How Huge Food Corporations Will Make Upcoming Food Price HIkes Even Worse

FOOD

AlterNet / By Jill Richardson

How Huge Food Corporations Will Make Upcoming Food Price HIkes Even Worse

The entire American food system is built on one crop -- corn. And that is really bad news.

August 7, 2012  |  

 

Photo Credit: vesilvio/ Shutterstock.com

 

 

Farmer George Naylor sounds a little too much like the fictional character Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh when I ask about his corn crop. June is usually a wet month, but not this year. One time it “rained” so little it just barely wet the bottom of his rain gauge. Add that to several days of triple-digit temperatures that accelerated evapotranspiration (water loss from his soil and his crop) and his corn is in a sad state. But he’s actually relatively lucky because he is in Iowa, which got some rain early in the season. Farmers in Illinois and Indiana are faring much worse.

The 2012 drought is now the worst drought our country has faced in half a century. As of the end of June, a third of the nation was in severe to extreme drought, and more than half faced moderate to extreme drought. All in all, June ranks as the 14th warmest and 10th driest June on record. By the end of July, the USDA had declared 1,584 counties in 32 states as primary disaster areas, making farmers and ranchers in those counties eligible for federal relief programs. Analogies to the Dust Bowl are becoming common.

Most of the time, Americans don’t need to worry much about how the food gets to our table and whether the weather has anything to do with it. It gets hot, and we put on the air conditioning. It doesn’t rain for weeks on end, and we celebrate the sunshine. But now, the fate of the corn crop on Midwestern farms even has comedian Stephen Colbert worried. Agricultural economist Bruce Babcock appeared on his show, warning him that the prices of meat, dairy and eggs will increase because “American livestock are fed a corn-heavy diet.” As Colbert put it, “It is one thing for global warming to make sea levels rise, but nobody told me it would make my cheese levels recede.”

Now is perhaps a good time to reflect on the extent to which the entire American food system is built on one crop – corn. And within that one crop, we rely on a very narrow range of genetics; although there are more than 250 known genetic races of corn, the U.S. almost exclusively relies on just two of them. Because the U.S. is the world’s number-one producer, consumer and exporter of corn, global food prices are also linked to America’s ability to grow corn. This year, we are going to find out what happens when the crop fails in many parts of the country. Now is a good time to ask ourselves: is it smart to bet the global food supply on a few varieties of one crop grown in one country?

Within the U.S., every state except for one (Alaska) grows corn, but the corn is concentrated geographically in the Midwest. Two states, Iowa and Illinois, grow more than 30 percent of America’s corn (measured by acreage). Add in three more states (Nebraska, Minnesota, and Indiana) and you’ve got nearly 60 percent of U.S. corn. Another six states (South Dakota, Kansas, Ohio, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Michigan) can also be considered major producers. These 11 states grow more than 80 percent of U.S. corn, mostly without irrigation, and right now half of them are severely suffering from the epic drought.

Where does all the corn go? Well, we aren’t eating it on the cob. Most of the crop is split between livestock feed and ethanol production with a smaller percentage going to exports and smaller amounts still going to produce foods we actually eat directly like high-fructose corn syrup. Over the past decade, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the percent of the crop that goes to produce ethanol.
Experts debate how much biofuels impact food prices, but a few trends are clear. As we’ve devoted more and more of our corn crop to ethanol, corn prices have gone up. Once upon a time, prices hovered around $2.50 per bushel. Now they are well above $7 per bushel. Jeffrey O’Hara, an agricultural economist for the Union of Concerned Scientists, recalls when organic corn sold for $4 per bushel just a few years ago. Now it is going for $16 per bushel. “People are going to start wondering why they don't see organic milk at the grocery store,” he says.

With corn prices so high, farmers have devoted more and more acreage to growing corn. Perhaps when prices were lower, a farmer might have rotated between corn and soybeans, but now he might choose to grow corn every year. Maybe in the past she would have enrolled some of her more marginal land in a conservation program, earning money to keep the land in prairie instead of growing corn there, but now it is more profitable to grow corn on that land. As a result, U.S. farmers are growing more acres of corn than any other year since the bad old days of the Dust Bowl.

But U.S. corn production has not only increased because of increased acreage. Since 1960, the U.S. has increased average corn yields from around 60 bushels per acre to over 160 bushels per acre. Yields of over 200 bushels per acre are not unheard of. But this has come at the cost of genetic diversity. By selecting corn seed for yield and yield alone, the U.S. has sacrificed other valuable traits – like, perhaps, drought tolerance.

In recent years, the already narrow range of corn genes has been impacted by a lack of competition in the seed market.  Together, Monsanto and Pioneer control about 70 percent of the corn seed market. Pioneer, now owned by DuPont, has been a giant in the market for decades as it was the first company to commercialize hybrid corn nearly a century ago, but Monsanto is a relative newcomer.

As it jumped into the corn seed market, Monsanto bought up major corn seed companies like Holden’s and DeKalb. The acquisition of Holden’s was especially significant as Holden’s produced inbred lines of corn seed and sold them to independent seed companies around the U.S. The independent seed companies then used those inbred lines to produce and sell their own hybrids. Monsanto now not only controls a huge share of the market, it also has the means to deprive independent seed companies of the germplasm they once relied on.

Globally, the U.S. produces more than 40 percent of the world’s corn. Next in line is China, which produces less than half as much corn as the U.S., but we are the world’s largest exporter whereas China is the world’s largest importer. We export more than five times as much corn as the world’s second largest exporter, Argentina. When the U.S. corn crop suffers, the global corn supply suffers – and prices go up around the world.

The full picture of U.S. farming includes more than just corn, of course. But not much more. Nearly 90 percent of U.S. cropland is comprised of just four crops. This year, the USDA estimates that the nearly 30 percent of U.S. cropland is planted in corn, 23 percent in soybeans, 18 percent in hay, and 17 percent in wheat. Of these, only wheat is significantly different from the others: it mostly goes to feed humans (not livestock), it is less affected by the drought in the U.S., and the U.S. is not the world’s top producer (it’s fourth).

All in all, the U.S. has produced an extremely efficient – but fragile – agricultural system. When all goes well, the U.S. produces massive amounts of incredibly cheap calories. But when something goes wrong, the system can come crashing down like a house of cards.

Strangely enough, the group that won’t be suffering the most this year are the very farmers whose crops are lost to the drought. The vast majority has federally subsidized crop insurance, which will pay them back for about 75 to 80 percent of their losses, depending on the amount of coverage they’ve elected to take. Crop insurance is a relatively new phenomenon, and it’s one that agricultural economist Daryll Ray argues allows farmers to grow corn in riskier areas where – without insurance – they would have elected to plant crops or pastures more appropriate for the area.

Those who will suffer are livestock producers. For any U.S. livestock operation, the choices this year are not good ones. Your animals can eat corn, soybeans or hay, and all are impacted by the drought. Farmers who have entirely given up on producing grain or beans from corn and soybeans are harvesting their entire plants to feed to their livestock as silage or hay, respectively. The USDA is also allowing farmers to harvest hay or graze their animals in 3.8 million acres that had been set aside for conservation, including some wetlands. Another option is culling your herd, slaughtering your animals and selling them for meat to avoid the need to feed them later. Some predict that this will occur, initially driving meat prices down before they go up later.

Naylor, who is not only a farmer but also past president of the National Family Farm Coalition, feels that farmers will not be able to reduce their herd sizes as much as they could have in the past.  “It used to be when farmers were raising livestock, they were a lot more flexible about whether they decided to raise livestock this year or next year. They were using relatively inexpensive facilities,” he recalls. As he sees it, a shortage of feed grains and high prices might have resulted in a drop in demand in the past as farmers reduced their herd sizes.
Nowadays, expensive confinement facilities are used in the majority of livestock operations. Naylor believes they “have a huge investment in the facility itself and if they're not running livestock through there, somebody's going to be paying for that facility regardless…  they are going to try to keep those things full to minimize their losses.” Many such farmers contract with large meatpackers like Tyson or Cargill, and the packers’ interest is in keeping their slaughterhouses running at capacity. Naylor also suspects the packing companies “want to keep up a certain volume and not upset people's typical diets – they want to keep their customers on board as long as they can.” In other words, they don’t want Stephen Colbert’s cheese levels to recede.

Americans certainly will not enjoy paying higher prices for eggs, dairy and meat, nor will they relish reducing consumption of expensive animal products. (That said, it might be a blessing for our health if Americans substituted lower priced but healthier plant-based whole foods in their place.) But if recent history is an indicator, the people who will truly suffer don’t even live in the U.S. Prices spiked a few years ago, in 2008, and Americans took it on the chin. Other countries experienced food riots.

So what can we do to prevent such disasters in the future? Diversify, says O’Hara. The scale of this particular drought is so enormous that we would have suffered consequences no matter what, but we might have reduced them by diversifying the crops we grow, diversifying where we grow them, and diversifying the varieties of each crop grown.

Michael Pollan, who agrees about the importance of diversification, says, “It's also worth pointing out that organic soils perform much better in drought than conventional, because of the superior water retention of organic matter.” In fact, the Rodale Institute, in its 30-plus-year long Farm Systems Trial, found that organic corn and soy yields match conventional yields in most years but exceed them in drought years. In addition to building up the soil with manure or compost, their methods also improve water retention by utilizing a thick layer of mulch on top of the soil. They also found that organic methods use less energy and sequester more carbon in the soil, helping to mitigate the climate crisis in the long term. But a minute percent of U.S. corn is grown organically, and some organic farmers use excessive tillage to control weeds, thus negating many of the benefits organic methods should offer in a drought.

When asked, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack dodged a question about whether the drought was related to the climate crisis and instead used it as an occasion to promote drought tolerant seeds. But Union of Concerned Scientists found that Monsanto’s new genetically engineered “drought tolerant” corn provides minimal benefits in the face of drought. So maybe we should take a serious look at diversifying our food system and reducing carbon emissions instead of counting on drought tolerant seeds to bail us out after we break the climate.

Jill Richardson is the founder of the blog La Vida Locavore and a member of the Organic Consumers Association policy advisory board. She is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It..

South African GMO Crop Failure Highlights Dangers of Food Supply Domination

WildAlchemist

Conscious Mentality Manifests Luminous Reality Creating Eternal Vitality

Saturday, July 14, 2012

South African GMO Crop Failure Highlights Dangers of Food Supply Domination

Worry is building over the effects of the Food Safety and Modernization Act of 2009, otherwise known as HR 875. This is the bill currently working its way through Congress that would effectively hand over control of America's food supply to such a nefarious giant as Monsanto and its lesser counterparts such as Tyson and Cargill. We have a right to worry, because broad interpretation of this bill reveals its potential to put an end to healthy food in America. Family farms, local growers, organic producers, and even backyard gardeners can all be put out of business by its heavy hand. Yet an even greater threat may be looming at the front end of the controversy over the food supply as harvests of genetically modified foods begin to fail. GMO corn plants fail to produce kernels Farmers in South Africa have suffered millions of dollars in lost income due to the failure of their genetically modified (GMO) corn to produce kernels. The three varieties of plants look lush and healthy from the outside, but when the husks were pulled back there are no kernels. Monsanto's GMO corn was planted on 82,000 hectares of farmland, an amount that equals over 202,000 acres. The loss is spread over three South African provinces, and 280 of the 1,000 farmers who planted the corn have reported the lack of kernel development. Monsanto has blamed the failure on under fertilization processes in the laboratory and attempted to make light of the situation by claiming that only 25% of the Monsanto seeded farms are involved in the loss. But Marian Mayet, environmental activist and director of the Africa Centre for Biosecurity in Johannesburg is not buying it. According to her information, some farms have suffered up to an 80% crop failure. She has demanded an urgent government investigation and an immediate ban on all GMO food. She points out that it is biotechnology that is the failure, and a careless mistake would not affect three different varieties of corn at the same time. The varieties failing to produce kernels were designed with a built-in resistance to Monsanto's weed killers, and were manipulated to increase yields. Mayet is justifiably upset. Corn is the primary staple food for South Africa's 48 million people. Apparently Monsanto is upset too. It has offered immediate compensation to all the farmers experiencing crop loss. Damage estimates are being collected buy local farmer cooperatives, and Monsanto is standing by with its checkbook. Locals are saying they are satisfied that Monsanto is doing a good job to protect them. This kind of largesse is uncharacteristic of Monsanto, a company more widely known for its use of strong arm and bullying tactics, and total disregard for people's rights. It implies that Mayet's concerns over the failure of bioengineering may be justified. Monsanto uses insidious plan to gain control of world food supply Monsanto has pushed around farmers to the point where they cannot simply refuse to buy Monsanto's GMO seeds. In its insidious efforts to feed its bottom line at the expense of feeding people, Monsanto has established itself in countries often with the help of their governments who approve the planting of their GMO Roundup Ready seeds. Initially farmers save, multiply and sell seeds to other farmers as they always have, and the area planted with GM seed multiplies exponentially. Monsanto sits by and watches this happen without a complaint. Then when the spreading of seeds is nearly complete, Monsanto begins to threaten these farmers and call their use of the GMO seed illegal. It gets the government behind them to enforce patent laws. Soon farmers who are paying patent royalties complain about those who are not. Monsanto answers by enforcing their patents on everyone. By this time the spread of GMO seed is so pervasive that any farmer who has refused is bound to have a few stray GMO plants in his fields. Monsanto seeks them out and then sues the farmers for patent infringement. Farmers who buy Monsanto's GMO seeds are then required to sign an agreement promising not to save seeds or sell them to other farmers. The result is that farmers must buy new seeds every year, and they must buy them from Monsanto. Meanwhile in the U.S., Monsanto is taking steps to block access to non GMO seeds. They have bought up seed companies across the Midwest, and have gotten legislators to put through laws that make cleaning, collecting and storing seeds so onerous in terms of fees and paperwork that using normal seeds becomes almost impossible. Laws are proposed that ensure farmers cannot block the planting of GMO seeds even if they contaminate other crops. Ownership of seed cleaning equipment is made illegal by considering it a source of seed contamination. More than 1,500 farmers whose fields have been contaminated by GM seeds have been sued for royalty payments. Monsanto controls over 90% of the patented seed market Today there is intense concentration and lack of competition in the patented seed crop industry. Monsanto clearly dominates the playing field, controlling over 90% of the market. There is strong evidence that Monsanto uses various devices to squelch emerging technology that might compete with its patented products. As a result of Monsanto's power grab, small and medium sized farmers have been denied the ability to be competitive and profitable, having to over pay for their patented seeds. Monsanto's near monopoly of the GMO market has given it the power to overcharge farmers and keep new and better technologies from entering the field. Monsanto is positioned to control legislation in the U.S. To ensure the perpetuation of its near monopoly, Monsanto is helping to install the right people in the right places. To that end, Michael Taylor, the ex FDA head who approved the use of bovine growth hormone (rBGH), has just become ensconced in the Obama transition team where he may soon be overseeing food safety. He will join already well placed Tom Vilsack, the pro GMO Secretary of Agriculture. As a pair, Taylor and Vilsack, will be in a position to continue the phasing out of small and medium sized farms to make fertile farmland available for the intensive capital accumulation of factory farms, and the phasing in of Monsanto's take over of the entire U.S. food supply. Passage of the food safety bill will allow Monsanto to continue taking control of farms without any obstacles. Similar laws in the EU have already wiped out 60% of Polish farmers so far. The Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), a production control system for the food industry, is helping to smooth the way for Monsanto by creating international harmonization of laws. According to an article by Linn Cohen-Cole, "in Kansas alone HACCP wiped out 72 small local meat processors who hadn't had any problems, and vastly lowered the number of inspections to the point where we have over 70 million food borne illnesses a year now." Cohen-Cole is shocked at the lack of awareness of what is going on by people who support local and sustainable farming. She sees them as excited about an organic White House garden while a food safety bill is being put into law that would literally destroy everything they have been working for. She is hoping groups that support the going green agenda will wake up and join farmers in an effort to block the legislation. She suggests contacting Rosa DeLauro, the woman who sponsored HR 875. DeLauro can be reached at: Washington Office: Phone 202-225-3661 Fax 202-225-4890 Connecticut Office: Phone 203-562-3718 Fax 203-772-2260 HR 875 is long and tedious reading, and in the style being set by the Obama administration, has probably not been read by the people slated to vote on it. In the face of public outrage, these legislators may not follow through with support for a bill making them targets for their constituents. But legislators are not the only ones who have been conned by the food safety bill. Just like the Clean Water Act that ensured more contamination of waterways, and the Clean Air Act that ensured rising levels of air pollution, the Food Safety Act bears a name that makes it difficult to resist if you don't know the finer points. After all, who could be against food safety? Anyone standing up for family and healthy living is an easy mark for such deception. This well planned attack on the food supply counts on the ability of liberal and progressive communities to cut their own throats. It may be that the South African crop failure is the first clue that nature will triumph over the scientists and GMO products will end up self destructing. It is certainly a wake up call to the dangers involved in the domination of the food supply by one company and its varieties of patented GMO seeds. It is something to hope for until one thinks about the widespread starvation that would follow in the wake of such an event. The threat of facing that makes contacting DeLauro a much more appealing way to at least temporarily derail Monsanto's plans. Source - www.naturalnews.com 

 

Posted by WildAlchemist

Do Sports Drinks Really Work?

Mother Jones

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Do Sports Drinks Really Work?

—By David Tuller

 

| Mon Jul. 30, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

 

 

Fillmore Photography/Flickr

 

Just in time for the Summer Olympics in London, a top science journal has issued a blistering indictment of the sports drink industry. According to the series of reports from BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal), the makers of drinks like Gatorade and Powerade have spent millions in research and marketing in recent decades to persuade sports and medical professionals, not to mention the rest of us suckers, that a primal instinct—the sensation of thirst—is an unreliable guide for deciding when to drink. We've also been battered with the notion that boring old water is just not good enough for preventing dehydration.

I've been as susceptible to this scam as anyone else; I knew, or thought I knew, that if I'm thirsty after my half-hour go-round on the elliptical trainer, it means I was underhydrated to begin with. So for years I've been trying to remember to ignore my lack of thirst and make myself drink before working out. Not any more.

The BMJ's package of seven papers on sports performance products packs a collective wallop. The centerpiece is a well-reported investigation of the long-standing financial ties between the makers of Gatorade (PepsiCo), Powerade (Coca-Cola, an official Olympic sponsor), and Lucozaid (GlaxoSmithKline) with sports associations, medical groups, and academic researchers. It should come as no great surprise that the findings and recommendations that have emerged through these affiliations have tended to include alarming warnings about dehydration and electrolyte imbalance—warnings that conveniently promote the financial interests of the corporate sponsors.

And who knew there was something called the Gatorade Sports Science Institute? According to the BMJ investigation, "one of GSSI's greatest successes was to undermine the idea that the body has a perfectly good homeostatic mechanism for detecting and responding to dehydration—thirst." The article quotes the institute's director as having declared, based on little reliable evidence, that "the human thirst mechanism is an inaccurate short-term indicator of fluid needs."

Another study in the BMJ package finds that the European Food Safety Authority, which is authorized to assess health claims in food labels and ads, has relied on a seriously flawed review process in approving statements related to sports drinks. A third study reports that hundreds of performance claims made on websites about sports products, including nutritional supplements and training equipment as well as drinks, are largely based on questionable data, and sometimes no apparent data at all. One overall theme emerging from the various papers is that much of the research cited was conducted with elite and endurance athletes, who have specific nutritional and training needs; any such findings, however, should not be presumed to hold for the vast majority of those who engage in physical activity.

Critics have long blasted sports drinks as being loaded with calories and unnecessary ingredients. (Not to mention concerns about the environmental costs of producing, shipping, and discarding all those millions of plastic bottles.) Yet the product category represents a lucrative and growing market, with US sales of about $1.6 billion a year, according to the BMJ. In fact, Powerade is the official sports drink of the London Olympics, and Coca-Cola is hyping the brand with a campaign featuring top-tier athletes.

The BMJ papers address two related but distinct questions: Should people who exercise seek to proactively replace fluids lost, or can they rely on thirst to guide them during and after physical activity? And when they rehydrate, do they need all the salts, sugars, and other ingredients dumped into sports drinks, or is water fine? The correct answers are: best to rely on thirst, and water is fine. All that stuff about replacing electrolytes and so on you've been hearing all these years? Never mind! The evidence doesn't support it.

Overhydration presents a far greater risk of serious complications, and even death, than dehydration.

 

In a commentary accompanying the investigations in the journal, Timothy Noakes, chair of sports science at the University of Cape Town, points out that overhydration presents a far greater risk of serious complications, and even death, than dehydration. Moreover, he notes, the notion that fluid and electrolytes must be immediately replaced is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of our past as "long distance persistence hunters" in arid regions of Africa.

"Humans do not regulate fluid balance on a moment to moment basis," Noakes writes. "Because of our evolutionary history, we are delayed drinkers and correct the fluid deficits generated by exercise at, for example, the next meal, when the electrolyte (principally sodium but also potassium) deficits are also corrected…People optimize their hydration status by drinking according to the dictates of thirst. Over the past 40 years humans have been misled—mainly by the marketing departments of companies selling sports drinks—to believe that they need to drink to stay 'ahead of thirst' to be optimally hydrated."

Jaw-Dropping Corruption: America's 47 Million Hungry Mouths Are Just Another Corporate Cash Cow

FOOD  

Progressive Populist / By Mark Anderson

Jaw-Dropping Corruption: America's 47 Million Hungry Mouths Are Just Another Corporate Cash Cow

An attorney's courageous report exposes just how ruthless and greedy big business is capable of being.

July 22, 2012  |  

A unique, hard-hitting report just completed by a California attorney exposes a largely unknown federal food-stamp racket involving large grocery retailers, food manufacturing giants and other private players, including the Federal Reserve and JPMorganChase, which combine to channel food stamp spending into a gravy train for the heavy hitters in the food industry.

And the report’s author, Michele Simon, says administrative costs added by these privateers inflate the overall price tag of the Supplemental Nutrition Allowance Program (SNAP). And high program costs are prompting potentially deep legislative cuts to SNAP in the pending Farm Bill — when a record 46 million Americans use SNAP, of which 47% are children.

A major fear is that SNAP cuts could wrongly target the program’s central mission to feed the hungry, when cuts should target the private players who harness the program for their own gain.

“If we want to cut, let’s look at administrative cuts—not [necessarily] cutting the benefits themselves,” Simon told this writer. She’s disturbed that JP Morgan and the Federal Reserve are well positioned in this debacle. Yet, her 28-page report, for all that it reveals, just begins to explore this fathoms-deep issue, since critical data is being withheld by the USDA.

Over the last 7 months, Simon organized the report, “Food Stamps, Follow the Money: Are Corporations Profiting from Hungry Americans?” She wrote it because she felt there was more to the story after a 2010 debate over how SNAP dollars should be spent in New York City.

The city asked the USDA for a waiver in order to conduct a two-year trial “to prevent SNAP funds from being used to purchase sugar-sweetened beverages,” wrote Simon, who added, “Several [nine] states have proposed bills similar to New York’s approach, to modify SNAP-eligible items to promote health. But each time, the food industry fought these bills. To date, none have passed.”

The big picture is that once Congress approves the Farm Bill budget for the USDA, (which administers SNAP 50/50 with the states), the states, upon enrolling SNAP participants, contract with banks to get the EBT debit cards that SNAP recipients now use (replacing the old food coupons). Card-carrying participants then enter a system wherein the major food manufacturers lobby the USDA to deny states the right to alter SNAP-purchase guidelines, so major food and beverage-makers (Mars, PepsiCo, Coca Cola, Kraft etc.) can reap the harvest of 46 million cardholders buying their products—including sweets with little to no nutritional value.

The big-box food makers refuse to surrender this arrangement, for, as Ms. Simon sees it, if they and their cohorts at the major retail outlets allow diverse nutritional considerations requested by the states to decide policy, then SNAP’s vast purchasing power could be redirected not only toward nutritional food (a novel idea for a “supplemental nutrition” program) but also toward smaller food outlets, including farmers’ markets—which, according to Simon, currently receive perhaps 0.01% of SNAP purchases. She imagined how much SNAP spending could revive the economy if most of it helped local agriculture, spurred jobs and ironically even helped some people get off food stamps. Indeed, the nation’s food relief program started on the basis of helping the needy buy fresh produce to reduce farm surpluses, says the report, which adds:

“Given the huge stakes for the food and beverage industry in the debate over SNAP purchases, lobbying has played a critical role in shaping public policy. Unfortunately, due to reporting rules, it’s difficult to paint the entire picture of exactly who lobbied and how much money was spent against any one proposal [to limit SNAP purchases to real food].”

Meanwhile, JPMorganChase has EBT contracts with more states than any other bank and rakes in fees galore. “[SNAP] store purchases at the register go to JP Morgan ... which authorizes the request. And that [purchase data] goes to the Federal Reserve Bank and the Fed reimburses, say, Wal Mart,” explained Simon, who stressed that the USDA strangely refuses to release comprehensive SNAP purchase-redemption data so the big picture can be fully understood.

This issue has become so touchy that at least one journalist, Michael Morisy (MuckRock.com), is in hot water with the USDA for managing to obtain some of this data. But the truth cannot be contained forever. A newspaper, the Sioux Falls, S.D., Argus Leader, last year in South Dakota’s federal court district filed a lawsuit to try and force the government to release all redemption amounts, including how much the Fed reimburses the stores who accept EBT purchases, and how much SNAP money goes to buy specific products.

Mark Anderson is a veteran journalist who divides his time between Texas and Michigan. Email him at truthhound2@yahoo.com. Simon, who compiled the SNAP report referenced here, is a public health lawyer and president of Eat Drink Politics, an industry watchdog consulting group. Contact her at Michele@EatDrinkPolitics.com.

TEVA Phamaceuticals Recalls Single Lot of Metoprolol Tartrate Tablets 50 mg

TEVA Phamaceuticals Recalls Single Lot of Metoprolol Tartrate Tablets 50 mg

TEVA Phamaceuticals has recalled a single lot of Metoprolol Tartrate Tablets 50 mg, the short acting formulation of metoprolol. Lot number TE1Y261 is being recalled because some tablets in this lot may have different thickness and weight.

Metoprolol is used in the treatment of high blood pressure. Metoprolol is also sold under the brand name Lopressor or Toprol XL. No other lots, strengths, or brands of Metoprolol were involved in this recall.

To view the FDA notice about this recall, please visit:
http://www.mediguard.org/r/013V22sm0gzA

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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? 

 

This recall for Metoprolol Tartrate Tablets 50 mg from TEVA Phamaceuticals was issued at a warehouse and pharmacy level only. The FDA and the manufacturer have determined that any recalled product that may have been dispensed to patients does not pose a significant health risk. If you take Metoprolol Tartrate Tablets 50 mg from Teva Pharmaceuitcals and are concerned, you should speak to your pharmacist or doctor. If you think you are experiencing side effects from your medicine, please follow up with your doctor.

For updated risk ratings on all of your registered medications, or to update your medication list, please log into your profile (https://www.mediguard.org/user). 

 

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FOOD MATTERS

You are what you eat

The Truth Is Out on Genetically Modified Foods - And It's Not Pretty

By the Institute for Responsible Technology , Your Consumer Safety Partner - May 20, 2009

This week, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) called on “Physicians to educate their patients, the medical community, and the public to avoid GM (genetically modified) foods when possible and provide educational materials concerning GM foods and health risks.” They called for a moratorium on GM foods, long-term independent studies, and labeling. AAEM’s position paper stated, “Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food,” including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system. They conclude, “There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation,” as defined by recognized scientific criteria. “The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies.”

More and more doctors are already prescribing GM-free diets. Dr. Amy Dean, a Michigan internal medicine specialist, and board member of AAEM says, “I strongly recommend patients eat strictly non-genetically modified foods.” Ohio allergist Dr. John Boyles says “I used to test for soy allergies all the time, but now that soy is genetically engineered, it is so dangerous that I tell people never to eat it.”

Dr. Jennifer Armstrong, President of AAEM, says, “Physicians are probably seeing the effects in their patients, but need to know how to ask the right questions.” World renowned biologist Pushpa M. Bhargava goes one step further. After reviewing more than 600 scientific journals, he concludes that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are a major contributor to the sharply deteriorating health of Americans.

Pregnant women and babies at great risk

Among the population, biologist David Schubert of the Salk Institute warns that “children are the most likely to be adversely effected by toxins and other dietary problems” related to GM foods. He says without adequate studies, the children become “the experimental animals.”

The experience of actual GM-fed experimental animals is scary. When GM soy was fed to female rats, most of their babies died within three weeks—compared to a 10% death rate among the control group fed natural soy. The GM-fed babies were also smaller, and later had problems getting pregnant.

When male rats were fed GM soy, their testicles actually changed color—from the normal pink to dark blue. Mice fed GM soy had altered young sperm. Even the embryos of GM fed parent mice had significant changes in their DNA. Mice fed GM corn in an Austrian government study had fewer babies, which were also smaller than normal.

Reproductive problems also plague livestock. Investigations in the state of Haryana, India revealed that most buffalo that ate GM cottonseed had complications such as premature deliveries, abortions, infertility, and prolapsed uteruses. Many calves died. In the US, about two dozen farmers reported thousands of pigs became sterile after consuming certain GM corn varieties. Some had false pregnancies; others gave birth to bags of water. Cows and bulls also became infertile when fed the same corn.

In the US population, the incidence of low birth weight babies, infertility, and infant mortality are all escalating.

Food designed to produce toxin

GM corn and cotton are engineered to produce their own built-in pesticide in every cell. When bugs bite the plant, the poison splits open their stomach and kills them. Biotech companies claim that the pesticide, called Bt—produced from soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis—has a history of safe use, since organic farmers and others use Bt bacteria spray for natural insect control. Genetic engineers insert Bt genes into corn and cotton, so the plants do the killing.

The Bt-toxin produced in GM plants, however, is thousands of times more concentrated than natural Bt spray, is designed to be more toxic, has properties of an allergen, and unlike the spray, cannot be washed off the plant.

Moreover, studies confirm that even the less toxic natural bacterial spray is harmful. When dispersed by plane to kill gypsy moths in the Pacific Northwest, about 500 people reported allergy or flu-like symptoms. Some had to go to the emergency room.

The exact same symptoms are now being reported by farm workers throughout India, from handling Bt cotton.[xiii] In 2008, based on medical records, the Sunday India reported, “Victims of itching have increased massively this year . . . related to BT cotton farming.”

GMOs provoke immune reactions

AAEM states, “Multiple animal studies show significant immune dysregulation,” including increase in cytokines, which are “associated with asthma, allergy, and inflammation”—all on the rise in the US.

According to GM food safety expert Dr. Arpad Pusztai, changes in the immune status of GM animals are “a consistent feature of all the studies.” Even Monsanto’s own research showed significant immune system changes in rats fed Bt corn. A November 2008 by the Italian government also found that mice have an immune reaction to Bt corn.

GM soy and corn each contain two new proteins with allergenic properties, GM soy has up to seven times more trypsin inhibitor—a known soy allergen, and skin prick tests show some people react to GM, but not to non-GM soy. Soon after GM soy was introduced to the UK, soy allergies skyrocketed by 50%. Perhaps the US epidemic of food allergies and asthma is a casualty of genetic manipulation.

Animals dying in large numbers

In India, animals graze on cotton plants after harvest. But when shepherds let sheep graze on Bt cotton plants, thousands died. Post mortems showed severe irritation and black patches in both intestines and liver (as well as enlarged bile ducts). Investigators said preliminary evidence “strongly suggests that the sheep mortality was due to a toxin. . . . most probably Bt-toxin.” In a small follow-up feeding study by the Deccan Development Society, all sheep fed Bt cotton plants died within 30 days; those that grazed on natural cotton plants remained healthy.

In a small village in Andhra Pradesh, buffalo grazed on cotton plants for eight years without incident. On January 3rd, 2008, the buffalo grazed on Bt cotton plants for the first time. All 13 were sick the next day; all died within 3 days.

Bt corn was also implicated in the deaths of cows in Germany, and horses, water buffaloes, and chickens in The Philippines.

In lab studies, twice the number of chickens fed Liberty Link corn died; 7 of 20 rats fed a GM tomato developed bleeding stomachs; another 7 of 40 died within two weeks. Monsanto’s own study showed evidence of poisoning in major organs of rats fed Bt corn, according to top French toxicologist G. E. Seralini.

Worst finding of all—GMOs remain inside of us

The only published human feeding study revealed what may be the most dangerous problem from GM foods. The gene inserted into GM soy transfers into the DNA of bacteria living inside our intestines and continues to function. This means that long after we stop eating GMOs, we may still have potentially harmful GM proteins produced continuously inside of us. Put more plainly, eating a corn chip produced from Bt corn might transform our intestinal bacteria into living pesticide factories, possibly for the rest of our lives.

When evidence of gene transfer is reported at medical conferences around the US, doctors often respond by citing the huge increase of gastrointestinal problems among their patients over the last decade. GM foods might be colonizing the gut flora of North Americans.

Warnings by government scientists ignored and denied

Scientists at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had warned about all these problems even in the early 1990s. According to documents released from a lawsuit, the scientific consensus at the agency was that GM foods were inherently dangerous, and might create hard-to-detect allergies, poisons, gene transfer to gut bacteria, new diseases, and nutritional problems. They urged their superiors to require rigorous long-term tests.[xxvii] But the White House had ordered the agency to promote biotechnology and the FDA responded by recruiting Michael Taylor, Monsanto’s former attorney, to head up the formation of GMO policy. That policy, which is in effect today, denies knowledge of scientists’ concerns and declares that no safety studies on GMOs are required. It is up to Monsanto and the other biotech companies to determine if their foods are safe. Mr. Taylor later became Monsanto’s vice president.

Dangerously few studies, untraceable diseases

AAEM states, “GM foods have not been properly tested” and “pose a serious health risk.” Not a single human clinical trial on GMOs has been published. A 2007 review of published scientific literature on the “potential toxic effects/health risks of GM plants” revealed “that experimental data are very scarce.” The author concludes his review by asking, “Where is the scientific evidence showing that GM plants/food are toxicologically safe, as assumed by the biotechnology companies?”

Famed Canadian geneticist David Suzuki answers, “The experiments simply haven’t been done and we now have become the guinea pigs.” He adds, “Anyone that says, ‘Oh, we know that this is perfectly safe,’ I say is either unbelievably stupid or deliberately lying.”

Dr. Schubert points out, “If there are problems, we will probably never know because the cause will not be traceable and many diseases take a very long time to develop.” If GMOs happen to cause immediate and acute symptoms with a unique signature, perhaps then we might have a chance to trace the cause.

This is precisely what happened during a US epidemic in the late 1980s. The disease was fast acting, deadly, and caused a unique measurable change in the blood—but it still took more than four years to identify that an epidemic was even occurring. By then it had killed about 100 Americans and caused 5,000-10,000 people to fall sick or become permanently disabled. It was caused by a genetically engineered brand of a food supplement called L-tryptophan.

If other GM foods are contributing to the rise of autism, obesity, diabetes, asthma, cancer, heart disease, allergies, reproductive problems, or any other common health problem now plaguing Americans, we may never know. In fact, since animals fed GMOs had such a wide variety of problems, susceptible people may react to GM food with multiple symptoms. It is therefore telling that in the first nine years after the large scale introduction of GM crops in 1996, the incidence of people with three or more chronic diseases nearly doubled, from 7% to 13%.

To help identify if GMOs are causing harm, the AAEM asks their “members, the medical community, and the independent scientific community to gather case studies potentially related to GM food consumption and health effects, begin epidemiological research to investigate the role of GM foods on human health, and conduct safe methods of determining the effect of GM foods on human health.”

Citizens need not wait for the results before taking the doctors advice to avoid GM foods. People can stay away from anything with soy or corn derivatives, cottonseed and canola oil, and sugar from GM sugar beets—unless it says organic or “non-GMO.” There is a pocket Non-GMO Shopping Guide, co-produced by the Institute for Responsible Technology and the Center for Food Safety, which is available as a download, as well as in natural food stores and in many doctors’ offices.

If even a small percentage of people choose non-GMO brands, the food industry will likely respond as they did in Europe—by removing all GM ingredients. Thus, AAEM’s non-GMO prescription may be a watershed for the US food supply.

Source: http://www.opposingviews.com

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE GMO FREE POCKET BOOK SHOPPING GUIDE

AlterNet.org

FOOD  

AlterNet / By Jim Hightower

Hey Monsanto -- I Want My Tomatoes From Nature, Not Your Labs

The biotech industry is willing to tamper with our food supply, our kids' minds and our basic consumer rights.

July 15, 2012  |  

 

Some people are too smart for your own good.

Food geneticists, for example. These technicians have the smarts to tinker with the inner workings of Momma Nature's own good foods -- but not the smarts to leave well enough alone.        

In fairness, much of their scientific tinkering has been beneficial. But during the past half-century, too much of their work devolved from tinkering into outright tampering with our food. This is mostly the result of money flowing to both private and public research centers from big agribusiness corporations that want nature's design altered in ways that fatten their bottom lines. Never mind that the alterations created by these smart people are frequently not good for you and me.

Take the tomato, truly a natural wonder. Agribusiness profiteers, however, wanted it to do unnatural things, so -- voila! -- the genetic tamperers in the 1960s and '70s dutifully produced the Amazing Industrial Tomato. It's a techno-marvel made to endure long-distance shipping, be harvested while green and then artificially ripened to appear tomato-y red and last an ungodly amount of time without rotting.   
     
But taste? Forget it. There's more flavor in the carton. This led to the "Upchuck Rebellion" -- a grassroots movement of consumers, small farmers and local food artisans. In the last couple of decades, they've spurred phenomenal growth in farmers markets and stores that offer nature's own locally produced and heirloom varieties untouched by the smart ones.
But, look out, the tomato tamperers are back in the lab! They've discovered that a mutated gene they had bred into the corporate tomato switches off other genes that would cause the fruit to develop flavor. The answer, they say, is not less technology, but more. 

By artificially re-engineering the DNA structure of the plant, they can bypass that naughty mutated gene and switch on some of the flavor genes. But do we really want to eat genetically engineered tomatoes?

Still, you can expect them to push the latest alteration of nature's marvel. I can just see the agribusiness ad: "Buy our industrial tomatoes -- Now genetically flavored!" Better yet, buy the local tomatoes, which don't need a smart geneticist or an ad to deliver real flavor.
Unfortunately, it's not just tomatoes they're tampering with. For instance, if you are parent you may be worried about the plethora of highly questionable bio-engineered organisms that the profiteers have quietly been slipping into everything from snack foods to school lunches.
Well, perhaps your own children can put your mind at ease, for science teachers around the country have been assigning a book called "Look Closer at Biotechnology" to the kiddos in their classes. It's filled with colorful images, friendly cartoon faces, puzzles and more!
The very first page makes clear that the scientific wonder of genetically engineered foods pose no worries at all. "Hi, kids," it begins. 

"This is an activity book for young people like you about ... a really neat topic." Why is it so neat? Because, say the authors, "as you work through the puzzles in this book, you will learn more about biotechnology and all the wonderful ways it can help people live better lives in a healthier world. Have fun!"

Fun? With genetically engineered food? That's not fun, it's serious business -- and look who's behind this book of fairy tales: the Council for Biotechnology Information.

Exactly what and who is CBI? It's a PR and political front for the biotech industry, financed by such multibillion-dollar giants as Monsanto, Bayer, DuPont and Dow. It's also now funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into the industry's deceitful political campaign to kill a California "Right to Know" ballot initiative that finally would require food giants to label all products containing genetically engineered organisms.

This raises an obvious question for those of us who prefer food from nature, not from engineering labs: What are we to do about corporate powers that are so avaricious and arrogant that they're willing to tamper with our food supply, our kids' minds and our basic consumer rights? Defeat them, that's what!

Here are three good sources for information and action: JustLabelIt.org, 

NonGMOShoppingGuide.com and OrganicConsumers.org.


To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM

Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the new book, "Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow." (Wiley, March 2008) He publishes the monthly "Hightower Lowdown," co-edited by Phillip Frazer.