Blog
By now, most everyone knows that the pesticides used by industrial farming operations pollute the air, linger in the soil and turn up on many foods—including Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.
Now, a new study suggests those pesticides could also be in your home.
A team of researchers from Cornell University conducted pesticide analyses as part of a larger effort to study pollutants in homes and childcare facilities. Scientists sampled 350 rural homes in six New York state counties, looking for more than a dozen potentially toxic pesticides commonly used in conventional farming Read More
There are about 8,700 lawsuits pending against Monsanto, by people who allege that exposure to Roundup weedkiller is responsible for their cancer. Most of the people behind these lawsuits have stories not unlike the one told by Dewayne Johnson, during his landmark jury trial which resulted in a unanimous decision against Monsanto.
Like Johnson, many of these people have non-Hodgkin lymphoma—or they have family members who have already died from the disease. They face long, grueling trials as they go up against the biotech behemoth.Read More
When the judge in the Monsanto Roundup trial signaled she might overturn the jury’s verdict, we expected the worst.
In the end, Judge Suzanne Bolanos slashed the amount of money the jury said Monsanto should pay its victim, Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, from $289 million to $78 million.
That may not sound like much of a win, but there was good news in her decision: The jury’s verdict was upheld.
What Monsanto really wanted was for Bolanos to throw out the jury’s unanimous decision that Monsanto’s wildly profitable flagship weedkiller caused Johnson’s cancer, and that Monsanto Read More
Despite calls from health professionals worldwide to curb the use of farm-animal antibiotics, Vermont’s conventional dairy industry — dominated by concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) – continues to use the antimicrobial drugs extensively, including non-therapeutic uses to prevent diseases caused by the animal confinement and concentration. After numerous records requests and analysis, including eight years of antibiotic violation data obtained from the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, we found a rising trend with on-farm antibiotic violations, a lax regulatory Read More
On October 9, 2018, Organic Consumers Association (OCA) reported the presence of the chemical glyphosate and AMPA, its main metabolite, in Maseca-brand white and yellow corn flour samples purchased in different regions of Mexico. Some flour samples tested as high as 94.15 percent for the presence of genetically modified organisms (GMO).
Testing was conducted by Health Research Institute (HRI) in Fairfield, Iowa (U.S.), on behalf Read More
Are those tortillas you’ve been making with Maseca flour toxic?
On October 9, the Organic Consumers Association reported that samples of Maseca white and yellow corn flour tested positive for concerning levels of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller.
Testing also revealed that some Maseca flour samples tested as high as 94.15 percent for the presence of genetically modified organisms (GMO). That’s a startling finding, given that GMO crops are not allowed to be grown commercially in Mexico.
Those findings can mean only one thing—Mexico-based Read More
Robert Howard, juror #4 in the trial of former school groundskeeper Dewayne Lee Johnson vs. Monsanto, has two questions for the judge who is threatening to undo the jury’s unanimous verdict against Monsanto:
“Do you have any reason at all to believe that myself or my fellow jurors did not follow your instructions?”
Did you assess the credibility of Monsanto witnesses, particularly Monsanto employees, at all?”
Howard is one of four jurors who wrote to Judge Suzanne Bolanos, defending the jurors’ Read More
Genetic engineering isn’t everyone’s childhood dream. Even I didn’t care for it when I started studying biology at the University of Amsterdam, but my professor explained it was an acquired taste and the best option for a good job. So, I suppressed my doubts and learned to extract DNA from plants, recombine the DNA in test tubes, reinsert the fusions into plant cells, and use hormones to regenerate new plants.
People say that love is blind, but I started loving what I did blindly. Or, perhaps, what started as an acquired taste soon became a dangerous addiction. Genetic engineering Read More
Today is World Food Day.
It’s also a day when millions of people are cleaning up after yet another weather-related disaster, this time in Florida. And millions more around the globe are experiencing devastating droughts and crippling storms that are leaving them unable to grow food and feed their families.
We often think that we, as individuals, have little or no power to solve problems as complex and overwhelming as global warming and world hunger.
And yet, we do. The personal choices we make when it comes to our food, and the demands we make of our local, state Read More
The world’s largest meat packer, JBS Tolleson, is recalling nearly 7 million pounds of beef after an investigation identified JBS as the common supplier of ground beef products sold to people who developed Salmonella Newport, a disease that causes fever and diarrhea, weakness, dyspnea and, potentially, sudden death.
As of October 4, 57 people in 16 states had been sickened by JBS beef.
If that’s not enough to make you swear off industrial factory farm beef, here’s more food for thought: There’s a good chance the JBS beef was contaminated because it contained a combination of Read More
for Blogs/EssaysMost Recent Headlines
Get Local
