Ban Trans Fats Now, But GM Foods Only Later?
Junk Foods And Junk Decisions As New Study Links Aspartame To Adverse Brain Effects
California First US State To Ban Trans Fats In Food
Massachusetts May Follow
www.nlpwessex.org/docs/transfats.htm
After Decades Of 'Safe' Consumption Now They Say
'This Is An Invisible And Dangerous Ingredient'

September 2008

"This is a call to action [to ban trans fats in food] that takes into consideration the health of our families. This is an invisible and dangerous ingredient." California Assembly Member Tony Mendoza Schwarzenegger urged to terminate trans fats in California Daily Mail, 16 July 2008 "In the realm of dietary dangers, trans fats rank very high.....Worldwide the toll of premature deaths is in the millions." Definition of Trans fat MedicineNet, 17 March 2001

"With no genetically modified food labelling or monitoring, America is now running a 'don't look, don't ask' GM junk food culture. It is one that, in effect, complacently assumes that GMOs are safe because people don't foam at the mouth as soon as they ingest them. The same approach with trans fats, another man made food, turned into thousands (1,400 a year in Massachusetts alone), and ultimately millions, of undetected premature deaths across the globe. Having already gone through the trans fat experience it remains something of a shock to learn that, despite the billions invested in, and earned from, this technology, there has only ever been one published study on the direct human impact of eating GM food. And it found unexpected effects. ... Given that the first study raising health concerns in relation to trans fats was published in 1957, and yet New York City only began banning them in 2006, perhaps it is reasonable to project that the first bans on GM foods might begin arriving sometime around 2060. The trouble is, by then there may well be little else available left to eat."
Ban Trans Fats Now, GM Foods Only Later?
NLPWessex, September 2008

"Make no mistake, this [GM food] is an irreversible technology. It is no good 50 years later to say: 'We should have known.'....[Monsanto] have not done a proper job [of testing], and they are just using their political and economic muscle to foist it on us.""
Dr Arpad Pusztai
Guardian, 15 January 2008

'Rumsfeld's Disease' Decades Of Junk Decisions In The World's Leading Junk Food Nation
Donald Rumsfeld (left) was responsible for bringing the world 'aspartame', a leading contender for the title of the world's top 'junk food' ingredient. Meanwhile Arnold Schwarzenegger (right) has just begun a reversal of decades of  'junk decisions' on artificially man made foods by signing off a bill to ban trans fats in California, the first US state to do so. How long will it now take to introduce a ban on the latest artificial product to arrive on grocery shelves, genetically modified (GM) food?
America's Physical And Mental Health Suffer The Scourge Of Artificially Man Made Foods Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in addition to his more well known 'war on terror' invasion of Iraq, was previously responsible for the introduction of one of the world's most infamous junk food ingredients, the synthetic (artificially man made) sweetener aspartame, a product also once owned by Monsanto, now the world's largest producer of genetically modified (GM) crop seeds (another artificially man made product now found in the food supply). US factories have made aspartame using genetically modified bacteria (also artificially man made). After decades of supposedly 'safe' use, a study published earlier this year in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition indicates that high consumption of aspartame may lead to 'neurodegeneration' in the human brain. Other problems have also recently been found with the sweetener saccharine (artificially man made), with evidence that it may, together with other health problems, cause some people to put on weight, not lose it. Again it has taken decades to establish this. Now Rumsfeld's Republican colleague, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, has signed off a bill passed in his state legislature which bans another junk food, trans fats (artificially man made), after the product had become associated with serious disease (now thought to include cancer, as well as heart attacks and diabetes) and premature death. With trans fats also recently banned in New York City, once again the associated ill-health effects of a man made food were established only after decades of supposedly 'safe' use. What is also striking is how such serious 'below the radar' toxicity could be induced by seemingly innocuous changes to the molecular makeup of existing food. Naturally occurring food oils comprised of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen simply had extra hydrogen added to them to create the artificial trans fats. The worst estimates from the Harvard School of Public Health make trans fats potentially responsible for approaching a quarter of a million heart attacks a year in America alone (yes, a year). However, for decades there was no 'obvious' sign of this. In fact, with trans fats first patented in 1903 and brought into industrial production in 1909, it took around a hundred years to establish the full nature and extent of the problem, culminating in a Harvard led study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2006 (the Lancet had first published work raising initial concerns nearly fifty years earlier in 1957). The State of Massachusetts is now also considering a ban of trans fats. But why isn't there simply a Federal ban? Perhaps it is partly down to too much aspartame (and cocaine) induced brain disease occurring within the political community in Washington. Meanwhile, if trans fat bans are now emerging in the United States after decades of supposedly 'safe' use, how many decades of 'safe' use will it take before a similar decision is taken in relation to any GM foods (artificially man made), creations which routinely use foreign genetic material from bacteria and viruses? Some GM crops (most notably rice grown for the pharmaceutical industry in America, which is expected to leak into the food supply at some point due to not being grown in enclosed conditions - the result of a classic 'junk' decision) may even contain human genes. Yet, even the most basic common sense should dictate that no food-chain crop species should ever be permitted to be used for such purposes. Many previous 'junk decisions' in relation to artificial foods are now coming home to roost. A variety of food additives and colourings, plus sodium benzoate and monosodium glutamate, are also man made products where evidence of health concerns is emerging. It is little surprise, therefore, that the biotechnology industry (such is its de facto 'confidence' in the long-term safety of its own products) resolutely continues to oppose any legislation that would place strict liability on it were similar 'slow poison' problems to surface with any of their (patented) GM crops in the decades to come. The epidemiological studies on the health effects of trans fats, which ultimately produced devastating results, were not conducted until decades after the introduction of foods containing this man made ingredient. In the total absence of any epidemiological studies in relation to GM foods, claims that the latter are safe for human consumption based on a decade of widespread use in the American food chain are completely unsubstantiated by science. Yet given the trans fats experience, why have no such studies been conducted for GM foods? And are we to take it from this omission that, more often than not, junk policy decisions in the artificial foods arena have become the default standard? Indeed, is the very consumption of some of these artificial foods itself doing something to our brains to reduce the capacity for intelligent thinking? There is some evidence for this. The study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition indicates that aspartame, a product ubiquitous in the market, is now potentially associated with "compromised learning and emotional functioning". This syndrome, that might perhaps one day become known as 'Rumsfeld's Disease', suggests that the denaturing of food and drink can affect not only physical health, but mental capacity as well. If so, what influence might the mass consumption of such products have on the tendency of a nation to collectively flunk making coherent decisions about all kinds of things, the result of which might be, say, the unwise selection of its own leadership, or a diet-aggravated anxiety based approach to shaping a national security policy which turns out to be counter-productive, generating new enemies instead of new friends? 1996 was a significant year. In the spring American farmers began planting their country's first large-scale genetically modified agricultural crops. A few months later Osama Bin Laden issued his first fatwa against the US. In the 'war on terror' conflicts that followed America has suffered some serious losses, but on nothing like the scale of those incurred more silently through the consumption of trans fats. Whether and where other artificially man made foods, including aspartame and GM crops, will end up on this distressing league table of damage will depend in part on the degree to which their effects are monitored and investigated in the years ahead. Donald Rumsfeld is unlikely to be in any rush to encourage much of that.
State-of-the-Science On The Health Risks of GM Foods Institute for Responsible Technology, June 2008 - Click Here GM Crops - The Health Effects Soil Association, February 2008 (PDF) - Click Here More Information Available From 'Seeds Of Deception' Web Site www.seedsofdeception.com includng newsletter and PowerPoint presentation on GMO health risks

"Almost everything we grow, everything we eat is the root result of human intervention, human breeding and so on. But this [genetic modification through recombinant DNA technology] is unnatural in a different sort of way from the kinds of breeding programs that have characterized humanity for ten thousand years.... So the question which people have, I believe, not only a right but a duty to ask, is how wisely will we use these unprecedented new powers? What are the risks associated with doing something this new and this profound at the very wellsprings of life?... Certainly, humanity's record for using technology wisely, sensitive to its potential effects on society, on people, on environment is, at best, mixed and hardly encouraging.... We have not yet identified, yet alone cloned, the gene for wisdom, and some skepticism about our ability to manage powerful new technologies is appropriate."
Robert Shapiro, Chief Executive of Monsanto
State of the World Forum, San Francisco, 27 October 1998

"In June, the UK environment minister, Phil Woolas, told the Independent that it was time for the nation to take a fresh look at the issue of genetically modified (GM) crops in the light of the surge in food prices over the past few months. ...‘The cynic in me thinks that they’re just using the current food crisis and the fuel crisis as a springboard to push GM crops back on to the public agenda’, says Professor Denis Murphy, head of biotechnology at the University of Glamorgan in Wales. ‘I understand why they’re doing it, but the danger is that if they’re making these claims about GM crops solving the problem of drought or feeding the world, that’s bullsh*t.' "
GM: it’s safe, but it’s not a saviour
Spiked, 7 July 2008

'Come Out With Your Hands Up, Woolas, We Have You Surrounded - We Know Which GM Interest Has Just Given New Labour Another £2 Million'

"Scottish Ministers are putting mounting pressure on the UK government to end its support for GM crops now that Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have all agreed to become GM-free. In the wake of the latest GM crop contamination revealed on Friday, the Scottish environment minister, Michael Russell, is urging Whitehall to alter its stance to take account of the strong opposition to genetically modified crops in all the devolved administrations.His call has been welcomed by anti-GM groups, though they argue he should go further. The GM concordat agreed by the devolved administrations just before the last Scottish election should now be renegotiated, they say. At a conference in Dublin last week, the agriculture ministers of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland both declared that they wanted their countries to be GM-free. This follows similar commitments from the Scottish and Welsh governments. 'I'm very encouraged by the strong all-Ireland stance that is being taken, and it chimes perfectly with our stance and that of Wales,' Russell told the Sunday Herald. 'The political dynamic of the GM debate in these islands has changed profoundly over the last year and it is time that the UK government woke up to the fact.'"
Scotland urges UK-wide ban on GM crops
Sunday Herald, 14 September 2008

"Labour has pulled itself back from the brink of bankruptcy by restructuring its loans and persuading the bulk of its backers to give the party until 2015 to repay the money... But only two of the tycoons — Lord Sainsbury of Turville, the supermarket heir [and GM crop investor and promoter], and Sir Gulam Noon, the curry magnate — were prepared to write off their money. Lord Sainsbury, a Labour peer, lent the party £2 million, and Sir Gulam lent £250,000."
Lenders save Labour from bankruptcy with 7 year reprieve to pay £15m
London Times, 13 August 2008

'No Obvious Ill Effect'

"Americans have consumed food derived from GM crops for the past decade, with no obvious ill effect on public health"
GM crops: not against nature
London Times, 14 August 2008

"..... the ubiquitous argument that 'since there is no evidence that GM products make people sick, they are safe' is both illogical and false. There are, again, simply no data or even valid assays to support this contention. Without proper epidemiological studies, most types of harm will not be detected, and no such studies have been conducted."
The Problem with Nutritionally Enhanced Plants
Journal of Medicinal Food, Vol. 11, No. 4, 2008

"Disease surveillance and event monitoring procedures will need to be sufficiently robust to deal with the potential emergence of new diseases associated with GM material which will be obscure and difficult to diagnose."
The Impact of Genetic Modification on Agriculture, Food and Health - An Interim Statement
British Medical Association, May 1999

"Ben Miflin, former director of the Institute of Arable Crops at Rothamsted, near London, who is a proponent of the potential benefits of genetic modification of crops... argues that, under current monitoring conditions, any unanticipated health impact of such foods would need to be a 'monumental disaster' to be detectable."
Long-term effect of GM crops serves up food for thought
Nature, Volume 398:651, 22 April 1999

Trans Fats Were 'Slow Poisons' Quietly Killing Millions And The 'Scientists' Didn't Notice Anything 'Obvious' For Decades
How Long Will It Take For The Same Scenario To Unfold With GM Foods?

"My colleagues and I from the Harvard School of Public Health estimate, from laboratory and epidemiological studies, that between 72,000 and 228,000 heart attacks could be prevented each year in America if industrially produced trans fats were eliminated from our diet."
Meir Stampfer, MD, DrPH, Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health
Experts Weigh In: Will Trans Fat Bans Affect Obesity Trends?
DOC News, Volume 4 Number 5 p. 1, May 1, 2007

"In his New York Times column, Nicholas Kristof compares the selling of trans fat-laden Girl Scout cookies to 'death at the hands of Al Qaeda.'...Top nutritionists at Harvard University have stated: 'By our most conservative estimate, replacement of partially hydrogenated oils in the U.S. diet with natural nonhydrogenated vegetable oils would prevent approximately 30,000 premature coronary deaths per year, and epidemiologic evidence suggests this number is closer to 100,000 premature deaths annually.' With those kind of claims, it’s no wonder everyone is going trans fat-free. There are even entire countries going trans fat free. Denmark has passed this legislation, and Canada is well on its way."
Transcending trans fats
FoodProcessing.com, 2007-32

'Zero Tolerance'
US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) Now Says No Room For Any Level Of Trans Fat In A Healthy Diet

"The FDA has stated that there is no room in a healthy diet for any level of trans fat—a fat found in partially hydrogenated oils that raises bad cholesterol and lowers good cholesterol, thereby contributing to heart disease.... "
Functional foods from biotech—an unappetizing prospect?
Nature Biotechnology 25, 525 - 531 (2007)

Time For 'Zero Tolerance' In The GM Sector As Well Before It Is Too Late

"The only published trial of GM foods on humans was carried out by Newcastle University [in the UK] for the Food Standards Agency, and published in 2004. It was designed to study what happens to transgenic DNA in the human gut and whether it could pass out and enter bacteria in the body, a long-standing concern. It found that .... portions of transgenic DNA had ‘horizontally’ transferred from GM food into the intestinal bacteria of some of the volunteers, which was a shocking discovery with implications for the long-term impacts of GM consumption. Just as shocking, however, was the fact that at the time the FSA chose not to mention this key finding in its communications on the study, thus widely giving the impression that horizontal gene transfer had not been identified in the study."
GM Crops - The Health Effects
Soil Association, February 2008

The Biotech Industry Is Looking For Crop And Seed Contamination
To Make A GM-Food Supply A Universal Reality By Default

"The hope of the industry is that over time the market is so flooded [with GMOs] that there's nothing you can do about it. You just sort of surrender".
Don Westfall, biotech industry consultant and vice-president of Promar International
Toronto Star, 9 January 2001

"The real strategy is to introduce so much genetic pollution that meeting the consumer demand for GM-free food is seen as not possible. The idea, quite simply, is to pollute faster than countries can legislate - then change the laws to fit the contamination.... In April, Monsanto recalled about 10% of the GM oilseed rape seeds it had distributed in Canada because of reports that the seeds had been contaminated by another modified rape-seed variety, one not approved for export. The most well-known of these cases is StarLink corn. The genetically altered crop (meant for animals and deemed unfit for humans) made its way into much of the US corn supply after the buffer zones surrounding the fields where it was grown proved wholly incapable of containing the wind-borne pollen. Aventis, which owns the StarLink patent, proposed a solution: instead of recalling the corn, why not approve its consumption for humans?....Arran Stephens, president of Nature's Path, an organic food company in British Columbia, told the New York Times earlier this month that GM material is even finding its way into organic crops. 'We have found traces in corn that has been grown organically for 10 to 15 years. There's no wall high enough to keep that stuff contained.' Indeed, there is so much genetic contamination in North American fields that a group of organic farmers is considering launching a class action suit against the biotech industry for lost revenues. ...What does all this mean to Europeans? It means that your [GM food] labels could soon be as obsolete as the scratched-out ones in our supermarkets. If contamination continues to spread in North America, and agribusiness's current push to overturn Brazil's ban on GM seeds is successful, it will become next to impossible to import non-GM soybeans....Backed by predatory intellectual property laws, agribusinesses are on their way to getting the global food supply so hopelessly cross pollinated, polluted and generally mixed up, that legislators may well be forced to throw up their hands. When we look back on this moment, munching our genetically modified health-style food, we may well remember it as the precise turning point when we lost our real food options...."
When choice becomes just a memory
Guardian, 21 June 2001

"Despite persistent concerns about genetically modified crops, they are spreading so rapidly that it has become almost impossible for consumers to avoid them, agriculture experts say.....They are even turning up where people least expect them: in countries where they are banned but a black market has developed; in food supplies where they are forbidden or shunned, like organic products; even in fields that farmers believe are completely free of genetically modified crops. The rapid adoption and proliferation means that even as scientists and others debate the safety of altering foods' genetic codes to produce cheaper and bigger supplies, a large share of the world's population has little or no choice but to consume genetically modified crops. One indication came last year when Starlink, a variety of genetically modified corn not approved for human consumption, accidentally entered the global food supply, leading to extensive food recalls in the United States and Japan over fears it could cause allergic reactions....Seed companies, farmers, processors and food makers have spent more than $1 billion in the last six months trying to eradicate Starlink. But most experts agree that will take years....while the episode helped stall the advance of genetically modified wheat, potatoes and sugar, it seems to have served as proof, over all, of biotech's inexorable spread....Some agriculture experts say that cross-pollination of biotech corn and seed corn, as well as poor and imperfect grain-handling practices, have thoroughly scrambled crops in a global food chain that for decades shipped bulk supplies of largely undifferentiated products.  Food makers around the world are finding traces of gene-altered crops in foods that were not supposed to be made with them; Midwestern farmers are complaining that wind is blowing pollen from gene-altered crops into neighboring fields planted with conventional corn. Even organic crops labeled 'G.M. Free' are testing positive for genetic modification...Some critics of biotechnology see a sinister plot at work, with the industry ignoring the implications of widespread pollen flow and perhaps even encouraging a black market in biotech crops. 'They're hoping there's enough contamination so that it's a fait accompli,' said Jeremy Rifkin, a longtime critic of biotechnology....The world's biggest biotech seed companies acknowledge that some pollen may go astray. And they acknowledge that they cannot guarantee that even the conventional seed they sell is 100 percent free of genetic modification. Agriculture, they say, is prone to mishaps."
As Biotech Crops Multiply, Consumers Get Little Choice
New York Times, 10 June 2001

"[Dale] Adolphe [of the Canadian Seed Growers Association] said it's ironic that even as public protests and opposition to GM food products seem to grow and even as new regulations and controls are put in place, the total acreage devoted to GM crops around the world is expanding. That maybe what eventually brings the debate to an end, said Adolphe. 'It's a hell of a thing to say that the way we win is don't give the consumer a choice, but that might be it.'"
Biotech Wins by Giving Consumer No Choice
The Western Producer, 4 April 2002

"The industry is in reality making serious efforts, whether legally or illegally, to contaminate the cultivated species all over the world. From Canada to New Zealand, and from Greenland to Cape Horn, the industry is busy in spreading genetic pollution....once genetic contamination reaches a 'significant' level, the world will be left with no other choice but to accept the sad reality. Genetically engineered crops will then be pushed with impunity. The great genetic scandal is only beginning to unfold."
Devinder Sharma - The Great Genetic Scandal
Center For Alternative Agricultural Media, 1 August 2002

"Global incidents of genetic contamination from genetically modified (GM) crops are on the rise, while the companies responsible ignore the consequences. Our activists have highlighted this growing problem by protesting shipments of illegal GM-rice varieties entering Europe from the US. Genetic contamination occurs when experimental or unapproved GM crops are mixed with staple food crops. The 'GM Contamination Register Report 2007', details 39 new instances of GM contamination in 23 countries over the past year. Most of the contamination involved such staple crops as rice and maize, but also included soya, cotton, canola, papaya and fish. Since 2005, the GM Contamination Register has recorded 216 contamination events in 57 countries since GM crops were first grown commercially on a large scale in 1996. While companies claim they can control the use of GM crops, the reality is very different."
Biotech companies fuel GM contamination spread
Greenpeace International, 29 February 2008

"The consequences of contamination between GM crops and non-GM varieties will be much more serious with the next generation of GM crops, an influential group of US scientists has warned. Mixing between GM and non-GM varieties has already caused serious economic losses for producers in lost sales and exports. But the consequences of mixing will be much more serious with new crops that are altered to produce pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals, the scientists argue....Prof Paul Gepts, a plant geneticist at the University of California, Davis, said past experience suggests that 'contamination' events cannot be avoided. 'Gene flow is really a regular occurrence among plants. So if you put a gene out there it's going to escape. It's going to go to other varieties of the same crop or to its wild relatives,' he said. 'It's clear that zero contamination is impossible at present.' There have been a handful of examples in the US and elsewhere of genes from GM varieties not cleared for human consumption getting into nearby food crops and hence the human food chain. This has led to major economic losses for producers in lost sales, exports and clean-up costs, but there have been no proven cases of damage to human health. 'With the products we are talking about, there's the potential for that to be much more serious than what we have seen so far,' said Prof Robert Wisner at Iowa State University. According to Gepts, most of the ideas for keeping crops apart are inadequate, because pollen and seed are carried on the wind, by animals and birds and on farm machinery."
Consequences of GM crop contamination 'are set to worsen'
Guardian, 18 February 2008

September 2008 - GMOs By Stealth Continues

"Trial sowings of a new variety of oilseed rape in Scotland have been found to contain small amounts of unauthorised GM material....Plants on the three trial plots - two in Aberdeenshire and one near Arbroath in Angus - will be destroyed....Environment Minister Michael Russell said: 'Had these plants been allowed to mature, the risk to the environment could have been very serious. However, prompt action by the Scottish Government is ensuring that the situation is remedied. This further emphasises the continuing need for rigorous controls on GM material and for Scotland to remain a GM crop-free zone.' He added that steps were being undertaken to understand how this had happened and to ensure that it does not happen again. No GM crops can be grown in Europe without specific authorisation. In this case, a seed sample of a conventional oilseed rape variety was found to contain small amounts of GM material."
'Unauthorised' release of GM seed
BBC Online, 12 September 2008

It's Time To Fight Back Against This De Facto Compulsory Consumption Of GM Foods

Just The Beginning?
Will California Eventually Follow Trans Fat Ban With GM Food Ban?

"I am very pleased that my office, working with the stakeholders on both sides of this historically divisive issue, was able to find common ground and pass California's first legislation on genetic engineered crops. While there is still work to be done on other aspects of genetic engineering, AB 541 is an important step in establishing basic protections for California's farmers."
California Assembly Member Huffman
Genetic Engineering Policy Project, 31 August 2008

A GM Crop Ban Is Perfectly Reasonable
Because There Are Better Biotechnologies Than GM Which Have Lower Risk Profiles That Are Acceptable To The Public

"GM is only one easily recognised byproduct of genetic research. The quiet revolution is happening in gene mapping ['genomics'], helping us understand crops better. That is up and running and could have a far greater impact on agriculture.... There really are no downsides, particularly in terms of public perception... [By contrast in the case of GMOs] there are public perception problems and the technology itself is still not optimised, with antibiotic and herbicide resistance genes still needed and bits of bacterial DNA hanging about. Whether that poses any danger is debatable, but it is not desirable."
Professor John Snape, John Innes Centre
'Gene mapping the friendly face of GM technology'
Farmers Weekly, 1 March 2002, p54

".... many agbiotech methods have nothing to do with gene transfer ('genetic engineering') but are more akin to the kinds of DNA fingerprinting that are now in such common use in forensic science and medical diagnostics. Even today, by far the most effective use of agbiotech, and one with which I have been involved in Southeast Asia, is MAS, or marker-assisted selection. Here, molecular markers and other high-tech tools are used to speed up and widen the scope of crop breeding around the world but no GM methods are involved."
Denis J Murphy, Professor of Biotechnology at the University of Glamorgan, Wales
Agricultural Biotechnology: Monster, Marvel, or just Misunderstood?
Public Service Review - Devolved Government, November 2006

"Genetically modified crops will not solve the current food crisis, according to Martin Taylor, chairman of GM giant Syngenta, who admitted it would take 20 years to launch GM crop varieties designed to address the problems of the developing world...... His words appear to contradict statements from UK politicians, industry bodies and the European Commission that GM technology should be considered as a way to address chronic shortages and soaring prices of basic staples across the world.... Earlier this year, a major report from UN experts said there was little role for GM, as it is currently practised, in feeding the poor on a large scale.... "
GM will not solve current food crisis, says industry boss
Guardian, 27 June 2008

"In 2006, the pro-GM US Department of Agriculture observed that 'currently available GM crops do not increase yield potential' – a point already made by a 2004 UN Food and Agriculture Organisation report which acknowledged that 'GM crops can have reduced yields'. The recently published UN IAASTD report, the work of more than 400 international scientists, about the future of global food production under the challenges of climate change and population pressure, concluded that GM crops do not have much to offer."
Don't believe the GM apologists
Independent, 21 August 2008

So It's Time For The World To Go GM-Free

"Scottish Ministers are putting mounting pressure on the UK government to end its support for GM crops now that Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have all agreed to become GM-free. In the wake of the latest GM crop contamination revealed on Friday, the Scottish environment minister, Michael Russell, is urging Whitehall to alter its stance to take account of the strong opposition to genetically modified crops in all the devolved administrations.His call has been welcomed by anti-GM groups, though they argue he should go further. The GM concordat agreed by the devolved administrations just before the last Scottish election should now be renegotiated, they say. At a conference in Dublin last week, the agriculture ministers of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland both declared that they wanted their countries to be GM-free. This follows similar commitments from the Scottish and Welsh governments. 'I'm very encouraged by the strong all-Ireland stance that is being taken, and it chimes perfectly with our stance and that of Wales,' Russell told the Sunday Herald. 'The political dynamic of the GM debate in these islands has changed profoundly over the last year and it is time that the UK government woke up to the fact.'"
Scotland urges UK-wide ban on GM crops
Sunday Herald, 14 September 2008

"When the tipping point of consumer rejection was reached in Europe in 1999, within a single week, virtually all major food companies committed to remove GMOs. The European tipping point was achieved within 10 weeks of the lifting of Dr. Pusztai’s gag order. More than 750 articles were written, which propelled the issue into the mainstream awareness. People were concerned about the health effects, and using GM ingredients became a liability.... Unlike in Europe, the mainstream press has not covered the GM issue in the US. Thus, if you ask the average American 'have you ever eaten genetically modified foods?,' 60% say no, 15% say I don’t know. The success of the GM food industry in the US is based on consumer ignorance. The number of people needed in the US to create a European-style tipping point is probably very low. If even 5 percent of the U.S. population rejected GM brands, it should be more than enough to reach this Tipping Point, since that represents an enormous loss in revenue for food companies. Whatever the magic percentage is, there are certainly far more people in the US who would buy non-GMO products if given a choice. In fact, a 2008 survey by CBS and the New York Times showed that 53 percent of Americans would avoid GMOs if they were labeled. The Institute for Responsible Technology and a coalition of organizations launched the Campaign for Healthier Eating in America, which is designed to hit the US tipping point by the end of 2009. They are bringing the message that 'Healthy eating starts with no GMOs' and providing clear non-GMO choices through a Non-GMO Shopping Guide (Fall, 2008).... We are already seeing a tipping point against Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone, called rBGH or rBST. In 2006, newspapers called it a tipping point or explosion in the industry. Since then, Wal-Mart, Kroger, Starbucks, and about 40 of the top 100 dairies so far have removed it from their milk or dairy products. We see the same thing happening soon with GM ingredients across the board."
From note accompanying Powerpoint Presentation
Seeds of Deception, July 2008

'The World According To Monsanto'
The Documentary Most Americans Will Likely Never See

"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the F.D.A's [Food and Drug Administration] job."
Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications
New York Times, October 25, 1998

"This letter is a response to the piece by Mick Willoughby in the June issue [of CLA Land & Business magazine], which in my view was full of unsupported assertions and bullet points dressed up as facts. Those presumably came directly from the Monsanto Corporation, passed on to Mr Willoughby during his visit to their St Louis headquarters. He should not believe everything he is told, and he might find it educational to view the recent French film The World According To Monsanto which carefully documents the corporation's methods of conducting science and doing business. I found it terrifying.... There is a 'revolving door' between the GM industry and the state-funded bodies that are supposed to regulate its activities and protect the public. Most of the approvals for GM crops are based on 'advocacy science' provided by the GM companies and protected from public scrutiny."
'Star Letter' - Why The Genes Don't Fit - Jim Bowen
Country Land & Business Association (England and Wales), Land & Business Magazine, July 2008

What Is 'Advocacy Science'? - Click Here

'The World According To Monsanto' March 2008 Franco-German TV Channel ARTE Documentary To view English language internet version of this extraordinary 109 minute exposé on YouTube Click Here (or if it gets taken down just Google 'World According To Monsanto' to find it elsewhere) European Format DVD is also available for purchase in English Click Here Interview with programme maker Marie-Monique Robin - Click Here

View Documentary Broadcast Excerpts On Line - Click Here

American Format DVD Now Available For Purchase In USA Click Here "Monsanto's controversial past combines some of the most toxic products ever sold with misleading reports, pressure tactics, collusion, and attempted corruption. They now race to genetically engineer (and patent) the world's food supply, which profoundly threatens our health, environment, and economy. Combining secret documents with first-hand accounts by victims, scientists, and politicians, this widely praised film exposes why Monsanto has become the world's poster child for malignant corporate influence in government and technology. 109 minutes" www.seedsofdeception.com "With the exception of commercial (for-profit) showings in theaters  and post secondary institutions (colleges and universities), permission is granted for individuals and groups to show home DVD of The World According to Monsanto in public, whether a fee is charged or not.  Please view the Detailed Policy. Inform others! Organize a public showing or house party. Download the Monsanto Film Showing Guide to help you with organizing, and channeling audience enthusiasm into effective community action." www.seedsofdeception.com

"French journalist Marie-Monique Robin takes a scattershot approach in her exposé of Monsanto, an American multinational chemical and biotechnology company responsible for some of the most toxic and environmentally damaging products ever sold. Monsanto's list of accomplishments includes production of Agent Orange, PCBs, recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone and genetically modified crops such as Roundup Ready soybeans ....One of her interviewees, author and activist Jeremy Rifkin, talks about how 'we were trying to say these things [GMOs] should be considered food additives.' They weren't. In a 1987 film clip, then vice-president George Bush is seen touring a Monsanto bioengineering lab. Should Monsanto encounter any difficulties in winning approvals for its products, he tells his hosts, they can 'call me. We're in the de-reg business.' Nothing was to get in the way of the United States becoming a world leader in biotechnology. ..... the film documents the passage of numerous Monsanto executives back and forth between the corporation and U.S. regulating agencies. The documentary visits scientists in Britain and Canada who mysteriously lose their jobs after making findings injurious to Monsanto. The company is shown to have falsified scientific findings....Now that The World According to Monsanto, which aired on European television this year, is available in English, it might reach the American public. But the likelihood is that this company will continue to do what it has always done: exactly what it wants."
The World According to Monsanto: A toxic tour
Toronto Star, 1 August 2008

GMOs And Junk Food Lawsuits

"... there is no doubt about one thing - America is the world's leading consumer of 'junk food'. The impact on levels of domestic obesity and general ill-health is proving devastating. As a result the US junk food sector is now following the tobacco industry in trying to take action to evade what could become an unprecedented wave of lawsuits. Such a risk now emanates from the large numbers of US consumers who have had their health damaged through the over consumption of highly processed industrialised food products..... Based on profoundly junk science GMOs are the ultimate junk food - the denaturing of food using this technology begins at the absolute source even before the seed for the food is planted in the ground. As with tobacco and other forms of junk food, it is likely to be decades before the science concerning the effects of GMOs on human health catches up with consumption. But when it does the claims are likely to be on an altogether larger scale. Apart from the uniquely radical nature of the technology, there is a particular legal reason for this. With tobacco and Coca-Cola US consumers know that they are consuming it and they do so voluntarily for the most part. With GMOs the fact that US citizens are consuming them is not disclosed. They consume them with neither knowledge nor consent.  Aided and abetted by a continuous stream of corporate sponsored American governments - both Republican and Democrat - this policy of non-disclosure is conscious and deliberate.  Just like the Enron scandal, a large part of the impending GM debacle is going to hinge around the issue of non-disclosure..... In the meantime there is already plenty of evidence of harm for the lawyers to be getting stuck into with the more traditional junk foods (see press excerpts below), even though it took decades for this evidence to surface. In addition the willingness of American consumers to sue over the application of new technology is demonstrated by the announcement earlier this month that Vodafone is now subject to a $1 billion claim by mobile phone users in the US who have suffered brain cancer. Vodafone says there is no evidence of a connection between these instances of disease and the use of their technology. Nonetheless, the announcement awkwardly coincides with the publication of new research which has reignited the debate on potential causal links. Unlike GMOs, however, mobile phones have never been introduced on the basis of de facto compulsory consumption. "
America's Looming Food Crisis
NLPWessex, 25 June 2002

Overview
'This Is Sure Different'

Where Is The Food Wisdom?

"In the impoverished neighborhood of South Los Angeles, fast food is the easiest cuisine to find — and that's a problem for elected officials who see it as an unhealthy source of calories and cholesterol. The City Council was poised to vote Tuesday on a moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in a swath of the city where a proliferation of such eateries goes hand-in-hand with obesity. 'Our communities have an extreme shortage of quality foods,' City Councilman Bernard Parks said."
Los Angeles wants to take bite out of fast food
Associated Press, 29 July 2008

It Takes Thousands Of Deaths To Deliver Some Belated Wisdom

"'It is our responsibility to the residents of the Commonwealth to remove this poison from the food supply,' state [Massachusetts] Representative Peter J. Koutoujian, cochairman of the Legislature's Joint Committee on Public Health, wrote to Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach yesterday. In his letter, Koutoujian cites a Harvard School of Public Health study estimating that a statewide ban on trans fats could prevent 1 in 4 heart attacks and 1,400 deaths per year in Massachusetts."
Bid to ban trans fat statewide gets a boost
Boston Globe, 21 August 2008

"An analysis of the health effects of industrial trans fats conducted by researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health Department of Nutrition indicates that eliminating trans fats from the U.S. food supply could prevent up to 1 in 5 heart attacks and related deaths. That would mean a quarter of a million fewer heart attacks and related deaths each year in the United States alone."
Shining the Spotlight on Trans Fats
Harvard School of Public Health Nutrition Source, 2008

"First cigarettes, now flaky pastry: Arnold Schwarzenegger is being asked to train his sights on another health hazard by outlawing the use of trans fats from all restaurants in California. There is rising concern that trans fats - a key ingredient in food such as margarine, biscuits, crisps and other snacks - poses a public health crisis on the scale of smoking. Although there is a general scientific consensus that trans fats clogs arteries, other less conclusive studies have claimed links between the ingredient and cancer, diabetes, obesity, liver dysfunction and infertility. If the California Governor signs off a law to ban trans fats, it could result in the ingredient disappearing from all American food. The ban would be the biggest of its kind in the United States and force all restaurants and bakeries in California to remove trans fats from non-baked products by July 1 next year and from baked products by July 1, 2010."
Arnold Schwarzenegger to attack fast food
London Times, 16 July 2008

So With GMOs Now Already On The Menu What Has The US Learnt From The Trans Fat Experience?
Zero GM Labelling,  Zero GM Monitoring - God Bless America!
Meanwhile Any Adverse Health Effects From GM Foods Which Don't Immediately Cause 'A Monumental Disaster'
Will Likely Not Be Detected For Decades

".... if the industry wants public support, it can no longer dismiss public concerns about the risks of GM crops—health risks for humans but also the ecological risk that GM crops will escape farms and contaminate the wilderness..... Human health risks are even less clear-cut. Though we've yet to see credible reports of GM foods causing human health problems, we've also not had the benefit of credible long-term health studies. Until such studies have been completed, the GM industry needs to stop regarding a skeptical public as a nuisance."
Food Fight
Slate, 8 August 2008

"Monsanto repeatedly states that GE products are reviewed by regulatory agencies. Understanding these agencies role is central to understanding the issue of liability. The biggest misperception about GE crops is that the FDA has tested these plants and declared them safe. What the FDA has done is approved GE crop commercialization based on Monsanto's assurance that the products are safe..... As the world’s leading producer of GE crops Monsanto faces unique risks; these risks require a detailed assessment by senior management and the reporting of that assessment to shareholders....the company’s nominal acknowledgement of GE crop contamination in the face of ever growing scientific and governmental warnings on this issue – show that management is either unprepared for these market changes or did not divulge major risks and strategy changes to investors."
Issue Brief - Monsanto Fails To Identify Risks To Investors
ProxyInformation.com, 2005

"Biotechnology companies can market genetically engineered (GE) foods without notifying the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or obtaining its approval, thanks to regulatory gaps in a system that consumer and environmental groups today asked Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson to fix.... HHS could begin fixing that system, the groups say, by finalizing a rule stalled at the FDA for more than a year. The period for public comment on the rule ended a year ago today. The proposed rule would require premarket notification of bioengineered foods. And while the rule would not require government approval for GE foods, consumer groups say the rule would be a small step in the right direction.... Currently, the FDA only reviews safety data on biotech crops provided by seed companies on a voluntary basis.... 'The public shouldn’t have to rely entirely on the word of a big biotech company when it comes to the safety of food,' [said Gregory Jaffe, director of CSPI’s biotechnology project] 'But under the current rules, companies can bypass the FDA with impunity.'..."
REGULATORY GAP MEANS GE FOODS ARRIVE ON THE MARKET WITHOUT FDA
APPROVAL AND POSSIBLY WITHOUT NOTICE
CSPI Press Release, 3 May 2002

Growth Of Cows Not Affected By Monsanto's GM Soya But Growth Of Rats Were
So What About Humans?

"Despite consumer pleas, the Food and Drug Administration has declined since 1992 to require that genetically modified food seeds be proved safe for consumption before their release into the food supply. Nor does the FDA require ingredient labels for genetically modified foods.  Instead, the agency encourages producers to voluntarily submit safety data. Its rationale is that genetically modified foods are substantially equivalent to their conventionally grown counterparts. In other words, food is food, and according to food and drug law, foods are presumed safe. The flaw in this policy is that the presumption of equivalence does not rest on a substantial body of research comparing genetically modified and conventional foods. Far from being confirmed by extensive research, this presumption is challenged even by the producers themselves, notably in a study that Monsanto conducted on one of its biotech foods. Rather than prove safety, this study raised red flags that should have prompted researchers and the FDA to call for more testing.....According to the FDA’s 1992 policy, Monsanto was not required by law to prove the safety of its beans to the FDA before marketing Roundup Ready soybeans. This regulatory effect must be corrected. Toward that end, legislation compelling the FDA to require premarket proof of safety for all genetically modified food seeds should be passed. Monsanto did turn over a study to the FDA in 1994. Eventually published by the Journal of Nutrition in March 1996, the study claimed to prove that Roundup-tolerant soybean seeds are equivalent to conventional ones. But combined data from the study’s three experiments showed significant differences in fat, carbohydrates, ash and some fatty acids. Also, the brain-boosting vitamin choline was 29% lower in Roundup Ready lecithin, which is commonly used as a source of choline...... Allergic reactions are most commonly triggered by undigested proteins. One table in Monsanto’s study shows that, relative to conventional soy meal, raw Roundup Ready soy meal contained 27% more trypsin inhibitor, a potential allergen that interferes with protein digestion and has been associated with enlarged cells in rat pancreases. This important measurement was camouflaged in a table on unrelated information. Because its policy does not require premarket proof of safety or equivalence for genetically modified food, the FDA had little basis for rejecting the study’s results. Perhaps more important, the FDA did not see all the data, specifically, that from Experiment 1, the first of the study’s three experiments. According to FDA representatives, the agency did not ask to see the data....What did the omitted data show? Significantly lower levels of protein and one fatty acid in Roundup Ready soybeans. Significantly lower levels of phenylalanine, an essential amino acid that can potentially affect levels of key estrogen-boosting phytoestrogens, for which soy products are often prescribed and consumed. And higher levels of the allergen trypsin inhibitor in toasted Roundup Ready soy meal than in the control group of soy. Even more unsettling was one measurement of trypsin inhibitor in toasted Roundup Ready soy meal that exceeded what the authors reported as the highest levels measured for soybeans by other researchers. After a second toasting, the levels of another allergen, called lectin, in Roundup Ready soy meal, were nearly double those in conventional beans. Monsanto also conducted a study of the effects of consuming its genetically modified beans, which was also presented to the FDA. Besides possible allergic reactions, what might be expected from consuming higher levels of trypsin-inhibitor and lectin? Slower, or lower, growth, for starters. That is what happened to male rats fed unprocessed meal from Roundup Ready soybeans. Compared with controls, cumulative body weight gains were significantly lower in male rats fed Roundup Ready soy. Although the growth of dairy cattle was not affected, higher levels of fat were measured in the milk of cows fed Roundup Ready soy meal. These analyses did not reveal all the differences between Roundup Ready and conventional beans. In May 2000, Monsanto reported to the FDA the discovery of a genetic surprise package in its soybeans. When company scientists spliced the Roundup-tolerant gene into the bean, they accidentally threw in two extra gene fragments. Not to worry, according to Monsanto representatives: The gene fragments were contained in the Roundup Ready beans approved by the FDA in 1994 and have been consumed nearly worldwide ever since. But this discovery further challenges the presumption of equivalence between genetically modified and conventional foods, while undermining the contention that genetic engineering is precise or predictable. Even so, the genetic hitchhikers, like the red flags in the 1994 study, were barely mentioned in the U.S. media and did not appear to raise FDA concern. Do Monsanto’s own findings prove that Roundup Ready soy products will slow or stunt growth in animals and children, or change the fat content of milk in cows and breast-feeding mothers? Of course not. Do they prove that all Roundup Ready soy will always contain more allergens and less protein? No. But the studies do confirm that transgenic foods need rigorous testing—by someone other than the affected industries and the researchers they fund—before they’re released into the food supply. They also suggest that consumers may not be adequately protected when the FDA leaves the question of biofood safety up to the companies selling the biofoods....In drafting its 1992 policy, FDA representatives relied primarily on an opinion by FDA attorneys that food and drug law did not give the agency responsibility for labeling transgenic foods, and the relevant food and drug law has not changed. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Sen.  Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) have introduced legislation calling to alter this situation. The Genetically Engineered Food Safety Act, co-authored by Kucinich, provides for mandatory safety testing of genetically modified foods before they are released into the food supply."
BIOTECH: SOME FOOD FOR FDA REGULATION
Los Angeles Times, 7 January 2001

Coincidence Or Consequence?

"Fresh fears over the safety of genetically modified foods surfaced faced yesterday after new research revealed that food allergies relating to soya increased by 50 per cent last year. A study by Europe's leading specialists on food sensitivity found health complaints caused by soya - the ingredient most associated with GM foods - have increased from 10 in 100 patients to 15 in 100 over the past year. Researchers at the York Nutritional Laboratory said their findings provide real evidence that GM food could have a tangible, harmful impact on the human body. The findings were sent to Health Secretary Frank Dobson last night as scientists urged the Government to act on the information and impose an instant ban on GM food, while further safety tests are carried out. Dr Michael Antoniou, senior lecturer in molecular pathology at Guy's Hospital, Central London,, said: 'This is a very interesting if slightly worrying, development. It points to the fact that far more work is needed to assess their safety. At the moment no allergy tests are carried out before GM foods are marketed and that also needs to be looked at.' John Graham, spokesman for the York laboratory, said: 'We believe this raises serious new questions about the safety of GM foods because it is impossible to guarantee that the soya used in the tests was GM-free.' It is the first time in 17 years of testing that soya has crept into the laboratory's top 10 foods to cause an allergic reaction in consumers. The vegetable has moved up four places to ninth end now sits alongside foodstuffs with a long history of causing allergies, such as yeast, sunflower seeds and nuts. Mr. Graham said researchers tested 4,500 people for allergic reactions to vegetables including soya. Among the range of chronic illnesses it caused were irritable bowel syndrome, digestiontion problems and skin complaints including acne and eczema. 'People also suffered neurological problems with chronic fatigue syndrome, headaches and lethargy. It is worrying,' Mr Graham added. Researchers measured the levels of antibodies in a person's blood. If increased levels were detected it showed the person suffered an adverse reaction to a particular food. Soya, the wonder crop of the 20th century is found in 60 per cent of all processed foods sold in the UK - from bread to baby food, ready-to-eat curries to vegetarian lasagne. But because GM and natural soya are mixed at source in America - the world's biggest supplier - it has become increasingly difficult for retailers to guarantee the purity of any products."
Soy Allergies Up Along With GMOs
Daily Express, 12 March 1999

Incredibly Only One Scientific Study On The Direct Impact Of GM Foods On Humans Has Ever Been Published
It Was On The World's Largest GM Crop (Monsanto's Roundup Ready Soya) Long After It Had Been Approved For Commercial Use
The Study Found Unexpected Effects And Britain's Food Standards Agency Tried To Cover It Up

"The only published trial of GM foods on humans was carried out by Newcastle University [in the UK] for the Food Standards Agency, and published in 2004. It was designed to study what happens to transgenic DNA in the human gut and whether it could pass out and enter bacteria in the body, a long-standing concern. It found that .... portions of transgenic DNA had ‘horizontally’ transferred from GM food into the intestinal bacteria of some of the volunteers, which was a shocking discovery with implications for the long-term impacts of GM consumption. Just as shocking, however, was the fact that at the time the FSA chose not to mention this key finding in its communications on the study, thus widely giving the impression that horizontal gene transfer had not been identified in the study."
GM Crops - The Health Effects
Soil Association, February 2008

"Why don't we require a pharmaceutical type analysis of the safety of these foods with proper trials? At its last meeting, MISC6 [the Cabinet sub-committee on biotechnology] requested a paper by the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Advisor on human health implications of GM foods. Will we publish this when it is ready (about April) and use it as a means to explain that GM foods on the market are safe? What if it shows up any doubts? What can we do? We will be pressured to ban them immediately. What if it says that we need evidence of long term effects? This will look like we are not sure about their safety ..."
Jack Cunningham, UK cabinet minister with overall responsibility for biotechnology,
raising a variety of issues in relation to GM crops and food in a leaked internal memo to one of his civil servants, February 1999
Guardian, 3 March 1999

"I was recently on a TV talk show where I debated the safety of genetically modified food with someone representing the Food Technology Association. I began with a brief statement on the hazards of rBGH, the synthetic bovine-growth hormone that is now present in nearly all U.S. dairy products. I described how, in 1989, someone dropped off at my office a batch of documents that had been stolen from the Food and Drug Administration’s files on Monsanto, the company that manufactures rBGH. Included was a Monsanto document from 1987 indicating that the company was fully aware of rBGH’s danger and was conspiring with the FDA to suppress information critical to veterinary and public health. The industry representative responded: 'We’ve researched this question of genetically modified foods very closely, and you don’t think we’d sell any product that would be harmful, do you? We’d be shooting ourselves in the foot. We’ve done every conceivable study, and we’re convinced it’s perfectly safe.' I said, 'I hate to be direct, but can you cite me a single study that Monsanto, or anybody else in the industry, has published documenting what questions they’ve asked, what tests they’ve done, and what are the results of those tests?' She hemmed and hawed, saying, 'You can’t expect us to publish every study,' and finally admitted that, no, she couldn’t cite a single study. Basically, she was saying, 'Trust us.'   In spite of clear evidence that Monsanto and the FDA have suppressed and manipulated information on genetically modified milk since the 1980s, in 1994 they introduced a new technology into the market, about which they have published minimal information, particularly in regard to cancer risks for which there is well-documented, independent scientific evidence. I see no difference between these groups and the tobacco industry, which gave us these same assurances for decades."
Dr Samuel Epstein, Professor Emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, University of Illinois School of Public Health, Chicago
The Sun Magazine, Issue 291, March 2000

Unintended Effects
How Monsanto's Genetic Engineering Disrupted The Functioning Of The Soya Genome
Bad News For Farmers - But What Are The Associated Health Implications For Consumers?

"Yields were suppressed  with GR [Glyphosate Resistant GM] soybean cultivars.....The work  reported here demonstrates that a 5% yield suppression was related to the gene or its insertion process [yield 'drag'] and another 5% suppression was due to cultivar genetic differential [yield 'lag']. Producers should consider the potential for 5-10% yield differentials between GR and non-GR cultivars as they evaluate the overall profitability of producing soybean.....Based on our results from this study and those of Elmore et al., 2001, the yield suppression appears associated with the GR gene or its insertion process rather than glyphosate itself."
Elmore et al, Glyphosate-Resistant Soybean Cultivar Yields Compared with Sister Lines
Agronomy Journal 2001, Vol 93, Issue 2: 408-412 (2001)

Tired Of 'Junk Decisions' From The Federal Government In Washington?

"Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard University School of Public Health, praised New York health officials for considering a ban, which he said could save lives. 'Artificial trans fats are very toxic, and they almost surely causes tens of thousands of premature deaths each year,' he said. 'The federal government should have done this long ago.'"
NYC Health Department Proposes Ban on Trans Fats
Associated Press, 27 September 2006

"In recent months the major food companies have been trying hard to convince Americans that they feel the pain of our expanding waistlines, especially when it comes to kids. Kraft announced it would no longer market Oreos to younger children, McDonald's promoted itself as a salad producer and Coca-Cola said it won't advertise to kids under 12. But behind the scenes it's hardball as usual, with the junk food giants pushing the Bush Administration to defend their interests. The recent conflict over what America eats, and the way the government promotes food, is a disturbing example of how in Bush's America corporate interests trump public health, public opinion and plain old common sense....Not a lot of subtlety is required to understand what's driving Administration policy. It's large infusions of cash. In 2004 'Rangers,' who bundled at least $200,000 each to the Bush/Cheney campaign, included Barclay Resler, vice president for government and public affairs at Coca-Cola; Robert Leebern Jr., president of federal affairs at Troutman Sanders PAG, lobbyist for Coca-Cola; Richard Hohlt of Hohlt & Co., lobbyist for Altria, which owns about 85 percent of Kraft foods; and José 'Pepe' Fanjul, president, vice chairman and COO of Florida Crystals Corp., one of the nation's major sugar producers. Hundred-thousand-dollar men include Kirk Blalock and Marc Lampkin, both Coke lobbyists, and Joe Weller, chairman and CEO, Nestle USA. Altria also gave $250,000 to Bush's inauguration this year, and Coke and Pepsi gave $100,000 each. These gifts are in addition to substantial sums given during the 2000 campaign. For their money, the industry has been able to buy into a strategy on obesity and food marketing that mirrors the approach taken by Big Tobacco. That's hardly a surprise, given that some of the same companies and personnel are involved: Junk food giants Kraft and Nabisco are both majority-owned by tobacco producer Philip Morris, now renamed Altria. Similarity number one is the denial that the problem (obesity) is caused by the product (junk food). Instead, lack of exercise is fingered as the culprit, which is why McDonald's, Pepsi, Coke and others have been handing out pedometers, funding fitness centers and prodding kids to move around."
Junk Food Nation
The Nation, 11 August 2005

"And certainly when I became Secretary [of Agriculture], given the fact that I was in charge of the department regulating agriculture, I had a lot of pressure on me, not to push the [GM] issue too far, so to speak. But I would say that even when I opened my mouth in the Clinton admininistration I got slapped around a little bit by not only the industry, but also some of the people even in the administration. In fact I made a speech once saying that we needed to more thoughtfully think through the regulatory issues on GMOs and I had some people within the Clinton administration, particularly in the US trade area - they were very upset with me. They said 'How could you, in Agriculture, be questioning our regulatory regime?'."
Dan Glickman, former US Secretary of Agricuture
The World According To Monsanto
ARTE Documentary (YouTube), 11 March 2008

And In London?

"Lord Sainsbury, the supermarket billionaire and science minister, yesterday said he did not own the patent rights of the gene used in the research which has highlighted the potential risks to human health of genetically modified food. But he accepted that he does own the rights to a genetic enhancer that, according to patent application papers, was developed to act as a booster to the key gene used in GM food technology.... Diatech, the biotechnology company which Lord Sainsbury put into a blind trust last year, submitted a 60-page patent application in June 1987 describing a genetic sequence taken from the tobacco mosaic virus. The application looked at how this genetic sequence could enhance the development of protein in a genetically modified organism. During research leading up to the application, the gene sequence was attached to the cauliflower mosaic virus promoter to act as a booster to Monsanto's promoter, which is used in most GM foods available worldwide and found in an estimated 60 per cent of processed foodstuffs available in British supermarkets."
Key GM gene is owned by Monsanto
Guardian, 17 February 1999

"The Science Minister Lord Sainsbury was plunged into fresh controversy last night after it emerged that the government funding body he controls has given more than £1m to the Sainsbury Laboratory to finance research into genetically modified food. The Observer has learned that since July 1998, when Sainsbury became a Minister, the Sainsbury Laboratory has been awarded six government grants worth £1.1m by the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council. The council comes under the umbrella of the Office of Science and Technology, which answers to the Science Minister. Lord Sainsbury founded the laboratory to research plant genetics in 1987. It receives money from the Department of Trade and Industry and £2m a year from Sainsbury's charitable Gatsby Trust. The revelations that significant amounts of taxpayer's money are being channelled into GM research at a laboratory created by the Minister will lead to further calls for his resignation. Sainsbury's statement that he has given a further £2m to the Labour Party reignited concerns last week that he was buying favours from the Government.... The Observer has learned that the Sainsbury Laboratory is linked to the controversial genetic modification process at the centre of the research carried out by Dr Arpad Putszai in Scotland. Last year Pusztai suggested that rats fed with potatoes with an insecticide gene derived from snowdrops suffered damage to their internal organs and immune systems. Pusztai was later sacked and his research was dismissed by the Government and other scientists. In February Sainsbury angrily dismissed claims he owned the key gene involved in Pustzai's research. It has now emerged that Dr Iain Cubitt, a director of the Sainsbury Laboratory, ran Prestax, the biotech firm which owned the patent in the 1990s but sold it recently. Sainsbury also has links with Cubitt through the BioIndustry Association, the lobbying group for the GM industry in Britain. Diatech, the GM firm once owned by Sainsbury and now in his blind trust, is a member of the association. When Sainsbury went to the US to research a report into biotechnology, recently, he was accompanied by members of the BioIndustry Association. The DTI helped fund the association's costs."
Storm over £1m GM grants to Minister's lab
Observer, 12 September 1999

"Lord Sainsbury gave £2 million to the Labour Party in 1996, £1 million in 1997 ..... Lord Sainsbury was given his peerage in 1997 and made Government Minister for Science in 1998, at which point he resigned as Chairman of the Sainsbury's supermarket chain. He put his £1.3 billion worth of shares (a 13% stake in Sainsbury's) into a 'blind trust' run by Judith Portrait of Portrait Solicitors (who have been solicitors for Sainsbury's since 1988). During his six years as Chairman of Sainbury's, he championed Genetically Modified (GM) food, although since his resignation the company has dropped GM food completely. He owns 2 genetics companies, Diatech and Innotech Investments (his shares in these companies were also put into a 'blind trust' when he became a minister). He backed the study of Genetically Modified organisms (GMO) through his Gatsby Charitable Foundation (Judith Portrait is a trustee), set up in 1987 and which gives £2 million a year to the [plant genetics] Sainsbury Laboratory/John Innes Institute in Norwich."
LABOUR'S BUSINESS BACKERS: ARE THEY ETHICAL?
Friends of The Earth, Press Release 4 June 2001

"In July 2002, the [UK] Government announced that it would have a broad public debate on the future of GM crops and food in the UK which was called 'GM Nation?'.... The results of this public debate were intended to be taken into account in the decision-making by the Government for any future GM policy.... GeneWatch believes that these findings of the 'GM Nation?' debate are robust and represent a valid and useful body of information to inform policy making. Importantly, they largely reflect the findings of other studies on public attitudes. Whilst it makes uncomfortable reading for government and the biotechnology industry, there is little to be gained from ignoring its findings..... The public's rejection of commercialisation was discounted and any potential public benefits from biotechnology left to emerge from the vagaries of the market. 'Jam tomorrow' was the message with no explanation of how this might be achieved..... Industry, like Government has to learn that in a complex area of risk driven by commercial industrial interests, 'jam tomorrow' will never make a convincing case for risks arising for no good reason today. So the Government has proved unable to deal with the scope of public questioning about the trajectory of GM technology. Whilst it had the courage to hold a public debate, it did not have the maturity to deal with the outcomes in any depth..... We advised that if the Government sought to downplay the outcomes of the public debate, this could increase public suspicion that the debate was never intended to be more than a PR exercise, and further undermine confidence in the Government and its institutions to act fairly in complex matters of assessing risks to the public and the environment.... The outcomes of the public debate, 'GM Nation?', showed that people are suspicious and sceptical about GM crops and have little confidence in Government and the agro-biotechnology industry. They do not reject the technology entirely, but want further research and demonstrated benefits. They also want to know more. The seven key messages that were communicated during this process... [included] The more people engage in GM issues, the harder their attitudes and more intense their concerns become."
Avoiding the difficult issues - GeneWatch UK report on the Government's response to the 'GM Nation?' public debate
Study funded by Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, June 2004

"The Labour Party has always been easy prey for the rich. Senior ministers are touchingly naive about the motivations of those with very large fortunes, and only too easily impressed by those prepared to write a large cheque in favour of their party. From Bernie Ecclestone to the Hindujas, Lakshmi Mittal to David Abrahams, donors and their cash have proved nothing but trouble for Labour. But one man has, since 1997, given more than any other: Lord (David) Sainsbury, former chairman of the High Street grocer, science minister for eight years under Tony Blair, and Labour donor to the tune of £16million....Lord Sainsbury is not merely another rich businessman. He is the prime example of how, under Labour, it is apparently possible for the rich to buy their way to power. Surely no one believes that he would have been made a peer and become minister for science - the one job he craved in Government - if he'd never written a single cheque to Labour? .... As a minister, Lord Sainsbury was popular with the scientific community, but he had a controversial agenda which his position in Government gave him ample opportunity to advance. He is a long-term supporter of genetic modification for crops, and before going into Government had invested substantial sums in GM companies. Although he always claimed to stand aside from discussion of GM matters, his role as science minister for eight years gave him huge influence inside and outside Government to advance the GM cause. Of course, he claimed that when he went into his ministerial job, he placed his assets - including those in GM firms - in a so-called blind trust, administered by a solicitor, and had no control over them. But since he knew quite well what assets he had placed in the trust in the first place, it wasn't in fact in the least bit blind. That claim was just a polite fiction, which protected him from accusations of profiting from his position, while allowing the profits from his shareholdings to continue to accumulate."
How ripe! Labour's rich friends want US to pay higher taxes which THEY then do their best to avoid
Daily Mail, 2 April 2008

Gordon Brown Sympathetic Towards GM Crops To 'Feed The World'
Or Sympathetic Towards Getting New Labour Out Of Debt?

"Ministers are preparing to open the way for genetically modified crops to be grown in Britain on the grounds they could help combat the global food crisis.... Last night, the Environment minister Phil Woolas held preliminary talks with the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, an umbrella group formed in 2000 to promote the role of biotechnology in agriculture. It is run by representatives from the companies Monsanto, Bayer CropSciences, BASF, Dow AgroSciences, Pioneer (DuPont), and Syngenta.....[Ministers] want the new debate to focus on the science to avoid a re-run of the one in 2004, when the GM industry was accused of trying to bounce the Government into giving the go-ahead for purely commercial reasons. Gordon Brown is believed to be sympathetic to taking a fresh look at the issue in the light of mounting problems including 'food riots' around the world. There are no plans yet for a formal cabinet decision but government sources acknowledge the issue is rising up the agenda. 'Enough time has elapsed since the 2004 decision,' one said."
GM crops needed in Britain, says minister
Independent, 19 June 2008

"Labour has pulled itself back from the brink of bankruptcy by restructuring its loans and persuading the bulk of its backers to give the party until 2015 to repay the money. Party officials have been locked in frantic negotiations with more than a dozen businessmen who lent Labour £15 million in the run-up to its 2005 election campaign. The loans, which were due to be repaid next year, threatened to sink the party. Officials are due to announce the new loan agreements next week.... Many of the existing lenders were embroiled in the cash-for-honours scandal. Insiders said that party officials had desperately tried to persuade the lenders to convert their loans into gifts. But only two of the tycoons — Lord Sainsbury of Turville, the supermarket heir, and Sir Gulam Noon, the curry magnate — were prepared to write off their money. Lord Sainsbury, a Labour peer, lent the party £2 million, and Sir Gulam lent £250,000."
Lenders save Labour from bankruptcy with 7 year reprieve to pay £15m
London Times, 13 August 2008

'No Doubt'

"There is no doubt that there is potential for harm, both in terms of human safety and in the diversity of our environment, from GM foods and crops... I can promise that no GM food will be put on the market here without going through the most rigorous safety assessments in the world ... "
Tony Blair, Prime Minister United Kingdom
BBC Online, 27 February 2000

".....there is no precise harmonisation of methodologies to assure the safety of transgenic food products, it being difficult to use traditional animal feeding studies for toxicological assessments. This clearly raises biosafety issues for the use of GM products in food. In vivo and in vitro validated nutritional-toxicological testing procedures are urgently required. .....".
New methods for the safety testing of transgenic food (SAFOTEST)
European Commission, Research, 2000

"Cherie Blair is worried about the safety of genetically modified food, according to the Prince of Wales. Prince Charles has told friends that the Prime Minister's wife privately shares his concerns about the health and environmental implications of GM crops. This contrasts starkly with Tony Blair's insistence that the food is safe and he would be happy for his own family to eat it. According to Royal advisers, the Prince discussed the issue with Mrs Blair when she came to Highgrove with her husband for lunch last September. The Prince refuses to eat or serve GM food and guests are always given organic vegetables from the estate. He claims Mrs Blair is also privately nervous about genetically modified food and would like to see more research done. Friends say he is delighted to have found an ally in Downing Street. The revelation of disagreement within Number 10 over such a contentious issue will be embarrassing for the Prime Minister. Mr Blair is adamant that genetically modified food is safe and has blamed 'media hysteria' for the growing public concern about the crops. He recently clashed in private with the Prince about GM food at a meeting in St James's Palace. A Downing Street spokesman said: 'We never talk about the Prime Minister's discussions with the Royal Family and neither would we about any Mrs Blair had had.' However, he stressed, 'The Blair household is not a GM- free zone.' The Prince has already put the Government in an awkward position by publicly challenging its claim that GM food is safe. Last Sunday, we revealed that he was seeking a meeting with Dr Arpad Pusztai, the scientist whose experiments first ignited the debate over GM. Following this, in an article last week Prince Charles raised serious concerns about the lack of independent scientific research."
Cherie's against GM too, says the Prince
Independent, 6 June 1999

Yet Independent Research On GM Food Safety Can Mean Career Suicide

The Pusztai Affair

The British government had funded Dr Arpad Pusztai's (above) GM potato trials to the tune of £1.6 million. It was thought, even by Pusztai himself, one of Britain's most respected nutrition scientists, that the trials would not reveal any health problems from their consumption by laboratory rats. But when they did, and Pusztai talked about it on television, the British government attacked the experiments and refused to have them repeated. The study methodology was criticised, yet peer reviewers had praised it when the initial grant application had been made. In reality it was not the methodology which had proved troublesome, but the unwelcome result it had produced. Pusztai has pointed out that GM products already on the market (such as Monsanto's GM soya) have not been through the same rigorous safety testing that he had conducted on the potatoes, and that it is not right to use the general public as 'guinea pigs' in this way. He argues for more thorough GM food safety testing of the type he conducted with the controversial potatoes. After at first congratulating him on his television interview, Pusztai was then sacked by Professor Philip James, the Director of the Rowett Research Institute, where Pusztai had worked for 36 years. Professor James had earlier been the author of the 'James' Report commissioned by Tony Blair on the structure and functions of the then proposed UK Food Standards Agency. Pusztai never got his job back, despite a glittering career up to that point (with nearly 300 published papers). However, much to the consternation of the biotech food industry, his research highlighting the damaging health effects of the GM potatoes was eventually published in the highly respected British medical journal the Lancet. It was a rare example of high level peer reviewed independent research on the health effects of GM food published in the public domain (as it happens the Lancet was also the first to publish research on health concerns about trans fats back in 1957, but it took another half century before the lethal risks posed by this other man made food became widely accepted within the scientific community). But given Pusztai's treatment, few scientists are now likely to be willing to conduct similar work for fear, in the event that it should produce the 'wrong' results, of having their careers crushed by the economic and political forces who have an interest in promoting this radical technology.

"We're assured that this is absolutely safe.... But as a scientist looking at it, actively working in the field, I find that it's very, very unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs..... If I had the choice, I would certainly not eat it till I see at least comparable experimental evidence..." Dr Arpad Pusztai World In Action, August 1998

Dr Pusztai And The Lectins

"A Scientist who shocked the world with research claiming that genetically modified (GM) crops might damage human health is to release new findings supporting his warnings... Arpad Pusztai, who lost his job at the prestigious Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen after outlining his findings in a television programme in 1998, will publish the new research this week. It warns that the work carried out by biotechnology companies into the human health hazard from GM food is inadequate and unsafe. It also points to technical defects in the way GM plants are created. Pusztai’s study is contained in a book called Food Safety, a compilation of scientific papers which describes the contaminants and toxins contained in modern foods. In his section, Pusztai brings together all the scientific studies carried out into the safety of GM foods and subjects them to rigorous statistical and scientific scrutiny. This weekend he said: 'We found that there are only a few such studies and they show many problems. In particular, they illustrate that GM foods have never been publicly tested for their safety and wholesomeness. There is increasing research to show they may actually be very unsafe.'..... Britain’s Food Standards Agency has completed separate research appearing to confirm some of Pusztai’s warnings. It showed that genetically modified DNA in plants can be taken up by gut bacteria in humans and animals. This finding was contrary to previous assurances from biotechnology firms, which had said DNA would be broken down in the gut shortly after consumption. It raises the possibility that alien genes inserted into crop plants and conferring properties such as antibiotic resistance could be passed on to bacteria, making them resistant, too. Pusztai had been a plant researcher at the Rowett Institute until he appeared in a World in Action documentary on GM foods to describe how rats fed on GM potatoes had suffered gut lesions, retarded growth and other symptoms. He spoke fewer than a dozen sentences but his words reverberated around the world, infuriating GM firms and the scientific establishment. They claimed his research had been poorly done and that he should not have revealed the results before having it reviewed by peers. However, it was later approved and published in the medical journal The Lancet. Pusztai’s first warnings have been echoed by the Royal Society. Its experts last year concluded that GM crops could offer substantial benefits but said too little was known about their potential health impact."
Scientist who pressed GM panic button raises new food health fears
Sunday Times, 4 May 2003

"As we search for answers as to whether GM foods are safe, two questions stand out. Given such a huge controversy over Pusztai's experiments, and the preliminary nature of their findings, why were the political and scientific establishments so intent on rebutting him? More importantly why have the experiments never been repeated?..... having finished his doctorate in biochemistry and post-doctorate at the Lister Institute, he [Pustai] was invited to join the prestigious Protein Chemistry Department at the Rowett Research Institute, which has become the pre-eminent nutritional centre in Europe.  Dr Pusztai was put to work on lectins, plant proteins that were going to be central in the GM controversy years later.  Over the intervening years, Pusztai became the world's leading expert on plant lectins, publishing over 270 scientific studies, and three books on the subject... In 1995, the Scottish Office Agriculture Environment and Fisheries Department commissioned a three-year multi-centre research programme under the coordinatorship of Dr Pusztai into the safety of GM food. At the time there was not a single publication in a peer-reviewed journal on the safety of GM food [note: incredibly, this was despite GM food already having started to enter the market with the Flavr Savr tomato in 1994, and soon Monsanto's GM soya in 1996]  ....  The idea was that the methodologies that they tested would be used by the regulatory authorities in later risk assessments of GM crops. For the first time, independent studies would be undertaken to examine whether feeding GM potatoes to rats caused any harmful effects on their health, bodies or metabolism....The thinking was that, if you could genetically modify a potato with the lectin gene inside it, the potato could have an inherent built-in defence mechanism that would act as a natural insecticide, preventing aphid attack. Because it looked promising, the snowdrop gene had already been incorporated into several experimental crops, including rice, cabbages and oil-seed rape. But by late 1997, the first storm clouds were brewing at the Rowett. Preliminary results from the rat-feeding experiments were showing totally unexpected and worrying changes in the size and weight of the rat's body organs. Liver and heart sizes were getting smaller, and so was the brain. There were also indications that the rats' immune systems were weakening... Finally in August 1998, Pusztai expressed his growing concerns on World in Action in a 150 second interview. So what did he say? 'We're assured that this is absolutely safe,' said Pusztai. 'We can eat it all the time. We must eat it all the time. There is no conceivable harm, which can come to us. But as a scientist looking at it, actively working in the field, I find that it's very, very unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs. We have to find guinea-pigs in the laboratory.' He continued: 'If I had the choice, I would certainly not eat it till I see at least comparable experimental evidence which we are producing for our genetically modified potatoes. I actually believe that this technology can be made to work for us. And if the genetically modified foods will be shown to be safe, then we have really done a great service to all our fellow citizens. And I very strongly believe in this, and that's one of the main reasons why I demand to tighten up the rules, tighten up the standards.' On the evening of the broadcast, the head of the Rowett Professor James 'congratulated,' Pusztai on his TV appearance, commenting on 'how well Arpad had handled the questions'. The following morning a further press release from the Rowett noticed that a 'range of carefully controlled studies underlie the basis of Dr Pusztai's concerns'..... When Pusztai spoke out in August 1998, the new Labour administration was already beginning to shape government policy for its second term. It was looking for drivers of the economy that could be trusted to deliver the growth and hence results that Labour needed. Hightech industries, such as biotechnology, were to be the central cogs of the engine that would drive the Blairite revolution, and deliver the coveted second term. What Pusztai was saying could literally derail an entire industry and with it many of the hopes and aspirations of New Labour..... Although banned from talking to the press, he was not banned from talking to other scientists outside the Rowett. In February 1999 30 international scientists from 13 countries published a memo supporting Pusztai that was published in the Guardian which sparked a media frenzy over GM. A week after the international scientists backed Pusztai, a secret committee met to counter the growing alarm over GM. Contrary to reassurances by the government that GM food was safe, the minutes show the cross departmental committee formed to deal with the crisis, called MISC6, knew the reassurances were premature. It 'requested' a paper by the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and the Chief Scientific Advisor (CSA) on the 'human health implications of GM foods'. What would happen, the minutes asked, if the CMO/CSA's paper 'shows up any doubts? We will be pressurised to ban them immediately. What if it says that we need evidence of long-term effects? This will look like we are not sure about their safety'....However Pusztai and Ewen had submitted a paper to the Lancet, which was finally published in October 1999..... four out of the six reviewers were for publication. 'A clear majority of The Lancet's reviewers were in favour,' says Richard Horton, the editor of the Lancet. Then came the 'threats'. Three days after The Independent article, Richard Horton received a phone call from Professor Lachmann, the former Vice-President and Biological Secretary of The Royal Society and President of the Academy of Medical Sciences. According to Horton, Professor Lachmann threatened that his job would be at risk if he published Pusztai's paper....the fundamental flaw in the scientific establishment's response is that in 1999 everyone agreed that more work was needed. Three years later, that work remains to be undertaken. A scientific body, like The Royal Society, that allocates millions in research funds every year, could have funded a repeat of Pusztai's experiments. Is it that it is easier to say there is no evidence to support his claim, because no evidence exists, than it is to say that no one has looked?"
HOT POTATO
Media Lens, 15 July 2003

".....the treatment meted out to Arpad Pusztai, a biologist from Rowett Research Institute (RRI), Aberdeen, Scotland, by the British scientific and political establishment has become a cause celebre.... Pusztai's controversial experiments, which he carried out in collaboration with his colleague Stanley W.B. Ewen, for over 30 months between 1995 and 1998, comprised the use of GM potatoes expressing the gene for snowdrop lectin called Galanthus nivalis agglutinin (GNA) as feed to rats. This, he found, resulted in impairment in the condition of the rats. This was a surprising finding for Pusztai, because in six years of work with the lectin itself; he had found no toxic effect when it was mixed with feed as a protein supplement. But when genetically expressed it showed health effects..... the case reflects how those in the citadels of science administration have abandoned ethics in order to defend a biased agenda in this case promoted by biotech multinationals. It also shows how, contrary to the cardinal principles of academic freedom and objectivity, any research that went against the dominant view evoked collective intolerance."
Interview with Arpad Pusztai
Frontline, 10 November 2000

"The disclosure last night of the Russian study on the GM Watch website led to calls for David Miliband, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to withdraw permission for new trials on GM potatoes to go ahead at secret sites in the UK this spring. Alan Simpson, a Labour MP and green campaigner, said: 'These trials should be stopped. The research backs up the work of Arpad Pusztai and it shows that he was the victim of a smear campaign by the biotech industry. There has been a cover-up over these findings and the Government should not be a party to that.' Mr Simpson said the findings, which showed that lab rats developed tumours, were released by anti-GM campaigners in Wales. Dr Pusztai and a colleague used potatoes that had been genetically modified to produce a protein, lectin. They found cell damage in the rats' stomachs, and in parts of their intestines. The research is likely to spark a fresh row about GM crops in Britain. Graham Thompson, a Greenpeace campaigner, said: 'It is important because it backs up the research by Pusztai, which was smeared at the time by the industry.' Brian John of GM Free Cymru, who released the findings, said the research was conducted in 1998 by the Institute of Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and has been suppressed for eight years. It showed that the potatoes did considerable damage to the rats' organs. Those in the 'control groups' that were fed non-GM potatoes suffered ill-effects, but those fed GM potatoes suffered more serious organ and tissue damage. The potatoes contained an antibiotic resistance marker gene. The institute that carried out the studies refused to release all the information. However, Greenpeace and other consumer groups mounted a protracted legal battle campaign to obtain the report."
Suppressed report shows cancer link to GM potatoes
Independent, 17 February 2007

"It is not often that you meet a scientific pariah, so my recent interview with Dr Árpád Pusztai was a fascinating experience. Pusztai was at the centre of a huge media storm in 1998 over research in which he fed GM potatoes to rats. He purportedly found that rats fed a GM diet did not grow as well as rats on the control diet and that they had immune problems. Part of his work was eventually published in the Lancet, but the affair effectively killed off his research career. I had always been sceptical of claims that the scientific establishment allied with dark political and commercial forces conspired to destroy him, but after looking into the history of the events that surrounded his dismissal and from talking to him I have begun to change my view..... Rumours of political interference have surrounded the decision by the director of the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen Prof Philip James - who is now chair of the International Obesity Task Force - to suspend Pusztai after first congratulating him. One allegation is that James received two phone calls from the prime minister's office the day after the screening of a World in Action documentary in which Pusztai expressed his fears about the safety of GM food. In the most far-fetched version, those phone calls are supposed to have come at the behest of President Clinton who had been lent on by the biotech industry. James has always denied this, including during an appearance before a Science and Technology Select Committee hearing into the Pusztai saga..... When I talked to James about the Pusztai affair he told me he had been phoned by someone he described as 'the science officer in the Department of Agriculture in the Scottish Office' on either the Tuesday or Wednesday - one or two days after the documentary. '[They] told me how dissatisfied they were with the research that was being undertaken by Árpád Pusztai,' he wrote in an email to me. At the time, the Scottish Office was still part of central government because devolution had not yet happened. That department was funding Pusztai's research. Then things started to get a bit strange. I asked James why he had not told the Science and Technology Select Committee about this phone call when he appeared before them in March 1999....In direct contradiction to his previous email, James then wrote to me, 'I was not contacted - or lobbied - to my knowledge by the Scottish Office of Agriculture - who so specified? If so I was and am now unaware of it.' When I pointed out that it was him who had told me about the phone call, he changed tack again, saying the contact had occurred after his decision to suspend Pusztai had been taken so it had not had any influence on him..... Make of that what you will. At any rate, James denies any political influence over his decision-making. He agrees that he phoned Pusztai immediately after the programme was broadcast to congratulate him on his performance, but he later changed his mind and decided to suspend the scientist."
Did Downing Street ruin anti-GM scientist's career?
Science Blog, Guardian, 18 January 2008

What Professor James Really Thought About GM Foods Before The Pusztai Affair Broke

"The perception that everything is totally straightforward and safe [with GM food] is utterly naive. I don't think we fully understand the dimensions of what we're getting into." Professor Philip James Director of the Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen, and author of the 'James' Report commissioned by Tony Blair on the structure and functions of the then proposed UK Food Standards Agency Scottish Daily Record, 3 February 1998

GM Soya And Lectins

"In the unreported Puerto Rico trials, Roundup Ready beans were significantly lower in protein and the amino acid phenylalanine....More disturbing were levels of the allergen trypsin inhibitor in toasted Roundup Ready meal....And in the retoasted meal, levels of allergens called lectins in Roundup Ready beans almost doubled the levels in controls. What might be the result of consuming foods with high levels of trypsin inhibitor and lectin?"
Buried Data in Monsanto's Study on Roundup Ready Soybeans
Whole Life Times, August 2000

In The Form Of Genetically Modified Tomatoes The First GM Food
Began To Enter The Market In May 1994 Just Under Seven Years Before This Article In The New York Times

"The C.D.C. [Centres for Disease Control] now says that food is responsible for twice the number of illnesses in the United States as scientists thought just seven years ago.... At least 80 percent of food-related illnesses are caused by viruses or other pathogens that scientists cannot even identify."
Contaminated Food Makes Millions Ill Despite Advances
New York Times, 18 March 2001

"Disease surveillance and event monitoring procedures will need to be sufficiently robust to deal with the potential emergence of new diseases associated with GM material which will be obscure and difficult to diagnose."
The Impact of Genetic Modification on Agriculture, Food and Health - An Interim Statement
British Medical Association, May 1999

So Where Are The Epidemiological Studies Monitoring The Human Health Effects Of Eating GM Food?

"..... the ubiquitous argument that 'since there is no evidence that GM products make people sick, they are safe' is both illogical and false. There are, again, simply no data or even valid assays to support this contention. Without proper epidemiological studies, most types of harm will not be detected, and no such studies have been conducted."
The Problem with Nutritionally Enhanced Plants
Journal of Medicinal Food, Vol. 11, No. 4, 2008

'Junk-Decision-Maker-In-Chief'
Will The Next President Of The United States Be Taking
A Junk Food Brain Scan Before He Assumes Office?

'Neurodegeneration'
Diminishing The Brain Power Of The President

"For anyone who has ever wondered what President Bush sounds like when the microphones are off, the answer, at least at lunchtime on Monday, was blunt to the point of profane, laced with a wiseguy edge and, like anyone forced to make small talk, willing to fall back on safe topics like air travel. Mr. Bush was munching on a roll during lunch with his fellow world leaders on the final day of the Group of 8 summit meeting here as his unguarded comments were picked up by an open microphone and overheard by gleeful journalists....The microphone caught him discussing global trade talks, his impatience with long speeches, even his preference for Diet Coke.....Mr. Bush can be heard saying to a waiter, 'No, not Coke, Diet Coke.'"
Bush’s Policy Chit-Chat: Undiplomatic Prose
New York Times, 18 July 2008

"The first cans and bottles of Diet Coke sweetened with aspartame, a new artifical sweetener made from amino acids, are being distributed beginning today in Birmingham, Ala., a unit of the Coca-Cola Company announced. The product will be available in other markets - Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., Seattle and Tacoma, Wash., and Louisville and Lexington, Ky."
Coke Beginning Aspartame Use
New York Times, 18 August 1983

"Excessive intake of aspartame may inhibit the ability of enzymes in the brain to function normally, suggests a new review that could fan the flames of controversy over the sweetener. The review, by scientists from the University of Pretoria and the University of Limpopo and published recently in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, indicated that high consumption of the sweetener may lead to neurodegeneration. Aspartame is made up of phenylalanine (50 per cent), aspartic acid (40 per cent) and methanol (10 per cent). It is commonly used in food products for the diet or low calorie market, including soft drinks and chewing gums. It was approved for use in foods in the US and EU member states in the early 1980s.  The sweetener has caused much controversy amid suspicions on whether it is entirely safe, with studies linking the ingredient and cancer in rats.  It has also previously been found that aspartame consumption can cause neurological and behavioural disturbances in sensitive individuals. Symptoms that have been reported include headaches, insomnia and seizures.....Writing in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a Nature journal, the scientists behind the new review state: 'The aim of this study was to discuss the direct and indirect cellular effects of aspartame on the brain, and we propose that excessive aspartame ingestion might be involved in the pathogenesis of certain mental disorders, and also in compromised learning and emotional functioning.'  The researchers found a number of direct and indirect changes that occur in the brain as a result of high consumption levels of aspartame, leading to neurodegeneration."
Review raises questions over aspartame and brain health
NutraIngredients-USA.com, 3 April 2008

"Fresh fears over the safety of genetically modified foods surfaced faced yesterday after new research revealed that food allergies relating to soya increased by 50 per cent last year. A study by Europe's leading specialists on food sensitivity found health complaints caused by soya - the ingredient most associated with GM foods - have increased from 10 in 100 patients to 15 in 100 over the past year. ....John Graham, spokesman for the York laboratory, said: 'We believe this raises serious new questions about the safety of GM foods because it is impossible to guarantee that the soya used in the tests was GM-free.' It is the first time in 17 years of testing that soya has crept into the laboratory's top 10 foods to cause an allergic reaction in consumers. The vegetable has moved up four places to ninth end now sits alongside foodstuffs with a long history of causing allergies, such as yeast, sunflower seeds and nuts. Mr. Graham said researchers tested 4,500 people for allergic reactions to vegetables including soya. Among the range of chronic illnesses it caused were irritable bowel syndrome, digestiontion problems and skin complaints including acne and eczema. 'People also suffered neurological problems with chronic fatigue syndrome, headaches and lethargy. It is worrying,' Mr Graham added."
Soy Allergies Up Along With GMOs
Daily Express, 12 March 1999

"The phenylalanine in aspartame at 50% is neurotoxic and goes directly into the brain. It lowers the seizure threshold and depletes serotonin. When you lower serotonin, it triggers paranoia, manic depression or bi-polar brain disorder, hallucinations, mood swings, and suicidal tendencies. It also interacts with all anti-depressants and you can get a double whammy with some of these psycho drugs.... Remember that aspartame is a psycho drug and leaders of the free world need to abstain."
Political Sanity vs. Neurotoxins, by Dr. Betty Martini
UN Observer & International Report, 30 July 2004

"Ronald Reagan loved jellybeans and Bill Clinton thirsted for Diet Coke. Obama says he's nuts for peanuts."
Campaign Notebook: Obama, McCain Aim Conventions at Key Groups
Bloomberg, 23 August 2008

"John McCain’s campaign bus, the Straight Talk Express, has had many incarnations....Past the captain’s chairs, the center passageway narrows. On one side is a bathroom and on the other a galley stocked with Dunkin’ Donuts and Coke, the staples of the McCain diet."
On the Bus
New Yorker, 25 February 2008

"Far from being the healthy drink implied by its sports sponsorships, Diet Coke is a worrying cocktail of neurotoxic and potentially carcinogenic chemicals.... It also contains sodium benzoate, which can be broken down into the listed carcinogen benzene in the presence of strong acids, such as the citric acid found in this product. Soda manufacturers have been aware of this synergistic possibility since the 1990s, but without pressure from regulatory authorities to change their formula to prevent the formation of benzene, have continued to mix benzoates and acids."
Behind the Label: Diet Coke
The Ecologist, 1 June 2006

Which Coke Brands In The UK Contain Aspartame? - Click Here

'The Ultimate Synthetic Food'
Coke Or GM Foods?

"Coke is it. Coke adds life. Just for the taste of it. Only one calorie. The taste of the new generation. Well, they've got that bit right. Generation Coke has guzzled extraordinary - and growing - amounts of brown bubbly liquid for the past two decades. Coca-Cola has been our largest-selling brand for years, with annual supermarket sales of $600 million. (Pura Milk, the next bestselling beverage, took in $275 million last year.) A spokesman for Coca-Cola Amatil said the core market was blokes aged 18 to 28 for Coke and women between 22 and 35 for Diet Coke. Despite all the talk of obesity, there has been no mention of the caffeinated drinks that many diets in women's magazines recommend to fill an empty stomach. The fact that people get addicted to them is strangely absent from public debate. It seems to happen particularly with diet versions. A quick search on the Internet reveals a disparate group of mostly young addicts who regularly congregate online to share their battle with their drug of choice: Diet Coke. Anita wrote: 'I am only 15 years old but I have been addicted to Diet Coke for years. I drink up to 10 600ml bottles a day. I initially started drinking Diet Coke to lose weight. Little did I know that once you start it's almost impossible to stop.' The doctor told her to cut down after she discovered a stomach ulcer. Kylie blamed her addiction on an eating disorder. Sassy walked three kilometres in a blizzard to get her morning fix. Andrew K. Icebreaker boasted he consumed up to four litres a day in summer: 'That's why I am known as the Fluidmaster.' Only Me was rhapsodic: 'Diet Coke is the serum of life and it courses through our veins. We need Diet Coke like vampires need blood. Diet Coke makes us happy when we are sad ... Without Diet Coke this world would be a sad hostile place.' What gets people drinking this stuff? Some like the taste, some drink it to lose weight; others just play hard, work hard and need to stay alert. I got hooked myself in university days even though I've never really liked the taste. I still love the hiss of the can, the buzz of the caffeine, the steadiness of the ritual. I've watched dozens of friends try to give it up with varying degrees of success, after doctors, dentists and naturopaths have warned them against it. The marketing is seductive. As the new American Diet Coke ad puts it: Escape. Canoodle. Frolic. Tingle. Do What Feels Good. Or as the ad flashing in my office lift said yesterday: 'Live a little.'....On one Diet Coke Web site, it is described as 'that wonderful junction where science meets food. It is the ultimate synthetic food: calorie-free, nutrient-free, and vaguely immoral'."
Love-hate relationship with the ultimate in synthetic foods
Sydney Morning Herald, 17 September 2002

'Bad Food, Bad Politics'
Something Has Gone Badly And Endemically Wrong In America

".....'According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions,' [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld admitted [on 10 September 2001]. $2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million. 'We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on,' said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service." The War On Waste CBS News, 29 January 2002

"President Bush pressed European leaders today to cut off all support to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, and dismissed news of a possible cease-fire agreement involving Hamas and other militants as irrelevant to Middle East peace.... Mr. Bush offered no reaction to Israel's attacks today in the Gaza Strip, which killed four people. The president made his demands in a joint East Room news conference with Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission, and Prime Minister Costas Simitis of Greece, which currently holds the European Union presidency. The leaders were here for an annual summit meeting between the United States and the European Union, the first since the trans-Atlantic alliance was strained by the Iraq war....During the meeting at the White House, President Bush also called on the Europeans to end a ban on genetically modified food, which he claims has discouraged developing nations from using that technology and so has contributed to starvation in Africa. Europeans say such foods pose a health and environmental hazard. Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, insisted today that Mr. Prodi and Mr. Simitis were receptive to Mr. Bush's arguments, and then said the president joked after the late-morning meeting, 'Let's go eat some genetically modified food for lunch.'''
Bush, Skeptical of Report of Hamas Cease-Fire, Asks Europe to Sever Ties
New York Times, 26 June 2003

"During a sparsely attended Senate hearing Wednesday, three senators addressed major flaws in the auditing and oversight mechanism of the world's largest customer - the US Department of Defense (DoD). The Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) oversees the hundreds of billions of dollars that military officers at the Pentagon spend with private contractors for new weapons....Thi Le and fellow whistleblower Paul Hackler, a 25-year DCAA auditor, testified that there is a cultural problem at DCAA, stemming from a lack of independence from those it is supposed to be monitoring, It has resulted in auditors ignoring waste on the part of military procurement officers and fraud committed by military contractors. Truthout has received similar information from multiple sources while examining this matter. Hackler testified that he identified a 15-year accounting scheme that funneled $270,000,000 to defense contractor Boeing in what appeared to be a kind of Air Force-backed bailout using taxpayer money for mistakes Boeing had made in the private sector. Hackler testified that his office was directed by top management in DCAA to 'basically play along with this outrageous government bailout!' Senator Collins compared the lack of independence between auditor and audited to the corporate accounting scandals that rocked stock markets at the beginning of this decade."
Pentagon Oversight Takes a Step Forward
Truthout, 11 September 2008

"While watching the Sarah Palin interview with Charlie Gibson Thursday night, and the coverage of the Palin phenomenon in general, I’ve gotten the scary feeling, for the first time in my life, that dimwittedness is not just on the march in the U.S., but that it might actually prevail. For those who haven’t noticed, we’re electing a president and vice president, not selecting a winner on 'American Idol.'....To burnish the foreign policy credentials of a vice presidential candidate who never even had a passport until last year, the Republicans have been touting Alaska’s proximity to Russia. (Imagine the derisive laughter in conservative circles if the Democrats had tried such nonsense.) So Mr. Gibson asked Ms. Palin, 'What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?' She said, 'They’re our next-door neighbors. And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska. From an island in Alaska.' Mr. Gibson tried again. 'But what insight does that give you,' he asked, 'into what they’re doing in Georgia?'"
Bob Herbert - She's Not Ready
New York Times, 12 September 2008

---

Ban Trans Fats Now, GM Foods Only Later?
How Science Discovers The Damaging Impact Of Artificial Junk Foods
Only Decades After Their Introduction

Remember How 'Scientists' Told You For Decades That Margarine Was 'Good For You'?
Well Margarine Was Commonly Full Of Deadly Trans Fats That Are Now Starting To Be Banned

"California became the first state to require restaurants to cook without artery-clogging trans fats, such as those in many oils and margarines, under restrictions signed into law Friday by the health-conscious governor. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a physical-fitness advocate and crusader against obesity, sided with legislators who said the measure would help get the fat out of Californians who are too dependent on fast food.... The new law, AB 97 by Assemblyman Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia), requires restaurants to use oils, margarines and shortening with less than half a gram of trans fat per serving by Jan. 1, 2010, and applies the standard to deep-fried bakery goods by Jan. 1, 2011....New York City has a similar ban, which began July 1 with a three-month grace period."
Schwarzenegger signs law banning trans fats in restaurants
Los Angeles Times, 26 July 2008

"After a rocky start as a butter substitute, margarine spent a couple of decades basking in its image as a healthy alternative to butter. Then came the news that margarine's trans fat may be even worse than butter's saturated fat, which threw millions of confused consumers back into the butter camp."
Better than butter? Margarine spread its wings - Brand-name rating
Nutrition Action Healthletter, December 2001

Ban Trans Fats Now, GM Foods Only Later? GM foods are safe, right? Because nobody has been found dying from them yet after ten years of commercialisation. Except nobody has done an epidemiological study yet to find out whether or not that is really the case - or whether any lesser damage to health is occurring. It took many decades for such studies to be done in the case of another artificial man made food, 'trans fats'. And then they discovered that people had indeed been dying, or suffering from deterioration in health, as result of consuming them (including in the very margarine that the 'scientists' had told them was not only safe but positively 'good for you').   Now the State of California in America has wisely, if all too belatedly, introduced a ban on trans fats. Other problems are also now being discovered (again only after many decades of 'safe' use) with another man made food - the artificial sweetener saccharine. According to a London Times report, 18 February:   "Consuming low-calorie drinks may increase the risk of putting on weight, according to scientists in the United States. They have suggested that people who choose diet drinks containing artificial sweeteners tend to overcompensate and consume more calories than those who do not. Although the rise in obesity has corresponded with a growth in low-calorie soft drinks, designed to make keeping weight down easy by replacing sugar with saccharine or other sweeteners, scientists who conducted experiments using rats at Purdue University, in Indiana, have suggested that the opposite may be happening. They found that rats fed on yoghurt sweetened with saccharine ate more calories, gained more weight and put on more body fat than rats that were given yoghurt sweetened with glucose.... ... their findings match emerging evidence that people who drink more diet drinks are at higher risk of obesity and metabolic syndrome, a collection of medical problems such as abdominal fat, high blood pressure and insulin resistance that put people at greater risk of heart disease and diabetes.... Normally, the researchers say, sweet foods provide a stimulus that strongly predicts that someone is about to take in a lot of calories and their ingestive and digestive reflexes gear up for that intake. But when false sweetness is not followed by lots of calories the system gets confused. Thus, they argue, people on low-calorie diets may eat more – or expend less energy – than they otherwise would. If their theory is correct, then artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose and acesulfame K, which taste sweet but do not provide calories, could have similar effects."   Former US Secretary of State for Defense Donald Rumsfeld is most infamous for his ill-judged invasion of Iraq in 2003. But if many thought Rumsfeld's decisions on Iraq gave reason to question his sanity, his association with bad mental health does not stop there. Years earlier Rumsfeld had pushed through the US regulatory system the artificial food product 'aspartame', a rival sweetener to saccharine. Made, in the case of US factories, with genetically modified bacteria, aspartame's influence on human health is just as troubling as saccharine's, if not considerably more so. A scientific paper published in 2008 provides evidence of the deleterious impact of this man made product on the human brain, including 'neurodegeneration'. Perhaps one day this syndrome will come to be known as 'Rumsfeld's Disease'.  According to the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition "excessive aspartame ingestion might be involved in the pathogenesis of certain mental disorders, and also in compromised learning and emotional functioning." From 1985 until its sale in 2000, aspartame was produced by Nutrasweet, a company formed by the same people who have been principally responsible for bringing the world genetically modified crops, chemical giant Monsanto. Previously aspartame had been manufactured by G.D. Searle & Company. Monsanto bought Searle in 1985 after Rumsfeld had steered aspartame through the official approval process in suspect circumstances during the Reagan Administration (for whom Rumsfeld, whilst still head of Searle, also acted as a Middle East special envoy tasked with cementing a strategic alliance with Saddam Hussein under which, in a whole series of junk decisions, Iraq was supplied with biological weapons with the approval of George Bush senior as former head of the CIA and vice-president under Reagan). As with these artificial sweeteners, health problems with trans fats have only come to the fore decades after their introduction despite previous assurances as to their safety. Only when the necessary epidemiological studies had been carried out did the extent of the problem with trans fats become apparent. No such studies have been carried out in relation to the human consumption of GM crops, the next wave of artificial foods coming out of the biotech labs. So let's postpone making reassuring claims about the safety of GM foods until after the science has been done, not before.   In the meantime GM foods in America need to be labelled so that people can decide whether they want to be guinea pigs in the latest artificial food adventure. On the kind of time scale that has applied to trans fats and artificial sweeteners any bad news there might be on the effect of GMOs on health could be expected to be begin surfacing around mid-century.   Meanwhile ask yourself this. How much consumption of artificial sweeteners, additives, trans fats, and GM ingredients has gone on in the United States, the microwaved junk food Mecca of the world, over the years?   Then, with obesity soaring (the rate has risen in 37 states over the last year alone), and with more people incarcerated in prison per head of population than any other nation in the world, as two examples, ask yourself what kind of physical, mental, and social condition the population of the US is in today. Indeed, if enough of it is consumed, can a community become collectively disturbed as a result of the poisonous quality of the food it eats? Hyperactivity and disruptive behaviour in children are already associated with consumption of food additives, but do such conditions also encourage a predisposition to things like drug taking, and associated crime, as they grow older? Experience shows that when food additives are removed from the diets of children they become calmer and better able to concentrate, and they also sleep better. Unfortunately the continuing junk food fest underpinning many people's experience of Rumsfeld's version of the American dream, is in danger of turning it into one large nightmare. Despite the Californian trans fat ban, the fest is by no means over. Now, assisted by 'mad scientists' in British biotech labs, it seems even more extreme artificial man made foods will soon be on their way, in the latest mind-numbingly crass junk food development described by the Daily Telegraph 18 July: "A new type of flour could turn the humble loaf of bread into a weapon against obesity. Researchers at the National Institute for Agricultural Botany in Cambridge have produced a genetically modified form of wheat that releases fewer calories into the body compared to other varieties currently available....  Dr Phil Cox, one of the researcher on the team, said: 'It is hoped that, by making indulgent foods more healthy, the consumer will be able to continue to enjoy those foods that are currently seen as bad for you, without worrying about the fat content." So much for genetically modified foods feeding the world, then. Under this scenario the de facto aim is to lower the nutritional output per hectare of one of the world's most important staple crops. But before hoards of self-indulgent citizens on either side of the Atlantic rush out to consume such 'designer' foods, perhaps they should ask themselves whether GM facilitated gorging now (as others starve) is going to prove a 'value for money' swap for trans fat style premature death later on, if that turns out to be the case (a consequence to be discovered by the 'scientists' only decades later, of course, should the discreet pile of corpses ever grow high enough to be noticed)? Given the similarities with his short-termist approach to Middle East oil and the associated health of the American economy (now burdened by costs stemming from the Iraq war calculated by some economists as likely to eventually reach more than $3 trillion), perhaps Donald Rumsfeld could be asked for his response. But, there again, if he has been consuming too much aspartame he may not have learned anything from the experience. Because the ill-effects of previous junk food products were not immediately obvious they went undetected for decades. Once described, in a rare moment of frankness, by the CEO of Monsanto as "unnatural in a different sort of way" to previous foods, why should the situation with GM foods be any more secure? As the scientific journal Nature put it back in 1999: "Even among ardent supporters of GM foods.... calls are being increasingly heard for more research on health risks, and for the introduction of monitoring systems that would allow the early detection of any long-term problems.... several scientists say there is also a strong argument for labelling to facilitate epidemiological studies to detect any increases in allergies or diseases that might be linked to GM foods. The need for careful monitoring is urgent, given that the introduction of thousands of GM foods on a global scale appears imminent, says Suzanne Wuerthele, a risk assessor at the US Environmental Protection Agency, speaking in a personal capacity. This view is supported by Ben Miflin, former director of the Institute of Arable Crops at Rothamsted, near London, who is a proponent of the potential benefits of genetic modification of crops. He argues that, under current monitoring conditions, any unanticipated health impact of such foods would need to be a 'monumental disaster' to be detectable." With no genetically modified food labelling or monitoring, America is now running a 'don't look, don't ask' GM junk food culture. It is one that, in effect, complacently assumes that GMOs are safe because people don't foam at the mouth as soon as they ingest them. The same approach with trans fats, another man made food, turned into thousands (1,400 a year in Massachusetts alone), and ultimately millions, of undetected premature deaths across the globe. Having already gone through the trans fat experience it remains something of a shock to learn that, despite the billions invested in, and earned from, this technology, there has only ever been one published study on the direct human impact of eating GM food. And it found unexpected effects. The trial in question examined bacteria in the small intestine of seven human subjects after eating a meal containing Monsanto's genetically modified herbicide resistant soya. The study was commissioned by Britain's Food Standards Agency and was published in Nature Biotechnology in 2004, some eight years after - not before - the entry of this man made product into world food supplies. The soya based ingredients were purchased from retail outlets (including from Holland and Barrett, 'the UK's largest health food retailer' whose corporate motto is 'We're good for you'), and each meal contained numerous copies of the epsps transgene which codes for resistance to the herbicide glyphosate. Whilst it is thought they may have previously unknowingly eaten GM soya, the study found that in three of the subjects transgenic material from GM soya had been taken up and integrated into bacteria in their gut. The implications of that discovery are a matter of debate. But in the words of one scientist at the time, "Everyone used to deny that this was possible." Another commented that "because transfer events seem to have occurred in three of the seven subjects examined, it may be that transgenic gene transfers are not as rare as suggested by the UK GM Science Review Panel", and he recommended that the associated risks should be assessed in the approval process for GMOs. The response of the Food Standards Agency? Do nothing, it would seem. Not even further research, as far as is known. 'Don't Ask. Don't Look. No one will probably notice for decades.' As the company's Director of Corporate Communications, Phil Angell, put it back in 1999, "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the F.D.A's  job." With Angell referring to America's equivalent of the UK's Food Standards Agency, how reassuring is that? Until now society has slowly co-evolved with its food supply over many thousands of years. During that time, and with casualties on the way, we have learnt which things to eat and not to eat, and how to eat them (green potatoes are normally excluded from the food chain, for example, but if found supermarkets advise they should be discarded because they can be poisonous). Now, suddenly, our food supply is starting to be changed through genetic engineering far faster than the normal evolutionary process would encounter. At the most fundamental level the properties of our foods, which have remained largely stable for immense periods of time within relatively narrow parameters, are starting to be altered (as the low nutritional value wheat now being developed in Britain graphically illustrates). These changes are being made using the most radical technology ever deployed in the food supply, yet the experience with trans fats shows that even modest changes at the molecular level can have unanticipated drastic effects. Worse still, such effects may become detected only after decades of use, well after consumption has been declared 'safe', or even positively beneficial. The use of genetic engineering represents revolution, not evolution, in man's relationship with food, and in so doing represents an altogether different adaptive challenge to the human physiology loaded with unique risks. The very purpose of this genetic engineering is to overcome the boundaries set by the laws of evolution, the full scope of which science still has only a modest grasp. There is already clear evidence that small, almost unnoticeable, changes inadvertently generated through genetic engineering can have seriously adverse effects. Yet such detailed scrutiny rarely takes place for GM food products entering the market. It is grotesquely hubristic, therefore, to assume that adverse consequences from the use of genetic engineering in the food chain are unlikely, and that science will be able to easily identify them before serious damage is done. Modern science was able to do so with trans fats only after millions of people had slowly died from eating them. As the British Medical Association put it back in 1999, we are faced with "the potential emergence of new diseases associated with GM material which will be obscure and difficult to diagnose." As a result it called for the robust monitoring of GM food consumption. This simply isn't happening. There are no epidemiological studies on GM food consumption to date, and the total number of published clinical studies on the direct impact of GM food on human health remains at the grand total of one. Just one. Produced long after GMOs had entered the global food-chain, and with billions of dollars of already established GM commerce potentially at stake (not to mention the multi-million pound personal funding of the Labour party by GM ag-biotech advocate Lord Sainsbury, Tony Blair's science minister), the serious issues that the study raised appear to have been duly buried by the UK's Food Standards Agency. Given that the first study raising health concerns in relation to trans fats was published in 1957, and yet New York City only began banning them in 2006, perhaps it is reasonable to project that the first bans on GM foods might begin arriving sometime around 2060. The trouble is, by then there may well be little else available left to eat. NLPWESSEX www.nlpwessex.org

From 1903 To Today A Century Long Timeline History Of Trans Fats In The Human Diet From Harvard University School Of Public Health Click Here "It took fifty years of research to get the dangers into print." Trans Fats: The Story Behind The Label Harvard Public Health Review, Spring 2006

"A revolution has been taking place in the life sciences... These advances have led to the development of powerful molecular techniques..... however, potential risks need to be carefully evaluated and dealt with appropriately. The National Academies are committed to bringing together experts to discuss and comment on the scientific issues surrounding the application of biotechnology to important modern-day problems.....In 1987 the National Academy of Sciences issued a white paper on the 'Introduction of Recombinant DNA-Engineered Organisms into the Environment,' which dealt with general principles concerning potential ecological risks in field testing....In 1989, the National Research Council issued the report, 'Field Testing Genetically Modified Organisms: Framework for Decisions,' which addressed the ecological risks of small-scale field testing of engineered organisms. Neither potential human health risks, nor issues raised by large-scale commercial planting, were addressed in that study which considered scientific issues primarily, not regulatory policy.... Utilizing information gained over the past decade, the National Research Council is releasing this important report on genetically modified pest-protected plants. Prepared by another expert committee, it provides timely advice to researchers, developers, and regulatory agencies involved in reviewing the science surrounding the regulation of genetically modified pest-protected crops. The report addresses only one aspect of the ongoing revolution in the life sciences and agriculture, and it is careful to point out where more research and scientific information is needed to answer remaining questions....Given the rapid increase in plantings of transgenic varieties, concerns have been raised about the ecological and human health risks that might be posed bythese crops....Concerns about the risks posed by transgenic plants have led some to question the safety review they receive in the United States under the Coordinated Regulatory Framework. Some believe that human health and environmental risks are not properly assessed....Health impacts that the committee considered fall into three general categories: allergenicity, toxicity, and pleiotropic effects of genetic modifications....Priority should be given to the development of improved methods for identifying potential allergens in pest-protected plants, specifically, the development of tests with human immune-system endpoints and of more reliable animal models.... The committee concluded that monitoring for pleiotropic changes in plant physiology and biochemistry during the development of pest-protected plants should be an important element of health-safety reviews, in addition to testing the toxicity of the introduced gene products (see ES.6.4). Although results of tests for changes in the levels of certain endogenous plant toxicants are presented during consultation with FDA, there is a lack of an extensive database on the natural levels of such compounds in both transgenic and conventional pest-protected plants. The committee recognizes the challenges associated with detecting changes in those compounds given insufficient analytical information, and therefore, recommends research to Assess and enhance data on the baseline concentrations of plant compounds of potential dietary or other toxicological concern, and determine how concentrations of these compounds may vary depending on the genetic background of the plant and environmental conditions....the committee recommends research to Examine whether longterm feeding of transgenic pest-protected plants to animals whose natural diets consist of the quantities and type of plant material being tested (for example, grain or forage crops fed to livestock) could be a useful method for assessing potential human health impacts....In addition to human health toxicity testing, allergenicity testing is very important. The committee recognizes that the FDA has developed preliminary information on the assessment of potential food allergens that could be helpful to applicants as they evaluate potential products and develop product-specific data to address questions concerning allergenicity. The committee recommends that FDA should put a high priority on finalizing and releasing preliminary guidance on the assessment of potential food allergens, while cautioning that further research is needed in this area."
Genetically Modified Pest-Protected Plants: Science and Regulation
National Research Council, USA
National Academy Press, USA, April 2000

GMOs - 'No Obvious Ill Effect' - Don't Look, Don't Ask

"Americans have consumed food derived from GM crops for the past decade, with no obvious ill effect on public health"
GM crops: not against nature
London Times, 14 August

"The media has inflamed public fears about the risks of genetically modified crops for human health and biodiversity. But many responsible scientists agree on the need for more research to identify potential long-term problems....Even among ardent supporters of GM foods, however, calls are being increasingly heard for more research on health risks, and for the introduction of monitoring systems that would allow the early detection of any long-term problems.... several scientists say there is also a strong argument for labelling to facilitate epidemiological studies to detect any increases in allergies or diseases that might be linked to GM foods. The need for careful monitoring is urgent, given that the introduction of thousands of GM foods on a global scale appears imminent, says Suzanne Wuerthele, a risk assessor at the US Environmental Protection Agency, speaking in a personal capacity. This view is supported by Ben Miflin, former director of the Institute of Arable Crops at Rothamsted, near London, who is a proponent of the potential benefits of genetic modification of crops. He argues that, under current monitoring conditions, any unanticipated health impact of such foods would need to be a 'monumental disaster' to be detectable."
Long-term effect of GM crops serves up food for thought
Nature, Volume 398:651, 22 April 1999

"The only published trial of GM foods on humans was carried out by Newcastle University [in the UK] for the Food Standards Agency, and published in 2004. It was designed to study what happens to transgenic DNA in the human gut and whether it could pass out and enter bacteria in the body, a long-standing concern. It found that .... portions of transgenic DNA had ‘horizontally’ transferred from GM food into the intestinal bacteria of some of the volunteers, which was a shocking discovery with implications for the long-term impacts of GM consumption. Just as shocking, however, was the fact that at the time the FSA chose not to mention this key finding in its communications on the study, thus widely giving the impression that horizontal gene transfer had not been identified in the study."
GM Crops - The Health Effects
Soil Association, February 2008

"For the first time, it has been proved that bacteria in the human gut can take up DNA from genetically modified food....Harry Gilbert and colleagues at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne made the discovery, after feeding volunteers with a burger and a milk shake containing GM soya. To see how the GM food was dealt with by different parts of the digestive system, he gave the food to 12 healthy volunteers and to seven volunteers who had previously had their colons surgically removed....Crucially, in three of the seven, he found that bacteria had taken up GM DNA from the soya."
GM crop DNA found in human gut bugs
New Scientist, 18 July 2002

"British scientific researchers have demonstrated for the first time that genetically modified DNA material from crops is finding its way into human gut bacteria, raising potentially serious health questions. Although the genetically modified material in most GM foods poses no health problems, many of the controversial crops have antibiotic-resistant marker genes inserted into them at an early stage in development. If genetic material from these marker genes can also find its way into the human stomach, as experiments at Newcastle university suggest is likely, then people's resistance to widely used antibiotics could be compromised....Michael Antonio, a senior lecturer in molecular genetics at King's College Medical School, London, last night said that the work was significant. 'To my knowledge they have demonstrated clearly that you can get GM plant DNA in the gut bacteria. Everyone used to deny that this was possible.'"
GM genes found in human gut
Guardian, 17 July 2002

"The 35S cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) promoter is commonly used to drive transgene expression in the genetically engineered (GE) crop plants that have been commercialized so far. Whether, and how far, the 35S promoter might be active in mammalian cells has been scientifically unsettled and controversial. Very recently it was established that the 35S promoter is transcriptionally active following transient reporter gene transfections in continuous cell lines of human [J Biotechnol 103:197–202, 2003] and hamster ovary [Environ Biosafety Res 3:41–47, 2004] fibroblasts. The initial exposure of a human organism to DNA from GE food takes place in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT). Hence, we have now investigated the promoter capacity of 35S in human enterocyte-like cells. We constructed expression vectors with 35S promoter inserted in front of two reporter genes encoding firefly luciferase and green fluorescent protein (GFP), respectively, and performed transient transfection experiments in the human enterocyte-like cell line Caco-2. It was demonstrated that the 35S CaMV promoter was able to drive the expression of both reporter genes to significant levels, although the protein expression levels might seem modest compared to those obtained with the strong promoters derived from human cytomegalo virus (hCMV) and simian virus 40 (SV40). Furthermore, computer-based searches of the 35S CaMV DNA sequence for putative mammalian transcription factor binding motifs gave a high number of hits. Some of the identified motifs indicate that transcriptional activation by the 35S CaMV promoter may be stronger in other human and animal cell types than in those investigated so far."
The 35S CaMV plant virus promoter is active in human enterocyte-like cells
European Food Research and Technology, Volume 222, Numbers 1-2, January 2006

What is the CaMV viral DNA used in most GM crops? - Click Here

Why Bother With Artificial GMOs And Their Undesirable Characteristics
When There Are Other Plant Development Avenues With Much Better Risk-Benefit Profiles?

"GM is only one easily recognised byproduct of genetic research. The quiet revolution is happening in gene mapping ['genomics'], helping us understand crops better. That is up and running and could have a far greater impact on agriculture.... There really are no downsides, particularly in terms of public perception... [By contrast in the case of GMOs] there are public perception problems and the technology itself is still not optimised, with antibiotic and herbicide resistance genes still needed and bits of bacterial DNA hanging about. Whether that poses any danger is debatable, but it is not desirable."
Professor John Snape, John Innes Centre
'Gene mapping the friendly face of GM technology'
Farmers Weekly, 1 March 2002

Solution To The GM Debate? - 'The Accetpable Face Of Ag-Biotech' - Click Here

Time for 'Glasnost' and 'Perestroika' in Modern Science Tearing Down Biotech's 'Berlin Wall' www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/genomicsparadigm.htm The Fundamental Scientific Error of Pursuing Transgenics Before Competency in Genomics

It Took Decades For The Risks Associated With These Other Artificial Foods To Become 'Obvious'

"All of Massachusetts may soon become a trans fat-free zone. The state's public health commissioner responded enthusiastically yesterday to a lawmaker's request that his agency impose a statewide ban on the artery-clogging fat in all restaurant food. Last month, California became the first state to outlaw restaurant use of trans fat, found commonly in doughnuts, french fries, and chicken nuggets. Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge have also passed prohibitions. The Legislature came close to adopting a ban this summer but ran out of time. 'It is our responsibility to the residents of the Commonwealth to remove this poison from the food supply,' state Representative Peter J. Koutoujian, cochairman of the Legislature's Joint Committee on Public Health, wrote to Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach yesterday. Auerbach ardently supports the idea of a ban on trans fat, he said in an interview. The evidence is overwhelming that the artificial fat contributes to heart disease and other serious health problems, he said. In his previous job as Boston's public health chief, Auerbach pushed for the ban, which enters its first phase Sept. 13: All food-service establishments must stop frying, grilling, or sauteing foods with oils that contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oil....The Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a statewide ban on trans fat in June, but the Senate did not vote on it before the Legislature closed its formal session at the end of July. If he were to wait for legislative action, Koutoujian said, it might take another year or two. In that time, 'hundreds of people may die from the continued ingestion of trans-fat,' he said. 'The federal government says there is no safe level of trans fat.' In his letter, Koutoujian cites a Harvard School of Public Health study estimating that a statewide ban on trans fats could prevent 1 in 4 heart attacks and 1,400 deaths per year in Massachusetts. Trans fat is found most often in shortenings and oils for frying; it may also turn up in baked goods. Under federal law, foods sold in stores must list their trans fat content. Trans fat is created when food makers add hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to solidify them. The substance adds to a food's shelf life, but offers no health or taste benefits. Widely seen as the type of fat that is worst for health, it both increases bad cholesterol and decreases good cholesterol and has been linked to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and stroke."
Bid to ban trans fat statewide gets a boost
Boston Globe, 21 August 2008

"A high intake of trans fats could increase colon cancer risk, according to new research published in the American Journal of Epidemiology. People who ate the most trans fatty acids were more likely to have pre-cancerous growths or polyps in their colons than those who consumed the least, Dr. Lisa C. Vinikoor of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and colleagues found. 'These results provide further support for recommendations to limit consumption of trans-fatty acids,' they conclude."
Trans fats linked to pre-cancerous colon growths
Reuters, 29 August 2008

"Common food additives and colorings can increase hyperactive behavior in a broad range of children, a study being released today found....The new research, which was financed by Britain’s Food Standards Agency and published online by the British medical journal The Lancet, presents regulators with a number of issues: Should foods containing preservatives and artificial colors carry warning labels? Should some additives be prohibited entirely? Should school cafeterias remove foods with additives?...The Lancet study focused on a variety of food colorings and on sodium benzoate, a common preservative....In the six-week trial, researchers gave a randomly selected group of several hundred 3-year-olds and of 8- and 9-year-olds drinks with additives — colors and sodium benzoate — that mimicked the mix in children’s drinks that are commercially available. The dose of additives consumed was equivalent to that in one or two servings of candy a day, the researchers said. Their diet was otherwise controlled to avoid other sources of the additives....All of the children were evaluated for inattention and hyperactivity by parents, teachers (for school-age children) and through a computer test. Neither the researchers nor the subject knew which drink any of the children had consumed. The researchers discovered that children in both age groups were significantly more hyperactive and that they had shorter attention spans if they had consumed the drink containing the additives."
Some Food Additives Raise Hyperactivity, Study Finds
New York Times, 6 September 2007

"Common preservative sodium benzoate, widely used in soft drinks and other foods, is again at the centre of health concerns after research emerged linking it to cell damage. News of the research, conducted by professor Peter Piper at the University of Sheffield, prompted prominent UK politician Norman Baker to call for an immediate inquiry into the safety of sodium benzoate in foods. Professor Piper's research, which suggests that benzoate contributes to faster ageing and degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's, increases the pressure on soft drinks makers to find alternative ways to preserve their products.... it is the third time in around 12 months that sodium benzoate, also known as E211 in the EU, has been publicly linked with health concerns. Last year, an investigation by BeverageDaily.com revealed soft drinks industry leaders had known the preservative may break down to form benzene, a potentially cancerous chemical, in drinks also containing ascorbic acid (vitamin C) or citric acid. And more recently, sodium benzoate was one of seven 'E-numbers' again linked to behavioural problems in children. 'We are feeding very large amounts of preservatives like this to children. Is this a completely safe practice? I think the question has to be put there,' said Professor Piper, in an interview with BeverageDaily.... Professor Piper called for new safety tests on sodium benzoate taking into account a growing body of science on free radicals. And he advised soft drinks firms to put more resources into alternative preservation methods. 'I understand industry concerns about shelf life, but they have to ask - is this [sodium benzoate] completely necessary?' He said some children's livers were 'working overtime' to process the amount of sodium benzoate entering their bodies. Piper, an expert in molecular biology and biotechnology, tested benzoate on yeast cells in his lab. He found the preservative spurred an increase in production of oxygen radicals, or free radicals, which several studies have linked to serious illnesses and ageing in general.' In his study, first completed in 1999, benzoate appeared to attack the 'power station' of the cells, known as the mitochondria. It damaged the cells' ability to prevent the oxygen leaks that create free radicals."
Fresh health fears hit benzoate in soft drinks
FoodQualityNews, 29 May 2007

"Consuming low-calorie drinks may increase the risk of putting on weight, according to scientists in the United States. They have suggested that people who choose diet drinks containing artificial sweeteners tend to overcompensate and consume more calories than those who do not. Although the rise in obesity has corresponded with a growth in low-calorie soft drinks, designed to make keeping weight down easy by replacing sugar with saccharine or other sweeteners, scientists who conducted experiments using rats at Purdue University, in Indiana, have suggested that the opposite may be happening. They found that rats fed on yoghurt sweetened with saccharine ate more calories, gained more weight and put on more body fat than rats that were given yoghurt sweetened with glucose.....their findings match emerging evidence that people who drink more diet drinks are at higher risk of obesity and metabolic syndrome, a collection of medical problems such as abdominal fat, high blood pressure and insulin resistance that put people at greater risk of heart disease and diabetes....artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose and acesulfame K, which taste sweet but do not provide calories, could have similar effects."
How artificial sweeteners may be making slimmers put on weight
London Times, 11 February 2008

"Chinese and U.S. researchers suggest monosodium glutamate, or MSG, use is linked to greater body weight.  Dr. Ka He of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health and colleagues studied more than 750 Chinese men and women, ages 40 to 59, in three rural villages in China. A majority of the study participants prepared their meals at home without commercially processed foods, but 82 percent used MSG in their food. The researchers said they chose study participants in rural Chinese because they used very little commercially processed food, but many regularly used MSG in food preparation. Those who used MSG were divided into three groups, based on the amount used. The study, published in the journal Obesity, found the one-third who used the most MSG were nearly three times more likely to be overweight than non-users. 'We saw this risk even when we controlled for physical activity, total calorie intake and other possible explanations for the difference in body mass,' He said in a statement. 'The positive associations between MSG intake and overweight were consistent with data from animal studies.'"
Monosodium glutamate linked to obesity
United Press International, 14 August 2008

"Poverty drove a family to rely on too much monosodium glutamate (MSG) to flavor their rice, causing a two-year-old boy to fall down the stairs of their house last Saturday in Sagay City, Negros Occidental. Two-year-old Wilfredo ‘Willie’ Labajo Jr.was left in the care of his older siblings when their parents went out to sell iced buko. Willie felt dizzy and fell from the stairs after his nine-year-old sister, ‘Jerelyn’, fed him with rice and MSG, instead of rice with salt. The family had ran out of salt, the flavoring they normally mix with rice....MSG, commonly known as ‘ vetsin’ in the Philippines, is a flavor enhancer in a variety of foods prepared at home, in restaurants, and by food processors. It is made from sugar beets and sugar cane. Though the Bureau of Food and Drugs said MSG is not yet proven to be hazardous to health, it reminded the public not to take it without dissolving it with a main dish. Common reactions from eating MSG include burning sensation, numbness, tingling, warmth and weakness in some parts of the  body, facial pressure or tightness, chest pain, headache, nausea, rapid heartbeat, difficulty breathing, and drowsiness....In the Philippines, MSG is widely used in so-called junk foods. In restaurants and eateries, the MSG content cannot be monitored because it is already dissolved. Willie was first brought to the Marañon District Hospital in Sagay last Tuesday. He was transferred to the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital after two days. The boy’s CT scan results showed internal bleeding in the frontal area of his brain, so doctors confined him for further observation."
Sign of the times: Too much MSG downs poor boy in Negros
ABS-CBN News (Phillipines), 3 August 2008

"The effects of monosodium glutamate (MSG) used as food additive on the small intestine of adult wistar rat was investigated. Both adult male and female Wistar rats (n=24) of average weight of 185g were randomly assigned into two treatments (n=16) and control (n=8) groups. The rats in the treatment groups received 3g and 6g of MSG thoroughly mixed with grower's mash daily for fourteen days. The control rats received equal amounts of grower's mash without MSG added daily. The grower's mash was obtained from Edo Feeds and Flour Mill Ltd, Ewu, Edo State and the rats were given water ad libitum. The rats were sacrificed on day fifteen of the experiment. The small intestine was carefully dissected out and quickly fixed in 10% formal saline for routine histological procedures. The histological findings in the treated groups showed evidence of increased basophilia and cellular hypertrophy in animals given 3g of MSG, while degenerative and atrophic changes in the group with 6g of MSG was more pronounced. These findings indicate that Monosodium glutamate may have some deleterious effects on the microanatomy of the small intestine of adult Wistar rats at higher doses."
HISTOLOGICAL STUDIES OF THE EFFECTS OF MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE ON THE SMALL INTESTINE OF ADULT WISTAR RATS
Rev Electron Biomed / Electron J Biomed 2007; 2:14-18

100 Years To Reach This Point

"In 1908, Professor Kikunae Ikedia of the University of Tokyo Japan, working on the seasoning abilities of some seaweed isolated MSG. A year later the patent was bought and the new seasoning was christened Aji-no-moto. Today, MSG is produced in many countries around the world through a fermentation process of molasses from sugar cane or sugar beets, as well as starch and corn sugar. In this fermentation process, bacteria, which may be genetically modified, are grown aerobically in a liquid nutrient medium. These bacteria have the ability to synthesize glutamic acid outside of their cell membranes and excrete it into the medium to accumulate there. When MSG is added to food, it provides a flavoring function similar to the naturally occurring free glutamate: which differ from the four classic tastes of sweet, sour, salty and bitter. The toxic effect of MSG was further corroborated by the work done on the testis, causing significant oligozoospermia and increase abnormal sperm morphology in a dose-dependent fashion in male wistar rats. It has also being established that MSG may be implicated in cases of male infertility as it causes testicular hemorrhage, degeneration and alteration of sperm cell population and morphology. In Nigeria, most communities and individuals often use Monosodium glutamate as a bleaching agent for the removal of stains from clothes. There is a growing apprehension that its excellent bleaching properties could be harmful or injurious to the intestinal mucosa, or worse still inducing terminal diseases in consumers when ingested as a flavor enhancer in food. Despite evidence of negative consumer response to MSG, reputable international organizations and nutritionist have continued to endorse Monosodium glutamate, and reiterate that Monosodium glutamate has no adverse reactions in humans. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States reports that Monosodium glutamate is safe and that it should be maintained on the 'Generally Recognized as Safe' (GRAS)-list of foods; being listed on food labels as a 'Flavoring' or 'hydrolyzed vegetable protein'....In 1968, the first published report of an adverse reaction to Monosodium glutamate appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine where it was reported that Monosodium glutamate was neurotoxic; killing brain cells, causing retinal degeneration, endocrine disorder and also associated with a number of pathological conditions such as addition, stroke, epilepsy, brain trauma, neuropathic pain, schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, degenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. MSG causes increase in alkaline phosphatase activity in the small intestine."
HISTOLOGICAL STUDIES OF THE EFFECTS OF MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE ON THE SMALL INTESTINE OF ADULT WISTAR RATS
Rev Electron Biomed / Electron J Biomed 2007; 2:14-18

How Wholesome Is Living Like This?

"Just one can of the popular stimulant energy drink Red Bull can increase the risk of heart attack or stroke, even in young people, Australian medical researchers said on Friday. The caffeine-loaded beverage, popular with university students and adrenaline sport fans to give them 'wings', caused the blood to become sticky, a pre-cursor to cardiovascular problems such as stroke. 'One hour after they drank Red Bull, (their blood systems) were no longer normal. They were abnormal like we would expect in a patient with cardiovascular disease,' Scott Willoughby, lead researcher from the Cardiovascular Research Centre at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, told the Australian newspaper...Willoughby and his team tested the cardiovascular systems of 30 young adults one hour before and one hour after consuming one 250ml can of sugar-free Red Bull. The results showed 'normal people develop symptoms normally associated with cardiovascular disease' after consuming the drink, created in the 1980s by Austrian entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz based on a similar Thai energy drink. Red Bull is banned in Norway, Uruguay and Denmark because of health risks listed on its cans, but the company last year sold 3.5 billion cans in 143 countries....Willoughby said Red Bull could be deadly when combined with stress or high blood pressure, impairing proper blood vessel function and possibly lifting the risk of blood clotting."
Red Bull drink lifts stroke risk: Australian study
Reuters, 14 August 2008

"The Advertising Standards Authority has upheld complaints about the claims made for the 'energy' drink Red Bull. The makers of the drink will in future have to seek prior approval for advertisements of the product....The newspaper, magazine and poster advertisements all contained claims that the drink could help improve concentration, reaction time and endurance....But the ASA said the Austrian-based manufacturers company could not provide satisfactory evidence to back up its claims for the period when the complaints were made. Red Bull produced more than 20 studies to substantiate its claims. But the ASA said much of the research suggested that it was necessary to drink four cans of the drink to enhance performance - not just the one implied in the advertisements....Red Bull said its drink derived its energy-giving powers from a mixture of caffeine, taurine (an amino acid) and a special sugar, glucuronolactone. It said it had carried out recent research, not admissible to the ASA, which backed up its claims."
Energy drink claims rejected
BBC Online, 24 January 2001

"Ingredients: carbonated water, sodium citrate, taurine, glucuronolactone,caffeine, acesulfame k, aspartame, inositol, xanthan gum, niacinamide, calcium pantothenate, pyridoxine hcl, vitamin b12, artificial flavors, colors."
Sugar Free Red Bull Energy Drink - Nutrition and Ingredients
BevNET.com, 2008

"The television chef Jamie Oliver has fiercely criticised parents who feed their children 'junk', describing some youngsters' diets as a crime. He said 70 per cent of packed lunches given to schoolchildren were 'disgraceful' and he would like to see them banned.....Oliver criticises parents in his new television show Jamie's Return to School Dinners, the follow-up to his successful Channel 4 series on improving school meals. In the programme Oliver says: 'I've spent two years being PC about parents, now is the time to say, 'If you're giving your young children fizzy drinks you're an arsehole, you're a tosser. If you give them bags of crisps you're an idiot. If you aren't cooking them a hot meal, sort it out.' If they truly care they've got to take control.' Speaking after a preview screening of the new programme, Oliver said: 'I have seen kids of the ages of four or five, the same age as mine, open their lunchbox and inside is a cold, half-eaten McDonald's, multiple packets of crisps and a can of Red Bull. We laugh and then want to cry. 'I have no doubts that these parents love their children,' he said. But he added that if a teacher told a parent that their child tended to get very tired at the end of the day, it was wrong to think the solution was 'a can of Red Bull because it gives you wings - you might as well give them a line of coke'.....In Jamie's Return to School Dinners, he goes to Lincolnshire, where kitchens were removed from schools to save money during the Thatcher years and where nearly 50,000 children take a packed lunch. The programme sees him attempt to reintroduce hot meals into the county by collaborating with local pubs and restaurants. Oliver said he was 'not saying parents are bad' but that the problem was they had not been taught how to provide healthy meals. 'These young parents haven't been taught from the family unit which is the best teacher. For whatever reason, be it work or whatever, they haven't done that.'"
Jamie Oliver rages against 'crime' of junk-food diets
Reuters, 8 September 2008

What Have We Learned About Junk Diets And Artificial Foods In The Process?
Losing The Plot Completely

"A new type of flour could turn the humble loaf of bread into a weapon against obesity. Researchers at the National Institute for Agricultural Botany in Cambridge have produced a genetically modified form of wheat that releases fewer calories into the body compared to other varieties currently available....  Dr Phil Cox, one of the researcher on the team, said: 'It is hoped that, by making indulgent foods more healthy, the consumer will be able to continue to enjoy those foods that are currently seen as bad for you, without worrying about the fat content."
New flour means bread could fight obesity
Daily Telegraph, 18 July 2008

Remember How They Said Margarine Was Good For You? Now GM Omega-3 Trojan Horse Threat Arrives At The Gates Of Troy www.nlpwessex.org/docs/gmormega3.htm Genetic Engineers Look To Introduce More 'Novel Foods' On 'Health' Grounds

And Not Just The Foods Themselves

"Exposure to bisphenol A, the hormonally active chemical used to make the linings of most tin cans and hard plastic bottles, may be able to alter brain function, impairing the ability to learn and remember, according to a new study by researchers from Canada and the United States. The study, conducted on monkeys, whose brain development is similar to that of humans, raises the possibility that ailments such as depression, Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia may be linked to the controversial chemical. Almost all people living in industrialized societies are exposed to BPA as a result of trace amounts leaking from food and beverage containers. The researchers, from the University of Guelph in Ontario and Yale University in Connecticut, found that low-level exposure to bisphenol A, or BPA, was able to block the formation of some types of synapses in the brain, the tissue that allows brain cells known as neurons to communicate with each other. The proper development of these synapses is considered crucial for remembering thoughts and experiences, and impairments in them are common in sufferers of depression and other brain-related ailments. The study, to be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a significant advance over previous rodent-based findings that BPA is able to impair synapses. That research was open to criticism that what happened in the brains of a mouse or a rat was of limited applicability to the more complex brains of humans. 'If bisphenol A at these kind of low doses is able to interfere with [monkey synapses] then there has to be concern that continuous exposure to bisphenol A is probably not a good thing,' said Neil MacLusky, a biomedical science professor at the University of Guelph and one of the study authors......In April, Health Canada proposed adding BPA to Canada's list of toxic substances, which would make the country the first in the world to take such regulatory action. Health Canada also said it planned to ban its use in baby bottles and have the infant formula industry cut the amount leaking from cans into baby food, based on concerns that current infant exposure didn't provide enough of a safety margin. In response, most major retailers removed plastic water and baby bottles made with BPA from their shelves. About three billion kilograms of BPA are produced each year, making it one of the highest volume synthetic chemicals. A public comment period on Health Canada's proposals ended in June and the government expects to issue a final decision on its proposals on or before Oct. 18. The new study by the Canadian-U.S. team is one of a growing number of scientific findings raising questions about the chemical. Last month, researchers at the University of Cincinnati linked BPA to heart attacks and adult onset diabetes through its ability to suppress the production in human fat tissue of a key hormone that protects people against these conditions. The National Toxicology Program, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, issued a report yesterday on BPA that raised concerns the chemical may be able to alter the prostate gland and the brain, and cause behavioural changes, particularly in cases of exposure during fetal development and childhood."
Bisphenol A may impair learning and memory
Globe and Mail (Canada), 4 September 2008

Another Suspect In Ballooning World Health Problem Microwave Ovens And The Obesity Epidemic www.nlpwessex.org/docs/microwaveobesity.htm

"After two years of nearly constant food-borne illness outbreaks and recalls of everything from tainted peanut butter to tons of hamburger meat, the Food and Drug Administration's decision last week to allow the irradiation of lettuce and spinach to kill dangerous bacteria didn't surprise anyone in the food industry. Nor did it solve a long-simmering debate over whether the agency's penchant for prescribing such technical fixes to biological problems makes sense. There are strong feelings on both sides of the argument, and the lettuce/spinach decision brought them once again to the surface. Zapping spinach and iceberg lettuce with a tiny shot of radiation is an effective way to prevent deadly outbreaks of E. coli, according to the FDA, which says it's safe. But not everyone agrees. 'It's the latest in a series of PR moves designed to mislead the public from the fact that the government is asleep at the wheel here,' said Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association, an organic food watchdog group....The FDA's irradiation decision is the latest attempt to find a technical fix to what has become a near-epidemic food safety problem. • In 2000, the FDA approved the use of irradiation on meat, a practice that has not gained widespread consumer acceptance.• In July 2004, the agency approved the application of carbon monoxide gas to preserve the red color of packaged meat • In January more controversy was stirred when the FDA approved the sale of meat and dairy products from cloned cows. Whether consumers will accept irradiated lettuce and spinach is an open question. Irradiated meat, for example, is hard to find in most stores. Meat, however, isn't the only irradiated food available. Some imported produce is irradiated, as are some spices. And irradiated food has to carry a label explaining that it was treated. Each FDA decision has broadened the philosophical divide between food manufacturers, which generally favor the expanded use of such technology, and many food safety and organic food groups that oppose it. 'Food irradiation is a pseudo-fix,' said Bill Freese, a science policy analyst with the Center for Food Safety in Washington. 'It's a way to try to come in and clean up problems that are created in the middle of the food production chain. I think it's clearly a disincentive to clean up the problems at the source.'...Opponents argue that irradiation reduces vitamin levels and alters the makeup of foods. They also suggest irradiation will allow food manufacturers to cut corners on other required food safety measures, because irradiation might be perceived as a more effective food safety measure."
Irradiation step doesn't quiet debate on FDA moves
Chicago Tribune, 25 August 2008

Decades Of Non-Disclosure
Where Large Amounts Of Money Are At Stake There Will Always Be Cover-Ups

"Tobacco companies have covered up for 40 years the fact that cigarette smoke contains a dangerous radioactive substance that exposes heavy smokers to the radiation equivalent of having 300 chest X-rays a year. Internal company records reveal that cigarette manufacturers knew that tobacco contained polonium-210 but avoided drawing public attention to the fact for fear of 'waking a sleeping giant'. Polonium-210 emits alpha radiation estimated to cause about 11,700 lung cancer deaths each year worldwide. Russian dissident and writer Alexander Litvinenko died after being poisoned with polonium-210 in 2006. The polonium-210 in tobacco plants comes from high-phosphate fertilisers used on crops. The fertiliser is manufactured from rocks that contain radioisotopes such as polonium-210 (PO-210). The radioactive substance is absorbed through the plant's roots and deposited on its leaves. People who smoke one-and-a-half packets of cigarettes a day are exposed to as much radiation as they would receive from 300 chest X-rays a year, according to research. New health warning labels such as 'Cigarettes are a major source of radiation exposure' have been urged by the authors of a study published in this month's American Journal of Public Health.....The US authors analysed 1500 internal tobacco company documents, finding that tobacco companies conducted scientific studies on removing polonium-210 from cigarettes but were unable to do so. 'Documents show that the major transnational cigarette manufacturers managed the potential public relations problem of PO-210 in cigarettes by avoiding any public attention to the issue.' Philip Morris even decided not to publish internal research on polonium-210 which was more favourable to the tobacco industry than previous studies for fear of heightening public awareness of PO-210. Urging his boss not to publish the results, one scientist wrote: 'It has the potential of waking a sleeping giant.' Tobacco company lawyers played a key role in suppressing information about the research to protect the companies from litigation. The journal authors, led by Monique Muggli, of the nicotine research program at the Mayo Clinic, say: 'The internal debate, carried on for the better part of a decade, involved most cigarette manufacturers and pitted tobacco researchers against tobacco lawyers. The lawyers prevailed. Internal Philip Morris documents suggest that as long as the company could avoid having knowledge of biologically significant levels of PO-210 in its products, it could ignore PO-210 as a possible cause of lung cancer.'"
Big Tobacco covered up radiation danger
The Age (Australia), 7 September 2008

"The whereabouts of 170,000 tonnes of contaminated GM maize and its possible import into the UK has caused an international investigation and claims of a cover-up on both sides of the Atlantic. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) first put out a statement saying the contamination was 'on a small scale' but later retracted it, instead saying the maize was unlikely to have got into food but might have been fed to cattle. The maize is not licensed to be grown in Europe and contains a GM antibiotic-resistant marker of a type scientists have advised the EU to phase out. It is theoretically possible for bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics as a result of contact with the marker genes - although the company which developed the maize, Syngenta, denies it. The row intensified yesterday because it was realised that the US administration had known of the contamination since December, but did not notify Britain until late last month when an article in Nature revealed the problem....One GM maize, BT10, not licensed for Europe, was found to have been mixed up with another GM maize, BT11, which was licensed. The two varieties produce the same proteins, which led Syngenta and the US watchdogs, the food and drug administration and the environment protection agency, to claim there was no problem; the two crops were the same. It was a line that Defra followed until it was realised that BT10 contained the suspect antibiotic marker. This caused anti-GM groups to claim a cover-up by the company and the US administration....Brian John, of GM Free Wales, accused the US authorities and the British government of trying to cover up the problem. 'Nobody, either in the government or in the food safety agencies, appears to be doing anything.'"
Joint US-UK cover-up alleged over GM maize
Guardian, 1 April 2005

"Britain's official food safety watchdog has privately told supermarkets that it will not stop them selling an illegal GM rice to the public. Documents seen by this newspaper show that the Food Standards Agency assured major manufacturers and retailers 10 days ago that it would not make them withdraw the rice - at the same time as it was telling the public it should not be allowed to go on sale. The environmental group Friends of the Earth has already found GM material in two types of own-brand rice sold in Morrisons supermarkets - in direct contravention of food safety regulations - and believes the GM rice is likely to be widespread throughout Britain. But the agency has not carried out its own tests for modified rice in products on the market, and has not instructed retailers to do so. It says that the rice is safe, but some scientists disagree. Last night, Peter Ainsworth, the shadow Environment Secretary, described the agency's conduct as 'a massive scandal' and said it 'smelt of a cover-up'. He said he would be asking for an official investigation into whether the agency had broken the law.... last month the Bush administration admitted it had found a modified material, which had not even received safety clearance in the US, in long-grain rice intended for export. The unauthorised rice, which is listed as LLRICE601, was developed by Bayer CropScience to tolerate weedkiller, and tested on US farms between 1998 and 2001. The company decided not to market it. Nevertheless it has turned up widely in US rice, possibly because pollen from the tested rice spread to conventional crops. The European Commission says that it has been found in 33 of 162 samples of rice imported from the US. The EC last month banned any further imports unless they could be proved to be clear of the GM rice, and instructed governments to test products already on the market to make sure that they did not contain it. The European health and consumer protection commissioner, Markos Kyprianou, said it should not be allowed to enter the food chain 'in any circumstances'. Two big Swiss supermarket chains have already banned all US long-grain rice from sale. The Food Standards Agency publicly announced that 'the presence of this GM material in rice on sale in the UK is illegal under European food law', adding: 'Food retailers are responsible for ensuring the food they sell does not contain unauthorised GM material.' But on 5 September, a senior agency official, Claire Baynton, privately met major retailers and food manufacturers. According to records of the meeting seen by The Independent on Sunday, she said the agency did not expect companies to trace products and withdraw them. The agency says it told the companies at the meeting that it was their responsibility to ensure that the food they sold did not contain GM material, but that it would not 'require' them to test for it or withdraw products if found. It says that it has "not carried out tests of products on the market' and 'has not issued any instructions to retailers' to do so. The agency says that modified rice does not present a safety concern and is advising people who may have US rice at home to continue to eat it. But some scientists say it could give cause for 'concern over its potential allergenicity'. Friends of the Earth has found GM material in two samples of Morrisons American long-grain rice and American long-grain brown rice, although it was not able to verify that it was LLRICE601. Morrisons accepts that selling any GM rice is illegal. It cleared its shelves of the products 'as a precautionary measure' immediately after being informed of the findings."
GM: The cover-up
Independent, 17 September 2006

Bayer, Junk Science, and Corporate Crime

Time for 'Glasnost' and 'Perestroika' in Modern Science Tearing Down Biotech's 'Berlin Wall' www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/genomicsparadigm.htm The Fundamental Scientific Error of Pursuing Transgenics Before Competency in Genomics 4 May 2003 [Extract Only] .....This commercial pressure is one of the most important factors at play behind the regular denial of the basic difficulties associated with transgenic technology, and it is probably the most dangerous. The net result of this disturbing scenario is that products are brought to the market without the necessary science having been done, and a pretence is instituted that the science developed so far is adequate. Just as has being going on in the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries for decades, the commercial interests concerned simply cannot afford to publicly acknowledge all the scientific realities. It is too destructive to share price - so modern science has its own version of the Iron Curtain. According to one report from a meeting held jointly by the British Medical Journal and the Lancet published in the London Times, 1st October 1999 "Drugs companies hold back unfavourable results because they make their stock prices plummet" leading to "thousands of unnecessary deaths". If such industries have a known track record of concealing damaging research why should ag-biotech be any different? As it happens Europe's largest ag-biotech company is drug-chemical giant Bayer, the recent purchaser of Aventis. It is worth remembering that it is the GM corporations themselves that usually do the safety tests on transgenic foods, not the regulatory authorities. Some recent press reports give an insight into the culture of 'corporate responsibility' which appears to operate at companies like Bayer. On 16 April 2003 Bayer and another pharmaceutical company were required to pay $344 million in a US Medicaid fraud case, the largest ever such settlement. The settlement included a criminal fine and an agreement by Bayer to "admit that it engaged in this conduct with the intent to defraud or mislead". According to a report by Associated Press/ABC News 7 March 2003 "A $100 million lawsuit against Bayer Corp has yielded e-mails and internal documents that suggest the drug company let marketing and PR concerns trump safety, disregarding disturbing research on the cholesterol drug Baycol before it was pulled off the market because of dozens of deaths.... Internal documents and e-mails released by the plaintiff's lawyers show executives discussing potential dangers long before sales were halted.... Other documents show that Bayer executives worried about studying possible side effects of the drug because any results would have to be reported to the FDA. In June 2000, an e-mail to a vice president noted that 'there have been some deaths related to Baycol,' and that people at its marketing partner, SmithKline Beecham, knew it. 'So much for keeping this quiet,' the e-mail said. 'How will marketing spin this?' another e-mail wondered." Most of the GM crop trials in the UK are by Bayer Cropscience. Under their earlier management by Aventis these crops were found to include unauthorised transgenic material. On another occasion contractors were caught falsifying data from agronomic trials of Aventis's GM maize. The data was being collected for British seed authorities as part of the official approval process. Just how comfortable do we feel with the biotechnology industry itself being responsible for carrying out the testing of its own GM crops and foods, especially when it comes to safety issues? Such a leap of faith runs contrary to longstanding previous experience with life-sciences companies if the British Medical Journal and the Lancet are to be believed. As one editorial in the Lancet in 2000 states: "All policymakers must be vigilant to the possibility of research data being manipulated by corporate bodies and of scientific colleagues being seduced by the material charms of industry. Trust is no defence against an aggressively deceptive corporate sector." Not surprisingly in this 'real world' context of human error or fraud, many people have become deeply concerned about the shaky science and business ethics surrounding GM technology. Those concerned include some of the more forward thinking and responsible members of the scientific community even if many still choose to keep their heads below the parapet. These individuals are the much needed scientific 'dissidents' of the early 21st century. They are urgently required perhaps in something of the tradition of Barbara McLintock who was one of the most notable figures in the biological sciences of the last century to swim against the established academic tide of her time. Ironically it was she who demonstrated the role played by chromosome position in gene function in 1951, only to be greeted with derision from the scientific establishment. It was not until 1983 that she was awarded a Nobel Prize for this discovery after the rest of the scientific community had finally accepted the validity of her understanding.....

---

Junk Food Lawsuits Ahoy!
Class Action Lawyers Start Licking Their Litigation Lips

"Junk food companies in America are to warn consumers that eating too many of their products could make them fat. In a move designed to protect companies such as McDonald's and Coca-Cola from the kind of lawsuits brought against the tobacco industry, an industry-funded organisation will begin its advertising campaign - codenamed Activate - in a fortnight.  The campaign will cause uproar in a country whose citizens spent $110 billion last year on junk food.... Lawyers and food industry experts say that the project, which is being backed by the International Food Information Council foundation, could lead to packaged foods such as chocolate buscuits and crisps having cigarette-style health warnings..... Industry backers include McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Burger King, Pepsi, Heinz, Unilever and Monsanto. Critics of the industry say it has been panicked into the move after the publication of a report last December by David Satcher, the US Surgeon General. In unusually blunt language, he warned that obesity-related health problems were costing America $117 billion a year. Treating smoking-related diseases cost just $23 billion more.... Food companies are not only worried about law suits. Campaigners also argue that junk food such as Big Macs should be taxed in the same way as cigarettes... "
Health warning: eating can make you fat
London Times, 14 June 2002

Consumers Are Starting To Rebel As They Begin To Realise There Is A Health Problem
With Artificial Foods

"McDonald's has agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle a lawsuit over artery-clogging trans fats in its cooking oils, the company said on Friday. McDonald's said it will donate $7 million to the American Heart Association and spend another $1.5 million to inform the public of its trans fat plans. The settlement is the result of litigation from a San Francisco area activist who has been seeking to raise public awareness of the health dangers from the trans fatty acids (TFAs) in hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils. Trans fats are used in thousands of processed food products, often giving the crunch to French fries, cookies, and cereals. They are created in processing vegetable oils and have been found to be as unhealthy as pure cholesterol. The latest official US nutrition recommendations suggest limiting their intake. 'McDonald's has reached an agreement to further notify our customers about the status of our ongoing initiative to reduce TFAs in our cooking oil,' the company said in a statement. Stephen Joseph, a lawyer who founded BanTransFats.com, sued McDonald's over complaints the firm did not properly inform the public that it had encountered delays in plans to lessen the trans fats in its cooking oils....British-born Joseph first gained publicity for his cause by suing Kraft Foods two years ago to highlight the trans fat content of much-beloved Oreo cookies. The company has since moved to remove trans fats from its snack foods."
McDonald's to Pay $8.5 Million in Trans Fat Lawsuit
Reuters, 14 February 2005

"Attempts to ban the artificial sweetener aspartame - found in chewing gum and diet coke among other foods - have taken a political turn. MPs have been presented with a petition signed by more than 8,000 people demanding that the food additive commonly known as nutra-sweet be banned from schools and the public be warned about it."
Calls for nutra-sweet to be banned
3 News (New Zealand), 24 July 2008

  "A $350 million class action lawsuit was filed on September 15, 2004 in United States District Court in San Francisco, California, case no: C 04 3872. This class action racketeering (RICO) lawsuit was filed against the NutraSweet Corporation, American Diabetes Association, Dr. Robert H. Moser and John Does 1-50. Plaintiffs maintain that this lawsuit will prove how deadly the chemical sweetener aspartame is when consumed by humans.  Contained in the lawsuit is the key role played by current Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld (search) in helping to get aspartame pushed through the FDA. Back in the 1980s, Rumsfeld was the President and CEO of Searle who originally owned the patent on aspartame. Plaintiffs maintain that Rumsfeld used his political muscle to get aspartame approved by the FDA despite objections of many FDA health researchers and negative studies.....According to the press release issued on this RICO lawsuit: 'On or about September 8, 2004 an affidavit was signed describing the initial third world studies and the health hazards of aspartame. These studies conducted in 1983/84 by the J.D. Searle Company were translated to English from Spanish by a translator in 1984. The 'double blind' studies showed conclusive evidence that aspartame caused severe health problems and even death to the exposed study group. According to the Affidavit, the doctor directing the studies has been missing since the approval of aspartame in 1984. The affidavit also describes how the affiant was directed by J.D. Searle officials to destroy all records of the studies - including filed notes and/or translations - possessed by the affiant. The affiant describes in detail how the translations were forwarded upon completion to J.D. Searle corporate offices in Illinois.'.....This lawsuit charges the defendants engaged in unlawful acts of 'knowingly and intentionally using the neurotoxic Aspartame as a sugar substitute in the manufacture of Equal, while knowing that exposure to Aspartame causes among other diseases/symptoms: abdominal pain, arthritis, asthma, brain cancer, breathing difficulties, burning eyes or throat, burning urination, chest pains, chronic cough, chronic fatigue, death, depression, diarrhea, headaches/migraines, hearing loss, heart palpitations, hives (urticaria), hypertension, impotency and sexual problems, memory loss, menstrual problems or changes, nausea or vomiting, slurring of speech, tremors, tinnitus, vertigo and/or vision loss.' The lawsuit also states, 'Further, Aspartame disease mimics symptoms or worsens the following diseases: Fibromyalgia, Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's Disease, Lupus, Diabetes and diabetic complications, Epilepsy, Alzheimer's Disease, birth defects, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Lymphoma, Lyme Disease, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), Panic Disorder, Depression and other psychological disorders.'...Defendants in this lawsuit continue to maintain that aspartame is safe for consumption. Aspartame is found in more than 5,000 food products and all diet soft drinks sold in the United States."
$350 MILLION RICO LAWSUIT FILED OVER ASPARTAME
NewsWithViews, 16 September 2004

Sweating Manufacturers Start To Look For Natural Alternatives

"Coke and Pepsi are keeping quiet about what drinks could get the new sweeteners. Coke would not comment about product plans, but the Atlanta-based beverage giant could have a soft drink with its stevia-based sweetener on the market by the end of the year, a person with knowledge of the situation said. Pepsi, based in Purchase, N.Y., also declined to talk about U.S. product plans. It is launching this month in Peru a version of SoBe Life, a flavored water, that uses its stevia-based sweetener. Both clearly see promise in the new sweeteners. A natural, no-calorie sweetener that tastes good would be a major breakthrough, said Lou Imbrogno, senior vice president of Pepsi worldwide technical operations. 'Imagine making water and have that be fuel for your vehicle,' Imbrogno said. 'It’s similar to where we could have a sweetener without calories that tastes sweet.' A new stevia-based sweetener won’t replace existing sweeteners, but it could appeal to a growing part of the market, said Rhona Applebaum, Coke vice president and chief scientific and regulatory officer. 'We have a variety of sweeteners out there that we’ve used — all safe sweeteners, all with various functionalities,' Applebaum said. 'But more and more we’re seeing that consumers are looking for … a naturally sourced sweetener.' Both Coke and Pepsi are struggling to increase sales volume in the United States. Carbonated soft drinks, still the companies’ core business, have suffered as consumers look for choices viewed as healthier....Coke and Pepsi both hope to use an extract of the stevia plant called rebaudioside A, which is supposed to provide a cleaner, more consistent taste. The companies, working with food product partners, have filed papers with the FDA asking for rebaudioside A to be classified as an ingredient that’s 'generally recognized as safe' by food experts.”
Coke, Pepsi cultivate new, natural sweeteners
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 17 August 2008

"Aspartame should never have reached the marketplace. But even if the authorities were to remove it from sale tomorrow, how much faith should consumers place in the other artificial sweeteners on the market? There is not a single artificial sweetener on the market that can claim, beyond all reasonable doubt, to be safe for humans to consume. Saccharin, cyclamate and acesulfame-K have all been show to cause cancer in animals. Even the family of relatively benign sweeteners known as polyols, such as sorbitol and mannitol, can cause gastric upset if eaten in quantity. NutraSweet believes that its new aspartame-based sweetener, Neotame, is 'revolutionary'; but, seemingly, it is only a more stable version of aspartame. This leaves the market wide open for sucralose.   Sucralose, sold commercially as Splenda, was discovered in 1976 by researchers working for British sugar refiner Tate & Lyle. Four years later, Tate & Lyle joined forces with Johnson & Johnson to develop and commercialise sucralose under the auspices of a new company, McNeil Specialty Products (now called McNeil Nutritionals). Sucralose has been approved by more than 60 regulatory bodies throughout the world, and is now in more than 3,000 products worldwide. In the US, Coca-Cola has developed a new diet drink sweetened with Splenda, and other major soft drink manufacturers are expected to follow suit. Splenda is advertised as being 'made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar' - a claim that is currently the subject of a heated legal challenge in the US. While it is true that sugar, or sucrose, is one of the starting materials for sucralose, its chemical structure is significantly different from that of sucrose. In a complex chemical process, the sucrose is processed with, among other things, phosgene (a chemical-warfare agent used during WWI, now a common intermediary in the production of plastics, pesticides and dyes), and three atoms of chlorine are selectively substituted for three hydroxyl (hydrogen and oxygen) groups naturally attached to the sugar molecule. This process produces 1,6-dichloro-1,6-dideoxy-beta-D-fructofuranosyl-4-chloro-4-deoxy-alpha-D-galactopyranoside (also known as trichlorogalactosucrose or sucralose), a new chemical substance which Tate & Lyle calls a 'water-soluble chlorocarbohydrate'. Accepting Tate & Lyle's classification of sucralose as a chlorocarbohydrate at face value raises reasonable concerns about its suitability as a food additive. Chlorinated carbohydrates belong to a class of chemicals known as chlorocarbons. This class of chemicals includes a number of notorious human and environmental poisons, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs); aliphatic chlorinated carbohydrates; aromatic chlorinated carbohydrates such as DDT; organochlorine pesticides such as aldrin and dieldrin; and aromatic chlorinated ethers such as polychlorinated dioxins (PCDD) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDF).   Most of the synthetic chlorinated compounds that we ingest, such as the pesticide residues in our food and water, bio-accumulate slowly in the body; and many cause developmental problems in the womb or are carcinogenic. How do we know that sucralose is any different?.... In the face of emerging public criticism, lawyers for Tate & Lyle are already gearing up for a battle. According to attorney James Turner, a key player in the aspartame drama, 'there's going to be a huge fight about Splenda in the next few months... [Tate & Lyle's] lawyers are already on the case trying to shut everybody up'. It's a tactic that worked well for Monsanto, which certainly used legal pressure against anyone who criticised NutraSweet."
Life after aspartame
The Ecologist, 9 August 2005

America's Looming Food Crisis www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/USfoodcrisis.htm Junk Food Sector Fears Deluge of Lawsuits Will 'GMron' be next? 25 June 2002

[extract only] ....Whether or not America has a junk economy is still a matter of considerable, if rapidly diminishing, debate.   But there is no doubt about one thing - America is the world's leading consumer of 'junk food'. The impact on levels of domestic obesity and general ill-health is proving devastating. As a result the US junk food sector is now following the tobacco industry in trying to take action to evade what could become an unprecedented wave of law suits. Such a risk now emanates from the large numbers of US consumers who have had their health damaged through the over consumption of highly processed industrialised food products.    As reported in the London Times 14 June: "When the lawyer John Banzhaf pioneered the notion of suing tobacco companies in the mid-60s for the health problems they caused, everyone thought he was crazy. Thirty years later, the big five tobacco companies have been forced to settle a £130 billion claim made by US state governments to pay for the health costs of treating their citizens made ill by smoking".   Just like the GM industry today (although it does not make this direct comparison for itself ) the Times points out that "The tobacco companies argued persistently that cigarettes caused no harm". However, "....[they] were eventually forced to concede defeat under a barage of scientific evidence and leaks from employees disgusted at the dishonesty of their employers....The junk food industry feels it can no longer ignore threats from its customers."   Based on profoundly junk science GMOs are the ultimate junk food - the denaturing of food using this technology begins at the absolute source even before the seed for the food is planted in the ground. As with tobacco and other forms of junk food, it is likely to be decades before the science concerning the effects of GMOs on human health catches up with consumption. But when it does the claims are likely to be on an altogether larger scale.   Apart from the uniquely radical nature of the technology, there is a particular legal reason for this.  With tobacco and Coca-Cola US consumers know that they are consuming it and they do so voluntarily for the most part.  With GMOs the fact that US citizens are consuming them is not disclosed. They consume them with neither knowledge nor consent.  Aided and abetted by a continuous stream of corporate sponsored American governments - both Republican and Democrat - this policy of non-disclosure is conscious and deliberate.   Just like the Enron scandal, a large part of the impending GM debacle is going to hinge around the issue of non-disclosure.  So if you are wondering what to do with your investments as stock markets threaten to go into free fall, you might like to think about selling those ag-biotech company shares first - before they go the way of Enron shares and fail to bounce back. When it finally arrives 'GMron' is, in fact, likely to be far worse. With an impact spreading well beyond stock holders and company pensions, GMron will directly affect the entire population. Whilst other shares will no doubt one day recover, GM stocks are likely to prove the ultimate long term investment liability.    America has some of the worst health indicator scores amongst all of the developed (OECD) countries despite having by far the highest per capita spending on health services in the world.  The way it eats is a key factor. Yet it is this most health-ignorant of countries which is trying to tell the rest of the world what to eat - GM food.  Since the introduction of GM food in the US, reported food related illnesses have more than doubled and in most cases the cause is not known.  Whether or not there is a GM connection remains to be seen, but with thousands more GM foods in the development pipeline such a linkage can only be a matter of time given the shaky science underpinning the whole venture. No doubt the lawyers can hardly wait. In the meantime there is already plenty of evidence of harm for the lawyers to be getting stuck into with the more traditional junk foods (see press excerpts below), even though it took decades for this evidence to surface. In addition the willingness of American consumers to sue over the application of new technology is demonstrated by the announcement earlier this month that Vodafone is now subject to a $1 billion claim by mobile phone users in the US who have suffered brain cancer. Vodafone says there is no evidence of a connection between these instances of disease and the use of their technology. Nonetheless, the announcement awkwardly coincides with the publication of new research which has reignited the debate on potential causal links. Unlike GMOs, however, mobile phones have never been introduced on the basis of de facto compulsory consumption. To make matters considerably worse companies in the US can even introduce GM foods onto the market without notifying the Food and Drug Administration or obtaining its approval. Mix together food, radical and invasive technology, lack of proper testing, compulsory consumption and more than a pinch of non-disclosure, and you have the perfect recipe for social and economic disaster. And they didn't see it coming. Oh, boy...

No Meaningful GM Junk Food Oversight In America

"Ultimately, it is the food producer who is responsible for assuring safety."
Statement of Policy: Foods Derived from New Plant Varieties (GMO Policy)
Federal Register, Vol. 57, No. 104 (1992), p. 229

"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the F.D.A's [Food and Drug Administration] job."
Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications, in an
interview with the New York Times, October 25, 1998

"I was recently on a TV talk show where I debated the safety of genetically modified food with someone representing the Food Technology Association. I began with a brief statement on the hazards of rBGH, the synthetic bovine-growth hormone that is now present in nearly all U.S. dairy products. I described how, in 1989, someone dropped off at my office a batch of documents that had been stolen from the Food and Drug Administration’s files on Monsanto, the company that manufactures rBGH. Included was a Monsanto document from 1987 indicating that the company was fully aware of rBGH’s danger and was conspiring with the FDA to suppress information critical to veterinary and public health. The industry representative responded: 'We’ve researched this question of genetically modified foods very closely, and you don’t think we’d sell any product that would be harmful, do you? We’d be shooting ourselves in the foot. We’ve done every conceivable study, and we’re convinced it’s perfectly safe.' I said, 'I hate to be direct, but can you cite me a single study that Monsanto, or anybody else in the industry, has published documenting what questions they’ve asked, what tests they’ve done, and what are the results of those tests?' She hemmed and hawed, saying, 'You can’t expect us to publish every study,' and finally admitted that, no, she couldn’t cite a single study. Basically, she was saying, 'Trust us.'   In spite of clear evidence that Monsanto and the FDA have suppressed and manipulated information on genetically modified milk since the 1980s, in 1994 they introduced a new technology into the market, about which they have published minimal information, particularly in regard to cancer risks for which there is well-documented, independent scientific evidence. I see no difference between these groups and the tobacco industry, which gave us these same assurances for decades."
Dr Samuel Epstein, Professor Emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, University of Illinois School of Public Health, Chicago
The Sun Magazine, Issue 291, March 2000

"Biotechnology companies can market genetically engineered (GE) foods without notifying the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or obtaining its approval, thanks to regulatory gaps in a system that consumer and environmental groups today asked Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson to fix.... HHS could begin fixing that system, the groups say, by finalizing a rule stalled at the FDA for more than a year. The period for public comment on the rule ended a year ago today. The proposed rule would require premarket notification of bioengineered foods. And while the rule would not require government approval for GE foods, consumer groups say the rule would be a small step in the right direction.... Currently, the FDA only reviews safety data on biotech crops provided by seed companies on a voluntary basis.... 'The public shouldn’t have to rely entirely on the word of a big biotech company when it comes to the safety of food,' [said Gregory Jaffe, director of CSPI’s biotechnology project] 'But under the current rules, companies can bypass the FDA with impunity.'..."
REGULATORY GAP MEANS GE FOODS ARRIVE ON THE MARKET WITHOUT FDA
APPROVAL AND POSSIBLY WITHOUT NOTICE
CSPI Press Release, 3 May 2002

"The FDA said it agreed with the study’s findings but said it should not be obliged to check [GM food testing] data on a regular basis."
USA: GM foods pose no additional risk to health - report
Just-food.com, 29 May 2002

"Monsanto repeatedly states that GE products are reviewed by regulatory agencies. Understanding these agencies role is central to understanding the issue of liability. The biggest misperception about GE crops is that the FDA has tested these plants and declared them safe. What the FDA has done is approved GE crop commercialization based on Monsanto's assurance that the products are safe.....As the world’s leading producer of GE crops Monsanto faces unique risks; these risks require a detailed assessment by senior management and the reporting of that assessment to shareholders....the company’s nominal acknowledgement of GE crop contamination in the face of ever growing scientific and governmental warnings on this issue – show that management is either unprepared for these market changes or did not divulge major risks and strategy changes to investors."
Issue Brief - Monsanto Fails To Identify Risks To Investors
ProxyInformation.com, 2005

"The man in charge of FDA policy, Michael Taylor. He was Monsanto’s former attorney, and later their vice-president. The White House under George H. W. Bush had instructed the FDA to promote the biotechnology industry, and so the FDA created a new position for Michael Taylor. As a result of the policy that he oversaw, if Monsanto and others want to put a GM crop on the market, they don’t even have to tell the FDA. GM companies do participate in a voluntary and highly superficial consultation process with the GM companies do participate in a voluntary and highly superficial consultation process with the FDA, in which they offer just summary data and their own conclusions of safety. At the end of the meaningless exercise, the FDA provides a letter confirming that the biotech company, such as Monsanto, 'has concluded that its GM products are safe.' The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does have a few superficial safety requirements, but only for pesticide-producing GM crops....The first GM crop was looked at by the FDA was the FlavrSavr tomato, engineered to have a longer shelf-life. Calgene, its producers, were the only company to give the FDA raw feeding study data. They did a study with rats but the rats refused to eat the tomato.  They force fed rats the FlavrSavr tomato for 28 days. 7 of 20 rats developed stomach lesions. Another 7 of 40 died within 2 weeks. In the documents made public, scientists said that the study doesn’t show 'a reasonable certainty of no harm.' The FDA did not block the introduction of the tomato. The company had created two lines of the GM tomato, both with the same gene inserted. One was associated with these high rates of lesions and deaths, the other was not. The company voluntarily decided to market the one that was not associated with the rat problems. This also provides an example of how the same crop inserted with identical genes, may have very different results.... In Australia, they took a gene from a kidney bean, which produced a certain pesticide, and inserted it into peas to kill the pea weevil. These GM pea developers decided to do an allergic-type test on mice that no other GM food crop developer had done before. When they exposed mice to the proteins from the kidney beans, it caused no reaction. They expected the same to happen when mice were exposed to the 'same' protein produced by the transgene inside the peas. In fact, the amino acid sequence was identical in both proteins—the one produced by both the bean and the pea. But the mice developed an inflammatory response to the protein produced in the GM peas. It was an immune type response that was very dangerous, suggesting that the peas might create a deadly anaphylactic shock or other types of immune or inflammatory reactions in humans. They never marketed the GM peas. But why did the mice react if the protein was the same as the natural protein found in kidney beans? They conducted an advanced test and looked very carefully at the protein structure and found that the sugars that had attached had a slightly changed pattern. They said it was the slightly changed pattern of the sugars that made the peas harmful. The problem is that the potentially deadly GM peas had already passed all the allergy tests that are normally used to get GM foods on the market. The only reason they were stopped was because the Australian crop developer had chosen to use a mice study that had never been used on any other GM food crop. This shows that the regulatory system, as practiced, is a failure, and may be letting deadly allergens on the market. Ironically, when Monsanto’s representative was asked about the cancellation of the peas (developed by another organization), he said that it proved that the regulatory system works. He never mentioned that none of his own company’s products had ever used the same advanced mouse test, and that they may be creating allergic reactions....In a small study, one person had a skin prick reaction to GM soy, but not to non-GM soy. This test, which is used to indicate allergic reactions, suggests that GM soybeans have a different allergen profile than non-GM soy. The researchers then analyzed the GM soy and found a new unexpected protein (that likely resulted from the damage during the genetic engineering process). This protein was able to bind with IgE antibodies, suggesting that it may be a dangerous allergen..... Mice fed GM soy for 8 months had a profound drop in the amount of digestive enzymes produced by their pancreas. If there were less protein digesting enzymes in the gut, then proteins from our foods may take longer to digest, leaving more time for an allergic reaction to take place. Thus, if GM soy interferes with human digestion like it apparently does with mice, it might increase allergies to proteins from many different foods, not just soybeans.....Rabbits that were fed Roundup Ready soy had higher metabolic activity as well as changed enzyme levels in 3 main organs. Mice that were fed Roundup Ready soy for 8 months showed significant changes in the liver, which is a main detoxifier for the body. The liver cells were damaged or misshapen and there was altered gene expression. Higher metabolic activity also suggests that the liver was reacting to a toxic insult....The testicles of mice fed GM soy had altered structures and function which influenced sperm development. This might influence fertility or offspring health.... "
From note accompanying Powerpoint Presentation
Seeds of Deception, July 2008

New And Unique Risks From GMOs

Against The Advice Of Government Scientists The US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) Rejected Calls For Thorough GM Food Testing "The United States claims to have the most rigorous regulation for GMOs. But the Bio-Integrity lawsuit against the US Food and Drug Administration (See www.biointegrity.org) uncovered secret memoranda showing how the FDA has ignored all the strongly worded advice given by its own scientists." The Scientific Advice that FDA Ignored – A Compilation Institute Of Science In Society Representations were made to the FDA in memoranda by US government scientists drawing attention to the new and unique risks posed by GM foods and the inadequacy of safety testing. This advice, which was ignored, was uncovered as a result of a consumer group GM lawsuit launched against the US government in 1998. To view the comments of the scientists concerned Click Here

'The World According To Monsanto'
Watch The Film And Tell Your Friends To As Well

"This letter is a response to the piece by Mick Willoughby in the June issue [of CLA Land & Business magazine], which in my view was full of unsupported assertions and bullet points dressed up as facts. Those presumably came directly from the Monsanto Corporation, passed on to Mr Willoughby during his visit to their St Louis headquarters. He should not believe everything he is told, and he might find it educational to view the recent French film The World According To Monsanto which carefully documents the corporation's methods of conducting science and doing business. I found it terrifying.... There is a 'revolving door' between the GM industry and the state-funded bodies that are supposed to regulate its activities and protect the public. Most of the approvals for GM crops are based on 'advocacy science' provided by the GM companies and protected from public scrutiny."
'Star Letter' - Why The Genes Don't Fit - Jim Bowen
Country Land & Business Association (England and Wales), Land & Business Magazine, July 2008

What Is 'Advocacy Science'? - Click Here

'The World According To Monsanto' March 2008 Franco-German TV Channel ARTE Documentary To view English language internet version of this extraordinary 109 minute exposé on YouTube Click Here (or if it gets taken down just Google 'World According To Monsanto' to find it elsewhere) European Format DVD is also available for purchase in English Click Here Interview with programme maker Marie-Monique Robin - Click Here

View Documentary Broadcast Excerpts On Line - Click Here

American Format DVD Now Available For Purchase In USA Click Here "Monsanto's controversial past combines some of the most toxic products ever sold with misleading reports, pressure tactics, collusion, and attempted corruption. They now race to genetically engineer (and patent) the world's food supply, which profoundly threatens our health, environment, and economy. Combining secret documents with first-hand accounts by victims, scientists, and politicians, this widely praised film exposes why Monsanto has become the world's poster child for malignant corporate influence in government and technology. 109 minutes" www.seedsofdeception.com "With the exception of commercial (for-profit) showings in theaters  and post secondary institutions (colleges and universities), permission is granted for individuals and groups to show home DVD of The World According to Monsanto in public, whether a fee is charged or not.  Please view the Detailed Policy. Inform others! Organize a public showing or house party. Download the Monsanto Film Showing Guide to help you with organizing, and channeling audience enthusiasm into effective community action." www.seedsofdeception.com

"French journalist Marie-Monique Robin takes a scattershot approach in her exposé of Monsanto, an American multinational chemical and biotechnology company responsible for some of the most toxic and environmentally damaging products ever sold. Monsanto's list of accomplishments includes production of Agent Orange, PCBs, recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone and genetically modified crops such as Roundup Ready soybeans ....One of her interviewees, author and activist Jeremy Rifkin, talks about how 'we were trying to say these things [GMOs] should be considered food additives.' They weren't. In a 1987 film clip, then vice-president George Bush is seen touring a Monsanto bioengineering lab. Should Monsanto encounter any difficulties in winning approvals for its products, he tells his hosts, they can 'call me. We're in the de-reg business.' Nothing was to get in the way of the United States becoming a world leader in biotechnology. ..... the film documents the passage of numerous Monsanto executives back and forth between the corporation and U.S. regulating agencies. The documentary visits scientists in Britain and Canada who mysteriously lose their jobs after making findings injurious to Monsanto. The company is shown to have falsified scientific findings....Now that The World According to Monsanto, which aired on European television this year, is available in English, it might reach the American public. But the likelihood is that this company will continue to do what it has always done: exactly what it wants."
The World According to Monsanto: A toxic tour
Toronto Star, 1 August 2008

'Getting The Approvals'

Revolving Doors: Monsanto And The Regulators - Click Here 'Monsanto Employees And Government Regulatory Agencies Employees Are The Same People!' - Click Here Buried Compositional Data In Monsanto's Study On Roundup Ready Soybeans - Click Here Monsanto's Genetically Engineered Bovine Growth Hormone Scandal - Click Here How The FDA Ignored The GM Food Health Safety Warnings Of Government Advisers - Click Here

"And certainly when I became Secretary [of Agriculture], given the fact that I was in charge of the department regulating agriculture, I had a lot of pressure on me, not to push the [GM] issue too far, so to speak. But I would say that even when I opened my mouth in the Clinton admininistration I got slapped around a little bit by not only the industry, but also some of the people even in the administration. In fact I made a speech once saying that we needed to more thoughtfully think through the regulatory issues on GMOs and I had some people within the Clinton administration, particularly in the US trade area - they were very upset with me. They said 'How could you, in Agriculture, be questioning our regulatory regime?'."
Dan Glickman, former US Secretary of Agricuture
The World According To Monsanto
ARTE Documentary (via YouTube), 11 March 2008

"In an nutshell, even the US Secretary of Agriculture, doesn't stand a chance against the multinationals."
The World According To Monsanto
ARTE Documentary (YouTube), 11 March 2008

---

'Rumsfeld's Disease' - America's Serotonin Deficit
Junk Food, Mental Health, And America's Wars

'Rumsfeld's Disease'
Genetic Engineering, Aspartame, Cancer, And Mental Health

"The most widely used sweetener in the world, found in fizzy drinks and sweets, is being made using a secret genetic engineering process, which some scientists claim needs further testing for toxic side-effects. The use of genetic engineering to make aspartame has stayed secret until now because there is no modified DNA in the finished product. Monsanto, the pioneering GM food giant, which makes aspartame, insists that it is completely safe. But some scientists fear that not enough is known about the process of making it. One of the two elements that make up the sweetener can be produced by genetically engineered bacteria, and scientists say that they cannot rule out toxic side-effects. The Independent on Sunday has found that Monsanto often uses genetically engineered bacteria to produce the sweetener at its US production plants. 'We have two strains of bacteria- one is traditionally modified and one is genetically modified,' said one Monsanto source. 'It's got a modified enzyme. It has one amino acid different.' A Monsanto spokeswoman confirmed that aspartame for the US market is often made using genetic engineering. But sweetener supplied to British food producers is not. However, consumer groups say it is likely that some low-calorie products containing genetically engineered aspartame have been imported into Britain."
World's top sweetener is made with GM bacteria
Independent On Sunday, 20 June 1999

"Aspartame is found in the low-calorie sweetener Equal and in many other sugar-free products under the brand name NutraSweet. It is the second best-selling nonsugar sweetener in the world. Researchers in Italy concluded that rats exposed to varying doses of aspartame throughout their lives developed leukemias, lymphomas, and several other cancers in a dose-dependent manner. They report that the product is a potential cancer-causing agent to humans even at levels that are less than half of what is considered safe by the U.S. government.....The study was conducted by researchers from the European Ramazzini Foundation, an independent group located in Bologna, Italy. One hundred male rats and 100 female rats were followed from 8 weeks of age until their deaths from natural causes. The rats were fed aspartame at doses approximating a wide range of human consumption levels, from very low levels to very high. Each rat was autopsied following its spontaneous death, and exposed animals were found to have a higher rate of leukemias, lymphomas, kidney and pelvic cancers and a brain cancer. Researcher Morando Soffritti, MD, and colleagues called for an 'urgent re-evaluation' of the current guidelines for the use of aspartame....MPs want the government to launch an inquiry to see how much US aspartame is coming into the UK..... Aspartame is made by combining phenylalanine, which is naturally produced by bacteria, with another amino acid. To make the bacteria produce more phenylalanine, Monsanto has genetically engineered them. 'Whether such a contaminating compound will be toxic or not is entirely unknowable until empirical studies have been done to test toxicity,' said Dr. John Fagan, a former genetic engineer who now heads Genetic ID, the world's leading GM test centre. 'No such studies have been done, or at least they have not been placed in the public domain.'"
Rat Study Shows Cancer, Aspartame Link
Fox News, 21 November 2005

"Coca-Cola is the world's most famous and powerful brand, selling more than one billion drinks every day. Its red and white logo can be seen everywhere from remote hillside shacks in Afghanistan to vast neon hoardings in central Tokyo. With a marketing budget four times greater than the UN's annual spending on combating child poverty, it has spent millions on buying up the world's biggest sporting events - the World Cup and the Olympics - and global celebrities such as Muhammad Ali, David Beckham and Aretha Franklin. But the drink which prides itself as the 'real thing' is in trouble.... Coke's reliance on one of the world's most popular artificial sweeteners, a compound called Aspartame, is also under examination. British and European food safety experts are studying allegations that Aspartame - the main sweetener in Diet Coke - could be carcinogenic. The Government's Committee on Toxicology is assessing a critical report on the additive after allegations about its safety were raised by Liberal Democrat MP Roger Williams in the Commons last December. Its findings will be taken up by the European Food Safety Authority, which is expected to rule in May on whether Aspartame should be banned."
Coke: Campaigners demand action against feelgood drinks firm
Independent, 19 March 2006

"A member of the parliamentary select committee on food and the environment yesterday called for emergency action to ban the artificial sweetener aspartame, used in 6,000 food, drink and medicinal products. The Liberal Democrat MP Roger Williams said in an adjournment debate in the Commons that there was 'compelling and reliable evidence for this carcinogenic substance to be banned from the UK food and drinks market altogether'. In licensing aspartame for use, regulators around the world had failed in their main task of protecting the public, he told MPs. Mr Williams highlighted new concerns about the additive's safety, raised by a recent Italian study that linked it to cancer in rats. He said the history of aspartame's licensing put 'regulators and politicians to shame', with the likes of Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary and former head of Searle, the company that discovered the sweetener, 'calling in his markers' to get it approved.....Mr Williams said he was using the immunity he was afforded under parliamentary privilege to initiate a debate about aspartame's safety which had been largely repressed since the early 1980s, with the help of the sweetener industry's lawyers...... In addition to Mr Rumsfeld being instrumental in securing aspartame's approval, with the support of the then newly elected president Ronald Reagan, there had been numerous examples of decision makers who were worried about aspartame's safety being discredited or being removed from their positions. Industry sympathisers had been appointed to replace them and were in turn recompensed with lucrative jobs working for the sweetener industry."
MP calls for ban on 'unsafe' sweetener
Guardian, 15 July 2005

'Neurodegeneration' "Excessive intake of aspartame may inhibit the ability of enzymes in the brain to function normally, suggests a new review that could fan the flames of controversy over the sweetener. The review, by scientists from the University of Pretoria and the University of Limpopo and published recently in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, indicated that high consumption of the sweetener may lead to neurodegeneration. Aspartame is made up of phenylalanine (50 per cent), aspartic acid (40 per cent) and methanol (10 per cent). It is commonly used in food products for the diet or low calorie market, including soft drinks and chewing gums. It was approved for use in foods in the US and EU member states in the early 1980s.  The sweetener has caused much controversy amid suspicions on whether it is entirely safe, with studies linking the ingredient and cancer in rats.  It has also previously been found that aspartame consumption can cause neurological and behavioural disturbances in sensitive individuals. Symptoms that have been reported include headaches, insomnia and seizures.....Writing in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a Nature journal, the scientists behind the new review state: 'The aim of this study was to discuss the direct and indirect cellular effects of aspartame on the brain, and we propose that excessive aspartame ingestion might be involved in the pathogenesis of certain mental disorders, and also in compromised learning and emotional functioning.'  The researchers found a number of direct and indirect changes that occur in the brain as a result of high consumption levels of aspartame, leading to neurodegeneration. They found aspartame can disturb the metabolism of amino acids, protein structure and metabolism, the integrity of nucleic acids, neuronal function and endocrine balances. It also may change the brain concentrations of catecholamines, which include norepinephrine, epinephrine and domapine. Additionally, they said the breakdown of aspartame causes nerves to fire excessively, which can indirectly lead to a high rate of neuron depolarisation. The researchers added: 'The energy systems for certain required enzyme reactions become compromised, thus indirectly leading to the inability of enzymes to function optimally. 'The ATP stores [adenosine triphosphate] in the cells are depleted, indicating that low concentrations of glucose are present in the cells, and this in turn will indirectly decrease the synthesis of acetylcholine, glutamate and GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid).' Furthermore, the functioning of glutamate as an excitatory neurotransmitter is inhibited as a result of the intracellular calcium uptake being altered, and mitochondria are damaged, which the researchers said could lead to apoptosis (cell death) of cells and also a decreased rate of oxidative metabolism." Review raises questions over aspartame and brain health NutraIngredients-USA.com, 3 April 2008

"The use of the artificial sweetener, aspartame, has long been contemplated and studied by various researchers, and people are concerned about its negative effects. Aspartame is composed of phenylalanine (50%), aspartic acid (40%) and methanol (10%). Phenylalanine plays an important role in neurotransmitter regulation, whereas aspartic acid is also thought to play a role as an excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system. Glutamate, asparagines and glutamine are formed from their precursor, aspartic acid. Methanol, which forms 10% of the broken down product, is converted in the body to formate, which can either be excreted or can give rise to formaldehyde, diketopiperazine (a carcinogen) and a number of other highly toxic derivatives. Previously, it has been reported that consumption of aspartame could cause neurological and behavioural disturbances in sensitive individuals. Headaches, insomnia and seizures are also some of the neurological effects that have been encountered, and these may be accredited to changes in regional brain concentrations of catecholamines, which include norepinephrine, epinephrine and dopamine. The aim of this study was to discuss the direct and indirect cellular effects of aspartame on the brain, and we propose that excessive aspartame ingestion might be involved in the pathogenesis of certain mental disorders (DSM-IV-TR 2000) and also in compromised learning and emotional functioning."
Abstract - Direct and indirect cellular effects of aspartame on the brain
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2008) 62, 451–462

Bush, Aspartame, Mental Health, And War

"Clearly we care about the health outlook for our elected leaders. Should we go so far as to do brain scans? Of candidates for the Oval Office? Some people might consider discussing brain health a ridiculous idea. Not me. As a neuropsychiatrist and brain-imaging expert, I want our elected leaders to be some of the 'brain healthiest people' in the land. How do you know about the brain health of a presidential candidate unless you look? The brain is involved in everything humans do: how we think, how we feel, how we get along with others, how we negotiate, how we pay attention in meetings and how we turn away the advances of White House interns or decide to invade a country based on contradictory intelligence. Three of the last four presidents have shown clear brain pathology.... Functional scans, such as Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, provide a window into the brain. Doctors can now see healthy or dysfunctional brain patterns, much as we can assess the strength of a heart or measure hormone levels, and recognize trouble..... Ensuring that our president has a healthy brain may be more than an interesting topic of conversation. It can be important information to put into the election equation. A president with brain problems could wreak havoc on the U.S. and the world at large. Maybe we shouldn't leave the health of our president's brain to chance. We have the tools; shouldn't we look?"
Dr Daniel G. Amen - Getting inside their heads ... really inside
Los Angeles Times, 5 December 2007

"For anyone who has ever wondered what President Bush sounds like when the microphones are off, the answer, at least at lunchtime on Monday, was blunt to the point of profane, laced with a wiseguy edge and, like anyone forced to make small talk, willing to fall back on safe topics like air travel. Mr. Bush was munching on a roll during lunch with his fellow world leaders on the final day of the Group of 8 summit meeting here as his unguarded comments were picked up by an open microphone and overheard by gleeful journalists....The microphone caught him discussing global trade talks, his impatience with long speeches, even his preference for Diet Coke.....Mr. Bush can be heard saying to a waiter, 'No, not Coke, Diet Coke.'"
Bush’s Policy Chit-Chat: Undiplomatic Prose
New York Times, 18 July 2008

"As the United States stands this day virtually upon the precipice of determining the fate of not only our nation, but the entire world for generations to come silence in the face of George W. Bush's dogs of war is morally and politically unacceptable.... GW Bush is highly regarded for 'kicking' the twin demons of cocaine and alcohol addiction. If he is still off both wagons --- and there is no proof that [he] isn't --- such a triumph, encouraged and aided by his wife, is commendable. When probing the mysteries of GW's brain chemistry, a key point to ponder is that damage done to brain cells from drug abuse is permanent and irreversible....If it's politically incorrect to ask these questions, how 'correct' is it to launch 800 cruise missiles and thousands of one-ton bombs on a captive urban population already suffering the ravages of deliberately imposed hunger and disease? Another big clue to Dubya's displays of dementia comes in 'photo-ops' showing him slugging back diet Coke with other Aspartame addicts....According to Carol Guilford, an Aspartame expert and support worker, the President-Select's 'pretzel' pratfall was most likely an Aspartame seizure."
On the Eve of War--Is George Bush Crazy?
The Agribusiness Examiner, 17 March 2003, Issue #230

"The first correspondence I had with President George Bush was when he was Governor of Texas. He was about to sign into law the Dietetic's Practice Act. At the time, Monsanto owned NutraSweet and I explained that the dietitians were Monsanto's media hacks and that this law granted them a monopoly which is against most state constitutions. (They passed it anyway). I sent him a packet about aspartame, showing him that it is a deadly chemical poison and that the dietitians push it and defend the manufacturer. He wrote back that he disagreed - and he also got hooked on Diet Coke. So far, the President has exhibited memory loss to such an extent that the Atlanta Journal Constitution published that he appeared to need to be coached for each word. Even in Fahrenheit 911, at the end of the movie, President Bush quotes the old saying we all know 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me'. However, he couldn't remember the end of it so after saying, 'Fool me once, shame on you.' he looked around and thought and then said 'And don't do it again'. You could tell he couldn't remember. He has also had a blackout which is notorious of aspartame and complained of joint pain. Aspartame hardens the synovial fluids and causes agonizing joint pain. The phenylalanine in aspartame at 50% is neurotoxic and goes directly into the brain. It lowers the seizure threshold and depletes serotonin. When you lower serotonin, it triggers paranoia, manic depression or bi-polar brain disorder, hallucinations, mood swings, and suicidal tendencies. It also interacts with all anti-depressants and you can get a double whammy with some of these psycho drugs....Remember that aspartame is a psycho drug and leaders of the free world need to abstain."
Political Sanity vs. Neurotoxins, by Dr. Betty Martini
UN Observer & International Report, 30 July 2004

Coke Or Cocaine?

Tip Of The Cocaine Iceberg 'From John F Kennedy To George W Bush' US Cocaine-Based Administration Down Through The Decades - Click Here

Cocaine And Serotonin

"During heavy cocaine use, the increased serotonin in the brain will bind to and activate these serotonin receptors beyond normal levels. The effect of this increased activation can be profound. Receptors can change based on how much they are activated, and, if they are activated all the time, they trigger mechanisms that are designed to restore balance. These mechanisms might downregulate serotonin receptors by decreasing their number on the surface of cells, or they might do so by changing the way that they interact with other proteins to which they must couple to be active or by inducing the action of endogenous peptides that naturally interfere with the function of the receptors. In any case, what Parsons and his colleagues observed was that serotonin-1B receptors are downregulated during extended cocaine use. Then, during withdrawal, the opposite happens. There is a significant depletion of serotonin in the brain during the acute stages of withdrawal. Parsons and his colleagues observed it to fall to half the normal level or less, and they found that this effect becomes even more pronounced with longer histories of cocaine use. Starved for stimulation because of the decrease in serotonin during withdrawal, the serotonin receptors can become significantly upregulated in number or function. This upregulation is persistent, says Parsons, and the increase in serotonin receptor activity may be behind the notable decrease in serotonin levels for a number of days during acute withdrawal. Experimentally, it lasts for at least three weeks in laboratory models. A whole bank of symptoms are associated with withdrawal, including depression, anxiety, impulsivity and drug craving. Many of these symptoms are most severe during the early stages of withdrawal, when the brain is most disturbed. However, some symptoms, most notably drug craving, can persist for months and even years. 'Serotonin-1B receptors have been implicated in the etiology of depression, anxiety and impulsivity,' says Parsons, 'and there's growing evidence that they could play a role in drug craving. Each of these symptoms have been implicated in the relapse to drug taking often encountered during withdrawal.'"
Serotonin Receptors and Drug Abuse
Scrips Research Institute News, Volume 3, Issue 29, 29 September 2003

---

Which Came First?
Rumsfeld's Attack On Iraq Or Rumsfeld's Attack On America?
The Health Of Donald Rumsfeld's Junk Food Nation

"[America is a] country whose citizens spent $110 billion last year on junk food.... [There was] a report last December by David Satcher, the US Surgeon General. In unusually blunt language, he warned that obesity-related health problems were costing America $117 billion a year. Treating smoking-related diseases cost just $23 billion more.... "
Health warning: eating can make you fat
London Times, 14 June 2002

"My father has finally decided not to include carcinogenic neurotoxins in his tea. The decision to cease this morbid habit may have been stimulated by the fact that aspartame was formerly classified as an agent of bio-warfare by the Pentagon in inventories sent to Congress. But it’s far more likely that Donald Rumsfeld — the man behind the success of aspartame, turned him off. Anything connected to Rumsfeld, the Godfather of War, cannot be good for digestion..... In 1974, aspartame was approved for table-top cold/dry use with the condition that the company was expressly forbidden from using the product in heated food, confectioneries and soft drinks. James Turner, consumer lawyer and author of the Chemical Feast, along with Dr Olney, lodged a complaint against the approval of what was then a known neurotoxin. In 1977, Donald Rumsfeld became the CEO of Searle and it is strongly suggested that Searle proceeded to finance Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign in exchange for speedy deregulation restricting the sale, proliferation and safety requirements of biotech products such as the artificial growth hormone rBST, GMO organisms, seeds and products and especially aspartame. In January 1981, Reagan was inaugurated and the following day (January 22) he proceeded to approve aspartame by executive order, dismissing the finds of the Public Board of Inquiry (PBOI) in 1980, impaneled to evaluate the safety of aspartame. Also dismissed were independent researchers, FDA scientists and toxicologists who had declared aspartame to be a carcinogenic excitotoxin. The PBOI says of aspartame: 'The chemical caused an unacceptable level of brain tumors in animal testing. Based on this fact, the PBOI ruled that aspartame should not be added to the food supply.' The 'deregulation' anthem of the Reagan years, which saw social programmes dismantled in favour of reducing corporate taxes, coincided with the rise and development of industry funded scientific analysis. In her book, The Truth about the Drug Companies, Marcia Angell details the timeline related to the rise of 'commercialised scientific research' that coincided with Reagan’s presidency.  'The Reagan years and Bayh-Dole also transformed the ethos of medical schools and teaching hospitals. These nonprofit institutions started to see themselves as ‘partners’ of industry, and they became just as enthusiastic as any entrepreneur about the opportunities to parlay their discoveries in-to financial gain.' The Bayh-Dole (Act) gave a tremendous boost to the nascent biotechnology industry, as well as to big pharma,' she writes, 'The FDA is not allowed to reveal the results it has.' But Rumsfeld — the architect behind blueprints such as the Rumsfeld doctrine: Iraq and Afghanistan, the Gulf War and founder of Project for a New American Century, was determined to make aspartame available to the public. According to Searle official Patty Woodallott, Rumsfeld said that he would 'call in his markers'. One such Pinocchio was Dr Arthur Hayes, a chemicals specialist with the US Army. On January 22 1981, Hayes was appointed head of the FDA.  On May 19 1981, aspartame was officially approved by the FDA for use in solid and heated foods. In 1983, with the generous assistance of another Rumsfeld marker — FDA commissioner Mark Novitch — aspartame was approved for use in soft drinks, against the wishes of the National Soft Drinks Association (NSDA), who claimed to be concerned about the safety of the product. Former FDA epidemiology chief, Thomas Wilcox, said that between 1981 (the year aspartame was approved) and 1995, 75% of all food allergies and reactions reported by consumers to the FDA fingered aspartame as the culprit. But in truth, the NSDA stuck to saccharin to avoid Searle’s monopoly over the GE additive....Dr Ralph G. Walton, chairperson of the Centre for Behavioural Medicine, analysed 166 industry and non-industry sponsored studies. In his survey, Walton writes, '74 [of the studies] had aspartame industry related funding and 92 were independently funded.' 'One hundred percent of the industry funded research attested to aspartame’s safety, whereas 92% of the independently funded research identified a problem. Questions are raised both about aspartame’s safety and the broader issue of the appropriateness of industry sponsorship of medical research.' The remaining 8% of non-industry sponsored studies were conducted by the FDA using material provided by aspartame manufacturer Searle and NutraSweet.....NutraSweet was the name designated by Robert Shapiro to counteract the ill press aspartame was receiving. Shapiro would later become the CEO of biotech giant Monsanto, who produced Agent Orange and other glorious cocktails for the Department of Defence and the Pentagon....In 1985, prior to Rumsfeld leaving Searle, he negotiated a $2,7-billion acquisition for Monsanto. In turn, he received a $12-million commission. 'The ingredients of aspartame stimulates the neurons of the brain to death, causing brain damage of varying degrees,' writes Dr Russell Blaylock, neurosurgeon and author of Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills.... Former chief counsel Richard Merrill wrote a 30 page letter to FDA attorney Sam Skinner in charge of aspartame investigations, in January 1977, requesting that the grand jury indict Searle for falsely portraying, 'findings, concealing material facts and making false statements' in aspartame safety tests. Searle’s law firm Sidley and Austin immediately offered Skinner a job in February 1977. Skinner was free to accept as president Carter dismissed him from his position. Skinner’s replacement, US Attorney W Conlon, effectively quashed the case and was rewarded with a job at Searle’s law firm in 1979. An article by Dr Mercola quotes the Washington Post in 1986 as saying that Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas refused to hear the case and dismissed the charges — Thomas was a former Monsanto lawyer. Monsanto purchased NutraSweet in 1985. In August 1977, the year that Rumsfeld became CEO of Searle, the damning Bressler Report written by Jerome Bressler, was issued by the FDA; in that same month, the US Justice Department investigation was dropped. And aspartame is still being consumed by the public."
One teabag, one spoonful of neurotoxins
Mail And Guardian (South Africa), 28 July 2008

'Rumsfeld's Disease' - America's Serotonin Deficit
The Anxious Population That Went Along With Rumsfeld's War Lies

"In 1965, a chemist working to develop an ulcer drug accidentally discovered a substance 200 times sweeter than sugar. The FDA initially shunned this substance because it caused seizures and brain tumors in lab animals. In 1981, the FDA allowed this brain tumor and seizure-causing substance to begin both sweetening and poisoning our food supply, pharmaceuticals, and children’s’ vitamins. Banned in children’s products in Europe, the chemical, aspartame, is now a big part of America’s diet craze. This is despite the fact that it accounts for more than 75% of the complaints reported in the FDA's Adverse Reaction Monitoring system. Aspartame, once in the body, breaks down into various chemicals. One is the same toxin you get from a fire ant bite. Another is the smelly formaldehyde in which your science teacher stored animals to dissect. Yet another is methanol, the same main ingredient as in Prohibition Era moonshine - the same moonshine that was notorious for causing blindness. How many mothers, who would never think of giving their children moonshine, have stocked their cabinets with any of the now 5,000 products that contain aspartame? For those of us who struggle with anxiety or depression because of low serotonin levels, aspartame is especially bad news. This chemical additive wreaks further havoc by depleting tryptophan levels. Tryptophan is necessary in the production of serotonin."
Aspartame And Your Mental Health
Ezine, 18 August 2005

"Aspartame is made up of three chemicals: the amino acids aspartic acid and phenylalanine, and methanol. The chemical bond that holds these constituents together is fairly weak. As a result, aspartame readily breaks down into its component parts in a variety of circumstances: in liquids; during prolonged storage; when exposed to heat in excess of 86° Fahrenheit (30° centigrade); and when ingested. These constituents further break down into other toxic by-products, namely formaldehyde, formic acid and aspartylphenylalanine diketopiperazine (DKP). Manufacturers argue that the instability of aspartame is irrelevant since its constituents are all found naturally in food. This is only partially true and ignores the fact that in food amino acids like aspartic acid and phenylalanine are bound to proteins, which means that during digestion and metabolism they are released slowly into the body. In aspartame, these amino acids are in an unbound or 'free' form that releases greater amounts of these chemicals into the system much more quickly. Similarly, the methanol present in natural foods like fruits, for example, is bound to pectin and also has a co-factor, ethanol, to mediate some of its effects. No such chemical 'back-stops' exist in aspartame. According to neuroscientist Russell Blaylock, the effect of aspartame's breakdown components on brain function is central to its known adverse effects....Athough phenylalanine is sometimes used as a treatment for depression, excessive amounts in the brain can cause levels of the mood regulator serotonin to decrease, making depression more serious or likely. Build-up of phenylalanine in the brain can also worsen schizophrenia or make individuals more susceptible to seizures. Moreover, decrease in serotonin levels can result in carbohydrate craving. This could explain aspartame's lack of effectiveness as a diet aid."
Aspartame's Toxic Contents
Ecologist, 9 August 2005

"The phenylalanine in aspartame at 50% is neurotoxic and goes directly into the brain. It lowers the seizure threshold and depletes serotonin. When you lower serotonin, it triggers paranoia, manic depression or bi-polar brain disorder, hallucinations, mood swings, and suicidal tendencies. It also interacts with all anti-depressants and you can get a double whammy with some of these psycho drugs.... Remember that aspartame is a psycho drug and leaders of the free world need to abstain."
Political Sanity vs. Neurotoxins, by Dr. Betty Martini
UN Observer & International Report, 30 July 2004

---

The Antidote To Junk Foods - Tackling The Serotonin Deficit
New Film - 'Serotonin Rising'

Serotonin Levels Can Be A Matter Of Life Or Death

"The key to cot death may be a brain-signalling chemical that is better known for regulating mood, research has suggested.  Scientists have discovered the first direct evidence that an imbalance of serotonin in the brainstem can kill infant animals, offering insights into the origins of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), the leading killer of children aged under 12 months.....The 2006 research at Children's Hospital, Boston, compared postmortem brain samples from 31 cot death victims with tissue taken from 10 infants who had died of other causes. The cot death babies had a reduced ability to use and recycle serotonin in the brainstem, which controls critical unconscious functions, such as breathing, heart rate and temperature."
Cot death risk 'higher for babies with imbalance of mood chemical'
London Times, 4 July 2008

The Perfect Antidote To Junk Foods

New Film - 'Serotonin Rising'

Described as the world's first  truly 'feel good' movie 'serotonin Rising' is a new film featuring scientists and public figures, including the Dalai Lama, film maker David Lynch, singer and songwriter Donovan, and natural health author Dr Deepak Chopra. The film (due out 2009) provides a personal and scientific account of the role played by serotonin in mental and emotional well-being. A trailer can be viewed on the production's web site at: www.serotoninrising.com Or On YouTube

---

NLPWESSEX, natural law publishing nlpwessex.org