Category Archives: GMO

Wayne James on sustainability in farming and politics

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Wayne James is an organic farmer, overseeing 150 acres of ancestral farmland, and lives near the town of Beausejour, Manitoba.

He is also a Green Party candidate from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, Manitoba.

The farm was organic in his grandfathers time. During his fathers time, it followed the Govt promoted trend and became chemical dependent, toxic and unsustainable for the land and the planet.

Wayne has reconverted it back to organic. He does not do it to make a huge profit, though it pays the bills. He did it to live in harmony and in partnership with the land and the living planet and hopes to leave the land and the environment as good for the future, as it was in the past when his ancestors first stepped on this land.

He does not promise miracles for the constituents of his rural riding, but invites them to join hands with him in a responsible, sustainable stewardship of their land and environment that is recklessly being destroyed in the phoney promise of growth, development and economy that is actually pushing degradation, poverty and decay on Canada.

Here is a 7 minute video where Wayne speaks with Tony Mitra, about his views on farming, economy and why he entered politics.

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Rose Stevens volunteers to improve voter participation in their riding

Rose Stevens is a holistic practitioner, an organic farmer, a concerned citizen and a fire breathing anti-GMO/Glyphosate activist from Manitoba. She is knocking on doors and talking to people at the dentists, the grocer, the gas station and anywhere else she finds people in their rural spread out riding, convincing people to register and vote, and vote for Wayne James of the Green party – and support the platform of clean air, clean water, clean food and clean politics.

I spoke with her and below is the ten minute talk as a podcast which you can listen to, by clicking on the play button below.

The remarkable story of Richard Miller

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Richard Miller was a healthy, barely thirty young man back in the 1990s, when he started getting sick with an incurable and permanently present migraine headache. The illness made him unfit to work every so often. Some days he would be unable to get off his bed, or keep his food down. He was visiting the Hospital sometimes 18 to 20 times a year. He lost his regular job. He spent countless thousands of dollars trying to cure himself, without success. He got progressively sicker, became obese, developed blood cholesterol and other problems, got into an indenting list of medicines he had to take. But nothing helped.

Then, in the fall of 2013, he saw Dr. Mercola on TV, in Hawaii. The doctor was taking in calls from the public. So Richard called him, and luckily got through. The doctor, after listening to his story, suggested that Richard tries to go 100% organic for a month, and see if that helps.

Richard did. On the tenth day, he woke us without a headache and feeling better than he had for the last 20 years. The experience changed him. Today he looks trim and healthy, years younger than his fifty plus years. And along with himself, he is changing his very neighbourhood in Chilliwack, BC, Canada.

Now, he is a messiah that is converting his neighbourhood, one house at a time, to get them to start growing their own organic food in their own front and/or backyard, and promoting chemical free food, including organic sprouts. In order to help convince his neighbours, Richard passes out free seeds, saplings, compost, and even his own about, to help a neighbour get started.

Watch the remarkable story of Richard Miller, in his own voice.

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Anthony Samsel and Monsanto’s Secret on Glyphosate

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Dr. Anthony Samsel got hold of the Trade Secret files on Glyphosate from EPA, that had been sealed and protected from public eye for 35 years. He had to sign a legal agreement not to copy or show those documents to anybody, although he is allowed to study the content and talk of his own opinion about them.

And express his opinion he did. IN an hour long telephone interview with me, he disclosed how Monsanto used unethical means and unrelated information from other tests, to find an excuse to ignore what their own tests glaringly showed – evidence of harm to the animals exposed to Glyphosate.

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I broke the talks into two parts, part 1 of 19 minutes and part 2 of 12 minutes. The rest of the conversation was more from me and less from Dr. Samsel and covered issues within Canada, and how Glyphosate might have been approved by the Canadian Govt. Those issues I feel are outside of the main scope of this blog and this topic – which is – Glyphosate is unsafe to be in our food or environment. All herbicides are unsafe to be in our food or in cattle feed or in nature. These chemicals should be banned. Also, the practice of using unrelated, contaminated, historical controls to explain away glaring evidence of harm in lab tests is a practice that should be banned in science.

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In my view – what Monsanto did was not science. It was voodoo.

Kate Storey of the Green Party nails it on GMO and Glyphosate

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Kate is an organic farmer based in Manitoba. She is also the Agriculture critic of the Green Party and an aspiring politician that is standing for the coming federal and provincial elections, hoping to be either an MP or an MLA.

For me this was a back to back interview with two candidates of the Green Party. They are on a fast growth track, far as I can see, but are starting from a near zero level. Their system and policies stand apart from any other conventional party.

Besides, being concerned about Canada’s food security and this chemical and biological attack we are subjected to through foreign biotech corporations efforts to own everything in Canada and our politicians penchant to sell Canada piece by piece to the lowest bidder is, at least to me, a national crisis whose root is in political corruption and can only be resolved politically, by electing good people into our parliament. Just like Politicians have a duty to protect the land and the people, a task in which they are failing, citizens have a duty, to ensure good people get elected, and to keep our politicians in check. A functioning democracy needs both elements – good politicians and involved citizens.

I wanted to ask her questions that relates to the particularly unenviable position that Canada is in, with regard to exposure to transgenic organisms and nasty biocides such as Monsanto’s RoundUp herbicide and others being used on our food system, our prairies, forests, parks and everywhere else.

I wanted to ask her if the Green Party might bolster its policy on UN convention on biodiversity and the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety, by proposing to ratify the Cartagena Protocol and actually pass a law that will protect indigenous flora and fauna. She agreed this is a good idea and asked me to send her the details. Members of the party can propose amendment on their party policy and she was a member, so she would consider helping the party adopt it.

Then she spoke for around ten minutes straight, describing the Green Party agriculture policy, possibly reading it out, and covered a lot of ground so we did not have to ask each item one by one. I was concerned about the rural heartland being depopulated as small farmers were driven to extinction, and becoming unemployed job seekers while mega corporate farms replaced them and turned to extremely energy and input dependent toxic chemical dependent mono-culture regime that only bring illness to the people and lifelessness to the land while impoverishing the people. She did a good job explaining all of that in one shot.

Then we went to another difficult issue – political alliance in ridings where the left vote is split and the conservatives gain by stealing the seat there. I got a response from Tom Mulcair about his effort to form an alliance with the Liberals, but that the Liberals refused. He did not mention the Greens.

Kate spoke on record that the NDP had refused to form any alliance with the Greens. The Greens had tried very hard to form alliance with both Liberals and the NDP but apparently none of the larger parties were interested. This is a tragedy, in my mind, because ego of the parties get in the way and open the path for the Conservatives, who are ruining the country.

I should be asking Tom Mulcair again to clarify the issue of alliance with the Greens.

Kate opposes absentee owners of the farm land and supports agriculture cooperatives for helping small farmers and dependence in local food instead of our cauliflowers coming from California.

Pesticide use has increased instead of decreasing, with widespread adoption of GM crops. The party is aware of Glyphosate poisoning of people and proposes all children being tested for Glyphosate.

I did not interrupt her to state that Canada does not even have a lab that will test children or our food for Glyphosate content. Canadian labs at this moment only offer testing Glyphosate in water and soil. I am personally involved in trying to coax labs to offer this service on one side, and asking the people to demand this test, so as to create a “demand” for this service, so that labs take note and get on board.

I should be asking Kate to consider writing in a policy to help in this effort so Canada gets a few labs that will test Glyphosate in people and food.

I asked her about mandatory voting law. Its not mandatory in Canada, and Canadian voter participation is rather poor. She things this is a great idea, as is the issue of proportional representation. The problem is, I thought, that current senators may never vote these systems in, because they are the beneficiary of the absence of these laws.

However, these are necessary goals and can only happen with public pressure and public demand.

She said NDP is in power in Manitoba and that they have a policy to support proportional representation, and yet, they have not passed this law. So,  somebody needs to ask NDP Manitoba about it. Perhaps I shall ask them by email, and see what they say.

Kate predicts that the Greens will get somewhere between ten and twenty seats in the next federal election, with British Columbia leading the way and perhaps PEI following suit.

All in all, this is one politician and hopefully a future MP that I really enjoyed speaking with.

I do hope she wins, and gets to kick some butt in Ottawa.

The podcast is just over 31 minutes long. You can listen to it by clicking the play button at the bottom of this page.

Dr. Josette Wier continues her battle against pesticides

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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.

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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

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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:
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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
.
[More to come here. Watch this space]

Create a demand for Glyphosate lab in Canada

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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

  1. Battaglin W.A., Meyer M.T., Kuivila K.M., Dietze J.E.  2014. Glyphosate and its degradation product AMPA occur frequently and widely in US soils, surface water, groundwater, and precipitation.  J. Amer. Water Res. Assoc. 50, 275-290.
  2. U.S. Patent  3,160,632 Stauffer Chemicals 1964
  3. US Patent 3,455,675 Monsanto Chemicals 1969
  4. Fernandez-Cornejo J., Wechsler S.J., Livingston M. and Mitchell L.  2014.  Genetically Engineered crops in the United States.  USDA Economic Research Report No. (ERR-162) 60 pp.   http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/1282246/err162.pdf
  5. EPA 2013 MCL (US Environment Protection Agency legal Maximum Contaminant Levels).
  6. U.S. Patent Number 7,771,736  Monsanto Chemicals 2010.
  7. Shehata, A.A., Schrödl, W., Aldin, A.A., Hafez, H.M. and Krüger, M.   2013. The effect of Glyphosate on potential pathogens and beneficial members of poultry microbiota. Curr. Microbiol. 66:350-358.
  8. Samsel, A. and Seneff, S.  2013.  Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases II.  Celiac sprue and gluten intolerance. Interdiscip. Toxicol. 6: 159-184
  9. Nelson, D.  2013. A world of cytochrome P450s. Philo. Transac. Royal Soc. London B 368 No 1612.
  10. Samsel, A. and Seneff, S.  2013. Glyphosate’s suppression of cytochrome P450 enzymes and amino acid biosynthesis by the gut microbiome: pathways to modern diseases. Entropy 15: 1416-1463.
  11. Nancy Swanson – Seattle GMO examiner.
  12. Gasnier, C., Dumont, C., Benachour, N., Clair, E., Chagnon, M.C. and Séralini, G.E. 2009.  Glyphosate-based herbicides are toxic and endocrine disruptors in human cell lines. Toxicology 262: 184-191.
  13. Benachour N. and Seralini, G.E.  2009.  Glyphosate induces  apoptosis in human umbilical, embryonic, and placental cells. Chem. Res. Toxicol. 22: 97-105.
  14. Koller, V.G., Fürhacker, M., Nersesyan, A., Mišík, M., Eisenbauer, M. and Knasmueller, S.  2012.  Cytotoxic and DNA-damaging properties of glyphosate and Roundup in human-derived buccal epithelial cells. Arch. Toxicol. 86: 805-813.
  15. Thongprakaisang, S., Thiantanawat, A., Rangkadilok, N., Suriyo, T. and Satayavivad, J. 2013. Glyphosate induces human breast cancer cell growth via estrogen receptors. Food Chem. Toxicol. 59: 129-136.
  16. Senapati ,T., Mukerjee, A.K. and Ghosh, A.R. 2009. Observations on the effect of glyphosate based herbicide on ultrastructure (SEM) and enzymatic activity in different regions of alimentary canal and gill of Channa punctatus (Bloch). J. Crop  Weed 5: 236-245.
  17. Paganelli, A.,  Gnazzo, V.,  Acosta, H.,  López, S.L. and Carrasco, A.E. 2010. Glyphosate herbicides produce teratogenic effects on vertebrates by impairing retinoic acid signaling. Chem. Res. Toxicol. 23: 1586-1595.
  18. Vecchio, L., Cisterna, B., Malatesta, M., Martin, T.E. and Biggiogera, M. 2004. Ultrastructural analysis of testes from mice fed on genetically modified soybean.  Eur. J. Histochem. 48:448-454.
  19. El-Shamei, Z.S.; Gab-Alla, A.A.; Shatta, A.A.; Moussa, E.A.; Rayan, A.M.  2012. Histopathological changes in some organs of male rats fed on genetically modified corn.  J. Am. Sci. 8: 684-696.
  20. Séralini, G.E., Clair, E., Mesnage, R., Gress, S., Defarge, N.,  Malatesta, M., Hennequin, D. and de Vendômois, J.S.  2014. Republished study: Long-term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize. Environ. Sci. Eur. 26:14
  21. Clair. E, Mesnage, R., Travert, C. and Séralini, G.É. 2012. A glyphosate-based herbicide induces necrosis and apoptosis in mature rat testicular cells in vitro, and testosterone decrease at lower levels. Toxicol. in Vitro 26: 269-279.
  22. Kruger, M., Schledorn, P., Schrodl, W., Hoppe, H.W., Lutz, W. and Shehata, A.A.  2014. Detection of glyphosate residues in animals and humans. Environ. & Anal. Toxicol. 4:2
  23. Zobiole, L.H., Kremer, R.J., de Oliveira, R.S. and Constantin, J. 2012. Glyphosate effects on photosynthesis, nutrient accumulation, and nodulation in glyphosate-resistant soybean.  J. Plant Nutri. Soil Sci. 175: 319

Why don’t I like GMO in Canada?

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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

 

Asking Politicians to come clean on GMO and pesticides

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To :
Hon. Rona Ambrose, P.C., M.P., Minister of Health
Hon. Gerry Ritz, M.P., Minister of Agriculture
Libby Davies, NDP Health Critic
Hedy Fry, Liberal Party Health Critic
Elisabeth May, Green Party leader
cc:
Alex Atamanenko, M.P, NDP – concerned on GMO & Glyphosate
Bruce Hyer, M.P. Green Party – concerned on Glyphosate
 
Dated – Nov 6th, 2014
 
Honorable minister of health, Minister of Agriculture,
Health critics
Concerned Parliamentarians
 
Good day
I have written in the past to a few of you on this general topic and put up the feedback, if any, on my blog at www.ton.org on issues considered to be of grave concern for Canadians. Today, I have another set of questions for you.

Hon Rona Ambrose – Health Minister

 
I am a retired Marine Engineer, Shipmanagement executive, consultant, and a blogger, podcaster, science interviewer, photographer, videographer, citizen journalist, food security activist and a writer, not to mention a public speaker currently on a talking tour, along with retired Agriculture Canada Scientist Dr. Thierry Vrain, across Canada on GM organisms and what it means to Canada’s future as an independent nation. 

Questions I have are about GMO, pesticide, and patented life forms introduced into Canada, to replace natural life forms.

1) What Science ?
Science in the western hemisphere is no longer public funded, and is wholly supported by the Industry. The Industry has no interest in funding any science project that aims to find faults with its product. As a result, science itself has gotten one side and lost its neutrality.
Please comment on this. 
2) Where is the independent analysis?
GM crops are considered intellectual property of the patent holder, which denies the right for any independent analysis of its quality or safety without express permission of the patent holder, and this permission is only given with conditions that the findings be first be vetted by the patent holder and any analysis that is not flattering, does not get to see light of day.
Please comment on this.

3) Science under dictatorial censorship.
Few scientists that, in spite of such severe restrictions, found problems with the GM technology or its pesticides and published their findings, manage to get fired, or their papers retracted from the journals, and they are discredited, lambasted and literally hounded out of the academic world.
Please comment on this.
 
4) Who owns living organisms? 
How do corporations get to own living organisms and their DNA? They did not create them from scratch, but first stole the DNA of a few living organisms (I say stole because if life forms can be “owned” then those living organisms must have been property of some entity, even God, before the Corporations decided to use it). And then these stolen DNA were polluted it by inserting genes of unrelated organisms, such as a toxic bacteria and a food crop plant. So, should we allow such patents and let the whole organism be patented and owned by a corporation?
Please comment on this.
5) Attack on God’s creation and on Canadian Independence?
The plan, as it appears, is for all living organisms, be it food we eat, or grass and alfalfa in the prairies, or trees in the forest or fish and animals and micro organisms, all living creatures that have some value, to be owned property of a few patent holding foreign corporation.No living organism that has any value to humans in any way, will belong to Canada or be God’s creation any more.
Please comment on this.

This is an open letter and will be put up on the web (www.tonu.org) for the public. Any answer from you or another recipient in copy, will also be put up. Our belief is that the public needs to know where politicians stand on such issues

 
Thank you
Tony Mitra
tony.mitra@gmail.com
(Address and contact)

MP Bruce Hyer Responds:

Good letter

I agree

Bruce Hyer, Deputy Leader, Green Party


GE talk tour Ontario – CBC Radio talks with Tony Mitra

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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.
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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.
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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.

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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.