\u201c<\/i><\/b>Control\u00a0oil and\u00a0you control\u00a0nations<\/i>,\u201d said US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. \u00a0\u201cControl food<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0you control the people<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n
Global food control has nearly been achieved, by reducing seed diversity with GMO (genetically modified) seeds that are distributed by only a few transnational corporations. But this agenda has been implemented at grave cost to our health; and if the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) passes, control over not just our food but our health, our environment and our financial system will be in the hands of transnational corporations.<\/p>\n
Profits before Populations<\/b><\/p>\n
Genetic engineering has made proprietary control possible over the seeds on which the world\u2019s food supply depends. \u201cTerminator\u201d genes enable the production of sterile seeds<\/a>, using a synthetic chemical catalyst appropriately called \u201cTraitor\u201d to induce seed sterility. Farmers must therefore buy seeds from their patent owners year after year. To cover these costs, food prices are raised; but the harm is far greater than to our pocketbooks.<\/p>\n According to an Acres USA interview<\/a> of plant pathologist Don Huber, Professor Emeritus at Purdue University, two modified traits account for practically all of the genetically modified crops grown in the world today. One involves insect resistance. The other, more disturbing modification involves insensitivity to glyphosate-based herbicides (plant-killing chemicals). Often known as Roundup after the best-selling Monsanto product of that name, glyphosate poisons everything in its path except plants genetically modified to resist it.<\/p>\n Glyphosate-based herbicides are now the most commonly used herbicides in the world. Glyphosate is an essential partner to the GMOs that are the principal business of the burgeoning biotech industry. Glyphosate is a \u201cbroad-spectrum\u201d herbicide that destroys indiscriminately, not by killing unwanted plants directly but by tying up access to critical nutrients.<\/p>\n Because of the insidious way in which it works, it has been sold as a relatively benign replacement for the devastating earlier dioxin-based herbicides. But a barrage of experimental data has now shown glyphosate and the GMO foods incorporating it to pose serious dangers to health. Compounding the risk is the toxicity of \u201cinert\u201d ingredients used to make glyphosate more potent. Researchers have found, for example, that the surfactant POEA can kill human cells<\/a>, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.\u00a0But these risks have been conveniently ignored.<\/p>\n The widespread use of GMO foods and glyphosate herbicides helps explain the anomaly that the US spends over twice as much per capita on healthcare<\/a> as the average developed country, yet it is rated far down the scale of the world\u2019s healthiest populations. The World Health Organization has ranked<\/a> the US LAST out of 17 developed nations for overall health.<\/p>\n Sixty to seventy percent of the foods in US supermarkets<\/a> are now genetically modified. By contrast, in at least 26 other countries\u2014including Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Mexico and Russia\u2014GMOs are totally or partially banned<\/a>; and significant restrictions on GMOs exist in about sixty other countries.<\/p>\n A ban on GMO and glyphosate use might go far toward improving the health of Americans. But the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a global trade agreement for which the Obama Administration has sought Fast Track status, would block that sort of cause-focused approach to the healthcare crisis.<\/p>\n Roundup\u2019s Insidious Effects<\/b><\/p>\n Roundup-resistant crops escape being killed by glyphosate, but they do not avoid absorbing it into their tissues. Herbicide-tolerant crops have substantially higher levels of herbicide residues than other crops. In fact, many countries have had to increase their legally allowable levels\u2014by up to 50 times\u2014in order to accommodate the introduction of GM crops. In the European Union, residues in food are set to rise 100-150 times<\/a> if a new proposal by Monsanto is approved. Meanwhile, herbicide-tolerant \u201csuper-weeds\u201d have adapted to the chemical<\/a>, requiring even more toxic doses and new toxic chemicals to kill the plant.<\/p>\n Human enzymes are affected by glyphosate just as plant enzymes are: the chemical blocks the uptake of manganese and other essential minerals. Without those minerals, we cannot properly metabolize our food. That helps explain the rampant epidemic of obesity in the United States. People eat and eat in an attempt to acquire the nutrients that are simply not available in their food.<\/p>\n According to researchers Samsell and Seneff<\/a> in Biosemiotic Entropy: Disorder, Disease, and Mortality<\/a><\/i> (April 2013):<\/p>\n Glyphosate\u2019s inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play crucial roles in biology . . . . Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body. Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n More than 40 diseases have been linked to glyphosate use, and more keep appearing. In September 2013, the National University of Rio Cuarto, Argentina, published research<\/a> finding that glyphosate enhances the growth of fungi that produce aflatoxin B1, one of the most carcinogenic of substances. A doctor from Chaco, Argentina, told Associated Press, \u201cWe\u2019ve gone from a pretty healthy population to one with a high rate of cancer, birth defects and illnesses seldom seen before.\u201d Fungi growths have increased significantly in US corn crops.<\/p>\n Glyphosate has also done serious damage to the environment. According to an October 2012 report by the Institute of Science in Society<\/a>:<\/p>\n Agribusiness claims that glyphosate and glyphosate-tolerant crops will improve crop yields, increase farmers\u2019 profits and benefit the environment by reducing pesticide use. Exactly the opposite is the case. . . . [T]he evidence indicates that glyphosate herbicides and glyphosate-tolerant crops have had wide-ranging detrimental effects, including glyphosate resistant super weeds, virulent plant (and new livestock) pathogens, reduced crop health and yield, harm to off-target species from insects to amphibians and livestock, as well as reduced soil fertility.<\/p>\n Politics Trumps Science<\/b><\/p>\n In light of these adverse findings, why have Washington and the European Commission continued to endorse glyphosate as safe? Critics point to lax regulations, heavy influence from corporate lobbyists, and a political agenda that has more to do with power and control than protecting the health of the people.<\/p>\n In the ground-breaking 2007 book Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation<\/a><\/i>, William Engdahl states that global food control and depopulation became US strategic policy under Rockefeller prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Henry Kissinger. Along with oil geopolitics, they were to be the new \u201csolution\u201d to the threats to US global power and continued US access to cheap raw materials from the developing world. In line with that agenda, the government has shown extreme partisanship in favor of the biotech agribusiness industry, opting for a system in which the industry \u201cvoluntarily\u201d polices itself. Bio-engineered foods are treated as \u201cnatural food additives,\u201d not needing any special testing.<\/p>\n Jeffrey M. Smith, Executive Director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, confirms<\/a> that US Food and Drug Administration policy allows biotech companies to determine if their own foods are safe. Submission of data is completely voluntary. He concludes:<\/p>\n In the critical arena of food safety research, the biotech industry is without accountability, standards, or peer-review. They\u2019ve got bad science down to a science.<\/p>\n Whether or not depopulation is an intentional part of the agenda, widespread use of GMO and glyphosate is having that result<\/a>. The endocrine-disrupting properties of glyphosate have been linked to infertility, miscarriage, birth defects and arrested sexual development. In Russian experiments, animals fed GM soy were sterile by the third generation. Vast amounts of farmland soil are also being systematically ruined by the killing of beneficial microorganisms that allow plant roots to uptake soil nutrients.<\/p>\n In Gary Null\u2019s eye-opening documentary Seeds of Death: Unveiling the Lies of GMOs<\/a>, <\/i>Dr. Bruce Lipton warns, \u201cWe are leading the world into the sixth mass extinction of life on this planet. . . . Human behavior is undermining the web of life.\u201d<\/p>\n The TPP and International Corporate Control<\/b><\/p>\n As the devastating conclusions of these and other researchers awaken people globally to the dangers of Roundup and GMO foods, transnational corporations are working feverishly with the Obama administration to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement that would strip governments of the power to regulate transnational corporate activities. Negotiations have been kept secret from Congress but not from corporate advisors, 600 of whom have been consulted and know the details. According to Barbara Chicherio<\/a> in Nation of Change<\/i>:<\/p>\n The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) has the potential to become the biggest regional Free Trade Agreement in history.\u00a0. . .<\/p>\n The chief agricultural negotiator for the US is the former Monsanto lobbyist, Islam Siddique.\u00a0\u00a0If ratified the TPP would impose punishing regulations that give multinational corporations unprecedented right to demand taxpayer compensation for policies that corporations deem a barrier to their profits.<\/p>\n . . . They are carefully crafting the TPP to insure that citizens of the involved countries have no control over food safety, what they will be eating, where it is grown, the conditions under which food is grown and the use of herbicides and pesticides.<\/p>\n Food safety is only one of many rights and protections liable to fall to this super-weapon of international corporate control. In an April 2013 interview on The Real News Network<\/a>, Kevin Zeese called the TPP \u201cNAFTA on steroids\u201d and \u201ca global corporate coup.\u201d He warned:<\/p>\n No matter what issue you care about\u2014whether its wages, jobs, protecting the environment . . . this issue is going to adversely affect it . . . .<\/p>\n If a country takes a step to try to regulate the financial industry or set up a public bank to represent the public interest, it can be sued . . . .<\/p>\n Return to Nature: Not Too Late<\/b><\/p>\n There is a safer, saner, more earth-friendly way to feed nations. While Monsanto and US regulators are forcing GM crops on American families, Russian families are showing what can be done with permaculture methods on simple garden plots. In 2011, 40% of Russia\u2019s food was grown on dachas<\/i><\/a> (cottage gardens or allotments). Dacha gardens produced over 80% of the country\u2019s fruit and berries, over 66% of the vegetables, almost 80% of the potatoes and nearly 50% of the nation\u2019s milk, much of it consumed raw. According to Vladimir Megre<\/a>, author of the best-selling Ringing Cedars Series:<\/p>\n Essentially, what Russian gardeners do is demonstrate that gardeners can feed the world \u2013 and you do not need any GMOs, industrial farms, or any other technological gimmicks to guarantee everybody\u2019s got enough food to eat. Bear in mind that Russia only has 110 days of growing season per year \u2013 so in the US, for example, gardeners\u2019 output could be substantially greater. Today, however, the area taken up by lawns in the US is two times greater than that of Russia\u2019s gardens \u2013 and it produces nothing but a multi-billion-dollar lawn care industry.<\/p>\n In the US, only about 0.6 percent<\/a> of the total agricultural area is devoted to organic farming. This area needs to be vastly expanded if we are to avoid \u201cthe sixth mass extinction.\u201d But first, we need to urge our representatives to stop Fast Track, vote no on the TPP, and pursue a global phase-out of glyphosate-based herbicides and GMO foods. Our health, our finances and our environment are at stake.<\/p>\n ____________________________<\/p>\n Ellen Brown is an attorney, president of the\u00a0Public Banking Institute<\/a>, and author of twelve books, including the best-selling\u00a0<\/i>Web of Debt<\/a><\/span>. In<\/i>\u00a0The Public Bank Solution<\/a><\/span>, her latest book, she explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her blog articles are at\u00a0EllenBrown.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n