Big Pharma wants nano-scavengers in its drugs
By Rady Ananda
Activist Post
To clean up its drugs that are contaminated with genotoxic ingredients (which are also carcinogenic), Big Pharma may deploy lab-created, nanosized, polymer-based scavengers.
But is the cure any safer?
New research explains that:
A variety of chemical compounds, intermediates, and reagents are used during the process of synthesizing active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Some of these chemicals, intermediates, and reagents, as well as byproducts of synthetic processes, can have toxic properties and be present as impurities at low levels in the API or final drug formulation....
The kinetics of acrolein scavenging in the presence of the API iodixanol and the scavenging capacity of resins were demonstrated in this paper.
They found a nanopolymer so efficient it cleans up 97.8% of acrolein without eating the active pharmaceutical components.
Yum… drugs with nanobots.
PermalinkOccupy Monsanto Genetic Crimes Unit invades Congress and Natural Products Expo
By Rady Ananda
Food Freedom
North America’s largest trade show for natural products learned a dramatic lesson in hypocrisy last week when Occupy Monsanto members of the “Genetic Crimes Unit” showed up in biohazard suits, to highlight the hidden GMOs in most “natural” products.
Occupy Monsanto will target Congress tomorrow, March 16, again wearing bio-hazmat suits “to highlight how chemical company Monsanto is contaminating our political process,” the group has announced.
“The GCU opposes Monsanto’s bid to increase spraying of food with toxic weed killers like 2,4 D (the main ingredient in Agent Orange), genetic contamination of the organic food supply, and other risks associated with genetically modified food (GMOs).”
GCU spokesman David Bronner told OC, “We are approaching this as a necessary civil defense against the unknown long-term effects of eating GMO foods currently under investigation by the GCU.”
Monsanto-FDA’s Michael Taylor to Keynote Food Safety Town Hall
By Rady Ananda
Activist Post
An agtivist with chutzpa might want to perform a GMO label action at the Food Safety Summit where Monsanto-lobbyist-now-Obama’s-Food-Safety-Czar, Michael R. Taylor, plans to wax tyrannical at a Town Hall on April 19.
For a mere grand, you can attend the entire 3-day Food Safety Summit set for April 17-19 in Washington, D.C. There you’ll get to hear Taylor describe how federal and state regulators will manage the inspectional requirements of the boondoggle Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).
Frito-Lay sued for labeling its GMO-filled snacks as “All Natural”
By Rady Ananda
Less than a year after Frito-Lay announced plans to make half their products without “any artificial or synthetic ingredients,” the $13 billion company was sued last week in federal court for fraudulently marketing the snacks that contain genetically modified ingredients.
Somehow, “artificial” and “synthetic” doesn’t include “genetically modified” in Frito’s mind.
In its April 2011 “Seed-to-Shelf” disclosure campaign, Frito-Lay promised to inform consumers about each individual snack’s ingredients, even setting up an app for smartphone users to swipe the product’s barcode and read about it. Ann Mukherjee, Frito-Lay’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, gushed:
Global milk war ramps up as citizens face off with regulators
By Rady Ananda
The battle for food freedom intensifies across the planet as citizens assert their right to raw dairy products unadulterated by drugs and genetically modified ingredients – in the face of authorities seeking to restrict our food choices and to criminalize entrepreneurs who operate outside the monopolized factory food system.
The State of Maine recently sued farmer Dan Brown for selling food and milk without State licenses, despite a local law that permits it. “Blue Hill is one of five Maine towns to have passed the Local Food and Community Self-Governance Ordinance,” explains Family Farm Defenders.
Santa Cruz adopts food freedom resolution supporting private herd shares
By Rady Ananda
Food Freedom
On Sept. 13, California’s Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a “Resolution Recognizing the Rights of Individuals to Grow and Consume Their Own Food and to Enter into Private Contracts with Other Individuals to Board Animals for Food.” [pdf]
Though only symbolic, the Resolution memorializes public assertion of the right to grow and eat food of their own choosing, and to collectively share in private herds, free from government interference.
This was done in response to armed raids on private food clubs and herd shares, as well as “cease and desist” letters sent by the state’s Dept. of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to small farmers and herd share owners.
USGS: Glyphosate pollutes air, rain and rivers in US
By Rady Ananda
Two new studies by the U.S. Geological Survey reveal the pervasive spread of the biocide, glyphosate, mostly used as a weedkiller for crops genetically engineered to resist it.
Used in formulations by Monsanto, Bayer, Dow and others, glyphosate has been linked to spontaneous abortions in livestock, birth defects in humans, insect resistance, and weed resistance.
Worse, regulators have known for years of these links, Earth Open Source reported.
Monsanto GM Corn in Peril: Beetle develops Bt-resistance
By Rady Ananda
Food Freedom
Nature herself may be the best opponent of genetically modified crops and pesticides. Not only plants, but insects are also developing resistance. The Western rootworm beetle – one of the most serious threats to corn – has developed resistance to Monsanto’s Bt-corn, and entire crops are being lost.
Farmers from several Midwest states began reporting root damage to corn that was specifically engineered with a toxin to kill the rootworm. Iowa State University entomologist Aaron Gassmann recently confirmed that the beetle, Diabrotica virgifera virgifera, has developed resistance to the Bt protein, Cry3Bb1.
Behind the Foodborne Illness Numbers: Politics vs Science
By Rady Ananda
With all the milk raids over the past few years, you wouldn’t think that dairy is the safest type of food in the U.S., or that factory foods cause 70% of all foodborne illnesses – but that’s just what a new study by the University of Florida reveals. [1]
Using data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) [2] and other peer-reviewed sources covering the years 1999 thru 2008, UF sought to determine which pathogens on which foods pose the highest risk.
UF produced a Top 10 chart revealing that “complex” factory foods (defined as non-meat factory foods with a host of additives) account for a whopping 70% of 3.9 million annual foodborne illnesses (resulting in 765 deaths).
FDA Goons and the Second Amendment
By Rady Ananda
On July 16, the US Food and Drug Administration posted a libelous release linking a foodborne pathogen to a South Carolina raw dairy before confirming whether or not such a link existed. Two weeks later, the FDA determined that Tucker Adkins Dairy products were free of all contaminants but has still not issued a retraction at its webpage.
“How do we get our reputation back?”
That’s what Tommy and Carolyn Adkins asked the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF). Without a retraction at the web page, they can’t.
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