Category Archives: GMO

Anthony Samsel on seed freedom

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There is a petition on AVAAZ.ORG from Europe, on the issue of seed freedom. Apparently there is a list prepared, of so called “Approved seeds” which mostly contains seeds patented and owned/controlled by a few agro-corporations. Idea is to pass a law that makes it illegal for anybody to grow any food from any seed that is not in this list.

This is geared to kill the heirloom seed industry, take away farmers seed freedom and oblige them only to buy corporate controlled seeds, and ensure people lose their food sovereignty, not to mention the resultant avalanche of ill health and tsunami of chemicals in food production.

This petition has 120,000 supports. I was sent the link by Wendy Bales. It is suspected that these kind of rules are also in the offing for Canada and USA down the line. Nobody on this planet will be allowed to grow or eat any food unless it is from within the “Approved list”.

I decided to write a letter to Lana Popham, the agriculture minister of British Columbia, asking if she knew about it, and what if anything did she have to say about it. I was going to copy that to the premier of BC as well as write similar letters separately to the federal minister of agriculture and copy that to my MP.

But I decided to also check views of Anthony Samsel, and create a blog, which I could refer to, to the BC Ag-Minister, and let the blog be available for anybody else.

The talk with US scientist Anthony Samsel was short – covering 2 minutes. We spoke about other issues that are not related to this petition, which will be covered in separate video and blogs.

Thats it for now.
Thanks for visiting. You are welcome to leave a comment.
What I’d really like is for people to write to their politicians and not only make them aware, in case they did not know, but also to start ensuring that this does not happen in Canada or in USA, ever.

Citizen activism against herbicide attack

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Spent an evening at Richard Miller’s iconic home – a three story hillside home that once used to be a power plant and a railway station. Today, it borders a forested hill to the south where hummingbird families make nests, and agricultural flats to the north in Abbotsford.

Family of Robin Wesman of the East Kootenay had arrived to spend the night with them. I came with a pumpkin from my backyard. Richard would show me, another day, how to roast pumpkin seeds. But that was not the main reason we were there.

Richard spoke on the need of the hour, which might be to write multiple letters to the new Agriculture Minister of British Columbia. She is an NDP MLA and has a track record in the past for supporting organic farming and pushing back at industrial chemical dependent toxic farming. Now was the time to write to her, to encourage her in finding ways to push back at the use of glyphosate and reduce its presence in British Columbian agriculture. This was the time to show her the support – by the tens of thousands. His one minute talk on record was short, straight and direct.

Then it was Robin Wesman’s turn. He took two minutes to articulate his view, which is, to engage himself in a step by step process where the first step is to educate the people so they can see the picture about how our long term as well as short term health is affected by excess use of herbicides in our environment. The next step would be for the people to find ways to banish this practice of spraying herbicides in our environment. He covers his points in a two minute talk.

Lana Popham – mew Agriculture Minister of BC (AGR.Minister@gov.bc.ca)

 

Tony explained two things from his own perspective. The first was how science has been hijacked by the industry and we do not have balanced neutral science available to judge agri-industry, GMO or herbicides any more. Science has lost its objectivity and neutrality and stopped being an unbiased tool to assess glyphosate. The second point is – it is not so much the industry such as Monsanto that is at fault. The party that ensured our environment is turned toxic is our politicians that control our government. But the root cause is not just corrupt politicians – but complacency of us, the people of Canada that refuse to perform their main task as citizens. His talk took four minutes.

I forgot to mention, Richard and Tracie made some lovely dinner for us all, with roasted chicken with unbelievably good flavour, along with quinoa and salad, that went with a glass of red wine. I also had a banana.

Received an interesting feedback from a reader on youtube:

I Macey
No I disagree the only people who can change this are the occultists who are in power glyphosate is part of ongoing eugenics and the only reason the e.u haven’t relicensed is because glyphosate is starting to effect themselves . My opinion of course

That’s it for the day. By the time I hit the road heading back to my home, light had disappeared from the sky, and there was a traffic jam due to an accident that turned my hour long drive into a two hour one, reaching back home at 10:30 PM. My wife was fast asleep by then. All in all – a good way to pass quality time, and talk about what we the people aught to do beyond eating, drinking and making money for ourselves. Do we have a responsibility towards the future of the society and the land, or don’t we?

Labelling GMO – a letter to my MP

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To: Carla Qualtrough, Liberal MP, North Delta., carla.qualtrough@parl.gc.ca.
cc: Terry Beach, Liberal MP, Burnaby BC, terry.Beech@parl.gc.ca
Dated Sunday, August 20, 2017
Subject : Bill C-291 – regarding labelling of genetically modified food.

Honourable Ms Qualtrough,

I write to you with regard to bill C-291 which aimed to amend the Food and Drug Act and include a clause to mandate labelling of genetically modified foods in Canada. This bill got defeated in the parliament with 216 Nay votes and 67 Yea votes. You voted against it, as did virtually all of the conservatives and most of the liberal MPs. A handful of Liberal MPs voted in favour of labelling GMOs, Honourable liberal MP Terry Beach of Burnaby BC being one of them. This letter is copied to him since he is referred here.

Common sense tells me that GMO aught to have been labelled, irrespective of what science says about it, of if one prefers to eat or avoid genetically modified food. It is the right of the people, I feel, to know what they are eating, and GMO is one such information that aught to have been identified to consumers.

But I do not write this letter regarding what I feel aught to have been or what my idea of common sense is.

I write this letter for two specific reasons. These are

1) To inform you that in my view you have violated the duty you were to perform when you got elected to represent us, by making your own decision to vote against the bill instead of checking with your constituents first.

You have often held meetings in Delta to gather public opinion on various issues. I have received invitations from your office to attend such meetings and have attended a few and voiced my concerns there. I presume the reason you hold such meetings is to gauge the opinions and feelings of the constituents and to reflect them back in Ottawa.

However, you failed to invite us to express our opinion on this important issue of labelling GMOs which has great relevance to food safety and general health as well as food security, preservation of biodiversity and independence from corporate ownership of living organisms. How I know you avoided checking public opinion is that you failed to hold a meeting on this and I did not receive an invitation from your office to attend any such meeting.

2) Since in my view you may have violated the sacrosanct duty that you were constitutionally required to perform, I believe I may have a reason to question your suitability in performing the task of a public servant to protect our interest. I therefore might decide to perform my citizens duty, to alert voters that you may have assumed dictatorial powers and decided to make unilateral decisions on what the people of Delta should know about their food.

In my book, only two kinds of persons can make such unilateral decisions for the people. These two are – a dictator, or an emperor. I do not believe you are either, though I suspect you might have forgotten what your specific duty is.

I write this letter to you not expecting an answer per se. I know politicians are usually quite good at staying silent on questions that they would rather not answer.

I am nonetheless writing this to publicize and circulate it among voters within my capacity, and also to set an example for other citizens, in Delta and outside, to take a queue and question their own respective representatives about what authority they had in making decisions without checking with the people first.

While I do not expect any response, I shall be glad to receive one, to discuss how you voted against this bill. Either way, this letter is going to be public.

If I do not succeed in changing your behaviour with regard to voting on sensitive bills, I sure hope to change views of a few of the citizen voters with regard to their perception of their representatives in our parliament.

If you find this letter a bit harsh, you will forgive me, since I do not feel particularly amicable after seeing how you voted against this bill.

Thanking you
Tony Mitra
10891 Cherry Lane Delta BC.

A response received from the office of Ms Carla Qualtrough. This is a good omen. Among all the letters I have sent to various MPs, MLAs and Mayors and councillors in Canada,very few will come back with a response.

However, this is an example that, if one tries hard enough, one might get a few responses time to time. More importantly, perhaps this is a sign that if enough folks approach their representatives, there will be a collective pressure that might translate into positive movements in our government to represent issue of vital importance for our people.

Reference:

List of who voted which way on C-291

Another video on the same issue I made two months ago

Letter to a political party – regarding glyphosate poisoning in Canadian food

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A letter sent

To: Mr. Tom Mulcair,

cc: Craig Keating, Ravi Kahlon, Lana Popham
 
Dated Friday 7th April 2017
 
Thank you Mr. Mulcair, for the note, and I do not disagree. However, issues raised in your note is of minor importance in my judgment, compared to rising toxicity in foods produced in Canada that makes it near impossible for average citizens to eat without being slow poisoned.

Tom Mulcair, NDP leader

This is to do with rampant toxicity in our food system due to unending use of pesticides such as Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup weed killer.
A few of the past NDP parliamentarians had been aware of the gravity of the situation and had done what they could within their means to resist it or raise awareness. Unfortunately, I do not see any sign of awareness or interest in it among the current NDP politicians that I can vote for. NDP candidate from my riding in BC does not even acknowledged let alone answer email from me.
 
Here are the basics I would like you to consider.
 
1) I have studied near 8,000 records of tests done by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, on foods collected in Canada, produced in Canada and imported from over sixty countries, for presence of glyphosate. I am in possession of the records and am so shocked with the results that I wrote an e-book and published on Amazon to alert the people about it . The book is titled ‘POISON FOODS OF NORTH AMERICA’.
 
2) Conventional, non GMO seed crops that are desiccated with glyphosate are the most contaminated with this weed killer instead of roundup ready GM crops. Most toxic of North American foods are Rye, Wheat, Oats, Chickpea and lentils, all of which carry too much glyphosate in them, way more than in roundup ready crops like corn or soy.
3) I found that english speaking North America produces foods that are an order of dimension more toxic with glyphosate contamination than foods produced by anybody else anywhere else.

Toxicity in North American foods compared to the rest of the world

4) Canada produces foods that are significantly more contaminated with this weed killer than even foods produced in the United States. This makes Canada the epicentre of poisonous foods in the world. There is rising evidence that we are slow poisoning our citizens, ruining our future generations and pushing our wildlife towards extinction.
 

Ravi Kahlon – NDP candidate

Please take note – the government of Canada has till date has not disclosed actual safety test and analysis reports based on which it decided glyphosate was safe enough to be approved for use in agriculture. According to my understanding of the law, it is illegal to approve a product and allow its release while withholding its safety test data. My repeated efforts with the government to release all safety documents on glyphosate has not produced results. Our government does not say I do not have the right to see these safety results, but continues to drag its feet. Health Canada has been dragging its feet on this for forty years now.
 
The rate of rise of auto immune diseases because of this in North America and especially in Canada is going through the roof. Our school system is going to be wrecked due rising demand for more and more special need children, as will our health care and economy. Our big game wildlife are being pushed to the edge of extinction due to rising level of birth defects that make rising percentage  newborns unable to reach maturity or produce viable offsprings due to constant use of the practice in aerial spray of glyphosate over Crown forests by logging corporations while nobody has ever seen or approved any study of the effect of glyphosate on environment. Neither our provincial governments nor Ottawa wants to open this pandora’s box. I have butted head with the BC government repeatedly to find out what safety documents it has seen before approval of spraying glyphosate over BC forests without any result.
I am including a small table (above) from my book, which has over 300 such tables. To me, this and all future elections have becomes a more or less single issue election
 
Scott Hamilton, the incumbent liberal MLA will not respond to my emails. Mr. Kahlon, the NDP candidate, will also not respond. For the first time in my life, I am forced to contemplate not voting for any major candidate and am searching for a third party candidate that might be ready to acknowledge and address this looming disaster. 

Canadian rye the most toxic on earth

A candidate that refuses to face this issue is one that deserves to be an unemployed politician in my view.
This email concerns public interest and not a private matter. Therefore it should be considered as a public letter of grave concern for Canadians. This letter and any response received, or not received, may be included and discussed on social media, my blogs, any newspaper that might agree to post it, and included in future versions of my book. I have had as much silence from political candidates as I can stomach.
 
Please take this not as an attack, but a sign of extreme frustration with a political process where candidates want people’s votes but will not address people’s concerns.
 

Scott Hamilton, incumbent MLA, Liberal

I look forward to what you might have to say about it Mr. Mulcair.
 
Thanking you
Tony Mitra
 A few references
Comment by scientist Stephanie Seneff about glyphosate in food and about my analysis of the CFIA data. This comment is from the book itself:

I believe glyphosate will go down in history as the worst synthetic chemical this planet has ever faced, as a consequence of its perceived non-toxicity to humans and its massive use in agriculture and on people’s lawns with careless handling due to lack of awareness of its insidious, cumulative toxicity.  It is destructive of human health and it is threatening extinction to multiple species, most obviously the bees and the monarch butterflies. I believe it will eventually be proven that glyphosate gets into proteins by mistake in place of glycine, and that this is the key reason for several phenomena going on in the US (and Canada?) that currently are seemingly inexplicable:

  1. the epidemic in autoimmune diseases, most importantly autism and dementia,
  2. the runaway health care costs that are bankrupting our government, and
  3. the epidemic in opioid drug abuse due to chronic intense pain as a consequence of glyphosate disrupting the elastic and tensile strength properties of collagen, and then causing an autoimmune attack on collagen.

Collagen makes up 25% of the body’s protein, and glycine makes up 25% of collagen’s amino acids.  Collagen in pigs and cows fed heavy doses of glyphosate in their feed is the main source of gelatin that makes its way into vaccines, gel caps, jello, and various other food products. Collagen is contaminated with glyphosate and as a consequence so are these derivatives. This easily explains why MMR vaccine today causes many more acute adverse reactions than it did in the 1990’s.

This book by Tony Mitra is priceless because it tells you which foods have the highest contamination of glyphosate, so you can change your eating habits to minimize your exposure. Glyphosate needs to be banned immediately across the globe, if we are to preserve a bright future for our children and grandchildren.

Stephanie Seneff
Senior Research Scientist
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
 From US scientist Don Huber

“Poison Foods of North America” provides critical information for all healthy, health conscience, infirm and struggling individuals that is necessary to prevent the deterioration in their and their families health as a result of the betrayal of the public trust that was placed in regulatory bodies.

Future historians may well look back upon our time and write, not about how many pounds of pesticides we did or did not apply, but about how willing we are to sacrifice our children and jeopardize future generations based on flawed science and failed promises just to benefit the bottom line of a commercial enterprise.

Don M. Huber,
Emeritus Professor,
Purdue University.
A response received

(Le français suit l’anglais) Thank you for contacting our office. All messages are read and considered. However, due to the high volume of emails received, it may not be possible to respond personally to each one. Please visit our website (http://www.ndp.ca) to learn more about our NDP team (http://www.ndp.ca/team) and latest news (http://www.ndp.ca/news). Thank you again for taking the time to share your ideas, concerns and insights. Your input helps us with our work. All the best, Office of Tom Mulcair, MP (Outremont) Leader, New Democratic Party

A question asked of the election candidates of my riding

The Rice Story

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Transcribing the data from CFIA on foods tested for glyphosate – thousands and thousands of records, has given me a new insight into the changing scene in North America with regarding to creeping toxicity in most foods, thanks to glyphosate and its indiscriminate use in our agriculture and in nature.

A lot of effort has gone into transcription of the data as well as trying to make sense out of it. A lot of sleepless nights. Somewhere down the line, it came to me that I should consider writing a book on it, perhaps an e-book on Amazon, sold for a couple of dollars, which will contain all the efforts to make sense of the looming catastrophe of increasing amounts of this most controversial herbicide that is likely at the root of all sorts of illnesses in humans and a white swatch of the living world that is exposed to it.

Meanwhile, I have yet to reach the halfway mark in transcribing the data from CFIA, but have covered over 3,000 records already, though proof reading, error correction and more of the same is going on.

But, there is enough material here to talk about, say, rice, in this blog.

The Rice Story

Out of the 3,000 odd records so far transcribed, one item that still eludes me is the major food group comprising of conventional wheat and the wheat products such as flour and bread etc. The only items with “wheat” in their name are fringe grains such as buckwheat, or terms like “wheat less”. Why standard wheat is still missing, out of the first 3,000 records, I do not know. Some friends are speculating that CFIA did not wish to test wheat because so much glyphosate is expected to be found there, that they did not wish to frighten the people.

Well, it is known that wheat mostly in not GMO, not RoundUp ready, and cannot tolerate glyphosate. Therefore glyphosate is used to desiccate wheat just before harvest. Therefore, glyphosate is expected to be in the wheat grains more than a roundup ready crop. And perhaps wheat was the first major cereal to be thus desiccated, and the practice may now be very widespread. So there is justification in the speculation that glyphosate content in wheat might be rather high today, especially for wheat grown in Canada and USA.

Nonetheless, I have not given up hope, and shall wait till I have transcribed all the data to check if wheat and its byproducts indeed does come up in significant number of tests. But its absence has made me wary for now, or wheat, and fostered my resolve to only have organic bread, if I must have bread at all.

And in comparison, rice seems to have been tested enough times and the readings are comparatively good. So I decided to check up on the results a bit, and come up with some comparative charts to show how rice from different countries stack up. Also, this has increased my interest in leaning towards eating more rice and less wheat, till he comparable glyphosate content for wheat is available.

There were 208 samples of rice, among the first 3,212 test records, out of which the biggest bunch comprises of rice from unknown source. This “unknown” country designation has vexed me throughout my effort to transcribe the data. However, unmarked bulk rice, which may be available in some stores, are, in my guess, more likely to be Canadian than from any other country. This is just a guess. I have no means to prove it at this point. Anyhow, for the sake of this chart, I combined Canada + Unknown as an added source. So there are perhaps seven countries from which rice has been imported, if we lump unknown with Canada. Out of them, Canada (along with unknown) has the most number of samples, at 43. The other countries are USA, Thailand, India, Italy, China and Pakistan. China and Pakistan each have only two samples so far, so they might not be statistically significant.

The chart, when compared with readings of other major grains such as legumes, and buckwheat, seems to indicate that rice has been comparatively clean, and with much less glyphosate than some of the other grains.

And within them, the best rice is from the bottom four – India, Thailand, China and Pakistan. If we discount China and Pakistan for low sample count as of now, then the major best source of clean rice in Canada might be those imported from India and Thailand.

However, some disturbing news is emerging out of India, indicating rice farming in some eastern provinces of India is beginning to introduce glyphosate desiccation. So, perhaps the story is not as rosy as it seems for the future of Indian rice. I am trying to get to the bottom of this issue and find out if this is true or untrue.

Then comes the top few, with relatively higher glyphosate content, of which Italian and US rice still looks good enough with reasonably low glyphosate count. The worst seems to be Canada, either lumped with Unknown, or standing by itself.

Its both galling and frustrating to learn that, even on a relatively clean cereal, Canada had to be about the worst producer when it comes to glyphosate concentration. Also, if glyphosate is not used for desiccation here in Canada, then the relatively higher concentration might be an indication of general level of glyphosate pollution here in Canada.

That is something that the government as well as the people, should think about and consider addressing.

Beware of GM Mustard, and glufosinate tolerant GM crops

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Glufosinate is as dangerous as glyphosate for our biology – not just because of its toxicity, or because of whatever else they put into the herbicide package, but also because glufosinate, like glyphosate, is an analog of (mimic of) one of the canonical twenty amino acids that are the basic building blocks of all life, from bacteria onwards to humans. Glufosinate is an analog of glutamic acid, while glyphosate is analog of glycine. Both Glycine and glutamic acids are two out of twenty amino acids that all life is made of.

And, our immune system is unable to distinguish between glufosinate and glutamic acid. Therefore, if it (glufosinate) is in our food, which it will be if the herbicide is used in agriculture, then it gets into our blood, and apart from whatever else trouble it, and its associate chemicals packaged into the herbicide brand, can cause through direct toxicity, glufosinate will also cross our blood-brain barrier, like a Trojan horse, or a spy, simply because it mimics glutamic acid which we are programmed to use and allow in. Then it proceeds to contaminate a whole swatch of our biology because it is picked up, in place of glutamic acid, to create many byproducts into our biology including thousands of kinds of proteins that were originally supposed to have glutamic acid. These proteins with glufosinate, instead of glutamic acid or its byproduct glutamine, will mis-fold, mis behave or render the protein dysfunctional – a trigger to all kinds of health hazards and illness.

Scientist Anthony Samsel of Deerfield, New Hampshire, USA, who has been studying glyphosate and its ability to penetrate our inner biology by mimicking glycine, speaks here with me, about the similar danger glufosinate poses to all living creatures, and how countries like India should be careful not to allow registration of GM crops that are designed as tolerant to glufosinate.

The talk covers a 16 minute video.

[youtube w7U24yhzwqs]

Samsel also speaks of European Food safety Authority issuing a restriction in use of glufosinate. The actual document can be read or downloaded by clicking here.

This is important information for those nations where glufosinate based herbicides are used in nature or in agriculture, and where glufosinate tolerant food crops are in the pipeline, such as the case of GM-Mustard (DMH 11) for India.

Monsanto Tribunal missing the bus?

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There is a Monsanto Tribunal in The Hague in mid October, where world’s notable Monsanto haters are tentatively expected to be present.

 

It looks like a grand event. The concept is novel. A group of international judges will sit and hear presentations from a number of International notables, about the crimes of Monsanto. The judges will then pass judgment, even if it is symbolic. At the end of the two day affair, the international participants are supposed to get a sort of legal expertise and guideline on how Monsanto might be legally challenged in different countries, and prevented from further damaging the planet.

The participants are who is who in the global list of folks that one way or another have resisted either Monsanto directly, or the biotech industry, and are sort of well known in the field. Names such as Seralini or Kruger from Europe, Vandana Shiva from India, Shiv Chopra & Percy Schmeiser from Canada, Steve Marsh from Australia, Don Huber & Stephanie Seneff from the US are in the provisional agenda, and are expected to present their evidence to the judges, on Monsanto’s wrongdoings. Even a few ambassadors are to be in attendance.

While I wish this endeavour all success, I could not help notice that the whole thingamajig  essentially misses the bus.

Monsanto has been used as a convenient punching bag by all sorts of organizations and people, without much success. To me, targeting Monsanto is what the Biotech Industry would like us to do. Why ? Because such an effort will always be little more than symbolic. Further court cases against Monsanto will only enrich a few legal pockets. Why? Because Monsanto does not necessarily break the law, but rather influences Governments to bend the rules to favour the corporation. In fact, the only legal cases that have sort of succeeded, and thus provided some jurisprudence in the GM technology issue have been against Governments and not against Monsanto.

Monsanto is just a corporation and most Corporations will do whatever it can, to make a profit, irrespective of the human or environmental Cost. In that, it is not very different from the Pharma industry that wishes to push unnecessary vaccines down your throat, or corporations like Nestle that might wish to grab pubic water, oil giants wanting to steal someones fossil fuel reserve, or the military industrial complex pushing armaments across the world and promoting continuous warfare.

The real culprit and the root of all these evils, including that of Monsanto, is political corruption in Government. It might start with Obama downwards in the US, Trudeau down in Canada, and so on. It is our Governments that are suspected of working against the interest of the people, and passing laws that allow free reign to corporations including Monsanto.

Therefore, without any mention at all of Government level political corruption, this entire Tribunal, to me, is a waste of time, and an effort to keep the public barking up the wrong tree.

When a the problem is rooted in political corruption and an onset of fascism, it can only be solved by grabbing this rotten political bull by the horn. It is my belief that ecocide will not be stopped by lawyers targeting Monsanto. It will, if at all, be done by the people going after corrupt Governments.

I wish the wise people attending this tribunal will ponder on that, and perhaps let the attendees know that a mock tribunal is, after all, only a mock one. As long as it keeps targeting Monsanto, and keeps focus away from corrupt politicians and irresponsible Governments – nothing will change, and this tribunal itself will be little more than a pompous circus and an attempt to misguide the people. And misguided is exactly what corrupt politicians, Governments, Monsanto and the biotech lobby would like people to be.

Canada should start for testing glyphosate

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Time to ask our governments to start testing people and food for glyphosate

Things have changed in the past year. We have been badgering the previous (Harper’s) Government in Ottawa for two years to get labs set up in Canada where people could test their urine and food for glyphosate. Some of our letters to the minister has been hand carried by then MPs to the then Minister of Health to respond to.

Sample table of compiled results

Sample table of compiled results

The good news is – today an increasing number of Canadian labs are coming up to test food items for detection of glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in RoundUp herbicide.

Unfortunately, we still have not located a lab that will test glyphosate in human body fluids such as urine, blood or mothers breast milk. We hope that happens soon. But we have now found ways to send samples across the border to USA for testing, which was proving to be expensive and difficult due to US customs rules.

Meanwhile, from various communication we have had with the Canadian Government, including through the Access To Information Act, it appears increasingly unlikely that our Government has actually seen any result of safety test of glyphosate, and may have approved it based on maker’s own statement and third party opinions. We are trying to look through this cobweb by asking the Government to disclose and make public what safety test it saw while approving Glyphosate. The response has been unsatisfactory less than transparent, with a veil of secrecy wrapped around the issue.

So, a separate petition is promoted on line, for the new Minister of Health to disclose safety test data on Glyphosate for people to verify.

Meanwhile, it is perhaps now our duty as citizens concerned about public health and quality of food, to keep our provincial Governments informed of the fact that glyphosate may have been approved circumventing the law and without studying any safety test record. It should therefore be of interest to the local governments to start testing our food and our people, to see concentration of glyphosate, and to let the people know of these results. This testing is now possible and within reach of the Government, since tests only cost from CAD 100 to around 250.

Meanwhile, we the citizens can initiate limited testing ourselves within our means, and start putting the results up on line for people to see. A sample table is put up here.

Folks interested to write to their governments, federal, provincial and municipal, we encourage you to do so and invite you to join our collective effort.

This may not be easy for a single person, but together, we can force our Governments to show diligence in ensuring that safety information as well as contamination from toxins are measured and people are kept informed.

This is a blog that will likely evolve as the efforts coalesce. Watch this space and feel free to contact me.

Thanks

Tony Mitra

Meanwhile, here is a brief list of Glyphosate MRL from Health Canada on various food items

GLYPHOSATE MRL – by Health Canada

Database reveals questions, and offers hints

I started looking afresh at the Health Canada public website for details put up my PMRA on pesticides in food, and their maximum recommended Residue limit in various kinds of food.

First, the unit used for MRL (maximum residue limit) was not mentioned in the results of search. For example, if you search for safe maximum residue limit of glyphosate in wheat, it will produce result of 5, but will not say if it is 5 ppm, or 5 mg/Kg of the wheat, or 5 mg/Kg body weight for the consumer or 5 ppb or what. This absence of indication of unit is something I found puzzling and also unprofessional. I had to ask a lab test expert from New Brunswick, who told that form his quick look, the unit appears to be ppm. I presume it is ppm in the wheat itself, in other words 5 mg/Kg of wheat.

I intend to dig into this a bit more regarding PMRA’s limits, and what unit is used, and what exactly it means.


The other interesting things I noticed were, in general, as follow

1) Most all factory farmed animal products including meat and milk are declared to have some MRL value for glyphosate.

2) Most all vegetable products are not in the list, probably an indication that these are not expected to have any traceable glyphosate, hence no limit has been set.

Deduction to be made from the above two – if you are deadly serious about reducing glyphosate – you might consider becoming a vegan, or seriously cut down on animal products.

Among vegetables there are tantalizing exceptions.
Soybean and Corn being known as large RoundUp ready crops, and most north American sugar coming from sugar beet – these are expected to have glyphosate, hence they also have MRL levels declared. So, if you want to avoid glyphosate, stay away from them.

Garden grown beet apparently is OK, as well as most other vegetables and fruits.

But for Mustard – watch out.

This one family, strangely, has multiple varieties listed with wildly varying figures.

Some are not in the list, such as standard (non branded) mustard and seed, indicating these are unlikely to have glyphosate. But other kinds, condiment type, oil seed type, and Hare’s ear mustard, can have as high as 10 ppm glyphosate. I have no idea what these are, but am very aware that GM mustard is already being grown in some places, which must have some brand name. GM mustard is also being shoved down India’s throat, so they produce a heck of a lot of it for local consumption and perhaps also for export. I do not know their brand names or where they originate from. but this multiple variety of mustard oil convinces me to be very careful about it.

Sugarcane cane is not listed, even if some of it is grown in Asia with glyphosate desiccation. So sugarcane question remains confusion.

I do not know why refined beet sugar does not have an MRL but sugar beet has a high MRL. Is it because Health Canada accidentally missed it, or could the refining process somehow remove the glyphosate? Can someone answer these questions.

I have included my first jotting of these partial readings into my blog, where I wish Canada starts testing their food, to see where the glyphosate levels in food are at this moment.

I understand the Govt is right now testing a lot of food, and might re-adjust these MRL figures as new information comes to light.

I am jotting this down so that future adjustments might be noticed.

Its a lot of work and takes a lot of time. Anybody wants to pitch in and help, is most welcome.

Meanwhile, this response comes back from the Access To Information (ATI) and Privacy Act Division of Health Canada, about revealing the safety test documents relating to glyphosate that the Government is supposed to have studied before approving use of glyphosate in agriculture

Altered Genes – Did Druker miss out on Glyphosate ?

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I have read Steven Druker’s book Altered Genes, Twisted Truth. While being a passionate activist on food security issues, and used to be singularly focussed on the ills of GMO, I have shifted my stance now to be more aware, and more alarmed, about Glyphosate and its effect not just in food, but also in prairies, forests and just about everywhere, even in our lawns, and what it all is doing to this planet. I have been fortunate to have come to know a rising number of scientists from around the world, at the same time many other passionate people that flock to anti-GMO gurus to listen to them. I also consider North America is about the very worst of all continents when it comes to either general awareness of the problems with either Glyphosate or GMO, and also far less successful in resisting them, compared to any other continent where humans live.

So, I decided to sent a note to Steven Druker about his book, but primarily because I got bugged by some of his ardent supporters who seem to be fixated more on GMO than on Glyphosate, pretty much in line with Druker’s book. I hope to be able to catch up with Steven Druker some day, or perhaps have  a talk with him over the phone, and share views. My mail was sent to him through Linked-in since I do not have his direct email. In case that does not reach him, or he does not check that often, I decided to make it available to him as well as to the blog readers, here. I believe this is a constructive criticism that Druker would benefit from, and quite different from the vitriolic attack he sometimes faces on the web.

To: Steven Druker,

Author – Altered Genes, Twisted Truth

Dear Mr. Druker,

I am a Canadian citizen, and an activist on food security issues. I am also a blogger with an average daily readership of between a thousand and two thousand hits, mostly from North America, but also clustered in western Europe, South Asia and far east.

I have purchased and read your book, Altered Genes, Twisted Truth, and have discussed parts of it with many different people including some scientists from Canada, USA, Europe and India.

I wish to pass you some mild criticism about your book. I hope you will take them in good spirit and perhaps attend to some of them in the next reprint. 

In my view, the most glaring issue in this book, a feeling also shared by some scientists, is not what it says as much as what it does not say. Your book does not give due credit to the seriousness of the threat of Glyphosate, the most used biocide in the planet, and other stacked biocides that are on the horizon. Mention of Glyphosate in your book is almost like an distraction to the main theme, which is GMO, and how it was unethically approved in the US.

I understand that GMO is a highly visible issue – even presidential contenders are talking about if they support or do not support GMO labelling. In short – GMO sells. Therefore a book on GMO, especially if it can expose Government corruption, will sell. That Governments are failing to protect the people and are promoting corporations and share holder interests, is a common belief across the western democracies.

India, for example, has only one GM crop approved so far – Bt. Cotton. But India is awash with Glyphosate and the provinces such as Punjab, with high agricultural activity, those that were once considered the granary for India, are now known as its cancer capital. Two year old kids are now having cancer, in regions where they grow absolutely no GM crop at all, all thanks to herbicides and in particular, RoundUp.

You are likely aware that Sri Lanka is having a running battle with WTO, IMF and the World Bank, because the country wants to ban Glyphosate altogether since their sugarcane workers started dying of kidney failure ever since they started spraying non-GM sugarcane just before harvest. Unfortunately, these international institutions are threatening the country of financial ruin through cutting of credit and devaluing their credit rating etc, unless it backs away from banning the chemical across the board. In other words, there is more than just FDA and EPA, that are following unethical practice, to push Glyphosate down the throat of other nations. Even the actions of the US State Department deserves your investigation.

Within the BRICS nations, China is an interesting case to which I shall draw your attention. Russia wants the BRICS group to altogether ban Glyphosate. South Africa is on the fence but would like to join. Indian Govt is on the fence but the people in general would like to join this ban. China is very against banning Glyphosate. Why ? Because China is the biggest producer of Glyphosate (for American brand names) and exporter. Therefore, they do not want the Glyphosate market to shrink.

Therefore, it is my opinion that, to do justice to the topic, you might need to give much a higher exposure to the saga of Glyphosate.

Another thing, it is my understanding that US regulators such as EPA require toxicological tests not just for 90 days but for a lot longer, up to two years. This may not have been evident at the time of writing your book but Monsanto’s tests, their reports as well as raw data have been selectively released to key people with non-disclosure agreements, after 35 years. Anthony Samsel has over 4,000 pages of it, and has started investigating how Monsanto misrepresented the test data to claim that Glyphosate was safe. However, some of the tests extended to two years. I draw your attention to your book on Glyphosate (RoundUp) references on, for example, pages 302, 303, 304 etc. Perhaps you would consider amending that in the next printing. In my thinking, that 90 days test requirement may be factually incorrect. The reason the test results were accepted as satisfactory was not because the period of the test was short, but because Monsanto may have cheated in presenting the data. Incidentally, I interviewed Anthony Samsel on the now selectively unsealed Monsanto documents. Two short videos on them can be found on my blog: http://www.tonu.org/2015/06/06/glyphosate_tradesecretfiles/

There is a growing movement across the planet to rise up against Glyphosate. You of course are aware that Glyphosate is now routinely used as desiccant on non-GM crops, such as cereals, in North America, and it is difficult today for people here to find a meal without glyphosate, even if they go for certified non-GMO crops.

You may or may not be aware, that scientists in the US that make their own bread from certified organic wheat, which they buy in sacks, have found the wheat to be contaminated with Glyphosate in some of the bags, enough to make them sick. This goes to show how endemic the problem is.

There are a rising number of independents studies creeping up from all across the planet, about serious health effects, even deformed babies, from Glyphosate exposure. Separate wildlife scientists in North America are finding evidence that our wildlife, mostly ruminants and other mammals, and even many bird species, are standing at the verge of extinction, primarily suspected as victims of Glyphosate and its damaging effects on their microbiome. According to some of these scientists, large game mammals in North America are going to face extinction soon, since many will be unable to produce viable offspring, due to damaged reproductive system or infertility, while some bird species will face extinction due to highly skewed sex ratio, again thanks to Glyphosate.

I can introduce you, should you like, to some of these scientists. These stories have not yet been told properly and their findings have not seen proper light of day, due to disinterest from Government, media as well as the public.

Meanwhile, you are likely aware that a rising number of labs across north America are beginning to offer high end, low detection level, repeatable, accredited tests to detect Glyphosate in all kinds of raw and processed food, as well as live crops and grain. Also, a lot of people now are beginning to test their Urine for Glyphosate.  I am told Hollywood is getting ready to publicize it too – not sure if this Hollywood story is correct.

Here in Canada, folks are getting engaged in testing their own food and doing self-labelling, bypassing the entire do-nothing government. I am personally involved in this effort, as well as notifying the major food store chains that our intension is to test their food and put the results up on the web.

Anyhow, it is my honest opinion that your book has done a disservice to the very real dangers associated with glyphosate, with or without GMO. Many scientists, including genetic engineers and agrologist and soil biologists consider Glyphosate in the long run to be a greater threat and easier to prove scientifically, than GMO. That may be one reason the industry likes people to stay focussed on GMO, supporting the argument that the industry is comfortable responding to GMO concerns, but not Glyphosate.

I would like to touch base with you some day, should you come this way. I live in Delta, near Vancouver. I am friendly with many scientists – biochemists, microbiologists, genetic engineers, top biologists, agrologist and the like, in USA, Canada, UK, Europe, Asia, and Australasia and have learned a bit from them about this serious issue.

I understand you are a lawyer. So you probably know that the only serious court cases in relation to GMO that has been lost by the regulatory authorities or the biotech industry and won by the litigators have been in India, on more than one occassion. I personally know the people that took the Government to court about GMO and actually won, putting a serious dent in the biotech industry’s effort to open that market. Unfortunately, Glyphosate has not faced that kind of focussed resistance and it is virtually everywhere in India, even without GMO, and is ruining their health, not to mention the ravages of farmer suicide that has crossed 300,000. Not all of them are to do with GMO, something that Monsanto and its partners are quick to point out, but nearly all are linked, one way or another, with Glyphosate, something that the same Monsanto would rather not have to answer.

Incidentally, Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai has recently published four papers, which conclude on a scientific basis that the concept of “substantial equivalence” is humbug, at least according to thousands of test results on GM against non-GM soy, when measuring glutathione and formaldehyde correlation. You might find it interesting to check on Ayyadurai’s work. I know him too.

Hoping to touch base with you some day, on phone of face to face.

Tony Mitra

Well, that was my letter to Druker. I hope I can have a good talk with him some day. I personally do not believe books on GMO will actually result in any measurable action in preventing its spread. I actually do not believe any prevention will happen through people singing petitions or by politicians either. Change has to happen with people directly engaging with their Government and rising op to stop this chemical attack. If it happens, it will be triggered by people other than armchair warriors.
That has been my observation even on the ground, such as in Eastern Europe or India. When Bt. Egg Plant was proposed for entry in India, there were hundreds of thousands of people on the march. It scared the daylights out of the minster of environment, who blocked it, effectively indefinitely, something that the new Indian Government is trying to undo, slowly.
In North America, people have forgotten how to rise up that way. Either for that reason, or for some other, we in North America are the worst off – which reflects in our health status in comparison to the other western nations, in every field. We are the sickest of them all, although we spend the most in healthcare, compared to all others.
I might add a discussion podcast, or perhaps a video, or other material, on what some of the other scientists and researchers, policy makers etc that have knowledge on it, might think about our Glyphosate problem, and how it has so far escaped the mainstream media, the political establishment and the public eye.
Readers are welcome to send me a note.

A few updates. I have received a very nice response from Dr. Don Huber in support of what Druker did in his investigative effort in the book, which is specifically focussed on the problems in the regulatory process of approval of GMO.
Dr. Huber agreed that I might copy his message here, which is

Tony,
Although your letter highlights the problem with glyphosate, it does a disservice to Steve Druker.  The PURPOSE of Druker’s book is to DOCUMENT the dangers of the PROCESS and the regulatory corruption that is present that is manifest in NOT JUST GMOs but also chemicals, etc. Without GMO, there would be much less glyphosate in our food even though I agree that desiccation with a systemic chemical like glyphosate is an abominable practice from a food safety consideration.
I commend Steve for his thorough documentation of the UNSAFE results of the PROCESS, and in doing it in such a readable and understandable manner! In visiting with him, he mentioned that he had several more chapters, but had to cut those because of length and didn’t want the purpose and focus of the book on the GMO PROCESS to be minimized.  There is plenty of room for someone else to write about glyphosate, as you know that those articles are published everyday.  Steve’s expertise is in the legal/regulatory arena which he shares very effectively in his book Altered Genes, Twisted Truth. This is a much needed discussion since the opposition to food labeling is based on “don’t condemn the process” which both Steve Druker in his book and Shive Ayyadurai’s excellent research (devoted solely to Unsafety of the PROCESS) document.  Just because there are unaddressed issues in society that need to be addressed, please don’t negate the important contributions a few brave souls have been willing to dedicate so much effort to thoroughly document.
You highlight a glowing need for a comparable documentation on glyphosate, but it should not be construed as a reason t criticize or negate what has been accomplished with Steve’s book on GMOs and the PROCESS as well as the betrayal of the public trust involved in the regulatory system!
Don
Don M. Huber
Professor Emeritus, Purdue University

I received another message from another scientist involved in this issue, and who knows Steven Druker personally. I am quoting the comment here, though I shall keep the sender’s name out of it since I did not obtain specific permission to disclose it.

I was disappointed as well by his “light” treatment of glyphosate. I think he was duped by all the propaganda that glyphosate is nontoxic to humans. I’ve tried to set him straight, but so far without success (I think).

Please give it a try!

I have also received a note from Dr. Samsel regarding his investigation of the Monsanto toxicological test. He corrected me in one area. The total number of pages of document thus released to him stands at over 15,000, and counting. It was 4,000 when I interviewed him last. So, Dr. Samsel has gotten a whole lot more now to sift through, regarding Monsanto, Glyphosate, EPA and the approval process.

Scientist friend Chenny from China supports Don Huber’s view, that Druker should not be responsible for highlighting glyphosate, since Drukers angle was GMO and FDA, not glyphosate and EPA, although glyphosate story is as important and damaging, as GMO.

Dear Tony,
I tend to agree with Don Huber’s comments.
If you carefully consider the whole book, you should understand that he approaches the issue from disclosing FDA regulatory procedures and result.
And, if you review FDA’s role over all glyphosate-tollerence GMO crops, you could see that they completely ignore the issue of glyphosate residues in glyphosate-tollerence GMO crops.
Part of the reason: “division of responsibility”, EPA (not FDA) is responsible of safety evaluation of pesticides, herbicides. Thus, once EPA classifies glyphosate/Roundup as safe to animals, humans, FDA then treats glyphosate/Roundup as safe and no concern to all glyphosate-tollerence GMO crops.
Monsanto takes advantage of this, in their “volunteer consultation” with FDA over all glyphosate-tollerence GMO crops, glyphosate residue is not even mentioned!
The same situation exists in China: When Monsanto applied for safety evaluation of RR soybeans/maize in 2003, glyphosate was not mentioned in any of their documents submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture, and RR soybean samples submitted to the Ministry for toxicology animal testing, were also grown without spraying Roundup. Ministry of Agriculture accepted all of this, especially because the same Ministry evaluated glyphosate/Roundup in 1988 and approved its “pesticide registration” classifying it safe to animals and human health!
This is why our efforts in China must start with the registration of  glyphosate/Roundup in 1988 based on falsified toxicology animal reports submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture, if we can not succeed on this issue, we have no ground to further attack the approval of RR soybean in 2003.
Accordingly, especially as a lawyer reviewing whatever legal effective evidence he can obtain, Druker will not (and cannot) discuss issues which are not available in the evidence he obtains.
Another even more important issue: Only by establishing widest possible united front against Monsanto and evil forces, the people can win. Accordingly, we must first evaluation if the person, like Druker, is a colleague on the same side, or an enemy on the other side, and treat them accordingly, and be careful not to miss fire and hurt each other on the same general side.
I suggest you give some further thoughts to the overall situation, and adjust you attitude and position with Druker.
Saying all the above, your critisim over glyphosate (not against Druker), is completely correct, and I believe that Druker also accepts. But, as a lawyer, and also for tacticle reasons, it is far more effective for his book not to discuss glyphosate, because this is completely not a FDA issue, it is a EPA issue.
Best regards
Chenny

Wildlife scientist Judy Hoy of Montana had an interesting feedback. She has not read the book, but believes Don Huber is right, in the sense that Druker’s book is on GMO and not glyphosate. Yet, she also mentions that, in effect, Druker’s book is nothing compared to the ravages that glyphosate brings on the planet. She also attached a graph in her response, of glyphosate against children’s autism.

Hi Tony,

I agree with Don Huber that Druker’s book was about GMOs in particular. (I haven’t had time to read it yet.) It would likely take at least two books equal in size to Druker’s book to report even a little of the extensive, sadistic damage Roundup/glyphosate is doing to the planet. Humans and most other animals will likely be gone because of that damage long before the total effects of releasing GMO plants on the planet reach their full potential.

Did I or anyone else send you The Earth is not Roundup Ready? It is a short document listing just a few of the things that Roundup/glyphosate are doing to cause global climate change and cause the demise of most species of vertebrate. It is based on what several scientists told me. I just put the effects in a list of sorts and sent it to other scientists.

I really don’t think that GMOs can work nearly as fast as Roundup, working synergistically with the other deadly pesticides (umbrella term), to destroy life on the earth. I may be wrong, but based on my observations for the last 20 years, I doubt it.

I thought your blog was great. Feel free to share our 2015 study with Steven Druker if you have the opportunity. It pretty much shows graphically and photographically what Roundup is doing to newborns of birds and mammal, including children. I have to say that I have a serious problem with governments allowing chemical companies to get by with maiming and killing millions of human babies. That is government condoned genocide, which I thought was not supposed to be allowed “ever again.” And as you say, one of the worst offenders is the United States (Canada may not be far behind if the birth defects on the animals are any indication.) Also, the serious effects of Roundup and the other highly used pesticides is extensively and actively covered up by all government agencies, almost all media, almost all conventional medical organizations and professionals, etc., which makes all of them accomplices in the mass genocide.

Best Wishes,
Judy

Microbiologist, soil biologist, and ex-agriculture Canada scientist Dr. Thierry Vrain had this to say about the book

I will play the devil’s advocate.  I read that thick book quickly and saw the space devoted to the danger of glyphosate – practically nil.   The whole book is about the history of evils that Monsanto has done, including the faked results of corporate research.   But there is nothing about the commercial successes of the RoundUp Ready technology (and desiccation of grains) taking over 500 million acres, and less than nothing about the herbicide sprayed on that half billion acres.  Don’t you find that a little strange ?

A one liner for yet another scientist, commenting not so much on the book, but about my role.

Tony, I am thrilled that you are so involved with this very important mission, and that you have a unique role to play!

This came from Victor Hafichuk, who had hosted us in his huge farm in Alberta during our GE talk tour event at Lethbridge. I had a time finding it in a snow covered agricultural landscape with no identifiable landmark anywhere, in the darkness. I still smile at that experience. This is the first feedback from a non-scientist.

From what I’ve learned, not only from you, is that glyphosate should receive no small billing. It seems to me that small mention of it is as bad as no mention at all, perhaps worse, like labeling GMO’s as though they’re legitimate food and that people ought to have a choice between food and poison. What’s poison doing on grocery shelves, anyway? We’re talking a fire-breathing dragon here, aren’t we? Should we be casual about the dragon or the fire? 

And keep up the good work, Tony. In the end, when all is said and done, Truth ALWAYS prevails, no matter the time or medium or apparent failures in the meantime….

GMO is a trojan horse, to quietly bring in glyphosate – says André Comeau, geneticist, Quebec City, working to develop plants that need zero pesticides

GMOs are a Trojan horse for pesticides. Alas the people are so poorly aware of the Greek literature that at least two thirds of them do not even know the meaning of Trojan Horse. But Trojan horse is the best descriptor of GMOs. It means nowadays, it is the doomsday gadget (GMO) that introduces a dangerous enemy (glyphosate), without giving any alert to the victims (that there is glyphosate in it).

 

Further feedback from Scientist Stephanie Seneff

I think he wrote a great book – one of the few that I have taken the time to read all the way through this year – but I can not help but say that I was disappointed that glyphosate didn’t get more coverage.

The only conclusion I can make is simply that he was not aware that it is so toxic.  I can forgive him for that, as it is hard for people to believe – even people who are experts on GMOs – that glyphosate COULD be that toxic, given that all the regulating agencies have given it the ‘okay.’

Stephanie

I received more feedback from non-scientists as well, but shall leave that aside for now. It is quite clear to me at least, that, the issue of importance of glyphosate as a very dangerous chemical that is on us in unbelievably huge quantities and is threatening life at a planetary scale, is agreed more or less by everybody.

Then there is a split, right down the middle, with some stating Druker did not need to tackle glyphosate (or he may be unsuited for that task), and the other half thinks Druker should very much have mentioned, even for two or three pages, the extreme danger glyphosate poses to the planet.

I believe, whether the book is by a scientist, a lawyer, a writer, an activist, or Mickie Mouse, if it is about corruption in the US institutions in accepting GMOs for agricultural use, it aught to have also covered the parallel ravages of glyphosate (in my mind glyphosate is a lot worse), just so the readers are not mislead into thinking GMO is the beginning and end of all evil, and you can drink glyphosate on the rocks before going to bed.

Steve Druker himself sent a long email to me – half scolding me and half demanding an apology. I would have posted his letter here too, as he had suggested, but he ended his email stating that I should not publish this letter till he has a chance to refine them a bit. Sine he did not send any such refinement, I have not posted his letter here.

Yellow journalism

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Used to be a time when each town had one or two family owned newspapers, and collectively a nation had a lot of variety in their news services. Each paper may or may not have a particular tilt in its presentation – pro poor, pro rich, left or right, anti this or anti that.

Together, they presented multiple angles and points of view on issues that mattered to the people, and to the nation.

Unfortunately, that is not how things are today, thanks to extreme consolidation of the news media. Today a single mogul or media house, who may not even be from your country, can own every large paper and coax all of them to to push its own bias on an entire nation.

Ideally, there should have been an anti-monopoly laws that prevent this from happening, but then, there are a lot of things that should have happened in Canada but did not.

Here is an example – of what I consider to be yellow journalism. This article came out in Globe and Mail on October 29. This looks like an angry reaction to an interview that CBC conducted on Dr. Shiv Chopra, in relation to the TPP deals  in general, and about possible import of American milk from cows treated with growth hormones in particular. The CBC interview with Dr. Chopra can be found here.

In my opinion TPP is engineered to promote profiteering by corporations against the interests of a nation and gives these corporations extraordinary power to prevent national Governments from protecting its market, its interest, or its people from predatory practices by these corporations. In its basic form, it can be argued that such deals are anti-democratic, and there are justifiable reasons one can have objections to such deals.

This lady might be beholden to the religion of corporate greed or share holder profiteering. Anyhow, her article appears to be aimed at trashing Dr. Shiv Chopra’s life work, particularly because Chopra was vocal in his criticism of TPP and questions the safety of American milk treated with rBGH.

Perhaps she considers a corporate driven USA to be the reference point of every heavenly thing that earth has seen, meaning, if something happens in USA, then it must be the best thing.

One could take this kind of convoluted logic to an extreme, and claim that, if USA has most per capita people in jail, then Canada should follow suit and start jailing our people right and left, because, by that mind set, we are badly lagging behind USA in this important area.

Dr. Chopra was employed as a top scientist in Health Canada involved in approval of products that went into human food system. His concern was human health and safety.

The bovine growth hormone (rBGH) was being touted as the next best thing since our species ancestors lost their tail and got down from trees, figuratively speaking. Injecting cows with this growth hormone is supposed to force ( they used more Gandhian terminology such as “induce” instead of force) the cows to produce more milk than they would normally do.

Shiv wanted to see safety tests done on this product before approving it. This is a very normal request, especially from someone in his position. His job was not to see if the injection does indeed result in more milk. His job was to check if that milk could be harmful to people who drank it.

So he asked for test results to be submitted to him. These results would normally involve sample mammals such as rats or rabbits to be injected with this hormone, and then the blood chemistry and milk chemistry of these animals as well as other health parameters to be measured, and compared with another set of animals of the same species that were not treated with this hormone. The resultant comparison of raw data is expected to indicate if the treated animal remained healthy, if its milk did not contain undue amounts of growth hormone, if its body did not produce unwanted antibodies as a reaction to the hormone, if its milk did not contain anything other than what normal milk should contain, etc.

Normally, it would not be necessary for an approval authority to ask for these safety test data, because it would automatically be included by the producer in their application. But, for reasons better known to the producers, this safety test documents were excluded from the file and Shiv Chopra did not have them.

So he asked for them. Simple.

But, instead of providing the requested information, the producer went over his head to the politicians, and got Shiv Chopra sacked. Not only that, the Government passed a gag order on Shiv, so that he would not be allowed to speak about the circumstance under which he was fired. Dr. Chopra had to fight this gag order in court and had that lifted, before he could publish a book – Corrupt to the core, to expose endemic corruption within Health Canada.

That is the story about Shiv Chopra, and rBGH. That hormone remains unapproved in Canada and milk treated with it remains banned from import. A majority of European nations have outright banned the hormone in their dairy industry. But now, thanks to TPP, such milk may enter Canada through the back door.

That is what concerns Dr. Chopra, and that is what he spoke about.

The article in Globe and Mail essentially amounts to a murder of truth, and an sorry example of corporate driven yellow journalism. You can see your yourself by clicking on the picture.

I do not fault the woman for the twisted view she is projecting. Not every one is knowledgable. Not everyone is perfect. People have a right to be stupid. I however fault Globe and Mail for putting it up. But then, I started this blog on the issue of death of true investigative journalism. Globe and mail article proves that in Canada, free press has been replaced by free jokes.

The question in my mind is – should I consider Globe and Mail same as junk mail.