Thread: Monsanto Shifts ALL Liability to Farmers

GM seeds have been around for years. Most of the stuff you hear about Monsanto is from the organic farming contingent. The same folks that bring you E-Coli from un-composted manure and inflated prices for the SAME produce.

Monsanto has done nothing other than protect their patent. If you buy Monsanto seeds you have to PAY for their use. Do yourselves a favor and go to the Monsanto site and read their POV.

The fact is, most folks eat GM food every day and we are living longer than ever before.

I also have no problem with Monsanto...except I am not willing to pay them for most of their products.

But for a large farmer Monsanto products are just about essential.

It saves money.

Originally Posted by RPA1

GM seeds have been around for years. Most of the stuff you hear about Monsanto is from the organic farming contingent. The same folks that bring you E-Coli from un-composted manure and inflated prices for the SAME produce.

Monsanto has done nothing other than protect their patent. If you buy Monsanto seeds you have to PAY for their use. Do yourselves a favor and go to the Monsanto site and read their POV.

The fact is, most folks eat GM food every day and we are living longer than ever before.

It is NOT the "organic farming contingent" that is using un-composted manure in a way to make people sick.

Organic farmers have to have a detailed plan for ANY fertilizer they use, they are banned from using human waste solids from sewage treatment plants, treated or not, and they have a high degree of oversight on their operations.

Regular farming operations have almost no oversight, use human waste solids, and many use un-composted manure on their fields. And no one checks them until there is an outbreak.

Monsanto's authority to patent life forms and control those life-forms IN EVERY WAY simply because they have made a change is absurd, and is an abuse of the concept of the patent system. But their donations to politicians, along with other megacorporations like Disney, to extend intellectual property control FAR beyond any rational amount of time and scope, has born good fruit - the laws are constantly rewritten for these companies' benefit.

Originally Posted by rpa1

gm Seeds Have Been Around For Years. Most Of The Stuff You Hear About Monsanto Is From The Organic Farming Contingent. The Same Folks That Bring You E-coli From Un-composted Manure And Inflated Prices For The Same Produce.

Monsanto Has Done Nothing Other Than Protect Their Patent. If You Buy Monsanto Seeds You Have To Pay For Their Use. Do Yourselves A Favor And Go To The Monsanto Site And Read Their Pov.

the Fact Is, Most Folks Eat Gm Food Every Day And We Are Living Longer Than Ever Before.

Lol...........

Originally Posted by fiddlerdave

It is NOT the "organic farming contingent" that is using un-composted manure in a way to make people sick.

Organic farmers have to have a detailed plan for ANY fertilizer they use, they are banned from using human waste solids from sewage treatment plants, treated or not, and they have a high degree of oversight on their operations.

Regular farming operations have almost no oversight, use human waste solids, and many use un-composted manure on their fields. And no one checks them until there is an outbreak.

Monsanto's authority to patent life forms and control those life-forms IN EVERY WAY simply because they have made a change is absurd, and is an abuse of the concept of the patent system. But their donations to politicians, along with other megacorporations like Disney, to extend intellectual property control FAR beyond any rational amount of time and scope, has born good fruit - the laws are constantly rewritten for these companies' benefit.

The fact remains, patents are legal and Monsanto is within their rights to charge for the use of their GM seeds. Most of us eat food grown from GM seeds every day.

Originally Posted by BFSmith@764

Lol...........

Why is it funny that folks are living longer?

Originally Posted by RPA1

Why is it funny that folks are living longer?

People living longer depends on how far back you go and where in the world you are looking at. And the idea that people living longer is the result of consuming GM foods is a joke. Americans are the unhealthiest people that I ever come across. I have never heard of some many types of illness until I came to the U.S.

Originally Posted by BFSmith@764

People living longer depends on how far back you go and where in the world you are looking at. And the idea that people living longer is the result of consuming GM foods is a joke. Americans are the unhealthiest people that I ever come across. I have never heard of some many types of illness until I came to the U.S.

I never said folks are living longer as the RESULT of consuming GM foods, you are misstating what I wrote. Folks in other countries die at younger ages due to either bad lifestyles or inadequate health care. In some cases genetics play a role. Many illnesses come with the onset of increased longevity as well. You could be assuming a bit too much here. GM foods have absolutely nothing to do with increased disease or mortality.

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Originally Posted by RPA1

Why is it funny that folks are living longer?

Simply NOT True


Life Expectancy Drops in U.S.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/che...ops_in_us.html

Life Expectancy Drops
http://thepeopleschemist.com/life-ex...-drops-in-usa/


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Originally Posted by RPA1

...... GM foods have absolutely nothing to do with increased disease or mortality.

Simply NOT True


Monsanto's Roundup
Linked to Deadly Diseases and Birth Defects,
http://www.naturalnews.com/032920_Ro...h_defects.html

Monsanto Whistleblower Says
Genetically Engineered Crops May Cause Disease
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...912&context=va




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Monsanto Whistleblower Says
Genetically Engineered Crops May Cause Disease

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...912&context=va


Monsanto was quite happy to recruit young Kirk Azevedo to sell their genetically engineered cotton. Kirk had grown up on a California farm and had worked in several jobs monitoring and testing pesticides and herbicides. Kirk was bright, ambitious, handsome and idealistic—the perfect candidate to project the company’s “Save the world through genetic engineering” image.

It was that image, in fact, that convinced Kirk to take the job in 1996. “When I was contacted by the headhunter from Monsanto, I began to study the company, namely the work of their CEO, Robert Shapiro.” Kirk was thoroughly impressed with Shapiro’s promise of a golden future through genetically modified (GM) crops. “He described how we would reduce the in-process waste from manufacturing, turn our fields into factories and produce anything from lifesaving drugs to insect-resistant plants. It was fascinating to me.” Kirk thought, “Here we go. I can do something to help the world and make it a better place.”

He left his job and accepted a position at Monsanto, rising quickly to become the facilitator for GM cotton sales in California and Arizona. He would often repeat Shapiro’s vision to customers, researchers, even fellow employees. After about three months, he visited Monsanto’s St. Louis headquarters for the first time for new employee training. There too, he took the opportunity to let his colleagues know how enthusiastic he was about Monsanto’s technology that was going to reduce waste, decrease poverty and help the world. Soon after the meeting, however, his world was shaken.

“A vice president pulled me aside,” recalled Kirk. “He told me something like, ‘Wait a second. What Robert Shapiro says is one thing. But what we do is something else. We are here to make money. He is the front man who tells a story. We don’t even understand what he is saying.’”

Kirk felt let down. “I went in there with the idea of helping and healing and came out with ‘Oh, I guess it is just another profit-oriented company.’” He returned to California, still holding out hopes that the new technology could make a difference.
Possible Toxins in GM Plants

Kirk was developing the market in the West for two types of GM cotton. Bt cotton was engineered with a gene from a soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis. Organic farmers use the natural form of the bacterium as an insecticide, spraying it occasionally during times of high pest infestation. Monsanto engineers, however, isolated and then altered the gene that produces the Bt-toxin, and inserted it into the DNA of the cotton plant. Now every cell of their Bt cotton produces a toxic protein. The other variety was Roundup Ready® cotton. It contains another bacterial gene that enables the plant to survive an otherwise toxic dose of Monsanto’s Roundup® herbicide. Since the patent on Roundup’s main active ingredient, glyphosate, was due to expire in 2000, the company was planning to sell Roundup Ready seeds that were bundled with their Roundup herbicide, effectively extending their brand’s dominance in the herbicide market.

In the summer of 1997, Kirk spoke with a Monsanto scientist who was doing some tests on Roundup Ready cotton. Using a “Western blot” analysis, the scientist was able to identify different proteins by their molecular weight. He told Kirk that the GM cotton not only contained the intended protein produced by the Roundup Ready gene, but also extra proteins that were not normally produced in the plant. These unknown proteins had been created during the gene insertion process.

Gene insertion was done using a gene gun (particle bombardment). Kirk, who has an undergraduate degree in biochemistry, understood this to be “a kind of barbaric and messy method of genetic engineering, where you use a gun-like apparatus to bombard the plant tissue with genes that are wrapped around tiny gold particles.” He knew that particle bombardment can cause unpredictable changes and mutations in the DNA, which might result in new types of proteins.

The scientist dismissed these newly created proteins in the cotton plant as unimportant background noise, but Kirk wasn’t convinced. Proteins can have allergenic or toxic properties, but no one at Monsanto had done a safety assessment on them. “I was afraid at that time that some of these proteins may be toxic.” He was particularly concerned that the rogue proteins “might possibly lead to mad cow or some other prion-type diseases.”

Kirk had just been studying mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) and its human counterpart, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). These fatal diseases had been tracked to a class of proteins called prions. Short for “proteinaceous infectious particles,” prions are improperly folded proteins, which cause other healthy proteins to also become misfolded. Over time, they cause holes in the brain, severe dysfunction and death. Prions survive cooking and are believed to be transmittable to humans who eat meat from infected “mad” cows. The disease may incubate undetected for about 2 to 8 years in cows and up to 30 years in humans.

When Kirk tried to share his concerns with the scientist, he realized, “He had no idea what I was talking about; he had not even heard of prions. And this was at a time when Europe had a great concern about mad cow disease and it was just before the Nobel prize was won by Stanley Prusiner for his discovery of prion proteins.” Kirk said “These Monsanto scientists are very knowledge about traditional products, like chemicals, herbicides and pesticides, but they don’t understand the possible harmful outcomes of genetic engineering, such as pathophysiology or prion proteins. So I am explaining to him about the potential untoward effects of these foreign proteins, but he just did not understand.”



Endangering the Food Supply

At this time, Roundup Ready cotton varieties were just being introduced into other regions but were still being field-tested in California. California varieties had not yet been commercialized. But Kirk came to find out that Monsanto was feeding the cotton plants used in its test plots to cattle.

“I had great issue with this,” he said. “I had worked for Abbot Laboratories doing research, doing test plots using Bt sprays from bacteria. We would never take a test plot and put into the food supply, even with somewhat benign chemistries. We would always destroy the test plot material and not let anything into the food supply. Now we entered into a new era of genetic engineering. The standard was not the same as with pesticides. It was much lower, even though it probably should have been much higher.”

Kirk complained to the Ph.D. in charge of the test plot about feeding the experimental plants to cows. He explained that unknown proteins, including prions, might even effect humans who consume the cow’s milk and meat. The scientist replied, “Well that’s what we’re doing everywhere else and that’s what we’re doing here.” He refused to destroy the plants.

Kirk got a bit frantic. He started talking to others in the company. “I approached pretty much everyone on my team in Monsanto.” He was unable to get anyone interested. In fact, he said, “Once they understood my perspective, I was somewhat ostracized. It seemed as if once I started questioning things, people wanted to keep their distance from me. I lost the cooperation with other team members. Anything that interfered with advancing the commercialization of this technology was going to be pushed aside.”

He then approached California Agriculture Commissioners. “These local Ag commissioners are traditionally responsible for test plots and to make sure test plot designs protect people and the environment.” But Kirk got nowhere. “Once again, even at the Ag commissioner level, they were dealing with a new technology that was beyond their comprehension. They did not really grasp what untoward effects might be created by the genetic engineering process itself.”

Kirk continued to try to blow the whistle on what he thought could be devastating to the health of consumers. “I spoke to many Ag commissioners. I spoke to people at the University of California. I found no one who would even get it, or even get the connection that proteins might be pathogenic, or that there might be untoward effects associated with these foreign proteins that we knew we were producing. They didn’t even want to talk about it really. You’d kind of see a blank stare when speaking to them on this level. That led me to say I am not going to be part of this company anymore. I’m not going to be part of this disaster, from a moral perspective.”

Kirk gave his two-week notice. In early January 1998, he finished his last day of work in the morning and in the afternoon started his first day at chiropractic college. He was still determined to make a positive difference for the world, but with a radically changed approach.



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