15 Die From Mass Food Poisoning

Peace FM, Dec. 6, 2010

As Ghana marked the 26th National Farmers’ Day with a holiday last Friday, disturbing reports from the Upper East Region indicated that 15 persons had died from eating food poisoned with insecticides.

The Upper East Regional Coordinating Council claimed later at a news conference that only 12 persons had died as a result of what they described as “misapplication of agro-chemicals or the use of fake agro-chemicals by some farmers to fertilise their crops in these areas.”

Farmers were advised to read or seek information from any extension worker on the methods of applying agro-chemicals, especially when they were in doubt or dealing with agro-chemicals containing Endo-Sulphar.

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New Scientist plants false story that Pope approves GM crops

Infowars Ireland, Dec. 4, 2010

Talk about psyops. If you can’t get the people to eat your dangerous, unwanted frankenfoods, just lie and say the Pope approves it. On November 30, the magazine, New Scientist, published “Vatican scientists urge support for engineered crops,” which the Vatican immediately denied.

“The Vatican did not endorse an 11-page final statement in favor of easing restrictions on and allowing more widespread use of genetically modified crops, especially in poorer nations,” a Vatican official said in a statement published by Catholic News Service.

In fact, “the Vatican has never taken a formal position supporting or opposing genetically modified foods,” reported CNS.

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S.510 and Codex Link: Tracking, Tracing, and Monitoring Independent Food Production

Regulated Out of Existence by S.510

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post, Dec. 4, 2010

 Being honest, I must confess some slight personal agitation at the thought of writing another article on yet another “food safety” bill making its way through congress with the words “tyranny” and “Codex” written all over it. It seems that every legislative session, we are faced with the prospect of the same food bill cloaked in a different name. Invariably, this bill seeks to corral all food production into the hands of a few major corporations and essentially destroy the ability of the population to feed themselves. Here in late 2010, we have the new version of food imperialism known as S.510, the Food Safety Modernization Act.

While it is true that S.510 contains new and improved tyrannical sections that are unique specifically to it, the truth is that it is merely a repackaging of past bills (See here and here ) and attempts to control people through food. It is also yet another attempt to implement Codex Alimentarius guidelines under the guise of domestic legislation.

One example of hidden Codex guidelines in the Food Safety Modernization Act are the overly broad provisions regarding “traceability.” The desire for enhanced traceability of food products is sold to the public as a desire to better respond to food-borne illnesses and follow them back to their source. However, as with almost anything that comes out of the mouth of government, there is a more sinister role that traceability programs have to play.

Essentially, traceability has little to do with food safety in this context. While no one could argue being able to trace food contamination back to the source is a bad thing, the fact is that these mechanisms already exist. Unfortunately, they are generally ignored and unused when it comes to adverse health effects related to food produced by multinational food corporations. While there is always an exception to the rule, it is a fact that international corporations are by far the source of food adulteration more often than small independent farms.

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Adventures in Ghostwriting: Big Pharma’s Very Own Textbook

FairWarning.org, Nov. 30, 2010

A major drug maker and its consultants provided substantial content for a medical text that was later credited to a pair of prominent physicians, The New York Times reports.

The book–”Recognition and Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders: A Psychopharmacology Handbook for Primary Care”– was published in 1999, and ostensibly co-authored by Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff, currently chairman of psychiatry at the University of Miami medical school, and Dr. Alan F. Schatzberg, who until last year was chairman of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Its purpose was to advise family doctors on the treatment of psychiatric disorders.

“To ghostwrite an entire textbook is a new level of chutzpah,” Dr. David A. Kessler, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, told the Times. “I’ve never heard of that before. It takes your breath away.”

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Big Pharma Is Watching You

MoneyWatch.com, Dec. 2, 2010

The way things stand now, consumers’ personal information — often sensitive stuff about our health — is being sold without our knowledge or consent to on-line marketers; they then use it to bombard us with sales pitches for expensive drugs, medical devices and even surgical procedures.

How does this happen? Let’s say that you’ve had a pain in your chest for the past two days. If you’re anything like me, you can’t wait to see a doctor. Instead you rush to your trusty computer and google “heart attack” or “chest pain” and try to figure out by wading through scores of websites, blogs, scholarly medical journals and interactive quizzes, whether you should call 911 immediately or stop snacking on Jalapeno peppers.

But when you make such a query, according to a 144-page complaint filed last week with the FTC by several consumer groups (the Center for Digital Democracy, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Consumer Watchdog and the World Privacy Forum), mechanisms designed to pick up your medical information are lurking everywhere. “Consumers now confront a sophisticated and largely stealth interactive medical marketing apparatus that has unleashed an arsenal of techniques designed to promote the use of specific brand drugs and influence consumers about treatment for health conditions,” states the complaint.

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“Unconstitutional” food bill driven by Big Food lobby dollars

Global Research, Dec. 4, 2010

While over 200 organizations lobbied on the Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510), no one seemed to notice an unconstitutional section in the bill until after it passed on Tuesday. That day, Roll Call advised that the bill contained a provision, Sec. 107, allowing the Senate to raise revenues. This violates Article I, Section 7, of the U.S. Constitution, granting that power exclusively to the House. S.510 opponents now celebrate the House’s use of the “blue slip process” to return the bill to the Senate.

After S.510 passed, President Obama issued a statement: “I urge the House — which has previously passed legislation demonstrating its strong commitment to making our food supply safer — to act quickly on this critical bill, and I applaud the work that was done to ensure its broad bipartisan passage in the Senate.”

Apparently, the Senate moved too quickly. Their overreach only supports the natural foods movement assertion that the entire bill is over-reaching as the federal government seeks complete control over local foods.

In an email, Canada Health whistleblower Shiv Chopra noted, “It is all about corporate control of food and public health.” He’s not alone in believing that a ‘hidden corporate agenda’ is driving the federal government to impose itself on local food production and distribution.

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Calif approves use of pesticide linked to cancer

Yahoo News

FRESNO, Calif. – California regulators approved a pesticide Wednesday for use by fruit and vegetable growers despite heavy opposition from environmental and farmworker groups that cited its links to cancer.

The state Department of Pesticide Regulation will register methyl iodide as a substitute for the pesticide methyl bromide, which is being phased out by international treaty because it depletes the Earth's protective ozone layer.

California's $1.6 billion strawberry industry will undoubtedly provide one of the biggest markets for the chemical, as will the Central Valley's nut orchards and the fresh flower nurseries dotting the coast in Ventura and San Diego counties.
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