The worlds largest human experiment: GMOs, Roundup and the Monsanto monstrosity – part one
Monday, July 11, 2011
Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Informed consent is one of the most basic aspects of patient-physician relations, as well as subject-researcher relations in the case of research studies. This involves making the patient aware of and verifying that they understand the risks, benefits, facts, and the future implications of the procedure or test they are going to be subjected to.
In the case of genetically modified organisms we have not been made aware of the risks. In fact, the GMO industry has deliberately hidden the real dangers behind the seeds and herbicides they peddle. The Food and Drug Administration of the United States of America has defined informed consent in the following bureaucratic jargon:
Except as provided in 50.23 and 50.24, no investigator may involve a human being as a subject in research covered by these regulations unless the investigator has obtained the legally effective informed consent of the subject or the subject’s legally authorized representative. An investigator shall seek such consent only under circumstances that provide the prospective subject or the representative sufficient opportunity to consider whether or not to participate and that minimize the possibility of coercion or undue influence. The information that is given to the subject or the representative shall be in language understandable to the subject or the representative. No informed consent, whether oral or written, may include any exculpatory language through which the subject or the representative is made to waive or appear to waive any of the subject’s legal rights, or releases or appears to release the investigator, the sponsor, the institution, or its agents from liability for negligence.
Under all of these definitions, including the exceptions which you can peruse at the above linked official website, what Monsanto is doing with GM crops and their Roundup products are ethically wrong and illegal.
Some might say, “So what? It doesn’t matter since genetically modified products are perfectly safe! Why would I care, if it helps farmers, and it is safe, then what is wrong with doing it without informed consent?”
Well, so many people disagree that after much argumentation, the United States was forced to drop their opposition to the labeling of products that have genetically modified ingredients. Unfortunately, this step forward was a very small one, as this is completely voluntary. Since many consumers do not want to eat these products, it is almost guaranteed that we won’t see them on the ingredient list on our food labels any time soon.
This would be quite hilarious if it wasn’t so dangerous: the new “guidance” approved by the Codex Alimentarius Commission simply “allows countries to label genetically modified foods without [breaching] international free trade laws.”
That is, of course, unless the people of America start realizing the real dangers that these products pose and demand that all companies be legally required to identify if any ingredients were genetically modified anywhere along the line of production .
This means that if corn was grown from a Monsanto GM seed, the producer would be forced to identify that the corn is indeed genetically modified on the label.
Are there real health risks, or is this just a bunch of hype attempting to defame the good name of the multinational giant known as Monsanto?
In this article we will review the scientific findings and compare them to what we are told by the media and government about the total safety of these products.
Roundup, a product of Monsanto, is comprised mostly of the isopropylamine salt of glyphosate, which is the most used herbicidal chemical in America. Monsanto’s Roundup has been outselling every other herbicide worldwide since four years after its introduction to the market in 1976.
For those who are not familiar with the history of Monsanto and their Roundup product, I highly recommend the documentary entitled The World According to Monsanto.
Roundup is far from the only dangerous GM product, as you will see as this article continues.
So what exactly are the dangers of Roundup? Should you be worried about your food source using it or using “Roundup” ready genetically modified seeds?
To put it simply: yes, in fact you should be very concerned and this article will lay it out so anyone can understand exactly why we need to get active and fight back against the monster that is Monsanto and the gargantuan genetically modified organism market.
First I must describe what a “Roundup ready” genetically modified crop entails. The GM plant has been specially engineered to be able to handle the incredibly toxic herbicide Roundup. It does not resist the herbicide but instead it has been modified so it can uptake the poison and still live. The Roundup then makes its way into your system, and anyone will tell you that eating a ton of glyphosate is not a good idea.
Roundup is not backed by any impartial, independent, rigorous scientific research.
The studies used to back up the claims of governments around the world and especially in the EU are unpublished industry studies.
The real research shows a very different picture .
In 2002, a scientific research paper was published in Chemical Research in Toxicology, a publication of the American Chemical Society, entitled Pesticide Roundup Provokes Cell Division Dysfunction at the Level of CDK1/Cyclin B Activation. This bombshell paper reveals the real inherent dangers of the world’s most popular systemic herbicide.
The model they used to test the effects of the glyphosate based Roundup was an embryonic sea urchin in the first cell divisions after successful fertilization. This is suitable for an analog study (meaning that it can be applied to human cell division) because these first divisions represent the universal cell cycle regulation.
They found that a solution containing just 8 mM (millimolar, or 8/1000 moles) of glyphosate “induces a delay in the kinetic of the first cell cleavage of the sea urchin embryos.” This means that the initial cell division, which starts with cleavage of the single cell zygote is delayed, something which could prove destructive in human beings.
Anyone who has taken a biology course can tell you that the human reproductive cycle is a beautiful, finely tuned, and remarkably elegant system. When this system is upset, say by toxins in the mother’s blood , the results are not pretty.
They further reveal, “The delay in the cell cycle could be induced using increasing glyphosate concentrations (1-10 mM) in the presence of a subthreshold concentration of Roundup 0.2%, while glyphosate alone was ineffective, thus indicating synergy between glyphosate and Roundup formulation products.” While the effects of the toxin were “not lethal,” it still induced “a delay into M-phase of the cell cycle.”
CDK1 and cyclin B universally regulate the cell’s M-phase, and Roundup delayed the activation of these compounds in vivo. Furthermore, “Roundup inhibited also the global protein synthetic rate” and “affects cell cycle regulation by delaying activation of the CDK1/cyclin B complex” which leads to the ominous conclusion: “our results question the safety of glyphosate and Roundup on human health.”
Why is this not headline news? Why are the people of the world not up in arms about these toxins being present in our foods, possibly affecting the embryonic development of our children?
Shockingly, this is not the only scientific study published in the prestigious journal Chemical Research in Toxicology. In 2009, two French researchers at the University of Caen in France out of the Laboratory for Estrogens and Reproduction in the Institute of Biology published Glyphosate Formulations Induce Apoptosis and Necrosis in Human Umbilical, Embryonic, and Placental Cells.
For those unfamiliar with the terms, Apoptosis is the natural process of programmed cell death that allows human fetuses to develop fingers, toes and other features.
This is distinct from necrosis because the cells break up into fragments that are easily consumed by phagocytic cells (cells that consume other cells) which quickly remove the dead cell fragments before they can cause damage to surrounding cells.
Necrosis, on the other hand, is the premature death of living cells and living tissues, which is not naturally occurring and necessary process like apoptosis. Unlike the vital process of apoptosis, necrosis can prove fatal.
Necrotic tissues are not consumed by the phagocytic cells, which means that the tissues usually have to be “debrided” which is the surgical removal of the necrotic tissue.
If you want to witness the effects of necrosis and have a strong stomach, you might want to search for images of necrosis online; although I must emphasize that you should have a strong stomach before viewing these images.
This study was especially conservative, evaluating the toxicity of four different glyphosate-based herbicides in Monsanto’s Roundup products in solutions diluted 100,000 times. This is clearly far below the level at which it is used in agricultural applications, which therefore corresponds to the low levels detected in food for human consumptions as well as animal feeds.
To make the study even more scientifically rigorous, they tested it on three distinct human cell types, embryonic, placental, and umbilical as well as testing both glyphosate alone and the Roundup formula.
Unlike glyphosate alone, all of the heavily diluted Roundup formations caused total cell death within twenty four hours through necrosis. It was also found that Roundup induces apoptosis, causing DNA fragmentation, shrinkage of the nucleus, and fragmentation of the nucleus.
As I briefly outlined above, apoptosis is a necessary part of the human development process, however, when it is artificially induced, danger arises.
While Roundup induced complete cell death, glyphosate alone induced only apoptosis. They found conclusive evidence that the Roundup adjuvants (an agent that modifies the behavior and activity of another agent, while having few effects on its own) change the permeability of the three human cells studied.
This amplifies the toxicity already induced via glyphosate, proving that the adjuvants in Roundup are not inert.
They conclude the abstract of the paper with the following ominous sentence,
“Moreover, the proprietary mixtures available on the market could cause cell damage and even death around residual levels to be expected, especially in food and feed derived from [Roundup] formulation-treated crops.”
Now that you know the horrors of Roundup and the inherent dangers of this systemic herbicide, would you like to eat it? I doubt it. If you don’t like the idea of consuming this necrosis-inducing toxin, you must know what contains the poison and what does not.
Unfortunately, without proper labeling practices, you cannot be sure unless you buy all of your food from farmers you know and trust and/or have a home garden that can sustain you.
Until these practices are put in place, I highly recommend that you seek out as much locally grown organic food as humanly possible. Inform your friends and family about the real dangers of Roundup and the hard science this is based upon.
When more people around the world start demanding that their food be properly labeled with warnings just like cigarettes or alcohol, some real change can occur. If we continue to sit back and hope our governments will actually represent us instead of their corporate interests, we will continue to be subjected to the largest human experiment in history, in which you never have to give informed consent.
In part two we will explore some of the newest research, including some of the details revealed in the study published in June of this year. If you would like me to cover something specific regarding GMOs or have some research and links to share, please do not hesitate to contact me at: admin@endthelie.com I would highly appreciate your contribution.
A History Of US Secret Human Experimentation (From 1930 - 2000)
1931 Dr. Cornelius Rhoads, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Investigations, infects human subjects with cancer cells. He later goes on to establish the U.S. Army Biological Warfare facilities in Maryland, Utah, and Panama, and is named to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. While there, he begins a series of radiation exposure experiments on American soldiers and civilian hospital patients.
1932 The Tuskegee Syphilis Study begins. 200 black men diagnosed with syphilis are never told of their illness, are denied treatment, and instead are used as human guinea pigs in order to follow the progression and symptoms of the disease. They all subsequently die from syphilis, their families never told that they could have been treated.
1935 The Pellagra Incident. After millions of individuals die from Pellagra over a span of two decades, the U.S. Public Health Service finally acts to stem the disease. The director of the agency admits it had known for at least 20 years that Pellagra is caused by a niacin deficiency but failed to act since most of the deaths occured within poverty-striken black populations.
1940 Four hundred prisoners in Chicago are infected with Malaria in order to study the effects of new and experimental drugs to
combat the disease. Nazi doctors later on trial at Nuremberg cite this American study to defend their own actions during the Holocaust.
1942 Chemical Warfare Services begins mustard gas experiments on approximately 4,000 servicemen. The experiments continue until 1945 and made use of Seventh Day Adventists who chose to become human guinea pigs rather than serve on active duty.
1943 In response to Japan’s full-scale germ warfare program, the U.S. begins research on biological weapons at Fort Detrick, MD.
1944 U.S. Navy uses human subjects to test gas masks and clothing. Individuals were locked in a gas chamber and exposed to mustard gas and lewisite.
1945 Project Paperclip is initiated. The U.S. State Department, Army intelligence, and the CIA recruit Nazi scientists and offer them immunity and secret identities in exchange for work on top secret government projects in the United States.
1945 “Program F” is implemented by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). This is the most extensive U.S. study of the health effects of fluoride, which was the key chemical component in atomic bomb production. One of the most toxic chemicals known to man, fluoride, it is found, causes marked adverse effects to the central nervous system but much of the information is squelched in the name of national security because of fear that lawsuits would undermine full-scale production of atomic bombs.
1946 Patients in VA hospitals are used as guinea pigs for medical experiments. In order to allay suspicions, the order is given to change the word “experiments” to “investigations” or “observations” whenever reporting a medical study performed in one of the nation’s veteran’s hospitals.
1947 Colonel E.E. Kirkpatrick of the U.S. Atomic Energy Comission issues a secret document (Document 07075001, January 8, 1947) stating that the agency will begin administering intravenous doses of radioactive substances to human subjects.
1947 The CIA begins its study of LSD as a potential weapon for use by American intelligence. Human subjects (both civilian and military) are used with and without their knowledge.
1950 Department of Defense begins plans to detonate nuclear weapons in desert areas and monitor downwind residents for medical problems and mortality rates.
1950 I n an experiment to determine how susceptible an American city would be to biological attack, the U.S. Navy sprays a cloud of bacteria from ships over San Franciso. Monitoring devices are situated throughout the city in order to test the extent of infection. Many residents become ill with pneumonia-like symptoms.
1951 Department of Defense begins open air tests using disease-producing bacteria and viruses. Tests last through 1969 and there is concern that people in the surrounding areas have been exposed.
1953 U.S. military releases clouds of zinc cadmium sulfide gas over Winnipeg, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Fort Wayne, the Monocacy River Valley in Maryland, and Leesburg, Virginia. Their intent is to determine how efficiently they could disperse chemical agents.
1953 Joint Army-Navy-CIA experiments are conducted in which tens of thousands of people in New York and San Francisco are exposed to the airborne germs Serratia marcescens and Bacillus glogigii.
1953 CIA initiates Project MKULTRA. This is an eleven year research program designed to produce and test drugs and biological agents that would be used for mind control and behavior modification. Six of the subprojects involved testing the agents on unwitting human beings.
1955 The CIA, in an experiment to test its ability to infect human populations with biological agents, releases a bacteria withdrawn from the Army’s biological warfare arsenal over Tampa Bay, Fl.
1955 Army Chemical Corps continues LSD research, studying its potential use as a chemical incapacitating agent. More than 1,000 Americans participate in the tests, which continue until 1958.
1956 U.S. military releases mosquitoes infected with Yellow Fever over Savannah, Ga and Avon Park, Fl. Following each test, Army agents posing as public health officials test victims for effects.
1958 LSD is tested on 95 volunteers at the Army’s Chemical Warfare Laboratories for its effect on intelligence.
1960 The Army Assistant Chief-of-Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) authorizes field testing of LSD in Europe and the Far East. Testing of the european population is code named Project THIRD CHANCE; testing of the Asian population is code named Project DERBY HAT.
1965 Project CIA and Department of Defense begin Project MKSEARCH, a program to develop a capability to manipulate human behavior through the use of mind-altering drugs.
1965 Prisoners at the Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia are subjected to dioxin, the highly toxic chemical component of Agent Orange used in Viet Nam. The men are later studied for development of cancer, which indicates that Agent Orange had been a suspected carcinogen all along.
1966 CIA initiates Project MKOFTEN, a program to test the toxicological effects of certain drugs on humans and animals.
1966 U.S. Army dispenses Bacillus subtilis variant niger throughout the New York City subway system. More than a million civilians are exposed when army scientists drop lightbulbs filled with the bacteria onto ventilation grates.
1967 CIA and Department of Defense implement Project MKNAOMI, successor to MKULTRA and designed to maintain, stockpile and test biological and chemical weapons.
1968 CIA experiments with the possibility of poisoning drinking water by injecting chemicals into the water supply of the FDA in Washington, D.C.
1969 Dr. Robert MacMahan of the Department of Defense requests from congress $10 million to develop, within 5 to 10 years, a synthetic biological agent to which no natural immunity exists.
1970 Funding for the synthetic biological agent is obtained under H.R. 15090. The project, under the supervision of the CIA, is carried out by the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, the army’s top secret biological weapons facility. Speculation is raised that molecular biology techniques are used to produce AIDS-like retroviruses.
1970 United States intensifies its development of “ethnic weapons” (Military Review, Nov., 1970), designed to selectively target and eliminate specific ethnic groups who are susceptible due to genetic differences and variations in DNA.
1975 The virus section of Fort Detrick’s Center for Biological Warfare Research is renamed the Fredrick Cancer Research Facilities and placed under the supervision of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) . It is here that a special virus cancer program is initiated by the U.S. Navy, purportedly to develop cancer-causing viruses. It is also here that retrovirologists isolate a virus to which no immunity exists. It is later named HTLV (Human T-cell Leukemia Virus).
1977 Senate hearings on Health and Scientific Research confirm that 239 populated areas had been contaminated with biological agents between 1949 and 1969. Some of the areas included San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Key West, Panama City, Minneapolis, and St. Louis.
1978 Experimental Hepatitis B vaccine trials, conducted by the CDC, begin in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Ads for research subjects specifically ask for promiscuous homosexual men.
1981 First cases of AIDS are confirmed in homosexual men in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, triggering speculation that AIDS may have been introduced via the Hepatitis B vaccine
1985 According to the journal Science (227:173-177), HTLV and VISNA, a fatal sheep virus, are very similar, indicating a close taxonomic and evolutionary relationship.
1986 According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (83:4007-4011), HIV and VISNA are highly similar and share all structural elements, except for a small segment which is nearly identical to HTLV. This leads to speculation that HTLV and VISNA may have been linked to produce a new retrovirus to which no natural immunity exists.
1986 A report to Congress reveals that the U.S. Government’s current generation of biological agents includes: modified viruses, naturally occurring toxins, and agents that are altered through genetic engineering to change immunological character and prevent treatment by all existing vaccines.
1987 Department of Defense admits that, despite a treaty banning research and development of biological agents, it continues to operate research facilities at 127 facilities and universities around the nation.
1990 More than 1500 six-month old black and hispanic babies in Los Angeles are given an “experimental” measles vaccine that had never been licensed for use in the United States. CDC later admits that parents were never informed that the vaccine being injected to their children was experimental.
1994 With a technique called “gene tracking,” Dr. Garth Nicolson at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX discovers that many returning Desert Storm veterans are infected with an altered strain of Mycoplasma incognitus, a microbe commonly used in the production of biological weapons. Incorporated into its molecular structure is 40 percent of the HIV protein coat, indicating that it had been man-made.
1994 Senator John D. Rockefeller issues a report revealing that for at least 50 years the Department of Defense has used hundreds of thousands of military personnel in human experiments and for intentional exposure to dangerous substances. Materials included mustard and nerve gas, ionizing radiation, psychochemicals, hallucinogens, and drugs used during the Gulf War .
1995 U.S. Government admits that it had offered Japanese war criminals and scientists who had performed human medical experiments salaries and immunity from prosecution in exchange for data on biological warfare research.
1995 Dr. Garth Nicolson, uncovers evidence that the biological agents used during the Gulf War had been manufactured in Houston, TX and Boca Raton, Fl and tested on prisoners in the Texas Department of Corrections.
1996 Department of Defense admits that Desert Storm soldiers were exposed to chemical agents.
1997 Eighty-eight members of Congress sign a letter demanding an investigation into bioweapons use & Gulf War Syndrome.
A Curtain Rises...
Yes, I realise this is my second Tumblr, and I have barely done much with the first one.
I don’t care.
I hope, in my finite wisdom, to accomplish something with this blog. I love music, and I could go on for days about good albums, songs, musicians. It’d be easy to do that; everyone wants to praise what they love. Everyone also loves to deride what they hate, but most of us do it by hearsay. If I’m the only one to hate based on someone else’s hate, may I be struck down now.
…Still here. See?
Reviewing bad music isn’t just meant to be a measure of my humourous side (though I’m sure it will emerge on many occasions). I want to test myself. I want to push myself to not only listen to bad albums (of all ilks), but to give reasons why. Effort will come slowly; I’m very bad at pushing myself these days. I will try, though, because this is something I am both passionate about and intrigued by the human experiment of it all.
I will use Internet lists, my own choices, and (hopefully) mostly suggestions by readers. Obviously, if I am constantly suggested albums I like, I can’t very well review them for comedy purposes.
Well, no, I could. It just wouldn’t be sincere. I like Lady Gaga, let’s get that out of the way. I could sit and rip apart Born This Way, but I like Born This Way, so it’s a moot point.
We’ll see where this project goes. I have a doozy planned for Review 1.
Fake Dorky Star Puts New York On Its Head - VIDEO
NEW YORK – Now a days anyone can be a star, all it takes is some snazzy clothes, a few bodyguards, several photographers, a cameraman and voila, a new star is born, instantly. That was the experiment 20 year old New Yorker Brett Cohen wanted to try and, sure enough, he not only pulled it…
