Scientific Dictatorship

Coming soon, the test-tube burger: Lab-grown meat 'needed to feed the world'
We need a courageous person willing to be the first to taste it, says professor

Labels: cultured meat, genetically modified organism, GM foods, GMO, meat, stem cells

Obama administration gives green light for GMOs to be planted in national wildlife refuges

Natural News

A battle is raging over whether or not it should be legal to plant genetically-modified (GM) crops in US wildlife refuges. A little over a month after various conservation and food safety groups achieved a unified legal victory that banned all future plantings of GMOs in refuges, the Obama administration announced its full-fledged support for GMOs in refuges. And the administration is now working towards ramrodding through a new plan that would exempt the issue of GMO plantings in refuges from having to face any further legal challenges that oppose them.

According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a non-profit alliance of local, state, and federal resource professionals, the Obama administration is on a quest, of sorts, to create justification for GM plantings in the refuges. Only crops deemed "essential" to refuge operations are permitted for planting, so the administration will have to craft some pretty manipulative rhetoric in order to make its proposal anything other than a pitifully laughable insult to both science and common sense...[Full Article]

Labels: genetically modified organism, GMO

Genetically modified cows produce 'human' milk

Scientists have created genetically modified cattle that produce "human" milk in a bid to make cows' milk more nutritious.

UK Telegraph

The scientists have successfully introduced human genes into 300 dairy cows to produce milk with the same properties as human breast milk.

Labels: genetic engineering, genetically modified organism, GM foods, GMO, milk

Diabetes to double or triple in U.S. by 2050: government

(Reuters Life!) - Up to a third of U.S. adults could have diabetes by 2050 if Americans continue to gain weight and avoid exercise, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projected on Friday.

The numbers are certain to go up as the population gets older, but they will accelerate even more unless Americans change their behavior, the CDC said.

"We project that, over the next 40 years, the prevalence of total diabetes (diagnosed and undiagnosed) in the United States will increase from its current level of about one in 10 adults to between one in five and one in three adults in 2050," the CDC's James Boyle and colleagues wrote in their report...

[Full Article]


Does Your Food Contain Genetically Modified Organisms?

...There’s also the food safety factor to keep in mind. GM crops (trees, too) are genetically modified to produce or tolerate pesticides. Glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, has been linked to birth defects, cancer and miscarriages in humans.

Other studies have linked GM-foods to organ damage and sterility in mammals, while others correlate rising diabetes and obesity rates with GMO introduction. There’s also the question of allergic reaction to GM foods, proof of which is hidden by lack of labeling...

[Full Article]


Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) Cause Allergies, Delayed Food Sensitivities, Food Intolerances and in Some Cases Even Death

...The consensus among independent scientists and researchers is that GMO foods are dangerous and that any use of them should be prominently displayed on a product label to give the average consumer a choice. The FDA decided against warnings to the general public against the advice of its own scientists. Big Food doesn’t want you to know that GMO products can trigger allergies, digestive illnesses, diabetes and cancer...

[Full Article]

[Webmaster - Other products manufactured by Monsanto at one time or another include: Agent Orange, Aspartame, and rBGH.]

Labels: cancer, diabetes, GM foods, GMO

GM food battle moves to fish as super-salmon nears US approval

Consumer groups fear green light for engineered species will bring environmental disaster to the oceans

Buried in a prospectus inviting investors to buy shares in a fledgling biotech company is an arresting claim attributed to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation.

"Commercial aquaculture is the most rapidly growing segment of the agricultural industry, accounting for more than $60bn sales in 2003. While land-based agriculture is increasing between 2% to 3% per year, aquaculture has been growing at an average rate of approximately 9% per year since 1970."

And then the prospectus for the US company AquaBounty offers this observation to tantalise prospective investors: "The traditional fishery harvest from the ocean has stagnated since 1990."

So what is to be done to satisfy the world's seemingly insatiable appetite for fish? An appetite that will see the consumption of farmed fish outpace global beef consumption by nearly 10% within five years, according to the UN?

AquaBounty, whose shares are sold on London's Alternative Investment Market, thinks it has the answer. And if, as looks increasingly likely, the US government agrees, the implications for global food production will be enormous. Welcome to the new world heralded by the "GM salmon".

The company's dream of selling genetically modified salmon eggs that allow the fish to grow to maturity in half the normal time received a giant fillip last week when it announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was close to granting approval...

[Full Article]

Labels: food, genetically modified organism, GM, GM foods, GMO, salmon

We can build whatever animal you want to eat, say scientists
[Full Article]

Labels: genetic engineering, genetically modified organism, genetics, GM foods, GMO

The Creepy Science Behind Genetically Engineered "Frankenfish" About to Enter Our Food Supply Unlabeled

If approved, AquAdvantage will be the first genetically engineered animal to directly enter the U.S. food supply -- a fact that raises the stakes of the FDA's approval process, as it sets a precedent for all future GE animals. Because of a regulatory decision in the 1980s that no new laws are needed to regulate genetically engineered foods, the FDA is actually regulating the GE salmon as a drug. The next step in the approval process will be a series of public meetings held September 19-21. Already, a number of groups, including Food & Water Watch, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and Organic Consumers Association have written to President Obama, urging him to discontinue the approval process for the GE salmon. (Full disclosure: I serve on the Policy Advisory Board of the Organic Consumers Association, but I was not a part of the decision to sign onto this letter.)...

[Full Article]

Labels: Frankenfish, genetic engineering, genetically modified organism, genetics, GM foods, GMO

Genetically Manipulated Crops: The GMO Catastrophe in the USA. A Lesson for the World

by F. William Engdahl

Recently the unelected potentates of the EU Commission in Brussels have sought to override what has repeatedly been shown to be the overwhelming opposition of the European Union population to the spread of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) in EU agriculture. EU Commission President now has a Maltese accountant as health and enviromnent Commissioner to rubber stamp the adoption of GMO. The former EU Environment Commissioner from Greece was a ferocious GMO opponent. As well, the Chinese government has indicated it may approve a variety of GMO rice. Before things get too far along, they would do well to take a closer look at the world GMO test lab, the USA. There GMO crops are anything but beneficial. Just the opposite.

What is carefully kept out of the Monsanto and other agribusiness propaganda in promoting genetically manipulated crops as an alternative to conventional is the fact that in the entire world until the present, all GMO crops have been manipulated and patented for only two things—to be resistant or “tolerant” to the patented highly toxic herbicide glyphosate chemicals that Monsanto and the others force farmers to buy as condition for buying their patented GMO seeds. The second trait is GMO seeds that have been engineered genetically to resist specific insects. Contrary to public relations myths promoted by the agribusiness giants in their own self-interest, there exists not oné single GMO seed that provides a greater harvest yield than conventional, nor one that requires less toxic chemical herbicides. That is for the simple reason there is no profit to be made in such...

[Full Article]

Labels: genetically modified organism, GMO

Research Links Genetically Modified Food To Long Term Sterility

A new study done by Russian scientists suggests that Genetically Modified Food may cause long term sterility, that is, sterility in second and third generations. The scientists used hamsters for this research and divided them into groups. One group of hamsters was fed a normal diet without any soy products, a second group was fed non-GMO (genetically modified organism) soy, the third ate GM soy and the fourth group was fed an even higher amount of GM soy than the third.

Each group produced about seven to eight litters of baby hamsters each without any problems. But when the researchers selected new breeding pairs from the offspring, the second generation had a slower growth rate and reached their sexual maturity later than normal. They also had a mortality rate, five times higher than the hamsters who didn’t eat soy. Even more shocking was the fact that nearly all of the third generation GM soy eating hamsters were sterile and also experienced hair growing inside their mouths.

Genetically modified food has received much criticism earlier too, with studies linking them to problems with birth weight and infant mortality.

Labels: GM foods, GMO, sterility

Monsanto's GMO Corn Linked to Organ Failure, Study Reveals

In a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, analyzing the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers found that agricultural giant Monsanto's GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats...

Labels: genetically modified organism, GMO, Monsanto