‘Supplements and Safety’ Toes the Pharmaceutical Industry’s Bogus Line
Organic Lifestyle Comments Off on ‘Supplements and Safety’ Toes the Pharmaceutical Industry’s Bogus Line
On January 19, I watched a PBS Frontline Series program called “Supplements and Safety,” and if you watched it and didn’t know much about vitamins and food supplements, you’d never swallow another food supplement pill in your life. It was one hour of blatant propaganda about the dangers of unregulated and bogus food supplements. It made me wonder how much the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association had to pay to have that hatchet job produced by PBS in cahoots with The New York Times.
They had one guy on there saying that there is no scientific evidence that supplements have any beneficial health effects at all. Not one bit, he said. Well, I’m a former associate editor of Prevention magazine, a publication devoted to sharing the benefits of proper nutrition through vitamins and food supplements with the general public. When I started in that job, the editor told me that if what we had to say wasn’t backed up by solid scientific evidence, we shouldn’t say it. Far from there being no science done on nutritional supplements, I was awash in studies. We had a whole library and staff devoted to finding the scientific studies to back up what we were printing.
Another guy said that he found mislabeled herbal supplements on the shelves of GNC, Walmart, Target, and Walgreen’s. Well, yeah. Those stores aren’t reputable outlets for quality supplements. Let’s say I’m a buyer for Target and I’m stocking shelves with herbal supplements like echinacea. A reputable producer may sell echinacea for $10 a bottle wholesale. Now here comes a guy who sells it “from China” for $5 a bottle. Hey—I can make $5 a bottle more selling the Chinese product. Who do I chose to give my business to? I’m after profit, not health for the consumer.
That program was the worst piece of propaganda I’ve seen in years. They even managed at one point to show “dangerous” supplements with the “USDA Organic” seal prominently displayed in the background.
Anyone who thinks there’s no war going on between the forces of wholesomeness and the forces of “maximum profit and the consumer be damned” doesn’t have his eyes open. PBS and The New York Times should be ashamed of themselves.
***
GETTING REAL ABOUT TODAY’S GOP
The media and many citizens seem to think that the Republicans are a legitimate faction of our political body, as interested in the public welfare as the Democrats, but with a very different approach.
That’s just wrong. Just how wrong was thrown into stark relief in recent days as the problem with Flint, Michigan’s, water emerged. It was poisoned with lead from Flint’s corroded water pipes. Governor Rick Snyder, a Tea Party Republican, knew about it for a year. Despite the foul-smelling, gunky water, Flint’s people—mostly African-American—drank it, cooked with it, and bathed in it, men, women, children, and infants. They were told it was safe. Far from being safe, it was infused with lead, a heavy metal that damages the development of children bodies.
On TV tonight, Governore Snyder stood at a podium and said, “I’m sorry—but I’m going to fix it.” He knew about it for a year. His apology means nothing, now that Flint’s 100,000 people are full of lead. The time to fix it is long past. Some people are calling for him to resign. He says he’s needed to stay on and fix it.
If I knowingly, irrevocably poisoned 100,000 people, what do you think would happen to me? Rick Snyder needs to be prosecuted for serious malfeasance in office and for reckless endangerment of the health of the citizens under his governorship.
Snyder is just one example of the damage the Republican Party’s operatives are doing to our country, our culture, and our democracy.
***
WEBMD AND MONSANTO
If you’re one of the nearly 12 million people who visit WebMD.com every month, you’re getting a healthy dose of Monsanto propaganda along with your “health research,” according to the Organic Consumers Association.
Monsanto is one of the many corporate “sponsors” of WebMD. That means Monsanto pays WebMD in order to pepper WebMD’s website with advertisements and advertorials, disguised as legitimate journalism.
WebMD Health Corp. (NASDAQ: WBMD) is a publicly held corporation that answers first and foremost to its shareholders. The company, with its long history of deceiving consumers and partnering up with drug, junk food and biotech companies, is not, and never was, in the business of caring about consumers—a fact meticulously documented in an article published recently by Mercola.com.
WebMD propaganda is cleverly disguised as legitimate health advice. So cleverly, that millions of visitors to the site probably have no idea that they’re being duped.
Text “WebMD” to 97779 to join OCA’s mobile network and take action!
***
GMO LABELING DECISIONS HAPPEN IN SECRET MEETINGS
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack met with five representatives of the Grocery Manufacturers Association and Monsanto (the folks who oppose mandatory GMO labeling laws), and five representatives from the GMO labeling movement.
The meeting was “invitation only,” and participants were sworn to secrecy about what went down. All that was said publicly was, “We’re still working out a compromise.”
We’ve heard our share of rumors, including a number of “compromises” that we find unacceptable. Like a mandatory QR code labeling scheme, that would not only preempt Vermont’s law, but also make it illegal for companies to print GMO labels on their packages.
Now PoliticoPro reports that all meeting-goers are still “mum” on the negotiations:
However, it does appear some information has been provided to members of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Chairman Pat Roberts said he knew the sides were meeting again this week, while Sen. John Hoeven, who is working on a GMO labeling bill, said he has heard from the agency about the first session, “but nothing I can be talking about publicly.”
So not only can’t you know what’s in your food, or where your meat comes from, but you’re not even allowed to know what the people who are going to decide whether you get to know are deciding. Democracy—or oligarchy clamping down on the dissemination of information that may damage its bottom line?
***
IMPORTED TEA MAY CONTAIN TOXIC PESTICIDE RESIDUES
The latest report from Beyond Pesticides details how tea imported to the U.S. is often full of pesticide residues, the Organic Consumers Association reveals.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration consistently finds high levels of illegal residues on imported tea that eventually finds its way to the American consumer. This includes permethrin (a synthetic pyrethroid, linked to cancer and endocrine system disruption), DDE (a metabolite of DDT, banned in the U.S. in 1972), heptachlor epoxide (a derivative of the pesticide heptachlor, which was banned in the U.S. for use in agriculture and as a termiticide due to its carcinogenicity and persistence in the environment), and acetamiprid (a bee-toxic neonicotinoid).
Why don’t we reject these tea imports, if they violate regulations? How best to avoid contaminated teas? Choose certified organic.
***
ARGENTINIANS STRIKE BACK AGAINST MONSANTO
The biotechnology giant Monsanto continues attempts to build its GMO seeds plant in Argentina, despite three years of unflinching popular opposition, according to Darío Aranda and Nancy Piñeiro, writing in Upside Down World.
The world’s largest GMO corporation never imagined that it would suffer one of its major setbacks in a small, rural town in central Argentina. Popular opposition, irregularities in the company’s environmental impact assessment, a protest blockade at the entry gate, and a court ruling stalled the construction of its seeds plant three years ago.
The most recent blow to the corporation occurred when it made a new attempt to enter the site in the municipality of Malvinas Argentinas, in the province of Cordoba. Protesters received an eviction notice, but local socio-environmental assemblies mobilized to strengthen the blockade, and a prosecutor suspended the order.
On January 8, simultaneous marches were held in different cities across Argentina. The demand was: “Monsanto, get out of Latin America!”
***
APOLLO OLIVE OIL WINS AWARDS
Back in November, Apollo Olive Oil had the honor of being chosen as a Finalist for a 2016 Good Food Award. On January 16, the winners were announced and Apollo was among them. There were a total of 1,927 entrants from across the U.S., with just 242 winners in 13 categories. Of the 11 winners in the ‘Oil’ category, only five were for olive oil, of which two others were also extra virgin olive oil. The Good Food Award recognizes that the Sierra and Mistral are of excellent quality and produced with sustainable methods benefiting local food economies.
Onn January 2 and 3, the TV show 60 Minutes ran three segments: the “FBI of Food,” don’t fall victim to olive oil scam, and AgroMafia, exposing Mafia involvement and the fight against it, in the entire Italian food chain, including olive oil fraud. As much as 80 percent of oil labeled as Italian extra virgin olive oil and sold here in the U.S. simply isn’t.
If you like real olive oil—pungent, bitter, and fruity—check out www.apollooliveoil.com. This California oil is the real deal.
***
GATES FOUNDATION REPEATING MISTAKES OF THE GREEN REVOLUTION
The following is a long story, but an exceedingly important one. It involves the take-over of world agriculture by multinational corporate biotech, chemical, and seed companies, all facilitated by the benign-sounding Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation–widely assumed to be doing good–is imposing a neoliberal model of development and corporate domination that’s opening up Africa’s agriculture to land and seed-grabbing global agribusiness, writes Colin Todhunter, a journalist who can frequently be found in The Ecologist, Truthout, and the London Progressive Journal. In the process, he says, the Foundation is foreclosing on the real solutions–enhancing food security, food sovereignty, and the move to agroecological farming.
BMGF is promoting a model of industrial agriculture, the increasing use of chemical fertilizers and expensive, patented seeds, the privatization of extension services, and a very large focus on genetically modified crops.
With assets of $43.5 billion, the BMGF is the largest charitable foundation in the world. It actually distributes more aid for global health than any government. As a result, it has a major influence on issues of global health and agriculture.
The charges are laid in a new report by Global Justice Now: ‘Gated Development–is the Gates Foundation always a force for good?’ The report argues that what BMGF is doing could end up exacerbating global inequality and entrenching corporate power globally.
Global Justice Now’s analysis of the BMGF’s programs shows that the Foundation’s senior staff are overwhelmingly drawn from corporate America. As a result, the question is: whose interests are being promoted–those of corporate America or those of ordinary people who seek social and economic justice rather than charity?
According to the report, the Foundation’s strategy is intended to deepen the role of multinational companies in global health and agriculture especially, even though these corporations are responsible for much of the poverty and injustice that already plagues the global south.
It concludes that the Foundation’s programs have a specific ideological strategy that promotes neo-liberal economic policies, corporate globalization, the technology this brings (such as GMOs), and an outdated view of the centrality of aid in ‘helping’ the poor.
The report raises a series criticisms including:
1) The relationship between the foundation and Microsoft’s tax practices. A 2012 report from the US Senate found that Microsoft’s use of offshore subsidiaries enabled it to avoid taxes of $4.5 billion, a sum greater than the BMGF’s annual grant making ($3.6 billion in 2014).
2) The close relationship that BMGF has with many corporations whose role and policies contribute to ongoing poverty. Not only is BMGF profiting from numerous investments in a series of controversial companies which contribute to economic and social injustice, it is also actively supporting a series of those companies, including pesticide manufacturers Monsanto, DuPont, and Bayer through a variety of pro-corporate initiatives around the world.
3) The Foundation’s promotion of industrial agriculture across Africa, pushing for the adoption of patented GMO seed systems and chemical fertilizers, all of which undermine existing sustainable, small-scale farming that is providing the vast majority of food security across the continent.
4) The Foundation’s promotion of projects around the world pushing private healthcare and education. Numerous agencies have raised concerns that such projects exacerbate inequality and undermine the universal provision of such basic human necessities.
“The Gates Foundation has rapidly become the most influential actor in the world of global health and agricultural policies, but there’s no oversight or accountability in how that influence is managed,” says Polly Jones the head of campaigns and policy at Global Justice Now.
“This concentration of power and influence is even more problematic when you consider that the philanthropic vision of the Gates Foundation seems to be largely based on the values of corporate America. The Foundation is relentlessly promoting big business-based initiatives such as industrial agriculture, private health care and education. But these are all potentially exacerbating the problems of poverty and lack of access to basic resources that the foundation is supposed to be alleviating.”
The report states that that Bill Gates has regular access to world leaders and is in effect personally bankrolling hundreds of universities, international organizations, NGOs, and media outlets.
As the single most influential voice in international development, the Foundation’s strategy is a major challenge to progressive development actors and activists around the world who want to see the influence of multinational corporations in global markets reduced or eliminated.
The Foundation not only funds projects in which agricultural and pharmaceutical corporations are among the leading beneficiaries, but it often invests in the same companies as it is funding, meaning the Foundation has an interest in the ongoing profitability of these corporations. According to the report, this is “a corporate merry-go-round where the BMGF consistently acts in the interests of corporations.”
The report notes that the BMGF’s close relationship with seed and chemical giant Monsanto is well known. It previously owned shares in the company and continues to promote several projects in which Monsanto is a beneficiary.
Not least among these is the wholly inappropriate and fraudulent GMO project which promotes a technical quick-fix ahead of tackling the structural issues that create hunger, poverty, and food insecurity. And, the report notes, the BMGF partners with many other multinational agribusiness corporations. For instance, the foundation is working with Cargill in an $8 million project to “develop the soya value chain” in southern Africa.
Cargill is the biggest global player in the production of and trade in soybeans with heavy investments in South America where GMO soy monocrops have displaced rural populations and caused great environmental damage. According to Global Justice Now, the BMGF-funded project will likely enable Cargill to capture a hitherto untapped African soy market and eventually introduce GMO soy onto the continent.
The end markets for this soy are companies with relationships with the fast food outlet, KFC, whose expansion in Africa is being aided by the project.
Specific examples are given which highlight how BMGF is also supporting projects involving other biotech, chemical, and seed corporations, including DuPont, Pioneer, Syngenta and Bayer.
According to the report, the BMGF is promoting a model of industrial agriculture, the increasing use of chemical fertilizers and expensive, patented seeds, the privatization of extension services and a very large focus on genetically modified crops. The foundation bankrolls the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) in pushing industrial agriculture.
A key area for AGRA is seed policy. The report notes that currently over 80 percent of Africa’s seed supply comes from millions of small-scale farmers recycling and exchanging seed from year to year. But AGRA is promoting the commercial production of seed and is thus supporting the introduction of commercial seed systems, which risk enabling a few large companies to control seed research and development, production, and distribution.
In order for commercial seed companies to invest in research and development, they first want to protect their intellectual property. According to the report, this requires a fundamental restructuring of seed laws to allow for certification systems that not only protect certified varieties and royalties derived from them, but which actually criminalize all non-certified seed.
The report notes that over the past two decades, a long and slow process of national seed law reviews, sponsored by USAID and the G8 along with the BMGF and others, has opened the door to multinational corporations’ involvement in seed production, including the acquisition of every sizeable seed enterprise on the African continent.
At the same time, AGRA is working to promote costly inputs, notably fertilizer, despite evidence to suggest chemical fertilizers have significant health risks for farm workers, increase soil erosion, and can trap small-scale farmers in unsustainable debt. The BMGF, through AGRA, is one of the world’s largest promoters of the use of chemical fertilizer.
Some grants given by the BMGF to AGRA have been specifically intended to “help AGRA build the fertilizer supply chain” in Africa. The report describes how one of the largest of AGRA’s grants, worth $25 million, was used to help establish the African Fertilizer Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP) in 2012, whose very goal is to “at least double total fertilizer use” in Africa.
The AFAP project is being pursued in partnership with the International Fertilizer Development Centre, a body which represents the fertilizer industry.
Another of AGRA’s key programs since its inception has been support to agro-dealer networks – small, private stockers of transnational companies’ chemicals and seeds who sell these to farmers in several African countries. This is increasing the reliance of farmers on chemical inputs and marginalizing sustainable agriculture alternatives, thereby undermining any notion that farmers are exercising their ‘free choice’ (as the neo-liberal evangelists are keen to tell everyone) when it comes to adopting certain agricultural practices.
The report concludes that AGRA’s agenda is the biggest direct threat to the growing movement in support of food sovereignty and agroecological farming methods in Africa. This movement opposes reliance on chemicals, expensive seeds, and GMOs, and instead promotes an approach which allows communities control over the way food is produced, traded, and consumed.
The food sovereignity movement is seeking to create a food system that is designed to help people and the environment rather than make profits for multinational corporations. Priority is given to promoting healthy farming and healthy food by protecting soil, water and climate, and promoting biodiversity.
Recent evidence from Greenpeace and the Oakland Institute shows that in Africa agroecological farming can increase yields significantly (often greater than industrial agriculture), and that it is more profitable for small farmers. In 2011, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food (Olivier de Schutter) called on countries to reorient their agriculture policies to promote sustainable systems–not least agroecology–that realize the right to food.
Moreover, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development (IAASTD) was the work of over 400 scientists and took four years to complete. It was twice peer reviewed. It states that we must look to smallholder, traditional farming to deliver food security in third world countries through agroecological systems that are sustainable.
In a January, 2015, piece in the Guardian, the Director of Global Justice Now said that ‘development’ was once regarded as a process of breaking with colonial exploitation and transferring power over resources from the ‘first’ to the ‘third world’, involving a revolutionary struggle over the world’s resources.
However, the current paradigm is based on the assumption that developing countries need to adopt neoliberal policies and that public money in the guise of aid should facilitate this.
If this new report shows anything, it is that the notion of ‘development’ has become hijacked by rich corporations and a super-rich ‘philanthrocapitalist’ (whose own corporate practices have been questionable to say the least, as highlighted by the report).
In effect, the model of ‘development’ being facilitated is married to the ideology and structurally embedded power relations of an exploitative global capitalism.
The BMGF is spearheading the ambitions of corporate America and the scramble for Africa by global agribusiness.
***
LEAD IN THE WATER ISN”T THE ONLY PROBLEM IN MICHIGAN
Michigan residents lost their “right to farm” this week thanks to a new ruling by the Michigan Commission of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Gail Philburn of the Michigan Sierra Club told Michigan Live, the new changes “effectively remove Right to Farm Act protection for many urban and suburban backyard farmers raising small numbers of animals.” Backyard and urban farming were previously protected by Michigan’s Right to Farm Act. The Commission ruled that the Right to Farm Act protections no longer apply to many homeowners who keep small numbers of livestock.
Kim White, who raises chickens and rabbits, said, “They don’t want us little guys feeding ourselves. They want us to go all to the big farms. They want to do away with small farms and I believe that is what’s motivating it.” The ruling will allow local governments to arbitrarily ban goats, chickens and beehives on any property where there are 13 homes within one eighth mile or a residence within 250 feet of the property, according to Michigan Public Radio. The Right to Farm Act was created in 1981 to protect farmers from the complaints of people from the city who moved to the country and then attempted to make it more urban with anti-farming ordinances. The new changes affect residents of rural Michigan too. It is not simply an urban or suburban concern.
Shady Grove Farm in Gwinn, Michigan, is the six and a half acre home to 150 egg-laying hens that provide eggs to a local co-op and a local restaurant. The small Michigan farm also raises sheep for wool and a few turkeys and meat chickens to provide fresh healthy, local poultry. “We produce food with integrity,” Randy Buchler told The Blaze about Shady Grove Farm. “Everything we do here is 100 percent natural — we like to say it’s beyond organic. We take a lot of pride and care in what we’re doing here.”
Shady Grove Farm was doing its part to bring healthy, local, organic food to the tables of Gwinn residents, and it mirrors the attitudes of hundreds of other small farming operations in Michigan and thousands of others popping up around the nation. The ruling comes within days of a report by The World Health Organization that stated the world is currently in grave danger of entering a post-antibiotic era. The WHO’s director-general, Dr. Margaret Chan, argued that the antibiotic use in our industrialized food supply is the worst offender adding to the global crisis. “The Michigan Agriculture Commission passed up an opportunity to support one of the hottest trends in food in Michigan–public demand for access to more local, healthy, sustainable food,” Gail Philbin told MLive.
Meanwhile, neighboring Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed Senate Bill 179 a few weeks before which freed up poultry and egg sales from local and state regulation. Yesterday, the USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced massive funding to support research about small and medium-sized family farms, such as small farms’ ability to build-up local and regional economic systems. “There’s a lot of unnecessary legal action being taken against small farms who are doing good things in their communities,” said Randy Buchler, who is also on the board of directors for the Michigan Small Farm Council. The Michigan Small Farm Council actively fought to support Michigan farming freedom, but ultimately the Commission voted to approve the new restrictions.
“Farm Bureau has become another special interest beholden to big business and out of touch with small farmers, and constitutional and property rights of the little guy,” Pine Hallow Farms wrote to the Michigan Small Farm Council. The Michigan Farm Bureau endorsed the new regulatory changes. Matthew Kapp, government relations specialist with Michigan Farm Bureau, told MLive that the members weighed in and felt that people raising livestock need to conform to local zoning ordinances. The Farm Bureau did not feel Michigan’s Right To Farm Act was meant to protect the smaller farms, and ultimately the Michigan Commission of Agriculture and Rural Development agreed.
***
DOES ORGANIC WINE TASTE BETTER? AN ANALYSIS OF EXPERTS’ RATINGS
Researchers did the studies and here’s an abstract of the paper they wrote:
Eco-labels are part of a new wave of environmental policy that emphasizes information disclosure as a tool to induce environmentally friendly behavior by both firms and consumers. Little consensus exists as to whether eco-certified products are actually better than their conventional counterparts. This paper seeks to understand the link between eco-certification and product quality. We use data from three leading wine rating publications (Wine Advocate, Wine Enthusiast, and Wine Spectator) to assess quality for 74,148 wines produced in California between 1998 and 2009. Our results indicate that eco-certification is associated with a statistically significant increase in wine quality rating.
***
CORNELL HOSTS GMO PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN
The following is excerpted from The Ecologist and was written by Stacy Malkan. It was reprinted by the Organic Consumers Association.
Cornell, one of the world’s leading academic institutions, has abandoned scientific objectivity, writes Stacy Malkan, and instead made itself a global hub for the promotion of GMO crops and food. Working with selected journalists and industry-supported academics, Cornell’s so-called ‘Alliance for Science’ is an aggressive propaganda tool for corporate biotech and agribusiness.
The founders of Cornell University, Andrew D. White and Ezra Cornell, dreamed of creating a great university that took a radical approach to learning.
Their revolutionary spirit, and the promise to pursue knowledge for the greater good, is said to be at the heart of the Ivy League school their dream became.
It is difficult to understand how these ideals are served by a unit of Cornell operating as a public relations arm for the agrichemical industry.
Yet that is what seems to be going on at the Cornell Alliance for Science (CAS), a program launched in 2014 with a $5.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (them again!) and a goal to “depolarize the charged debate” about GMOs.
A review of the group’s materials and programs suggests that beneath its promise to “restore the importance of scientific evidence in decision making,” CAS is promoting GMOs using dishonest messaging and PR tactics developed by agrichemical corporations with a long history of misleading the public about science.
CAS Director Sarah Evanega, PhD, describes her group as a “communications-based nonprofit organization represented by scientists, farmers, NGOs, journalists and concerned citizens” who will use “interactive online platforms, multimedia resources and communication training programs to build a global movement to advocate for access to biotechnology.”
In this way, they say they will help alleviate malnourishment and hunger in developing countries, according to the video.
Jeff here:
In reality, CAS is a propaganda campaign devoted to promoting genetically engineered foods around the world. As we’ve seen in this blog many times before, the real purpose of GMO seed patenting is control of the world’s seed supply. And that’s not only important for Monsanto and friends so they can corner the seed market, but it also means increasing sales of its pesticides and herbicides that are used on the GMO seeds. The fact that it’s wrecking the environment, harming life on earth, and destroying the lives of small, organic and natural farmers everywhere is just collateral damage. And the most cynical part is that Big Ag is presenting this agribiz-biotech takeover as the salvation of the world from the oncoming (be very afraid) famines that they say loom in the years ahead. Hand in hand with Big Philanthropy (BMGF) they’re out to save the world, one lifeless farm field at a time.
###
