Monsanto has been around over a hundred years, and while it has a history of questionable ethics and practice—including helping to create and hide health risks associated with DDT and Agent Orange—its more recent trend toward pushing unregulated and unlabeled Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) into our food supply is what’s really alarming. The corporation was voted overwhelmingly as the most “Evil Corporation of the Year” by NaturalNews readers, and on May 25th hundreds of thousands Marched Against Monsanto yet most people have never heard of this corporation. If you’re marching and already well informed this is not for you, but if not hopefully this will help lead you there.
The hardest thing about writing what’s wrong with Monsanto is knowing where to start. You may not think you are familiar with them, but you are. You probably eat Monsanto created GMOs every day. The company creates harsh pesticides that are designed to kill everything natural they touch, the most popular of which is called “Roundup.” The company then creates GMOs that are unaffected by this specific poison (in the case of Roundup these are called “Roundup Ready”) so that farmers can blanket their fields and kill weeds, pests and everything else. The company has pushed hard to monopolize strategic markets and now controls 93% of the soybean, canola seed, and cotton crops, as well as 86% of corn crops. Monstanto has consolidated its position by creating ‘suicide seeds’ which do not reproduce and forces the farmers to return to Monsanto each year. The GMO suicide crops also cross pollinate with non GMO crops, forcing more farmers who may have initially held out to also rely on Monsanto.
What are the long term effects of consuming GMOs? Truthfully, no one knows. Monsanto created the first GMO in 1985 and only within the past few years has their use become widespread in our food supply. Monsanto argues that because their GMO corn has been manufactured to have roughly the same amount of vitamins and minerals as natural corn then it must be safe. Meanwhile, scientific studies on rats have shown that GMO corn causes tumors, organ failure, cancer and premature death.
At this point you may be wondering how this can be allowed. A revolving door exists between Monsanto and US regulatory and judicial bodies making key decisions. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a former Monsanto lawyer, was the one who wrote the majority opinion on a key Monsanto case. Michael Taylor once worked for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), later represented Monsanto as a lawyer, and is now the current FDA Deputy Commissioner for Policy.
There is a growing global resistance. Farmers have been burning fields of GMO crops and a growing list of nations have banned GMO food outright. In the U.S. where there is the greatest collusion with government, it has been much slower and on May 23rd the US Senate voted that even labeling foods as GMO would be illegal.
This is just the basics. There is an enormous amount of information out there and a growing number of organizations working to change this. Read the links here, share this story, do your own research and get involved.
(orginally published on Truth In A Forgien Language)
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