The Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine adopted as a basis the bill on amendments to the Law on Baby Food (concerning toughening of the demands to the production and sale of foodstuffs).

The bill is called to strengthen requirements to the production of baby food and raw materials used for this production. The bill specifies the norms concerning the ban on the use in the production of baby foods of the raw materials made of genetically modified organisms, containing hormonal substances, antibiotics, heavy metals, pesticides, radionuclides and other harmful substances. It was also determined that the production of baby food shall proceed on an exclusively industrial basis, at specializes enterprises, shops or technology lines.

source: National Radio Company of Ukraine

In 2007, Carol Goland drove home from a meeting of the Dairy Labeling Advisory Committee in Reynoldsburg feeling optimistic. There had been heated debate over a seemingly simple issue: the fairest and most informative way to label dairy products made from cows that have not been injected with a controversial growth hormone intended to increase milk production.

The farmers using the hormone — commonly known as rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone), but also rBST (recombinant bovine somatotrophin) — were worried about losing business to competitors labeling their products as “rBGH-free.” Goland, executive director of the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, could empathize. Still, she’d argued — successfully, it would turn out — that Ohio consumers have the right to know how their food is produced.

But the matter did not stay settled. In February 2008, Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) head Robert Boggs issued a ruling that tilted the labeling issue in favor of farmers using rBGH.

Since 1994, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recommended that labels touting “rBGH-free” also state that the FDA has determined that “no significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST-supplemented and non-rBST supplemented cows.” But the FDA remained silent on details like size and placement of the disclaimer.

this article is VERY long… read more:
http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/got-artificial-hormoned-milk/Content?oid=1638383

The Lyme Induced Autism Foundation (LIA) has joined with other leading health organizations to call on medical practitioners to prescribe diets free from all genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and urged individuals, especially those with autism, Lyme disease, and associated conditions, to avoid eating genetically modified (GM) foods. The LIA Foundation recognizes the unique health dangers posed by GMOs, especially for populations suffering from autism, Lyme disease, and other chronic disorders, and they have concluded, “There is an urgent need for independent research to evaluate the role that GM foods play in contributing to the prevalence or severity of autism, Lyme disease, and related conditions.”

The LIA Foundation calls for: 
• A moratorium on all genetically modified foods 
• Research to evaluate the role of GM foods on autism, Lyme disease, and related conditions 
• Physician and patient advocacy groups to advise patients on the role of GM foods in disease processes
• Health practitioners to distribute non-GMO educational materials (www.nonGMOGuide.com)

http://www.examiner.com/x-5148-LA-Environmental-Health-Examiner~y2009m8d31-Food-Prescription-The-Lyme-Induced-Autism-Foundation-prescribes-100-NonGMO-diet

At the intersection of cocaine and Roundup in rural South America, Monsanto and the U.S. government are struggling to keep up appearances. That’s becoming more and more difficult as the unanticipated hazards of genetic modification become clearer.

Back in April, Argentinean embryologist Andrés Carrasco gave an interview with a Buenos Aires newspaper describing his recent findings suggesting the chemical glyphosate, a chemical herbicide widely used in agriculture as well as in U.S. anti-narcotic efforts, could cause defects in fetuses in much smaller doses than those to which peasants and farmers in his country were already being exposed. Loud calls for a ban on the substance were issued by Argentinean environmental lawyers, and the country’s Ministry of Defense banned the planting of glyphosate-resistant soya crops in its fields.

Then came the backlash. An article in an Argentinean paper recently reported that Carrasco was assaulted in a way he described as “violent” by four men associated with agricultural interests:

Two of the men were said to be members of an agrochemical industry body but refused to give their names. The other two claimed to be a lawyer and notary. They apparently interrogated Dr. Carrasco and demanded to see details of the experiments. They left a card Basílico, Andrada & Santurio, attorneys on behalf of Felipe Alejandro Noël.

It’s still unclear who these people are. But the interest in keeping such information quiet or discrediting Carrasco and his findings are strongest with Monsanto, the agricultural company who first patented a glyphosate product (sold as Roundup) and also created genetically-modified crops specifically to resist the herbicide.

http://blog.buzzflash.com/analysis/894

The Pitchfork Rebellion founder involved in a 2008 police conflict puts Monsanto “on trial”

BY KAREN MCCOWAN
The Register-Guard
Appeared in print: Sunday, Aug 30, 2009

News Updates: Story

The Pitchfork Rebellion, organized to restrict or halt aerial herbicide spraying on Oregon’s forests, went to the local doorstep of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Saturday to lampoon what they said were the agency’s ties to pesticide manufacturer Monsanto.

Triangle Lake area resident Day Owen, a co-founder of the activist group, donned a jester’s hat to preside over mock trials of Monsanto and the state Department of Forestry before a crowd of more than 100 people.

Owen’s wife, his daughter and neighbor Maya Gee also said they were personally affected after helicopters sprayed the Monsanto product Round-Up on forests near their farms in 2007. The women said they were sickened by their exposure to drifted spray, immediately suffering breathing problems and muscle weakness, followed by diarrhea, early and painful menstrual cycles, and muscle and joint pain lasting for months.

Owen accused the St. Louis-based multinational company of covering up evidence that the herbicide poses human health risks. According to Monsanto’s Web site, increased sales of Round-Up helped the corporation post record net sales of $11.4 billion in 2008.

Monsanto’s Web site also states that regulatory agencies around the world, including the United States Environmental Protection Agency, have concluded that glyphosate herbicides such as Round-Up “pose no unreasonable risks to human health and the environment when used according to label directions.”

Rally organizers set a nonviolent tone early in Saturday’s event, with Owen inviting attendees to walk in a circle around the building’s plaza to the song “We Are All in This Together.” Before beginning the music, he addressed several law enforcement officers monitoring the rally from inside the building, saying the song’s “we” included Eugene police and Homeland Security officers.

The last public encounter between Owen and those agencies did not end peacefully.

Owen was among several people arrested at a downtown Eugene anti-pesticide rally in May 2008, when a Eugene police officer used a Taser to apprehend a University of Oregon student later convicted of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Owen said he was slammed to the grand and knocked unconscious after he questioned a different Eugene officer about use of the Taser when the student, Ian Van Ornum, was already face down on the ground.

Owen, who was never charged with a crime, said he was also kicked in the knee by a Homeland Security officer assisting in his arrest. Owen has filed an excessive use of force complaint with Eugene’s police auditor.

Eugene police testified at Van Ornum’s trial that they had been summoned to the downtown protest by a Department of Homeland Security agent monitoring the May 2008 demonstration. The agent, Tom Keedy, testified that he was there because Owen, a featured speaker, had urged people attending a March 2008 rally at the federal courthouse to “commit acts of civil disobedience … in a peaceful, nonviolent revolution.”

Owen on Saturday disputed that reason, charging that the federal agency was monitoring him because of the title of his talk at the May 2008 rally: “The Need to Reform Homeland Security.” He also said top officials at Homeland Security don’t want him to publicize what he alleges are ties between Homeland Security and Monsanto, including what he says is the agency’s financing of the development of genetically engineered food by Monsanto.

He called Monsanto and clear-cutting timber companies “the real bioterrorists.”

Rally participants were invited to launch a boycott of all crops treated with Round-Up and to sign a petition calling for aerial spraying buffer zones around homes and schools.

The following article is from GRAIN, also found at Organic Consumers Association website;

“Scientist Warning of Health Hazards of Monsanto’s Herbicide Receives Threats”

GRAIN: Seeds of Information, July 2009

Straight to the Source

“I expected a reaction but not such a violent one”

“In April 2009 Andrés Carrasco, an Argentinian embryologist, gave an interview to the leading Buenos Aires newspaper Página 12, in which he described the alarming results of a research project he is leading into the impact of the herbicide glyphosate on the foetuses of amphibians. Dr Carrasco, who works in the Ministry of Science’s Conicet (National Council of Scientific and Technical Investigations), said that their results suggested that the herbicide could cause brain, intestinal and heart defects in the foetuses. Glyphosate is the herbicide used in the cultivation of Monsanto’s genetically modified soya, which now covers some 18 million hectares, about half of Argentina’s arable land. [1]

Carrasco said that the doses of herbicide used in their study were “much lower than the levels used in the fumigations”. Indeed, as some weeds have become resistant to glyphosate, many farmers are greatly increasing the concentration of the herbicide. According to Página 12, this means that, in practice, the herbicide applied in the fields is between 50 and 1,540 times stronger than that used by Carrasco. The results in the study are confirming what peasant and indigenous communities – the people most affected by the spraying – have been denouncing for over a decade. The study also has profound consequences for the USA’s anti-narcotics strategy in Colombia, because the planes spray glyphosate, reinforced with additional chemicals, on the coca fields (and the peasants living among them).

Three days after the interview, the Association of Environmental Lawyers filed a petition with the Argentine Supreme Court, calling for a ban on the use and sale of glyphosate until its impact on health and on the environment had been investigated. Five days later the Ministry of Defense banned the planting of soya in its fields. This sparked a strong reaction from the multinational biotechnology companies and their supporters. Fearful that their most famous product, a symbol of the dominant farming model, would be banned, they mounted an unprecedented attack on Carrasco, ridiculing his research and even issuing personal threats. He was accused of inventing his whole investigation, as his results have not yet been peer-reviewed and published in a prestigious scientific journal.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/08/30/18620188.php

By Chris Dickerson -Putnam Bureau

WINFIELD – Three weeks after an original 50 were filed, nearly 100 more lawsuits have been filed alleging Monsanto and related companies are responsible for causing cancer.

Like the other 50 filed earlier this month, the 97 newest complaints filed Aug. 24 in Putnam Circuit Court say Monsanto and its successor companies caused cancer by exposing the plaintiffs to dioxins/furans contamination of the air and property in and around Nitro. The cases mention the “negligent and otherwise unlawful release of dioxin from defendants’ waste disposal practices on properties … located in and about Nitro, West Virginia.”

These individual cases, filed by Stuart Calwell and The Calwell Firm of Charleston, are not part of an ongoing class action involving thousands of current and former Nitro residents alleging Monsanto polluted the area with dioxin. The class action case specifies no specific damages, and the class-action plaintiffs seek medical monitoring.

The plaintiffs in the 147 new cases, also represented by Calwell, are residents and former residents of Nitro or one or more of several surrounding communities of the now defunct chemical plant located near Nitro. They lived, worked or attended school in Nitro. Some of the plaintiffs are deceased, and those suits are filed by family members.

Monsanto owned and operated the plant from 1934 to 2000. From 1949 to 1970, the company produced an herbicide that was heavily contaminated with dibenzo dioxins and dibenzo furans. The complaints say the company disposed of the dioxin-contaminated waste in a way which caused dioxins to escape into the air.

The plaintiffs say their property and soil was contaminated.

“During the years that Old Monsanto was operating it’s trichlorophenol plant, it adopted an unlawful practice of disposing of dioxin waste materials by a continuous process of open ‘pit’ burning,” the complaints state. “This practice was largely denied by Old Monsanto whose representatives characterized the practice as an ‘incineration process’ when asked by regulatory authorities.

“Old Monsanto and its successors … failed to adequately control the dioxin contaminated soils and other dioxin contaminated waste materials both on and off the plant site. Dioxins/furans continued to be re-deposited and re-distributed from the plant site and the off-site dumps so as to continue the process of air and property contamination.”

The complaints say the defendants knew of the dangers.

The defendants “should have known of the highly toxic properties of dioxin and that dioxin was and is a known promoter of cancer and that dioxin was and is a known human carcinogen,” the complaints state. The defendants “knew that the area around the Monsanto plant was populated with permanent residents who would likely live out their lives in the area contaminated.”

The complaints also detail the history of Monsanto and the company’s knowledge regarding dioxin. The Nitro plant produced herbicides, rubber products and other chemicals, including Agent Orange.

Dioxin has been linked to cancer, birth defects, learning disabilities, endometriosis, infertility and suppressed immune functions.

The plaintiffs seek compensatory damages for medical bills past and future, lost wages, pain and suffering, mental anguish and loss of enjoyment of life. They also seek punitive damages for the “willful, wanton and reckless” actions of the defendants “evidencing a callous disregard for the health and wellbeing of the residents of the Nitro area.”

Putnam Circuit Court case numbers 09-C-243 through 09-C-282 and 09-C-315 through 09-C-411

http://www.wvrecord.com/news/220760-nearly-100-more-cancer-lawsuits-filed-against-monsanto

By Kelly Holleran

One more group of Illinois residents who live in or near Sauget have filed a separate lawsuit over the release of various hazardous substances they claim have created a severe health risk and have contaminated their properties.

The 37 plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed July 29 against Cerro Flow Products, Inc., Pharmacia Corporation, Solutia, Inc., Pfizer and Monsanto AG Products are the sixth group of residents to file complaints against the companies this year.

The first was a class action lawsuit filed in February; the second was a lawsuit involving 21 plaintiffs filed June 5; the third was a lawsuit involving 19 plaintiffs filed June 11; the fourth was a lawsuit involving four plaintiffs filed June 19; and the fifth was a lawsuit involving 30 plaintiffs filed June 26. All are nearly identical to the July 29 complaint.

In all complaints, plaintiffs argue that three release sites – a 90 acre landfill operated by Sauget and Co., a 314-acre W.G. Krummrich Plant and property owned by Cerro Flow Products – have released PCBs and other various substances, including dioxins and furans, into the atmosphere for more than 70 years.

Some of the plaintiffs in the July 29 lawsuit say they have developed cancer and other life-threatening diseases as a result of their exposure to the PCBs, which have been shown to result in toxic effects in the brain and nervous system and in low birth rates and birth defects.

“According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, a lifetime dose of one milligram of PCBs is sufficient to cause cancer and other serious and life-threatening diseases,” the suit states. “According to the World Health Organization, there is not a safe level of exposure to PCBs.”

Dioxins and furans, which were also released at the site, according to the complaint, are also known to be dangerous and to create significant health problems through inhalation, ingestion, dermal absorption and ingestion of homegrown produce.

Other plaintiffs in the July 29 complaint say the PCBs have damaged their property.

For example, the chemicals released by the companies discharge into surface waters, resulting in the contamination of soil and dust. They are also discharged into wastewater, causing water and soil to become contaminated, the suit claims.

The releases began after the W.G. Krummrich Plant, which is also referred to as the Monsanto Facility in the complaint, began producing, storing and disposing PCBs at its facility, the residents claim.

In fact, “more PCBs were produced at the Monsanto Facility than at any other site in the United States, and perhaps even the free world,” the suit states.

Cerro, which owns land adjacent to the Monsanto Facility, recycles copper. Part of that work entails scrapping PCB transformers, draining wastewater and PCB oil into the Dead Creek and landfilling substances on its facility. In turn, those activities cause large quantities of the toxic substances to be released into the environment, according to the complaint.

At Sauget and Co., millions of tons of the toxic substances were disposed of in its landfill, residents allege.

The combined activities of the three companies released the deadly substances into the environment through smokestack emissions, wind erosion, smoke from fires in waste piles and airborne releases, according to the complaint.

Plaintiffs say the defendants knew about the potential consequences of the chemicals’ releases, but attempted to conceal health risks and property contamination from the public.

“To this day, one or more of the Monsanto Defendants and their consultants are actively engaged in a campaign of deception to mislead the residents and real property owners of communities adjacent to the Release Sites, including the Plaintiffs, into believing that the Substances do not present, and have never presented, any threat to the residents or to the real property of those adjacent communities,” the complaint says.

Claims in the July complaint include negligence, strict liability, nuisance,battery and trespass.

In each of the seven-count suits, plaintiffs are seeking a judgment in excess of $800,000, plus costs and other relief the court deems just.

They are represented by the same group of lawyers who filed the February and June complaints — Robert Leslie Palmer, Gregory A. Cade, H. Gregory Harp, Christina E. Wall and Mark L. Rowe, of Birmingham, Ala; Paul G. Schoen of Schoen, Walton, Telken and Foster in East St. Louis and James L. “Larry” Wright of Austin.

St. Clair County Circuit Court case number: 09-L-404.

Chickens are SMARTER than humans?

“Chickens refusing to eat the CORN they had been fed has led to the discovery that their feed had been genetically modified to include a well-known weed and insect killer.” [ROUND UP]

almost ALL USA CORN is GMO:
http://news.americanbuilt.us/info/corn/
(produced by the makers of AGENT ORANGE)
http://americanbuilt.us/videos/food-poisoning.shtml

Chickens refusing to eat the maize they had been fed has led to the discovery that their feed had been genetically modified to include a well-known weed and insect killer.

Strilli Oppenheimer was recently approached by Dawid Klopper, the head gardener at the family estate, Brenthurst, informing her that her indigenous African chickens were refusing to eat the mealies in the chicken feed bought from a large supplier. Concerned that the birds may be ingesting genetically modified maize, she instructed Klopper to have the maize tested.

The chickens’ diet was immediately changed to include organic vegetables, Oppenheimer stopped consuming the home-grown eggs and the maize was sent to the GMO testing facility at the University of the Free State for analysis.

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=143&art_id=vn20090802102554511C805624