Eight Ways Monsanto is Destroying Our Health

Eight Ways Monsanto is Destroying Our Health

March 31, 2011

Yahoo Green! - Lots of talk these days about the bullying of young boys and girls in school by more aggressive students. This brings to my mind the biggest bully of all: the biotech company, Monsanto Corporation.

Taken in context, Monsanto’s list of corporate crimes should have been enough to pull their corporate charter years ago. And yet we allow them to continue to destroy our food supply, our health and the planet. Monsanto or Monsatan?

Take a look at the company’s track record and decide for yourself.

Agent Orange: Monsanto was the major financial beneficiary of this herbicide used to defoliate the jungles of Vietnam and destroy the health of American troops and their offspring. It also allowed Monsanto and other chemical companies to appeal for and receive protection from veterans seeking damages for their exposure to Agent Orange and any future biotech creations.

Aspartame: As far back as 1994, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a report listing 94 health issues caused by aspartame. It has been shown to cause slow but serious damage to the human body and yet it is used extensively in many commercial products.

Saccharin: Studies have shown that saccharin caused cancer in test rats and mice; and in six human studies, including one done by the National Cancer Institute, that consuming artificial sweeteners, such as saccharin and cyclamate, resulted in bladder cancer.

Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH): A genetically modified hormone injected into dairy cows to produce more milk, despite the fact that more milk was needed. The cows suffer excruciating pain due to swollen udders and mastitis. The pus from the infection enters the milk supply requiring more antibiotics to be given to the cows. BST milk may also cause breast cancer, colon cancer, and prostate cancer in humans.

RoundUp: The world's most commonly used herbicide and weed killer has been linked to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, in a study by eminent oncologists Dr. Lennart Hardell and Dr. Mikael Eriksson of Sweden. Used on genetically modified crops resistant to RoundUp's active ingredient glyphosate, environmentalists and health professionals are concerned that far from reducing herbicide use, glyphosate-resistant crops may result in increased residues in food to which consumers will be exposed.

Genetically Modified Crops (GMO): Monsanto created Frankenfoods by gene-splicing corn, cotton, soy, and canola with DNA from a foreign source. Consequently these crops are resistant to massive doses of the herbicide, RoundUp, but in turn herbicide-resistant superweeds are taking over. After running into resistance in the west, Monsanto is pushing GMO crops in third-world countries.

According to physicist, ecologist, and activist Dr. Vandana Shiva,

“Syugenta and Monsanto are rushing ahead with the mapping and patenting of the rice genome. If they could, they would own rice and its genes, even though the 200,000 rice varieties that give us diverse traits have been bred and evolved by rice farmers of Asia collectively over millennia. Their claim to inventing rice is a violence against the integrity of biodiversity and life forms; it is a violence against the knowledge of third-world farmers.”

Terminator Seeds: A technology that produces sterile grains unable to germinate, forcing farmers to buy seeds from Monsanto rather than save and reuse the seeds from their harvest. Terminators can cross-pollinate and contaminate local non-sterile crops putting in danger the future seed supply and eventually giving control of the world’s food supply to Monsanto and the GM industry.

Standard American Diet: According to the Organic Consumers Association,

“There is a direct correlation between our genetically engineered food supply and the $2 trillion the U.S. spends annually on medical care, namely an epidemic of diet-related chronic diseases.

“Instead of healthy fruits, vegetables, grains, and grass-fed animal products, U.S. factory farms and food processors produce a glut of genetically engineered junk foods that generate heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. Low fruit and vegetable consumption is directly costing the United States $56 billion a year in diet-related chronic diseases.”

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