GMO Labeling Endorsed by US Physicians but blocked by Chemical Industry Lobby - Ten Reason to avoid them

Is the Industry Lobby Bamboozling you about GMO's?

Even as the federal government pursues H.R. 1599, aka the “Deny Americans the Right to Know” (DARK) act, mainstream medicine is urging the government to abandon its resistance to GMO (genetically modified organism) labeling. 

They are bolstered by a recent announcement by the World Health Organization that glyphosate (the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer) is probably carcinogenic in humans. The genetic engineering ends up making crops resistant to the herbicide so more must be applied.

According to contributing doctors from Harvard, Mt. Sinai Medical Center and the University of Wisconsin reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine, “GM crops are now the agricultural products most heavily treated with herbicides, and two of these herbicides may pose risks of cancer.”

A recent notice in the same journal, “GMOs, Herbicides and Public Health,” reports: “The application of biotechnology to agriculture has been rapid and aggressive. The vast majority of the soy and [feed] corn grown in the United States are now genetically engineered. Foods produced from GM crops have become ubiquitous.”

Sixty-four countries, including Russia and China, have already adopted transparency in labeling laws, but U.S. Big Food and Big Ag lobbyists have stonewalled efforts domestically.\

EU representatives at the EU-US Trade Negotiations (TTIP) hopefully will not let this issue be swiped off the table by the American delegation.  As it is well known that the political establishment in the US Congress is very much influenced by the US Chemical and food Industry Lobby, which includes corporate giants like Monsanto, Dow Chemicals, Syngenta, Tyson, ADM and Cargill..

To put this in an order of magnitude: ADM and Cargill now control 65% of the world's trade in grain. Monsanto and Syngenta control 20% of the $60-billion market in bio-engineered seeds.

The EU better be aware that this US corporate lobby campaign to "patent nature" and control the world's food supply has been very successful,  Today, 85% of US corn is genetically engineered.

And if you need more convincing: Ten Reasons to avoid  GMO's  - Europe does not need GMO's

EU-Digest 

Genetically Modified Organisms: Monsanto withdraws bids to grow GMO crops in Europe - by Ricardo Lopez

Monsanto Co. said Thursday it will largely drop its bid to grow some of its genetically modified crops in Europe.

The world's largest seed-maker has nine pending applications with the European Commission, the executive body for the European Union. A spokesman said the company plans to withdraw eight of those applications.
The requests "have been going nowhere fast for several years," said Brandon Mitchener, a spokesman for the St. Louis-based company's European entity. "There’s no end in sight ... due to political obstructionism."

Many European countries, including France, Germany and Italy, have bans in place against genetically-modified organisms. Public sentiment has been divided and intense over safety and environmental concerns related to cultivated crops that have been genetically engineered. Scientists have largely said these types of crops are "safe". But also many scientists do not agree.

The issue has long simmered in Europe. In 2007, seed-maker Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. of Johnston, Iowa, sued the European Commission, criticizing the body for failing to act quickly on approval requests to cultivate the company's crops.

A spokesperson for the European Commission declined by email to comment on Monsanto's move, but said the pending applications had been greenlighted by the commission's Food Safety Agency.

Note EU-Digest: one can only hope that European Parliamentarians won't get swayed by US Chemical Industry lobbyists who are spending millions of euro's on convincing EU politicians to buy their chemically altered, polluted and dangerous foods and seeds.  Lets us also not forget the Monsanto Bhopal disaster in India.  

The globalization of agriculture in general has dramatically increased poverty in many developing countries, as crop subsidies in other nations began to affect agriculture, driving down crop profits. 

Third world farmers have lost billions of dollars over the years from having to compete in the global agricultural marketplace rather than grow their own biodiverse crops to feed their own people. Global corporations have literally robbed many developing countries of its self-reliance and self-sustenance in the name of "ending poverty" by thrusting upon them a system of monopolized and genetically modified organisms in agriculture. This marketplace is now mainly controlled and operated by multi-national corporations like Monsanto. 

Read more: Monsanto withdraws bids to grow GMO crops in Europe - latimes.com