Big business controls American food on nearly every level. In most cases, the effects on our health are merely questionable, but one specific set of circumstances is endangering human life in general, and American life in particular: the genetically-modified plant world. There are many elements to the story, from the corporate to the judicial to the biological.
It all started with a 1980 Supreme Court case, Diamond v. Chakrabarty, wherein the Court determined that living organisms could be patented. This led to the US Patent Office deciding five years later (in a case called Ex parte Hibberd) that the Supreme Court’s decision could be applied specifically to the seeds of sexually reproducing plants. That decision was unique in that it allowed the seeds’ patent-holders to prevent anyone else from using the seeds for research or agricultural purposes.
The upshot of this is that today, if you plant seeds that are patented, you are not legally allowed to take the seeds from your own plants and replant them. You have to repurchase your seeds from their owner company every growing season. When a particular kind of seed becomes popular (such as Monsanto’s ‘Roundup Ready’ corn, which you can spray Roundup all over without harming), the company has complete control over how much you pay.
Monsanto, of course, is vicious about protecting its patent, to the point of suing farmers out of business if they don’t purchase the corn, on the assumption that they are using it by getting the seeds illegally. (God forbid someone would want to just grow plain old corn!) Even if the farmers’ cases go in their favor, Monsanto can and will spend hundreds of millions of dollars prolonging the court case just so that the legal fees alone will bankrupt a farmer on their blacklist. By so doing, they’re slowly weeding out all of the farmers that dare to not buy their products at their grossly inflated prices.
How inflated? In the last two years, the price of corn seeds has spiked by thirty percent. Normally, this would completely shatter much of the economy because corn is used for everything from animal feed to industrial lubricant to food additives. But the corn subsidies the government provides keep corn at a stable [artificially low] market price regardless of how much it costs to grow, so when Monsanto jacks up its prices, it’s actually the taxpayers that bear the burden.
So, GMO corn is dramatically increasing our taxes ($3,975,606,299 in 2009 alone — that’s $12.86 for every man, woman, and child in the USA), as well as destroying the lives of farmers who try to fight it. But it’s far worse than that. It’s actually killing us as well.
The reasons are many. Some of the more obvious are quoted in the article linked above, but there are more. Corn has the worst balance of essential fatty acids of any food Americans consume, and that has profound effects on cell health. Corn also has more mycotoxic fungi living in and around it than any other grain, and while the FDA does periodic tests for aflatoxin (one of the most carcinogenic substances found in nature), they admit that they don’t have the manpower to catch it all, and that there are other mycotoxins that they simply can’t test for at all.
That’s just corn in general — when you add the genetic tinkering that’s done to the corn on top of everything else, the results (according to this study by the International Journal on Biological Sciences) are organ failure and death. According to the study’s author, “Our study contradicts Monsanto conclusions because Monsanto systematically neglects significant health effects in mammals that are different in males and females eating GMOs, or not proportional to the dose. This is a very serious mistake, dramatic for public health. This is the major conclusion revealed by our work, the only careful reanalysis of Monsanto crude statistical data.”
Moreover, the effects of a poor diet (like the high-additive, high-refined-sugar diet the corn subsidies promote) accumulate over generations — which is a huge part of why the people who are now in their 20s and 30s are expected to be the first group that doesn’t live longer than their parents did. Our children and grandchildren are only going to continue showing greater and greater effects of the deleterious diet that we’ve all unwittingly been manipulated into eating.
There’s more — a lot more — to this debacle. Untouched are subjects like the lack of GMO labeling laws in the USA (and subsequently the near-complete ignorance of the fact that 80% of the items in your grocery store have GMO corn-, soy-, or wheat-based ingredients in them), or the fact that 11 states have passed laws that make it illegal to claim that a vegetable or fruit is bad for you without having “sound scientific evidence”, or the environmental impacts of all of the Roundup that farmers [using 'Roundup Ready' corn] have sprayed into the environment over the last decade.
In short, the corn subsidies have combined forces with an utterly foolish decision on the part of the Supreme Court to allow patents on living things to initiate the complete economic and biological meltdown of our country, and in many places merely pointing this out can get you thrown in jail. On the bright side, it’s mostly the poor people who can’t afford real meats and vegetables who get physically punished by the phenomenon, so the corporate CEOs, Congress people, and Supreme Court judges who made it all happen don’t really have to worry about it unless and until the People figure it out for themselves.
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Kind of strange you left out the biggest part of this story: that genetically engineered corn causes infertility after 2 or 3 generations: http://organicjar.com/2008/529/
Claiming a patent on life via genetics? Will we allow a patent on a baby or sue because it looks like someone else’s baby? That anyone claims this right is objectionable to her.
Thank-you Nick for the link, we need all the full story.
Monsanto and all like corporations need to have their Corporations and all licenses revoked without exception..we need our natural foods and Monsanto is now notorious for vindictive adjudication against farmers..they are attempting to create and maintain an illegal and criminal monopoly on our food supplies and crooks in government and courts are accomplices.
This makes me sick. How are they threaten my families way of living and choice to eat organic natural food just for their share holders and their own interest. This is facsism. This is what the Nazis did to control the people. In case people are unaware Monsanto was voted the most Unethical corporation in the world in a recent poll. That should be enough to say something. Stop H.R. 875 aka the Food Safety Modernization Act. This is a threat to national security and human rights.
Please! We need healthy food for all citizens and animals. The movie ‘food’ will be shown on PBS in the near future. Watch it, for your own good.
It is my recollection that after the first Iraq war, as we were preparing to turn the government over to a puppet instead of direct rule, John Bolton, the US proconsul ruling by fiat, enacted himself a number of dicta which must be abided by. One was that no seed could be saved from this year’s crop to be planted next year — they have to buy new seed annually. Of course it is Monsanto’s Frankenseed. We are spreading it by war and force wherever we invade an conquer.
end gmo period stop the monopoly of corp[orations like monsanto and allow farmers to keep their seeds. diversify crop don’t monopolise with corn or subsidise.
Why are you so surprised when the UN itself declared in its 2003 mandate that global population must be reduced by whatever means as of 2025 by 85%? Bill Gates declared in writing just the other day that the new vaccines they were introducing would be a great way to reduce population. We need to look at the motives behind our “philanthropists” like Gates, Buffet, Soros and others. Maybe by donating half their fortune they expect to be welcomed into the ruling upper echelon?
By any means implies exactly that, whether it is engineering disasters; ignoring or failing to respond to natural disasters in a timely fashion; deliberately polluting our environment, drinking water and food sources; introducing drugs and vaccines that shorten our life expectancy and perhaps our ability to procreate?
Who introduced Aspertame in the form of Nutrasweet? Donald Rumsfeld did when he was CEO of Searle, which was in turn sold lock, stock and barrel to Monsanto, the same company that engineers the frankenfood. If you take the time to read any ingredients listing on a bottle of Coke, Pepsi or other brand soft drinks you’ll notice they contain aspertame plus sodium benzoate, another cancer causing agent. By the way, Xanthum gum may cause gastro-intestinal problems later in life.
Rumsfeld is also on the board of another bio tech engineering company called Gilead. Guess which company holds the patent to Tamiflu and four other AIDS treatments, why Gilead Sciences does, and it does its’ best to block any cheaper generic drug. Epidemics mean market growth, and you and I are expendable. The only thing that matters to them is PROFIT and power.
Monsanto is evil. Period. The fact that most American’s do not even know who they are is more disturbing. Consumers clip their coupons, watch for sales, trying to get the most for their food dollars, and are killing their families in the process. Is there any government agency that is NOT under the thumb of Monsanto and the other for profit giants that control our food,medicine and now, our water as well. Wake up American, and voting for tea party candidates is not the answer!
The objective of Monsanto, is to take over the complete source of all seeds in the world, and supply their Roundup Ready seeds everywhere farmers plant anything.
There are two bills that are waiting to be brought up for vote in the Senate, that will help Monsanto get more control of our food supply, they are S-510, and Leahys Bill ,S-3767.
These bills will give the FTC and the FDA more power to regulate the Small farmer and the organic farming industries. Which will eventually drive them out of business and leave the farming industry wide open for Conventional farming industry to monopolize all farming.
Since 90% of Soy, and 80% of corn are now GE to receive Monsanto,s Roundup Ready poison, they are using Soy and corn to supply most of the oils and High fructose Corn Syrup in almost everything that is processed and packaged for human consumption.
These GM foods are some of the reasons Cancer is rising in almost an epidemic force. Cancer is now the #1 cause of death in America and most of it is caused from what you eat, or drink, and I must add what is injected into our bodies as vaccines.
There has never been any studies done that prove that Vaccines are beneficial or save lives and will protect you from whatever the vaccine is supposed to protect you from.
There are no independent studies done to show GM crops are beneficial for human consumption. Animals when given choices of GM or Natural grown crops for feed, all will reject the GM crops for the natural food source. When animals are fed GM crops only, most got sick or it killed them outright.