By Ellen Brown. Posted on November 27, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog
“Control oil and you control nations,” said US
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. ”Control
food and you control the people.”
Global food control has nearly been
achieved, by reducing seed diversity with GMO (genetically modified) seeds that
are distributed by only a few transnational corporations. But this agenda has
been implemented at grave cost to our health; and if the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) passes, control over not just our food but our health, our
environment and our financial system will be in the hands of transnational
corporations.
PROFITS
BEFORE POPULATIONS
According to an Acres USA interview of plant
pathologist Don Huber, Professor Emeritus at Purdue University, two modified
traits account for practically all of the genetically modified crops grown in
the world today. One involves insect resistance. The other, more disturbing
modification involves insensitivity to glyphosate-based herbicides
(plant-killing chemicals). Often known as Roundup after the best-selling
Monsanto product of that name, glyphosate poisons everything in its path except
plants genetically modified to resist it.
Glyphosate-based herbicides are now
the most commonly used herbicides in the world. Glyphosate is an essential
partner to the GMOs that are the principal business of the burgeoning biotech
industry. Glyphosate is a “broad-spectrum” herbicide that destroys
indiscriminately, not by killing unwanted plants directly but by tying up
access to critical nutrients.
Because of the insidious way in
which it works, it has been sold as a relatively benign replacement for the
devastating earlier dioxin-based herbicides. But a barrage of experimental data
has now shown glyphosate and the GMO foods incorporating it to pose serious
dangers to health. Compounding the risk is the toxicity of “inert” ingredients
used to make glyphosate more potent. Researchers have found, for example, that the surfactant POEA can kill human cells,
particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells. But these
risks have been conveniently ignored.
The widespread use of GMO foods and
glyphosate herbicides helps explain the anomaly that the US spends over twice as much per capita on healthcare
as the average developed country, yet it is rated far down the scale of the
world’s healthiest populations. The World Health Organization has ranked the US
LAST out of 17 developed nations for overall health.
Sixty to seventy percent of the foods in US supermarkets
are now genetically modified. By contrast, in at least 26 other
countries—including Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France,
Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Mexico and
Russia—GMOs are totally or partially banned; and
significant restrictions on GMOs exist in about sixty other countries.
A ban on GMO and glyphosate use
might go far toward improving the health of Americans. But the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, a global trade agreement for which the Obama Administration has
sought Fast Track status, would block that sort of cause-focused approach to
the healthcare crisis.
ROUNDUP’S
INSIDIOUS EFFECTS
Roundup-resistant crops escape being
killed by glyphosate, but they do not avoid absorbing it into their tissues.
Herbicide-tolerant crops have substantially higher levels of herbicide residues
than other crops. In fact, many countries have had to increase their legally
allowable levels—by up to 50 times—in order to accommodate the introduction of
GM crops. In the European Union, residues in foods are set to rise 100-150 times if
a new proposal by Monsanto is approved. Meanwhile, herbicide-tolerant “super-weeds” have adapted to the chemical,
requiring even more toxic doses and new toxic chemicals to kill the plant.
Human enzymes are affected by
glyphosate just as plant enzymes are: the chemical blocks the uptake of
manganese and other essential minerals. Without those minerals, we cannot
properly metabolize our food. That helps explain the rampant epidemic of
obesity in the United States.
People eat and eat in an attempt to
acquire the nutrients that are simply not available in their food.
According
to researchers Samsell and Seneff in Biosemiotic Entropy: Disorder, Disease, and Mortality
(April 2013):
Glyphosate’s inhibition of
cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to
mammals. CYP enzymes play crucial roles in biology . . . . Negative impact on
the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages
cellular systems throughout the body. Consequences are most of the diseases and
conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal
disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility,
cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
More than 40 diseases have been
linked to glyphosate use, and more keep appearing. In September 2013, the National University of Rio Cuarto, Argentina, published
research finding that glyphosate enhances the growth of fungi that
produce aflatoxin B1, one of the most carcinogenic of substances. A doctor from
Chaco, Argentina, told Associated Press, “We’ve gone from a pretty healthy
population to one with a high rate of cancer, birth defects and illnesses
seldom seen before.” Fungi growths have increased significantly in US corn
crops.
Glyphosate has also done serious
damage to the environment. According to an October 2012 report by the Institute of
Science in Society:
Agribusiness claims that glyphosate
and glyphosate-tolerant crops will improve crop yields, increase farmers’
profits and benefit the environment by reducing pesticide use. Exactly the
opposite is the case. . . . [T]he evidence indicates that glyphosate herbicides
and glyphosate-tolerant crops have had wide-ranging detrimental effects,
including glyphosate resistant super weeds, virulent plant (and new livestock)
pathogens, reduced crop health and yield, harm to off-target species from
insects to amphibians and livestock, as well as reduced soil fertility.
POLITICS
TRUMPS SCIENCE
In light of these adverse findings,
why have Washington and the European Commission continued to endorse glyphosate
as safe? Critics point to lax regulations, heavy influence from corporate
lobbyists, and a political agenda that has more to do with power and control
than protecting the health of the people.
In the ground-breaking 2007 book Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation,
William Engdahl states that global food control and depopulation became US
strategic policy under Rockefeller protégé Henry Kissinger. Along with oil
geopolitics, they were to be the new “solution” to the threats to US global
power and continued US access to cheap raw materials from the developing world.
In line with that agenda, the government has shown extreme partisanship in
favor of the biotech agribusiness industry, opting for a system in which the
industry “voluntarily” polices itself. Bio-engineered foods are treated as
“natural food additives,” not needing any special testing.
Jeffrey M. Smith, Executive Director of the Institute for
Responsible Technology, confirms that US Food and Drug
Administration policy allows biotech companies to determine if their own foods
are safe. Submission of data is completely voluntary. He concludes:
In the critical arena of food safety
research, the biotech industry is without accountability, standards, or
peer-review. They’ve got bad science down to a science.
Whether or not depopulation is an
intentional part of the agenda, widespread use of GMO and glyphosate is having that result.
The endocrine-disrupting properties of glyphosate have been linked to
infertility, miscarriage, birth defects and arrested sexual development. In
Russian experiments, animals fed GM soy were sterile by the third generation.
Vast amounts of farmland soil are also being systematically ruined by the
killing of beneficial microorganisms that allow plant roots to uptake soil
nutrients.
In Gary Null’s eye-opening
documentary Seeds of Death: Unveiling the Lies of GMOs, Dr.
Bruce Lipton warns, “We are leading the world into the sixth mass extinction of
life on this planet. . . . Human behavior is undermining the web of life.”
THE
TPP AND INTERNATIONAL CORPORATE CONTROL
As the devastating conclusions of
these and other researchers awaken people globally to the dangers of Roundup
and GMO foods, transnational corporations are working feverishly with the Obama
administration to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement
that would strip governments of the power to regulate transnational corporate
activities. Negotiations have been kept secret from Congress but not from
corporate advisors, 600 of whom have been consulted and know the details. According
to Barbara Chicherio in Nation of Change:
The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)
has the potential to become the biggest regional Free Trade Agreement in
history. . . .
The chief agricultural negotiator
for the US is the former Monsanto lobbyist, Islam Siddique. If
ratified the TPP would impose punishing regulations that give multinational
corporations unprecedented right to demand taxpayer compensation for policies
that corporations deem a barrier to their profits.
. . . They are carefully crafting
the TPP to insure that citizens of the involved countries have no control over
food safety, what they will be eating, where it is grown, the conditions under
which food is grown and the use of herbicides and pesticides.
Food safety is only one of many
rights and protections liable to fall to this super-weapon of international
corporate control. In an April 2013 interview on The Real News Network,
Kevin Zeese called the TPP “NAFTA on steroids” and “a global corporate coup.”
He warned:
No matter what issue you care
about—whether its wages, jobs, protecting the environment . . . this issue is
going to adversely affect it . . . .
If a country takes a step to try to
regulate the financial industry or set up a public bank to represent the public
interest, it can be sued . . . .
RETURN
TO NATURE: NOT TOO LATE
There is a safer, saner, more
earth-friendly way to feed nations. While Monsanto and US regulators are
forcing GM crops on American families, Russian families are showing what can be
done with permaculture methods on simple garden plots. In 2011, 40% of Russia’s food was grown on dachas
(cottage gardens or allotments). Dacha gardens produced over 80% of the
country’s fruit and berries, over 66% of the vegetables, almost 80% of the
potatoes and nearly 50% of the nation’s milk, much of it consumed raw. According
to Vladimir Megre, author of the best-selling Ringing Cedars Series:
Essentially, what Russian gardeners
do is demonstrate that gardeners can feed the world – and you do not need any
GMOs, industrial farms, or any other technological gimmicks to guarantee
everybody’s got enough food to eat. Bear in mind that Russia only has 110 days
of growing season per year – so in the US, for example, gardeners’ output could
be substantially greater. Today, however, the area taken up by lawns in the US
is two times greater than that of Russia’s gardens – and it produces nothing
but a multi-billion-dollar lawn care industry.
In the US,
only about 0.6 percent of the total agricultural area is devoted to
organic farming. This area needs to be vastly expanded if we are to avoid “the
sixth mass extinction.” But first, we need to urge our representatives to stop
Fast Track, vote no on the TPP, and pursue a global phase-out of
glyphosate-based herbicides and GMO foods. Our health, our finances and our
environment are at stake.
____________________________
Ellen Brown is an attorney,
president of the Public
Banking Institute, and author of twelve books, including the
best-selling Web of Debt. In The Public Bank
Solution, her latest book, she explores successful public banking
models historically and globally. Her blog articles are at EllenBrown.com.
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