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Seven years ago, Feb. 4, 1994, despite nationwide protests by consumer groups, Monsanto and the FDA forced onto the US market the world's first GE animal drug, recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH, sometimes known as rBST).
BGH is a powerful GE drug produced by Monsanto which, injected into dairy cows, forces them to produce 15%-25% more milk, in the process seriously damaging their health and reproductive capacity.
Despite warnings from scientists, such as Dr. Michael Hansen from the Consumers Union and Dr. Samuel Epstein from the Cancer Prevention Coalition, that milk from rBGH injected cows contains substantially higher amounts of a potent cancer tumor promoter called IGF-1, and despite evidence that rBGH milk contains higher levels of pus, bacteria, and antibiotics, the FDA gave the hormone its seal of approval, with no real pre-market safety testing required.
Moreover, the FDA ruled, in a decision marred by rampant conflict of interest (several key FDA decision makers, including Michael Taylor, previously worked for Monsanto), that rBGH-derived products did not have to be labeled, despite polls showing that 90% of American consumers wanted labeling -- mainly so they could avoid buying rBGH-tainted products.
All of the major criticisms leveled against rBGH have turned out to be true. Since 1994, every industrialized country in the world, except for the US, has banned the drug. Source
...a German court ordered Monsanto to make public a controversial 90-day rat study on June 20, 2005, the data upheld claims by prominent scientists who said that animals fed the genetically modified (GM) corn developed extensive health effects in the blood, kidneys and liver and that humans eating the corn might be at risk...
Rats fed Mon 863 developed several reactions, including those typically found with allergies (increased basophils), in response to infections, toxins and various diseases including cancer (increased lymphocytes and white blood cells), and in the presence of anemia (decreased reticulocyte count) and blood pressure problems (decreased kidney weights). There were also increased blood sugar levels, kidney inflammation, liver and kidney lesions, and other changes. According to top research biologist Arpad Pusztai,... “It is almost impossible to imagine that major lesions in important organs. . . . or changes in blood parameters. . . . that occurred in GM maize-fed rats, is incidental and due to simple biological variability." Source
...when USDA “officials initially described HACCP to the industry in the mid-90’s, the agency made the following enticing promises:
“Under HACCP, the agency will implement a ‘Hands Off’ role in meat inspection.
“Under HACCP, the agency will no longer police the industry, but the industry will police itself.
“Under HACCP, the agency will disband its previous command and control authority.
“Under HACCP, each plant will write its own HACCP Plan, and the agency cannot tell plants what must be in their HACCP Plans.”
...The plant would be responsible for the implementation of the plan.
As a result, the inspector was no longer responsible for what was happening on the plant floor: that was left to company personnel. The new role of the inspector was to make sure that plant personnel were carrying out their duties in a manner consistent with the HACCP plan. In many cases this amounted to making sure that all of the paper work was in the proper order. Source
After a series of well-publicized cases of food contamination – E. coli-tainted meat, melamine-adulterated pet food and baby formula, salmonella-infected peanut butter – the public has been well primed to look toward Congress to fix a poorly funded and insufficiently staffed food safety inspection system. And, right on cue, a crop of “food safety” bills gets dumped our way. The most controversial and transformational of these pieces of legislation, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro’s HR 875, can be traced directly to recommendations made by the Trust for America’s Health, a non-profit organization sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The Trust for America’s Health has produced reports that serve as blueprints for a major restructuring of the agencies involved in overseeing food safety policy as well as eye-popping changes to the public health system. Its recommendations also have also made their way into the other food safety bills that have been recently introduced in Congress: SB 425, the “Food Safety and Tracking Improving Act;” HR 814, the “Trace Act of 2009;” and HR 759, the “Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009.”
While the vaguely worded HR 875 gives the appearance of being a reasonable attempt to fix the problems outlined, a close inspection of the blueprints on which they are based –and a bit of knowledge about the industry players who crafted them — reveals critical clues about how the public health system would be transformed for the benefit of biotech, pharmaceutical and agribusiness giants. Non-profit foundations have long served as effective tools for corporate wealth to influence public policy, providing the means to guarantee outcomes that enrich corporations at the public’s expense. The global pharmaceutical and consumer product company Johnson & Johnson’s tax-exempt foundation is no different. Source
.On food safety, Obama said he has ordered the Agriculture Department and the Health and Human Services Department to work more closely and develop better procedures, after a salmonella outbreak traced to peanut processors in Texas and Georgia. The nation needs "better warning signals" from food producers [farmer regulation] and an ability to track contamination more quickly, he said....." The Dallas Morning News.Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Originally posted by marg6043
reply to post by crimvelvet
Lots of stars but no comments on this thread,
So let me see here..... Obama is a socialist, a fascist and now a corporate whoe as well. It all makes sense to me.
do anybody think this wouldn't be happening under a republic administration?? it would be accelerated, and there would be tax cuts for the wealthy.
from the Ag Journal, Billings, Montana:
"At a recent ceremony at the White House, Vice President and presidential candidate Al Gore let slip what many have long believed was his real intention as regards to U.S. agriculture. "While presenting a national award to a Colorado FFA member, Gore asked the student what his/her life plans were. Upon hearing that the FFA member wanted to continue on in production agriculture, Gore reportedly replied that the young person should develop other plans because our production agriculture is being shifted out of the U.S. to the Third World."