Monsanto Is Destroying The Natural World As We Knew It

By James Donahue

If there is one evil corporation operating on this planet that supersedes all others it has to be the Monsanto Corporation. This company, which was a forerunner in the development of genetically modified seeds for farm crops, has managed within a few short years to pollute the world’s natural seed stock with genetically altered and sterile products.

Monsanto has since branched out to the genetic manipulation of animals. For example the company has created and marketed a genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone, rBGH, which increases milk production in dairy cattle. The hormone is now found to be a possible carcinogen and its use is banned in most other countries. It remains on the shelf in stores in the United States.

Monsanto also has patented a breeding technique used for pigs and is claiming ownership of any pigs born through these techniques and their related herds.

Researchers are only now discovering that Monsanto’s experiments in linking genetic varieties of corn and beans to herbicides and insecticides is having a disastrous impact on both the environment and animals that consume this food. Not only are the altered foods showing to be a possible carcinogen, rats fed a diet of Monsanto GMO corn are showing kidney and liver failure. Also the widespread use of this seed is resulting in new varieties of super weeds and insects resistant to chemical treatment.

This corn is making its way into a broad range of processed foods that may easily be finding their way into a world-wide market. May foods and especially soft drinks are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup which alone is linked to increased obesity and the associated health problems including diabetes, high blood pressure and coronary artery disease.

Monsanto has expanded its GMO seed production to include numerous other crops including canola, soy beans, grains and cotton. The company is awaiting FDA approval from its latest invention, genetically modified soybeans that produce omega-3 fats. Monsanto expects its modified soy oil to soon be used in a wide variety of processed foods sold in our grocery stores. They could include breakfast cereals, cheeses, pasta, gravies and sauces, fruit juice, snack foods, soup candy and frozen dairy products.

The chemicals and genetically modified organisms within Monsanto’s products are found to be having an impact on not only the farming community, but the general quality and safety of the food being produced and subsequently the health of the consumers.

Marie-Monique Robin, author of The World According to Monsanto, warns that the company has not only gained control of the world seed market, but has created a serious dilemma within the world food supply.

Robin writes that “GMOs and Roundup are amongst the most dangerous products of modern times, joining a list that is heavily populated by other Monsanto products such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxin and bovine growth hormones. In all cases, Monsanto has been fully aware of their harmfulness yet has lied about their dangers with an impunity conferred by the collusion between the company and the public health and environmental authorities of successive U. S. governments.”

That Monsanto is using genetic manipulation to produce sterile plants, or plants that produce seed that will not grow the second year, is having a very serious impact on the natural order of things. Farmers can no longer save seed for the next year’s planting. They are forced, instead, to return to Monsanto to buy the seed they need.

The modified food crops, all distant cousins to the natural plants that grow all over the planet, are found to be cross-breeding with the wild plants, or “weeds” that surround the farms using the GMO crops. Consequently the weeds also are being altered by everything that Monsanto’s chemical engineers are doing in the company laboratories.

Another horror aspect to the Monsanto story is that the corporation has become so powerful it is financing a bank of lawyers to impose its produce on farmers not only in the United States but all over the world. Monsanto has managed to win patent infringement lawsuits against farmers after it was proven that Monsanto’s GMO corn cross-pollinated with non-GMO crops in nearby fields. Thus they stopped non-GMO farmers from selling or using their own seed.

Both the United States and Canadian Supreme Courts have upheld Monsanto in these controversial cases.

The imposition of Monsanto’s genetically altered crops and farm animals on the world and into the human food chain has begun to impact the health and safety of consumers.

Monsanto’s herbicidal chemical glyphosate has been linked to cancer and infertility in humans and animals. Lawsuits have been filed in various courts calling for a global ban. The chemical is the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide.

Reuters News reported that “environmentalists, consumer groups and plant scientists from several countries are warning that heavy use of (glyphosate) over the years is causing dangerous problems for plants, people and animals alike.”

Geneticist Jeffrey Smith reports that Glyphosate promotes the formation of certain types of fungi found dangerous to humans. This fungi contaminates the food fed to animals and placed on our tables. The Fusarium fungus has been linked to plague epidemics, cancer, infertility and animal diseases, Smith reports.

Residues of Roundup herbicide found in Monsanto’s GMO foods and animal feeds have been linked to cell damage. Researchers have found that it causes membrane and DNA damage, and inhibits cell respiration.

Another study reported by the International Journal of Biological Sciences reports a link between Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide-absorbing corn and organ damage in test rats.

The report states that “effects were mostly concentrated in kidney and liver function, the two major diet detoxification organs, but in detail different with each GM type. In addition, some effects on heart, adrenal, spleen and blood cells were also frequently noted.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Monsanto’s GMO corn based on the company’s own tests that involved a 90-day study which concluded the corn was safe for consumption.

(In case anyone has forgotten, Monsanto was the producer of the pesticide DDT before it was banned. Monsanto and Dow Chemical Corporation cooperated in the production of the toxic herbicide Agent Orange used by  the military to kill acres of foliage during the Vietnam War.)

The FDA also rolled over for Monsanto’s application to feed Posilac, a genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone known as Rbgh, to dairy cows. This product was sold to dairy farmers as a way of increasing milk production in cows by about eight to 12 pounds per day, thus increasing farm profits.

The United States is the only developed nation to permit humans to drink milk from cows that are fed rBGH. Posilac has been banned from use in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and all European Union countries.

One investigative report states that Monsanto lied when it listed the various amino acids within the 191 amino acid chain structure of rBGH. It said amino acid No. 144 was lysine, when in fact, it was a freak new creation produced in the process of making rBGH.

The Cancer Prevention Coalition has warned that rBGH research has indicated that consumption by humans may speed the growth of human breast and prostate cancers.

The Consumers Union carries the warnings even farther. It believes the hormone accelerates puberty in children and causes bone disease and other problems in cows.

Pasteurization does not destroy rBGH so people that consume milk from injected cows also receive this hormone directly into their bodies.

In spite of efforts by organic farmers to produce hormone free milk and milk products, it may be difficult for consumers to determine what is safe when they go to their grocery stores. Monsanto has actively sued dairies that advertize produce free of artificial growth hormones.

Ironically, it is the FDA, which is in place to protect the consumer that gives Monsanto the grounds for successful litigation against dairies. The FDA takes the position that there is no significant difference between milk produced by treated and untreated cows.

Perhaps the worst horror generated by Monsanto’s genetic influence on the world’s plant kingdom has been its spread of sterile seeds. If this continues unchecked for much longer it is very possible that Monsanto will have all but destroyed the natural pre-biotic chemistry that gives this planet life.

Geologists and Archaeologists have suspected that there have been various planet extinctions in the distant past, and that after each episode, the Earth has successfully regenerated life. Evidence found deep in the rocks suggests that intelligent civilizations much like our own existed here billions of years in the past.

The Genesis story of Noah, while considered a myth because of its technical impossibility, may be the author’s interpretation of a real extinction event in which a few humans and animals survived to regenerate life on the planet. Thus the DNA was brought forward in the plants and animals that sprang up from within the Mother Earth. How many times has this happened in the history of this planet?

Many believe that the Earth is heading for yet another mass extinction, mostly because of human intervention, overpopulation, excessive pollution, climate change and the consumption of most of the planet’s natural resources.

Under normal circumstances, the planet would be in a position to draw on its pre-biotic chemistry to begin a regeneration of life, beginning with basic one-celled beings. But if Monsanto has tampered excessively with this life chemistry, has this corporation destroyed any chance of a renewal of life on this world?

The writing may be on the wall: If life on Earth goes extinct this time, there may not be a revival.