JUST NEWS: Biotechnology and GMO

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Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Did Trump Tacitly Threaten to Use Biological Weapons to Exterminate 10 Million?

Global Research, September 03, 2019

“We could win that war so fast if I wanted to kill 10 million people … which I don’t. I’m not looking to kill a big portion of that country [Afghanistan],”

“I have plans on Afghanistan that, if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone,”

“It would be over in — literally, in 10 days. And I don’t want to do — I don’t want to go that route.” (ABC July 24.2019) (emphasis added)

“As I’ve said, and I’ll say it any number of times – and this is not using nuclear – we could win that war in a week if we wanted to fight it, but I’m not looking to kill 10 million people,” (quoted by Press TV, Aug 21.2019) (emphasis added)

***

Should these cynical statements be taken seriously?

Since president Trump now has come out and openly admitted that plans for a genocide are contemplated, it is reasonable to look at what practical means the US military machine has for implementing this criminal undertaking, which is tantamount to genocide.

Ten million is a lot of people to kill without using nuclear weapons. Even a decade of war in Indochina, with massive aerial bombing, only managed to kill an estimated 4 million people, so an air campaign in Afghanistan would be insufficient to achieve something on this scale. Other governments who tried similar projects, found out that it takes time and effort; using death squads, murder on such a scale would take several years; use of chemical means would require an impractical concentration of the targeted populations. Starvation is a tried and tested method, but would obviously require more than 10 days.

Basically, it could not be done quickly with conventional means, and since Trump claimed there are no nuclear weapons involved, it leaves the US military with few options. Disregarding futuristic weapons programs, the only known things that can achieve something similar are – biological weapons.

In 2010 the US Air Force published a counterproliferation paper,”Biotechnology: Genetically Engineered Pathogens“, where it discussed several biological weapons threats, carefully framing the problem as a defense against these. The traditional way of dispersal, perfected since the early trials in the Korean war, is mentioned: “using a single bomber and with the right weather conditions on an unprotected population, a 10 ton biological agent dispersed in the environment could affect an area equal to 100,000 km2″, (p6) (the size of Indiana)

Collecting Russian DNA? Confronting the Threat of Ethnic-Specific Bioweapons

But there is obviously a flaw to releasing a ‘normal’ super-virus able to kill 10 million people in a short period of time – namely how would they stop it from spreading to the rest of the world?

Even if they could hermetically seal Afghanistan, there are international aid workers, mercenaries, local collaborators and others there that the US would not want harmed. The Air Force paper tells us:

In 1997, a study was conducted to identify future threats and uses of advanced biological warfare agents. The JASON group, composed of academic scientists, served as technical advisers to the U. S. government. Their study generated six broad classes of genetically engineered pathogens that could pose serious threats to society. These include but are not limited to binary biological weapons, designer genes, gene therapy as a weapon, stealth viruses, host-swapping diseases, and designer diseases.

So we get possibilities like:

Stealth Viruses: The basic concept of this potential bioweapon is to “produce a tightly regulated, cryptic viral infection that can enter and spread in human cells using vectors” (similar to the gene therapy) and then stay dormant for a period of time until triggered by an internal or external signal. The signal then could stimulate the virus to cause severe damage to the system. Stealth viruses could also be tailored to secretly infect a targeted population for an extended period using the threat of activation to blackmail the target [p15] (emphasis added)

The Air Force paper discusses the possibility of a «disease that could wipe out the whole population or a certain ethnic group.» The paper states that unlike nuclear weapons, “a biological warfare program has no unambiguous signatures to differentiate its legitimacy for conducting biotechnology research vis-à-vis research for offensive military biological weapons.”

Given that the United States is going for bust in its quest for Full Spectrum Dominance, there is a high likelihood that if such weapons can be produced, the US will have them – and if we interpret president Trump this way, they already have been deployed.

And would someone ever stoop so low as to use humanitarian programs as a cover for warfare activities? It is worth recalling sham hepatitis B vaccine program used by the CIA to collect DNA in the neighborhood where bin Laden was hiding, creating massive mistrust in the local population against all vaccine programs.

One thing I found particularly shocking when researching this article, was the substantial support Trump’s genocidal words found in the reader comments in corporate Western media. Perhaps one can’t expect anything else when Afghans consistently have been depicted in popular culture as murderous, frothing fanatics, from a “shithole country”, all deserving to die for rather tenuous links to a crime (the events Sept 11. 2001) that happened before most Afghans were born.

Being so demonized, the Afghan population would be especially easy testing ground for biological warfare. Foreign armies and intelligence services have had free hand to prepare anything they might want for 18 years now.

That biological research targeting specific ethnic groups is an area of research that is ongoing and not limited to only some parts of the world, was highlighted again in 2017, when the US Air Force got exposed seeking to obtain genetic and tissue samples that are “collected from Russia and must be Caucasian” and would “not consider tissue samples from Ukraine.”

The head of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, warned in 2015 of “the production of military oriented biological weapons and the very large funding allocated to this,“ where he especially mentioned biolabs in former Soviet republics. “This is tens of billions of dollars. Additionally, the number of laboratories under US jurisdiction or control has increased 20 times.” (emphasis added)

Trump’s threats, possibly meant as a blunt bargaining tool in peace talks with the Taliban, may have revealed more than he intended. If the international community ever should be strong enough to impose a Nuremberg-like trial, this is prime evidence.

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This article was originally published on Midt i fleisen.

Terje Maloy is a Norwegian/Australian blogger and translator. This article is Creative Commons 4.0 for non-commercial purposes.

The original source of this article is Global Research

https://www.globalresearch.ca/did-trump-tacitly-threaten-use-biological-weapons/5687936

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Sunday, August 25, 2019

Boris Johnson, GMOs and Glyphosate: Irresponsible, Negligent and Criminal?

By Colin Todhunter

Global Research, August 25, 2019

In his first speech to parliament as British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson said:

“Let’s start now to liberate the UK’s extraordinary bioscience sector from anti-genetic modification rules and let’s develop the blight-resistant crops that will feed the world.”

Johnson reads from a well-rehearsed script. The ‘GM will feed the world mantra’ is pure industry spin. There is already enough food being produced to feed the global population yet around 830 million are classed as hungry. Feeding the world effectively, sustainably and equitably involves addressing the in-built injustices of the global food system.

The never-ending push to force GM on the public under the guise of saving humanity is a diversion that leaves intact the root causes of world hunger and undernutrition: neoliberal deregulation and privatisation policies, unfair WTO rules, poverty, land rights issues, World Bank/IMF geopolitical lending strategies and the transformation of food secure regions into food deficit ones, etc.

Even in regions where productivity in agriculture lags behind or concerns exist about climate change, numerous high-level reports have recommended that (non-GMO) agroecological practices should be encouraged to enhance biodiversity and deal with food and climate crises.

However, pro-Brexiteer Conservative politicians talk of the essential need for Britain and the world to adopt GM is little more than an attempt to justify a post-Brexit trade deal with Washington that will effectively incorporate the UK into the US’s regulatory food regime. The type of ‘liberation’ Johnson really means is the UK adopting unassessed GM crops and food and a gutting of food safety and environmental standards.

It is no secret that various Conservative-led administrations have wanted to break free from the EU regulatory framework on GM for some time. Back in 2014, Genewatch exposed collusion between the government and transnational corporations to force GM into Britain above the heads of the public. This is despite numerous surveys over the years showing that most of the British public remain sceptical of GM, do not see a need for it or reject the technology outright.

Rosemary Mason writes to Jonathan Jones

It would be reasonable to ask why GMOs are even on the market in the first place given that, in his book ‘Altered Genes, Twisted Truths’ (2015), US lawyer Steven Druker set out in detail how GM could well be based on the greatest scientific fraud of our age. This is something environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason points out in a recent open letter to Dr Jonathan Jones, Head of the Sainsbury Laboratory in the UK, and his colleague, fellow US-based plant scientist Jeffrey Dangl.

In April, Jones received the go-ahead from the British government to carry out field tests on GM potatoes in fields in Suffolk and Cambridge. He was given permission to proceed despite Druker’s findings and Caius Rommens, former GMO potato scientist with Monsanto, raising serious concerns about genetic engineering.

From GM Potatoes to Glyphosate: Regulatory Delinquency and Toxic Agriculture

In a new report by Mason, which she has sent with her letter to Jones, Rommens is quoted as saying:

“We also assumed that theoretical knowledge was all we needed to succeed, and that a single genetic change would always have one intentional effect only. We were supposed to understand DNA and to make valuable modifications, but the fact of the matter was that we knew as little about DNA as the average American knows about the Sanskrit version of the Bhagavad Gita. We just knew enough to be dangerous, especially when combined with our bias and narrowmindedness.”

If that was the state of knowledge (or lack of it) at Monsanto, then what of glyphosate-based Roundup, the company’s weedicide widely used in conjunction with GM crops? We already know from the ‘Monsanto Papers’ that ghost writing, cover-ups and duplicity seemed to be the order of the day as the company sought at all costs to protect its multi-billion-dollar money-spinner from being taken off the market.

If genetically engineered ‘Roundup ready’ crops – are introduced to fields in Britain, the use of glyphosate could accelerate even further. In her various reports over the years, Mason has shown the massive increase in the use of the weedicide in farming and the correlation with a huge spike in various diseases and conditions in the UK.

Mason wants to make it clear to Jones that when plant physiologists like him say that that glyphosate/Roundup only affects plants, fungi and bacteria and doesn’t affect humans, they are wrong.

She says to Jones:

“You claimed, together with Monsanto and global pesticide regulators, that Roundup only affects plants, fungi and bacteria because they had the shikimate pathway which is absent in humans and animals. But humans and animals have trillions of bacteria in their gut: the gut microbiome, the collective genome of organisms inhabiting our body.”

Mason states that obesity is associated with low diversity of bacteria in the microbiome and glyphosate destroys most of the beneficial bacteria and leaves the toxic bacteria behind. In effect, she argues, Roundup (and other biocides) are a major cause of gross obesity, neuropsychiatric disorders and other chronic diseases including cancers, which are all on the rise.

Her report refers to numerous studies, including a paper in Nature to argue that obesity is associated with low bacterial richness in the gut (Chatelier, E.L. et al. Richness of human gut microbiome correlates with metabolic markers: Nature, 2013). Mason also draws attention to a multi-author study (Wang, Y. et al, The Gut-Microglia Connection: Implications for Central Nervous System Diseases: Frontiers in Immunology, 2018) which postulates the microbiome has relevance for both gastrointestinal and brain disorders, including autism spectrum disorders, Parkinson’s disease and even demyelinating disorders of the central nervous system.

She adds:

“Glyphosate disrupts the shikimate pathway within these gut bacteria, without which we cannot survive. Glyphosate is a strong chelator of essential minerals, such as cobalt, zinc, manganese, calcium, molybdenum and sulphate… Two key problems caused by glyphosate residues in our diet are nutritional deficiencies, especially minerals and essential amino-acids, and systemic toxicity.”

Mason refers to Dr Don Huber, an expert on glyphosate and a senior US plant scientist, who explains that Roundup, as a mineral chelator, probably causes cancer. Some years ago, Huber wrote to the US Secretary of Agriculture about a pathogen new to science that could significantly impact the health of plants, animals and probably human beings. He argued it is widespread, very serious and is in much higher concentrations in Roundup Ready soybeans and corn – suggesting a link with Roundup.

Rosemary Mason’s 20-plus page report is wide raging in scope and refers to various published peer-reviewed papers to support her arguments (it can be read in full on the academia.edu site). Aside from the effects of (the widespread prevalence of) glyphosate and other agrochemicals on human health – especially and disturbingly the exposure and impacts on children and child development – she discusses the environmental costs, including pesticide run off into seas and oceans, the ongoing destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, algae blooms and the fungicidal action of Roundup which is destroying the means by which trees communicate and look after each other.

In relation to sanctioning the continued use of glyphosate in Europe, Mason notes that it was totally unacceptable, possibly negligent or even criminal, for the European Union to have allowed a group of plant scientists on the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (PAFF) – whose knowledge of human physiology was so lacking that they did not recognise that glyphosate has effects on humans – to make decisions that affect human health.

PAFF’s role was pivotal in the decision to re-licence the use of glyphosate in the EU in 2017. Although a list of its members is not made public, as a phytopharmaceuticals committee involved in the authorisation of pesticides, Mason presumes plant physiologists were amply represented and held sway.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that in the UK between May 2010 and the end of 2013, the Department of Health had 130 meetings with representatives of the agrochemicals/GM sector.

If Mason’s letter to Jones tells us anything, it is that the British public need to think long and hard about whose interests are really being served when Boris Johnson and others in high office extol the ‘virtues’ of GM agriculture and its associated chemical inputs.

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Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.

Featured image: Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, is the most heavily-used agricultural chemical in history. (Photo: Mike Mozart/Flickr/cc)

The original source of this article is Global Research

https://www.globalresearch.ca/boris-johnson-gmo-glyphosate/5687090

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Thursday, August 22, 2019

Hundreds of Cancer-Causing Chemicals Pollute Americans’ Bodies

By EWG

Global Research, August 22, 2019

EWG 14 June 2016

Hundreds of cancer-causing chemicals are building up in the bodies of Americans, according to the first comprehensive inventory of the carcinogens that have been measured in people. EWG released the inventory today.

EWG spent almost a year reviewing more than 1,000 biomonitoring studies and other research by leading government agencies and independent scientists in the U.S. and around the world. The nonprofit research group found that up to 420 chemicals known or likely to cause cancer have been detected in blood, urine, hair and other human samples.

Studies of the causes of cancer often focus on tobacco, alcohol and over-exposure to the sun. But the World Health Organization and many other scientists believe nearly 1 in 5 cancers are caused by chemicals and other environmental exposures––not only in the workplaces, but in consumer products, food, water and air.

EWG’s review bolsters the findings and ongoing research of the Halifax Project, a collaboration of more than 300 scientists from around the world who are investigating new ways in which combinations of toxic chemicals in our environment may cause cancer. While most cancer research focuses on treatment, the Halifax Project and EWG’s Rethinking Cancer initiative are looking at prevention by reducing people’s contact with cancer-causing chemicals.

“The presence of a toxic chemical in our bodies does not necessarily mean it will cause harm, but this report details the astounding number of carcinogens we are exposed to in almost every part of life that are building up in our systems,” said Curt DellaValle, author of the report and a senior scientist at EWG. “At any given time some people may harbor dozens or hundreds of cancer-causing chemicals. This troubling truth underscores the need for greater awareness of our everyday exposure to chemicals and how to avoid them.”

EWG estimated that a small subset of the chemicals inventoried in the report were measured at levels high enough to pose significant cancer risks in most Americans ––risks that generally exceed Environmental Protection Agency safety standards. But those estimates are only for individual chemicals and do not account for a question scientists and doctors are increasingly concerned about––how combined exposures to multiple chemicals may increase risk?

EWG’s inventory comes at an auspicious moment for the issue of cancer and chemicals. Last week Congress passed the first reform in 40 years of the nation’s woefully weak toxic chemical regulations, which President Obama is expected to sign soon. In January, the president announced the establishment of the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative, a $1 billion program led by Vice President Joe Biden, “to eliminate cancer as we know it.”

But the law to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act falls far short of giving the Environmental Protection Agency the resources and authority to quickly restrict or ban chemicals known to cause cancer. And the only concrete agenda related to prevention in the Moonshot Initiative is for screening and vaccination. As demonstrated by the success of antismoking efforts, which have cut the rate of lung cancer by more than 25 percent in the last 25 years, to prevent and defeat cancer it is necessary to understand the environmental causes.

It is not clear how, or if, the new chemicals law will protect Americans from the hundreds of industrial chemicals that cause cancer.

“Many of the carcinogens this study documents in people find their way into our bodies through food, air, water and consumer products every day. Dozens of them show up in human umbilical cord blood—which means Americans are exposed to carcinogens before they’ve left the womb,” said EWG President Ken Cook. “We should focus on preventing cancer by preventing human exposure to these chemicals.”

Cook said the report should trigger outrage among Americans and urgent action by public health and elected officials. EWG called for the cancer “Moonshot Initiative” announced by President Obama in his state of the union address in January to include federal funding for investigation of the environmental causes of cancer and the development of prevention initiatives.

EWG has also published multiple health guides and online consumer tools to help people avoid toxic cancer-causing chemicals in their day to day lives.

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Featured image is from EWG

What are the Causes of Breast Cancer? New Epidemiological Study

The original source of this article is EWG

https://www.globalresearch.ca/hundreds-cancer-causing-chemicals-pollute-americans-bodies/5686868

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Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Half a Billion Bees Drop Dead in Brazil Amid Jump in Pesticide Use

By Zero Hedge

Global Research, August 21, 2019

Zero Hedge 19 August 2019

Bee apocalypse has unfolded in four of Brazil’s southern states in 1Q19. More than half a billion bees died earlier this year, in a short period, experts are suggesting that pesticides are likely to be blamed, reported Bloomberg.

Most of the dead bees had traces of Fipronil, an insecticide classified by the European Union and the US Environmental Protection Agency as a human carcinogen.

Since President Jair Bolsonaro took control in January, the Ministry of Agriculture has approved sales of a record 290 pesticides, up 27% YoY for the same period. There’s also a bill sitting in Congress that would dramatically decrease pesticide standards.

Brazilian companies such as Cropchem and Ouro Fino, as well as major international firms including Syngenta, Monsanto, BASF and Sumitomo, have recently won new pesticide registrations.

Data from the United Nations discovered Brazil’s pesticide use jumped 770% from 1990 to 2016.

Seventy Percent of Brazilian Food Contaminated by Agrochemicals

Brazil’s health watchdog Anvisa recently published a food-safety report which found 20% of samples contained pesticide residues above government accepted levels.

Bloomberg noted that Anvisa’s test didn’t even include glyphosate, one of Brazil’s best-selling pesticide, which is outlawed in at least a dozen countries around the world.

“The death of all these bees is a sign that we’re being poisoned,” said Carlos Alberto Bastos, president of the Apiculturist Association of Brazil’s Federal District.

At least 18% of Brazil’s economy is agriculture. And it makes sense why President Bolsonaro is relaxing pesticide rules; he’s trying to spark an economic boom by deregulating chemical standards for farmers.

“This is your government,” Bolsonaro told legislators from the agriculture caucus, and his administration has even allowed farmers this year to use whatever pesticides they want.

Greenpeace said 40% of Brazil’s pesticides are “highly or extreme highly toxic,” and 32% of them aren’t allowed in the European Union.

Marina Lacorte, a coordinator at Greenpeace Brazil, told Bloomberg that new approvals for pesticides are being rushed through without proper examination from experts.

“There isn’t another explanation for it, other than politics,” she said.

Making farmers great again was a campaign commitment for Bolsonaro. He even told farmers that he was going to ease pesticide restrictions.

Andreza Martinez, manager for regulation at Sindiveg, a group representing pesticide producers, told Bloomberg about half of the new approvals are ingredients, not final products. This is due to insects developing resistance to legacy formulas.

“It brings more tools to farmers, but that doesn’t mean an increase in the use of products in the field,” she said.

The increased, and sometimes untested chemicals, however, alarms toxicologists.

“The higher the number of products, the lower our chances of safety, because you can’t control them all,” said Silvia Cazenave, a professor of toxicology at the Catholic Pontifical University of Campinas.

It’s not just the bees who are being poisoned — it’s also humans, the health ministry said. More than 15,000 cases of agricultural pesticide were seen in 2018, a likely underreported figure.

President Trump has also been approving new pesticides that are dangerous to bees.

A new report showed US beekeepers lost 40% of their colonies in the past year, raising fresh concerns that pesticides are poisoning farmlands.

Making farmers great again not just in Brazil but also in the US could be an uphill battle, as the unintended consequences of deregulating pesticides have led to a global bee apocalypse.

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The original source of this article is Zero Hedge

https://www.globalresearch.ca/half-billion-bees-drop-dead-brazil-pesticide-use/5686822

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