This is a Call to Action for a Non-Hierarchical Occupation of Monsanto Everywhere
Whether you like it or not, chances are Monsanto contaminated the food you ate today with chemicals and unlabeled GMOs. Monsanto controls much of the world's food supply at the expense of food democracy worldwide. This site is dedicated to empowering citizens of the world to take action against Monsanto & it's enablers like the FDA, USDA, EPA, GMA, BIO, and the processed food companies that use Monsanto's products.
On September 22, 2011, the White House unveiled their on-line petition microsite to provide citizens the opportunity to directly petition president Barack Obama’s administration. In the year since the petition platform went online, there have been over 50,000 petitions submitted, and of those petitions, 116 were able to reach the signature threshold and 103 of those petitions received a response from the White House. Except the petitions related to GMO….
On September 23, 2011, the second day after the “We The People” petition platform went live, there was this petition submitted:
Without a response from the White House, nearly 7 months later a second petition on GMO was submitted:
There is currently a third petition on GMO which is in the process of collecting signatures on We The People. But why should people sign this petition when the White House has failed to answer the previous two?
Yesterday an official from the White House said that they were going to respond to Secession Petitions that were recently submitted. So why is the White House ignoring petitions on GMO that have been languishing for over a year?
We believe its due to Monsanto’s pervasive influence on the White House & the FDA. With over 90% of Americans in support of labeling GMO foods, its not like President Obama will lose any support from the American public for taking a stand on GMO like he did in 2007. Therefore, we demand that the White House immediately answer the petitions on GMO and have the FDA promulgate regulations for mandatory GMO labeling.
Three members of Congress have called for a federal investigation into possible conflicts of interest involving three officials of the Food and Drug Administration, which approved a controversial genetically engineered Monsanto Corp. drug last year. All three agency officials had some ties to Monsanto before coming to the FDA, but an agency spokesman denied there was any misconduct.
In a letter Friday to the General Accounting Office, Reps. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Calf.), David R. Obey (D-Wis.) and Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) asked the watchdog agency to conduct a 30-day review of the FDA’s approval of recombinant bovine somatotropin (bST), a substance that increases milk yields in cows.
“A troubling pattern of unanswered questions is emerging that suggests an altogether too cozy relationship between some FDA officials central to this food safety decision and their close dealings with the Monsanto Company,” Sanders said in a statement.
The letter- which cites an anonymous March 16 complaint ostensibly written by members of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM)- asks the GAO to probe the roles of three “key” FDA officials in the approval of the Monsanto drug.
The highest ranking is Michael Taylor, deputy commissioner for policy, a past FDA employee who rejoined the agency in 1991 from the Washington law firm King and Spalding, which represents Monsanto. Also named was Margaret A. Miller, deputy director of the agency’s office of new animal drugs. The letter characterized her as “a former Monsanto company employee” who wrote the FDA’s opinion on why milk from bST-treated cows should not require special labeling.
A third staff member, Susan Sechen, was described as a data reviewer at the FDA who had worked as a graduate student for a Cornell University professor who conducted Monsanto-sponsored research on bST.
Anti-biotechnology activist Jeremy Rifkin first made the charges about Taylor in February, when he petitioned the FDA to rescind the approval of bST and investigate the three staff members’ role in the agency’s policy.
On March 15, FDA Commissioner David A. Kessler sent Rifkin a four-page letter stating that “none of the activities of Mr. Taylor cited in your petition were in violation of any applicable law or regulation, or were otherwise inappropriate … I believe that Mr. Taylor’s behavior adhered to all applicable ethical standards.”
Kessler said that Taylor had not been “intimately” involved in Monsanto’s efforts to obtain approval, as Rifkin charged, and that he was involved in the FDA’s bST policy only in the final stages of review.
Kessler attached a nine-page memo by FDA ethics official Jack M. Kress supporting that position. Upon arrival at the FDA in the summer of 1991, Taylor recused himself for one year from taking part in any agency action dealing directly with Monsanto or any other King and Spalding clients.
Some longtime agency critics found the charges against Taylor misplaced. Sidney Wolfe, a physician who heads the Public Citizen Health Research Group here has filed complaints with the FDA about revolving door ethics issues concerning other officials. But he said yesterday that “It’s barking up a silly kind of tree to be going against Mike Taylor.”
Wolfe said that “as far as we’re concerned, he’s done a perfectly good job.” Wolfe compared Rifkin’s charges to saying that anyone who worked for a drug company and began working for the FDA should not be allowed to say anything about drugs in general- a stance that Wolfe characterized as “preposterous.”
As for the two other FDA employees named in the House members’ letter, agency spokesman Jim O’Hara said there was no impropriety. “As we have learned of these allegations, we have looked at them. The appropriate safeguards against conflict of interest have been taken,” O’Hara said.
Miller was no involved in the decision to approve bST, and Sechen’s involvement with the bST review was approved at the outset by the FDA’s ethics and program integrity division, which “determined that there was no a conflict of interest based on the information they were provided,” O’Hara said.
Although reluctant to comment in the face of a possible investigation, Taylor said yesterday that “I would welcome any scrutiny of my actions.”
Much of the material used in the lawmakers’ letter, including the anonymous CVM letter alleging Miller’s conflict of interest, came from Rifkin, a long-standing opponent of bST. Bill Goold, a spokesman for Sanders, said the search of scientific literature relied upon by Sander’s staff in drafting the letter came from Rifkin’s organization.
Rifkin has fought against the approval of bST for more than seven years as a part of an all-fronts assault against biotechnology. He called his ethical charges “a significant scandal” that he said showed moral weakness at the top of the organization. “We want Kessler’s resignation,” Rifkin said yesterday. He said that the nine-page ethics memo by FDA’s Kress was “people in government trying to protect their own.”
Sanders and Obey have previously taken stands against the approval of bST and its use without consumer labels that identify the milk as coming from cows treated with the drug.
But many Capitol Hill staff members were surprised to see Brown- who chairs the Science, Space, and Technology Committee- as a signer of the letter.
Sources familiar with the process said key committee staff members felt they had been end-run by activists. One congressional aide said staff members who normally would be informed of such an action were unaware that Brown had signed the letter.
“George’s issue is with the process of approval. He wants to make sure people are squeaky-clean,” the aide said. Brown did not see the FDA response to the Rifkin petition before signing the Sanders letter, an aide said. Obey said yesterday that he had seen the FDA response and “I’m frankly not impressed.”
Some acquaintances of Taylor were incredulous that the official would be the object of ethical scrutiny. “There’s no more ethical person in this town than Mike Taylor,” said Wayne Pines, a former FDA official who now consults with companies on FDA matters. “Mike would never get involved in a situation in which there’s a conflict- that’s such a no-brainer.”
26 genetically engineered crops are currently being considered for approval in the European Union. 19 out of these 26 are genetically engineered to be tolerant to herbicides.
Renowned agricultural economist Dr. Charles Benbrook was commissioned by Greenpeace to make the first ever forecast of how Europe would be impacted by authorising the cultivation of genetically engineered herbicide tolerant corn, soy and sugar beet.
Greenpeace has also travelled through Argentina and USA to speak to farmers and their communities about how herbicide tolerant crop monocultures have affected their economy, environment and community. These first person accounts formed the basis for the documentary Growing Doubt (the film above).
Witness accounts from Argentina and USA and Dr. Benbrook’s forecast report present a grim view of a future Europe: the over-reliance on herbicide-tolerant crops in the U.S. has triggered the emergence and rapid spread of nearly two dozen glyphosate-resistant weeds, driving up farm production costs, as well as the volume and toxicity of herbicides needed to prevent major yield loss. Europe will face a similar reality by 2025, should
herbicide tolerant genetically engineered crops be authorised for cultivation.
Greenpeace is facilitating an 18 day tour of Europe with public screenings of Growing Doubt showing the reality in Argentina and USA, followed by Dr. Charles Benbrook presenting his study which you can view here.
These public meetings offer European farmers, politicians, media and civil society a chance to hear directly from Dr. Benbrook, as well as Wes Shoemyer and Wendel Lutz – two American farmers featured in the film, who have personally experienced the agricultural and social catastrophe caused by herbicide tolerant crops. Together, they have joined Greenpeace in Europe to warn European farmers against following the American example.
Greenpeace demands:
• As herbicide-tolerant GE crops lead to an increase in herbicide usage, that no herbicide tolerant GE crops should be authorised for cultivation in Europe.
• As part of the implementation of the 2008 Council Conclusions, that the European Commission should substantially strengthen the EU risk assessment procedure for GE crops by carrying out a thorough evaluation of the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of HTGE crops.
(NaturalNews) A bombshell investigative video just released by Infowars.com has exposed what can only be called false and misleading advertising by Whole Foods. It all began when InfoWars reporters Aaron Dykes and Melissa Melton visited Whole Foods last week to try to find out what customers thought about Whole Foods stores selling so many unlabeled genetically modified foods. That fact was recently admitted by Whole Foods in its own blog post.
As you can see in the video, some customers were shocked to discover that Whole Foods sells GMOs in their store. The majority of Whole Foods customers, it turned out, had no idea the company was selling GMO. (more…)
The multinational biotech giant Monsanto is the world’s leading producer of genetically modified seeds and crops, responsible for 90 percent of the genetically engineered seed on the United States market. Researchers found that consumption of GMO corn or soybeans may lead to significant organ disruptions in rats and mice-particularly in the liver and kidneys.
Monsanto, the company that brought the world Agent Orange, is also the creator of the best-selling herbicide Roundup, which has spawned over 120 million hectares of herbicide-resistant super weeds while damaging massive amounts of soil.
Monsanto has created several varieties of “superbugs”. Monsanto engineered genetically modified crops containing Bt, a toxin incorporated in GMO crops which has spawned insect populations which are resistant to bio pesticide. Insect populations have and are mutating to resist the bio pesticide. So far, at least 8 insect populations have developed resistance, with 2 populations resistant to Bt sprays and at least 6 species resistant to Bt crop as a whole. Farmers are therefore forced to use even more pesticides to combat the resistant bugs.
Monsanto may be destroying the planet’s soil. Certain bacteria essential as “food starters” such as L cremoris, used in raw and fermented dairy products have begun to disappear in certain geographic regions. The case has been found to be an element of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, glyphosate that is destroying and/or altering the microbial biodiversity of the soil, jeopardizing the fertility of the entire biosphere.
Monsanto has been caught running “slave-like” rings, holding off pay, and forcing undocumented workers to buy their food only from the Monsanto company store. The company not only “hired” all of the workers illegally, but also prevented them from leaving the farm premises and withheld their salaries.
Monsanto effectively owns most US diplomats, and is currently using this political capital to start “Trade Wars” against nations opposed to Monsanto’s destructive policies. France, Hungary, and Peru are a few of the countries that have decided to stand up to Monsanto, going as far as destroying 1000 acres of maize found to have been grown with GMOs.
Peru has passed a monumental 10-year ban on modified foods and French legislatures are planning to launch new restrictions regarding the use of Monsanto’s 810 maize on French soil.
Monsanto poses one of the greatest threats on the planet to human health and the environment. NationofChange is teaming up with activists across the country for an ongoing campaign to fight back against one of the worst corporations in the world.
The first step: raise awareness about Monsanto’s crimes against human health and the environment.
