Monsanto's Really needs to be STOPPED HELP

[Mountain]

So we agree. Jesus is to blame...

LMAO!!! I spewed my beer after reading that. Sorry man but Jesus's hands are clean on this one . Very interesting dynamics changed right after the Plague but this is not the place for that discussion. Things really went into overdrive after WWII when the military industrial complex got converted to civilian use. All those tanks and jeeps got converted to cars and tractors, the material for bombs got spread onto fields as N instead and the women went home from the factories, laid on their backs and made babies. Then we spread our prosperity around the world. Not really the whole story but a piece of the puzzle.

 

[Clackamas Coot]

So we agree. Jesus is to blame...

I'd probably look at his devotees first.

Where's Reverend Ike when we really need him?

CC

 

[spurr]

re Jesus, BC and AD:

I just had to comment so I could tag this thread, I figured one more off-topic post will not ruin this thread. And I figured if I based my post on science and not belief it would be more on topic to the thread, re: GMO crops not being (yet) proven safe is science, and GMO crops being safe is (currently only) belief:

I for one prefer the less divisive and secular terms BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era) instead of the biased and divisive Christian religious based BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini).

P.S. For the record I am against most GMO's; the issue of feeding the world is about getting resources (food) to people, not making more resources (we have enough already). The issue of human population will need to be dealt with, e.g., we will need to slow the growth or woe on us all, the Earth and its inhabitants...

 

[Mountain]

I for one prefer the less divisive and secular terms BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era) instead of the biased and divisive Christian religious based BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini).

P.S. For the record I am against most GMO's; the issue of feeding the world is about getting resources (food) to people, not making more resources (we have enough already). The issue of human population will need to be dealt with, e.g., we will need to slow the growth or woe on us all, the Earth and its inhabitants...

As for part 1 it's biased and divisive if you see it that way and you obviously do...I don't. BC and AD are commonly accepted and I have no emotional or spiritual charge surrounding their use. Personally I use the Chinese calendar...lol. Stuff like that only provides a point of reference for people to communicate...IMO.

As for the second part...I agree that distribution is part of the problem but how do you propose to deal with population growth? I mean like if you were in control of the world what would you do? Looking forward to seeing where your head is at on this one...lol. You brought it up so your solution is what?

The thing about Monsanto is they are about making money and they can do that a few ways but mainly by a) getting a bigger piece of an existing market by crowding out competition or b) grow their business with a growing market which would be having more people on the planet which would in turn create greater consumption. Another thing you could do is offer products that are legally protected (patents) and charge more for your product even though it might not be better and possibly an inferior product or even downright detrimental to the user/consumer.

 

[spurr]

@ Mountain:

I am not about to go into religious and population control issues with you, here, in this thread. The answers are pretty obvious if you look with an unbiased view of a purely scientific nature...

I only wrote that post to tag this thread and to point out the *scientifically* sound/correct terms of time-lines. I.e., it's not divisive Christian religious terms (e.g., Jews and Jesus) that we should use, it's secular terms. I pointed that out because some people in this thread are asking for science yet they provide none themselves (they know who they are); they provide only belief about the majesty of all GMOs.

 

[Thomkal Vwalaa]

As for the second part...I agree that distribution is part of the problem but how do you propose to deal with population growth? I mean like if you were in control of the world what would you do? Looking forward to seeing where your head is at on this one...lol. You brought it up so your solution is what?

As living conditions improve, birth rates slow.

The latest data from the Population Reference Bureau shows that there are twenty countries in the world with negative or zero natural population growth. This is unprecedented in history!
This negative or zero natural population growth means that these countries have more deaths than births or an even number of deaths and births; this figure does not include the impacts of immigration or emigration. Even including immigration over emigration, only one of the twenty countries (Austria) is expected to grow between 2006 and 2050.

The country with the highest decrease in the natural birth rate is Ukraine, with a natural decrease of 0.8% each year. Ukraine is expected to lose 28% of their population between now and 2050 (from 46.8 million now to 33.4 million in 2050).

Russia and Belarus follow close behind at a 0.6% natural decrease and Russia will lose 22% of their population by 2050 – that is a loss of more than 30 million people (from 142.3 million today to 110.3 million in 2050).

Japan is the only non-European country in the list and it has a 0% natural birth increase and is expected to lose 21% of its population by 2050 (shrinking from 127.8 million to a mere 100.6 million in 2050). The streets of Tokyo won’t be as crowded in a few decades as they are today!

Here's the list of the countries with negative natural increase or zero negative increase in population...

Ukraine: 0.8% natural decrease annually; 28% total population decrease by 2050
Russia: -0.6%; -22%
Belarus -0.6%; -12%
Bulgaria -0.5%; -34%
Latvia -0.5%; -23%
Lithuania -0.4%; -15%
Hungary -0.3%; -11%
Romania -0.2%; -29%
Estonia -0.2%; -23%
Moldova -0.2%; -21%
Croatia -0.2%; -14%
Germany -0.2%; -9%
Czech Republic -0.1%; -8%
Japan 0%; -21%
Poland 0%; -17%
Slovakia 0%; -12%
Austria 0%; 8% increase
Italy 0%; -5%
Slovenia 0%; -5%
Greece 0%; -4%

http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/zero.htm

The thing about Monsanto is they are about making money and they can do that a few ways but mainly by a) getting a bigger piece of an existing market by crowding out competition or b) grow their business with a growing market which would be having more people on the planet which would in turn create greater consumption. Another thing you could do is offer products that are legally protected (patents) and charge more for your product even though it might not be better and possibly an inferior product or even downright detrimental to the user/consumer.

The rich get richer by deceiving the poor, unless we do something.

 

[Anti]

Not from what I understand.

It's ok. Looking at your graph, it's hard to see the effect. Let me help. Prior to 10,000 years ago, you had tribal bands and some limited chiefdoms with populations topping out in the thousands, and in most cases, in groups of less than a hundred.

Not everybody started producing at once, but I assure you that within the populations who adapted a form of food production that resulted in abundance, that their population growth exploded virtually overnight. As their populations grew, they had to expand their borders in order to put more land under cultivation and in order to house and supply their (exponentially growing) population.

One society having an abundance of food does not mean ALL HUMAN SOCIETIES instantly start to double. Nor does one community of deer living in a fertile and sheltered valley equate to the environmental conditions of all deer.

If there are favorable conditions and a surplus of food, that deer population will continue to grow. It will grow and grow and grow until it outstrips the area's natural production abilities and at this time the population will level off. It will not plummet to 0.

The same is true of human populations, bacteria cultures, bunnies...


This has continued (agriculturally dependent societies encroaching on and exterminating/integrating the societies in its wake) for all of recorded history. (In fact, history consists of little else.)

Is the picture getting clearer?

[edit: Sounds dickish. Not meant to be. Beg pardon.]

 

[Mountain]

@ Mountain:

I am not about to go into religious and population control issues with you, here, in this thread. The answers are pretty obvious if you look with an unbiased view of a purely scientific nature...

I only wrote that post to tag this thread and to point out the *scientifically* sound/correct terms of time-lines. I.e., it's not divisive Christian religious terms (e.g., Jews and Jesus) that we should use, it's secular terms.

Well...I suggest you don't bring up things you're not willing to follow through with for starters. That's weak. An obvious, scientific approach to population control? Sounds like Monsanto with GMO...LOL!

As for scientifically sound/correct terms it's all arbitrary. Pick any point in a timeline, or a period in time, and call it what you want. So the scientists determined what the accurate terminology was? That's just mental abstractions and nothing really scientific about it IMO. Words only have the meaning we give them or agree that they have. Before Common Era and Common Era are not scientifically 'correct'.

 

[Mountain]

[edit: Sounds dickish. Not meant to be. Beg pardon.]

I didn't get that. I was just talking about exponential growth. You also gotta understand I've traded a lot of stocks and very heavy into technical analysis. I will agree that about 10,000 years ago was a turning point, from what I understand, when the human race started to settle down and raise crops. Came across population growth stuff when I was researching an alternative energy project and the effect that the discovery/use/exploitation of coal and especially crude oil had.

As living conditions improve, birth rates slow.

Thx for that. Another thing to keep in mind is typically, countries experience periods of expanding population growth. Harry Dent got into this a bit and tied the reproduction cycles to the ebb and flow of stock market cycles shifted about 30 years forward.

Getting back to Monsanto...another thing that stands out is the destruction of genetic diversity when they have continually forced farmers to eliminate their seed stock. These genetics were developed over years by these farmers and best suited for their climates and geographical areas.

I go back to Bruce Tainio who I've mentioned before. He created many new vegetable hybrids mainly looking for things like increased pest resistance. Funny thing he found was he would create such hybrids but over a few years the insects would adapt and that was that. Monoculture, especially on the scale the world is doing it now with GMO, is IMO doomed to fail at some point. All it will take is a couple year hiccup.

 

[ion]

in reference to the title of this thread:

-all M offices are listed online, mostly in st lewie area

-if you search hard enough thru local ag papers online, you can find various test plots across the country

--with this information, one could stage a demonstration, a protest, a candlelight vigil....or i've read on the internets about carjacking a hummer....doesnt hafta be a hummer but you want power, 4wd, and clearance.....so you need a whip, some col beers,and maybe some bolivian marching powder....find yer test plot, and commence what we used to call back in the day in the midwest as "plowing the fields".....okay? okay. its quite fun, just keep your eye on the edges of the field...........as far as those offices, sodium nitrate comes to mind as something ive read on the internet....cant remember where...something to do with oklahoma....

and for all you guys ...Thomkal Vwalaa,spurr,anti, others+......doing the deed of trying to educate mouthbreathing oxygen thieves about M i commend you and admire your patience. Alfalfa and sugar beets just got approved. the sugar beets, if allowed to continue this time, will provide a delicious sugar alternative to the tasty, popular sweetner aspartame in yer fucking cocacola....whilst the additive neotame, derived from aspartame, will go into your "organic" foods unlisted as its not a food product....lovely, eh?

M is tied up with .gov almost to the heights of defense contr.....maybe more than pharma itself...as far as being stopped,there be only one way

 

[elmanito]

The beginning sentence.

"could threaten the environment

Could means 60% chance or 85% chance or 40% chance etc

Bayer admits GMO contamination out of control

Thursday, April 15, 2010 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer


Drug and chemical giant Bayer AG has admitted that there is no way to stop the uncontrolled spread of its genetically modified crops.

"Even the best practices can't guarantee perfection," said Mark Ferguson, the company's defense lawyer in a recent trial.

Two Missouri farmers sued Bayer for contaminating their crop with modified genes from an experimental strain of rice engineered to be resistant to the company's Liberty-brand herbicide. The contamination occurred in 2006, during an open field test of the new rice, which was not approved for human consumption. According to the plaintiffs' lawyer, Don Downing, genetic material from the unapproved rice contaminated more than 30 percent of all rice cropland in the United States.

"Bayer was supposed to be careful," Downing said. "Bayer was not careful and that rice did escape into our commercial rice supplies."

The plaintiffs alleged that in addition to contaminating their fields, Bayer further harmed them financially by undermining their export market. When the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the widespread rice contamination, important export markets were closed to U.S. producers. A report from Greenpeace International estimates the financial damage of the contamination at between $741 million and $1.3 billion.

Bayer claimed that there was no possible way it could have prevented the contamination, insisting that it followed not only the law but also the best industry practices. The jury disagreed, finding Bayer guilty of carelessness in handling the genetically modified crops. The company was ordered to pay farmers Kenneth Bell and Johnny Hunter $2 million.

"This is a huge victory, not only for Kenny and me, but for every farmer in America who was harmed by Bayer's LibertyLink rice contamination," Hunter said.

According to Hunter, the company got "the wake-up call they deserved."

Bayer is still being sued by more than 1,000 other farmers from Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

Sources for this story include: www.organicconsumers.org; www.bloomberg.com.

Durood Bar Shoma

 

[Mountain]

There's not much you can do about Monsanto. Most people in the world don't care. I'd rather focus on promoting better agricultural practices instead of protesting. Any time I spend trying to deal with an entity like Monsanto is time taken away from helping to build an alternative. I think at some point Monsanto will be it's own undoing.

Nice post Elmanito...hit em in the wallet when you can, set legal precedents and make it easier for others down the road. That ain't my fight though.

 

[grapeman]

Could means 60% chance or 85% chance or 40% chance etc




Durood Bar Shoma

LOL - that was a quote from someone here who offered up proof that gm is bad. That is what passes for science with the scared crowd.
"Could" could mean never also.

 

[Anti]

LOL - that was a quote from someone here who offered up proof that gm is bad. That is what passes for science with the scared crowd.
"Could" could mean never also.

Grapeman.... come with science, or SHUT THE FUCK UP, please.

Nitpicking others semantics is NOT science.

I'm only holding you to your OWN standards.

Thank you, drive through.

 

[elmanito]

But the title of this thread is "Monsanto needs to be stopped".

Probably you live in a cave or somewhere hidden under the ground, but it would be nice to write next time in some proper & nicer English instead of using the word f*ck every time.It's more a word for a caveman than for some one with a business degree, unless you've a degree in the word f*ck so called science.

Back on-topic for this business degree 'gentleman' with a bad attitude.

Monsanto needs to be stopped as the title says

Agent Orange, PCB, monopoly of the seed market with a decrease of crop diversity, Roundup (POEA)

Durood Bar Shoma

 

[Thomkal Vwalaa]

Nice contribution Dag.Glad you're here. Fuck.

Gotta admit, our politics arguments are WAY more intelligent than the garbage grapetroll has posted.

You know generally, when we create new and unknown technology, we test it for safety... at this point the jury is still out concerning GMOs and we need to proceed with caution. The genetic diversity of our food is key, and we need to protect that.

WHERE'S YOUR SCIENCE GRAPETROLL... hmmm? Oh... you have none. so FUCK OFF.

 

[mean mr.mustard]

There has been plenty of evidence, there has been heaps of science, there has been a lot of material to go through.

Grapeman seems to be doing a lot of this:

 

[Clackamas Coot]

I decided that it's probably best not to address Grapeman's comments about the distribution system of moving fresh commodities from origin to destination.

Grape failed to mention a few of the major stumbling blocks in that process - PACA filings, misleading crop reports, dishonest brokers (the scum of the earth), late trucks, weather delays, intransit price increases, delay of equipment charges, etc.

Heh...........

CC

 

[spurr]

There has been plenty of evidence, there has been heaps of science, there has been a lot of material to go through.

Grapeman seems to be doing a lot of this:

 

[mean mr.mustard]

On November 2005 I got a letter from the Food Standards Agency in London, the government department that has responsibility for food safety issues in the UK with the request to send them information about my experiments. I sent them the text, indicating that there was a short version of the paper with some results, which were described already, and that I was preparing a big paper with more data. At that moment I was so shocked by the results of my own experiments that appealed to scientists of different countries to repeat my experiments or to help us to continue the researches. I indicated this request also in my answer to Food Standards Agency. After that the “Statement on the effect of GM soy on newborn rats” of Advisory Committee of Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP) has appeared. The Statement of ACNFP on my results surprised me very much. Committee did not pay real attention to possible danger of genetically modified organisms (GMO) obtained in my experiments, but concentrated on details of their realization.

The hazard of genetically modified or transgenic organisms was described for humans, animals and the Environment in many scientific investigations (Ho and Tappeser, 1997; Traavik, 1999; Chirkov, 2001; Wilson et al., 2004; Kuznetcov and Kulikov, 2006 and many others). Four main sources of the hazards of GMO are accepted by scientists worldwide: 1) those due to the new genes, and gene products introduced; 2) unintended effects inherent to the technology; 3) interactions between foreign genes and host genes; and 4) those arising from the spread of the introduced genes by ordinary cross-pollination as well as by horizontal gene transfer (World Scientists' Statement, 2000). Experimental researches showed negative effects of GMO on insects (Birch et al., 1996; Losey, 1999; Zangerl et al., 2001). It was found that consumption of GM-food by mammals led to the negative changes in their organs (Pusztai, 1998, 2001; Ewen and Pusztai, 1999; Malatesta et al., 2002, 2003; Vecchio et al., 2003; Prescott et al., 2005 and others). However there is great lack of investigations concerning the influence of GMO on physiological state and behavior of rats and their offspring. It was the reason why I started my own experiments directed on this kind of investigations.

Our experiments showed a danger of Ready Roundup soy-bean (line 40.3.2), modified by the transgene CP4 EPSPS, for rats and their offspring. Supplementation of the diet of the females with GM soy led to the higher mortality of rat pups (more than one half) in comparison with the pups from control groups. High pup mortality was observed for every litter from mothers fed by the GM soy flour. Third of pups were sick and weighed several times less, than pups from the control groups. The obtained data showed a high level of anxiety and aggression in rats from the GM-soy group: females and rat pups attacked and bit each other and the worker who took care about them. Pathological changes were found in testes and in liver of males fed by GM-soy seeds (Ermakova, Barskov, 2006, in press). In our experiments we did not succeed to get the second generation (F2).

Our data allow us to suppose that the negative effect of the GM-soy on newborn pups could be a result of transformation of foreign genes, which could penetrate into the sexual/stem cells or/and into cells of the fetus, as it was observed by Schubbert and colleagues (1998). In their experiments food with the plasmids containing the green fluorescent protein (pEGFP-C1) gene, or the bacteriofaphage M13 DNA was fed to pregnant mice. Using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or the fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) method, foreign DNA, orally ingested by pregnant mice, was discovered in various organs of fetuses and of newborn animals. GM-soy is one of the GM-plants, created by the help of bacterial DNA plasmids (Agrobacter tumefaciensis method). So, we can assume that plazmids able for replication are kept in the cells of GM-plants (in our case in the GM-soy). The affect on sexual cells and reproductive organs of rats by plasmids with foreign DNA from GM soy could be occurred. So, we can have "plazmid effect", that is more dangerous than virus infection, because plasmids can affect bacteria, plants, animals and human.

Also a negative effect of GM-soy on rats could be mediated by the highly mutagenic nature of the GM transformation process, described by Windels et al. (2001) and Wilson et al., (2004) or/and by accumulation of Roundup residues in the GM-soy shown by Richard et al., 2005.

We repeated similar experiments three times in four groups: "GM-soya" group, "Trad-soya" group, "Protein-isolate GM-soya" group and "Control" group. Committee analyzed preliminary study of the first two experiments in three groups, comparing my draft paper with the published paper of D.G. Brake, D.P. Evenson "A generational study of glyphosate-tolerant soybeans on mouse fetal, postnatal, pubertal and adult testicular development".

I believe that our researches are so various, that cannot be compared:

Different scheme of feeding. In my experiments I started to feed animals before mating, suggesting that foreign genes could penetrate and effect the sexual cells and/or organs. In the experiments of B&E "pregnant mice were fed a transgenic soybean or a non-transgenic (conventional) diet through gestation and lactation... Multi-generational studies were conducted in the same manner". Thus genes could influence only on embryonic cells protected by the mother’s organism, not on sexual cells or organs before mating.
Different subjects of investigations. In my experiments I analyzed the mortality, physiological state and behaviour of pups, B&E - fetal, postnatal, pubertal and adult testicular development.
B&E used very small number of pups for the study at each point "At each point three male mice were killed, the testes surgically removed, and the cell populations measured by flow cytometry" and for mating "Two C3H/HeJ males and two C3H/HeJ females were bred to keep that strain pure". In my experiments I used more females and males for mating and 10-20 times more pups in each group.
Different species of animals: in my experiments – rats, in B&E – mice.
I presented to Food Standards Agency the draft version but not the final one as paper of B&E.


So, it was clear that the investigations of B&E and mine were quite different and both researches were incomplete. So, it is necessary to perform complex researches, including histological, genetical, and embryo-toxicological investigations by different scientific groups (including international ones).



Scientists should be responsible for the obtained data, but are even more responsible for concealment of the received data, especially if somebody’s life depends on them. A lot of independent investigations showed hazard of GMO for alive organisms. I hope very much that ACNFP will help us to perform detailed and complex investigations and to stop uncontrolled distribution of and contamination by imperfect genetically modified organisms that can cause such human diseases as cancer, allergy, brain and heart diseases, can lead to disappearance of a great number of different species of useful bacteria, plants and animals and cause destruction of the nature and the biosphere.

The results of my researches were published in English and in Russian:

Ermakova I.V. Genetically modified organisms and biological risks. Proceedings of International Disaster Reduction Conference, Davos, Switzerland, August 27 – September 1, 2006, pp.168-171.
Ermakova I. Influence of genetically modified soya on the birth-weight and survival of rat pups// Proceedings “Epigenetics, Transgenic Plants and Risk Assessment”, 2006, pp.41-48.
Ermakova I.V. Genetically modified soy leads to the decrease of weight and high mortality of rat pups of the first generation. Preliminary studies" EcosInform 1, 2006, pp.4-9 (in Russian).
Ermakova I.V. The effect o GM-soay on rats and their posterity. The first International Forum on Patient safety. January 23-24, 2006. p.30.
Ermakova I.V. Diet with the food, modified by gene EPSPS CP4, leads to the anxiety and aggression in rats. 14th European Congress of Psychiatry. Nice, France, March 4-8, 2006.
Ermakova I.V. Mine field of genetics//State management of resources. 2006, N2, pp.44-52 (in Russian).
Ermakova I.V. Genetics and ecology. In: Actual problems of science. Moscow, 2005, pp.53-59 (in Russian).

This is from a PhD who was denied further GM soy to research after she published results.

Science or "self perpetuating bullshit society"?