crossposted from unbossed

It's an uneven battle for the truth, given Monsanto's money and its stable of people like who will promote Monsanto's profits over our health. Link.  One thing working in Monsanto's favor is that, when things seem complicated, most people will tune out or take the position that the truth likes somewhere between. Another is that Monsanto is well funded, while those who work to publicize the truth are not.

But you can help by being informed and telling others about these shenanigans. And there are other things you can do to support the truth tellers.

crossposted from unbossed

Say you were a blogger and had written, oh, say, 20 or more stories on issues related to the use of Monsanto's rBST in milk. And say each time you wrote about the issue, for example, that the Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture had created a fake consumer committee to assess milk labeling, you were asked: "So what's the story with rBST / rBGH?"

How do you explain why rBST in milk is a problem? Now there is an easy way to explain it all.

A number of recent incidents on the food and/or consumer safety front have been in the news recently, either here or in the traditional media (Salmonella tomatoes, e-coli beef, mad cow disease, downer cows, the spinach thing, Exxon oil spill, "murder by spreadsheet" in the health care industry, etc.).  While each of these individual problems have their own intricate proximate causes, they all have a linking thread that goes back to a core economic inefficiency in the American system.  In short, structural factors make cutting corners a "good idea" for companies when they engage in rational cost-benefit analysis.  

crossposted from unbossed

Let me see. How many ways has Monsanto used front groups, fake "astroturf" groups, and fake science to get people to (a) stop worrying about the effects of using rBST / rBGH / Posilac / recombinant bovine growth hormone to produce milk and (b) buy more milk produced? And now there's a new one that is a real hoot!

Did you know that injecting dairy cows with Monsanto's recombinant hormones will save the planet for global warming?

Well, if Monsanto says so and uses one of its bought and paid for "scientists" and a Monsanto chemist to do the "study", well, it must be true!

Just because you haven't heard much lately about the Monsanto campaign to take away our right to know how our milk is produced does not mean nothing is happening. In fact, in recent months, in state after state, Monsanto is continuing to push.

This time the state is New York. If you are in New York and want to know whether your milk comes from cows who are not given artificial hormones, then you need to get your comments in immediately. Details below.

As you probably have noticed, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is reporting that 167 people in 17 states have been fallen sick with salmonella after eating raw tomatoes, and at least 23 have been hospitalized. But, days later, FDA still hasn't identified one specific source of the tainted produce.

With food contamination emergencies regularly making headlines, one would expect the agency's Office of Inspector General, the designated internal watchdog, to be knee deep in investigations, audits and inspections, per its stated mission. But, food and other public health issues have received little attention at HHS and another public health agency, USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, both victims of a disease called "smaller government."

.
AND WHY DOESN'T ANYBODY KNOW?

SHIT HAPPENS. DID IT HAPPEN ON OUR TOMATOES?

The Real Question Is, How Can FOUR U.S. Gov't. Agcy's STILL Not Know, After Almost A Week? The Politics Of Food Safety:

CDC
Division of Foodborne, Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases
Salmonellosis
"Salmonella live in the intestinal tracts of humans and other animals, including birds. Salmonella are usually transmitted to humans by eating foods contaminated with animal feces. "

We all know that big business and their lackeys in the Republican Administration don't give a shit about public health. These are the people who mass-marketed you tobacco, alcohol, sugar-water, fast food, polyunsaturated fats, and even baby food with no food in it at all, just chemicals. And babies were their business, their only business.

[more after the jump]
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The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) has filed a Notice of Intent to sue the USDA and the Michigan Dept. of Agriculture to halt the implementation of NAIS. This is a great next step in protecting sustainable farms, affordable, available safe food and our right to choose our own food suppliers.

Farming is the heart of every country.  Corporate agriculture - INDUSTRIAL agriculture - is destroying it worldwide.  

Notice that after the vaunted "Green Revolution" and the much ballyhooed "biotech" solutions to food problems:

  the earth is swimming in 6-10 more pesticides than before GMOs,
  fishing stocks are failing because of run-off into oceans,
  prices on commodities are sky-rocketing,
  people are not seeing the great promised yields that were allegedly proposed to solve hunger,

but in fact:

It has been a pretty bad week for animals.  I would like to highlight some of these disturbing incidents and findings, one of which is receiving widespread media traction, the others are sort of flying under the radar.

We all know about what happened to the race horse Eight Belles after her second place finish at the Kentucky Derby.  Also making national news were the illegal shooting deaths of a 3 elephant seals in San Simeon, California and 6 Sea Lions laying in government approved open traps on the Columbia River at the border of Washington and Oregon. Finally, the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service found humane handling violations of cattle at some of the nations largest meat processing plants during a review of slaughterhouses providing meat to the National School Lunch Program.

On Friday - April 25, 2008, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Mark Nolt, a Wenger Mennonite (Horse and Buggy Mennonite) dairyman, threatened for months with arrest for selling raw milk without a permit was removed from his property by state troopers.  

Jonas Stoltzfus, a friend, fellow farmer, and Church of the Brethen, was asked by Mr. Nolt to speak for him, and said of the raid yesterday - "Six state troopers and Bill Chirdon of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture trespassed onto his property, and stole $20-25,000 of his product and equipment."  

Mr. Stoltzfus explained that Mr. Nolt did not have a permit because "he chose to turn his permit back in because it did not cover all the products he was selling.  He felt he was being dishonest selling stuff that was not covered by the permit.  He is a man of great integrity."  

Food safety is of great importance to the UFW and its supporters. It's been in the headlines often because of this Feb. '08's beef recall and the Sept. '06 e-coli outbreak in the spinach that caused hundreds of illnesses and several deaths.

Therefore we wanted to immediately share a report that was released for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The report examines the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA's) efforts to protect the safety of packaged fresh spinach. Please take immediate action and tell your congress members to make food safety a priority. Let them know we are tired of the FDA putting our safety at risk.

crossposted from unbossed

Today, April 7, is the deadline to sign up to participate in the Pennsylvania hearings whose main purpose seems to be to go after rBST-free milk, this time via a hearing on milk pricing.

And it is also the day a letter was sent to Ohio Governor Ted Strickland by public interest groups asking him not to bar us from knowing whether rBST has been used in producing our milk.

USDA releases School Districts that got recalled beef

The U.S. Department of Agriculture released a list Thursday of all school districts nationwide that received beef included in last month's recall of 143 million pounds from a California slaughterhouse.

The 226-page document listed "school food authorities" - the rough equivalent of school districts - that received the meat. It was released after pressure from federal lawmakers, including Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, D-Conn.

I frantically searched the PDF of School Districts that had received the tainted/recalled beef.  Did it go to my children’s school?
I silently cried in relief when I saw that my children’s school district was not on the list.  But then I saw that my friends and family members’ school districts locally were on the list!
I feel ashamed for my relief that at least the beef did not make it to my sons’ lunchroom.
The downer-cow beef did make it to the school lunch rooms of my nieces and nephews, and friend’s.

What do these two have in common apart from being sticky when baked at high temperature? Well, there's international concern about the safety of Italy's famous buffalo mozzarella cheese, a product that is manufactured almost entirely in the Campania region around Naples. Concerns were expressed from both South Korea and Japan (big importers) to the point of having it banned for the time being. Tests showed that excessive levels of dioxin were found in the fabled cheese by Italian health officials last week. What's more, the European commission confirmed yesterday that health commissioner Androula Vassiliou had asked the Italian authorities to provide information with regards to the tests. Italy produces 33,000 tonnes of mozzarella per year, some 80 percent of it in Campania, where a quarter of a million buffalo are farmed to produce milk for the product.

Update: France has now banned all mozzarella coming from the Campania region. Just saw that on France 24.

crossposted from unbossed

When Wal-Mart decided to go rBST-free last week,  Monsanto knew it was in big trouble. So it's pulling out the big guns.

Yes, when the going gets tough, Monsanto's astroturf groups get going.

crossposted from unbossed

You read it at here months ago. Amidst the victory celebrations when the harshest form of milk labeling ban failed in Pennsylvania, I predicted that this was not the end. I predicted that Monsanto and its wholly owned subsidiary army of minions would continue to push in many and insidious ways to make the world safe for rBST.  Here are some links you will find useful if you are new to this issue. link here  and here  and here  and here

So, Pennsylvanians, get ready again. The newest attack on your right to drink milk produced by cows not injected with rBST is on.

crossposted from unbossed

The Philadelphia Inquirer was the first to sound the alarm about Monsanto's campaign to censor milk labels and take our right to know how our food is produced. The story was picked up and moved forward by local independent papers such as Voices of Central Pennsylvania and the Williamsport Guardian.

But the newspaper that has really dug into the subject has been the New York Times. So here in chronological order is the story as carried by the Times this past year. Interesting where it has been carried as opinion or as news.