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Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.organics4U.org
Human rights and international law are at issue when a GMO crop or animal is released. There is little doubt that unlabeled GMOs fed to animals, who incorporate the novel DNA into their own bodies and then feed them to humans when they are eaten, and crops, both edible and non edible, impact both those who ingest them and those who contact them, as they impact the environment.
The World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki makes clear that human experimentation in the absence of fully informed consent violates human rights and international law. The Nuremberg Code begins with the statement “The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonable to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.
The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.”
Unlabeled GMOs violate both of these important principles since the FDA refuses to assess safety of patented organisms and similarly refuses to allow accurate labeling. Without accurate labeling of the ingredients and products which have been modified, and in what way their have been modified, there is no possibility of treaceability.
Without traceability there is no possibility of epidemiology of contact or ingestion of GMOs. Without epidemeology there is no liability and with liability there is no corporate accountability.
This violates human rights, Precautionary Principle requirements, statutory responsibility and common sense. The Natural Solutions Foundation urges national and international policy and legal changes which protect the consumer, the consumer’s right to know, the principle of Informed Consent and legal right of ownership and trespass redress.
In the Court case concerning GMO alfalfa, the issue of one of environmental, animal health, human health and other impacts. In this case, the courts have chosen to protect the capacity of non GMO alfalfa growers to protect their fields from contamination. The natural alfalfa growers are asking to have the approval of the GMO variety until the USDA conducts an impact assessment. Such impact assessments are not required before a crop or animal can be grown or raised.
The FDA, operating on the unproven assumption that GMOs are equivalent in every way (with the exception of patent rights) to non GMOs, refuses safety data and prohibits labeling. The lack of GMO labeling, in turn, makes it impossible to determine health impacts and thus determine liability.
Opponents of GMO technology prior to clear demonstration of safety and without clear traceability of specific GMO strains, like the Natural Solutions Foundation cheer the Court’s action but want to see stronger protections in place along with sanctions against companies and others who permit escapes of technology which contaminates other crops and materials.
Current law in the United States permits the owner of the patent in the contaminating organism to demand compensation from the farmer whose land and property has been trespassed upon. Monsanto, for example, sues about 500 farmers a year whose lands are contaminated by their “volunteer” crops for intellectual property (IP) compensation for the contaminated crops which they have harvested. Typically, they win these cases.
The profound injustice of these laws pales in the face of the even more profound contamination of natural genetic stock and the fact that these escapes make it clear that conventional and GMO genotpes cannot co-exhist under current practices. Since the health and environmental damage brought about by GMOs is severe and the benefits, other than corporate profits, are illusory, it would behove municipaolities, States and national governments to make this technology illegal until the Precautionary Principle is satisfied and the safety of these organisms has been demonstrated.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.organics4U.org
Effects of genetically engineered alfalfa cultivate a debate
By Elizabeth Weise
Feb 18 2007
Source: USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO – The government was premature in deregulating production of alfalfa that is genetically engineered to resist a weed-killing herbicide, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture should not have acted as it did in 2005 without assessing the environmental effect of crops genetically modified to resist the herbicide Roundup, ruled U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer of the Northern District of California. The suit against the USDA was filed by the anti-biotech Center for Food Safety, the Sierra Club and organic alfalfa (hay) farmers. It accused the USDA of violating federal law by not requiring the environmental assessment.
Opponents of biotech crops, which are genetically engineered to have certain qualities, such as resistance to weed killers, have expressed concerns that they could interbreed with wild plants and create herbicide-resistant weeds.
Alfalfa is the nation’s fourth-largest crop and is fed to farm animals, especially dairy cattle.
“There’s potential for these crops to contaminate non-genetically engineered alfalfa,” says Will Rostov, senior attorney for the Center for Food Safety. This is particularly a concern for organic farmers, because genetically engineered plants cannot be sold as organic.
The Roundup Ready alfalfa cited in the suit was developed and sold by Forge Genetics of Minnesota, using technology from Monsanto. It allows growers to spray fields with Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, in which the chemical glyphosate is the active ingredient, killing weeds without hurting the alfalfa.
Monsanto submitted a detailed environmental analysis of the alfalfa to USDA, says company spokesman Chris Horner. “Reading the ruling, it’s unclear how much of that was taken into consideration.” All weeds built up resistance to herbicides over time, he says.
Breyer ruled that both sides must sit down together and propose remedies to him by Feb. 26.
Rostov says his group plans to push for an injunction on the planting, sale and distribution of Roundup Ready alfalfa until the USDA has done an impact assessment.
Only about 197,600 acres of the 22 million acres of the alfalfa grown in the USA in 2006 was genetically engineered, according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications.
The USDA is “very committed to protecting the environment” and is evaluating the ruling, says spokeswoman Rachel Iadicicco.
However, even if the USDA does an environmental assessment, it’s unclear that it would have any effect on whether or not Roundup Ready alfalfa can be sold.
The judge ruled that under the National Environmental Policy Act, the USDA must do an assessment if there was the potential for “a significant environmental impact.”
But under the Plant Protection Act, the basis for USDA’s regulatory authority, it can adopt regulations only to prevent the introduction and dissemination of plant pests.
“If they find that the only thing it does is cause organic farmers harm, that may be an environmental impact, but under the Plant Protection Act, it may not be something that (USDA) can take into consideration,” says Greg Jaffe, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s biotechnology project.
