Monsanto & GMO Foods
Conflict of Interest for Clarence Thomas in Monsanto Case
What do you know about Monsanto and GMO Foods? Take a look at this list of Monsanto’s Crimes:
The Manhattan Project – under Monsanto operation conducted during World War II to develop the first atomic bomb and nuclear weapons.
Agent Orange – Dow Chemical and Monsanto were the main producers of Agent Orange. Internal memos from them reveal that at the time Agent Orange was sold to the U.S. government for use in Vietnam it was known that it contained a dioxin, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD), a by-product of the manufacture 2,4,5-T. The National Toxicology Program has classified TCDD to be a human carcinogen linked to the following diseases as reported by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs: prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, type II diabetes, Hodgkin’s disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, soft tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy, B cell leukemias, such as hairy cell leukemia, Parkinson’s disease, ischemic heart disease, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and spina bifida in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange.
DDT – Monsanto began producing in 1944 along with 15 other companies. People living in areas where DDT is used for IRS have high levels of the chemical and its breakdown products in their bodies. These levels have been associated with profound affects on male fertility and neurological abnormalities in babies ingesting relatively large quantities of DDT from breast milk.
Bovine Growth Horomone (rBGH, BST) – Bovine somatotropin (abbreviated bST and BST) is a protein hormone produced in the pituitary glands of cattle. It is also called bovine growth hormone, or BGH. Monsanto first synthesized the hormone in large quantities using recombinant DNA technology and marketed it as “POSILAC” beginning in 1994. The resulting product is called recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), or artificial growth hormone. After many legal battles, bad press and public outcry against rBGH Monsanto sold its POSILAC Brand Dairy Product and Related Business to Elanco Animal Health, a division of Eli Lilly and Company in August 2008. Posilac was banned from use in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and most of Europe, by 2000 or earlier. By 2009, in parts of the United States, consumer desire for “no artificial growth hormones” caused many milk products to become rBST-free
Sued 100+ Family Farms – The non-profit Center for Food Safety listed 112 lawsuits by Monsanto against farmers for claims of seed patent violations. Many innocent farmers settle with Monsanto (agree to use their GMO seeds) because they cannot afford the lawsuit from the giant company. Monsanto is frequently described by farmers as “Gestapo” and “Mafia” both because of these lawsuits and because of the questionable means they use to collect evidence of patent infringement.
RoundUp – This is a deep rabbit hole that is a key element in the current Monsanto compaign – I highly recommend watching The World According to Monsanto! Much of Monsanto’s seed products are genetically modified, often to make them immune to their pesticides. In a study by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, researchers found that “these GM maize varieties induce a state of hepatorenal toxicity (chemical driven liver damage).
PCBs – Monsanto produced PCBs at plants in Sauget, Illinois and Anniston, Alabama. Monsanto Co. routinely discharged toxic waste into a west Anniston creek and dumped millions of pounds of PCBs into oozing open-pit landfills. And thousands of pages of Monsanto documents — many emblazoned with warnings such as “CONFIDENTIAL: Read and Destroy” — show that for decades, the corporate giant concealed what it did and what it knew. Anniston is now one of the most polluted patches of land in America, so saturated with toxic, cancer-causing chemicals, that it’s in the dirt people walk on, in the air that they breathe, even in the blood that pumps through their veins. Due to PCB’s toxicity and classification as persistent organic pollutants, PCB production was banned by the United States Congress in 1976 and by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001.
Jeffrey M. Smith, International Best Selling Author of Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating and Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods from Chelsea Green Publishing. Smith worked at a GMO detection laboratory, founded the Institute for Responsible Technology, and currently lives in Iowa—surrounded by genetically modified corn and soybeans.