US birthrate hits all-time low due to weak economy

*During the recession, the birthrate dropped after a high in 2007

*The recession has been officially over for four years

*The birthrate hit an all-time low in 2011 and stayed there in 2012

*Economic uncertainty coupled with a general trend towards fewer births means there may not be a bounce-back in birthrate

The recession has been over for four years, but the birth rate in the U.S. continues to fall as many people struggle with a sluggish economy and financial uncertainty.

According to a recent analysis by the Pew Institute, since 2007 when there were a record 4,316,233 births, the number of births has been steadily declining, with 4,007,000 births in 2012 - the lowest number since 1998. Analysts say that the birthrate is dictated by the economy.

'When times are up, births go up,' D’Vora Cohn, a senior writer at Pew Research Center, told Today. 'When times are bad, births go down.'

Despite the recession being officially over for four years, the weak recovery and economic uncertainty has resulted in the national birthrate hitting an all-time low in 2011, and staying there in 2012. Read more >>

71% of Britons believe GM food and meat from animals fed on GM food should be banned

Available at Amazon 

A recent survey found that 71 per cent of Britons believe GM food, and meat from animals fed on GM food, should be banned from supermarkets. A further 15 per cent are ‘undecided’. In other words, just over one in ten thinks it’s a good idea.

But in modern government, where big policy decisions are taken behind closed doors, the opinions of ordinary folk play second fiddle to the self-interested demands of big business.
The GM industry’s wealthy — but little-known — trade body, the Agricultural Biotechnology Council [ABC], seems to have decided it had a sporting chance of converting David Cameron and his administration to its cause.

Last June, it duly invited a selection of Tory ministers, high-ranking MPs and top civil servants to attend a round table discussion about GM at the Westminster Conference Centre in central London.

To the ABC’s surprise and delight, several accepted. On paper, the summit, inside a steel and glass building a stone’s throw from the Houses of Parliament, couldn’t have sounded more anodyne.

Headlined Going For Growth and held in an air-conditioned upstairs boardroom, it was billed as an informal talk between politicians and industry experts hoping to find ways of ‘realising the potential of agricultural technologies in the UK’. Read more >>

Diplomatic cables reveal aggressive GMO lobbying by US officials overseas

American diplomats lobbied aggressively overseas to promote genetically modified (GM) food crops such as soy beans, an analysis of official cable traffic revealed on Tuesday.

The review of more than 900 diplomatic cables by the campaign group Food and Water Watch showed a carefully crafted campaign to break down resistance to GM products in Europe and other countries, and so help promote the bottom line of big American agricultural businesses.

The cables, which first surfaced with the Wikileaks disclosures two years ago, described a series of separate public relations strategies, unrolled at dozens of press junkets and biotech conferences, aimed at convincing scientists, media, industry, farmers, elected officials and others of the safety and benefits of GM products.

The report offers a further glimpse of the power of the agricultural and biotech industries in America, after the supreme court came down on the side of Monsanto in its effort to enforce its patented GM soybeans. The court ruled on Monday that an Indiana farmer had to buy new seeds directly from Monsanto every time he planted the GM Roundup Ready soybeans.

The public relations effort unrolled by the State Department also ventured into legal terrain, according to the report. US officials stationed overseas opposed GM food labelling laws as well as rules blocking the import of GM foods. Read more >>

Citizens Call for GMO Labeling in Washington – The Movement Continues

Once again the fight for GMO labeling has reignited with the introduction of a new GMO labeling bill, but this time in Washington. The “Label it Wa” campaign has already gained 350,000 signatures, and is finally headed to the Secretary of State’s office in Olympia for submission. As the movement comes during the same time that a New Mexico law calls for mandatory labeling of GMOs, it is obvious that individuals everywhere are still deeply concerned over the issue of GMOs.

If you aren’t concerned about GMOs, or think that foods aren’t labeled due to a lack of support over the issue, think again. In addition to being linked to weight gain and disrupting vital organs like the liver, GMO foods have actually been shown to cause massive tumors in rats, in addition to causing early death. Even more concerning is the fact that nearly 80% of the US food supply contains GMO ingredients. Ingredients that are likely created by biotech giant Monsanto, who is responsible for upwards of 90 plus percent of the world’s GM seed supply.

Perhaps this is why grassroots movements are popping up all around the country, and other nations have already taken a stand against GMOs. Despite the largest GMO labeling campaign Prop 37 taking a dive (due to false advertising and quite possibly questionable vote counting), still over 90 percent of citizens in the United States are heavy supporters of GMO labeling legislation. Read more >>

Millions of GMO Mosquitoes Released Without Risk Assessment or Oversight

Look out people of planet earth, genetically engineered bugs are here. Just in case you haven’t figured it out yet, our technocracy is working ever diligently on genetically engineering every last living cell on the planet – WITHOUT EXCEPTION. What does this mean for life here on earth?

Ever hear the expression “soup sandwich?” Well, after these “scientific” geniuses are through with us, that is exactly what all life will be – a genetic soup sandwich, made in a lab, and stamped with a corporate logo embedded in our DNA.

If the following report from Testbiotech doesn’t send chills up your spine, I don’t know what will. Get ready world, because nothing will ever be the same. Ever. There is no remediation technique available to clean up genetically engineered mutations released into the wild and spread through horizontal gene transfer. Read more >>

Monsanto and Company raise $46 million to defeat GMO labeling in California

Voters spurned a ballot measure that would have made California the first in the nation to affix labels on breakfast cereals, baked goods and other processed foods containing genetically modified ingredients.

The rejection Wednesday followed an expensive offense from agribusiness and chemical conglomerates, which raised $46 million to blitz airwaves and mailboxes with negative advertising.
With 82 percent of precincts reporting, Proposition 37 failed 54 percent to 46 percent.

Consumer activists and the organic food industry said shoppers crave information about what they're eating and should be given all the information they need to decide for themselves whether to buy products containing genetically altered ingredients. Read more >>

Russia suspends import and use of American GM corn after study revealed cancer risk

Russia has suspended the import and use of an American GM corn following a study suggesting a link to breast cancer and organ damage. Separately, the European Food Safety Authority(EFSA), has ordered its own review in to the research, which was conducted at a French university. The decision by Russia could be followed by other nations in what would be a severe blow to the take-up of the controversial technology.

Historically, biotech companies have proved the safety of GM crops based on trials involving feeding rats for a period of 90 days. However, experts at the University of Caen conducted an experiment running for the full lives of rats - two years. The findings, which were peer reviewed by independent experts before being published in a respected scientific journal, found raised levels of breast cancer, liver and kidney damage.


The same trials also found evidence that consumption of minuscule amounts of a commonly used weedkiller, Roundup, was associated with a raised risk of cancer. Both the GM corn, which carries the name NK603, and Roundup are the creation of US biotech company Monsanto. The decision by the Russians to suspend authorisation for the American GM corn threatens to trigger a transatlantic commercial and diplomatic row. Read more >>

DHS Working for Monsanto

One can see their not very subtle desperation to shut down all questions about their GMOs in the bill proposed in India, that would set up a biotech regulatory authority and laws to imprison anyone who even dared to bring up the issue of the safety of GMOs (including in vaccines, which now contain GMOs with news equally dire). The Indian bill has been called “unconstitutional, unethical, unscientific,” which is practically a nickname for Monsanto at this point.

But however outrageous the efforts to force GMOs onto India, they are small potatoes compared to what Monsanto and the biotech industry have done behind the scenes in the US where they have arranged for Homeland Security to define organic food – the only safe food – as a bio-security threat. They are clearly not happy about the unpatented, free for the taking, biodiversity people are working to save – open pollinated seeds and crops, as well as heritage animals raised on small farms.

As is Monsanto’s modus operandi, reality has been turned on its head, such that GMO seeds and only crops raised on giant mono-culture GMO farms and sprayed with deadly pesticides, and only animals trapped in animal prisons (CAFOs – controlled animal feeding operations) where they are fed on GMOs with pesticides, antibiotics, and hormones, have now been defined as “normal” and what actually is normal (and safe) has been defined as a threat. Read more >>

The GMO debate is over; GM crops must be immediately outlawed; Monsanto halted

The GMO debate is over. There is no longer any legitimate, scientific defense of growing GM crops for human consumption. The only people still clinging to the outmoded myth that "GMOs are safe" are scientific mercenaries with financial ties to Monsanto and the biotech industry.

GMOs are an anti-human technology. They threaten the continuation of life on our planet. They are a far worse threat than terrorism, or even the threat of nuclear war.

As a shocking new study has graphically shown, GMOs are the new thalidomide. When rats eat GM corn, they develop horrifying tumors. Seventy percent of females die prematurely, and virtually all of them suffer severe organ damage from consuming GMO. These are the scientific conclusions of the first truly "long-term" study ever conducted on GMO consumption in animals, and the findings are absolutely horrifying. (See pictures of rats with tumors, below.)

What this reveals is that genetic engineering turns FOOD into POISON. Read more >>

One of The Most Important Films You Will Ever Watch on Genetically Modified Foods

Watch entire film for free until Sept 22, 2012

This seminal documentary provides compelling evidence to help explain the deteriorating health of populations being exposed to genetically modified (GM) foods. Besides the impressive and reputable experts who share their knowledge on GM foods, it offers a recipe for protecting ourselves and our future.

When the US government ignored repeated warnings by its own scientists and allowed untested genetically modified (GM) crops into our environment and food supply, it was a gamble of unprecedented proportions. The health of all living things and all future generations were put at risk by an infant technology.

After two decades, physicians and scientists have uncovered a grave trend. The same serious health problems found in lab animals, livestock, and pets that have been fed GM foods are now on the rise in the US population. And when people and animals stop eating genetically modified organisms (GMOs), their health improves.

Source:
geneticroulettemovie.com

GMOs cause animals to lose their ability to reproduce, Russian scientists discover

A study presented at the Days of Defense Against Environmental Hazards in Russia has unveiled once again the implicit dangers associated with the consumption of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). According to Voice of Russia, scientists from the National Association for Gene Security and the Institute of Ecological and Evolutional Problems discovered that animals fed GMOs as part of their normal diet eventually develop the inability to reproduce.

A shocking revelation; the study is one of several that has identified a link between GMO consumption and infertility in recent years. And because it was conducted independently of the biotechnology industry, it came to far different conclusions than have most of the studies offered up for mainstream consumption in defense of GMOs.

Using hamsters as the test subjects, scientists observed that consumption of GM soybeans, which have never been a part of these creatures' normal diets, tended to slow sexual maturity and gradually eliminate the ability to reproduce. After several generations, hamsters consuming the "Frankensoy" eventually lost their innate ability to reproduce.

"We selected several groups of hamsters, kept them in pairs in cells and gave them ordinary food as always," said Dr. Alexei Surov, one of the authors of the study. "We did not add anything for one group but the other was fed with soya that contained no GM components, while the third group with some content of Genetically Modified Organisms and the fourth one with increased amount of GMO." Read more >>

Superbug vs. Monsanto: Nature Rebels Against Biotech Titan

A growing number of rootworms are now able to devour genetically modified corn specifically designed by Monsanto to kill those same pests. A new study shows that while the biotech giant may triumph in Congress, it will never be able to outsmart nature.

Western corn rootworms have been able to harmlessly consume the genetically modified maize, a research paper published in the latest issue of the journal GM Crops & Food reveals. A 2010 sample of the rootworm population had an elevenfold survival rate on the genetically modified corn compared to a control population. That’s eight times more than the year before, when the resistant population was first identified.

Battle Brewing Over Labeling of Genetically Modified Food

AMY HARMON and ANDREW POLLACK
The New York Times
For more than a decade, almost all processed foods in the United States — cereals, snack foods, salad dressings — have contained ingredients from plants whose DNA was manipulated in a laboratory. Regulators and many scientists say these pose no danger. But as Americans ask more pointed questions about what they are eating, popular suspicions about the health and environmental effects of biotechnology are fueling a movement to require that food from genetically modified crops be labeled, if not eliminated.