Susanne Posel
Over the weekend, March Against Monsanto (MAM) held their 3rd global protest against genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) with hundreds of thousands who turned out to speak against Monsanto and other bio tech corporations that are using foreign lab-grown agents in our food supply.
This worldwide demonstration took place in 400 cities and 52 countries with 47 states in the US joining in.
Tami Monroe Canal, founder of MAM, told the press that this tradition was borne from the “failure of California’s proposition 37”.
Canal said: “MAM supports a sustainable food production system. We must act now to stop GMOs and harmful pesticides.”
MAM asserts : “GMOs are not adequately monitored to ensure public safety. Long term, independent, peer reviewed studies were not conducted before GMOs were introduced for human or animal consumption.”
Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director for Organic Consumers Association (OCA) commented : “That is what the scientists have learned about, that the genetically modified foods will increase allergies that they are going to be less nutritious and that they can possibly or very contain toxins that can make us ill.”
Mayer went on: “It is hard to distinguish the company Monsanto from the players in the US government. Most of the genetically modified crops grown in the US, almost all of them end up in factory farms, concentrated in animal feeding operations.”
The Coalition for GM Free India (CGMI) joined the MAM protests in Bangalore, India.
Neha Sehgal, member of CGMI explained: “As we all know Monsanto is a massive biotech multinational giant which produces the most GM seeds in the world. As we also know that GM crops are, scientifically been proven and there is increasing evidence that GM crops have adverse effects on human health and environment as well as the socio economic impacts on the farmers’ livelihoods. So we are basically here to send a message to our government not to allow massive multinational giants like Monsanto to take over our food supply, control our farmer as well as control what we eat. So basically we are saying we are going to walk backwards because adopting GM crops means that it’s moving backwards on national progress as well as science.”
In Palm Harbor, Florida, protesters for MAM called for Publix, a local grocery chain, to label GMO products to educate customers and give them a choice.
Jackson County, Oregon recently approved a measure to ban GMO crops.
Las Vegas, Nevada was the scene of hundreds of demonstrators who gathered on the Strip with information on the dangers of GMOs; holding signs and shouting chants.
Angie Morelli, organizer of the protest told the press : “When we have BT-corn that’s specifically manufactured, so when a beetle eats it, it’s stomach explodes, that’s actually why this corn is manufactured. When you have that, we’re all eating that, too. Corn is 90 percent of our diet, you have to start thinking of where all of these diseases are coming from.”
In Dallas, Texas, demonstrators held signs and chanted: “Hey hey ho ho! GMOs have got to go!”
Margaret Christensen, speaker at MAM, told the crowd : “I am worried about our babies, our mothers, for our future generations. The herbicide Roundup is an unbelievable hormone disruptor. I want all of you to go to responsibletechnology.org and download the most recent guide to the medical consequences of GMOs and take it to your doctor. My colleagues need to educate themselves. A healthy prescription begins with a GMO-free diet.”
In Washington State, protesters numbered in the hundreds, marching in Olympia from the local farmer’s market to the capitol.
Jennie BGreen, co-organizer of the event, explained that she hopes this protest “can increase pressure on food companies to change their policies and raise awareness of the health effects of GMOs.”
BGreen said: “It made me think twice about what I was feeding my kid.”
Protesters in Longview, Washington stood on the side of the road, holding signs to explain how “everyone deserves a right to know what’s in their food. We don’t know the future of our crops.”
Monsanto would benefit from current negotiations over the TransAtlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA) which would “seek to eliminate or reduce non-tariff barriers such as sanitary and phytosanitary restrictions that are not based on science.”
In other words, corporate agriculture would have to show emphatically that GMO seeds do not pose a threat to human health.
This proof would refocus attention on scientific data that shows a specified threat to human, animal or plant life posed by GMOs.
In November of 2013, publisher Elsevier stated that the 2012 French study entitled, “Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize” was retracted from the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology.
This pulling of the article coincides with data analysis and an investigation that is still on-going. Elsevier will not comment until the investigation is complete.
This study prompted “Letters to the Editor expressing concerns about the validity of the findings it described, the proper use of animals, and even allegations of fraud.”
Elsevier stated: “Ultimately, the results presented – while not incorrect – are inconclusive, and therefore do not reach the threshold of publication for Food and Chemical Toxicology.”
Demands for retraction quickly followed. The authors of the study offered raw data for review.
Gilles-Eric Seralini, lead author of the study and professor at the University of Caen (UoC) replied that criticisms of the study are “unacceptable. Were FCT to persist in its decision to retract our study, CRIIGEN would attack with lawyers, including in the United States, to require financial compensation for the huge damage to our group.”
The study in question found that after exposing rats for 2 years to Round-Up Ready-laced water and an unlimited diet of Monsanto genetically-modified corn, the rats developed mammary tumors, suffered from liver damage and died.
The rats in the ‘controlled group’ (those NOT exposed to Round-Up Ready-laced water and an unlimited diet of Monsanto GMO corn) All LIVED!
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