Dr. Josette Wier continues her battle against pesticides

Posted on February 28, 2015 by admin

Dr. Josette Wier, a doctor and an activist against pesticides, was born in France. She is 68 years old. She has a 120 Acre plot at Smithers, northern BC. She wishes to plant organic grain there, but has not managed the economics of it yet, so presently leases the land for hay. She does not earn anything from it – but gives the hay away freely. She intends to try out experimental crops in small lots to see what works and what does not. She is not aiming to get her products certified organic right now, because it is an expensive proposition, but would like to grow her crops as if they were organic.

There is a shortage of information and knowledge on what can be grown there sustainably. The region’s history of settlements is barely a century old, where settlers came, cleared the forest and created the farm land. Nobody has tried growing human cereals, though some have grown animal feed there. There was a government funded study in an experimental farm decades ago, to see what can be grown there. But, the Government has shut that down quite a while ago. The information thus collected is apparently lost or lying in someone’s barn without any effort to preserve. Reportedly a research student in the University of Northern British Columbia, UNBC, is trying to find that information and is lamenting at the difficulty of finding, preserving and building on that knowledge base.

Josette has a few more things that sets her apart. She has been battling pesticide use in Canada, as an activist and a litigator, for 15 years or so. She took the provincial Government followed up by taking the Federal Govt to court for practice of injecting arsenic based pesticide into hundreds of thousands of BC forest trees to fight the pine beetle attack, and for spraying RoundUp by the logging corporations. After several years of court battle , she eventually won both her cases, and the practice was halted. But this happened only after EPA had withdrawn approval of the practice in USA due to proven harm to environment.

Josette however does not consider it a victory, since the BC Government does not seem to know what to do with the hundred thousand trees that still stand with arsenic and Glyphosate in them, and are poisoning woodpeckers, mice, insects and a whole lot of the food chain. During this long battle, she came to learn a lot about the harmful effects of Glyphosate.

As if that was not enough, Dr. Josette Wier has come across a new challenge in the last few years in Smithers. Her district voted itself to want to be GMO free through a resolution in 2013. However, an Alberta farmer has landed on her town, bought a large plot, and has started planting and growing GM RoundUp Ready Canola, and spraying RoundUp, more than the recommended limit, on his property bordering Josette, causing pesticide trespass onto her property over the fence, as well as using RoundUp on crown property ditches which is illegal even in Canada.

Further, he appears to be using it more often and in larger quantity than recommended by the producer (Monsanto) and seller (Croplife). Also the new farmer apparently does not follow best practice guidelines recommended in Croplife brochure, about informing bee keepers and neighbours before spraying, so the neighbours could take precaution.

Josette says she and her family is genetically inclined to fall prey to Cancer more easily than others. She has officially complained to the district board. But nothing much happens.

It appears that the use of Glyphosate is approved by Health Canada based on study by the maker of the product, provided the user follows the guidelines provided in the package. The strange thing is – there seem to be no oversight or regulator, to ensure that the guidelines, however questionable, are being followed.

[youtube eXxdL00nKC4]

Josette has filed a case with the Farm Industry Resource Board on this issue as well as given written letters to the farmer in question, advising him of the recommended practice per CropLife and Monsanto documentation and requesting him to maintain a buffer, use the herbicide no more than recommended level and keep neighbours and bee keepers advised ahead of time. None of these requests are being followed.

I am planning to create a two part video, 15 minutes each, of Josette’s talk, and plan to drive to her place in summer, a 12 hour drive, for a look sea and taking pictures (right now there is a lot of snow on the roads and is not a good time to drive there).

This video was created based on my talks with her.

A few notes:
She is asking for a buffer around her property where no herbicide is sprayed. This is better than no buffer. But we know that is insufficient as the spray drifts in the air. Also, it may get into the underground water, and also go in agricultural runoffs and contaminate the neighbourhood anyway.

The issue here, is another example where we may be having a Government that appears determined to poison the countryside for the sake of a handful of Auber-powerful corporations. Is this an onset of fascism? Are we having a Government of the Corporations, for the Corporations and by the Corporations, while maintaining a thin and crumbling facade of democracy and rule of law?

If any of you know the student of UNBC that is searching for the missing documents about the experimental farm in Bulley-Nachako regional district, that was shut down by the Government, I would request you to pass me her contacts so I can catch up on that story.

This is not the only battle on Josette’s plate. She has the pipeline and the other toxic agendas to fight against too. My heart goes out to this spirited doctor, and member of CAPE (Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment).

For those that might want to offer a suggestion for Dr. Wier – send me a note.

Canada’s unenviable record of resisting Glyphosate and GMO

Posted on February 5, 2015 by admin

Here is something that I wrote, on a long chain of email based discussions on what we Canadians or British Columbians might do, to resist the GMO onslaught.

Hi Dag, and everyone else.

Guess this is a kind of email-brainstorm discussion on the topic. I shall state my feelings on it, if I may, based on Dag’s very good analysis, which is still quite different from mine.

I look at it this way, but am not proposing that everyone else must agree:

Glyphosate is a greater health risk, proven, than GMO. Glyphosate combined with vaccine additives make a drastically more dangerous cocktail of poison. Glyphosate is in more things than just our food, and is killing more than just humans. Glyphosate is now being used even on non-GMO crops as desiccant, so it is expected to have higher concentration on non-GMO food than even on GMO crops. Lastly, without Glyphosate, a majority of the GMO (roundUp ready crops) will automatically die off. IN other words, eradicating GMO will not stop Glyphosate, but eradicating Glyphosate will more or less kill the largest swatch of GMO. So, at least in my view, Glyphosate is to be the primary target of my energy. The only thing worse is, 2,4-D is coming, together with Glyphosate and smart stacks.
I disagree that Canada in the last ten or twenty years have gone a long way forward in fighting off GMO. I do not know how to judge public awareness, but by mathematical numbers, the support for fighting off GMO is pitiful in my eyes. Where venues should pack thousands of people, even hundreds of thousands, we see tens and twenties and at times a few hundred. I do not consider this progressing forward. To me this is regressing backward. Further, if I check the details of how many GMO crops Canada managed to stop, and compare than with how many GM crops Canada has allowed in, in the last two decades, I come to the conclusion that Canada is singularly the worst nation in the planet (along with USA) when it comes to approving GM products in our food. Official figures through UNO affiliated bodies say USA and Canada have over 100 GMO products on their food shelves, while Europe has less than ten, and countries like India have just one. So, if I consider we are making progress, then I am in denial, and I am part of the problem, not part of the solution.
When strategizing, I must take into account that GMO and pesticides are entering Canada through our political system, and that both mainstream political parties, i.e. the conservation’s and the liberals, are allowing wholesale introduction of it, much like the republicans and the democrats in the US. NDP has a slightly shrouded agriculture policy that appears to be against GMO and pesticide but does not spell it out clearly and unambiguously. I have learned to be suspicious of policy statements that are vague and avoids calling a spade a spade. The agriculture policy of the Green Party appears to be the only one that is unmistakably, unambiguously and clearly, against introduction of patented GMO and pesticide laden agriculture, forestry and ecosystem management practices. Not just that but they seem to be the only party that highlights the dangers of the trade deals we are entering into that allow foreign nations and corporations to sue us if we do not import their toxic packages. But then, the Green Party is a long way off from forming a Government. Some MLA and MPs have said, including emails to me, that there is no hope for Canada (on the GMO/pesticide issue as well as many others) unless we get proportional representation. However, nobody seems to know how to bring about proportional representation when such policy changes will have to be voted by the very MPs that support the current unjust system. What we have is a mockery of democracy, and the onset of a full blown fascism, and unless we fix that, all the talk about resisting GMO is just that – talk. So, to me, resisting GMO or pesticide cannot be divorced from politics. This is a political problem – a crisis of civilization, and not one of just science or sociology. Our democracy has gone down the toilet.
I am appalled at the apathy of Canadian citizenry, especially of the younger generation that seems to have no time for anything other than be preoccupied with themselves. In that sense, I believe the youth is disconnected in general, but Canadian youth appear to be particularly more self-absorbed and myopic compared to youth of other continents. So, again from my point of view, I am trying within my meagre means to get ordinary citizens to re-engage with the rotten political system of this country. I have been vigorously involved within my means in the local municipal election – supporting good candidates and exposing those that sit on the fence on the GE free issue on my blog (www.tonu.org) naming rogue politicians, mayors and the like and putting up their pictures, as well as highlighting honest politicians that pledge to fight for eradication of GMO and pesticides. I am happy to note the only politician I went door to door to canvas in support of (ms Heather King) won the election in Delta. I am trying to organize a weekly trip to the local town halls where municipalities conduct their business in front of the people, and trying to give a free ride to anyone wanting to attend them from my neighbourhood. I find it appalling that the halls are bare and there are more councillors and municipal staff than there are public attending them. These, to me, are some of the root illnesses of our society, our civilization and our culture – just my view.
In the last provincial election, I went door to door supporting candidates in Surrey, and Langley area that were standing on the Green ticket – not because of the party, but because they had integrity and would not mince their words on GMO and pesticide. They all lost their elections, but that hardly changes my position on what I as a citizen consider my duty of supporting good candidates.
I am contemplating who to support in the next general election and what strategy I might adopt as a citizen. I already have at least one candidate and a very strong personality on anti-GMO and anti-pesticide battle. She is Brandie Harrop of Sherwood Park, Alberta standing on the Green ticket. I have not yet found a similar candidate, of any party or independent, in BC, but the search in on.
I aim to promote and highlight people that make a difference, such as Arzeena Hamir, April Reees, Harold Steves, Sheryl McCumsey, Huguette Allen, Wendy Bales, Josette etc. These are hero and heroines of far greater importance, in my book, than a hundred Vandana Shiva, or Jeffrey Smith, Rachel Parent, or any other name on the horizon. These are people that are trying to “do” something, and not just talk about it and look pretty on tv. And I am always looking out for more of the unsung hero and heroines of Canada. I cannot get enough of them.
I think GE free resolutions are a great starting point, but it needs to go further, and Municipalities need to push the button and find ways to pass bylaws and not just resolutions, on banning on growing GMO, or find ways to make it difficult or uneconomic for GMO / pesticide using farmers. I know legally agriculture in Canada is supposed to be a federal jurisdiction. But I have studied enough of it to know that both Provincial Governments as well as Municipalities can push at this boundary continuously, and preferably with many Municipalities together – to alter the situation. I also come from the land of Gandhi, who said, if there is a law that is unjust, then it is our duty to break that low. Growing clean food should be a basic human right and any law that curtails it is an unjust law in my book. That is part of the civil disobedience that Henry David Thoreau talked about almost two centuries ago.

I do not propose or expect folks here to agree with me much. I am just stating my own analysis on it and what I aim to do about it. I shall join hands with others occasionally where our views overlap.

Yes, we are in it together, but we are not a monolithic pack and I am not here to work under a narrow agenda. Most agendas I have so far seen, appear irrelevant and do not go far enough for me. But, I accept that for a lot of folks, thats all they can do.

By the way, there is a lot of bogus information, ill-information, half-information, or veiled misinformation going around in the name of science, while promoting the notion that GMO and herbicides are good for us and good for the planet. Don’t be swayed by such propaganda of the corporatocracy. Here is an example, that claims to state the “truth about glyphosate“:

Thanks and best wishes

Tony Mitra

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[More to come here. Watch this space]

Create a demand for Glyphosate lab in Canada

Posted on December 8, 2014 by admin

Glyphosate is the poison in Monsanto’s RoundUp herbicide, the most used weed killer in Canada. It is used on RoundUp ready GM crops, and also as desiccant on non GM crops. it is to be used on prairies with designed GM alfalfa. It is being sprayed from the air on Canadian forests by logging companies. It is everywhere.

There is a rising body of study that point to possible link between our exposure to this chemical and an unparalleled rise of various chronic diseases in North America.

Here in Canada, there is no lab that will test citizen’s urine, or blood, or breast milk of nursing mothers, for traces of Glyphosate. There is no lab in Canada where one can test the food we buy in our store, for presence of Glyphosate.

Are there such labs available in other regions ? Yes, USA has them. There are labs in the rest of the world, but not in Canada.

Why are there no labs in Canada ? Because no doctor, no hospital, no environment ministry or health ministry is asking for routine and broad range testing of Canadian people and Canadian food, for glyphosate poisoning. Labs are commercial ventures. They will provide a service only if there is sufficient demand.

So, here is an appeal for all Canadians – join us and create a demand. All you need to do is ask your doctor, or hospital, or clinic, to arrange for a test of urine, or blood, or breast milk for nursing mothers, as well as a few heavily used food brand for your family such as a brand of milk, or bread, or meat. If enough doctors or hospitals started asking around for this test, this would generate a demand, and some labs would respond to it and start offering this service. Right now, a few Canadian labs offer the service of testing Glyphosate in water, and soil. Unfortunately, they will not test it in your food, or your body fluids as of now.

For those that wish to learn more about what Glyphosate is, and why it should be a matter for concern – read the bottom section of this blog, where a copy of a letter recently written by retired Canadian genetic engineer Dr. Thierry Vrain to the health minister is included, covering this very subject, with scientific references to international studies. You can also check my own blog from the summer, where I asked for a nationwide testing for Glyphosate, and how our efforts are delayed due to the roadblock of not having any lab in Canada, and sending samples overseas or across the border is proving difficult and costly.

I am also including another external link : The microbiota Crisis and how Glyphosate is killing animal micro biome, including our own, and how this micro biome is vital for all us in the animal kingdom.

Above is a sample letter. Use it if you like, or modify it as needed. Wording of the same blank letter is shown below. Do not offer to pay for the tests as of now. Idea is for doctors and hospitals to start enquiring about testing Glyphosate in food and in people. If enough demand is perceived, some labs will start offering this service.

We intend to self-label our food

Idea is for us to contribute in testing our food. I could pay for testing one or two brand of food, apart from my own urine etc. Someone else would test another food item. We shall keep loading the findings on the internet in a sort of nationwide list. Eventually, with hundreds of citizens pulling in, we shall have hundreds of food items tested and self-labelled, so to speak, for the rest of the nation to check on. Then, for those that do not like to have Glyphosate in their food, or those that already find Glyphosate within themselves and are looking to identify and exclude those food items from where it might be intruding from, they can then start automatically banning those food items that are tested with high Glyphosate content. This self-driven citizens action bypasses the entire political circus of trying to convince Ottawa politicians to pay heed to public concerns, an exercise so far proving to be very difficult thanks to the financial clout of the foreign corporations that peddle the toxic stuff onto us.

That is one reason we need a lab. Besides, Canada is not a fourth world country – or we hope not. The first, the second and the third world already have labs for testing Glyphosate. It is a national shame that Canada has none.

So, please help Canada in helping ourselves on this important task.

The plan is not just to get a lab. A lab is the first step, which we should not even have had to deal with, had our Govt been careful. The Govt has not been so, and we now have to work extra for the first part – of getting a lab.

Once we have the lab, Canadians can then do into a citizen-driven self labelling drive. I would test a few food products myself, out of my own pocket if need be. If two hundred Canadians from coast to coast, decided to test one food item each, apart from testing ourselves, then Canada would have two hundred food items tested. Results would be put up on the internet, for the rest of 35 million Canadians to check up on, and decide what to buy and what not to. We can do this without asking Ottawa politicians for anything.

Citizens can, and in this case, may have to, take care of our health and environment issues on our own, since the Govt seems to have abandoned the cause. Citizens will label the food. Citizens will selectively ban the food according to label and need.

Thats the plan.

Sample letter 1

To : Doctor, or Nurse, or Hospital etc

From : Your name

Date :

I am concerned that my corn, soy or wheat based food may contain traces of a herbicide called glyphosate. I would like to get my body fluids and possible fat tissue sample tested for the presense of glyphosate to see if I am accumilating any of it in my body.

If I supply you with the samples, can you please arrange to get them tested?

I would prefer for the results of the tests to be sent to me personally, as well as to your office.

Samples I wish to test: Urine (2 samples), blood(1 sample), milk (1), bread(1), cooking oil(1) – (Please modify this letter and the list of items you wish to test, to suit your situation).

Appreciate your prompt action in this.

Thanking you,

Name & address

Sample letter 2

To : Doctor, or Nurse, or Hospital etc

From : Your name

Date :

I wish to test some samples for Glyphosate. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Round-Up herbicide and is being liberally sprayed on much of my food, both GMO and non GMO. I am concerned that this Glyphosate is migrating into my body, and may adversely affect my health.

If I supply you with the samples, can you please arrange to get them tested?

I would prefer for the results of the tests to be sent to me personally, as well as to your office.

Samples I wish to test: Urine (2 samples), blood(1 sample), milk (1), bread(1), cooking oil(1) – (Please modify this letter and the list of items you wish to test, to suit your situation).

Appreciate your prompt action in this.

Thanking you,

Name & address

Note from a Canadian lab, about testing Glyphosate in urine and food

Hi Tony:

We will look into the method once there is a demand, we cannot allocate resources to the development of a method for which there is no market at the moment. Also it will be a non-accredited method at this point.

Thanks.

Dr. Thierry Vrain’s letter to Rona Ambrose, health minister

October 27, 2014

To the Honorable Rona Ambrose, Minister of Health

Re: herbicide pollution and GMO labeling

Minister,

The confusion about the safety of GMOs is quite simple to address. The only GMOs in our agriculture are Glyphosate Modified Organisms also known as RoundUp Ready crops and the only GMOs in our food supply are from those crops. RoundUp Ready crops are engineeredto be sprayed with the herbicide RoundUp and this technology has become so successful that RoundUp has become a major pollutant (1). This chemical pollution is antibiotic, it impacts the microbiome, impairs CYP enzymes, and depletes food of essential mineral micronutrients. As a background paper for the impact of this pollution I offer my speaking notes to the American College of Nutrition conference last week in San Diego (Texas). Most of the studies I cite were published in the last five years.

Glyphosate is the active ingredient of the herbicide RoundUp, a new molecule created in 1960 by Stauffer Chemicals – a US company with a business of cleaning industrial pipes and boilers of mineral scales. The mineral deposits (same as in electric kettles) are called scales, and the pipe cleaning chemicals are called descaling agents. Glyphosate was patented in 1964 in the US as a powerful and very broad spectrum descaling agent (2). Meaning, it binds to metals indiscriminately and does a great job at “dissolving and preventing minerals from being reactive or bioavailable in solution”. When the descaling solution was disposed of in nature, it was obvious that it killed plants. The chemical company Monsanto promptly bought the molecule, patented it as a herbicide in 1969, and got it commercialized in 1974 (3). This molecule is making history because glyphosate has become the most successful agricultural chemical in North and South America wherever RR seeds are used. The farmers using this technology get simpler and cheaper weed management and despite
higher input bills and sometimes disappointing yields, and with weed resistance spreading fast, they adopted it in troves (4).

The herbicide RoundUp had a completely novel chemistry for a herbicide in 1969. It was deemed to kill plants by bonding to only one protein enzyme in the chloroplasts – the same enzyme that is also in bacteria and fungi. Enzymes are metalloproteins with a metal atom as a cofactor at the active site of the molecule. Bacteria and plants and fungi have a metalloprotein called EPSPS for short and 5-Enol Pyruvyl Shikimate-3 Phosphate Synthase if you want to know what it does. It works with other metalloproteins to “make” several of the building blocks of proteins, the aromatic amino acids. These molecules are also building blocks for a large number of aromatic molecules we call secondary compounds. Glyphosate binds tightly to the manganese atom at the centre of the EPSPS metalloprotein, so tightly that the protein cannot move and do its work making aromatic amino acids. No protein synthesis means there is no metabolic work possible, a quick death for the plant, or the fungi or the bacteria.

Animals do not make their own aromatic amino acids since they lack the shikimate pathway with the EPSPS metalloprotein. Because of its presumed mode of killing plants, glyphosate was pronounced innocuous to humans and registered as such in 1974 in the USA. Glyphosate has no acute toxicity, and at the time of registration in the US, and even since, nobody has bothered to check for chronic effects beyond 3 months. Considering the chemical properties of this pollution one would expect long term chronic effects, very similar to rickets, scurvy, or beri beri, for lack of micronutrients. The Industry sponsored feeding studies proving the safety of GMOs do not include testing for the safety of glyphosate. None of them bother to mention the residue levels of glyphosate in the feed. Meanwhile, a fast growing series of independent studies in various countries published in the last 5 years have ascertained the impact of glyphosate on various cellular enzymes and organs of animals and human cells.

The first RoundUp Ready crops to be commercialized were soy and corn, released in 1996. Since then, a handful of RR crops have been adopted enthusiastically by farmers, particularly in North and South America. Today close to 500 million acres of soya and corn, and cotton, canola, and sugar beet, are engineered to be sprayed with RoundUp. About 40% of all RR crops are grown in the USA, most of the rest are grown in Brazil, Argentina, Canada, and a few other countries. RR crops are now sprayed with close to two billion lbs of glyphosate every year, and so much of that finds its way into processed food and feed that the EPA had to raise the legal residue limits last year to accommodate a new reality (5).

Glyphosate is antibiotic, a powerful and broad spectrum antibiotic (6). The mode of kill is again alleged to be very selective. The glyphosate molecule impairs the functioning of the shikimate pathway in bacteria the same way it does in plants. Only one enzyme is affected in a pathway that animals do not possess. The antibiotic patent describes its effectiveness to kill bacteria at 1 ppm and this was confirmed last year in Germany (7). At this point I usually spend a minute or two explaining why a low level antibiotic diet for the rest of your life is not a good idea. I describe the recent interest of the medical field in a large joint research project involving many Universities to decipher the huge community of thousands of species of bacteria that call us home. The Human Microbiome project is the equivalent of the Human Genome project in its scope. We are vastly outnumbered, roughly ten to one – one hundred trillion bacterial cells call our lower intestine home. They are forever sending signaling molecules to each other and to all human organs, particularly the brain. All animals depend on their symbiosis with these bacteria, and humans are no exception.

They are the teachers of our immune system, they make many neurotransmitters for our brain, and have a strong connection to the heart and the whole digestive tract. They literally feed us all kinds of molecules that we require – we call them essential, like vitamins and such. They digest and recycle most of our food. Most human organs rely on molecular signals from the microbiome for normal functioning. As goes the microbiome, so does its human shell. A recent review of the medical literature on celiac and other diseases shows the link to imbalances of the microbiome that are fully explained by the antibiotic properties of glyphosate (8). And the same authors published another review of the impact of glyphosate on the CYP enzymes and the microbiome. Samsel and Seneff have suggested that glyphosate’s suppression of CYP enzymes and its antibiotic effect on the human microbiome are involved in the etiology of many chronic degenerative and inflammatory diseases that have grown to epidemic proportions since 1996, since the advent of the RoundUp Ready technology (10).

We lack any official data on residues of glyphosate in food or in water in Canada – no epidemiological studies of any kind have ever been done. All we have are the legal maximum residue limits now allowed by the EPA in RoundUp Ready foods, human cereal 30 ppm, animal grain 100 ppm, soybean 120 ppm, and everything else in between (5). Here an inquisitive mind will ask why there is such a high residue limit for cereal when none of the grains are engineered to be sprayed with RoundUp. This is when you learn that RoundUp is sprayed on many non-engineered crops with the intent to kill them right before harvest. This is done to mature and dry the crops quickly to make them easier and cheaper to harvest. The RoundUp herbicide has now become a dessicant.

There is direct toxicity to animal cells because glyphosate binds to metals indiscriminately, and not just in plant cells. It binds to metals in solution and to metal co-factors at the centre of metalloproteins anywhere. For example glyphosate binds to the iron atom at the centre of a large family of protein enzymes called CYP. There are 57 different CYP enzymes in the human body, and approximately 20,000 in animals, plants, bacteria and fungi. The CYP enzymes are oxydizers, the first line of digestion and detoxification of most substrates. David Nelson wrote in a review of the CYP enzymes: “The CYP enzymes of humans are essential for our normal physiology and failure of some of these enzymes results in serious illnesses (9,10).

Nancy Swanson has made public her statistical analyses of the US Centre for Disease Control’s statistics about the health status of America when placed next to the statistics of the US Department of Agriculture about the spread of RoundUp Ready soy and corn. Her correlation analyses show very high coefficient values suggesting strong links between glyphosate residues in RoundUp Ready food and chronic illnesses (11).

Medical and chemical reviews and peer reviewed studies have explained the mode of action of glyphosate and its impact on many metalloproteins. Human cell studies have shown acute toxicity (12-15) and animal studies have shown chronic toxicity (16-21). Glyphosate bioaccumulates in the plants and in any animal that eat the plants.

Glyphosate accumulates in the lungs, the heart, kidneys, intestine, liver, spleen, muscles, and bones … and chronically ill people have higher residues in their urine than healthy people.”(22)

To conclude this presentation of the nutritional status of Glyphosate Modified Organisms, I would say that crops sprayed with RoundUp, whether they are RoundUp Ready or not, contain residues of glyphosate, that foods made from RoundUp Ready soy and corn and sugar and canola, etc … are depleted of the minerals that are bound to the glyphosate molecules (23). Foods made from crops containing residues of glyphosate are by definition depleted of minerals and toxic.

Minister, your reassuring words have been quoted widely. “Currently, there is no… scientific evidence, that says genetically modified foods are unhealthy. It is impossible for us to mandate a label, because our labels have to be based on evidence that it is an unhealthy product for Canadians.” I hope you have found here the scientific evidence you require to act and that you join over 60 governments in the world who have found this evidence compelling enough in the past few years, to legislate some form of labeling or ban RoundUp Ready crops and the herbicide RoundUp.

Respectfully,

Dr. Thierry Vrain

thierryv@telus.net

Literature cited

About Green Party Vision statement on GMO

Posted on December 6, 2014 by admin

I had recently written to Ms Elisabeth May, leader of the Green Party, regarding a perception that she was only promoting labelling of GMO, which we consider wholly inadequate. This is the second email I had sent to her in the past year. I did not receive any response from the first one, and am not holding my breath for any response now either.

Nonetheless, I did read up on the party’s vision statement, and paid particular attention to the agriculture section, point 1.15, page 20 to 25 and including fisheries and forest management.

I liked what I saw, and am curious to learn how the party proposes to implement some of its vision, if not in the federal Government, where its membership strength is minuscule, to Municipal levels such as in city of Vancouver, where it has a better representation, having four members in Council, school board and park board. I am contemplating writing to councillor Adriane Carr, to ask her about her plans to usher a GE free resolution and bylaws that push back at industrial chemical and toxin dependent food system, and bring in small farmer produced clean and local food into the food chain.

There is another reason for this interest. Folks from the rest of Canada, where municipal level fight back against GMO has not yet happened, are keen to learn how BC does things in this regard, and would be taking notes on it, either contesting Municipal elections the Green ticket, or as independent candidates, or coaxing their existing Municipal councillors to see the light, when it comes to Sustainable and healthy agriculture.

Meanwhile, here is a part of text from the green vision, that I would like to include here, and perhaps include in my book of essays, Canada under GMO attack:

Our food security and safety are threatened directly by agribusiness, as factory farms crowd chickens, turkeys, cows and pigs into inhumane and unhygienic conditions, creating the risk of serious health threats from toxic spinach to mad cow disease and swine flu. Animals are often pumped full of antibiotics and hormones, while many crops are now genetically modified and treated with pesticides.

This is a welcome start of the section. It describes where Canada is with regard to how our food supply is being degraded by unhealthy, unhygienic and potentially toxic ingredients, not to mention the potential loss of our biodiversity through theft or contamination from patent holding foreign corporations that aim to own any living organism that one could make money on. Based on such statements, I expect the Green party policy to lay down action items that its candidates would initiate, to redress our agriculture, food security, and ecology.

The health of Canada’s population today and in the future depends on the environmentally sustainable production of wholesome food. We believe that local organic agriculture must play a role in mitigating climate change, providing food security, restoring soil health, improving human health, protecting water, and providing sustainable livelihoods for citizens. We must restructure our agricultural markets to sustain farming and provide farm families with a fair share of the consumer food dollar. We want to expand local small-scale agriculture and support a rapid transition to organic agriculture rather than subsidizing costly agro-chemicals, industrial food production and genetically modified crops.

All of the above text is pertinent. I like the portion made in bold (by me), because it, in my view, will reverse a dangerous trend in Canada. That trend is to de-populate the agricultural heartland, forcing small farms to go extinct and small farmers to move to be part of a new urban unemployed class. And while this goes on, larger and larger tracts of the agricultural land falls prey to massive scale industrial agriculture employing a minimum number of contract farmers working for a pesticide peddling toxic model owned by a bunch of foreign corporations and their local partners in crime. To me, this is a crime, to suck out rural farming livelihood, and converting a healthy community into a wasteland of corporate greed.

On a side note, it has been mentioned that small organic farmers, while employing more people, producing healthier and likely more food than the industrial model, cost of food itself might rise. I am not certain if it would rise, but if that happens, I personally would accept that, as a price we must willingly pay, for good food, sustainable future, and for ensuring that our organic farmers are earning enough to stay in the profession.

People need healthy food and the healthiest food choices are local. With growing concerns over economic and climatic instability, a reliable domestic food supply is essential.

Agreed. More than that, local food is essential for a healthy economy where our money stays in the community, and where food does not have to consume huge amounts of energy for transportation across thousands of km. Irrespective of what the economic voodoo artists tell us, it is an unacceptable policy in my view, where local farmers go out of business so that I can eat cheap food coming from California or Mexico or Philippines, all in the name of “progress”. Thats not progress – thats baloney.

The document then goes on to state what Green Party MPs would do:

Amending the Canadian Food Inspection Agency mandate to remove any obligation to promote Canadian agri-business, ensuring the focus is on food safety and food safety only, with enhanced resources for inspection and monitoring.

I am not fully certain what the above means, but suspect that there is a mandate in place currently, which removes any obligation for the Govt to support Canadian agri-business. If I read this correctly, then the current Govt policy would give equal preference foreign agri-products and base its selection on safety alone. If this is true, this is an outrageous mandate. First of all, all things being equal, the Govt MUST give preference to local products. The Govt is supposed to be for the people – Canadian people, and not for foreign corporations. Next, the very concept of food safety has been hijacked. There is no food safety analysis done by anybody in Canada. The Govt accepts bogus statements from the very promoters of the agri-business product, which constitutes a conflict of interest.

Not only that, the very science on agriculture has been hijacked by the industry, where public funding is missing, and the industry has turned vicious and intolerant of any dissent. Canadian food sovereignty, food security, independence and local economy is being crushed to facilitate profiteering by a few foreign corporations and their local collaborators.

If I read this part correctly, then the mandate does require to be removed. The question is, do I read it correctly, and where is this mandate ? Can we get a copy of its details ? Who can help here ? I think the public deserves to know.

Ensuring the quality and wholesomeness of food by strengthening the monitoring of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, growth hormones, non-therapeutic antibiotics and insecticides in food production, processing and storage, with the goal of an orderly reduction in detectable residues of these substances until they reach undetectable limits.

Excellent. Cannot argue with that – except one point. Canada does not have a lab that will test either the people, or their food, for presence of Glyphosate. I urge the Green Party to take notice of that, and put it in its agenda to address it.

Establishing federally funded, community-guided school lunch programs across Canada to ensure that ourchildren have daily access to healthy local food and can learn about sustainable food production and healthy eating. Strengthening Plant Protection and Health of Animals Programs with measures to ensure the integrity of farm food products. Improving and strengthening the Canadian Organic Standard. Providing transitional assistance for those switching to certified organic farming practices. Ensuring that no animal by-products are used in ruminant animal feed. Strengthen testing for BSE by implementing 100% testing (testing of every slaughtered animal) as soon as the process of detecting BSE in blood samples is perfected.

All agreed. Good idea. I would have added one more clause. Organic certification is costly, and the industrial chemical and toxin gene pushing agriculture model is the primary suspected source of contamination that an organic farmer needs to take care of. Therefore, I believe industrial chemical and GMO farming business should a) pay higher tax which goes to offset the cost of preventing contamination for the organic farmer and b) pay for the organic certification. In other words, organic farmers should receive a subsidy from the Govt, which the Govt would extract from higher taxes for industrial farming. Also the same higher taxes would pay for certification of organic farms, providing additional economic relief for small local organic farmers.

The document then goes on to state:

Provides Food Security by: Moving towards regional food self-sufficiency across Canada, as we begin the shift to organic agriculture as the dominant model of production. Supporting the “200 kilometre diet” and locally grown food through expansion of farmers’ markets and local culinary tourism activities. Promoting rooftop gardens, cultivation of green urban space for agriculture, food production in cities and suburbs, and community gardens. Protecting the right of farmers to save their own seed. Promoting heritage seed banks and seed exchange programs.

I agree with every one of these points – like music to my ears.

Reduce Corporate Control of the Food supply by: Reforming agriculture regulations to challenge corporate concentration. Ensuring that farm support payments are farm-based (not production-based) to encourage more farms and more farmers. Encouraging organic farming methods to improve farm profitability and sustainability.

Again, cannot argue with that. I also applaud the Green Party for stating these points clearly and without ambiguity, whereas the strategy statement from NDP appears to skirt around specifics, in comparison.

Improves Agricultural Research by:
Ensuring that new plant cultivars and animal breeds remain in the public domain.
Shifting government-supported research away from biotechnology and energy-intensive farming and towards organic food production.
Increasing publicly-funded research into organic farming techniques.
Establishing new policies for private research efforts to ensure that they are in the best interests of family farmers and consumers.
Preventing the patenting of lifeforms.
Ensuring that developers of genetically engineered crops are liable for any damage those crops cause.

I cannot stress enough how important these points are. New breeds of plants or animals should remain in public domain. They remain God’s creation and they cannot be property of any corporation. All research into better hybrids will be for the benefit of the people and not for profiteering. This will remove the incentive to shove shitty products onto the people, and killing alternatives and monopolizing the market with dubious crops.

We stopped public funding of Agriculture and allowed biotech industry to highjack research as well as the very science, turning it into a biased propaganda machine instead of a scientific tool. We need to redress it by public funding.

Stop patenting lifeforms and stop accepting such patents. Living organisms were not created by these corporations. They merely tinkered and poisoned a few organisms, by first stealing the genome of a healthy organism that should have been the property of a nation of a people. They are thieves engaged in biopiracy. They should be tried, not allowed patents and profits from their act.

And yes – make GMO producers and pesticide peddler liable to be sued for damages, including class action lawsuits.

The document then goes on to address the GMO or GE food issue

Genetically engineered (GE) organisms pose a potentially serious threat to human health and the health of natural ecosystems. Many Canadians want to follow the example of the European Union and ban GE crops. At a minimum, GE products must be labelled, giving consumers the right to know, and to say no to GE foods.
Although polls show that 8 in 10 Canadians want mandatory labeling of GE foods and food ingredients, the federal government has not acted. In 2004, the Standards Council of Canada adopted a Standard for Voluntary Labelling but it has not been widely adopted.
The government is not exercising enough oversight and control. In fact, Agriculture Canada is promoting GE technology, forming partnerships with biotech companies and partnering in the research initiated by the biotech industry. Agriculture has already experienced the harmful impact of GE crops. Herbicide-resistant (Roundup Ready) canola has escaped and become a noxious weed.
Greens understand that GE organisms and “terminator” technologies come with health and environmental risks. All food products containing GE organisms or their products must be labeled. It is up to the companies that produce and promote GE organisms to prove that they are safe. No such organism should be released into the environment until it is proven to pose no unacceptable risks to human or animal health or to the environment.

This is all true, but it bypasses the issue of Glyphosate and other herbicides. It also does not address the fact that such poisons are also sprayed on non-GM food as desiccant, therefore exposing us to getting poisoned even without eating GM ingredients. There is enough independent material out there that show strong possible links between Glyphosate and various diseases that are rising in North America. None of these possibilities have been studied by independent units and are effectively being ignored by our Govt. Therefore, declaring biocide content is as important, if not more so, than declaring GM content.

Also, Canada regretfully does not have a lab where Canadians could test either their food items, or their body fluids such as urine or blood, for presence of Glyphosate. Most Canadians do not even know. Such labs are available in most other regions of the world as well as in USA. Canadians are placed in a particularly unfortunate situation where they cannot even test how much of these poisons are in them and in their food. I would strongly urge the Green Party to include it in their vision statement, to ensure that Canada has at least a few labs that will offer this service, and that the Govt will initiate testing or help Canadians financially, to test themselves and their food for presence of these herbicides.

And then, the Green Party vision document goes on with:

Green Party MPs will work to:
Ban experimentation with planting and promotion of new GE crops. This includes a ban on further GE research (except for traditional seed selection and grafting) at Agriculture Canada and a ban on companies such as Monsanto owning patents to GE products developed through joint research with Agriculture Canada.
Implement the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, a protocol within the UN Biodiversity Convention, which Canada signed and ratified in 1992 and which came into force in 2003. The Cartagena Protocol requires the adoption of new products to be guided by the precautionary principle, which balances the economic benefits of innovation with public health and ecological integrity.
Require mandatory labeling of all GE foods and food ingredients.
Support local,provincial and territorial GE organism-free zones where these local jurisdictions declare that genetically modified plants and animals are not to be part of the agricultural mix.
Prohibit field testing commercial use, sale and importation of “terminator” (genetic use restriction) technologies.
Maintain the ban on GE wheat and oppose GE alfalfa.
Place a moratorium on field-testing genetically modified trees while an expert panel of the Royal Society of Canada examines the risks.

While all of the above is commendable, there are a few errors in their statement, relating to Cartagena Protocol.

First, the protocol focuses on protecting a country from inadvertent damage to its biodiversity, from imported LMO (Living Modified Organisms, which is UN-speak for GMO).

Next, Canada signed it, meaning it showed intent to implement it. However, Canada never ratified it. In other words, Canada is one of a very few countries that have failed to follow through with legislation that would have protected Canadian biodiversity from damage, or contamination from imported GMO or theft Canadian plant and organization’s genome by foreign corporations.

Canada therefore is in an unenviable position with regard to protecting its biological diversity, its flora and fauna, from biopiracy. I urge the Green party to not only correct its statement, but also pledge to redress this shortcoming soonest.

Summary

I applaud Green Party’s vision statement, and have the following observations/suggestions/questions:

What is Canada’s Food Inspection Agency mandate with regard to promoting Canadian food product ?
Canada has no lab that will test Canadian’s body fluids or food for presence of Glyphosate. I suggest that the Green Party addresses this shortcoming.
Canada signed the Cartagena Protocol on Biodiversity protection, but did not ratify it. 168 other countries have. This is a major shortcoming in Canada and our biological diversity is up for grabs by foreign biotech corporations and are being stolen right under our nose. I would suggest the Green Party not only correct its statement, but also address the shortcoming.

Letter to Elisabeth May about Green Party on GMO

Posted on December 2, 2014 by admin

To: Honorable Elizabeth May, MP

Green Party of Canada – Founder

Subject : GMO, RoundUp herbicide, and Green Party policy on it

Good day Ms May.

I write to you, again, on the topic of GMO and more particularly, on Monsanto’s RoundUp herbicide with its active agent Glyphosate.This is not the first time I have written to you, but this is likely the first that will also go on my blog, which has a steady traction of over a thousand hits a day globally, but viewed mostly by Canadian and US citizens. I never got a response from you so far, but would be happy to receive one on this critical item.

I have been hoping to see a clear and unambiguous policy statement from the Green Party with regard to Genetically Modified Organisms and especially its partner in crime – Glyphosate, or RoundUp herbicide, that goes with all RoundUp Ready crop.

I have seen messages and comments that link the Green Party with a desire to have all GM foods labelled. I shall therefore presume for now, that the Green Party’s response to the issue is to push for GMO labelling law.

Unfortunately, this is considered by some of us to be not only insufficient to prevent the ongoing ecological and health disaster facing Canada, but actually side steps the prevention issue altogether.This is why we feel a labelling law is insufficient:

Labelling GMO might have been meaningful if half the food in the stores were GMO with the other half non GMO and the price being similar for both. Unfortunately that is not the case and labelling does not have any practical meaning if 80 to 90 percent of all food contain GM ingredients and the alternative organic food is minuscule in quantity and costlier thanks to the way the Government has helped the industrial agriculture and hindered small organic farmers.

Therefore, labelling is considered by us an effort to pull fool the public into thinking that this measure will protect them. No GM product or Glyphosate has been independently verified by a Canadian body, to be safe. By independent body, we mean a group that are outside of control of the biotech industry as well as Ottawa politicians.

Therefore, only banning of GMO that are not independently verified in Canada is the safe solution until proven safe – and Municipalities are working towards it, thought it should have been a federal matter.We are inundated by industry controlled, and therefore biased, science documents that confuse the issue of if GM crops are safe or not. However, there is enough evidence that herbicide, pesticide, insecticide are all poison and are harmful to the living world. It is for this reason the biotech industry does not like to debate if RoundUp is safe or if Glyphosate in our food is desirable. There is a rising body of evidence that is beginning to emerge showing possible link between Glyphosate and rising levels of auto-immune disease in North America.

Glyphosate is not only present in GM crops, but also used as desiccant on non-GM crops such as wheat. This means, eating non-GM bread, which will slip through the GMO-labelling effort, can still poison us with Glyphosate. These are the reasons why GMO labelling is considered to be an unproductive exercise. Should you desire to catch up on study on Glyphosate, we can connect your office up with scientists from around the world that are trying to work on this issue, despite industry attempting to muzzle these efforts.

Glyphosate is used not only on food, but soon to be used on prairie lands (alfalfa), and is already being sprayed from the air on Canadian forests. GMO labelling of food will not address these chemical attacks.

Glyphosate is patented not only as a herbicide but also as a broad spectrum antibiotic – meaning it kills not only plants but also most bacteria. That includes our gut bacteria or micro-biome as the medical profession is calling it these days. We are apparently a symbiotic organism and need our micro-biome to perform essential services for our well being that we ourselves cannot perform. We can help you catch up on it should you desire. That makes Glyphosate particularly dangerous for the entire animal kingdom, from insects such as bees to mammals such as humans, because we all need our micro-biome to keep us healthy and functional.

The way this RoundUp is being forced on our food, our land, and our hills and forests, amounts to a virtual chemical attack on Canada. No living organism of any kind may in future belong to Canada or be God’s creation. All would be owned by patent holding foreign corporations. This, Ms May, is more than just a concern about GM food. This is brings up the question of Canadian sovereignty.

The point this letter is trying to make is – that labelling GMO does not even come close to addressing this rising threat.We are losing faith in mainstream political parties in Ottawa and the political system that is increasingly awash with corporate funding. We are therefore looking for solutions from the bottom up. We had hoped that Green Party might prove to be an exception. Unfortunately, we have not seen any evidence of Green Party being different, on the GMO issue so far. I hope you can prove us wrong.That is the reason I write this letter to you. Any answer I receive, or do not receive, would be reflected on my blog.

With greetings for the festive season, and wishing you the best,

Tony Mitra

[address & phone number]

tony.mitra@gmail.com

Why don’t I like GMO in Canada?

Posted on November 25, 2014 by admin

Here is another piece of information for all these new followers that I seem to gather like flotsam that get stuck at the mangrove roots in shifting tides.

The whole world, when discussing GMO, wants to see if it if safe or not. I believe it is unsafe, especially the chemicals and pesticides associated with it. However, that is not the main point from where I stand.

I am on a completely different platform. To me, this is an attack on Canadian democracy and independence, whereby all living creatures that are important, may one day cease to be Canadian product, or Gods creation, and instead belong to a patent holding foreign corporation.

This is also an assault on nature.

This – damn the science – is unacceptable to me. I want Canadian flora and fauna to remain Canadian and Gods creation and not stolen by any biotech thief from abroad.

And the mechanism being used to infiltrate into Canada, is not through scientists, but through our corrupt politicians.

Therefore, to me, this is a political issue. This cannot be solved by scientists, but by politicians. And corrupt politicians are not going to solve it for us. Hence, in a democratic system, it comes down to people. The buck stops at your and my feet to change the politician system, from the bottom up, in banning GMO at the Municipal level.

Why bottom up and why Municipal level ? because that, far as I can see, is the only level of Govt that is still within reach of ordinary people and where corporate funding has not yet become pervasive.

So, this is a politician problem, and needs a political solution. This will not happen by writing petitions to bogus politicians in Ottawa, but this can happen, and is happening in BC, at the ground level.

Think of it another way. In your own home, do you need to prove that Roundup is had for health in order to decide not to use it? No, you do not need to prove any such thing. Why not? Because you are living in a free country and it is your right to decide if you will or will not use GM food or pesticide, without any need to prove anything to anybody.

Likewise, a Municipality is an extension of your home, and includes your community. If the community does not like GMO and does not trust RoundUP, it can ban it without any need to prove anything to anybody. That is the meaning, and essence, of democracy & freedom.

Municipalities cannot be sued for banning it, per trade agreements, because Municipalities did not sign those agreements. Higher Govts did, and it is higher Govts to face the music for agreeing to trade deals that attempt to subvert citizen rights.

Now, why did I bother writing all this here ? To inform all of you pro-GMO nitwits that asking me to enter the “peer-reviewed” science of GMO safety is a complete waste of time. My freedom and that of my country is under attack. I don’t care too hoots about your peer-reviewed shit.

By the way, I do consider you pro-GMO guys nitwits, which is far better than considering you as collaborators to a foreign occupying force, or agents of fascism – I trust you’ll agree to that.

So, all you GM nitwits – find another place to go and jump up and down. I am totally uninterested in your opinion or behaviour.

Comprende ?

Above is the beginning of my new blog.
I invite you good people to write to me why you do not like GMO in Canada (or USA, or India, or Russia or elsewhere etc) and I may add those in the same blog. I shall also be asking friends, scientists and activists from around the globe to consider adding their perspective.

Perhaps someone will agree to read all this into an audio podcast. Either way – this is an attack on our freedom and our eco-system. It is for us, and not those biotech scientists, to grab the issue by the scruff of neck and toss it off our land. Join me in the next freedom struggle, my friends, if you will.

Meanwhile here is a preview of the next blog headline : Deconstructing Controlled Opposition.

Moms Across America, USA
Zen Honeycutt, Founder

Moms Across America completely supports any country’s right not to be bullied by a few American chemical companies into feeding billions of their people GMO foreign proteins and toxic chemicals such as Glyphosate, 2,4-D, Atrazine and Dicamba.
American moms see their kids get better from ailments such as autism, allergies, asthma, autoimmune diseases and more when we avoid GMOs and related pesticides. We urge parents, politicians and policy makers of all countries to protect your children, ban GMOs, Glyphosate and related toxic chemicals. Have faith in your farmer’s abilities to ingeniously farm as has been done for thousands of years, without toxic chemicals.
Protect your children and future generations now.

From Grace Joubarne
East coast, Canada

(a) the UN Agenda 21 and the Sustainability Development Agendas were signed off on by the Mayors of most municipalities in Canada and the USA since 1992 and that is why we are having the problems we are having now. The Mayors signed treaties agreeing to meet UN demands and goals. This is the root of the destabilization of Canada’s economy. It is part of the One World Order governance system and is designed to enforce changes at the local level and upwards. For more info look up Tom DeWeese Report for starters…excellent speaker and I follow his well researched newsletters.

(b) Harper is engaged in unprecedented high treason. I will forward you the details of a very important lecture on this that is held tomorrow night (Nov 26th) in Ottawa. I will definitely be there. Former Deputy Prime Minister under Paul Martin, Paul Hellyer has called what Harper has done and will do when he secretly signs the CETA agreement ‘high treason’ that cannot be denied. He will be the keynote speaker.

Fran Murrell
MADGE – Australia

” I totally agree that we have the right to decide whether we want to use or eat a technology or not. Food is fundamental to our health and so to be told that we ought to eat experimental food because some obscure body has decided it is safe is oppressive. It is up to us to decide what we feed our families. When corporate profit overshadows science and transparency, as has happened with GM, then we have the right to be suspicious. When politics sides with corporations to deny us labelling or proper regulation we should resist. No one is coming to save us or our food, the only way we can do this is by organising from the ground up and claiming our democratic rights.”

Aruna Rodrigues
Challenging Govt of India at Supreme Court for introducing GMO

GMOs are a laboratory technology, can only made in a lab. and are therefore, un-natural to the evolutionary process of billions of years. This is a technology that is also irreversible and irremediable once introduced. This single aspect changes the dynamics of this technology and the way with which it must therefore, be considered and quite literally handled.

The question of whether or not to accept GMO crops in food and feed should and must ultimately be a societal decision shorn of politics (in an ideal world). At the very least, this should be the sterling effort and to this end, the role of democratic institutions is to foster this process. It will encompass many aspects of life and living, ethics and science. Science is and should be an important input to this process, but is not the prime mover because it does not inform the other intellectual, religious/spiritual and cultural aspects of thousands of years of civilisation, and man’s interaction with the environment in which he lives. It must also be understood that science can only ‘stand’ if it is allowed to change its mind when new facts come to light. On the other hand, the biotech Industry, a stake-holder with a conflict of interest so severe, must be regarded as an undoubted IMPOSTER to this process. It may not have an input, except to a country’s regulator for independent and rigorous appraisal and consideration of the technology. Unfortunately, this is precisely where matters have gone seriously awry. Regulators are mired in very grave conflicts of interest in virtually all countries where these crops have been approved. The line between the regulator and regulated has been effectively obliterated. It bears repeating that unfortunately, this is a process encouraged by the USA where GMOs were first commercialised about 20 years ago, by-passing sound science and rigour in regulation to foster the biotech Industry, as official policy.

The democratic process in the matter of GMOs has simply broken down, hijacked instead by money-power, politics and corruption, a sinister cocktail likely to be ‘deadly’ for the future of countries like India. It is difficult to know how these matters may be remedied and resolved; but it is clear that this is a task that civil society must undertake, to enable and promote an environment where sense and sensibility may prevail in formal governance and the precautionary principle be allowed to take its rightful place in the regulation of GMOs.

Evaggelos Vallianatos
Ex EPA Scientist and author of “Poison Spring”

I support your position on GMOs.

The genetic engineering of crops started in the mid-1990s. This project, like the giant industrialization of farming, has been political in nature. Science is used like a lipstick to instill confidence in something that deserves none. In my book, “Poison Spring” (Bloomsbury Press, 2014), I document the unreliability of presumed “safety” claims that accompany pesticides. In this case, industry influence nullifies both science and regulation. So pesticides are dangerous. But pesticides have been the most profitable part of the chemical industry — earning more than $ 40 billion per year. In fact, the GM crops were constructed primarily to extend the life of the best selling pesticides.

For these reasons, both pesticides and GMOs must be phased out because they harm both human health and the health of the natural world. In addition, the owners of these technologies are threatening out democracy. They flood the political system with corruption and money. They are pushing small farmers out of agriculture, promoting large farmers and industries.

You are right in trying to ban GMOs at the municipal level of government. I congratulate you for your determination to work for the public good.

Evaggelos Vallianatos, Ph.D.

Stephanie Seneff
Senior Research Scientist
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

I agree with you that it has to happen bottom up. However, apparently, in parts of the US, there has already been sneaky legislature passed to prevent municipalities from banning Roundup. I gave a talk in Wellesley to the League of Woman Voters, and the Wellesley leader of that group decided to investigate the idea of banning Roundup use in public spaces in Wellesley. She looked into it, and found that there was already a state law on the books that prevented municipal levels from issuing such a ban. I was shocked to find that out.

In Hawaii, however, this is working superbly well. All the counties except the big one (which is Oahu and Honolulu and most of the population) have successfully passed various laws restricting use of GMOs and/or pesticides.

Stephanie

Gretchen Zwickert, Northeast Pennsylvania.
Food activist, against the use of glyphosate.

I totally support your stance on GMOs. It is a political problem. Awhile back I wrote for a local newspaper here in the Poconos. I would attend the local township meetings and report what was discussed. I was disappointed to see the lack of turnout by the community. It is sad that the inaction of the communities shows the politicians how much citizens are concerned about local government and the decisions that are made for the community. It all starts at the local level, whether it is in Canada or USA. People need to show up, speak out, and not accept poisons in our foods, soil, water, on our earth!

Anthony Samsel
Research Scientist / Consultant
Samsel Environmental and Public Health Services
Dr. Samsel is the principle investigator of the Glyphosate and Modern Disease papers, written with co-author Dr. Stephanie Seneff.

Hi Tony,

This is a brief update on my current work…

Today, the vast majority of industrial agriculture is a two part system which consists of the use of genetically engineered (GE) or genetically modified (GM) plants and chemical herbicides. Some of these GM plants contain the ability to manufacture insecticidal toxins and may also be resistant to the application of chemical herbicides. My previous work focused on the biochemical effects of the herbicide glyphosate on our biology, as it is the most widely used herbicide on GM crops.

I’m now working on the other side of the industrial agriculture equation, an extensive field experiment with laboratory analysis of 44 varieties of corn, 33 of which are GM patented varieties and four of these represent an isogenic line. These GM varieties contain the major genetically engineered event traits now available from Monsanto, Dow, Dupont and Syngenta. These are all grown by commercial farmers in the USA and many countries around the world.

All of the varieties for these experiments were grown in the same field, under the same conditions and with no added fertilizers or micronutrients. I’ve done a mineral analysis of the soil from the root zone of all of the corn varieties, to determine minerals available to the plants for assimilation and then quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed the plants themselves for all mineral, fatty acid and vitamin content.

I’m examining how the stacked GM traits of the gene cassettes, which are installed in these corn varieties, influence the uptake of minerals and how the plants then express the fatty acids and vitamin content. These results are being compared to the results of non-GM and ancient corn varieties which make up the balance of the 44 varieties. I’m also looking at how glyphosate influences all of these parameters by spraying half of each variety with glyphosate. I can now tell you that both the GM genes and the use of glyphosate negatively impacts the crop. This is concerning as these varieties are grown as a source of food for humans and feed for animals.

I can also tell you, that GM corn is substantially different from non-GM corn, contrary to FDA and industry claims. In fact the changes are inflammatory to our biology and I will be explaining how, through the biochemistry of minerals and fatty acids. The gene cassette determines the genes and the genes, influence the uptake of minerals and the expression of fatty acids and vitamins. In the sprayed varieties, Glyphosate impacts and causes further disturbances to the minerals, fatty acids and vitamins.

These changes caused by genetic modification and glyphosate herbicide, in concert together in the food, are then responsible for increases in a multitude of modern diseases of unparalleled proportion. These GM crops now make up the majority of the Western Diet which consists of processed food and food oils. The details of this work will be summarized and published in a paper which I’m currently writing.

In the spring of 2015 I will begin the same kind of field and lab experiments with GM and non-GM soy. I am also looking at wheat and have been accumulating samples of both herbicide treated and non-treated wheat obtained from farmers in Canada and the USA. I’m looking for any possible biochemical changes to the wheat and will report findings at the conclusion of the work and again will focus on the biochemical impacts to human physiology.

Anthony

PS: I’m still analyzing plant tissue in the lab as I can afford. Please be patient, this work takes time and I’m working with no funding from my own pocket.

It’s a shame that good scientists like Anthony Samsel cannot find funding for their research, while rogue scientists get the funds from industry. This is why agricultural research needs to be public funded. I hope folks would do something, such as initiate a crowd funding scheme or something to help scientists like Anthony.

Henry Rowlands,
International Coordinator of the Global GMO Free Coalition
Director of Sustainable Pulse.

Hi Tony,

Thank you for your e-mail.

I of course support your work and I hope that your blog continues to grow.

The truth is that the system needs to be forced to change – I am not sure people power works on its own – but I am sure a mixture of people power and legal force does work.

We now have almost 1 million people a month visiting Sustainable Pulse – interest is growing.

“GMO and pesticide agriculture currently dominates the globe, creating human health and environmental problems on a scale that has never been seen before. However, change is on the way, a growing awareness of the problems associated with GMOs and their associated pesticides is leading to increasing pressure on the biotech industry and its supporters. This is a global fight and it needs everyone to get involved!”

Best Wishes,

Henry

GM science, or hubris?

Posted on November 18, 2014 by admin

Good day.

Here we are, halfway through our Ontario tour on GE talk and I end up starting a new blog, on the issue of science behind GMO. Is it science, or is it

voodoo?
hubris?
snake oil?

There was an attempt to heckle me at the end of my presentation at Trent University yesterday, on 17th of November, by a professor. I am given to understand his name is Dr. Seville. It is is something else, I shall be glad if someone corrects me. I am told he is an associate professor at the university and is engaged in some form of scientific research related to agriculture at the molecular or genetic level, perhaps related to plant pathogens.

Is that Dr. Seville ? I took the picture, but forgot to ask his name

The gentleman came to protest, loudly enough for everyone to hear, something to the effect that what I said in my presentation, that science has lost its objectivity and neutrality due to undue influence from the industry and political interference through funding, is untrue.

He also made a remarkable comment, that I had insulted him through that statement, because, he claims, his own funding does not come from the industry and only comes from my tax dollars.

Perhaps the gentleman considers the entire body of science, compiled by mankind over the past ten thousand years, is his personal property, and therefore anyone saying anything negative about the current state of science is a direct insult on his personal self. I know scientists are humans, and can have egos the size of the milky way, but is ridiculous.

Anyhow, bursting of inflated balloons is a task better suited to citizen activists like myself. I am not obliged to provide him proof that science is under undue influence of industry. If a man has a scientific approach to work and is given to search for evidence, he or she can easily find it. All I need to do is believe it – that science has lost its way through corruption and I have seen enough evidence of it. I consider actions of Dr. Seville (if indeed that is his name) in trying to heckle me, to be a an indication that science is beginning to stink. There was no need for him to take the issue personally, unless I touched a nerve somewhere.

Anyhow, I decided to start a blog. I had been speaking with Dr. Seneff of MIT just this morning. She will be happy to record her voice on how science has been corrupted by the industry. I am free to put that up on this blog. I aim to get a few more scientists also on board.

But, apart from scientists, I aim to drive another point here. Its not just about proof. It is also about respect and belief. People like myself, who are not being paid to speak to the public, and do so out of a sense of social responsibility, have lost respect for the pro-GM and pro-industry scientists.

Respect is not something one can demand. It has to be earned. Most mainstream pro-biotech scientists (with a handful of exceptions) have lost my respect. I do not respect their position, or their science, or their opinion, because they do not deserve my respect any more.

Few scientists are around today that are not yet paid for by the industry and are still able to conduct research work on the possible damages to human health, ecosystem and our very independence, from this avalanche of toxic pesticides and dubious science. Such scientists are facing all kinds of hostile treatment from the industry and the mainstream because of it. They are being discredited, and efforts are on to have their papers retracted. They are still standing up for their conviction, and are willing to face hostility and stick to their conviction. I consider these scientists to be not just more believable, but also to deserve my respect.

Not just that. I consider myself more qualified to speak about neutrality of science than those pro-GM scientists. Why ? Because I am not paid by anybody and I am offering my honest opinion out of my social consciousness. These scientists are working for money, and what they can say or do are restricted by the conditions that come with their salary and research grant.

I did say I was an engineer and not a scientist and thank goodness for that. I do not have to be restricted by the industry on what I can say or cannot say.

This blog will be edited, modified, and my comments shrunk, and other people comment, voice, video, letters, etc included on the general topic – is science still neutral, or has entered the realm of magic, voodoo, hubris and snake oil ?

I have to thank Sally Mason for sending the following comment and link, as to how Trent University is or is not influenced by the biotech industry
Quote
Office of ResearchTrent University, STRATEGIC RESEARCH PLAN Approved by Senate, May 26, 2000

THE IMPORTANCE OF RESEARCH AT TRENT
page 2 of 14
“Trent has cultivated collaborative research partnerships with a range of corporations in the private sector, especially with the chemical and petrochemical industry (e.g., Ciba-Geigy, Dow Chemical, Dupont, Imperial Oil, Lever Brothers, Monsanto, Proctor and Gamble, Union Carbide), the mining industry…power industry…and technical instrumentation industry….Many of these partners have participated in funding three NSERC-Industry research chairs over the past 5 years. Through its support of faculty, research centres, and graduate programs, the University attracts visiting scholars and postdoctoral fellows to campus each year, further enhancing opportunities for research collaboration and inter-institutional partnerships….”
Unquote

And here is the link.

Email sent today (18th Nov) to Dr. Stephanie Seneff of Artificial Intelligence research lab of MIT :

Dear Stephanie,

Thank you for speaking with me earlier this morning on our talk how neutrality of science is now corrupted through corporate interest and your willingness to speak on record about it to me at a convenient time, and for agreeing to speak separately on the need for Canadians to have a lab to test body fluids and food for presence of Glyphosate.

Meanwhile there is a grassroots movement starting in Canada where young mothers are beginning to ask for their breast milk to be tested for Glyphosate, and for people requesting for their blood or urine to be tested for Glyphosate. The idea bases on the assumption that, if enough people, doctors and hospitals start asking for it, some lab will come up and offer this service.

In that respect, I have received request from some young mothers, to send them a short and clear letter, addressing Canadian nurses and doctors, explaining why it is important to test body fluids and food for Glyphosate, in order to pinpoint potential sources of disease or ill-health. They requested that such a letter would really benefit some of the nurses and doctors in Canada who are sympathetic and know vaguely that Glyphosate might not be a good thing to have in your body or your food, but do not know enough. Such a letter might convince them to start asking for this test and would bolster our chances to get a lab quickly.

Could I request you, Stephanie, to please send me such a letter either from yourself, or from someone you already know, who has such a letter ready ?

I hope to catch up with you shortly about the recording on 1) neutrality of science and 2) need for Canada to have a lab.

Again, I much appreciate what you do, and taking time to help out citizens like me in Canada

With warm regards
Tony Mitra

Here is a response from Dr. Stephanie Seneff about the need for Canadians to have a lab to test Glyphosate, a part of my presentation yesterday, and a topic on which a lot of women are asking for a letter they can pass to their doctors and nurses;

It is absolutely essential that lab facilities become available in Canada on a routine basis to allow people to obtain tests for glyphosate residues in urine and breast milk. A recent study confirmed glyphosate in the tissues of deformed calves in Denmark, suggesting that there may be a link between the glyphosate exposure and the deformities. Another study on humans showed that those who had serious health problems had higher levels of glyphosate in their urine, and those who ate a mostly organic diet had lower levels. It will also be important for people who switch to an organic diet to be able to confirm that glyphosate levels have fallen following the abandonment of GMO Roundup Ready foods. Significant amounts of money are already being routinely spent on tests for serum levels of LDL, which are likely to be much less important, in terms of health risk, than glyphosate levels in urine. A nursing mother would be especially motivated to switch to an organic diet if she found that there were significant levels of glyphosate in her breast milk. Glyphosate levels in drinking water should also be measured routinely, so that people can find alternative sources of water if their standard water
supply is contaminated.

It is of paramount importance that medical facilities should be able to offer their clientele a routine test to help them assess the amount of glyphosate burden they are carrying in their bodies, so that they can make immediate corrective measures to try to reduce the levels.

Stephanie

Stephanie Seneff
Senior Research Scientist
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

A copy or letter written to Dr. Seville by Rose Stevens of Manitoba, as she informed me

Your intentions as a scientist might be very noble, but I feel you are very naive to think that science has not been corrupted in Canada. I say get into the 90s sir and don’t heckle people like Tony Mitra who are standing up for the truth. Canadians are not stupid and we have seen through the lies and deceit that our government has tried to feed us via the controlled media. Cancer rates and disease are soaring in Canada and by the year 2025 one out of two children will be autistic at the current rates says Dr Stephanie Seneff from MIT. Take off your ‘rosy colored” glasses sir and help make the changes to bring back real independent science!

Have you ever listened to Dr Shiv Chopra speak or read his book entitled. Corrupt to the Core? http://shivchopra.com/category/corrupt-to-the-core/

Are you not aware that Mr Harper has been muzzling scientists in Canada.?
http://sciencewriters.ca/…/muzzling_canadian_federal…/
http://thetyee.ca/…/12/09/Dismantling-Fishery-Library/

Are you not aware that many pier reviewed studies are bought and paid for by corporations. http://online.wsj.com/…/hank-campbell-the-corruption-of…

Are you not aware that the Federal of Union scientists acknowledge this and are standing up against this corruption and muzzling?
http://www.ctvnews.ca/…/union-for-federal-scientists…

We need scientists like yourself to stand up for the truth and for “real science”—not “tobacco science.”

Sincerely,
Rose Stevens

Canada under chemical attack

Posted on November 14, 2014 by admin

Canada is facing a chemical attack when it comes to the avalanche of man made poison raining down on us in the name of technology, development, modernism, and industrial agriculture.

Politicians stopped speaking the truth a long time ago. Higher you go in the political hierarchy, bigger a liar you are likely to face. If the pelican is not telling you an outright lie when defending Govt policies that support corporations in unleashing an ocean of poisonous chemicals on Canadian ecosystem, then you are facing an incredibly stupid and ill-educated politician.

Our very freedom and sovereignty is under attack, and not just our food and health. I do not know how not to call a spade a spade. And I consider it my duty, late in my life after having retired from active professional work as a Marine Engineer, to get engaged in low level grassroots political activism, to resist this outrage. It is an outrage, and it should be the duty of all freedom loving Canadians to stand up against it.

We are on a talk tour. Dr. Thierry Vrain is the scientist and the truth letter. I am the activist and the trouble maker.

But, I have a sore throat, a cracked voice, and a resulting problem, in presenting my case to the people, as a political activist and a general purpose trouble maker, on GMO and pesticide issues.

I wear so many hats, that it is difficult to cover it all within 20 or 25 minutes, especially with a sore throat and cracked voice, when I cannot rattle off like a machine gun.

So, last night, horse voice and all, I converted my most recent presentation into an utube video, for you all to see, Much as I tried, I could not shorten in below 25 minutes. But this as a blog reference, I should be able to reduce my slide presentation in future talks and ask them to refer to the blog.

[youtube L83a4BVHMKc]

If the video does not show properly, go to this link : http://youtu.be/L83a4BVHMKc

There are other issues that Canadians need to know – such as the Cartagena Protocol of the UN for preservation of biological diversity of a nation, and how Canada is losing out where 164 other countries are busy protecting themselves. I shall bring these into subsequent video clips and perhaps add them here, and ask folks to simply catch up here.

Independent Journalist Ms Michelle Adelman was in the auditorium at OISE on the 13th. I had spoken with her once on phone. She was taking notes, and came to speak with me. She had pertinent questions. I wish we get a chance to speak with her more.

More to come here. Watch this space.

Tony Mitra – tony.mitra@gmail.com

GE talk tour Ontario – CBC Radio talks with Tony Mitra

Posted on November 3, 2014 by admin

We are on the GE talk tour already. While I have sporadic access to the internet, I believe one should still try to put up an update here for those interested. We are all in it together. So this is a fresh blog that I shall update time to time as more material comes in, and I find the time to collate it.

I am sitting in the wonderful home of Ann in Thunder Bay, Ontario. We arrived by a short flight from Toronto and Ann was there to greet us.

Attendees in Flesherton were very supportive and enthusiastic about our message. I did remember to tell them that without the women in Canada, our talk tour would not have gotten off the ground. Some of them said I should be staying back in Flesherton. I think some of these women should challenge the status quo in local municipalities, and try to emulate Richmond BC and other municipalities, and start pushing back at Glyphosate and GMO.

This was in essence our third stop. We had already spent an eventful day first at Flesherton, ON, and then at Owen Sound, ON, both within a few hours drive from Toronto. Both those events, in my view, went famously. The Flesherton event was a late morning+lunch+afternoon event. We got appreciated, and a lot of hand shakes and hugs.

Thierry Vrain addressing attendees at Harmony Centre, in Owen Sound, on Nov 1st, 2014

People in Owen sound were enthusiastic and knowledgable. The town has banned lawn pesticides, but they also knew about Neonicotinoids and were very keen to see what BC municipalities were doing with GMO and stretching the limit of how much authority municipalities have in banning substances that are federally approved.

Then there was this giant of a red bearded man that came up to shake my hand, along with many others. He found my talk on political activism within municipalities very inspiring and wished to get engaged himself in his municipality and also consider standing for election and beginning to bring change from the bottom up, and learn to kick some butt in the process, focussing on how a handful of corporations are attempting to hijack Canada.

This young man takes to heart my talk and would like to engage in the municipal election and consider working for the betterment of the community and pushing back at the attempt of Corporate takeover of Canada.

Those were in Flesherton and Owen Sound.

And now, we are in Thunder Bay. We shall only be speaking in the evening, but we already have news.

Mr. Bruce Hyer, Green Party MP, who is against Glyphosate

First, there was a call from a Canadian MP, Mr. Bruce Hyer. He was at the Thunder Bay airport. He called in to say that he could not cancel his flight since he needs to vote on an important budget bill in Ottawa, so will miss our talk, much to his regret. He is aware of the dangers of Glyphosate and has tried passing bill to restrict it, but did not succeed. He was once with NDP but is now with the Green Party.

He said I should send him an email so he could stay in contact and also so he can send me his statement or speak to me on record, so I could quote him in my blogs if I found the need. I did tell him I consider it my duty to tell them which politicians were keen to protect Canada from GMO and Glyphosate and I would like to talk about him. So far the only MP that has come out straight away in our support has been MP Alex Atamanenko, NDP, from BC.

He also hoped we could get to meet him while we are in Ottawa face to face.

And then I got interviewed on phone by CBC radio in Thunder Bay area. We shall see if my talk is aired or not. I have never learned to mince my words or not call a spade a spade. Sometimes, that is too much reality in todays mainstream media. So we shall see.

Thierry is having another radio interview this afternoon. Then we talk together in the evening. Thierry usually takes say 90 to 120 minute for his talk and question and answer. I usually take around 20 minutes to ignite the issue of Canadian sovereignty and set fire in a few politicians underpants.

Had another eventful afternoon in Thunder Bay

This involved speaking with two ladies.
.
One of them is a councillor in the municipality of Thunder Bay. Her name is Linda Rydholm. Apart from being a councillor, she is also a board member of FCM (Federation of Canadian Municipalities). She is interested to know the exact wordings of the UBCM motion to be GMO free that was passed last year. I shall ask Harold Steves & Allan Patton of BC to please help. She is also keen to see if their own municipality could pass resolution to be GMO free and what the wording of Richmond resolution is.

I shall try and introduce Linda with Harold and Allan and hope she can kickstart it in Thunder Bay as well as in AMO (Association of Municipalities of Ontario), not to mention trying to bring it to the table at the next FCM.

Linda also got a copy of Thierry Vrain‘s letter to Rona Ambrose, explaining why Glyphosate needs to be the prime focus and not GMO per se, when discussing dangers to health and safety of Canadians.
.
The other person was Kendal Donahue, food strategy coordinator working for “Food Strategy”, which, the best I could understand, is a sort of semi Govt organization with gets public funding, but is not strictly a Govt organization. She too was interested in different aspects of the GMO debate and spent some time with Thierry Vrain on the science of the item. They both would check up on my blog.

Linda cannot attend this evening talk by us since they have a Municipal meeting today, the first one after the recent municipal election. Linda got re-elected.

Kendal will attend this evening.

CBC – Up North Airs a talk with Tony Mitra

Attached is a recording of my 8 minute talk with CBC Radio that was aired on 3rd November at Thunder Bay and surrounding areas on FM.

[youtube rAxkFuyxAAk]

That is the update from the afternoon. I had a talk with Councillor Allan Patton, about the GMO free motions and his efforts in this regard in January this year. Those interested can check it out and hear Allan Patton speak about his efforts to get the GMO free motion tabled at the Federal Council of Municipalities – Blog on Allan.

Addressing the Thunder Bay people on Nov 3rd. Dr. Thierry Vrain nearest to the Camera looking at me.

That is the update from the afternoon. I had a talk with Councillor Allan Patton earlier this year, about the GMO free motions and his efforts in this regard in January this year. For those interested can check it out and hear Allan Patton speak about his efforts to get the GMO free motion tabled at the Federal Council of Municipalities as well as the wording of the GMO free motion that he push through, unsuccessfully, at FCM – Blog on Allan.

Meanwhile I am including the audio recording of his talk with me on this issue, here as well.

Mayor of Delta – where are you?

Posted on October 26, 2014 by admin

Link – blog on council members

Link – blog on school board

This is a preliminary post, of exchanges between myself and the mayor of Delta, BC, on account of GMO and pesticides. I chose the title because I am afraid the mayor is lost on the issue of GMO and is going about it in a completely wrong way, attempting to get herself and her council even more biased towards the science, the economics and the ethics of GMO cultivation in Canada. It reminds me of a ship floundering in turbulent waters, cast adrift without a helmsman or propulsion.

She also makes a false statement that the city council has no power to control GMO, and that all those that are supporting a GMO free resolution are, in essence, jumping a bandwagon that is going nowhere. What is most galling, is her assumption, or implication, that she considers it her duty to bring ‘credible reports’ on the science of GMO and then to study it, so that she, and her council can then pass their verdict and sermon on the people of Delta on what they should or should not eat. Far as I understand democracy, it should be the people that make the decision and the elected public servant that carry out people’s wishes.

I shall deal with most of these issues fully in due course. But lest I forget or miss anything, I am creating the first blog on it, calling it Mayor of Delta – where are you? I believe she is lost and along with her, the residents of Delta are drifting aimlessly, and facing collective peril with regard to our health, environment, biodiversity, food security, seed freedom and our very existence as a free and independent nation capable to charting our own course without interference and control from outside forces, and corporate greed.

But first, the letters. I had asked all candidates of Delta civil election on their position on GMO and if they would support Delta passing a resolution to be GMO free.

I have created two blogs, one for the council members and one for the school board, already. But the mayor deserves a dedicated blog. And here it is.

Tony Mitra

On Oct 26, 2014, at 6:48 PM, Lois Jackson <jacklo12@dccnet.com> wrote:

Mayor Jackson

GREETINGS: WELL, FIRSTLY MY NAME IS LOISŠ

SECONDLY, MAY I SAY THAT WE HAVE NOT BEEN USING PESTICIDES NOR INSECTICIDES IN OUR PARKS FOR SEVERAL YEARS. WE BAN IT FROM BEING SOLD IN DELTA AND ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO USE łNATURAL˛ METHODS TO KEEP DOWN GARDEN PESTS. AS WITH MANY TOPICS THAT ARE BEING DISCUSSED TODAY IN THE MEDIA AND BY THE PUBLIC, GMO SEEMS TO BE ONE OF THEM. THIS ISSUE HAS NOT BEEN SCIENTIFICALLY PRESENTED TO OUR COUNCIL AND I HAVE ASKED OUR CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, MR. GEORGE HARVIE TO BRING FORWARD GOOD SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS FOR COUNCILąS PERUSAL.

I MUST ALSO SAY THAT I AM NOT A SCIENTIST NOR A CANADIAN FOOD INSPECTOR NOR CANADIAN LEGISLATOR;THESE ARE VERY COMPLEX ISSUES AND I LOOK FORWARD TO RECEIVING CREDIBLE REPORTS TO OUR COUNCILąS ATTENTION.

AS FAR AS OTHER CITIES AND COMMUNITIES ARE CONCERNED, IT IS SO EASY FOR SOME COUNCILąS TO SIMPLY JUMP AT AN ISSUE, (LOOKING FOR ATTENTION PERHAPS?) AND THEY JUMP ONTO A BANDWAGON WHICH IS EMPTYŠ EMPTY OF INFORMATION, SCIENCE AND UNDERSTANDING. OUR DELTA COUNCIL TAKES PRIDE IN ANALYZING THE ISSUE, SEARCHING OUT THE BEST INFORMATION, REFERRING IT TO EXPERTS, BEFORE WE łJUMP ONTO THE BANDWAGON˛.

AS AN EXAMPLE, I REFER TO THE ISSUE OF SHARK FIN SOUPŠ THIS WAS A FEDERAL IMPORTATION MATTER AND WE HAD NO JURISDICTION TO DISALLOW ITS IMPORTATION NOR SALE IN DELTA. WE DID HOWEVER, MAKE STRONG PRESENTATIONS TO MANY FEDERAL JURISDICTIONS WHO DID HAVE AUTHORITY. MANY COUNCILLORS AND COUNCILS CAME FORWARD CONDEMNING THE PRACTICE, HOWEVER, THE SUBJECT WAS AN EMOTIONAL ONE OVER WHICH LOCAL GOVERNMENT HAD NO JURISDICTION.

ANOTHER ISSUE WAS THE łBANNING OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN VANCOUVER˛ THERE WAS NO EFFECT OF THIS STATEMENT, AND IT WAS SIMPLY A STATEMENT BY A COUNCIL WHO HAD NO JURISDICTION OVER A MATTER.

THEREFORE, TO BE HONEST AND OPEN AND MAKING GOOD LEGISLATION ON AN ISSUE, I WILL AWAIT THE REPORTS FROM OUR STAFF AND CONTACT YOU UPON DELIBERATION OF SAME,

THANK YOU FOR YOUR QUESTION, AS I REMAIN,

LOIS E. JACKSON MAYOR OF DELTA

I have responded to her by a holding email. But I need to single out this email to show how many ways the politicians are being less than fully truthful, and honest in their statements.

Banning of Lawn pesticides in Delta parks and removing them from stores. This is good work done. The work is not finished since anyone in delta can drive across scrott road and buy all the pesticide they need from stores in Surrey. More importantly, this banning was initiated by the municipality of Hudon, Quebec in 1991 – 23 years ago, starting a precedence for the rest of Canada. It took Delta 20 years to catch up on one issue. We do not have another 20 years for Delta to catch up with rest of BC on GMO and Glyphosate(RoundUp) issue.
Mayor says she has asked someone to bring good scientific analysis for the council’s perusal. By that statement, the mayor has exposed her lack of grasp of an issue that relates to not just “scientific analysis”, but a) with the denigration of neutral science in North America in the last two decades through industry influence, b) with impossibility of independent science labs to find problems with either GMO or Glyphosate due to “proprietary knowledge” that disallows independent scientists to honestly study their safety, just to name a few. Her statement is so outrageously absurd that I wonder if she is just ignorant, or calculating.
The mayor claims she is not a scientist nor a food inspector. That is correct. She is a public servant, and her duty is to check what the public wants. If the issue is complex, she should consider arranging experts on both sides of the argument to come to Delta and present their case, not just to the council, but to the residents of Delta, and let the people then decide what they would like their municipality to do. That, my dear mayor, would be your duty. You do not need to be a scientist nor a food inspector. You are hired to work as a public servant. Nothing more.
She belittles other towns and other politicians as if they are jumping a bandwagon and seeking popularity on fake issues. These other towns and politicians, are fighting for the interest and well being of Canada. The mayor, on the other hand, might be knowing or unknowingly sitting in the band wagon of foreign corporations hell bent on subverting Canadian food security and sovereignty. I consider it my duty to expose arrogant, dismissing replies that politicians use in this way.
Shark fin soup – I dispute her statement that it was merely federal matter. Hudson, QC defied federal approval and went ahead to ban a product in their town. They faced a barrage of court challenges for ten years and persevered, proving and setting a precedence, that municipalities have the right to ban a product or a practice, if the people there believe this is bad for their health or environment. I would have liked the mayor of Delta to strive to protect Delta people’s wish as well as the sharks future, and not hide behind an excuse.
Banning Nuclear weapons in Vancouver – I would have liked the mayor to consider pushing back at the federal Govt by having the gall to propose a ban on installations or transportation of any nuclear warhead in the municipality or through the municipal land of air or waterways. I would have loved the mayor to take this issue to the public and ask if they agree and support this, and if “yes”, to threaten to pass this law and be ready to be challenged by higher authorities. That is the right way to stand up to principles and make a difference, instead of finding excuses to shirk responsibility. She took a very bad example as an excuse to explain why she would not fight to declare Delta GMO free and strive to work with other BC municipalities to push back at this dangerous onslaught on our food, health and nature.
If I appear annoyed and outraged at the mayors response, I feel I am more than justified. At stake is Canada’s future and here is a mayor tap dancing around important and difficult issues.

IT time Canadian politicians, starting from the bottom up, stop using ignorance as an excuse for doing nothing. It is time for them to stop passing the buck by blaming federal politics and claiming Municipalities have no authority. It is time for politicians to stop misguiding the public and obfuscate this issue. It is time for them to get off their high horse and face issues squarely and without hiding behind corporations and lobby groups.

SCIENCE ? WHAT SCIENCE ? The mayor used the term ‘Credible report‘ and the fact that she has asked a city administrator, to bring forward ‘good scientific analysis‘ for the council’s perusal. The mayor also goes on to add that the council takes pride in analyzing issues, searching out the best information and referring it to experts, instead of jumping to bandwagons.

These statements are so hollow that I am going to spend some time on them.

May the mayor and her team first address the issue of how they are going to ascertain that they are getting “credible” unbiased and neutral reports on science ? Are they aware of where scientific neutrality currently lies in Canada or North America ?

Let me refresh the mayor’s memory, that Governments do not fund science research through tax payers money any more, and science is funded by the industry. And the industry has absolutely no interest in funding scientist that may find problems with their product. Not only that, they actually fire any scientist that finds problems with their products, shuts down their labs, gets their papers retracted, forces the universities to discredit them, withdraws their licence if possible, and makes their source of income disappear.
Let me remind the mayor that, due to intellectual property rights clause of patented GMO, no independent science lab is even allowed to study possible ill-effects of GMO and not allowed to publish any finding without permission of the creator of the GMO and no article that is less than flattering ever gets published because of it. Which planet is the mayor living in, when she she thinks she can get “good scientific analysis” on the subject?

So, to start with, i invite the mayor, & her team to first identify a science institute that is doing meaningful work on testing GMO, that is not funded by the industry and where the scientists are not under either industry or political control.

How about reading the book “Poison Spring” by a retired EPA scientist Mr. Vallianatos? He is an ex EPA scientist that describes how corrupt EPA is due to constant interference of the industry on one side and the White House on the other. And it is this EPA that approves “ALL” pesticide that go into agriculture including Canadian Agriculture. In fact the Canadian health ministry gloats over the fact that it works “closely” with EPA and therefore only approves those chemicals that are deemed safe by EPA.

The EPA scientist Mr. Vallianatos meanwhile states that EPA has gotten so corrupt, that any scientist that ever finds even a little bit of problem with any pesticide, is fired, or gagged or transferred and made irrelevant. Could I invite the mayor to listen to Dr. Vallianatos speaking with me on record on this issue ?

So, how about Delta Council inviting Mr. Vallianatos to Delta (he lives in California) for a first hand presentation of how pesticides are approved by EPA ?

Then we can find the next scientist that can explain how things work inside Health Canada, in approval of questionable substances. How about reading the book “Corrupt to the Core – Memoirs of a Health Canada whistleblower” by Dr. Shiv Chopra, who was fired by Health Canada because he refused to accept a questionable growth hormone for cows imported from the US for approval unless sufficient safety tests were done, despite the fact that EPA had approved it. Because he was not accepting the hormone without safety tests, he got fired by Health Canada. Dr. Chopra and his union is taking Health Canada to the supreme court for wrongful dismissal of a conscientious scientist.

How about inviting Dr. Chopra (he lives in Ottawa) to present his case to the Delta Council?

And if you like to speak with a Canadian genetic engineer and soil biologist that has worked for many years with Agriculture Canada on one side, and is also an organic farmer on the other – there is Dr. Thierry Vrain, from our own British Columbia, currently flying to Ottawa to speak with the health minister Ms Rona Ambrose on the topic of, you guessed it, GMO and pesticide and how dangerous these things are and how none of them have ever been independently tested.

So, how about inviting Dr. Vrain to advise you his take on the dangers of the pesticides that are associated with the GMO ?

And ohh, I forgot to mention – EPA does not test the pesticides, just like FDA or other bodies do not test the GMO. All these tests are “supposed to be” done by the same corporation that produces them, i.e. companies such as Monsanto. Is that a conflict of interest or not ?

How about Dr. Don Huber ? He is a professor emeritus from Purdue University, Idaho, a microbiologist and a plant pathologist among many things. He has beens studying toxic chemicals such as Glyphosate for years and is and outright critic of the GMO science that pushes this dangerous chemical on our agricultural fields. As a result, he is now being hounded by the industry, and the University is trying to discredit him, although he is respected enough outside of the industry to be funded by external sources, including being invited by a few countries to teach them and guide them to move away from GMO and chemical farming to healthy localized sustainable farming.

Dr. Huber was a biological warfare expert, employed earlier by the US military. His job was to protect Americans from biological warfare. He has told me in his own words, that, if he was a terrorist and wanted to invent a harmful bio-molecule that would slowly, steadily and greatly harm America, he could not have invented a chemical better than Glyphosate. And how the terrorists don’t have to do that, because Monsanto is selling it to everybody, supported strongly by the US Govt.

How about asking Dr. Huber to come and give you his presentation on the issue ?

How about calling scientist Dr. Nancy Swanson from Seattle, that drew those charts based on US Govt data, showing correlation between release of Glyphosate and rise of diseases such as Crohn’s, Celiac, or autism ? How about calling Dr. Anthony Samself or Dr. Stephanie Seneff of MIT artificial intelligence laboratory, who are compiling paper after paper about the mechanism by which Glyphosate in our food destroys our gut bacteria that is so important for keeping us healthy ? How about calling Anthony Samsel or Stephanie Seneff or Nancy Swanson ? I know all of them personally and can help introduce you.

Canada signed it but did not ratify it. USA & Australia never even signed it. Rest of the world (except Russia which bans GMO altogether) signed and ratified it, protecting their biological diversity from theft by Biotech corporations or accidental destruction or extinction.

How about Studying Cartagena Protocol of the United Nations, which is about protecting your biological diversity against inadvertent damage through introduced GMO. A hundred and sixty countries have signed it, but Canada has not. As a result Canada’s biological heritage is up for grabs and grabbed it has been, by the likes of Monsanto. My question to you is – who in Delta Council is going to spend time studying this protocol and raising awareness so Ottawa is forced to address it? The Protocol Head office is in Montreal, not that far away. How many Canadian politicians even know about this issue ? Canola was a Canadian invention. If we had signed the Cartagena protocol and put up laws to protect our biological inventions and heritage, then Canola would still have remained a Canadian product. Instead, it is now owned by Monsanto. So, would the Mayor and Council still feel qualified to find “credible report” on GMO ?

And even that is not enough. My question to the Delta Council is – who are they to study GMO and make a decision on if the people should eat toxic gene or toxic chemical laden food ? Who gave them the authority ?

Last I checked how democracy is to work, it should be the people that decide if they like pesticide laden food in their meals or not. Last time I checked, the duty of elected officials is to carry out the wishes of the electorate. All that the Municipality and the mayor needs to do, is to check the pulse of the people, and assist them to get both sides of the story without bias and without industry propaganda and without political or corporate interference. Is the Mayor and the Council capable to arranging that ?

Last time I checked, the only leaders that makes decision on what kind of food or anything else is good for the people, are Dictators, and not Elected politicians.

This is one problem that creeps into politics, the moment the public stops watching over politicians – the politicians forget that they are public servants, and starts thinking they might be dictators, or perhaps prophets sent down to this planet by God himself, to make all decisions for us the poor and ignorant people.

The Mayor and the corporation of Delta assumes authority, which they do not have, of deciding what GMO is and if it is good for the people. The elected officials should be joining the people’s wish across the land, to declare themselves to be GMO free and then work with other municipalities and UBCM and FCM to find ways to push back at the current agro-industry contract workers (I find it difficult to call them GMO farmers, since they do not own their seeds and are in effect contract labourers for Monsanto), to take over farming and kill all local farmers.

The farm lands are getting depopulated as the small organic farmers go bankrupt, and move to the cities to become unemployed, while huge swaths of land is coming under control of US biotech industry.

I find myself both annoyed, outraged and exasperated by the Mayors high handed and dismissive note on GMO issues, where she and the other politicians are obviously out of their depth and yet presume to study “credible reports’ without having a clue about how biased the very science has become thanks to the politicians allowing the industry to skewer our science in the first place. How blind can a politician be ?

How about calling Vandana Shiva to Delta? She did her PdD in quantum mechanics in Canada. She is coming to Ontario next month.

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If I feel annoyed and outraged by the mayor’s dismissive and arrogant email, perhaps she and other readers will understand that I have sufficient reason to be so. Ms Mayor – please consider calling both sides of the argument and let the people decide. You do not have the authority to decide for the people.

I have no doubt your team with find a lot of pro-GMO pro-industry propagandists. They are crawling all over the place. But I doubt you or your team is able to gather a credible team of scientists that can tell the people the opposing view, those that are beyond the reach of the industry and the Governments, who are willing and able to tell the people how they are being robbed off their land, their environment and their future, by what amounts to new age cobbler barons. So, please call them and let them speak to the people of Delta.

EG Vallianatos (ex EPA scientist) – California
Shiv Chopra – (Ex Health Canada scientist) – Ottawa
Thierry Vrain (Ex Agriculture Canada scientist) – Comox Valley, BC
Don Huber (Ex US Army biological warfare expert, scientist) – Idaho
Anthony Samsel (Ex Arther d’Little, scientist) – Massachusetts
Stephanie Seneff (MIT artificial Intelligence lab, scientist) – Massachusetts
Nancy Swanson (Correlation – Glyphosate & disease, scientist) – Seattle
Vandana Shiva, of Navdanya, India, who will be touring Ontario in winter.
Read Book – Poison Spring, by Vallianatos
Read Book – Corrupt to the core – memoirs of a health Canada whistleblower, by Chopra

I shall come back here later, to add more points for the mayor, the council and the people of Delta. And we shall talk about seed freedom, about farm labour, about economic viability, about local produce against food coming from California while local small farmers die off. We have a lot of ground to cover on the GMO / pesticide issue. The biggest and deepest issue is – political corruption in Canada that has brought Canada to this state of affairs, literally handing over our freedom and ability to control our destiny away from the people’s hands into those of foreign corporations.

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Feedback from a North American scientist that is fighting against Industry and Govt repression because he tried to research and speak the truth. He wishes to remain anonymous for the moment, but I expect he will come out in the open soon. Here is what he said. The formatting is mine.

Dear Tony

The big business is very good at destroying the scientists who stand against them.

This afternoon if you can wait I will feed you some more of my ideas. We need to learn how to play the game of pseudo-democracy, which is reality.

EG Vallianatos, cannot comment much – sounds interesting. I need his curriculum.
Shiv Chopra, one guy who was properly destroyed by big business. A good value.
Thierry Vrain, give him a try. Good value if he can speak well.
Don Huber, my hero; big business is trying hard to destroy his name.
Anthony Samsel, Stephanie Seneff – very imaginative and with ideas to work on for next 50 years, however, they have been the target of the most vicious attacks.
and Nancy Swanson. A remarkable person who put together a summary in which I verified a lot of the data.

A scientist is always afraid of misleading correlations. But the search for cause-effect is so often a misleading act in itself.

For example cholesterol plugs arteries but it is a symptom of damage to arteries and not a cause of damage. Mainstream medicine has not caught up yet because the pharmaceuticals have so much control over medical schools.

But various studies showed that lower cholesterol is not a predictor of reduced cardiovascular problems.

I heard a conference at Laval University that went through the whole history of cholesterol research; the very first scientists knew that cholesterol was, overall, a good molecule.

True culprits for cardiovascular problems exist; sugars, excess iron in red meat, trans fats, and probably pollutants of various kinds, which are irritant to blood vessels. But the focus on all fats and on cholesterol was led by a fraudulent scientist named Ancel Keys who published papers ignoring any data that was contrary to his hypothesis. He became so powerful that he crushed all others in his path. And big pharmacy saw a golden opportunity. The result is a 15 billion $ fraud.

Maybe I am out of context, but this is to show how far away from the truth science can go. You see, cholesterol plugs arteries THEREFORE we must lower cholesterol is a cause-effect statement in which the search for the cause was not serious and honest, and thus the true causes were obliterated in USA and in all countries that suffered their influence.

That is the problem we have. Big companies are making money, they want more, and they do not want to know anything that could bother their money-making scams.

Governments have made themselves very dubious entities in our attempts to know the truth. Canadian governments appear to be enemies of true science.

Mayor, consider investigating this, about science in Canada. And I am not joking

In the last months the federal government has emptied all scientific libraries of 99% of books, & 100% of journals. You could not find one scientists who was really consulted. Or perhaps the younger generation does not care about science…

Try to grasp the implication. Many scientific disciplines are getting lost. Of all pathologists that were used to breed disease resistant plants, perhaps only 10% remain, compared to 40 years ago. Once you get rid of those people the only solution becomes CHEMICALS.

This massacre went on everywhere, I understand. Such events of mass desctruction of scientific knowledge have perhaps no equivalent in 2000 years in the history of the world. All the history of the Canadian scientific research in agriculture is gone to the dumpster. All the documents that allow us to see what is changing over time is destroyed.

I was sleepless for days after seeing that. Sometimes, it still gets me awake at night. And if the same is going in in Health Canada, Environment Canada, everywhere… just think about this: moving Canada 40 years behind in a single sweeping move.

One of the main tools of research scientists has been burned to ashes. Books worth a fortune were destroyed; they were not offered for sale, not offered to interested scientists, just destroyed.

What a stupid, dirty, revealing way to deal with public science. And you want to bring “Credible Reports” on GMO?

Then they claim that the science behind the pesticide industry is sound science, and all I have to say, is – you bullshitters, you do not even know what science is about.

If the govt gets itself in a weaker position which I hope will be sooner rather than later – it may then be safer for a scientist or two to emerge from the shadows to talk about these horrors of Canadian science.

Ms Mayor of Delta – you are way out of your depth on the assumption that you and your office, can check best available information and make educated decision on behalf of the people, about the “science” of GMO. Study, if you like, first, on the issue of destruction of past records of Canadian agricultural documents, studies, reports and data, if you dare.

Pardon my French, Ms Mayor – you are either unbelievably naive or extraordinarily out of your depth here, both on your ability to grasp the science and the business model behind GMO and on what authority you may have in making a decision on it.

Its not that the mayor has not received mails and appeals from concerned citizens on this and related issues before. I have personally written to her several months ago, and put that up on my blog goo. The mayor did not see it fit to respond to it. Her actions do not show any evidence that her office had attempted to study up on it.

.. This is a link to my letter to the Mayor in May 2014 which she did not bother to respond to, and displays no evidence that she cares about.

Podcast : Lisa Fraser of Burnaby, BC, tries to get candidates to explain their stand on GMO. She talks to Tony Mitra about it.

We intend to self-label our food

Sample letter 1

To : Doctor, or Nurse, or Hospital etc

From : Your name

Date :

I am concerned that my corn, soy or wheat based food may contain traces of a herbicide called glyphosate. I would like to get my body fluids and possible fat tissue sample tested for the presense of glyphosate to see if I am accumilating any of it in my body.

If I supply you with the samples, can you please arrange to get them tested?

I would prefer for the results of the tests to be sent to me personally, as well as to your office.

Samples I wish to test: Urine (2 samples), blood(1 sample), milk (1), bread(1), cooking oil(1) – (Please modify this letter and the list of items you wish to test, to suit your situation).

Appreciate your prompt action in this.

Thanking you,

Name & address

Sample letter 2

To : Doctor, or Nurse, or Hospital etc

From : Your name

Date :

I wish to test some samples for Glyphosate. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Round-Up herbicide and is being liberally sprayed on much of my food, both GMO and non GMO. I am concerned that this Glyphosate is migrating into my body, and may adversely affect my health.

If I supply you with the samples, can you please arrange to get them tested?

I would prefer for the results of the tests to be sent to me personally, as well as to your office.

Samples I wish to test: Urine (2 samples), blood(1 sample), milk (1), bread(1), cooking oil(1) – (Please modify this letter and the list of items you wish to test, to suit your situation).

Appreciate your prompt action in this.

Thanking you,

Name & address

Hi Tony:

We will look into the method once there is a demand, we cannot allocate resources to the development of a method for which there is no market at the moment. Also it will be a non-accredited method at this point.

Thanks.

Moms Across America, USA Zen Honeycutt, Founder

From Grace Joubarne East coast, Canada

Evaggelos Vallianatos Ex EPA Scientist and author of “Poison Spring”

Stephanie SeneffSenior Research ScientistMIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

This blog will be edited, modified, and my comments shrunk, and other people comment, voice, video, letters, etc included on the general topic – is science still neutral, or has entered the realm of magic, voodoo, hubris and snake oil ?

CBC – Up North Airs a talk with Tony Mitra

Link – blog on council members

Link – blog on school board

Moms Across America, USA
Zen Honeycutt, Founder

From Grace Joubarne
East coast, Canada

Evaggelos Vallianatos
Ex EPA Scientist and author of “Poison Spring”

Stephanie Seneff
Senior Research Scientist
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory