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Trial lawyers hoping to take a big bite out of food producer Monsanto’s bottom line with a lawsuit over its most popular weed-killer have run into a problem – the judge who they need to convince their arguments are valid is not buying it.In 2015, the International Agency for Research and Cancer, based in Lyon, France, declared glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, the world’s most popular weed-killer, a “probably human carcinogen.”No other scientific body has reached that conclusion. Indeed, the Environmental Protection Agency says glyphosate is safe for humans when used in accordance with label directions, the National Institute...

With no real issues to promote, Democrats are putting all their eggs into the basket of corruption to restore their political fortunes. They and their friends in the mainstream media are working overtime to connect everyone and everything on the right side of the political spectrum to disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to multiple felonies. One channel that Democrats and liberals are working is tying conservative think tanks to the Abramoff scandal. They know that these think tanks have been one of the most effective forces in Washington over the last 30 years in advancing a...

Multiple EPA officials colluded with Monsanto to slow a safety review of the company’s glyphosate-based herbicide, Roundup, according to email communications obtained by Freedom of Information Act requests. Monsanto officials first reached out to the EPA in early 2015 regarding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s planned toxicology review of the herbicide, which the CDC said would be published by October 2015. This review has yet to be published, something EcoWatch notes was “no accident, no bureaucratic delay, but rather was the result of a collaborative effort between Monsanto and a group of high-ranking EPA officials.” The emails, sent...

German-based Bayer AG has committed to President-elect Donald Trump that it will invest $8 billion in American research and development as part of its deal to acquire Monsanto, Trump's transition team said Tuesday. Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Bayer will also protect all of Monsanto's 9,000 American jobs while creating an additional 3,000 high-tech positions in the country. That agreement, he added, came after Trump met with CEOs from both companies last week.

I am frankly shocked this information is not making front page news right now. Monsanto will do anything to bury this story… and as of right now, it’s working. Not a single mainstream media outlet has covered this appalling new report that shows millions of people being poisoned by a chemical that does not belong in our food. This chemical is ending up in processed foods like Cheerios, Ritz Crackers, and Oreos and being consumed by humans across the world. The health of millions of people is on the line and this news must go mainstream! That’s why I’m calling on every single one of you...

U.S. seed maker Monsanto Co. has agreed to a $57-billion buyout offer from Germany's Bayer in a deal that would create a global agricultural and chemical giant. The deal was announced Wednesday at a time when a record harvest is driving crop prices to painfully low levels for farmers. It was the third time in four months that Bayer returned with a richer offer in its pursuit of Monsanto. Including debt, the deal is valued at $66 billion. If approved, Monsanto will continue to be based in St. Louis.

<p>Now it's official: Monsanto is going to be swallowed up by a rival in the biggest takeover announced so far this year.</p> <p>To clinch a deal, Germany's Bayer pumped even more money into its bid for the U.S. seed giant, valuing it at $66 billion, including debt.</p>

Issue is linked to Monsanto’s introduction of new herbicide-resistant biotech soybean Farmers in southern U.S. states have long battled weeds and destructive bugs, but this year they face a new threat: their neighbors. They say some growers are illegally spraying a powerful herbicide that is damaging hundreds of thousands of crop acres in Arkansas, Missouri and Tennessee, a trend that regulators, farmers and academics link to Monsanto Co. ’s introduction this year of a new variety of genetically modified soybean. Monsanto’s new biotech soybean was designed to resist herbicides, including a powerful chemical called dicamba, long used to kill weeds...

This report refers to Shannon Watts as one in a group of “regular people” who began advocating for stricter gun control measures in recent years. After the December 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., she created the “One Million Moms for Gun Control” Facebook page. It later became “Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.” We should have noted that Watts has a background in corporate communications. From 1998 to mid-2012, she was a corporate communications executive or consultant at such companies as Monsanto and FleishmanHillard. Before that, Watts had what she says was a...

An oligopoly takes shape to corner the human food supply. The hunter, it seems, has become the hunted. After wresting control of roughly a quarter of the global seeds market by acquiring a massive portfolio of seed companies, including Agroceres, Asgrow, Cristiani Burkard, Dekalb, Delta & Pine and the seeds division of Cargill North America, Monsanto now suddenly finds itself on the menu of two very powerful, much bigger rivals. snip On Thursday, it was reported that Germany’s two chemical-industry titans Bayer and BASF, both of which have a market capitalization more than double Monsanto’s, are mulling a takeover bid....

German pharmaceuticals giant Bayer and the US group Monsanto said Thursday they are in talks on a possible merger to create a global player in pesticides, seeds and genetically modified crops, following weeks of speculation about a possible tie-up. Both sides have emphasized that the talks are still only exploratory at this stage and neither has mentioned how much any proposed deal would be worth. But with Monsanto’s market value estimated at around $42 billion (€37.5 billion), observers say it would be bigger than the recent acquisition of Switzerland’s Syngenta by China National Chemical Corp. […] The US group has...

Spiders sprayed with water containing carbon nanotubes and graphene flakes have produced the toughest fibers ever measured, say materials scientists. Spider silk is one of the more extraordinary materials known to science. The protein fiber, spun by spiders to make webs, is stronger than almost anything that humans can make. The dragline silk spiders use to make a web’s outer rim and spokes is amazing stuff. It matches high-grade alloy steel for tensile strength but is about a sixth as dense. It is also highly ductile, sometimes capable of stretching to five times its length. This combination of strength and...

This is bullet-proof human skin - made from spider silk and goat milk. Yes, really. Jalila Essaidi is testing the limits of human endurance, and it starts by having to milk spider-goats. Spider goats are otherwise innocent-looking goats that have been genetically engineered to produce milk packed with the protein made in spider's silk. (There is no definitive proof that this also gives them a propensity to skitter up walls or hide out in your sock drawer, but I think it does.) Once the goats are milked, Essaidi spins the protein into fiber that is ten times stronger than steel,...

The chemical giants DuPont and Dow Chemical Co. agreed to merge in an all-stock deal valuing the combined company at $130 billion, with plans to eventually split into three. The deal, which is likely to face intense regulatory scrutiny, allows the new company — to be called DowDuPont -- to rejig assets based on the diverging fortunes of their businesses that make agriculture chemicals and plastics. Dow and DuPont have been struggling to cope with falling demand for farm chemicals because of falling crop prices and a strong dollar, even as their plastics businesses have thrived thanks to low natural-gas...

Donald Trump is blaming an intern after he seemingly took a shot at Iowa voters in a Twitter post Thursday insinuating that the reason Ben Carson is now beating him in the early voting state is because GOPers are eating too much genetically modified corn. “#BenCarson is now leading in the #polls in #Iowa,” Trump seemingly quoted a fan on Twitter. “Too much #Monsanto in the #corn creates issues in the brain? #Trump #GOP”

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Biotech seed giant also gives a downbeat forecast for its fiscal year, as quarterly loss widens ___ Monsanto Co. , buffeted by a slumping global farm economy, outlined plans to slash 12% of its workforce and restructure its business as it reported a larger quarterly loss. The biotechnology-seed maker plans to cut 2,600 jobs while “streamlining and reprioritizing” commercial and research efforts as it grapples with declining crop prices that have pinched incomes for farmers, its main customers. Monsanto projected earnings in its fiscal 2016 that fell below analysts’ expectations. The St. Louis company also Wednesday unveiled a new stock-buyback...

Would take away a state's rights once and for all to require labeling of GMO foods. 70 bills have been introduced in over 30 states to require some sort of labeling of genetically engineered (GE) or genetically modified organisms (GMO).1)http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/976/ge-food-labeling/state-labeling-initiatives#  Although very few of these bills or initiatives have passed into actual law, and many have been challenged in court, a new congressional bill would take away the state’s rights once and for all to require labeling of GMO foods.H.R.1599 2)https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/1599/text, ironically labeled the  Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015 has been renamed the DARK (Deny Americans the Right...

It took just a few days after the stunning defeat of Obama's attempt to fast-track the Trans Pacific Partnership bill in the Senate at the hands of his own Democratic party, before everything returned back to normal and the TPP fast-track was promptly passed. Why? The simple answer: money. Or rather, even more money. Because while the actual contents of the TPP may be highly confidential, and their public dissemination may lead to prison time for the "perpetrator" of such illegal transparency .... fast-tracking the TPP, meaning its passage through Congress without having its contents available for debate or amendments,...

Beekeepers. Physicians. Organic farmers. Preschool teachers. Parents of autistic kids. Those were some of the groups represented Saturday in a march against the controversial biotech and agricultural giant Monsanto, which is often cast as Public Enemy No. 1 by those opposed to genetically modified foods. As many as 500 people — many dressed like bumblebees and butterflies — filled Justin Herman Plaza around noon and then marched down the Embarcadero to Fisherman’s Wharf. Many held signs with slogans like “Evil Seed of Corporate Greed” and “GMOs Cause Autism and Cancer.”