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Scientist Warning of Health Hazards of Monsanto's Herbicide Receives Threats - Magda Hassan - 05-09-2009
Scientist Warning of Health Hazards of Monsanto's Herbicide Receives Threats
GRAIN: Seeds of Information, July 2009
“I expected a reaction but not such a violent one”
In April 2009 Andrés Carrasco, an Argentinian embryologist, gave an interview to the leading Buenos Aires newspaper Página 12, in which he described the alarming results of a research project he is leading into the impact of the herbicide glyphosate on the foetuses of amphibians. Dr Carrasco, who works in the Ministry of Science’s Conicet (National Council of Scientific and Technical Investigations), said that their results suggested that the herbicide could cause brain, intestinal and heart defects in the foetuses. Glyphosate is the herbicide used in the cultivation of Monsanto’s genetically modified soya, which now covers some 18 million hectares, about half of Argentina’s arable land. [1]
Carrasco said that the doses of herbicide used in their study were “much lower than the levels used in the fumigations”. Indeed, as some weeds have become resistant to glyphosate, many farmers are greatly increasing the concentration of the herbicide. According to Página 12, this means that, in practice, the herbicide applied in the fields is between 50 and 1,540 times stronger than that used by Carrasco. The results in the study are confirming what peasant and indigenous communities – the people most affected by the spraying – have been denouncing for over a decade. The study also has profound consequences for the USA’s anti-narcotics strategy in Colombia, because the planes spray glyphosate, reinforced with additional chemicals, on the coca fields (and the peasants living among them).
Three days after the interview, the Association of Environmental Lawyers filed a petition with the Argentine Supreme Court, calling for a ban on the use and sale of glyphosate until its impact on health and on the environment had been investigated. Five days later the Ministry of Defense banned the planting of soya in its fields. This sparked a strong reaction from the multinational biotechnology companies and their supporters. Fearful that their most famous product, a symbol of the dominant farming model, would be banned, they mounted an unprecedented attack on Carrasco, ridiculing his research and even issuing personal threats. He was accused of inventing his whole investigation, as his results have not yet been peer-reviewed and published in a prestigious scientific journal.
According to an article in the Argentine press, after news about the study broke, Dr. Carrasco was the victim of an act of intimidation, when four men arrived at his laboratory in the Faculty of Medicine and acted extremely aggressively.
Two of the men were said to be members of an agrochemical industry body but refused to give their names. The other two claimed to be a lawyer and notary. They apparently interrogated Dr. Carrasco and demanded to see details of the experiments. They left a card Basílico, Andrada & Santurio, attorneys on behalf of Felipe Alejandro Noël.
Carrasco was firm in his response: “When one is dealing with a subject of limited public interest, one can keep the study secret until all the last details have been resolved. But when one uncovers facts that are important for public health, one has an obligation to make an effort to publish the results urgently and with maximum publicity.” Even so, he was clearly taken aback by the strength of the reaction. “It was a violent, disproportionate, dirty reaction”, he said. “I hadn’t even discovered anything new, only confirmed conclusions that others had reached. One has to remember, too, that the study originated in contacts with communities that have suffered the impact of agro-chemicals. They are the undeniable proof of the impact.” He is not intimidated: “If I know something, I will not shut my mouth.”
[1] See: GRAIN, Twelve Years of GM Soya in Argentina – a Disaster for People and the Environment, Seedling, January 2009.
Link: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_18944.cfm
http://z7.invisionfree.com/E_Pluribus_Unum/index.php?showtopic=8531
Scientist Warning of Health Hazards of Monsanto's Herbicide Receives Threats - Myra Bronstein - 06-09-2009
Magda Hassan Wrote:Scientist Warning of Health Hazards of Monsanto's Herbicide Receives Threats
...
How can anyone work for or patronize Monsanto? They should be boycotted and out of business by now.
Scientist Warning of Health Hazards of Monsanto's Herbicide Receives Threats - Keith Millea - 06-09-2009
Last week a local environmental activist group called (The Pitchfork Rebellion)held a mock trial for Monsanto on the steps of the old Federal Building in town.:five:
Scientist Warning of Health Hazards of Monsanto's Herbicide Receives Threats - Peter Lemkin - 06-09-2009
Myra Bronstein Wrote:Magda Hassan Wrote:Scientist Warning of Health Hazards of Monsanto's Herbicide Receives Threats
...
How can anyone work for or patronize Monsanto? They should be boycotted and out of business by now.
They are just about the largest chemical/herbicide/genetic-****ing around company, and a friend of the Bushs, bankers, movers and shackers, and have purchased [at a good price, mind you] most members of Congress and fill the FDA and Dept. Agric. etc. with their 'former' and 'future' bigwigs. They are also a defense contractor making chemicals for war. They are a company totally out of control. If you've not yet see the film The World According To Montsanto!
Scientist Warning of Health Hazards of Monsanto's Herbicide Receives Threats - Myra Bronstein - 06-09-2009
Keith Millea Wrote:Last week a local environmental activist group called (The Pitchfork Rebellion)held a mock trial for Monsanto on the steps of the old Federal Building in town.:five:
Excellent.
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/sevendays/19387083-35/story.csp
"The Pitchfork Rebellion, organized to restrict or halt aerial herbicide spraying on Oregon’s forests, went to the local doorstep of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Saturday to lampoon what they said were the agency’s ties to pesticide manufacturer Monsanto.
Triangle Lake area resident Day Owen, a co-founder of the activist group, donned a jester’s hat to preside over mock trials of Monsanto and the state Department of Forestry before a crowd of more than 100 people.
Owen’s wife, his daughter and neighbor Maya Gee also said they were personally affected after helicopters sprayed the Monsanto product Round-Up on forests near their farms in 2007. The women said they were sickened by their exposure to drifted spray, immediately suffering breathing problems and muscle weakness, followed by diarrhea, early and painful menstrual cycles, and muscle and joint pain lasting for months.
Owen accused the St. Louis-based multinational company of covering up evidence that the herbicide poses human health risks. According to Monsanto’s Web site, increased sales of Round-Up helped the corporation post record net sales of $11.4 billion in 2008.
...He called Monsanto and clear-cutting timber companies “the real bioterrorists.”
Rally participants were invited to launch a boycott of all crops treated with Round-Up and to sign a petition calling for aerial spraying buffer zones around homes and schools."
How can we know which crops are treated with Round-Up?
Scientist Warning of Health Hazards of Monsanto's Herbicide Receives Threats - Keith Millea - 07-09-2009
Well,how about that!No tasers or head slams this time.It must have something to do with there already being a couple of court cases from the last confrontation.What SHOCKED the locals at the first hearing was the fact that it was Federal Homeland Security Agents monitoring the rally.Yes,for those that were not aware then,they do know now that environmentalists are in the terrorism buisness.
You know what is sad though?I stood on the same plaza(named Ken Kesey Free Speech Plaza)30 years ago protesting the spraying of Agent Orange on our forests and communities.After several years of court battles,we actually won.So it's hard to imagine that this battle still rages,only a different poison in question.One step forward,two steps back.
And if it's not enough to be poisoned with chemicals,look what I just found.The Eugene Wavelength.Sorry for moving away from Monsanto.
http://www.angelfire.com/or/mctrl/bowart.htm#X
X. THE EUGENE WAVELENGTH
"A powerful radio signal that may be affecting human health has been monitored in several Eugene locations and in the air three thousand feet above the city," proclaimed the Eugene Register-Guard on March 26, 1978. "The source of the radio signal is unknown." Thus came to light news of the. first electromagnetic biohazards suffered by a major population center (34). Shortly before the Register-Guard printed the story, a middle-aged Eugene man, Walter Deposkey, came down with symptoms remarkably similar to those attributed to microwave sickness (35). He noted a strange vibration emanating from within his home. He heard voices. He could not sleep. He suffered burning of his cornea. University of Oregon industrial hygeinist Marshall van Ert, called to investigate Deposkey's complaints, suffered the same symptoms in the man's home. Disturbed, van Ert recruited several local engineers to investigate. The engineers measured an unusual radio signal they determined was capable of producing potential biohazards. After dogging public health agencies to investigate further, van Ert broke the story in the papers (36).
The Eugene Signal was described as a radio frequency pulse at 4.75 megahertz, 1,100 cycles per second, recorded within at least two local homes as well as 3,000 feet above the city (37). The signal's strength was rated at five hundred thousand watts -- ten times the FCC AM licensed limit. The signal extended as far away as the next town, Corvallis. 150 documented complaints about the signal prompted Governor Bob Straub, Senator Mark Hatfield, and Congressman Jim Weaver to demand an EPA investigation (38). A data analysis by the State Health Department's Radiation Control Section suggested "probable cause" linking the complaints to the strange frequency (39). "I was surprised," said Clifford Shrock, a Textronix, Inc. radio frequency analyst who had written CIA and NSA electronics manuals, "I'd never seen anything like it before."(40) Reactions to the story" flooded in from around the world. Calls came in from people telling similar stories about their own distant areas. Several calls came from technicians offering their hypotheses about the signal, suggesting a possible link to secret weapons readiation. The people of Eugene began to learn about Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) biohazards in a hurry.
No one, however, could get to the bottom of Eugene's problem. The FCC's. Enforcement Division Assistant Chief, Richard Smith, laid the blame squarely on a naval transmitter at Dixon, California -- the "Dixon Duck" (41). Van Ert and others disputed this conclusion. The Navy denied it. When the EPA technicians finally arrived, they decided no real Problem existed and denied that there was any mystery signal. Van Ert, Shrock, and others strongly disagreed with them. They had felt the signal and had measured it. But, after holding a cursory press conference, the EPA investigators returned to its Las Vegas headquarters and dodged reporters. Then the investigation folded.
While some of the citizens of Eugene, Oregon say they continue to suffer from the signal effects, the Eugene Signal remains an official mystery. Marshall Van Ert left Eugene after he began suffering from EMR symptoms. Today he is still convinced he was-victimized by secret IW radiation and a government coverup.
The people of Eugene aren't the only ones complaining of EMR biohazard effects. Similar symptoms have been reported in such places as Timmons and Kirkland Lake in Canada. These effects were traced to a notorious Soviet radio broadcast dubbed by amateur radio operators "the woodpecker." (42) These effects bear a strong resemblance to the biohazards inherent in Invisible Weapons like the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) under development by the Pentagon. Although the people of Eugene didn't know it, both the U.S. and Soviet military had been working for years to perfect the use of electromagnetic frequencies as lethal psychological weapons.