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[b]Monsanto plans to unleash its latest Frankenfood experiment on the American and Canadian public[/b]

 
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[b]Monsanto plans to unleash its latest Frankenfood experiment on the American and Canadian public[/b]
Monsanto plans to unleash its latest Frankenfood experiment on the American and Canadian public

[link to gnosis474.blogspot.com]

Monsanto's GMO perversion of food
Byron J Richards
NewsWithViews.com -


In the 2010 growing season Monsanto plans to unleash its latest Frankenfood experiment on the American and Canadian public, a new version of genetically mutated corn with eight abnormal gene traits called Genuity SmartStax corn. It is the culmination of an astonishing scandal that has been steadily building over the past decade. During this time Monsanto’s mutated seeds have grown to 90% of the U.S. soy crop and 85% of the corn crop – and wheat is next on their agenda. Their efforts have been marked by corporate bullying and have drawn the attention of the Justice Department who is conducting an antitrust investigation. All the while they have been spending millions on lobbying to fast track their agenda before the American public even realizes what hit them. Monsanto is making an ominous power play to corner the worldwide market on food and seeds. In the process they are adversely altering the very nature of food itself.

Few people would eat Monsanto’s “food” if they understood what it was or knew that they were eating it. President Obama and his family won’t eat it. Neither did the Bush family. Even a Monsanto employee cafeteria rejects it. This is no laughing matter. Your health and the health of your children and grandchildren are at stake. It seems more like a scene from a horror flick than something happening in modern day America. Imagine your digestive tract turned into a Roundup Ready herbicide factory and other warped genetic signals slowly and progressively rotting away your health. Unlike acute food poisoning from infectious E.coli, it is a slow and insidious poisoning.

Why GMO Food is Dangerous

Monsanto’s GMO (genetically modified organism) technology inserts non-food genes, genes from other species, into the DNA of food, altering the very nature of food itself. In some cases these genes make the crops more tolerant to the Roundup Ready herbicide made by Monsanto and in other cases the genes abnormally cause the DNA of food cells to produce toxic proteins that act as pesticides.

Most people are not comfortable with the concept of altering the nature of food in a grand genetic experiment with unknown consequences. The idea of food producing its own internal toxin is equally abhorrent. After all, who wants to eat toxic food? Even fewer trust this technology in the hands of Monsanto, a company with a history of blatant disregard for human health. It was Monsanto that knowingly poisoned the planet with toxic PCBs.

The process of making GMO seeds also poses health risks. Viral promoter genes are used during this production process and become part of the DNA mix, posing a risk for new types of viral disease. An unintended side-effect of this production technology is chronic activation or suppression of normal genes in the modified plants. This alters the actual nutrient structure of food and the function of the proteins within that food – a very serious matter.

The entire process of producing GMO seeds is also unpredictable. It creates multiple random genetic events in every food cell invaded by the mutant genes. Because each gene doesn’t just do one thing and is highly interactive with other genes, the production of GMO food is not consistent and therefore safety cannot be guaranteed – especially when you understand that our scientific knowledge of gene interdependencies is in its infancy.

Eating food that is mutated by other non-food species is a grand experiment to say the least. GMO mutants can transfer to the living bacteria in your digestive tract, as has been shown in animal experiments. This can adversely change the way your gut bacteria behave so that they create pesticides and become more resistant to your immune system and medical treatments. If the GMO mutants were to transfer to an existing infection in your digestive tract then it could create your own superbug.

Because the proteins in GMO food are structurally different than normal food they significantly increase the risk for allergy. Allergy is one form of inflammation that is likely to result from GMO food, but there are many other potential sources. These include the mis-metabolism of the food, the inherent toxicity of the food, and the pesticide residues on the food. These inflammatory problems of GMO food will additively contribute to other forms of inflammation such as pollution and stress and add to the total inflammation burden sets the stage for many diseases. It is likely that GMO food will have a significant impact on pregnancy problems and developmental problems in children. At this time nobody can rule out GMO as a possible causative factor in Autism, as the rates of both have risen together. A recent re-evaluation of data provided by Monsanto showed that various types of GMO corn caused significant inflammatory organ damage to rats.

It has now been shown that the health consequence of eating high amounts of Roundup Ready residue that is being sprayed in ever-higher amounts on GMO crops is the disruption of your endocrine system. A recent study shows that these residues of Roundup Ready are highly interactive with sex hormones and significantly disrupt their function.

A 2008 Austrian government study showed that feeding GMO corn to mice for multiple generations resulted in fertility issues and weakened kidneys, as well as changes in metabolic pathways involved with inflammation, cholesterol, and protein. Here is a link to the 105 page report.

GMO crops are also drastically and adversely altering soil quality. In fact, soil animals such as earthworms are now found to have incorporated GMO mutant corn genes into their cells. This finding is of extreme importance to potential human health problems. There is certainly nothing preventing this from happening to humans.

For more information on the devastating health consequences of consuming GMO foods read Jeffrey Smith’s books, Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette.”

You may be wondering the obvious; if GMOs are so dangerous to eat then why are they allowed in the food supply?

Corporate Cronyism - A Corrupt FDA Places the Public in Danger

We now know that FDA scientists originally working on the issue of the safety of GMO food had considerable concerns that included allergies, toxins, adverse nutritional effects, and new diseases. They urged long-term studies but were ignored by FDA management who instead decided that GMO food was “substantially equivalent” to normal food. In 1992 these managers issued the following policy statement in the Federal Register, “The agency is not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.” In retrospect, that policy, which stands to this day, was a flat out lie and a treasonous betrayal of the public trust.

Court cases have forced into public view the documents expressing the concerns of the FDA scientists. You can read them all at this link to the BioIntegrity.Org website. In fact, rushing GMO foods to market also represents a serious breach of scientific integrity by the overall research community.

Today, the FDA is a world leader in proteomic technology, the advanced analysis of protein structure and function. Italian researchers using proteomics have already proven beyond any question that GMO food is so genetically different from normal food that it cannot possibly be considered substantially equivalent. Certainly the FDA could discover this fact for themselves in a matter of hours. Why are FDA scientists in handcuffs and not taking action?

Part of the FDA management team’s culture of corruption is a revolving door with the various companies they are supposed to be regulating, the very definition of corporate cronyism. These shenanigans have had the net effect of the FDA acting primarily as a police force bully representing various powerful lobbies that buy protection and marketing favors, while stomping on the rights of the little guys like organic family farms and consumers. In the case of food, Monsanto wins the gold medal for influence pedaling at the expense of human health.

One of the more egregious examples of cronyism is Michael Taylor. He was an FDA staff lawyer and Executive Assistant to the FDA Commissioner from 1976 to 1981. From 1981 to 1991 he worked at the law firm of King and Spaulding, acting as Monsanto’s lawyer and lobbyist. He was a major proponent for overturning the Delaney Clause, a 1958 law prohibiting the introduction of known carcinogens to processed foods, a law Monsanto hated and which was eventually overturned by Clinton in 1996. His main responsibility during this time was gaining regulatory approval of Monsanto’s genetically modified cancer-causing bovine growth hormone (rBGH).

To complete his efforts on the bovine growth hormone issue Taylor went back to work for the FDA in 1991 with the title Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the Food and Drug Administration. He was directly responsible for writing the FDA policy on “substantial equivalence” which initially ushered in the rBGH era and to this day enables Monsanto to market its GMO mutated food with no appropriate oversight by the FDA as to safety. He also formulated policy that prevented milk producers from informing consumers that their milk was free of bovine growth hormone – intentionally preventing consumers from being able to tell what was in the milk product they were consuming.

After accomplishing his dirty work, he left the FDA in 1994 and went to work for Monsanto as Vice President for Public Policy, working on Monsanto’s long range plans. More recently, he became a Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF) and Director of the Risk, Resources and Environmental Management division. In this role, he strategized how to get Monsanto’s GMO crops into Africa, working closely with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. He also worked closely with the Bush Administration, and is the point man in helping an elite agenda to spread GMO seeds and biotech dependence around the world.

You guessed it – now he is back at the FDA in a new position the Obama Administration created – Senior Advisor to the Commissioner, working primarily on issues of food safety! “I am pleased to welcome Mike Taylor back to the FDA,” Commissioner of Food and Drugs Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D., said in announcing Taylor’s appointment. “His expertise and leadership on food safety issues will help the agency to develop and implement the prevention based strategy we need to ensure the safety of the food we eat.”

As Monsanto, in anti-competitive collusion with Dow, takes their new GMO toxic and mutated corn to market, stacked with eight genes, it should come as no surprise that absolutely no safety testing is being required by the FDA. Never before have there been eight genes altered simultaneously within the cells of food. One gene is bad enough. Three is horrendous. But eight?

The fact that the FDA is not requiring extensive safety testing by independent sources of this highly unpredictable and dangerous technology is unthinkable. It is a grim day when the fox is in charge of the henhouse.

There Is No Good Reason for Monsanto’s GMOs

If you listen to Monsanto and their business cohorts such as Cargill, they state they are trying to feed the world. In reality, the world could eliminate Monsanto’s mutated food tomorrow and it would be a better place. It could also do without Cargill acting as an unregulated food banker, profiting on the manipulation of food sales at the expense of farmers in a way that is every bit as bad as the worst of Wall Street. There is no need for Monsanto’s GMO mutated seeds. They offer no advantages. It is an industry being propped up by unelected bureaucrats and elected officials on the receiving end of Monsanto’s multi-million dollar lobbying operation.

Michael Taylor is one example of corporate crony influence, there are many others. The USDA is profiting from Monsanto’s seeds that cannot be used the next growing season (the Terminator aspect of the problem). The EPA’s failure to regulate the amounts of Roundup Ready used on food is yet another scandal. It’s all about profits and control – while undermining the world’s farmers and the biodiversity and sustainability of crops.

Contrary to the Monsanto and Cargill propaganda, GMO technology does not increase crop yields, as has been fully documented in the Union of Concerned Scientists report titled Failure to Yield. And GMO crops are very bad for the carbon footprint.

The fact that the Obama administration is actively forwarding Monsanto’s efforts should be a grave concern to every American. Of course, the last 16 years of Clinton and Bush also did everything in their power to help Monsanto. No wonder Americans are fed up. Politicians in both parties are beholden to the golden idol, not the best health interests of its citizens.

Take Back Our Food – Join the Fight

We the people can have a huge impact and we can change this serious threat to human health. Don’t buy GMOs food. GMOs permeate corn and soy products, beet sugar is now mutated, and wheat is next in line. If you aren’t sure how to avoid GMO foods and brands then follow the advice given on Jeffrey Smith’s Non-GMO shopping guide. Demand from your political representatives that all GMO food be labeled as containing GMOs. This isn’t just a political issue – this is about your personal health and the future of food.
Anonymous Coward
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02/10/2010 06:59 PM
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Re: [b]Monsanto plans to unleash its latest Frankenfood experiment on the American and Canadian public[/b]
Add the below quote and you get MAJOR DOOM!


WHEN, in 2001, the human genome was sequenced for the first time, we were confronted by several surprises. One was the sheer lack of genes: where we had anticipated perhaps 100,000 there were actually as few as 20,000. A bigger surprise came from analysis of the genetic sequences, which revealed that these genes made up a mere 1.5 per cent of the genome. This is dwarfed by DNA deriving from viruses, which amounts to roughly 9 per cent.

On top of that, huge chunks of the genome are made up of mysterious virus-like entities called retrotransposons, pieces of selfish DNA that appear to serve no function other than to make copies of themselves. These account for no less than 34 per cent of our genome.

All in all, the virus-like components of the human genome amount to almost half of our DNA.
This would once have been dismissed as mere "junk DNA", but we now know that some of it plays a critical role in our biology. As to the origins and function of the rest, we simply do not know.

The human genome therefore presents us with a paradox. How does this viral DNA come to be there? What role has it played in our evolution, and what is it doing to our physiology? To answer these questions we need to deconstruct the origins of the human genome - a story more fantastic than anything we previously imagined, with viruses playing a bigger part than you might care to believe.

Around 15 years ago, when I was researching my book Virus X, I came to the conclusion there was more to viruses than meets the eye. Viruses are often associated with plagues - epidemics accompanied by great mortality, such as smallpox, flu and AIDS. I proposed that plague viruses also interact with their hosts in a more subtle way, through symbiosis, with important implications for the evolution of their hosts. Today we have growing evidence that this is true (New Scientist, 30 August 2008, p 38 [link to www.newscientist.com] and overwhelming evidence that viruses have significantly changed human evolution.

Symbiosis was defined by botanist Anton de Bary in 1878 as the living together of dissimilar organisms. The partners are known as symbionts and the sum of the partnership as the holobiont. Types of symbiotic relationships include parasitism, where one partner benefits at the expense of the other, commensalism, where one partner profits without harming the other, and mutualism, in which both partners benefit.

Symbiotic relationships have evolutionary implications for the holobiont. Although selection still operates on the symbionts at an individual level since they reproduce independently, it also operates at partnership level. This is most clearly seen in the pollination mutualisms involving hummingbirds and flowers, where the structure of flower and bill have co-evolved to accommodate each other and make a perfect fit. When symbiosis results in such evolutionary change it is known as symbiogenesis.


Viruses as partners


Symbiosis works at many different levels of biological organisation. At one end of the spectrum is the simple exchange of metabolites. Mycorrhizal partnerships between plant roots and fungi, which supply the plant with minerals and the fungus with sugars, are a good example. At the other end are behavioural symbioses typified by cleaning stations where marine predators line up to have their mouths cleared of parasites and debris by fish and shrimps.

Symbiosis can also operate at the genetic level, with partners sharing genes. A good example is the solar-powered sea slug Elysia chloroticaMovie Camera, which extracts chloroplasts from the alga it eats and transfers them to cells in its gut where they supply the slug with nutrients. The slug's genome also contains genes transferred from the alga, without which the chloroplasts could not function. The slug genome can therefore be seen as a holobiont of slug genes and algal genes.

This concept of genetic symbiosis is crucial to answering our question about the origin of the human genome, because it also applies to viruses and their hosts. Viruses are obligate parasites. They can only reproduce within the cells of their host, so their life cycle involves forming an intimate partnership. Thus, according to de Bary's definition, virus-host interactions are symbiotic.

For many viruses, such as influenza, this relationship is parasitic and temporary. But some cause persistent infections, with the virus never leaving the host. Such a long-term association changes the nature of the symbiosis, making the evolution of mutualism likely. This process often follows a recognisable progression I have termed "aggressive symbiosis".

An example of aggressive symbiosis is the myxomatosis epidemic in rabbits in Australia in the 1950s. The European rabbit was introduced into Australia in 1859 as a source of food. Lacking natural predators, the population exploded, leading to widespread destruction of agricultural grassland. In 1950, rabbits infected with myxoma virus were deliberately released into the wild. Within three months, 99.8 per cent of the rabbits of south-east Australia were dead.

Although the myxomatosis epidemic was not planned as an evolutionary experiment, it had evolutionary consequences. The myxoma virus's natural host is the Brazilian rabbit, in which it is a persistant partner causing no more than minor skin blemishes. The same is now true of rabbits in Australia. Over the course of the epidemic the virus selected for rabbits with a minority genetic variant capable of surviving infection. Plague culling was followed by co-evolution, and today rabbit and virus coexist in a largely non-pathogenic mutualism.

Now imagine a plague virus attacking an early human population in Africa. The epidemic would have followed a similar trajectory, with plague culling followed by a period in which survivors and virus co-evolved. There is evidence that this happened repeatedly during our evolution, though when, and through what infectious agents, is unknown (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 99, p 11748 [link to dx.doi.org]

Even today viral diseases are changing the course of human evolution. Although the plague culling effect is mitigated by medical intervention in the AIDS pandemic, we nevertheless observe selection pressure on humans and virus alike. For example, the human gene HLA-B plays an important role in the response to HIV-1 infection, and different variants are strongly associated with the rate of AIDS progression. It is therefore likely that different HLA-B alleles impose selection pressure on HIV-1, while HLA-B gene frequencies in the population are likely to be influenced by HIV (Nature, vol 432, p 769). This is symbiogenesis in action.

How does that move us closer to understanding the composition of the human genome? HIV-1 is a retrovirus, a class of RNA virus that converts its RNA genome into DNA before implanting it into host chromosomes. This process, known as endogenisation, converts an infectious virus into a non-infectious endogenous retrovirus (ERV). In humans, ERVs are called HERVs.

Germline invaders

Endogenisation allows retroviruses to take genetic symbiosis to a new level. Usually it is an extension of the normal infectious process, when a retrovirus infects a blood cell, such as a lymphocyte. But if the virus happens to get incorporated in a chromosome in the host's germ line (sperm or egg), it can become part of the genome of future generations.

Such germ-line endogenisation has happened repeatedly in our own lineage - it is the source of all that viral DNA in our genome. The human genome contains thousands of HERVs from between 30 and 50 different families, believed to be the legacy of epidemics throughout our evolutionary history. We might pause to consider that we are the descendents of the survivors of a harrowing, if brutally creative, series of viral epidemics.

Endogenisation is happening right now in a retroviral epidemic that is spreading among koalas in Australia. The retrovirus, KoRv, appeared about 100 years ago and has already spread through 75 per cent of the koala's range, culling animals on a large scale and simultaneously invading the germ line of the survivors.

Retroviruses don't have a monopoly on endogenisation. Earlier this month researchers reported finding genes from a bornavirus in the genomes of several mammals, including humans, the first time a virus not in the retrovirus class has been identified in an animal genome. The virus appears to have entered the germ line of a mammalian ancestor around 40 million years ago (Nature, vol 463, p 84). Many more such discoveries are anticipated, perhaps explaining the origin of some of that mysterious half of the genome.

The ability of viruses to unite, genome-to-genome, with their hosts has clear evolutionary significance. For the host, it means new material for evolution. If a virus happens to introduce a useful gene, natural selection will act on it and, like a beneficial new mutation, it may spread through the population.

Could a viral gene really be useful to a mammal? Don't bet against it. Retroviruses have undergone a long co-evolutionary relationship with their hosts, during which they have evolved the ability to manipulate host defences for their own ends. So we might expect the genes of viruses infecting humans to be compatible with human biology.

This is also true of their regulatory DNA. A virus integrating itself into the germ line brings not just its own genes, but also regulatory regions that control those genes. Viral genomes are bookended by regions known as long terminal repeats (LTRs), which contain an array of sequences capable of controlling not just viral genes but host ones as well. Many LTRs contain attachment sites for host hormones, for example, which probably evolved to allow the virus to manipulate host defences.

Retroviruses will often endogenise repeatedly throughout the host genome, leading to a gradual accumulation of anything up to 1000 ERVs. Each integration offers the potential of symbiogenetic evolution.

Once an ERV is established in the genome, natural selection will act on it, weeding out viral genes or regulatory sequences that impair survival of the host, ignoring those that have no effect, and positively selecting the rare ones that enhance survival.

Most ERV integrations will be negative or have no effect. The human genome is littered with the decayed remnants of such integrations, often reduced to fragments, or even solitary LTRs. This may explain the origin of retrotransposons. These come in two types: long and short interspersed repetitive elements (LINEs and SINEs), and it now appears likely that they are heavily degraded fragments of ancient viruses.

As for positive selection, this can be readily confirmed by looking for viral genes or regulatory sequences that have been conserved and become an integral part of the human genome. We now know of many such sequences.

The first to be discovered is the remnant of a retrovirus that invaded the primate genome a little less than 40 million years ago and gave rise to what is known as the W family of ERVs. The human genome has roughly 650 such integrations. One of these, on chromosome 7, contains a gene called syncytin-1, which codes for a protein originally used in the virus's envelope but now critical to the functioning of the human placenta. Expression of syncytin-1 is controlled by two LTRs, one derived from the original virus and another from a different retrovirus called MaLR. Thus we have a quintessential viral genetic unit fulfilling a vitally important role in human biology.


Virus genes

There are many more examples. Another gene producing a protein vital to the construction of the placenta, syncytin-2, is also derived from a virus, and at least six other viral genes contribute to normal placental function, although their precise roles are poorly understood.

There is also tentative evidence that HERVs play a significant role in embryonic development. The developing human embryo expresses genes and control sequences from two classes of HERV in large amounts, though their functions are not known (Virology, vol 297, p 220). What is more, disrupting the action of LINE retrotransposons by administration of the drug nevirapine causes an irreversible arrest in development in mouse embryos, suggesting that LINEs are somehow critical to early development in mammals (Systems Biology in Reproductive Medicine, vol 54, p 11).

It also appears that HERVs play important roles in normal cellular physiology. Analysis of gene expression in the brain suggests that many different families of HERV participate in normal brain function. Syncytin-1 and syncytin-2, for example, are extensively expressed in the adult brain, though their functions there have yet to be explored.

Other research groups have found that 25 per cent of human regulatory sequences contain viral elements, prompting suggestions that HERVs make a major contribution to gene regulation (Trends in Genetics, vol 19, p 68). In support of that, HERV LTRs have been shown to be involved in the transcription of important proteins. For example, the beta-globin gene, which codes for one of the protein components of haemoglobin, is partly under the control of an LTR derived from a retrovirus.

The answer to our paradox is now clear: the human genome has evolved as a holobiontic union of vertebrate and virus. It is hardly surprising that researchers who have made these discoveries are now calling for a full-scale project to assess the contribution of viruses to our biology (BMC Genomics, vol 9, p 354).

It is also probable that this "virolution" is continuing today. HIV belongs to a group of retroviruses called the lentiviruses. Until recently virologists thought that lentiviruses did not endogenise, but now we know that they have entered the germ lines of rabbits and the grey mouse lemur. That suggests that HIV-1 might have the potential to enter the human germ line (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 104, p 6261 and vol 105, p 20362), perhaps taking our evolution in new and unexpected directions. It's a plague to us - but it could be vital to the biology our descendants.

Frank Ryan is a writer, medical doctor and biologist based in Sheffield, UK. His book Virolution is published by HarperCollins. He is the author of a series of five review articles on the impact of viral symbiosis on medical genetics, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (vol 102, p 272, p 324, p 415, p 474 and p 530)


Link: [link to www.newscientist.com]
 Quoting: Gazing @ Orion

Thread: I, virus: Why you're only half human
Anonymous Coward
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02/10/2010 07:04 PM
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Re: [b]Monsanto plans to unleash its latest Frankenfood experiment on the American and Canadian public[/b]
burnit :11: burnit :11: yoda
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02/10/2010 07:09 PM
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Re: [b]Monsanto plans to unleash its latest Frankenfood experiment on the American and Canadian public[/b]
No wonder corn chips have been making me sick lately. I have been having allergic swelling all over my body, and corn chips dont help.

Tostitos put MSG in their chips recently. Fuck those pricks.





GLP