The Natural Solutions Foundation, the leading Global Health Freedom organization, is proud to present this information to you. We protect your right to know about – and to use – natural ways to maintain and regain your health, no matter where in the world you live. Among your freedoms is the right to clean, unadulterated food free of genetic manipulation, pesticides, heavy metals or other contaminants and access to herbs, supplements, frequency devices and other means as therapies that may benefit or to protect your well-being without drugs and other dangerous interventions, if you choose.
For more information on our global programs, including the International Decade of Nutrition, and our US based ones, please visit us at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org and www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org and join the free email list for the Health Freedom eAlerts to keep you in the loop, informed and active defending your right to make your own decisions about your health and wellbeing!
Our activities are supported 100% by your tax deductible donations. Please give generously (https://staging.drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?page_id=189) to the Natural Solutions Foundation. Thank you for your support.
Feel free to disseminate this information as widely as possible with full attribution.
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
An internal audit by the USDA in December, 2006 made it clear that he USDA did not require a paper trail to document field trials, safety and controls for pharmaceutical GMO crops. Instead, the USDA relied on the assurances of the companies involved that every aspect of the trials, including tracking, precautions against accidental genetic contamination of nearby crops and other organisms (e.g., insects, animals, humans) who might come into contact with the experimental GMO was well controlled and that there were no dangers to crops, animals or humans from the trial.
Beyer appears to have proven unworthy of that trust when it allowed contamination of nearby rice crops to continue for five years after its pharmaceutically modified rice plants escaped control. By the time the contamination was made public, conventional and organic rice contaminated with Beyer’s GMO rice trait were widespread throughout the south eastern US. Japan and the EU had banned all long grain rice imports. Rice farmers in Louisiana, a former major rice growing area, had discovered that their crops were contaminated and many switched to other crops since growing uncontaminated rice was impossible.
The USDA then retroactively approved the rice for human consumption.
Beyer found a perfect strategy to shift blame away from itself: blame the farmers and the Lord.
The ease of contamination and dispersal of GMOs during field trials and the lack of responsible behavior of a major biotech company, matched with the very large number of similar “escapes” and “volunteerism” of genetically modified crops should serve as a cautionary lessor for any governmental organism considering approval of either food, non food or pharmaceutical crops and animals.
As with the GM rice in this long-standing escape, 20 genetically modified piglets used in trials at a University in Florida wound up in the food supply. What the consequences of these contaminations, and all of the others which occur at a huge rate, might be is unknown. What is known is that these escapes occur and there is currently nothing that can be done to repair the genetic and health damage which they do once they have occurred.
The Natural Solutions Foundation advocates a more prudent course of action: apply the precautionary principle to prohibit these organisms unless and until their safety has been demonstrated in open trials available for replication and peer evaluation by members of the medical and scientific community without conflicts of interest.
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
Biotech firm blames farmers, act of God for rice contamination
By Matt Sanders
Nov 25 2006
Source: Southeast Missourian
Bayer CropScience says rice farmers and an “act of God” are to blame for the contamination of local rice crops with an unapproved genetically modified strain — contamination that led to class action lawsuits filed in federal court in Missouri.
The company, based in Research Park Triangle, N.C., cited those reasons in a response to a lawsuit filed earlier this year after contaminated crops were discovered this summer.
“First, you have to understand that genetically altered crops are kind of like dynamite and electricity,” said Cape Girardeau lawyer Michael Ponder. “They’re going to escape and blow up and hurt someone no matter how careful you are. For them to blame on farmers or an act of God, is irrelevant.”
Ponder filed a suit on behalf of three Southeast Missouri rice farmers in September alleging Bayer was responsible for economic losses sustained by those farmers as a result of the contamination. The strain that contaminated local crops was designed to be resistant to herbicides. Contamination was found at Riceland Foods Inc. processing plants in Missouri and Arkansas and announced in August.
A drop in prices for rice followed the discovery, as Japan suspended imports of U.S. long-grain rice and the European Union required extensive testing of all rice shipments.
St. Louis lawyer Don Downing agrees with Ponder. Downing said under Missouri law the creator of the genetically modified strain is responsible for any harm that strain caused regardless of how the contamination occurred.
“Whether anybody can point to specific acts, Bayer is still legally responsible,” Downing said.
Downing represents 279 clients from Missouri and Arkansas in a federal suit filed in U.S. District Court in September.
Bayer’s ideas about how the contamination occurred where expressed in a 30-page document answering all the charges alleged in the suit filed by Downing. Bayer representatives were not available Wednesday afternoon.
Downing says Bayer’s claims in the document don’t carry much weight.
“They basically have thrown in everything they can imagine, and some of those defenses appear imaginary,” Downing said. “I guess I would say that certainly the Almighty is not to blame for this problem.”
Downing and others suing Bayer say not only are farmers affected economically by the drop in rice prices, but they will also have to pay for extensive cleanup to make sure none of the contamination remains in equipment and processing facilities. One of the most contaminated strains of rice is the Chienere rice planted by many Missouri rice farmers, Downing said. Missouri rice farmers are concentrated from Scott County south to the Arkansas border.
Ponder and Downing said the losses are currently being assessed by agricultural economists.
A multidistrict panel of federal judges will meet Nov. 30 to decide whether to consolidate the class-action suits filed throughout the American rice-growing region into one. If they do, Downing said, it’s possible that the suit could be heard in Missouri’s Eastern District.
