, too. And this is one of the big differences between liberals and conservatives across the board -- whatever it is, whatever the left-right issue is. If a liberal doesn't want...

Environmentalists constantly reference the scientific consensus that human activity is changing the global climate. "You have the strongest consensus we have seen in the science community about global climate change since the conclusion that tobacco caused lung cancer," asserts Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) president Kevin Knobloch. Greenpeace also argues, "There is, in fact, a broad and overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is occurring, is caused in large part by human activities." And Friends of the Earth has gone after Exxon Mobil because it "has repeatedly attempted to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change and actively resisted attempts...