Scientists are concerned that the agribusiness giant Mansanto’s Roundup Ready is causing infertility in livestock and the situation should be treated as an “emergency.”
Monsanto has long sought to control, along with other agribusiness giants, the world’s food supply. They famously created Agent Orange, rBGH (bovine growth hormine) and the so-called Terminator seeds, genetically-engineered seeds which consumers must buy over and over again because they become sterile after initial planting.
Two weeks before the FDA deregulated Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfafa, Dr. Don Huber, a plant pathologist and retired Purdue University professor, alerted the FDA to a possible connection between Monsanto’s herbicide and livestock infertility.
Huber’s letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack notes:
“A team of senior plant and animal scientists have recently brought to my attention the discovery of an electron microscopic pathogen that appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings. Based on a review of the data, it is widespread, very serious, and is in much higher concentrations in Roundup Ready (RR) soybeans and corn—suggesting a link with the RR gene or more likely the presence of Roundup. This organism appears NEW to science!”
Yesterday, Reuters reported that Argentine scientists have claimed Roundup has caused birth defects in frogs and chickens.
Dr. Huber indicated in the Vilsack letter that he and his colleagues are “moving our investigation forward with speed and discretion, and seek assistance from the USDA and other entities to identify the pathogen’s source, prevalence, implications, and remedies.”
Huber goes on to recommend a delay in deregulation, but Vilsack’s FDA went ahead with deregulation anyway. Huber noted that observation of the micro-fungal-like organism requires a powerful microscope, “with an approximate size range equal to a medium size virus. It is able to reproduce and appears to be a micro-fungal-like organism. If so, it would be the first such micro-fungus ever identified. There is strong evidence that this infectious agent promotes diseases of both plants and mammals, which is very rare.”
Most importantly, though, Dr. Huber emphasized that the organism was “found in high concentrations in Roundup Ready soybean meal and corn, distillers meal, fermentation feed products, pig stomach contents, and pig and cattle placentas.”
No word yet on whether Vilsack’s office even looked at this letter upon delivery, and the Secretary has not commented on whether a review will be launched.
That’s the sort of inaction that Monstano’s lobbying money routinely buys.
February 27, 2011 at 8:44 am, Einsof said:
Its amazing how many typo’s the editor misses on this site.
March 04, 2011 at 5:23 am, Shanimal said:
I’m finding it harder and harder to describe the vastness of the net that’s been cast.
When you understand the ties Monsanto has had to the government since the early 40′s you start to wonder how big this really is. You also realize how none of it is really that surprising.
Wikileaks was no surprise. Ignoring a court order with impunity, no surprise. Bribing foreign officials, no surprise. Having whistleblower credentials yanked, no surprise. Winning suits against farmers when the proverbial bull trespasses and destroys an entire crop, no surprise. Suing researchers for “intellectual patent infringment”, no surprise. At this point I’m willing to speculate that they might have already known about the pathogen.
Its been seventy years of lies about product safety, pollution, carcinogens, etc… You have to ask yourself, considering Monsanto and Vilsak’s past (http://www.organicconsumers.org/usda_watch.cfm#vilsack), even if it reached him what would he do about it? They all know by the end of next year, organic livestock and dairy will be a thing of the past. Vilsack and the ex VIP Monsanto cronies in Washington probably had a good laugh about it over a plate of organic pasta from Obama’s kitchen.
At the end of the day this is just another crop that encourages farmers to use RoundUp (In this case one that doesn’t even need it.) Once these seeds hit the soil they can’t be recalled and “all your Alfalfa are belong to us.” This strategic move kills two birds with one stone. It means more annual sales of RoundUp (currently over 100 million pounds of it’s active ingredient Glyphosate) and it drives a stake into the heart of the organic industry.
Don’t be too surprised when they start to sue for RoundUp resistant GM Alfalfa genes found in cows milk, people, and the very air we breath.