Category Archives: Podcast

Vallianatos exposes EPA through his book – Poison Spring

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As the title says, Evaggelos Vallianatos, along with Mr. M. Jenkins co-authored the book on EPA, and how the organization has been literally captured by the toxic chemical industry, to the disadvantage of the average American, and by extension, of the people the world over.

I found the book very useful to understand how toxic chemicals get approved and how much of a clout the industry has over the regulatory mechanism. So much so that I approached Evaggelos Vallianatos for a phone interview, even if I was not very successful in pronouncing  his first name accurately.

He agreed and we had a talk a few days ago.

Here are the basic points:

  • The prevailing culture in EPA was to pretty much let the chemical industry to run the show.
  • The Government has been captured by the industry, and EPA is simply an example.
  • EPA is too important to be allowed to be dominated by such outside forces.
  • Decision made in EPA are questionable due to the influence that comes from the Congress, from the White House and directly from the Chemical Industry.
  • Credibility of science has been damaged due to the history of fraud in the testing of these toxic chemicals for decades.
  • The climate of fear, and acceptance of outside influence, is still pervasive.
  • America aught to reject the current EPA and redesign it as an independent organization, with a wall of protection from the industry so the scientists would feel secure and confident that their work and decisions are to be made on reliable and untampered data.
  • Also, the EPA or the Government needs to create a set of independent laboratories to test all these chemicals before they get into the market, and not rely on labs under control of the industry.
  • Credibility of the industry right now is as good as zero. Nobody trusts it’s findings. He himself would not trust them because of what he has seen in EPA.
  • This is very important because this not only affects the people of America, but also of Canada and pretty much the rest of the industrial world and beyond.
  • The system needs to be reformed, and its workings set right, and the industry needs to be kept away from interfering with the work of this agency.
  • We need to raise awareness by speaking about it, in Canada, in USA and elsewhere, in order to raise public awareness to the level where it can make an impact.
  • It has been 53 years since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring. There should be no need now to re-state the problem, and we are still tackling with the same old problem albeit with a new breed of toxins.
  • CSPAN book TV has interviewed Dr. Vallianatos to be broadcast soon – and people are encouraged to see it.
  • Eggevelos Vallianatos would love to speak to Canadians on this.
  • He believes, if we have to select just a handful of pesticides that should be removed immediately, we might choose to kick out 2,4-D and Glyphosate first.
  • When EPA banned 2,4,5-T, they likely made a secret agreement with Dow not to touch 2,4-D since it was so popular.
  • Glyphosate in Roundup is used for decades and there are some experts that believe it will destroy American agriculture. We don’t think such extremely toxic substances should be in our environment.
  • Moms Across America has some young mothers test their breast milk and found traces of Glyphosate in them. Imagine the feeling of the mothers when they know they might poison their babies through breast feeding !!
  • There is science papers out there already about how bad these toxins are for many animals and even humans. And now it is in mothers milk.
  • Governments should ban it. There is enough good food possible through organic clean agriculture. There is no need for this toxic model.
  • So why is this toxic industry surviving? Not to provide nutrition or kill insects or do any favour to nature or people, Vallianatos argues. They survive so a small number of corporations can have a mega empire.
  • Advise to  Canadians – start eating organic food. Doing so you avoid GMO, you avoid pesticide, you avoid sludge, radiation, and other synthetic chemicals. Then, start influencing others to do the same. Join environment protection groups. Then try to organize bigger groups to influence the politics of your region and your nation.

Its a 14 minute interview. You can listen to it directly at the bottom of this page, or you can download it to play later through your music player.

I shall be glad to hear your opinion. Write to tony.mitra@gmail.com

Cheers

Tony Mitra


MP Alex Atamanenko lends a word of support – on Glyphosate testing

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Since we concluded the eastern tour of the Maritime provinces, a number of new issues have come up, some of it with some involvement from my end as well. Here I shall cover one aspect of it – testing mammalian body fluids, such as human urine, blood or mothers breast milk, as well as cow milk, and perhaps even grain or bread etc, for presence of Glyphosate – the active poison in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide.

What I learned in the process is that the dozen or so labs in Canada that have the accreditation for testing for Glyphosate, none seem prepared to test its presence in any sample except water and soil. Urine, blood or milk from nursing mothers or cows cannot be tested. I told him of me being puzzled and wondering if Health Canada at all has imposed any acceptable limit of concentration of Glyphosate in humans, and if they do – what is that limit. More importantly, how do they test it if no lab in Canada can do that? If on the other hand, Health Canada has not set any limit of concentration in humans, and in effect considers any level of accumulation is fine – then why set a limit for potable water in the first place ?

What exactly is Health Canada’s position on accumulation of Glyphosate in humans and other animals?

I told him about the general conception that, if Glyphosate can bio-accumulate in the body, then its acceptable limit in environment should be way less than it is now. Presence of it in mothers breast milk in USA is already raising questions these questions across the border. I told him how most experts will agree that fetuses in the womb are more vulnerable to harmful molecules since they have not yet developed enough resistance to disease from what they eat, which is why an affected mother, if she can pass Glyphosate to the fetus, may pose a higher risk of harming the baby.

Mr. Atamanenko lent his support to getting the tests done across the border in USA, if no Canadian lab can do it. Further, he wished me to send a short note on the question my suspicion that Health Canada might not have imposed any limit to accumulation of Glyphosate in human beings, and worry that this is dangerous to health of Canadian people as well as the animal kingdom. Mr. Atamanenko wishes to push this issue directly to the minister of health.

You can listen to the 5 minute podcast of which just over two minutes are from Mr. Atamanenko.

Meanwhile, I received this note of relevance from Dr. Anthony Samsel himself, from Cambridge, Massachusetts:

Hi Tony,

All who consume food containing glyphosate residues, be they man or beast will have glyphosate residues circulating in their blood and bioaccumulating in their tissues.  Glyphosate bioaccumulates in the milk of all mammals and can also be found attached to the fatty acids of cerebrospinal fluid.  Contrary to Monsanto’s claims that glyphosate is metabolized and passed out of the body harmlessly in the urine and feces, some does bioaccumulate.

Glyphosate also attaches to muscle tissue which includes the heart and it has been found in the pancreas, liver and kidneys.  Glyphosate is passed up and through the food chain.  What affects one species, will affect all species exposed; there is no free lunch.  Glyphosate is an equal opportunity offender.

You may quote me

Anthony

So there you have it folks.
I shall be happy to have your feedback at tony.mitra@gmail.com

 

 

Prince Edward Island, Chloropicrin and Dr. Anthony Samsel

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Malcolm Joseph Pitre of Prince Edward Island asked for information that might help him resist the PEI provincial Government’s plan to introduce Chloropicrin for soil sterilization for a fruit farm, presumably strawberry.

Chloropicrin 100 - MSDS

I tried contacting Dr. Don Huber, professor emeritus, Purdue University. But he was not around. So I called Anthony Samsel of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Samsel knew Cholopicrin and told me much about it, which I recorded for listeners here.

Chloropicrin was a chemical warfare agent in the first World War, was stored in WW II, but is now banned, I believe, from military use – but is still used in Agriculture, for example as a soil fumigant. CDC identifies this chemical as a Lung Damaging Agent.

It is hazardous, a killer. Some of it would evaporate out of the soil after use. This gas is heavier than air and would stay close to the ground. The safety warnings say people should stay away from it. As Sr. Samsel said, non-toxic methods are less harmful and should be the first choice – such as steam sterilization methods. These technologies exist, and units are available that can be hauled as a trailer to site. A few samples are given here.

There are quite a few examples of steam soil sterilizers out there if one googles it. There may be someone within PEI that can source one locally or from within the maritime provinces. There are many documents freely available on line that give examples of how to use Steam, or even solar power to organically sterilize a patch of soil before planting. If needed, I wonder if Av Singh of Nova Scotia might help locate one, or offer advise on another non-toxic method of doing the same job.

As to calculating the pesticide load, I first picked the data off Environment Canada’s document on pesticide use in PEI as well as other provinces. Then I checked the area and the population, to create a table of per capita and per unit area, the average pesticide use for each province. PEI stands out in contrast because of the high pesticide load, which is ten times higher per capita and up to 17 times higher per unit area, compared to its neighbour Nova Scotia. It also appears to be way higher that any other region in Canada.

I would not be surprised if reported cases show higher occurrence of some disease, such as Cancer,Crohn’s disease, Celiac, Autism, obesity, and other illnesses were higher per unit population than elsewhere in Canada. However, I do not have the data, and it would be important to get the information on this. I did write a letter( emails ) to the Government of PEI, but received no response. I have not checked thoroughly for the PEI government information online, and would encourage local residents to try to locate or ask for information on annual reported cases of these illnesses and then see how they measure up against the rest of Canada and the rest of the western world.

After all, PEI is part of Canada and Canada is not exactly a third world country – or is it?

Gutsy Walk for Crohn’s and Colitis Canada, for example, says in its web site:
“Canada has one of the highest rates for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis in the world and those rates are increasing. Most alarming, the number of new cases of Crohn’s disease in Canadian children has almost doubled since 1995. Crohn’s and colitis are lifelong diseases that can have a devastating impact on quality of life, elevate the risk of colorectal cancer, and in the case of Crohn’s disease, shorten life expectancy“.

Sustainable Pulse, for example, has an article about the link between Monsanto’s Roundup and Global Bloom of Celiac disease and Gluten intolerance.

There are more things in the pipeline for Prince Edward Island, the maritime Provinces and the rest of Canada. One of them is about testing of Glyphosate in body fluids such as blood, urine, breast milk and also soil samples.

Dr. Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff have gotten engaged in providing a service that includes scientific analysis of the data, and on a more professional level. This service is provided to the right candidates in Canada. The right candidates would be those that are already sick from exposure, and those that are suspect due to living close to areas with heavy pesticide use, or are not so careful with what they eat. Nursing mothers with babies are preferred if they are suspect, since they can provide multiple samples, that could prove bio-accumulation of the material.

The cost of each test is US$ 100, to be paid ahead of the tests. Should a deserving candidate cannot afford to pay for the test, Drs. Samsel and Seneff will try to cover it out of their own pocket.

From our end, we need to identify the right candidates, and if they cannot afford the test, we should consider raising funds to help out, and not tax Dr. Samsel and Dr. Seneff far as possible.

More on all this later. This part of the talk (testing for Glyphosate) is not included in the podcast and will be covered with more detail down the line.


For now, you can click on the play button and listen to the 10 minute podcast of Dr. Samsel about a cleaner method for soil sterilization that Chloropicrin – for residents of PEI.

I shall be most happy to hear your comments to: tony.mitra@gmail.com

Thanks/ Tony

Canadians testing if Glyphosate accumulates in the body

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While speaking with Dr. Don Huber and Dr. Anthony Samsel about GMO and Glyphosate, I came to learn of Moms Across America group, lead by Zen Honeycutt, and their efforts to have presence of Glyphosate tested in volunteers urine and breast milk.

While this was going on, there were fledgeling groups of people across Canada that were getting ready to have their water, and body fluids tested for presence of pesticides, including Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s weed killer trade named ‘Roundup’.

I ended up asking a few labs for quotation for testing for pesticides. The labs approached were :

I had asked them to quote for testing for the following products:

  • Glyphosate
  • AMPA
  • Mancozeb
  • 2,4-D,
  • Bacillus theuringiensis H-14
  • MCPA

Gamma Dynacare cannot do it now. LLSG tests for trace elements, but not molecules such as pesticide. That leaves only Maxxam Analytics for now who will offer a quote for Glyphosate around next Tuesday. Brody Mossman of Maxxam lead me to the Nova Socita site for pesticide tolerance limits. You can find it here. I am also including parts of their tabulated chart with limits for Glyphosate here:

Glyphosate limit in soil - just under 1 ppm in fine and 1.4 in course

As you can see, the limits to ground (potable) water allowed is (at 280 ppb) is almost five times higher than allowed in surface water (65 ppb). Is that good ? We intend to ask around.

Meanwhile, Moms Across America used a lab called Microbe Inotech Labrotories (MIL) in St Lois, MO. I spoke with them too. They can do it, and are preparing a quote.

In order to popularize the effort and get more volunteers to come forward, I spoke with Rose Stevens of Manitoba to make a video and an audio podcast.

While all this was going on, I got linked with Henry Rowlings of Sustainable Pulse, who spoke about the Global GMO Free Coalition (GGFC) which is going to be announced on Tuesday (4 days from now). And now I know that it may be better, to find double samples from the same person, urine and breast milk from a nursing mother. Even better may be three samples, including urine from the baby, to see if:

  • Glyphosate can bio-accumulate, and get from being in the gut and urine, into breast milk
  • and if that Glyphosate can then establish itself into babies, who are inherently more vulnerable than grown ups.

Also, it may be an idea to take sample from people that have not been careful of where they get their food from.

All this is happening as we speak. Meanwhile, here is the talk between myself and Rose Stevens, to help kickstart the awareness drive on this issue.

[youtube kfpzLbdFtQs]

You can also listen to the audio podcast by clicking on the player below, or download and listen at leisure.

Hope you like it. You can send me your comments at tony.mitra@gmail.com

Anthony Samsel blasts GMO-Technology and the one gene one enzyme hyphotheses

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I have had the pleasure of speaking with three scientists in USA recently that have done work on GMO or Glyphosate and how they are likely the primary or an important ingredient in our runaway rise in chronic diseases. These are Dr. Don Huber, Dr. Anthony Samsel and Dr. Stephanie Seneff.

I have already created audio podcast of my talks with Dr. Huber (http://www.tonu.org/2014/04/15/don_hube/) and Dr. Seneff (http://www.tonu.org/2014/04/19/stephanie-seneff/). I am yet to create a full audio podcast of my talks with Dr. Samsel, primarily because of some recording glitch where the quality of sound was not the best and I was having a hard time trying to clean it up through editing. Perhaps I shall have to request him for a fresh talk again.

Meanwhile, I did manage to extract two short sections of the talk, and create short video clips of them. One is about Golden Rice and vitamin deficiency (http://www.tonu.org/2014/04/21/goldenrice-debunked/), where Dr. Samsel illustrates why Golden rice is unnecessary, and untested. More than that, if one wishes to improve vitamin intake of poor kids in third world countries, the first step should be to remove Glyphosate from their diet. Thats because Glyphosate inhibits people’s micro-biome from creating vitamins using the raw materials in their food. SO, removing Glyphosate would automatically improve a boy’s ability to have more vitamins from his regular food.

I was meanwhile on a trip to the maritime provinces of Canada, on the Atlantic coast, and four hours time difference away from British Columbia. I was there with Dr. Thierry Vrain, mostly networking. Dr. Vrain spoke about the bad science behind GMO and worse science behind Glyphosate and how important it was to keep them away from one’s dinner table. I spoke of how the people of Canada needed to get mad, get even, and wrench back control of the political process from the clutches of big money and a handful of corrupt and toxic corporations.

After returning home, I got to working with the audio file of me speaking with Dr. Samsel, and managed to extract another 8 minute of exchange about the issue of GMO technology itself – if taking a single gene from one organism and inserting into another organism can work in theory, given our current knowledge of how genome works. Isn’t there collateral damage and unexpected outcome that we are not even looking or testing for? Further, what happens when Glyphosate is allowed to mix into this brew?

Dr. Samsel had been more than clear, forthright and easy to understand on these issues. I was happy to learn that Dr. Mae-Wan Ho of UK was had recently written in an article, crediting Dr. Samsel and Dr. Seneff for proving that the one gene one enzyme hypothesis is false. Not only can disruption of one original gene and replacing it with something else cause unexpected damage, it can lead to a cascading series of problems and effects, and often does.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the video clip, 8 minutes long, where Dr. Samsel again blasts the idea that one could pick a gene from a dinosaur, stick it into a mesosaur and hope to create a functioning GMOsaur. GMOs in short, are a scientific humbug, and a devastating attack on the natural world, and our food security.

I also included a quote from Zen Honeycutt of Moms Across America, that i stumbled upon recently, and liked very much. My thanks to go Zen for a different reason, and relates to her group having samples tested for Glyphosate, which is something a few of us in Canada are also planning to do.

I hope you shall like the two short videos. I apologize for not being able to create a full length half hour audio podcast with him yet. But I am not giving up. I intend to ask him again, shortly, for indulging me.

You are most welcome to send me your comments or suggestions by email. One could also write directly on the blog, but one would first need to log in  there or create an account, which may be a bit of a hassle.

[youtube RmfWAnnu-RI]

The talk with Dr. Samsel is also available as an audio podcast for those that wish to listen in or save, linked below.

I shall be glad to hear your comments, sent to tony.mitra@gmail.com

Thanking you

Tony Mitra

Stephanie Seneff on Glyphosate – the 900 pound gorilla at our dinner table.

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Dr. Stephanie Seneff of MIT straddles multiple scientific disciplines and has pooled
in her resources, including jointing hands with specialists that had knowledge beyond her reach, to create tools that dots the ‘I’ and crosses the ’T’ on how Glyphosate is perhaps the most dangerous manmade product to be unleaded on the planet, as an agent of mass extinction.

It is a 45 minute podcast. The relevant points might be :

  1.  Biology, & Computer : Stephanie explains how she studied both subjects and more, and how her knowledge and expertise with both has helped her in her work.
  2. Stephanie mentions Dr. Don Huber, Dr. Anthony Samsel, as people who have done seminal work that have been important in this area.
  3. Autism – Stephanie talks about the rising tide of autism and its link with Glyphosate. Where is the autism spectrum leading ?
  4. Cancer and the sad story of the province of Punjab in India. Can Glyphosate be behind it too ? Stephanie Seneff says yes, and mentions work of Dr. Nancy Swanson in this regard, even naming the kinds of cancer that might be relevantLab test on effect of Glyphosate on individual bacteria – can be done and has been done, including studies involving E.Coli that changes its function when in contact with Glyphosate. One can also test effect indirectly with animals by study in the change of their fecal material, mentioning Judy Carman’s pig study.
  5. Cat-ions (metal ions), and minerals and enzymes – how important are they and why are our micro biota important with regard to these items? Dr. Seneff explains this big question on how our body needs many such minerals even though in small doses and how it depends on our gut bacteria to manage this function since we cannot perform them ourselves and how Glyphosate disrupts these processes by attacking these beneficial bacteria.
  6. Kids getting violent reactions from vaccines is on the rise – and Glyphosate is partially responsible for it – as Dr. Seneff explains.
  7. Autism is not only found at birth, but can increase in what is ‘regressive autism’, through causes that are linked to complex interactions between unhealthy ingredients in our food, environment as well as vaccines, and other factors.
  8. Sri-lanka story of arsenic, Glyphosate, sugarcane farming and kidney failure – Stephanie links these to explain the unfolding horror story in Sri-Lanka, which is prompting their Govt to ban the use of Glyphosate.
  9. Why do they include Aluminum and Mercury in vaccines, if these are dangerous metals?
  10. Is microbiome, or gut bacteria identical between people, or are the colony of bacteria unique for each person? It is unique for each.
  11. What is Shikimate pathway, and is it really right to say that we humans do not use it, and therefore Glyphosate is safe for us. The answer is we humans do use it, but indirectly through our micro biome and it is therefore very unsafe for us to be exposed to Glyphosate. And yet, it is approved for use. The argument that Glyphosate is safe for humans – is false.
  12. If Glyphosate in the food and the ground water is damaging to humans, can it also be damaging to wild animals, birds, insects and the living world? Yes it can, it is, and is a disaster of global proportions in the making.
  13. How does roundup ready crop survive Roundup? Also, the extra energy used by GM crop to do work as designed by the inserted gene, not take away from what the crop would otherwise do, i.e add nutrient to its seed or fruit?
  14. The story of the super weeds and the chemical treadmill.
  15. Corporate funding of science, as against public funding: Is science losing its neutrality, and objectivity ? Talks on what happened to Seralini.
  16. If Govts will not fund science, and if corporate funding is making science biased, what is the alternative?
  17. How does Roundup ready crops manage to survive when weeds and other organisms cannot ?
  18. Can super weed develop if pesticides are used continually?
  19. Is development of super weeds a more or less given? Does this mean more herbicides in quantity, more toxic herbicides will be needed? Are we on a chemical treadmill ?
  20. BIotech funding and control of Universities, journals and media. Is science losing its independence and objectivity ?
  21. If Governments will not fund science research any more and corporate funding is turning science to have a biased stance – what is the alternative ?
  22. Is Stephanie Seneff also facing corporate backlash because of her work ? Yes.
  23. Is funding for her work drying up as a result? No. She is not funded by the biotech industry, but by the computer industry, which hopes she will develop computer tools that can be used by other biologists, and other scientist to study biophysics without having her level of expertise in Computer systems.
  24. So, to study Glyphosate, does one need to be primarily in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, or biophysics and electrical engineering ? All of it and then some.
  25. Advice to listeners – go organic as if your life depends on it, and try to grow you own food, even if small quantities, because sooner or later sh*t is going to hit the fan. This may turn out to be the most important life saving skill for all young people of today.

You can play the podcast by clicking on the player at the bottom of this page, or download it to listen at leisure.

I shall be glad to hear your comment or suggestion. Send me a note at tony.mitra@gmail.com

Cheers.

Tony Mitra

Dr. Don Huber talks on his work on Glyphosate in agriculture

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Dr. Don Huber, professor emeritus of Purdue University, Idaho, is a microbiologist and plant pathologist that has worked for over half a century on chemicals such as Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s patented herbicide Roundup. He is well aware of how the chemical damages plants, as well as soil organisms, and how it damages the colony of gut bacteria that perform essential symbiotic services for humans and other higher animals. IN short, Glyphosate in our environment is a disaster that will have long term effects, spanning several generations, and there seem to be no end in site of this avalanche of bad chemicals permeating our neighbourhood.

 I spoke with him a few times over the past one month, to compile a 37 minute podcast. Further, he has sent me a CD full of information of his papers and independent studies, powerpoint presentations, PDF files, charts and other material related to this subject.

 Salient points of the talks are:

  • Dr. Huber has been researching and working on the ill effects of Glyphosate and other herbicides for 55 years.
  • Glyphosate is not just a herbicide but also patented as an antibiotic. Both these functions, and its ability to chelate or capture important metals and minerals – essentially deny a whole host of micro organisms that depend on those metals to do their work, and often will kill classes of bacteria even in human guts, wrecking the persons biology and health.
  • It disrupts the Shikimate pathway used by many gut bacteria for biosynthesis of important amino acids that we need. Also, while such beneficial bacteria are denied sustenance and are often killed off by Glyphosate. Not just that. Some of these bacteria prevent space for some of the harmful pathogens that are also in the plants we eat, thus protecting us from harm. However, when Glyphosate damages the good bacteria, it creates vacancy in our gut that can now be filled by the harmful pathogens which are also insensitive to Glyphosate, dealing us a double blow.
  • Dr. Samsel and Seneff have worked on how Glyphosate helps increase our susceptibility to disease. These studies should be read and understood.
  • Dr. Nancy Swanson has plotted the correlation graphs from information obtained from official sources such as Centre for Disease Control that points to identical rise of Glyphosate application and rise of chronic illnesses reported in hospitals.
  • Soybean oil has been found to have 40 ppm of Glyphosate, which will kill all sorts of useful bacteria in our gut. The herbicide will also chelate and immobilize cobalt, manganese, iron, zinc and copper that we need ourselves for our own good health. Livers are affected. A very small part 1/10 of a ppm is often enough to cause serious harm. Even illness such as E.oli, salmonella etc can rise directly proportional to the increase of Glyphosate and GMO, along with autism, leaky gut, gluten intolerance,  Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, diarrhoea, and similar very major illnesses begin to come back in pandemic proportions because of the disruption and destruction of our micro-biome.
  • Once a patient’s gut bacteria has been seriously damaged, the only good cure may be fecal transplant. fecal bacteriotherapy or stool transplant. This essentially means taking stool from a healthy person and re-inserting it anally into a patient, transplanting the healthy bacteria to recolonize the gut. This has a high chance of recovery, but the patient has to onto organic diet, else he or she is likely to fall sick again.
  • Independent science research through public funding is nearly gone. Science is now mostly funded by corporations who have a vested interest in funding studies that find good effects of their technology rather than possible unwanted side effects. So, science and technology is losing its neutral position and objectivity. Normally, Dr. Huber would not get funding for his work that mostly finds the dangers of using Glyphosate. He managed to conduct his long term study by doing independent consulting work and then donating to the Purdue University as grant money to support his research on herbicides. In other words he was partially or wholly, funding himself.
  • There are written public statements of 26 scientists selected by the USDA to determine safety of genetically engineered plants, back in the 1960s. All 26 scientists wrote to the Govt. that they were unable to perform their work as the corporations would not provide access to information and were also prohibited to publish any finding to the public. Therefore they could not be objective in their investigation and without it the scientists could not do justice to the task.
  • When asked why so many diseases are increasing to pandemic levels, the official response is they do not know why. There is a perception that the relevant departments of the Govt does not want to know the cause.
  • Local troubles such as Yakima valley birth defect epidemic is a case in point where babies are still born and birth defects involving half the brain fails to develop in babies. This is suspected to be directly related to excessive application of Glyphosate in the farm and even in the water streams.
  • Some Cattle Farmers are going out of business because cattle fertility has dropped so much that half the newborns are still born and the business becomes economically unviable.
  • Europe is realizing they are in a dangerous situation with regard to Glyphosate, although their exposure is less than in USA. Yet, Dr. Huber laments that in USA people do not appear to be as alarmed as in Europe.
  • 300 million pounds  of Glyphosate is being used in agriculture annually in the US, and providing such food to animals and dumping such powerful herbicides in the environment indiscriminately – we can expect dangerous effects on our environment.
  • This is a crisis for our children. Autism is around 1 in 50 today. it is going to rise to 1 in 2 in the next seven to 14 years. Back in 1960 it was 1 or 2 in a hundred thousand.
  • Fecal transplant can be beneficial treatment for a number of illness – autism in kids, leaky guts, crone, celiac, Parkinson’s and even diabetes. Glyphosate is also related to cancer – childhood cancer. Dr. Huber does not know if fecal transplant can cure this kind of cancer once initiated by effects of Glyphosate. Seralini research is an example. Although his study was not set up to check cancer, it did show signs of cancer development in rats.
  • Regarding testing water, human blood or urine for presence of Glyphosate – Microbe Inotech Laboratories (http://www.microbeinotech.com/) can conduct these tests./ It might be useful to check with them if they also test for AMPA, especially if water sample are to be tested. IN Human Urine sample, presence of AMPA is expected to be rather small and could be ignored. AMPA is the first breakdown product of Glyphosate and is just as toxic as Glyphosate. Therefore, for testing soil or water, testing for both Glyphosate and AMPA combined would give a better result, since the percentage of AMPA can be more than 50% at times, the rest being Glyphosate that has not yet broken down.
  • If there is shortage of funds for large scale testing, then first concentrating on testing of Urine would be a better way to give an indication of exposure by humans to this dangerous herbicide.
  • How does one get rid of Glyphosate ? Detoxifying soil or water from Glyphosate is possible, through chelation. But if Glyphosate is in the human body already, it needs to be eliminated, and that can cause difficulties. Kidney failure in central America and Sri Lanka are relevant here, as Kidney shuts down and cannot handle the accumulation of Glyphosate.
  • Dr. Huber goes to Guatemala, as a consultant, regularly, as they in central America and many other countries there are trying to find ways to ban or remove Glyphosate from their environment. Their effort to ban Glyphosate is being challenged at courts, and the corporations have tried to confuse the issue and applying pressure on the Govts. A lot of farm workers in sugar plantations have died last year due kidney failure. Brasil and Argentina are also looking at banning Glyphosate. Hawaii has banned it but they are being sued now.
  • You can listen to the podcast by clicking the link below or check it up at iTunes as a podcast under my name (Tony Mitra).

Feel free to send me a note or a suggestion at  tony.mitra@gmail.com

Allan Patton’s effort of stopping GMOs through the Municipalities of Canada

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Allan Patton is the Director for Electoral Area “C” (Rural Oliver) and has been a full-time Oliver area farmer since 1981. He is a Past Director and Vice-President of the BC Fruit Growers Association, Past Director for BC Agriculture Council, Past Chair of Area “C” Advisory Planning Commission as well as Past Oliver and District Community Economic Development Society Director.

Allan Patton

He has been active in getting the Union of British Columbia Municipalities to pass the recent resolution to declare itself wishing to be GMO free. He is currently proposing a similar motion to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) who will hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM) at Niagara Falls this summer.

The motion states :

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Claude Dauphin, President
Federation of Canadian Municipalities
24 Clarence Street
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 5P3
 
WHEREAS The Okanagan Tree Fruit Industry and the Canadian Horticultural Council Apple Working Group are very concerned about protecting Food Safety and CanadaGap requirements and Asian and European export Markets;
 
AND WHEREAS Certified Organic producers and retailers have expressed grave concerns on the continued existence of their industry;
 
AND WHEREAS the public are expressing increased scepticism on the purported benefits of GE food and animal feed crops;
 
AND WHEREAS the Union of BC Municipalities, at their 2013 Annual General meeting, carried a resolution “to ask the Provincial Government to legislate the prohibition of importing, exporting and growing plants and seeds containing genetically engineered DNA, and raising GE Animals in BC and to declare through legislation that the Province o BC is a GE Free area in respect to all plants and animal species” and an identical addendum to send it to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for similar consideration by the Federal Government;
 
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Federation of Canadian Municipalities recommend to the Government of Canada that:
A moratorium be placed on all present and future Food and Animal Feed Genetically Engineered registration application, subject to:
– a non-partisan review be undertaken by Parliament to assess all aspects of GE crops now in existence.
– a public and consumer input and consultation process be developed and undertaken across Canada with recommendations presented to parliament for consideration.

If you need any further information regarding this item please call Christy Malden, Deputy Corporate Officer at (250)-490-4146

Mark Pendergraft
RDOS Board Vice Chair

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I spoke with District Director Allan Patton about his efforts to see that this motion does get tabled at the coming FCM and go to a vote, and does not get rejected and end up under the carpet.

I also asked him what the listeners, or the people of Canada might do, to help this motion along.

This is one more example of democracy working from the bottom up. The municipalities are the lowest level of Government and the closest to the people, and it is through them, rather than through the provincial or federal Government, that the voice of the people may get heard.

You can hear the podcast by clicking on the play button at the bottom of this page. You may also save it through my podcast channel in iTunes (search Tony Mitra) and play it through your music player off line.

I would welcome feedback – at tony.mitra@gmail.com

Thank you.

Sheryl McCumsy of Alberta and her efforts to ban lawn pesticides

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I met Sheryl in December 2013 during the GE Foods Talk event at Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She is among the many ordinary citizens of Canada attempting to engage in extra-ordinary work, of singly and collectively trying to wrench Canadian democracy back from the clutches of lobby power, in the field of food, health and environment.

Sheryl McCumsy

It has been my perception that this war on our soil, water and air by an unending avalanche of toxic GMO and pesticides in the name of corporate profit, will be won or lost not so much by bigwigs, famous people, NGOs, politicians, scientists or activists, but by the ordinary people like Sheryl McCumsy that are coming out of the woodwork everywhere, in their effort to do something to resist this menace.

Sheryl is a homemaker and a student with a background in microbiology. She intends to meet with the Municipality of Edmonton, Alberta, to enquire and cajole them into adopting a by-law that bans use of harmful cosmetic lawn pesticides. This is something that has been done by hundreds of Municipalities across Canada, but not so much in Alberta and not in Edmonton. She also intends to work with groups such as Albertans for food safety, to further take on the issues of Municipalities adopting resolutions to declare themselves to be GMO free.

I spoke with Sheryl on phone on December 22, 2013, to prepare this podcast of her hopes and plans. It is a 20 minute podcast. You can listen to it by directly clicking the player at the bottom of this page. You can also subscribe to it through iTunes, where my podcasts are available under my name – Tony Mitra – save it on your iPod, iPhone or other music players, and listen to them at leisure. The logo of my podcast in iTunes is shown at right.

Dark halo behind Golden Rice

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It is always a pleasure and enlightening, to speak with good people. There are those that have an unbiased knowledge and analytical prowess. These abilities help them to peer through the smoke and mirror of industry spin and the cobwebs created by science, pseudo-science and voodoo science. Looking through all that, some can still emerge with clear thinking that cuts to the bone of an issue without circling around in the periphery. It is even better when such a person is not afraid to call a spade a spade, and do not sanitize a topic to the extent that it loses its texture and depth, to become a politically correct blend of bland gray that is both confusing and misleading, to the casual public.Devinder Sharma

Devinder Sharma is among those few. And it is a privilege to speak with him.

 I called Devinder the other day to ask about Golden Rice. I have spoken with Debal Deb once about it, and created a podcast and a video, which one can find on my blog (www.tonu.org). I had checked with others too on the issue. But lately, the subject has resurfaced partly due to the famous televised debate between Canadian school girl and young anti-GMO crusader Rachel Parent and Kevin O’Leary where she blew away the industry shills, where the issue of Golden Rice was touched upon by Kevin, using an emotional pitch that poor kids in Asia are going blind and dying due to vitamin deficiency, which this Golden Rice will solve etc. This sentimental pitch is the worst kind of emotional blackmail that the media savvy people try to use to befuddle the listeners. But Rachel did not fall for it and cut him short stating that Golden rice does not even work, so lets stop talking about it.

The issue is of course a lot deeper than that, and encompasses the whole gamut of malnutrition and hunger on a global scale, and if that is because there is insufficient food, or there are too many middlemen making a buck and ensuring food prices remain high, even going waste if it has to, so the middlemen can make a profit, which the poor starve because they cannot afford the artificially jacked up high cost of food.

It is ironic that India has stockpiles of excess cereals, and exports large quantities of it, while there are more hungry children in India than likely in any other country. The reason for this is – some folks make money through the export, and it increases GDP and stock market values of nations and corporations. This helps investors with spare cash get richer. And if in the bargain there are millions of people starve – then why not use that as a tool to gain further access into the market, so some of the middle men can make even more money?

Food as a commodity is subjected to the same calculations that go beyond creation of a smart phone or an automobile – how to make more money out of it. These commodities are not designed to solve world hunger, or planet ecology, and national economy, or food security. These are created to make corporations and their stock holders rich. Period.

Food needs to be de-commoditized. Agriculture universities and colleges need to be funded by the public and not by biotech industries. It is better for the public taxes to be spent to safeguard public interest, than to hand over the stewardship of public policy making into the hands of corporations that created half the problems of the world to start with.

Like Einstein had said – the kind of logic that became the cause for subsequent problems, cannot be used to solve those problems. New logic and a different mindset is needed here.

Lately some documents on Golden Rice is being circulated in Canada for distribution among the sceptics of GMO. But I find the critic to be lukewarm and bypasses most of the serious issues behind it – including the exploitative philosophy behind the very creation of transgenic foods including Golden Rice. Even more importantly, Canadians, I feel, are in dire need to save themselves first from the bad-food epidemic that is sweeping across the nation, instead of pondering difficult issues of the third world and what Golden Rice can or cannot do.

The statistics of obesity, dramatically rising percentage of overweight people, of people with rising levels of various hitherto less known ailments and autism – should be life and death issues for Canadians. Let them concentrate on their own pathetic situation and leave the third world alone to solve their problems. Without intentional and unintentional western meddling, the third world can and will likely solve their own problems without having to be enslaved to western corporate interests.

Anyhow, Devinder Sharma provides another fresh outlook on the issue of Golden Rice. Important issues here might be :

  • How western media is used to present muddied and misguiding news about technological breakthrough in agriculture. One good example is the case with DDT which drew cover page rave reviews on the most famous western magazines, only to be banned across the planet a generation later, but not before it did irrecoverable damage to the planet.
  • How Ingo Potrykus, the creator of Golden Rice, had a less than pleasant exchange with Devinder Sharma.
  • How Ingo Otrykus was against independent verification of the value and utility of Golden Rice.
  • The humbug of Pro-tato, Po-mato and all other kinds of similar absurdities.
  • The famous case of agricultural development model pushed in India and exposed by Devinder Sharma and others, where nutritious human food grown in India was to be exported as cattle feed for the west, and cattle food grown in the west was to be imported into India for human consumption – all in the name of development and westernization.
  • The food storages are full in India, and yet the poor do not have access to it. The issue of hunger is not related to quality or quantity of food. it is related to structural injustice where the food is out of reach of the poor due to distribution issues and profiteering. Biotech cannot solve that – in fact biotech products are designed to increase profiteering by the middle man.
  • World Food summit followed up by the World Hunger Summit in Bonn around 2001, which Devinder attended, and how the conferences goal of abolishing half of world hunger by 2015 – was a joke and only helped muddying the issue of hunger – and displays part of the international dishonesty, in dealing with world hunger.
  • Last year, the world produced enough food for 13 billion people, almost twice the current population and higher than the projected maximum world population (2060) before it starts coming down. So, the world has far in excess of what food it needs for its people – now and generations into the future.
  • The hunger is a product of the systems put in place large through western efforts into the pricing, subsidy, trade negotiations and arm twisting in creating a warped distribution and trade infrastructure. There is a whole lot of bogus talk and untruths going around in the name of helping the poor.

The podcast can be listened to by clicking on the play button at the bottom, or finding it on iTunes by searching my name among the podcasts.

The original talk with Devinder covered more than an hour. Here the topic of Golden Rice is covered in 30 minutes.

I shall be glad to hear your comments on it. You may respond back to tony.mitra@gmail.com