LTE
4 years ago
Has anyone been paying attention to the '218 litigation?
The denial of the reexamination requested by Mylan was a big deal:
https://www.1600ptab.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/2018/12/IPR2018-01143-DDI.pdf
Also, if you read further down the page below this intro, about
half (or more) of the cases have settled.
The reason why I find this important is because the '218 patent
covers Xarelto's dosing techniques until 2034. Bears on Bayer
say the Xarelto money will dry up after 2024, but this looks
like Xarelto protection should be extended for 10 more years.
Also, as a recent buyer of the stock, I am expecting the Monsanto
litigation to completely settle for $12 billion - that's looking
better than before.
Here's the '218 litigation:
<<Beginning in April 2017, JPI and Bayer Intellectual Property GmbH and Bayer AG (collectively, Bayer AG) filed patent infringement lawsuits in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware against a number of generic companies who filed ANDAs seeking approval to market generic versions of XARELTO® before expiration of Bayer AG’s United States Patent No. 9,539,218 (’218) relating to XARELTO®. JPI is the exclusive sublicensee of the asserted patent.
The following generic companies are named defendants: Alembic Pharmaceuticals Limited, Alembic Global Holding SA and Alembic Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Alembic); Aurobindo; Breckenridge; InvaGen; Lupin Limited and Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (collectively, Lupin); Micro; Mylan; Sigmapharm; Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and Taro Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc. (collectively, Taro) and Torrent. Lupin counterclaimed for declaratory judgment of noninfringement and invalidity of United States Patent No. 9,415,053, but Lupin dismissed its counterclaims after it was provided a covenant not to sue on that
patent. Aurobindo, Taro, Torrent, Micro, Breckenridge, InvaGen, Sigmapharm, Lupin and Alembic have agreed to have their cases stayed and to be bound by the
outcome of any final judgment rendered against any of the other defendants. The ’218 cases have been consolidated for discovery and trial. The trial began in April
2019 and closing arguments were heard in June 2019.>>
<<In October 2019, JPI and Bayer entered into a settlement agreement with Mylan. In November 2019, JPI and Bayer entered into a settlement agreement with
Breckenridge. In December 2019, JPI and Bayer entered into settlement agreements with each of Accord, Micro, Sigmapharm, Sunshine, and Torrent. In January
2020, JPI and Bayer entered into a settlement agreement with Macleods.
The consolidated ’218 cases involving Alembic, Aurobindo, InvaGen, Lupin, Taro, and Teva, and have been stayed until March 2020.>>'
Page 92 at the bottom:
https://johnsonandjohnson.gcs-web.com/sec-filings/sec-filing/10-k/0000200406-20-000010
tw0122
5 years ago
As Bayer sinks further into a morass of lawsuits centered on its deadly Roundup herbicide, the company is getting a much-needed makeover from a Green Party apostate determined to position it as the antidote to climate change.
The beleaguered corporation, plagued with lawsuits from cancer-stricken customers ever since it acquired Monsanto last year, hired former German Green Party MP Matthias Berninger as senior vice president for public and government affairs in January. The erstwhile environmentalist has wasted no time in his effort to save Bayer by positioning it as the answer to our climate change prayers. Pivoting the discussion away from Roundup’s potentially deadly effects on humans, Berninger has been making the media rounds to promote the herbicide’s environmental benefits.
What environmental benefits, you say?
“The data prove” that glyphosate - the chief chemical in Roundup - is good for the climate, Berninger told German outlet Handelsblatt last week, explaining that while “the production of glyphosate is quite CO2-intensive,” its “use saves three times more CO2” compared to farming land with a tractor and plow, a process which he explains would spew out CO2 through its internal combustion engine and release the gas from the soil. In fact, Berninger really has it in for plows.
“It would be an illusion to believe that American or Brazilian agriculture would return to plowing,” he said, setting up and knocking down his rhetorical straw-man with ruthless efficiency. Nor would organic farming sustain a meat-hungry world - to hear him tell it, humanity must either dramatically expand farmland at the expense of biodiversity, or put its faith in crop science, a.k.a. Bayer.
Farmers stricken with cancer after prolonged RoundUp use might view the matter differently. While fewer living humans does mean a smaller carbon footprint for the species, and fewer living farmers in particular means less emissions produced by farming, it would take a real sociopath to stretch the idea of a “benefit” to include less market competition for farmers whose neighbors have died of Roundup-induced non-Hodgkins lymphoma. But whether this is what Berninger has in mind when he describes glyphosate’s nebulous “benefits” to farmers and the planet is unclear - despite repeatedly referencing scientific evidence for glyphosate’s virtues, the former politician has remained mum on specifics of how the chemical benefits the environment, merely insisting in various ways that “independent regulatory authorities” have rated glyphosate “safe around the world for more than 40 years.”
Which independent authorities? Monsanto has been caught ghostwriting “independent” reviews touting the safety of its products in the past. The World Health Organization declared glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic” in 2015, while the state of California declared the chemical “known to cause cancer” in 2017. And the US Environmental Protection Agency, which recently reaffirmed “glyphosate is not a carcinogen” despite court verdicts piling up to the contrary, has long been accused of being “in bed with” Monsanto - even (especially) by scientists previously employed by the agency, who claim it bent the rules to greenlight the popular herbicide. Regulators haven’t weighed in on whether glyphosate is toxic to plants because that’s the whole purpose of an herbicide - indeed, Monsanto has made billions selling genetically-engineered “Roundup-ready” seeds so that farmers can grow crops that won’t die when they’re sprayed with the weedkiller. It would take serious logical gymnastics on Berninger’s part to paint this absence of regulatory condemnation as a seal of approval.
But the ex-Green wants the world to know that Bayer is more than just glyphosate. Touting the company’s “unique potential to help achieve the UN sustainability goals,” Berninger hinted that “by promoting the comprehensive digitalization of agriculture,” the company could eventually move toward the use of fewer “crop protection products.” But not too few, he stressed - “we also hope that politicians are open to the approval of the next generation of crop protection products that are effective in even smaller
“We don’t have to apologize for making money,” Berninger - once the youngest member of the Bundestag - told Germany’s Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger earlier this month, insisting Bayer could expiate past environmental sins through achieving “sustainability goals.” The company’s presentation of those goals on its website is enormously vague, promising that environmental sustainability is a priority (its CEO will take on the additional title of Chief Sustainability Officer in January!) and pledging that Bayer will eventually achieve 100 percent carbon neutrality. The corporation has also pledged to provide 100 million “smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries” with “holistic solutions” to “grow crops more sustainably” and increase both yields and incomes.
That last bit sounds quite noble, but one must ask: where do the (carbon-neutral) agrochemicals fit in with sustainable or holistic farming methods? Smallholder farmers from India, where Monsanto has been blamed for hundreds of thousands of suicides triggered by debts incurred by the high price of the company’s seeds and pesticides, to Brazil, where the company double-dips by collecting royalties from the sale of crops grown with its heavily-regulated seeds, are trying hard to move away from Monsanto products. Bayer might think its assistance will “help more people thrive within planetary boundaries,” but even its PR people know the Monsanto name is as toxic as its products - “partnerships with public, private and local organizations are key to address smallholder farmers’ needs holistically,” it admits.
Under Berninger’s direction, Bayer joined an alliance of over 200 companies called the Brazilian Coalition for Climate, Forest and Agriculture, wrapping itself in concern for the Amazon rainforest (perhaps as a distraction from the murmurs of discontent among Brazilian farmers, who lost out last month on a $2 billion payout after a court reversed a ruling to favor Monsanto). This heterogeneous group has appealed to the Brazilian government to seize control of the destruction of the Amazon, claiming some 90 percent of the logging is illegal - though their goal is less to end the devastation than to put Brasilia in charge. Indeed, Bayer isn’t remotely interested in ending the clear-cutting of rainforest land to make way for the soybean cultivation that fuels the world’s skyrocketing meat consumption. According to Berninger, Bayer’s role will instead involve driving “innovation” in “sustainable intensification” - i.e. growing more soybeans per hectare on ex-rainforest land, presumably with the help of glyphosate, in the hope that less land is ultimately needed.
Rainforests aren’t the only thing Bayer has pledged to rescue in its own special way. After getting caught secretly financing two German studies on glyphosate in October, the company flipped the script and announced it had begun campaigning for transparency in lobbying. Berninger has since called for a lobby transparency law “such as those that exist in the US” - the country where lobbying is so disastrously unregulated a novice congresswoman exposing the industry’s lawlessness can go viral - repeatedly - and where a long-running joke calls for politicians to wear the logos of their biggest sponsors on their clothing in the manner of race-car drivers.
Canada launches major class-action lawsuit against Monsanto’s Roundup & owner Bayer
Tasked with the seemingly-impossible task of greenwashing a company widely considered one of the most evil on the planet, Berninger is nevertheless rising to the occasion, framing Bayer as a defender of the rainforest and a standard-bearer of modern farming practices. But it’s anyone’s guess whether the corporation currently being sued by farmers from Canada to Australia? will be able to pass itself off as their savior, especially with entire countries - Austria recently became the first in the EU - kicking its star glyphosate weedkiller to the curb. And even if Berninger is able to summon enough climatebabble to convince the relevant authorities that Roundup is a noble soldier in the fight against global warming, Monsanto has enough skeletons in its closet to keep even the slickest PR man running in circles until the glaciers melt.
tw0122
5 years ago
The newly disclosed documents, first reported by The Intercept, cover internal Monsanto email exchanges and other company files, as well as court deposition transcripts.
‘Significant outreach’
One document, dated June of 2015, outlines some of Monsanto’s lobbying strategies following the IARC’s classification of glyphosate as a carcinogen risk. The company would use “significant outreach within the US government” to shift opinion in the company’s favor.
First and foremost, the firm laid out its plan to persuade the World Health Organization (WHO) to give “clarification” on the IARC decision, effectively pressuring the organization to undermine its own finding. In doing so, the firm leveraged far-reaching connections at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture, the Office of the US Trade Representative, the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as within Congress.
Another email exchange, from later in 2015, further details Monsanto’s efforts to combat the IARC’s message, including placing pro-glyphosate ads and op-eds in US media – the company explored using a “medical doctor” to pen an article – and preparing a letter to send to lawmakers.
The company also paid consultants to draft a letter accusing the IARC of dealing in “bunk science,” which it planned to be ‘ghostwritten’ under the name of Congressman Rob Aderholt (R-AL) and addressed to the director of the National Institutes for Health (NIH), a public health research agency and the IARC’s biggest funder. In the draft letter, the congressmen would have threatened a reassessment of the NIH’ s budget if it didn’t take the proper line on glyphosate.
While Aderholt did request the NIH to review IARC’s glyphosate work in a letter that echoed some points in the ghostwritten draft, he ultimately did not use the template letter supplied by Monsanto. However, a Monsanto consultant, Todd Rands, argued during a court deposition that such ghostwriting is “common practice in Washington.”
How US regulators embrace toxic pesticides & the corporations that make them
Other lawmakers also worked in tandem with the company’s IARC counter-campaign, including congressmen Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Lamar Smith (R-TX, now retired), and the firm coordinated closely with Republican members of congressional committees, such as the Oversight and Science panels.
In 2018, Smith, as chair of the House Science Committee, devoted an entire committee meeting to questioning the IARC, particularly on the issue of glyphosate, and later sent letters to researchers in Norway demanding they “correct the flaws in IARC.”
A second set of recently published litigation records also revealed that Monsanto contracted with corporate intelligence outfit Hakluyt to observe and confer with Washington lawmakers, perhaps worried some may break ranks. Reassuring the firm, a White House policy adviser told Hakluyt. “We have Monsanto’s back on pesticide regulation” and that “Monsanto need not fear any additional regulation from this administration.”
Silencing the critics
Yet another trove of documents obtained by The Guardian earlier this month, however, shows that Monsanto went far beyond lobbying congress and other government agencies. In its efforts to combat reporting on the dangers of glyphosate, the company created a “fusion center” to monitor journalists and activists, and developed a “multi-pronged” strategy to smear inconvenient critics.
Austria becomes first EU country to ban glyphosate weedkiller
In one case, the firm distributed “talking points” to “third parties” in order to counter reporter Carey Gillam’s 2017 book – ’Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science’ – and instructed “industry and farmer customers” on how to leave negative reviews on her work. The company maintained a “Carey Gillam Book” spreadsheet which detailed over 20 separate “actions” devoted to tarnishing the work before its publication.
Monsanto also paid Google to promote search results critical of Gillam’s book, while staff at the company discussed putting pressure on the reporter’s editors, hoping to get her “reassigned.”
“I’ve always known that Monsanto didn’t like my work … and worked to pressure editors and silence me, but I never imagined a multi-billion dollar company would actually spend so much time and energy and personnel on me,” Gillam told The Guardian. “It’s astonishing.”
The so-called fusion center also closely tracked other activists, including the Twitter activity of musician Neil Young, a longtime critic of the agri-giant, and even “evaluated the lyrics” on one of his albums to develop “a list of 20+ potential topics he may target.”
Despite the growing body of research indicating that glyphosate poses health risks, and a number of court settlements rewarding plaintiffs alleging the same, Roundup in its current form remains legal in the United States. As long as Monsanto ghostwrites scientific research with its own bottom line in mind, and keeps former lawmakers – such as Lamar Smith – on retainer as lobbyists, it just might stay that way.
tw0122
5 years ago
Monsanto paid Google to change its search result on its cancer causing products. Monsanto operated a “Mafia fusion center” to monitor and discredit journalists and activists, and targeted a reporter who wrote a critical book on the company, documents reveal. The agrochemical corporation also investigated the singer Neil Young and wrote an internal memo on his social media activity and music.
The records reviewed by the Guardian show Monsanto adopted a multi-pronged strategy to target Carey Gillam, a Reuters journalist who investigated the company’s weedkiller and its links to cancer. Monsanto, now owned by the German pharmaceutical corporation Bayer, also monitored a not-for-profit food research organization through its “intelligence fusion center”, a term that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies use for operations focused on surveillance and terrorism.
The documents, mostly from 2015 to 2017, were disclosed as part of an ongoing court battle on the health hazards of the company’s Roundup weedkiller. They show:
Monsanto planned a series of “actions” to attack a book authored by Gillam prior to its release, including writing “talking points” for “third parties” to criticize the book and directing “industry and farmer customers” on how to post negative reviews.
Monsanto paid Google to promote search results for “Monsanto Glyphosate Carey Gillam” that criticized her work. Monsanto PR staff also internally discussed placing sustained pressure on Reuters, saying they “continue to push back on [Gillam’s] editors very strongly every chance we get”, and that they were hoping “she gets reassigned”.
Monsanto “fusion center” officials wrote a lengthy report about singer Neil Young’s anti-Monsanto advocacy, monitoring his impact on social media, and at one point considering “legal action”. The fusion center also monitored US Right to Know (USRTK), a not-for-profit, producing weekly reports on the organization’s online activity.
Monsanto officials were repeatedly worried about the release of documents on their financial relationships with scientists that could support the allegations they were “covering up unflattering research”.
The internal communications add fuel to the ongoing claims in court that Monsanto has “bullied” critics and scientists and worked to conceal the dangers of glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide. In the last year, two US juries have ruled that Monsanto was liable for plaintiffs’ non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), a blood cancer, and ordered the corporation to pay significant sums to cancer patients. Bayer has continued to assert that glyphosate is safe.
“I’ve always known that Monsanto didn’t like my work … and worked to pressure editors and silence me,” Gillam, who is also a Guardian contributor and now USRTK’s research director, said in an interview. “But I never imagined a multi-billion dollar company would actually spend so much time and energy and personnel on me. It’s astonishing.”
Carey Gillam interviews Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, the first cancer patient to beat Monsanto in court in Vallejo, California, September 2018.
Carey Gillam interviews Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, the first cancer patient to beat Monsanto in court in Vallejo, California, September 2018. Photograph: Araceli Johnson
Gillam, author of the 2017 book, Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science, said the records were “just one more example of how the company works behind the scenes to try to manipulate what the public knows about its products and practices”.
Monsanto had a “Carey Gillam Book” spreadsheet, with more than 20 actions dedicated to opposing her book before its publication, including working to “Engage Pro-Science Third Parties” in criticisms, and partnering with “SEO experts” (search engine optimization), to spread its attacks. The company’s marketing strategy involved labeling Gillam and other critics as “anti-glyphosate activists and pro-organic capitalist organizations”.
Monsanto must pay couple $2bn in largest verdict yet over cancer claims
Read more
Gillam, who worked at the international news agency Reuters for 17 years, told the Guardian that a flurry of negative reviews appeared on Amazon just after the official publication of Whitewash, many seeming to repeat nearly identical talking points.
“This is my first book. It’s just been released. It’s got glowing reviews from professional book reviewers,” she said. But on Amazon, “They were saying horrible things about me … It was very upsetting but I knew it was fake and it was engineered by the industry. But I don’t know that other people knew that.”
A Bayer spokesman, Christopher Loder, declined to comment on specific documents or the fusion center, but said in a statement to the Guardian that the records show “that Monsanto’s activities were intended to ensure there was a fair, accurate and science-based dialogue about the company and its products in response to significant misinformation, including steps to respond to the publication of a book written by an individual who is a frequent critic of pesticides and GMOs”.
He said the documents were “cherry-picked by plaintiffs’ lawyers and their surrogates” and did not contradict existing science supporting the continued use of glyphosate, adding, “We take the safety of our products and our reputation very seriously and work to ensure that everyone … has accurate and balanced information.”
(A Reuters spokesperson said the agency “has covered Monsanto independently, fairly and robustly”, adding, “We stand by our reporting.”)
‘They saw us as a threat’
The internal records don’t offer significant detail on the activities or scope of the fusion center, but show that the “intelligence” operations were involved in monitoring Gillam and others. An official with the title “Monsanto Corporate Engagement, Fusion Center” provided detailed analyses on tweets related to Gillam’s work in 2016.
The fusion center also produced detailed graphs on the Twitter activity of Neil Young, who released an album in 2015 called the Monsanto Years. The center “evaluated the lyrics on his album to develop a list of 20+ potential topics he may target” and created a plan to “proactively produce content and response preparedness”, a Monsanto official wrote in 2015, adding it was “closely monitoring discussions” about a concert featuring Young, Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews.
Monsanto ‘fusion center’ officials wrote lengthy reports about singer Neil Young’s anti-Monsanto advocacy.
Monsanto ‘fusion center’ officials wrote lengthy reports about singer Neil Young’s anti-Monsanto advocacy. Photograph: Dan Steinberg/REX/Shutterstock
“We have reached out to the legal team and are keeping them informed of Neil’s activities in case any legal action is appropriate,” the email said.
A LinkedIn page for someone who said he was a manager of “global intelligence and investigations” for Monsanto said he established an “internal Intelligence Fusion Center” and managed a “team responsible for the collection and analysis of criminal, activist / extremist, geo-political and terrorist activities affecting company operations across 160 countries”. He said he created Monsanto’s “insider threats program”, leading analysts who collaborated “in real time on physical, cyber and reputational risk”.
“They saw us as a threat,” Gary Ruskin, the USRTK co-founder, said in an interview. “They were conducting some kind of intelligence about us, and more than that, we don’t know.”
Government fusion centers have increasingly raised privacy concerns surrounding the way law enforcement agencies collect data, surveil citizens and share information. Private companies might have intelligence centers that monitor legitimate criminal threats, such as cyberattacks, but “it becomes troubling when you see corporations leveraging their money to investigate people who are engaging in their first amendment rights”, said Dave Maass, the senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
David Levine, a University of California Hastings law professor, said he had not heard of any other private corporations running “fusion centers”, but said it did not surprise him that Monsanto was engaged in this kind of intensive digital monitoring.
The records showed Monsanto was also concerned about Ruskin’s Freedom of Information Act (Foia) requests targeting the company, writing documents on its relationships with researchers had the “potential to be extremely damaging” and could “impact the entire industry”.
In 2016, one Monsanto official expressed frustration of criticisms that the company paid academics to write favorable reports on their products: “The issue was NOT that we wanted to pay the experts but an acknowledgment that experts would need to be compensated for the time they invest in drafting responses for external engagement. No one works for free!”
Michael Baum, one of the attorneys involved in the Roundup trials that uncovered the records, said the records were further “evidence of the reprehensible and conscious disregard of the rights and safety of others” and that they would support ongoing punitive damages for people who got cancer after using Roundup.
“It shows an abuse of their power that they have gained by having achieved such large sales,” he added. “They’ve got so much money, and there is so much they are trying to protect.”
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tw0122
5 years ago
There's a LOT more to this story.
I once worked with Bacillus thuringiensis, the bacteria from which the gene coding for BT toxin was taken and inserted into corn.
Did you know that B. thuringiensis is nearly 100% identical to Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) at the chromosomal level? Well, now you do. Bet you won't see that on a box of corn flakes.
They used to spray B.t. on crops directly. BT toxin produced by B.t. is deadly to Lepidoptera (moths), as it destroys their intestinal lining when ingested. This wasn't so bad for people, though, as you could just wash off most of the bacteria, and it is non-toxic when ingested (not so, anthrax!).
But this wasn't good enough for the corporate scientists - why not just take the gene itself and put it into corn? Heck, people's guts are millions of times larger than an insect's, it won't be a problem! Then we don't have to spray it with B.t., which doesn't make us much money; we will just use a broad-spectrum herbicide that we already make a lot of money on: Roundup!
Well, there was a problem with that. Actually, many problems. First, in order to isolate the BT gene and test it, and also add genetic markers to make it easy to work with, they took that gene and put it into Eschericia coli...which is present in large numbers in the human GI tract. This matters, as I will explain later.
Second, people eat a LOT of corn. It is the second or third most ingested grain after wheat and rice, after all. So, people get a heavier dose of BT toxin than expected, as corn is in almost everything in one form or another (corn syrup, maltodextrin, etc.).
Third, nearly all corn these days is GMO. Very little non-GMO corn is produced in the US. And, GMO crops are routinely treated with Roundup, which contains glyphosate...which has been implicated as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization. Roundup is an herbicide, but it *also* kills other things...such as gut bacteria...
...but, not E. coli bacteria that have taken up BT toxin DNA from food that people eat, for that DNA came from corn that is ALSO resistant to Roundup, and THAT DNA was also expressed in E. coli for study.
So, now you have E. coli bacteria in your gut that: 1. are now present in greater numbers, due to the effects of Roundup on your gut bacteria; 2. contain the DNA for producing BT toxin, which they got from corn and which has ALREADY been shown to produce BT toxin in that strain; and 3. this bacteria is also immune to the effects of Roundup.
So, now, chronic eaters of corn products have BT-producing bacteria factories in their guts. And, this BT toxin destroys the intestinal lining, leading to chronic problems as now complex food molecules can enter the bloodstream directly - molecules that are not natural, and which the body determines is a foreign entity that it makes antibodies to...so, now, when one eats corn their body ATTACKS ITSELF.
And, this will happen with almost ANY food that one eats a lot of. This is the genesis of 'Leaky Gut' syndrome, also known as Coeliac disease, and also the cause of many autoimmune disorders, such as lupus, arthritis, alopecia, etc.
Also: glyphosate has been found to replace glycine in protein synthesis. The ramifications of this are still being discussed, but it is not good news.
tw0122
5 years ago
Farmer Finds Animals Won’t Touch GMO Corn
Recently the Institute for Responsible Technology, a research organization dedicated to educating on the oft-overlooked dangers of genetically engineered crops, posted the results of a farmer’s experiment on their Facebook page.
The farmer, a friend of IRT founder and best-selling author Jeffrey M. Smith, left two bags of corn, one GMO and one non-GMO, in a work room.
The mice broke into both bags, but quickly stopped eating after taking a few bites of the GMO corn.
“They just took a nibble from one of the kernels of this and never came back to eat it,” Smith said. “They devoured the non-GMO corn.”
According to Smith, many different animals including squirrels, geese, elk, deer, raccoons, mice, rats, buffalo and chickens have all been observed avoiding GMO corn in the past.
It’s a trend that Bayer, Monsanto and the GMO industry have done their best to avoid discussing, but many farmers, including Iowa pig farmer Jerry Rosman, have noticed that animals forced to eat GMO corn and soy have suffered abnormalities, including serious reproductive issues.
“What is it about this corn that would make them not want to eat it?” Smith asks in a video posted to the IRT’s Facebook page.
“Well if it’s genetically engineered as most corn is, it produces an insecticide called Bt toxin which can poke holes in an insects guts to kill them,” he continued. “And it was found to cause damage in mice and rats and also human cells.”
Aside from the Bt toxin, which is incorporated into the the cells of GMO plants, genetically engineered corn, which makes up over 90% of the U.S. supply despite it being banned around the world, is sprayed with cancer-causing Roundup.
According to Smith, the corn may have even more potentially harmful substances as well, including formaldehyde, Gamma-Zein, a novel allergen found in GMO corn and not others, and even potentially cadaverine, a substance linked to the rotting smell of dead bodies, Smith said.
While the experiment by Smith’s farmer friend was far from controlled clinical research, it does serve as a potential red flag as to the importance of being connected to the sources of our food, and using our instincts to buy what’s truly healthy for ourselves and our families.
“So we can get humans up to the level of animals, so that if we don’t have the sixth sense, let’s find out what’s wrong with this corn, why we shouldn’t eat it,” Smith said.
“What we can tell others about it and how is it that this dangerous stuff got on the market.”
Watch Smith’s full presentation on the experime
tw0122
6 years ago
Roundup’s Risks Could Go Well Beyond Cancer
Evidence of the cheap herbicide’s danger to biological functions and the environment continues to mount. Why are U.S. regulators not listening?
By Mark Buchanan
June 4, 2019, 11:30 AM EDT
Corrected June 5, 2019, 3:36 PM EDT
Is it worth it?
Is it worth it? Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
Chemicals giant Bayer AG is reeling after a jury awarded $2 billion in damages to people who say they contracted cancer after years of using Roundup, a popular weed killer manufactured by Bayer subsidiary Monsanto Co. Bayer probably won't pay out the full $2 billion. But more than 10,000 further cases are pending, worrying Bayer investors as well as farmers who rely on the product as a cheap, effective herbicide.
Cancer may only be part of the story. Studies over the past decade suggest that glyphosate — the active ingredient in Roundup — pollutes water sources, hangs around in soil far longer than previously suspected, and routinely taints human food supplies. In both the U.S. and Europe, the supposedly safe limits for human ingestion are based on long-outdated science. Research also points to serious adverse consequences for the environment, and there are indications glyphosate can cause disease in mammals even several generations removed from the initial exposure.
Glyphosate isn't as safe as its manufacturers would like us to believe, and steep reduction in its use is probably long overdue.
Monsanto patented glyphosate in the early 1970s, and it rapidly became the global go-to chemical for weed control as the commercial product Roundup. Executives at Monsanto encouraged the spread of Roundup by engineering genetically modified seeds for corn and other crops that can tolerate glyphosate.
Glyphosate manufacturers — which now include many companies around the world; Monsanto's patent expired in 2000 — have long argued that glyphosate is completely safe for humans, animals and indeed all non-plant life. It works by inhibiting a biochemical pathway that plants need to grow, and animals don't share that pathway, which is superficially reassuring. But it only means that glyphosate shouldn't starve animals to death, as it does plants. Chemicals can exert effects on organisms in myriad ways.
Interpreting the evidence for cancer isn't easy, because different panels have come to contrasting conclusions by using different procedures. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, concluded that glyphosate is likely carcinogenic. But both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the European Food Safety Authority have declined to do the same. Both the EPA and the EFSA relied on information provided by researchers linked to the industry and considered studies provided by the industry that were not peer-reviewed or made public. The IARC relied solely on publicly available peer-reviewed research.
An international team of biologists reviewed the IARC and EFSA studies, concluding that the latter were significantly flawed and departed from standard hazard-assessment practices.
There are plenty of other reasons to be concerned about glyphosate. An independent group of biologists in 2016 tried to clarify what we really know about the chemical. Their paper makes for grim reading. It noted that studies in the previous decade found significant traces of glyphosate-based herbicides in drinking water and groundwater, probably routinely exposing millions of people across the planet to the chemical. Toxicity studies in rodents have found that glyphosate can damage the liver and kidneys, even for doses in the range generally considered safe for humans. Young pigs fed soybeans contaminated with glyphosate herbicide residues have exhibited congenital malformations, not unlike birth defects observed for people living in and near farming regions with intensive glyphosate use.
The study points to many other troubling findings, from the disruptive impact of glyphosate on hormone signaling in mammals to how the chemical binds to metals such as zinc, cobalt and manganese, reducing the supplies of these crucial micronutrients for people, crops and other plants, and wildlife. Most of these effects would probably not be detected by the traditional toxicology test guidelines currently favored by pesticide regulators.
In April, a different study found another worrying effect: Glyphosate might disrupt biological functions for generations. One of the hottest topics in biology in recent years has been epigenetics — the study of how offspring inherit not only the genes of their parents, but also certain patterns of chemical activity written onto those genes by other signaling molecules. This offers a means by which environmental factors that affect an organism during its life can be passed down to its offspring. In experiments with rats fed glyphosate, Michael Skinner of Washington State University and colleagues found that malign effects of treatment did not show up in the organism eating glyphosate, or even in its offspring, but in the next two generations of offspring. These rats, without ever being exposed to glyphosate, nevertheless showed a prominent tendency toward prostate disease, obesity, kidney disease, ovarian disease and birth abnormalities.
Glyphosate is clearly not a benign herbicide warranting no concern, its link to cancer aside. It may be causing many other serious disruptions to human biology, and to organisms and plants in the environment, currently invisible to today's outdated regulatory systems. It's about time our regulators updated their science.
tw0122
6 years ago
GM (Genetically Modified Food) 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.
Could this be a clue as to why there is a “fertility crisis” in the United States today?
Researchers have also discovered that livestock experienced similar issues when they were fed genetically-modified crops…
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.
If this is what the hard science is telling us, why in the world are we doing this to ourselves?
In the end, it all comes down to greed. Four giant corporations have a virtual monopoly on the seed market today, and billions of dollars are at stake. So an enormous amount of time and energy is spent trying to convince the American public that there is nothing to be concerned about, and massive amounts of money is poured into the campaigns of politicians that support GMO food.
But they can’t keep a lid on the truth forever, and an increasing number of doctors are starting to speak out…
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.
If you want to live a long and successful life, you have got to take care of your health. And most Americans don’t even realize that genetically-modified corn has actually been designed to produce “built-in pesticide in every cell”…
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.
Do you think that it is actually safe to eat such “food”?
Sadly, the health consequences from eating GMO food may not just be temporary. In fact, one study found that the effects of eating genetically-modified food could last for a lot longer that anyone had anticipated…
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.
Personally, I am going to re-evaluate my own diet, because doing research for this article has kind of freaked me out.
Most of the packaged foods that we eat today are not safe, and it is getting worse with each passing year.
tw0122
6 years ago
The recently exposed illegal dossier US herbicide maker Monsanto, now owned by German pharmaceutical firm Bayer, apparently compiled to influence public opinion, included people from seven European states and maybe beyond.
Monsanto files listing prominent pro- and anti-herbicide public figures, initially revealed by French media, included “stakeholders in France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom, as well as regarding stakeholders related to EU institutions,” AFP reported citing Bayer’s statement on Tuesday. The company added that it is currently trying to determine whether similar lists exist in other states and hired a law firm.
Earlier in May, French media reported that around 200 journalists, politicians, and scientists were named in the filing, created by PR firm FleishmanHillard on behalf of Monsanto. The list, which covered the personalities’ views on herbicides and GMO, whether they could be further influenced and reportedly included a lot of personal data, was initially thought to exist only in France, before Bayer admitted that people in other countries might also have been targeted.
“[We have] decided with the agency to end the collaboration in the areas of communication and public affairs for the time being,” the German pharmaceutical giant said referring to Monsanto's PR firm FleishmanHillard.
French news agencies and outlets, including AFP and Le Monde, filed complaints to French regulators as some of their journalists were named in the dossier. France has already opened an investigation into the case.
Apart from the PR scandal, Bayer has inherited thousands of lawsuits over the weed killer since acquiring Monsanto in a $63 billion deal last year. After the latest verdict that found Roundup weed killer liable for causing cancer, Bayer stock crashed to a seven-year low last week and has only slightly recovered since then.
tw0122
6 years ago
Enjoying a cold beer may not be so pleasant now that testing has revealed 14 top beers, including Coors Light and Heineken, contain traces of glyphosate from Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer.
Scientists looked at five wine brands, one cider and 15 top beer brands including Coors Light, Miller Lite, Budweiser, Corona, Heineken, Guinness and Stella Artois and found glyphosate in all but one, Peak Organic IPA.
Tsingtao was found to be the worst beer for glyphosate, with 49.7parts per billion (ppb), and of the five wines, the 2018 Sutter Home merlot had the highest levels of glyphosate, with 51.4 ppb.
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