The latest on the email scandal revealing close ties between industry and public university professors and the EPA’s failure to protect the bees.
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The latest on the email scandal revealing close ties between industry and public university professors and the EPA’s failure to protect the bees. With farmers facing corn rootworm resistance in at least 13 states, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a framework earlier in the year to improve the corn rootworm resistance management program. A Federal judge upholds GMO labeling law as constitutional setting up an appeal. Also questioned the ‘natural’ labeling of products with GE ingredients. It is quite extraordinary that, given the scientific reality now commonly accepted in relation to molecular biology, the genetic engineering industry is still allowed to get away with using terms like precise. The genetic engineering industry is a house of cards built almost solely on the foundation of a scientific principal that is now anything but solid. Ticking time bomb. End of modern medicine. Urgent danger. This is how the world sees the problem of antibiotic resistance, but in the United States, in part due to politics of the day, with abundant backing from lobbyists, crucial regulations are missing despite the scientific alarms. The Economic Research Service, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in its second report, Genetically Engineered Crops in the United States, downplayed the impact of glyphosate resistance and gave Bt crops the kid gloves treatment. A recent number crunching report by the Electronic Research Service (ERS) arm of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) gives the reader an eye full of charts, graphs and statistics but not the full picture of Genetically Engineered Crops in the U.S. Many believe that the new FDA guidelines will likely fail to change how antibiotics are used in food animals and will not stem the public health crisis of increasing antibiotic resistance. Even if horrific images and stories about CAFOs do not tug at your heart-strings, and you close your eyes at the externalized costs of CAFOs and believe that veganism is something reserved for denizens of Los Angeles, New York and Portland, it is no longer possible to ignore how what happens out of sight in CAFOs impacts human health. There is no scientific consensus that GM crops are safe, especially when the views of the scientific community independent of the GM crop development industry are taken into account. Is “cutting-edge” biotechnology taking American agriculture backwards into a more toxic past? Connecticut will become the first and only state so far to require food manufacturers to label products containing genetically modified ingredients — but there is a catch! Legislation proposed in New York would require labeling of food or food products that contain a genetically modified material. With a deadline for a vote looming, can New Yorkers keep the bill alive? The claim that GMOs reduce pesticide use — a main selling point — should be abandoned by the industry that is gobbling up dramatic pesticide sales growth in response to hardy plant pests rapidly adopting and developing resistance to genetically modified crops. The European Commission recently said it will ban three neonicotinoids for the next two years citing “acute high risks” to bees associated with this pesticide. The EPA only recommends more tests. Cholesterol decreasing juice, anti-cancer green tea, and cherries as James-Bond agents to neutralize cancer — believable or not? FDA’s confusing food labeling rules are criticized for allowing many companies to make misleading claims on food labels. One of the causes of antibiotic resistance in humans is the overuse of antibiotics on industrial animal farms. Despite the urgent public health crisis, neither the FDA nor lawmakers have stemmed the overuse of such important medicines for purposes of growth and disease prevention, not treatment. Last week House Rep. Henry Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the Energy and Commerce committee, announced plans to introduce a new animal antibiotic use legislation. Reactions to EPA’s refusal to suspend the registration of clothianidin, given the mounting scientific evidence that this systemic poison poses an imminent hazard to bees, have been strong and unequivocal. The EPA went to great lengths to reject a citizen petition seeking to suspend the use of a systemic pesticide that scientific studies link to massive bee die-offs. What happened? A posted announcement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture caused quite a stir on Wednesday when it appeared to embrace the “Meatless Monday” campaign until it heard from the beef industry. Oops! After a lengthy legal battle the U.S. Department of Agriculture decided to completely deregulate Monsanto’s genetically engineered sugar beets. |
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