‘Science’ That’s on the Take vs. Science That Takes Them on

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The New York Times, in an article published on December 31, 2016, documents how scientists are paid by agribusiness corporations for “science” that supports the companies’ agendas. Those of us working in this field of journalism have known about this for decades, but the scope of agribusiness’s propaganda campaigns seldom reaches the general public. The following three paragraphs are from the Times’ article.

“The corporate use of academia has been documented in fields like soft drinks and pharmaceuticals. But it is rare for an academic to provide an insider’s view of the relationships being forged with corporations, and the expectations that accompany them.

“A review of Syngenta’s strategy shows that Dr. Cresswell’s experience (Dr. James Cresswell of the University of Exeter in England) fits in with practices used by American competitors like Monsanto and across the agrochemical industry. Scientists deliver outcomes favorable to companies, while university research departments court corporate support. Universities and regulators sacrifice full autonomy by signing confidentiality agreements. And academics sometimes double as paid consultants.

“In Britain, Syngenta has built a network of academics and regulators, even recruiting the leading government scientist on the bee issue. In the United States, Syngenta pays academics like James W. Simpkins of West Virginia University, whose work has helped validate the safety of its products. Not only has Dr. Simpkins’s research been funded by Syngenta, he is also a $250-an-hour consultant for the company. And he partnered with a Syngenta executive in a consulting venture, emails obtained by The New York Times show.”

The article is a scathing indictment of corporate-scientific collusion to excuse corporate greed and excesses. To read the full article, visit the Times’ home page and search for the article headlined, Scientists Loved and Loathed by an Agrochemical Giant.

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‘FREE TO PROSPER’ MEANS FREE TO LOOT AND EXPLOIT

The following link will take you to a report called “Free to Prosper,” written by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. It’s the Trumpist agenda for the next Congress, and if you read through it, you will be horrified. Read especially Section 8 on “Food, Drugs, and Consumer Freedom.” Thanks to Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association for bringing this to light. https://www.organicconsumers.org/sites/default/files/cei_agenda_for_congress_2017_-_final.pdf

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SHAREHOLDERS APPROVE MERGER OF BAYER AND MONSANTO

Last month shareholders approved the merger of Bayer the Bee-Slayer and Monsanto the Butterfly-Killer. The pesticide giants are on track to merge into one mega-corporation. The merger still has to get through the Justice Department’s scrutiny. And state Attorneys General are pushing for an investigation, according to Friends of the Earth.

Senator Bernie Sanders, farmers across the country and people like you are already speaking out against the merger. If this merger goes through, it would be disastrous for pollinators, people and the planet. We could have even MORE crops soaked in dangerous pesticides like bee-killing neonics or glyphosate — key drivers of bee and monarch declines.

What’s more, the new corporation would be the biggest seed and pesticide company in the world — giving it unprecedented clout over our food supply.

This merger could also set a precedent for other mega-mergers, like Dow merging with Dupont and ChemChina merging with Syngenta. If these six companies consolidated into three, they would control nearly 70 percent of the global pesticide market. The good news is, cities and states across the country are passing laws to restrict bee-killing neonics.

But if this merger goes through, Monsanto and Bayer combined will have even more power and money to block our efforts. The new corporation could put even more pressure on our government to delay regulatory action on toxic chemicals, especially under Trump’s corporate-friendly cabinet heads.

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CANNABIS CURBS LUNG CANCER GROWTH IN MICE, STUDY SHOWS

A Harvard University study from 2007, which remains the most comprehensive ever released on THC’s potential to combat tumors, found that in just three weeks, doses of THC were able to cut lung cancer tumor growth in half in mice subjects, and were able to reduce cancer lesions by even more.

Harvard researchers tested THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, which is found naturally in cannabis) on cancer cells in labs, and followed that up by studying mice subjects.

The lab demonstration found that doses of THC inhibited growth and spread in the cancer cells. Following the lab test, researchers dosed mice – which were implanted with human lung cancer cells – with THC, and found that in just three weeks, tumors were reduced in both size and weight by roughly 50 percent compared to a control group. Cancer lesions on the lungs were also reduced-–by nearly 60 percent–and there was as a significant reduction in “protein markers” associated with cancer progression.

Researchers theorize that THC had such a positive effect on combating tumors because it activates molecules that arrest the cell cycle, and may also interfere with the processes of angiogenesis and vascularization, which lead to cancer growth.

Over six years since its original release, this study remains one of the most important cannabis-related studies ever released.

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DESPITE PLEDGES TO CUT BACK, FARMS STILL USING ANTIBIOTICS

It’s a continuing paradox of the meat industry. Every year, more restaurants and food companies announce that they will sell only meat produced with minimal or no use of antibiotics. And every year, despite those pledges, more antibiotics are administered to the nation’s swine, cattle and poultry, according to Dan Charles, reporting on NPR.

The latest figures, released last week by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, show antibiotic sales for use on farm animals increased by 1 percent in 2015, compared to the previous year. The increase was slightly greater – 2 percent — for antibiotics used as human medicine.

The FDA and other public health agencies have been pushing farmers to rely less on these drugs. Heavy use of antibiotics both in human medicine and in agriculture has led to the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria, complicating the task of treating many infections.

The poultry industry has made the most ambitious promises to reduce antibiotic use. Perdue Farms says that 95 percent of its chickens already are raised with no antibiotics at all. Tyson Foods, the largest producer, has announced that it is “striving” to end the use of antibiotics that also are used in human medicine. Tyson will continue to deploy a class of antibiotics called ionophores, which can’t be used on humans. The new report, however, doesn’t shed any light on the impact of these moves, because it doesn’t show how much of each drug is used on cattle, swine or poultry.

In a statement, David Wallinga, from the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that “this report further underscores how urgently we need more and stronger government action” to reduce antibiotic use.

Some species of bacteria found on cattle have shown increasing levels of resistance to ciprofloxacin, and turkey samples showed a big increase in Salmonella that’s resistant to several different drugs.

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Monsanto and the biotechnology industry have a goal. They want to dominate the worlds’ food supply-–for their profit. Regardless of the cost to your health, the environment, family farmers, or the future of biodiversity on our planet.

And as the new administration takes shape in the US, it seems pretty clear that we can’t count on our government to protect us any time soon. For example, Trump has tapped Congressman Mike Pompeo to be the head of the CIA.

Pompeo was Monsanto’s man on the Hill. He authored what became known as the DARK (Deny Americans’ Right to Know) act, which made it illegal for states to require labeling of GMOs.

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‘Science’ That’s on the Take vs. Science That Takes Them on

Organic Lifestyle Comments (0)

The New York Times, in an article published on December 31, 2016, documents how scientists are paid by agribusiness corporations for “science” that supports the companies’ agendas. Those of us The New York Times, in an article published on December 31, 2016, documents how scientists are paid by agribusiness corporations for “science” that supports the companies’ agendas. Those of us working in this field of journalism have known about this for decades, but the scope of agribusiness’s propaganda campaigns seldom reaches the general public. The following three paragraphs are from the Times’ article, followed by a link to the full story.

The article is a scathing indictment of corporate-scientific collusion to excuse corporate greed and excesses.

***

‘FREE TO PROSPER’ MEANS FREE TO LOOT AND EXPLOIT

***

SHAREHOLDERS APPROVE MERGER OF BAYER AND MONSANTO

What’s more, the new corporation would be the biggest seed and pesticide company in the world — giving it unprecedented clout over our food supply.

Meanwhile, the FDA announced it will start testing for glyphosate in our food — which will shine a light on how much this hazardous pesticide is getting into our food supply and endangering our health. Senator Merkley introduced a bill in Congress to create more pesticide-free habitat for bees and butterflies. And garden retailers like Home Depot and Lowe’s are helping rapidly shift the gardening industry away from neonics.
But if this merger goes through, Monsanto and Bayer combined will have even more power and money to block our efforts. The new corporation could put even more pressure on our government to delay regulatory action on toxic chemicals, especially under Trump’s corporate-friendly cabinet heads.

***

CANNABIS CURBS LUNG CANCER GROWTH IN MICE, STUDY SHOWS

Harvard researchers tested THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, which is found naturally in cannabis) on cancer cells in labs, and followed that up by studying mice subjects.

Over six years since its original release, this study remains one of the most important cannabis-related studies ever released.

***

DESPITE PLEDGES TO CUT BACK, FARMS STILL USING ANTIBIOTICS

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Pompeo was Monsanto’s man on the Hill. He authored what became known as the DARK (Deny Americans’ Right to Know) act, which made it illegal for states to require labeling of GMOs.

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working in this field of journalism have known about this for decades, but the scope of agribusiness’s propaganda campaigns seldom reaches the general public. The following three paragraphs are from the Times’ article, followed by a link to the full story.

The article is a scathing indictment of corporate-scientific collusion to excuse corporate greed and excesses. To read the full article, paste this address into your browser:

***

‘FREE TO PROSPER’ MEANS FREE TO LOOT AND EXPLOIT

***

SHAREHOLDERS APPROVE MERGER OF BAYER AND MONSANTO

What’s more, the new corporation would be the biggest seed and pesticide company in the world — giving it unprecedented clout over our food supply.

***

CANNABIS CURBS LUNG CANCER GROWTH IN MICE, STUDY SHOWS

Harvard researchers tested THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, which is found naturally in cannabis) on cancer cells in labs, and followed that up by studying mice subjects.

Over six years since its original release, this study remains one of the most important cannabis-related studies ever released.

***

DESPITE PLEDGES TO CUT BACK, FARMS STILL USING ANTIBIOTICS

***

Pompeo was Monsanto’s man on the Hill. He authored what became known as the DARK (Deny Americans’ Right to Know) act, which made it illegal for states to require labeling of GMOs.

###

‘Science’ That’s on the Take vs. Science That Takes Them on

Organic Lifestyle Comments (0)

The New York Times, in an article published on December 31, 2016, documents how scientists are paid by agribusiness corporations for “science” that supports the companies’ agendas. Those of us working in this field of journalism have known about this for decades, but the scope of agribusiness’s propaganda campaigns seldom reaches the general public. The following three paragraphs are from the Times’ article, followed by a link to the full story.

The article is a scathing indictment of corporate-scientific collusion to excuse corporate greed and excesses. To read the full article, paste this address into your browser:

***

‘FREE TO PROSPER’ MEANS FREE TO LOOT AND EXPLOIT

***

SHAREHOLDERS APPROVE MERGER OF BAYER AND MONSANTO

What’s more, the new corporation would be the biggest seed and pesticide company in the world — giving it unprecedented clout over our food supply.

***

CANNABIS CURBS LUNG CANCER GROWTH IN MICE, STUDY SHOWS

Harvard researchers tested THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, which is found naturally in cannabis) on cancer cells in labs, and followed that up by studying mice subjects.

Over six years since its original release, this study remains one of the most important cannabis-related studies ever released.

***

DESPITE PLEDGES TO CUT BACK, FARMS STILL USING ANTIBIOTICS

*The New York Times, in an article published on December 31, 2016, documents how scientists are paid by agribusiness corporations for “science” that supports the companies’ agendas. Those of us working in this field of journalism have known about this for decades, but the scope of agribusiness’s propaganda campaigns seldom reaches the general public. The following three paragraphs are from the Times’ article, followed by a link to the full story.

The article is a scathing indictment of corporate-scientific collusion to excuse corporate greed and excesses. To read the full article, paste this address into your browser:

***

‘FREE TO PROSPER’ MEANS FREE TO LOOT AND EXPLOIT

***

SHAREHOLDERS APPROVE MERGER OF BAYER AND MONSANTO

What’s more, the new corporation would be the biggest seed and pesticide company in the world — giving it unprecedented clout over our food supply.

***

CANNABIS CURBS LUNG CANCER GROWTH IN MICE, STUDY SHOWS

Harvard researchers tested THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, which is found naturally in cannabis) on cancer cells in labs, and followed that up by studying mice subjects.

Over six years since its original release, this study remains one of the most important cannabis-related studies ever released.

***

DESPITE PLEDGES TO CUT BACK, FARMS STILL USING ANTIBIOTICS

***

MONSANTO’S CONGRESSMAN NOW TO HEAD THE CIA

Pompeo was Monsanto’s man on the Hill. He authored what became known as the DARK (Deny Americans’ Right to Know) act, which made it illegal for states to require labeling of GMOs.

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Chemical Agriculture Gets Its Champion

Organic Lifestyle Comments (0)

The list of corporate cronies who will soon run the new, sad reality show in Washington, DC, gets uglier by the day, writes Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association.

Here’s one appointment that may have escaped your notice, Cummins reports. Under the incoming Trump Administration, the CEO of the company that brought us Napalm, Agent Orange, Chlorpyrifos, 2,4-D, and, along with Monsanto, GMO crops, will head up the “American Manufacturing Council.”

It’s a safe bet that Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow Chemical, won’t care one whit about how much poison his company unleashes on you and your food. On December 10, President-Elect Donald Trump pulled Dow’s Liveris up on stage at the Deltaplex Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich., to announce that the head of the chemical giant will lead Trump’s “American Manufacturing Council.”

As the two men “showered each other with praise,” said a Wall Street Journal report, Liveris reportedly told the crowd, “I tingle with pride listening to you.”

In a list of talking points drafted by Trump’s National Advisory Committee for Agriculture and Rural Issues, this was talking point #10: The Trump-Pence administration will use the best available science to determine appropriate regulations for the food and agriculture sector; agriculture will NOT be regulated based upon the latest trend on social media.

With Dow’s CEO in charge of the “American Manufacturing Council,” there’s no doubt that the so-called “best available science” will be as pro-poison and pro-GMO as it gets.
“We’ve got ideas and we’ve got plans,” Liveris told the cheering crowd in Grand Rapids.

Thanks for pointing this out, Ronnie. I haven’t read a word about it in any other source.

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EPA PANEL TO DETERMINE GLYPHOSATE’S CARCINOGENICITY

Stefanie Spear of EcoWatch reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is conducting a Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) to evaluate “the carcinogenic potential of the herbicide glyphosate,” the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup.

For years, Monsanto has claimed that glyphosate is safe, advertising at one time that Roundup was “safer than table salt” and “practically non-toxic.”

However, many studies contradict Monsanto’s assertions. In March, 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization, concluded that glyphosate is a “probable human carcinogen.” Then in July, 2016, an IARC scientist, Dr. Kurt Straif, defended the agency’s assessment that glyphosate probably causes cancer in humans. Dr. Straif stated that:

“Our evaluation was a review of all the published scientific literature on glyphosate and this was done by the world’s best experts on the topic that in addition don’t have any conflicts of interest that could bias their assessment.

“They concluded that, yes, glyphosate is probably carcinogenic to humans based on three strings of evidence, that is clear evidence of cancer in experimental animals, limited evidence for cancer for humans from real-world exposures, of exposed farmers, and also strong evidence that it can damage the genes from any kind of other toxicological studies.”

The SAP meetings now taking place were originally scheduled for mid-October, but the EPA postponed them only a few of days before they were to begin due to “changes in the availability of experts for the peer review panel.”

According to Carey Gillam, research director for U.S. Right to Know, the EPA’s decision to postpone the meetings came after an intense lobbying campaign led by CropLife America, which represents the interests of Monsanto and other agricultural businesses. CropLife initially fought to keep the SAP meetings from happening at all, then said if the meetings were to be held, “any person who has publicly expressed an opinion regarding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate” should be excluded from participating.

In a letter to the EPA, CropLife singled out epidemiologist Dr. Peter Infante, who the lobbying firm felt should be “replaced with an epidemiologist without such patent bias.” As the only epidemiologist slated to be on the panel, CropLife felt that Dr. Infante may have had enhanced influence on the epidemiological evaluation on glyphosate.

Dr. Infante has testified on behalf of plaintiffs suing Monsanto over chemical exposure. Nonetheless, Dr. Infante is one of the leading experts in his field, having spent the better part of a storied career protecting the public from harmful chemicals.

Dr. Infante spent 24 years working for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, where he determined cancer risks to those working on developing toxic chemicals, including arsenic, asbestos and formaldehyde. He has also served as an expert epidemiology consultant for a number of world bodies, including the World Trade Organization and the EPA.

CropLife’s letter to the EPA was sent two days before the agency announced that the glyphosate meetings would be postponed. Many accused the EPA of kowtowing to lobbyists and the businesses they represent. The accusations only grew louder when Dr. Infante’s name was no longer on the list of panelists scheduled for the December meetings.

Dr. Infante told Delta FarmPress that he was “mystified” by the EPA’s decision to remove him from the meetings. “I didn’t choose to leave the panel,” he said. “No … I was removed from the panel. I’m totally mystified by it.”

The EPA’s move was also surprising to environmental advocacy groups, who say it is highly unusual for the agency to remove a panelist from a Scientific Advisory Panel.

“The industry wants to say that our own government scientists, the top ones in their fields, aren’t good enough for these panels,” said Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist at the Consumers Union, after the SAP meetings were postponed in October. “If the EPA wants to add extra epidemiologists that is great but why didn’t they do it before? They are doing this because of pressure from industry.”

According to Gillam, “the delay and the maneuvering by industry to influence panel participation does little to bolster consumer confidence for the likelihood of an objective outcome.”

The EPA said it will issue a risk assessment for glyphosate by spring of 2017.

Jeff Cox adds: With Trump’s choice of climate denier Scott Pruitt as the next administrator of the EPA starting January 20, and with Trump’s stated goal of cutting EPA’s budget by 80 percent, it seems certain that glyphosate will get a ringing safety endorsement by the spring of 2017.

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NATIONAL ORGANIC PROGRAM BEING CO-OPTED BY AGRIBUSINESS

In a letter to the USDA’s Office of Inspector General, The Cornucopia Institute has requested an independent audit of the National Organic Program (NOP), charging a multiplicity of illegal actions and inactions. The Wisconsin-based farm policy research group alleges that the National Organic Program has failed to enforce the laws governing organic agriculture, thereby allowing multinational corporate agribusinesses to squeeze out family-scale farmers, compromising the integrity of the organic label.

If the independent Inspector General responds to Cornucopia’s request, this will not be the first audit that they have performed at the request of the watchdog group. Past audits have been highly critical of the National Organic Program’s accreditation program overseeing organic certification.

“By failing to vigorously enforce the organic standards, USDA political appointees and NOP management have betrayed ethical family farmers and businesses, along with consumer trust,” stated Mark A. Kastel, Cornucopia’s codirector. “The NOP has ceded control of organic rulemaking and enforcement to lobbyists from the nation’s most powerful agribusinesses.”

Cornucopia’s letter cites a number of serious enforcement violations including: allowing soil-less hydroponic/container growing, which substitutes liquid fertilizers for careful stewardship of soil; allowing documented cases of “willful” violations on factory dairies confining livestock instead of grazing; and allowing as many as 200,000 “organic” chickens to be kept in single buildings without outdoor access.

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ORGANIC CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION WANTS ECO-CONSOLIDATION

“One of our favorite themes at Organic Consumers Association is the need for all of us to move away from single-issue organizing to galvanizing our many movements—peace, social justice, food and farming, campaign finance reform, faith, environment and climate —around a shared determination to stand up to corruption and to defend our basic rights and our common home,” the group announced in a press release.

“If we can break out of our single-issue silos, we will create a movement, indeed a revolution, so powerful that we will succeed in redirecting our financial and human resources toward the regeneration of our soils, our food, our economies, our health. And in so doing, restore climate stability.

OCA says that’s why the Standing Rock protest was so inspirational: “Because it united us.” Five hundred clergy members from 20 different religious groups gathered at the Standing Rock camp. Musicians Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, and Jason Mraz held a benefit concert. Bill McKibben, 350.org, and other climate groups got involved. The Code Pink peace and human rights activists participated, as did actress and 60s anti-war activist Jane Fonda.
And then there were the thousands of veterans who descended on the Standing Rock camp, vowing to defend the water protectors from any attempt by “law enforcement” to remove them.

Maybe most importantly, indigenous peoples from tribes around the world took notice of Standing Rock and many sent folks to join in the protection of sacred places and clean water.

“At OCA, what started out as a fundraising drive to provide an organic Thanksgiving dinner for the water protectors, turned into something bigger. We knew that our message—that we are all connected, that we are all fighting the same battle, that we are all one movement—resonated when in just two days our members donated $40,000, ten times more than the $4,000 we asked for, to provide food and other supplies for the camp,” wrote Katherine Paul, associate director of the Organic Consumers Association.

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TRUMP CABINET PICKS ARE BAD NEWS FOR FOOD SAFETY GROUPS

“With all eyes on the Trump administration’s likely picks for his Cabinet, we’ve been closely following the nominations of appointees most likely to make an impact on the food movement,” says the Center for Food Safety. “And we won’t sugarcoat this: so far, it’s bad news.”

It’s becoming clear that a Donald Trump presidency means key Administration officials will try to dismantle some of the gains we’ve fought for over the past 20 years, and in some cases will even ally with big corporations.

President-elect Trump has denied climate change, promised to cancel the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and gut the Environmental Protection Agency. His nominees are cut from the same cloth.

For starters, Trump has just nominated oil and gas industry darling Scott Pruitt to head the EPA. As Oklahoma Attorney General, Pruitt sued the EPA to stop vital protections for public health, including crucial regulations against smog and toxic pollutants like mercury and arsenic. Pruitt also supported Oklahoma’s failed “Right to Farm” bill which would have protected corporate and factory farms at the expense of family farmers and animal welfare, and prevented local communities from passing laws to protect their water and public health.

Add to the list Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), nominated for secretary of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Food and Drug Administration. Price has been a consistent opponent of food safety laws while in Congress, voting against the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act and the Food Safety Modernization Act. He voted for the DARK Act twice, and voted to repeal Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) for beef, pork, and chicken.

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FIRST CROP OF PERIGORD TRUFFLES HARVESTED AND SOLD IN OREGON

Dr. Charles Lefevre, internationally renowned mycologist and co-founder of The Oregon Truffle Festival (Jan. 20-29), has worked with growers across North America since 2000 to plant orchards of oak and hazelnut seedlings inoculated with truffles through his company, New World Truffieres.

His first customer, Pat Long of Corvallis, unearthed the first Perigord truffle (Tuber melanosporum) grown in Oregon in 2013. Last week, Long’s first harvest of this winter season produced enough truffles for a commercial sale to James Beard Award-nominated chef Matt Bennett of Sybaris Bistro in Albany, Oregon, making this the first sizable crop of Perigord truffles grown in the Pacific Northwest. With 12 more weeks of harvests ahead in several Pacific Northwest orchards, Dr. Lefevre anticipates the upcoming cultivated truffle season to be the most productive yet.

“We’re seeing many of our customer’s orchards throughout the United States on the verge of or producing significant quantities of truffles this year,” says Dr. Lefevre. “The large increases in truffle production this year are a clear product of management activities in the orchards, and represent a breakthrough in our ability to farm Perigord truffles in North America. Over the past decade, we have encountered, understood, and finally surpassed the major hurdles complicating truffle production on this continent.”

Because one of the world’s most valuable culinary ingredients are also highly perishable, truffles quickly lose their prized aroma. The aim of cultivating truffles is to provide a source closer to the consumer, so that diners can enjoy truffles at their peak ripeness as they do in Europe where truffles have been historically abundant. Dr. Lefevre has had more success in achieving this goal than any other truffle cultivator in North America, as most of the cultivated truffles on the continent are being produced by his customers. Oregon’s native foraged truffles, particularly Oregon Black and Oregon Winter White truffles, are harvested and prepared by chefs in season each year at the Oregon Truffle Festival. This year, the Oregon-grown Perigord truffles will be served alongside wild Oregon truffles for the first time.

New World Truffieres is an established pioneer in truffle cultivation in North America, as Dr. Charles Lefevre developed his own method for inoculating host tree seedlings with truffle spores while still a graduate student at Oregon State University in 2000. His trees were also the first to produce cultivated Burgundy truffles (British Columbia, 2013) and Bianchetto truffles (Idaho, 2012) in North America and the first to produce cultivated Pecan truffles in the world. Each year since 2007, Dr. Lefevre has gathered international truffle industry experts to share information, research and advances in truffle science at the annual Truffle Growers Forum at the Oregon Truffle Festival, in addition to promoting the North American truffle industry and appreciation through the festival’s myriad seminars, truffle hunts, truffle dog trainings, tastings and dinners featuring some of the West Coast’s most renowned chefs.

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The list of corporate cronies who will soon run the new, sad reality show in Washington, DC, gets uglier by the day, writes Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association.

As the two men “showered each other with praise,” said a Wall Street Journal report, Liveris reportedly told the crowd, “I tingle with pride listening to you.”

Thanks for pointing this out, Ronnie. I haven’t read a word about it in any other source.

***

EPA PANEL TO DETERMINE GLYPHOSATE’S CARCINOGENICITY

For years, Monsanto has claimed that glyphosate is safe, advertising at one time that Roundup was “safer than table salt” and “practically non-toxic.”

The EPA’s move was also surprising to environmental advocacy groups, who say it is highly unusual for the agency to remove a panelist from a Scientific Advisory Panel.

According to Gillam, “the delay and the maneuvering by industry to influence panel participation does little to bolster consumer confidence for the likelihood of an objective outcome.”

The EPA said it will issue a risk assessment for glyphosate by spring of 2017.

***

NATIONAL ORGANIC PROGRAM BEING CO-OPTED BY AGRIBUSINESS

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ORGANIC CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION WANTS ECO-CONSOLIDATION

Maybe most importantly, indigenous peoples from tribes around the world took notice of Standing Rock and many sent folks to join in the protection of sacred places and clean water.

***

TRUMP CABINET PICKS ARE BAD NEWS FOR FOOD SAFETY GROUPS

President-elect Trump has denied climate change, promised to cancel the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and gut the Environmental Protection Agency. His nominees are cut from the same cloth.

***

FIRST CROP OF PERIGORD TRUFFLES HARVESTED AND SOLD IN OREGON

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GMO Feeding Study May Be Right after All

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Remember Professor Giles-Eric Seralini and his research team at the University of Caan in France? They provided pictures of rats fed Monsanto GMO corn saturated with Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer. And they almost had their reputations destroyed as a result. Well, Paul Fassa has done his homework and brings us up-to-date on the situation through his blog at REALfarmacy.com. Here’s his story:
Seralini’s study discovered that rats fed GMOs developed tumors and died prematurely. But that wasn’t the purpose of their study. It was set up to examine the long term toxicity potential of eating GMO corn along with its associated exposure to Roundup.
After Seralini’s long term toxicity study results were publicized, with displays of rats showing huge tumors, a tsunami of outrage from pro-GMO scientists and shill journalists got favorable mainstream media (MSM) press.
The hundreds of scientists who defended Seralini’s work were mostly ignored. Many fence sitters were left confused and willing to side with the barking dogs of the biotechnology industry.
This highly publicized media attack on Seralini and his team was the air and sea attack to soften the defense of the tiny GMO truther island. Then the actual landing attack against that island’s real science was embarked by surreptitiously setting up former Monsanto scientist Richard E. Goodman in a newly created biotech editorial position at the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT), an Elsevier publication.
That’s the journal where Seralini’s study, “Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize,” had been originally peer reviewed and posted. With Goodman steering the landing craft, the editor-in-chief of FCT, Wallace Hayes, removed Seralini’s paper from the journal in 2013, a full year after it was initially peer reviewed and published.
Hayes admitted the study was not fraudulent or inaccurate, but explained that it was inconclusive. Some defending scientists jumped on that one, explaining that peer reviewed published studies are often inconclusive, recommending “further studies.”
Around that same time a Brazilian study proving Monsanto’s Bt corn insecticide starter genes do not disintegrate in mammalian stomachs as claimed by Monsanto, but survive intact to harm mammals’ blood cells was also pulled from FCT.
That study has now been published in another journal. By the way, Seralini’s study was also soon re-published in 2014 by another journal far removed from Monsanto’s invaders: Environmental Sciences Europe.
And by the way again, after some serious howling from international scientists directed at the FCT journal, here’s a 26 February, 2015, update from Scientists for Global Responsibility:
Critical changes have this year been made at the journal, Food and Chemical Toxicolgy, from which the Editor-in-Chief A. Wallace Hayes retracted the important paper by the Seralini team. The Editorial Board of the journal now has a new Editor-in-Chief, José L. Domingo, who has published papers showing that safety of GM crops is not an established fact; and the Editorial Board no longer includes Richard Goodman, the ex-Monsanto employee who became Associate Editor for Biotechnology not long before the Seralini paper was retracted.
Seralini and his research team weren’t completely satisfied with getting their studies republished and defending their work to a mostly uninterested mainstream media. They formed a group called CRIIGEN, the acronym for Comité de Recherche et d’Information Indépendantes sur le Génie Génétique, or Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering, and fought back.
Keep in mind the attacks on Seralini et al focused on the tumors, which had a high visual media impact. But Seralini and team weren’t testing for cancerous effects primarily. Their toxicity analysis focused on long term effects on liver and kidney health, where they did find indisputable evidence of gross harm.
Professor Seralini’s study was a chronic toxicity study, not a full-scale carcinogenicity study. Therefore he conservatively did not do a statistical analysis of the tumors and mortality findings. Instead he simply reported them, without drawing definitive conclusions.
This was in line with the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) chronic toxicity protocol, which requires that any “lesions,” including tumors observed, are recorded.
So Seralini and CRIIGEN conspired to attack rather than just defend, which they did with support from many international scientists. They successfully challenged Marianne Magazine and its featured journalist Jean-Claude Jaillet for publicly claiming in 2012 that Seralini and his team were guilty of “scientific fraud in which the methodology served to reinforce predetermined results.”
That same article also reported “researchers around the world” had voiced “harsh words” about Seralini’s long term (two years) toxicity research on rats fed GMO Roundup-tolerant corn. Seralini and CRIIGEN, with the assistance of public attorneys, called notaires in France, Bernard Dartevelle and Cindy Gay, won their suit against Marianne Magazine.

Then after a three year investigation ending on the 25th of November 2015, the High Court of Paris indicted Marc Fellous, one of those charged in the original libel case earlier. He just happened to be the chairman of France’s Biomolecular Engineering Commission who had rubber stamped many genetically modified products for consumption.
Details haven’t been publicly revealed, but apparently Fellous has been charged with forgery and the use of forgery, using a scientist’s signature to “prove” Seralini and company were wrong about their study that concluded that Monsanto’s Roundup Ready corn was not safe for consumption until further study was undertaken. Final judgement and sentencing is expected by early 2017.
The court’s investigation discovered that American journalist Henry Miller via notoriously pro-GMO Forbes Magazine had initiated the libelous attacks. This Henry Miller is one of those mercenary attack hacks who has a history of working for industries that are dangerous to the health and welfare of humanity and the planet, including the tobacco industry.
Conclusion: Attacking the lying pro-GMO crowd and fraudulent biotech industry through the court system may be more effective in Europe than here in the States, but it may be the only way to go against all things considered GMO.

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ORGANIC STANDARDS TO EXCLUDE NEXT GENERATION GMO INGREDIENTS

The National Organic Standards Board has voted unanimously to update U.S. organic standards to exclude ingredients derived from next generation genetic engineering and gene editing, Friends of the Earth reports.
This recommendation to the US Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program will ensure that ingredients derived from new genetic engineering techniques, including synthetic biology, will not be allowed in the production or final product of foods and beverages that are certified organic. Synthetic biology is a new set of genetic engineering techniques that include using synthetic DNA to re-engineer organisms to produce substances they would not normally produce or to edit DNA so as to silence the expression of certain traits.
“The Board’s hard-fought proactive stance on synthetic biology will both help preserve the integrity of organic standards and raise awareness about this virtually unregulated and unlabeled form of genetic engineering,” said Dana Perls, food and technology policy campaigner with Friends of the Earth. “It’s critical that organic standards treat new types of genetic engineering that are rapidly entering our food and consumer products as rigorously as the first generation of GMOs.”
Like “traditional” GMOs, synthetic biology ingredients are entering food and consumer products in absence of adequate health and environmental safety assessment, oversight and labeling. Many are being falsely marketed as “natural.” Products in development include synthetic stevia, saffron, coconut and cacao, meant to replace plant-based ingredients, many of which are currently produced by small farmers in the Global South. There is increasing concern that these farmers’ livelihoods may be displaced by synthetic biology ingredients. Other products include gene-silenced apples, CRISPR waxy corn, and Cibus Canola oil, engineered with gene editing techniques.
“The National Organic Standards Board has made clear that all kinds of genetic engineering are to be excluded from ‘organic.’ The public expects that government to actually assess the new foods that it is permitting on the market,” said Jaydee Hanson, senior policy analyst, Center for Food Safety. “Unfortunately, the government has failed to update its regulations to adequately assess these new kinds of genetic engineering. When the USDA approves that NOSB recommendations, consumers who want to avoid GMOs will be able to use the Organic Seal to know that the product is not a GMO.”
The Board’s announcement follows a growing trend of companies stating that they will not use ingredients produced via synthetic biology. The Non-GMO Project, North America’s only third party verification program for non-GMO food and products, recently updated its standards so as to include synthetic biology and new gene editing techniques. Companies such as Ben and Jerry’s (BJICA: US), Three Twins Ice Cream, Straus Family Creamery, Luna & Larry’s Coconut Bliss, Nestlé (NSRGY: OTC US), and General Mills (NYSE: GIS) have committed to “…not source vanilla flavor produced through synthetic biology,” a product that is designed to replace natural vanillin flavoring from vanilla beans. Synthetic biology vanilla flavoring, introduced by Evolva (SWX: EVE) and International Flavors and Fragrances (NYSE: IFF) in 2014, is the first major synthetic biology ingredient to enter food and beverages, marketed as “natural vanillin.” Other companies that have pledged to avoid synthetic biology ingredients entirely include Nutiva and Dr. Bronner’s.
Synthetic biology employs a new set of genetic engineering techniques that involve artificially constructing or “editing” genetic material such as DNA in order to create new forms of life, or to attempt to “reprogram” existing organisms. Despite growing concerns about the possible impacts of synthetic biology organisms on human health and the environment and a lack of independent safety assessment, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has allowed synthetic biology vanilla, DuPont’s CRISPR waxy corn and other similarly created food and cosmetic ingredients to enter the market without regulation. Existing regulations that identify GE crops and food ingredients as “Generally Regarded As Safe” use an outdated process with minimal testing requirements that rely on companies to self-evaluate the safety of their products.

IMPROVING PLANT GROWTH BY IMPROVING PHOTOSYNTHESIS
A decade ago, The New York Times reports, agricultural scientists at the University of Illinois suggested a bold approach to improve the food supply: tinker with photosynthesis, the chemical reaction powering nearly all life on Earth.
The idea was greeted skeptically in scientific circles and ignored by funding agencies. But one outfit with deep pockets, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, eventually paid attention, hoping the research might help alleviate global poverty.
Now, after several years of work funded by the foundation, the scientists are reporting a remarkable result.
Using genetic engineering techniques to alter photosynthesis, they increased the productivity of a test plant — tobacco — by as much as 20 percent, they said Thursday in a study published by the journal Science. That is a huge number, given that plant breeders struggle to eke out gains of 1 or 2 percent with more conventional approaches.

The scientists have no interest in increasing the production of tobacco; their plan is to try the same alterations in food crops, and one of the leaders of the work believes production gains of 50 percent or more may ultimately be achievable. If that prediction is borne out in further research — it could take a decade, if not longer, to know for sure — the result might be nothing less than a transformation of global agriculture.
The findings could also intensify the political struggle over genetic engineering of the food supply. Some groups oppose it, arguing that researchers are playing God by moving genes from one species to another. That argument has gained some traction with the public, in part because the benefits of gene-altered crops have so far been modest at best.
But gains of 40 or 50 percent in food production would be an entirely different matter, potentially offering enormous benefits for the world’s poorest people, many of them farmers working small plots of land in the developing world.
“We’re here because we want to alleviate poverty,” said Katherine Kahn, the officer at the Gates Foundation overseeing the grant for the Illinois research. “What is it the farmers need, and how can we help them get there?”
One of the leaders of the research, Stephen P. Long, a crop scientist who holds appointments at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at Lancaster University in England, emphasized in an interview that a long road lay ahead before any results from the work might reach farmers’ fields.

But Dr. Long is also convinced that genetic engineering could ultimately lead to what he called a “second Green Revolution” that would produce huge gains in food production, like the original Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, which transferred advanced agricultural techniques to some developing countries and led to reductions in world hunger.
The research involves photosynthesis, in which plants use carbon dioxide from the air and energy from sunlight to form new, energy-rich carbohydrates. These compounds are, in turn, the basic energy supply for almost all animal cells, including those of humans. The mathematical description of photosynthesis is sometimes billed as “the equation that powers the world.”
For a decade, Dr. Long had argued that photosynthesis was not actually very efficient. In the course of evolution, several experts said, Mother Nature had focused on the survival and reproduction of plants, not on putting out the maximum amount of seeds or fruits for humans to come along and pick.
Dr. Long thought crop yields might be improved by certain genetic changes. Other scientists doubted it would work, but with the Science paper, Dr. Long and his collaborator — Krishna K. Niyogi, who holds appointments at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — have gone a long way toward proving their point.
Much of the work at the University of Illinois was carried out by two young researchers from abroad who hold positions in Dr. Long’s laboratory, Johannes Kromdijk of the Netherlands and Katarzyna Glowacka of Poland.
No one plans to eat tobacco, of course, nor does the Gates Foundation have any interest in increasing the production of that health-damaging crop. But the researchers used it because tobacco is a particularly fast and easy plant in which to try new genetic alterations to see how well they work.
In a recent interview here, Dr. Kromdijk and Dr. Glowacka showed off tiny tobacco plants incorporating the genetic changes and described their aspirations.
“We hope it translates into food crops in the way we’ve shown in tobacco,” Dr. Kromdijk said. “Of course, you only know when you actually try it.”
In the initial work, the researchers transferred genes from a common laboratory plant, known as thale cress or mouse-ear cress, into strains of tobacco. The effect was not to introduce alien substances, but rather to increase the level of certain proteins that already existed in tobacco.
When plants receive direct sunlight, they are often getting more energy than they can use, and they activate a mechanism that helps them shed it as heat — while slowing carbohydrate production. The genetic changes the researchers introduced help the plant turn that mechanism off faster once the excessive sunlight ends, so that the machinery of photosynthesis can get back more quickly to maximal production of carbohydrates.
It is a bit like a factory worker taking a shorter coffee break before getting back to the assembly line. But the effect on the overall growth of the tobacco plants was surprisingly large.

When the scientists grew the newly created plants in fields at the University of Illinois, they achieved yield increases of 13.5 percent in one strain, 19 percent in a second and 20 percent in a third, over normal tobacco plants grown for comparison.

Because the machinery of photosynthesis in many of the world’s food crops is identical to that of tobacco, theory suggests that a comparable manipulation of those crops should increase production. Work is planned to test that in crops that are especially important as dietary staples in Africa, like cowpeas, rice and cassava.

Two outside experts not involved in the research both used the word “exciting” to describe it. But they emphasized that the researchers had not yet proved that the food supply could be increased.

“How does it look in rice or corn or wheat or sugar beets?” said L. Val Giddings, a senior fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in Washington and a longtime advocate of gene-altered crops. “You’ve got to get it into a handful of the important crops before you can show this is real and it’s going to have a huge impact. We are not there yet.”

Barry D. Bruce of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, who studies photosynthesis, pointed out that the genetic alteration might behave differently in crops where only parts of the plant, such as seeds or fruits, are harvested. In tobacco, by contrast, the entire aboveground plant is harvested — Dr. Bruce called it “a leafy green plant used for cigars!”

Dr. Bruce also noted that, now that the principle has been established, it might be possible to find plant varieties with the desired traits and introduce the changes into crops by conventional breeding, rather than by genetic engineering. Dr. Long and his group agreed this might be possible.

The genetic engineering approach, if it works, may well be used in commercial seeds produced by Western agricultural companies. One of them, Syngenta, has already signed a deal to get a first look at the results. But the Gates Foundation is determined to see the technology, assuming its early promise is borne out, make its way to African farmers at low cost.

The work is, in part, an effort to secure the food supply against the possible effects of future climate change. If rising global temperatures cut the production of food, human society could be destabilized, but more efficient crop plants could potentially make the food system more resilient, Dr. Long said.

“We’re in a year when commodity prices are very low, and people are saying the world doesn’t need more food,” Dr. Long said. “But if we don’t do this now, we may not have it when we really need it.”

Okay—this is a very nice summary of the work to date. But several things.
If the plants to be transformed into super photo synthesizers are to be eaten by human beings, health safety tests would have to be performed. This is especially important because of the falsehoods present in this article. To wit, this paragraph: “But Dr. Long is also convinced that genetic engineering could ultimately lead to what he called a ‘second Green Revolution’ that would produce huge gains in food production, like the original Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, which transferred advanced agricultural techniques to some developing countries and led to reductions in world hunger.”
That Green Revolution “transferred advanced agricultural techniques to some developing countries,” but what that meant was that indigenous agriculture—the inherent knowledge of the people—was brushed aside so that modern agriculture, with its chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and so on, could replace it, with millions of poor people thrown into servitude to Big Ag from America. In the final analysis, that first Green revolution was a total failure and disaster for the indigenous people, and a temporary source of money for Big Ag.
I think we’ll soon see that Monsanto and its allies will be rebranding the old Green Revolution agriculture as “American agriculture,” as the Organic Consumers Association has suggested. Once Big Ag becomes “American agriculture,” then the people who oppose it become, by default, “anti-American,” nicht Wahr?
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‘Science’ That’s on the Take vs. Science That Takes Them on

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