I am blogging this piece directly from Jeffrey Smith. Please take it seriously. Why do we have fewer bees and birds? Why do we have so many children with unusual symptoms. If you mess with the food, you mess with the life forms that consume it…

Dangerous Toxins From Genetically Modified Plants Found in Women and Fetuses

by Jeffrey M. Smith

When U.S. regulators approved Monsanto’s genetically modified “Bt” corn, they knew it would add a deadly poison into our food supply. That’s what it was designed to do. The corn’s DNA is equipped with a gene from soil bacteria called Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) that produces the Bt-toxin. It’s a pesticide; it breaks open the stomach of certain insects and kills them.

But Monsanto and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) swore up and down that it was only insects that would be hurt. The Bt-toxin, they claimed, would be completely destroyed in the human digestive system and not have any impact on all of us trusting corn-eating consumers.

Oops. A study just proved them wrong.

Doctors at Sherbrooke University Hospital in Quebec found the corn’s Bt-toxin in the blood of pregnant women and their babies, as well as in non-pregnant women. (Specifically, the toxin was identified in 93% of 30 pregnant women, 80% of umbilical blood in their babies, and 67% of 39 non-pregnant women.) The study has been accepted for publication in the peer reviewed journal Reproductive Toxicology.

According to the UK Daily Mail , this study, which “appears to blow a hole in” safety claims, “has triggered calls for a ban on imports and a total overhaul of the safety regime for genetically modified (GM) crops and food.” Organizations from England to New Zealand are now calling for investigations and for GM crops to be halted due to the serious implications of this finding.

Links to allergies, auto-immune disease, and other disorders

There’s already plenty of evidence that the Bt-toxin produced in GM corn and cotton plants is toxic to humans and mammals and triggers immune system responses. The fact that it flows through our blood supply, and that is passes through the placenta into fetuses, may help explain the rise in many disorders in the US since Bt crop varieties were first introduced in 1996.

In government-sponsored research in Italy, mice fed Monsanto’s Bt corn showed a wide range of immune responses. Their elevated IgE and IgG antibodies, for example, are typically associated with allergies and infections. The mice had an increase in cytokines, which are associated with “allergic and inflammatory responses.” The specific cytokines (interleukins) that were elevated are also higher in humans who suffer from a wide range of disorders, from arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease, to MS and cancer (see chart).

The young mice in the study also had elevated T cells (gamma delta), which are increased in people with asthma, and in children with food allergies, juvenile arthritis, and connective tissue diseases. The Bt corn that was fed to these mice, MON 810, produced the same Bt-toxin that was found in the blood of women and fetuses.

When rats were fed another of Monsanto’s Bt corn varieties called MON 863, their immune systems were also activated, showing higher numbers of basophils, lymphocytes, and white blood cells. These can indicate possible allergies, infections, toxins, and various disease states including cancer. There were also signs of toxicity in the liver and kidneys.

Natural Bt is dangerous

Farmers have used Bt-toxin from soil bacteria as a natural pesticide for years. But they spray it on plants, where it washes off and biodegrades in sunlight. The GM version is built-in; every plant cell has its own spray bottle. The toxin doesn’t wash off; it’s consumed. Furthermore, the plant-produced version of the poison is thousands of times more concentrated than the spray; is designed to be even more toxic; and has properties of known allergens—it actually fails the World Health Organization’s allergen screening tests.

The biotech companies ignore the substantial difference between the GM toxin and the natural bacteria version, and boldly claim that since the natural spray has a history of safe use in agriculture, it’s therefore OK to put the poison directly into our food. But even this claim of safe use of Bt spray ignores peer-reviewed studies showing just the opposite.

When natural Bt-toxin was fed to mice, they had tissue damage, immune responses as powerful as cholera toxin, and even started reacting to other foods that were formerly harmless. Farm workers exposed to Bt also showed immune responses. The EPA’s own expert Scientific Advisory Panel said that these mouse and farm worker studies “suggest that Bt proteins could act as antigenic and allergenic sources.”But the EPA ignored the warnings. They also overlooked studies showing that about 500 people in Washington state and Vancouver showed allergic and flu-like symptoms when they were exposed to the spray when it was used to kill gypsy moths.

Bt cotton linked to human allergies, animal deaths

Now thousands of Indian farm laborers are suffering from the same allergic and flu-like symptoms as those in the Pacific Northwest simply from handling genetically engineered cotton plants that produce Bt-toxin. According to reports and records from doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies, as well as numerous investigative reports and case studies, workers are struggling with constant itching and rashes; some take antihistamines every day in order to go to work.

It gets worse.

When they allow livestock to graze on the Bt cotton plants after harvest, thousands of sheep, goats, and buffalo died. Numerous others got sick. I visited one village where for seven to eight years they allowed their buffalo to graze on natural cotton plants without incident. But on January 3rd, 2008, they allowed their 13 buffalo to graze on Bt cotton plants for the first time. After just one day’s exposure, all died. The village also lost 26 goats and sheep.

One small study in Andhra Pradesh reported that all six sheep that grazed on Bt cotton plants died within a month, while the three controls fed natural cotton plants showed no adverse symptoms.

Living pesticide factories inside us?

Getting back to the Bt-toxin now circulating in the blood of North American adults and newborns—how did it get there? The study authors speculate that it was consumed in the normal diet of the Canadian middle class. They even suggest that the toxin may have come from eating meat from animals fed Bt corn—as most livestock are.

I’d like to speculate on another possible source. But I warn you, it’s not pretty.

The only human feeding study every published on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) was conducted on Roundup Ready soybeans. Here’s their back story: Scientists found bacteria growing in a chemical waste dump near their factory, surviving the presence of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. The herbicide normally kills bacteria, but this organism had some special gene that allowed it to survive. So Monsanto scientists figured, “Let’s put it into the food supply!”

By forcing that genes from that bacterium into soybean plants’ DNA, the plants then survive an otherwise deadly dose of Roundup herbicide—hence the name Roundup Ready.

In the human study, some of the subjects were found to have Roundup Ready gut bacteria! This means that sometime in the past, from eating one or more meals of GM soybeans, the gene that had been discovered in the chemical waste dump and forced into the soy, had transferred into the DNA of bacteria living inside their intestines—and continued to function. That means that long after we stop eating GMOs, we may still have dangerous GM proteins produced continuously inside of us.

When the results of the study emerged, the funding from the pro-GMO UK government mysteriously dried up, so they were not able to see if the same type of gene transfer happens with Bt genes from, say, corn chips. If it does, it means that eating Bt corn might turn our intestinal flora into living pesticide factories—continually manufacturing Bt-toxin from within our digestive systems.

I don’t know of a test that can confirm that this is happening, but the Canada study may be showing the results—where Bt-toxins are found in the blood of a very high percentage of people.

If the “living pesticide factory” hypothesis is correct, we might speculate even further. Bt-toxin breaks open the stomach of insects. Could it similarly be damaging the integrity of our digestive tracts? The biotech companies insist that Bt-toxin doesn’t bind or interact with the intestinal walls of mammals, and therefore humans. But here too they ignore peer-reviewed published evidence showing that Bt-toxin does bind with mouse small intestines and with intestinal tissue from rhesus monkeys. In the former study, they even found “changes in the electrophysiological properties” of the organ after the Bt-toxin came into contact.

If Bt-toxins were causing leaky gut syndrome in newborns, the passage of undigested foods and toxins into the blood from the intestines could be devastating. Scientists speculate that it may lead to autoimmune diseases and food allergies. Furthermore, since the blood-brain barrier is not developed in newborns, toxins may enter the brain causing serious cognitive problems. Some healthcare practitioners and scientists are convinced that this is the apparent mechanism for autism.

Thus, if Bt genes were colonizing the bacteria living in the digestive tract of North Americans, we might see an increase in gastrointestinal problems, autoimmune diseases, food allergies, and childhood learning disorders—since 1996 when Bt crops came on the market. Physicians have told me that they indeed are seeing such an increase.

The discovery of Bt-toxin in our blood does not confirm all this speculation, but it does provide food for thought. And hopefully, that food is non-GMO.

Our Institute for Responsible Technology joins other organizations worldwide calling for an immediate ban on GM food crops, and the commencement of rigorous independent scientific research on the safety of GMOs in general, and Bt-toxin in particular.

I am saving spare change in a big jar, and hoping to be able to afford to buy gas for my garden tractor to cut the grass this summer. Filling a 5 gallon can costs what it once cost to fill the car. And I do not expect to be saved by “biofuel” or any other proposals coming out of Washington. Aside from the fact that ethanol absorbs water and reduces gas mileage; there are serious questions about its financial and environmental practicality.

May corn futures rose by nearly $3.70 (a little more than the average price of a gallon of gas) to $7.30 per bushel. A bushel of corn will distill slightly more than 2.5 gallons of ethanol. Already the price of ethanol is close to the price of gasoline before the refining process even begins. It takes tremendous amounts of energy to process and distill the ethanol. The energy for processing is usually electricity, produced by fossil fuels. It took a tremendous amount of fossil fuel in the form of fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides to grow the corn. It took a tremendous amount of gasoline to plant, cultivate and harvest the corn. Then it took more fossil fuel to transport it. You don’t need a calculator to know this whole process is running in the red.

The only reasons commercial interests are involved in the production of biofuel are the subsidies and tax breaks that make it profitable for them. These subsidies are being paid with borrowed money. Petro-pharma, Monsanto is selling tons of GMO seed corn. Again, you don’t need a calculator or a degree in economics to know that this is a costly charade to make us think something is being done. In the end we are deeper and deeper underwater in tax debt, while the same fat cats pocket their subsidies and avoid a fair share of the taxes.

The people are pretty and believable, but the message is a bold lie. “Corn sugar is the same as any other sugar, and your body does not know the difference.” Fructose is not sucrose, and your body does know the difference. Furthermore, it does not metabolize them the same. “Corn Sugar” is the new public relations label that is supposed to avoid the negative image correctly attached to High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Cane or beet sugar, sucrose, has 12 carbons in its molecule. In the body it has to be converted to glucose to make the glycogen stores needed to energize the body. Glucose is a 6 carbon molecule. The body splits the sucrose molecule. The first six become glucose and the second six carbons become fructose, before being converted to glucose. This is a simple process that works fine as long as we ingest sucrose in very modest amounts, and preferable unrefined. Sucrose in its raw form has some nourishment to support its digestion.

Fructose, fruit sugar, has a six carbon molecule that easily converts to glucose, if it is bound to the fruit fibers that produced it. Unbound fructose is a maverick in the body. There is a big difference between eating an orange or an apple and drinking their juice.

Unbound fructose does not metabolize so easily. When it is bound to the fiber of the fruit the process is slow and easy. The fructose unbound from the fiber in the juice is too fast. So fast, in fact that it confuses the body. It converts to glucose before the body can produce the insulin needed to make the energy store. Insulin production is actually shutdown, forcing the body to convert the glucose to fat. There are other confusions with the hormones, leptin and ghrelin.  Leptin’s primary function is making fat stores; it also triggers reproductive hormones. Ghrelin is used by an empty stomach to signal the brain, “I am hungry.”

Corn sugar adds to the confusion. High Fructose Corn Syrup is produced by adding synthetic glucose to the corn’s fructose. The 6 molecules of carbon in the fructose plus the 6 carbons in the synthesized glucose may equal the 12 carbons of sucrose, but is not the same thing. When HFCS hits the stomach, the fructose quickly converts to glucose, add this to the glucose in the other half of the molecule and the body is overwhelmed. Unable to make insulin quickly enough for an energy store, the leptin starts making fat. At the same time the stomach is sending a hunger message to the brain. The more HFCS one consumes, there is a stimulation to make fat while the stomach reports hunger. In short, HFCS makes you fat and hungry, and does little to support your energy needs. Obesity began in the United States with the introduction of soda; it hit high gear with the introduction of HFCS, not only in soda, but in everything commercial and sweet. They can call it “corn sugar” or anything they might choose, but your body is not fooled by the slick public relations spin.  Probably the only thing worse is diet soda sweetened with aspartame.

OK! Enough with the salt talk and portion control. Portions need to be large because the food has so little nutrition. Salt itself is not a problem; it is the kind of salt that is used. Salt from mines that is fortified with a form of iodine that does not support the thyroid and good metabolism and is enhanced with sugar and silica is the kind used in most commercial and home kitchens. It is the form used in food processing factories, along with many other forms of sodium that adulterate the food. Salt should not have ingredients. Our bodies are 80% or more saline – the same as sea water. We need sea salt. Also, most of the problems blamed on salt in the diet are the same as those related to a lack of potassium. Put sea salt on your French fries, leave the skins on them for potassium and do not cook them in a processed vegetable oil.

If the White House and others who are blaming salt and saturated fat for our national struggle with obesity, really want to do something to improve our health, they should focus their attention and energy toward blocking continuation of the Farm Bill. Washington transfers billions of our tax dollars each year to the factory-style farming interests. As a result “junk food” is made cheap by government subsidies. Read the ingredient label of any junk food and you will find it contains some or all of the following: corn, soy, wheat or dairy.

Corn is one of my favorite vegetables, but it is processed into some negative food forms. Corn oil reduces the immune level and is a trans fat if heated above 220 degees F or partially hydrogenated. When processed into high fructose corn syrup it shuts down insulin production in the body, stimulates a fat making hormone, leptin and causes the stomach to release ghrelin, a hunger signal. Consuming HFCS stimulates fat making and makes you hungry for more.

Soy oil shuts down the thyroid and slows metabolism. While it can be a healthy food in a fermented form, too much soy can cause conditions similar to an abundance of estrogen.

Wheat is a good food for some people in moderation, but a majority of people have issues related to gluten. In addition, the wheat is milled and processed to remove most of the nutrition, leaving only the carbohydrate content which metabolizes the same as sugar.

Also, the strains of wheat currently gown are far removed from the ancient grain that was originally cultivated.

Dairy can be a good food, if it comes from cows that eat grass and it is consumed as it comes from the cow. Pasteurization kills most of its value. Ultra Pasteurization removes an even greater amount of the benefits of milk. One of the best parts of milk is the fat, but we are encouraged to consume the fat free milk and dairy products. That is because the government buys up the milk and converts it to powder for storage. Skim and fat free products are usually made from powdered milk coming out of storage at a bargain price.

Just for the record, saturated fat is a good food if it is harvested from a healthy, properly raised animal. The fifty year old conclusions claiming saturated fat causes heart disease were based studies carried out with hydrogenated vegetable oil. Big difference.

We are fat because our government takes tax dollars to subsidize junk food commodities. In addition, the government approves the use of all kinds of additives that enhance flavor and shelf life; many of which are triggers for obesity. Two of the most obvious obesity triggers are MSG, monosodium glutamate and aspartame.

We do not know the impact the more than 500 toxic substances approved for the production, processing and packaging of our food have on obesity and health in general. We also do not know what impact genetic modification of food producing seeds will have on our health. We have no measure of the negative impact on the nutrition in our food from irradiation and microwaving. The little we do know about the above is not good. We would know more, but the government is a coconspirator in the deceptions.

Yes, we have a national problem with obesity. More exercise, less salt, and smaller portions will not solve this problem. If Washington would get out of the food business, we could probably get control of our health as well as our health care costs. How much of our total expenditure on health care goes for the treatment of metabolic diseases caused by diet? Obesity, heart disease, most cancer, osteoporosis, arthritis and many other conditions and diseases are being treated successfully by changing the patients’ diets. None of these food based treatments have been approved by the government regulators, by the way.

Please, no more salt free band aids – we are not as stupid as we might look. We are capable of making the proper food choices, but we have a system that denies us access to nutritious foods. Beyond the denial, we have a system that uses our tax dollars to support marketing and promotion of compromised food. (Who is paying for the Domino Pizza commercials? You might be really upset to learn that it is the USDA.) So, please do not pretend to be concerned about our health and obesity, while our tax dollars are going to subsidize the real problems in our food supply system.

Based on material in my book, The Amber Waves of Gain, How the Government Makes Us Fat.

There is new information fanning the simmering coals concerning the toxicity to fluoride:

A new study has found that the protective shield fluoride forms on teeth is up to 100 times thinner than previously believed. This raises questions about how this renowned cavity-fighter really works.

It has long been believed that fluoride changes the main mineral in tooth enamel, hydroxyapatite, into a more-decay resistant material called fluorapatite. But the new research found that the fluorapatite layer formed in this way is only 6 nanometers thick — meaning it would take almost 10,000 such layers to span the width of a human hair. According to Science Daily:

“The scientists question whether a layer so thin, which is quickly worn away by ordinary chewing, really can shield teeth from decay”.

Another new study shows that exposure to fluoride may lower children’s intelligence.  In addition to toothpaste, fluoride is added to 70 percent of U.S. public drinking water supplies. PR Newswire reports:

“About 28 percent of the children in the low-fluoride area scored as bright, normal or higher intelligence compared to only 8 percent in the ‘high’ fluoride area … in the high-fluoride city, 15 percent had scores indicating mental retardation and only 6 percent in the low-fluoride city.”

Here is a excerpt from my book, The Reality of Self, The Power to Simply Be…

FLUORIDE

One of the most widely consumed substances is fluoride. After more than half a century of debate, one must question why fluoride is promoted for human consumption at all. Or ever! As early as September 18, 1943, the Journal of the American Medical Association stated that “fluorides are general protoplasmic poisons that change the permeability of the cell membrane by certain enzymes.” A year later, October 1, 1944, the Journal of the American Dental Association concluded, “Drinking water containing as little as 1.2ppm fluoride will cause developmental disturbances. We cannot run the risk of producing such serious systemic disturbances. The potentialities for harm outweigh those for good.”

There are three major forms of fluoride: one is naturally occurring, and two are by-products of industrial production. Limited studies have been done on the naturally occurring form, sodium fluoride (NaF); this is the one that was deemed harmful to animals from the Icelandic volcano. The other two major forms are considered more toxic, sodium silicofluoride and hydrofluorosilic acid; these are the ones used to treat municipal water supplies and little Johnny’s toothpaste. Actually, industrial fluoride is a hazardous material that cannot be dumped in landfills or other waste disposal sites. Good old American ingenuity, “If you cannot throw it away, sell it”. Despite the early warnings, fluoride has been promoted and sold to the American public. This took a conspiracy among government regulators, health professionals, people involved in aluminum production, and the U.S. nuclear weapons program. 60% of our water supplies are treated with fluoride. It is in toothpaste, mouthwash, and other products used for dental “health”.

People who consume beverages produced with fluoridated water and foods processed with municipal water are receiving a toxic load that is challenging their health in a number of ways.

Fluoride is known to be harmful to the kidneys, the heart, and the gastrointestinal system. It is tied to everything from osteoporosis and Alzheimer’s to arthritis and dental fluorosis (stained and pitted teeth). After several generations of fluoridation, we have a thriving new industry – tooth whitening. However, our concern in this setting is the fluoride effect on the human brain and one’s ability to perceive reality.

The above comes from a chapter on substances that not only damage our overall health, but impede our ability to perceive reality.

I am passing on a bulletin I received from Food Democracy concerning a pesticide that is being linked to the mysterious death of bees and other pollinators. Without them we will have no flowers in our gardens and not be able to obtain food that depends on pollinators.

“For the past several years scientists have been desperately searching for an answer to the mysterious collapse of bee populations worldwide. Known as “Colony Collapse Disorder”, massive bee die-offs around the globe have alarmed scientists as commercial beekeepers have suddenly found empty hives in record numbers, with as much as 30% of the commercial honey bee population in the U.S. nearly wiped out since 2006.¹

As a vital link in our food chain, bees are responsible for pollinating one out of every three of the foods that we eat, their continued loss could be a catastrophic loss.

While colony collapse is likely caused by a combination of factors, many scientists believe that sublethal pesticide exposures are a critical factor – and one class of pesticides in particular is a suspected culprit: neonicotinoids.²

Last month, leaked documents from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revealed that one commonly used neonicotinoid pesticide has been on the market for years without safety testing.

According to the damning documents, the agency ignored warnings from its own scientists during the approval process for Bayer CropScience’s neonicotinoid pesticide, clothianidin (product name “Poncho”), relying on shoddy corporate science provided by Bayer instead.³

Bayer’s pesticide has been banned in 4 European countries beginning in 2008 due to its high toxicity to bees and potential link to mass bee die-offs.⁵ Rather than heed their own scientists or the precautions taken in Europe, EPA bureaucrats approved the toxic pesticide based on a fatally flawed study provided by Bayer.

Beekeepers across the U.S. are furious to learn that one of the potential links behind the loss of their livelihood, and our food supply, boils down to a government agency looking out for corporate profits over so

In addition to corn, Bayer’s clothiniadin is also used on soy, wheat, canola, sugarbeets and sunflower seeds, among the most widely planted crops in the U.S., and it is a “systemic” pesticide. This means that it’s absorbed into the plant material and “expressed” through pollen and nectar – the main source of food for bees.

The leaked EPA memo, from the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention dated November 2^nd of last year, reveals that the original study submitted by Bayer CropScience to the EPA was so deeply flawed that it failed to meet agency guidelines. The study was conducted on the wrong crop, canola, which is not as widely planted in the U.S. as corn. In addition, the study took place on test plots of only 2 acres each and since bees forage at least 2 miles from the hive and beekeepers and EPA scientists believe it’s unlikely they ingested much of the actual treated crop, thus invalidating the study and failing to prove whether or not Bayer’s clothianidin is lethal to bees.⁶

Despite finding the original study invalid for the most recent approval process of clothianidin, for use on cotton and mustard seeds, the EPA has refused to pull Bayer’s toxic pesticide, which the agency granted full registration, or permanent approval, on April 22 of 2010.

Farmers and beekeepers across the country are up in arms over the serious harm that has come to their livelihoods as a result of the EPA’s failure to put sound science over corporate profits.

It’s time for the EPA to pull Bayer’s bee-keeping pesticide that has already been banned in Germany, Italy, France and Slovenia. We need to put unprecedented public pressure on this government agency to make sure they use their emergency powers to pull this toxic chemical from our fields.”

It has been more than 50 years since Rachel Carson published Silent Spring. She mentioned the class of pesticides named in this bulletin, neonicotinoids. Washington did not listen then and apparently nothing had changed in 2010, or now.

For more information go to FoodDemocracynow.org.