2,4-D linked to cancer

Another common herbicide linked to cancer →

Less than three months after declaring that the ubiquitous herbicide glyphosate, marketed by Monsanto as Roundup, is “probably carcinogenic,” a working group of scientists convened by the World Health Organization has taken aim at another widely used herbicide, 2,4-D, which the WHO panel has found to be “possibly carcinogenic.”

These announcements can hardly be welcome news in the Midwest, whose farm fields are blanketed in corn and soybeans. Since the advent of crops genetically engineered to withstand glyphosate in the 1990s, farmers there have come to rely heavily on the herbicide that many weed varieties have evolved to resist, causing many headaches and a surge in herbicide use.

Tom Philpott: How Monsanto Crashed SXSW—and Brought the Drama to My Panel

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/10/how-monsanto-brought-
drama-my-sxsw-eco-panel

Credit: Alexander Shirokov/Thinkstock; Thomas Northcut/Thinkstock

Monsanto had sponsored several panels—paying the travel expenses of  the participants—without disclosing it to the organizers, alleged a conference staffer.

Has Mother Jones gone pro-GMO?

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/10/vaccine-denial-conspiracy-theories-gmos-climate

It's not so much the Lewandowsky study that I have issue with. It's the smug tone of the Chris Mooney article. He fully intends to lump anti-GMO activism together with anti-science nuttiness.

Here is the most troubling paragraph:

As if the new study won't provoke enough ire by linking anti-vaccine views to conspiracy theories, Lewandowsky also finds links—albeit much weaker ones—between conspiracy theories and both anti-GMO beliefs and climate change denial. On GMOs, the board of directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science has stated that "crop improvement by the modern molecular techniques of biotechnology is safe." Accordingly, Lewandowsky's survey respondents were asked to react to items like "I believe that because there are so many unknowns, that it is dangerous to manipulate the natural genetic material of plants" and "Genetic modification of food is a safe and reliable technology."

He dismisses all concerns about GMO's with a single sentence, as if every scientist agreed with the AAAS on this issue, as if AAAS were the word of God. Here are some responses to AAAS's pronouncement on GMO's: http://bioseguridad.blogspot.com/search/label/AAAS

As far as Mooney is concerned, there is no debate regarding GMO safety. It's a settled issue for him.

I have no doubt Monsanto and lackeys are going to paste and post this MoJo article all over the place.

As for anti-GMO activists who have nutty irrational beliefs- like chemtrails, HAARP, Bildergerg-Illuminati world domination conspiracy, 9-11 inside job theories, fake NASA moon landing, etc- I have met my share too.  As I have said before, we in the movement have not been vigilant enough in clearing out the riffraff.  I call them out once again: Alex Jones, Gary Null, Mike Adams/NaturalNews, Global Research, and anyone who gets NASA and NSA mixed up.  I don't care if these individuals are anti-GMO, I don't want them anywhere near me and I never want to be in a situation where I can be perceived as validating their wacked views.  This is why I tend to be very picky as to what TV and radio interview shows I agree to speak in.

We anti-GMO activists often get bundled together with the anti-vaccine folks.  My position on that issue is intermediate, which is quite difficult to keep since the debate is totally polarized.  I believe there are legitimate reasons for concern about the safety of vaccines, but at the same time the risks of not taking them are very real.

Monsanto Is Losing the Press, by Tom Philpott

RTImages and Xul/Shutterstock

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/07/superweeds-and-superinsects-still-bedeviling-monsanto-crops

EXCERPT:

Back in 2008, I felt a bit lonely participating in this annual rite—it was mainly just me andreporters in a the Big Ag trade press. Over the past couple of years, though, it's gone mainstream. Here's NPR's star agriculture reporter Dan Charles, on corn farmers' agrichemically charged reaction to the rise of an insect that has come to thumb its nose at Monsanto's once-vaunted Bt corn, engineered to contain the bug-killing gene of a bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis:

It appears that farmers have gotten part of the message: Biotechnology alone will not solve their rootworm problems. But instead of shifting away from those corn hybrids, or from corn altogether, many are doubling down on insect-fighting technology, deploying more chemical pesticides than before. Companies like or that sell soil insecticides for use in corn fields are reporting huge increases in sales: 50 or even 100 percent over the past two years.

And this, from a veteran observer of the GMO-seed industry who—in my view—sometimes errs on the side of being too soft on it.

The World Food Prize, Brought to You by Monsanto

TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE:
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/06/why-did-john-kerry-announce-world-food-prize

—By Alex Park

| Wed Jun. 19, 2013  

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bioraven/Shutterstock, ADM, John Deere, Cargill, Monsanto

Update: earlier today, the 2013 World Food Prize was awarded to three scientists: Marc Van Monatgu from Belgium, Mary-Dell Chilton of the US and Robert T. Fraley, also of the US. Fraley is an executive vice president chief technology officer at Monsanto. A statement on the announcement from the World Food Prize Foundation can be found here.

Today Secretary of State John Kerry will announce the recipient of the quarter-million-dollarWorld Food Prize. Sometimes called "the Nobel Prize of food," the award has been handed out yearly since 1987 to "outstanding individuals who have made vital contributions to improving the quality, quantity or availability of food throughout the world," according to the website of its namesake foundation. Past winners have included agricultural scientists and presidents of developing nations who have made strides toward growing more food in their countries.

This is the 10th year that the State Department has hosted the World Food Prize's announcement ceremony; according to a Department press release, the event is intended to showcase "the administration's dedication to improving lives; counteracting suffering; and focusing on the role that science, technology and policy play in reducing hunger and under-nutrition." But while the US government's involvement might suggest that the prize is a neutral barometer of agricultural excellence, funders of the foundation which backs it have a vested interest in promoting industrialized farming around the world. In fact, many of the World Food Prize's major donors are among the biggest names in agribusiness today. 

Out of 125 donors who contributed more than $500 between fiscal years 2009 and 2011 (the years for which the foundation's tax records are most readily available), 26 were either agribusiness or charities directly affiliated with agribusiness. Together, donations from these companies amounted to more than 28 percent of funds raised for that period, a Mother Jonesanalysis has found. The combined support of ADM, Cargill, Monsanto, and General Mills alone for this period came to more than a half million dollars.