HEALTH NEWS

'Food Fix'

Dr. Mark Hyman’s latest book reinforces everything we at OCA believe in and work toward, which is this: If we fix our food system, we can improve global health, revive economies, end poverty and social injustice, restore environmental health and reverse climate change.

“Food Fix: How to Save Our Health, Our Economy, Our Communities and Our Planet—One Bite at a Time” came out in February, before most of us knew much about COVID-19.  

We’ve since learned, among other things, that people with chronic diseases—including diet-related obesity and diabetes—are considered high risk for getting the virus in the first place, and for having worse outcomes if they get it.

Here’s what Hyman wrote, pre-COVID-19:

“Chronic disease is now the single biggest threat to global economic development. Lifestyle-caused diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer now kill nearly 50 million people a year, more than twice as many as die from infectious disease. Two billion people go to bed overweight and 800 million go to bed hungry in the world today. One in two Americans and one in four teenagers have pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes.”

We obtained permission to reprint the introduction to “Food Fix.” We hope you’ll read the whole book—and then encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Read the introduction to ‘Food Fix: How to Save Our Health, Our Economy, Our Communities and Our Planet—One Bite at a Time’

GOF HALL OF SHAME

'Coronavirus Hunter'

Guess what year this ScienceDaily headline appeared:

“New SARS-Like Virus Can Jump Directly from Bats to Humans, No Treatment Available.”  

If you guessed 2020, you’re wrong. The article was published in 2015. The source was the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

That’s where scientist Ralph Baric, Ph.D, and a team that included Baric’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) colleague, Shi Zhengli, used genetic engineering and synthetic biology to create a “new bat SARS-like virus . . . that can jump directly from its bat hosts to humans.”

Baric is known as the Coronavirus Hunter. Zhengli’s nickname is Bat Woman.

The two are scientists whose work involves collecting samples of the nearly 5,000 coronaviruses in bat populations and manipulating them for the sole purpose of making them more infectious to humans.

Ostensibly, the research Baric and Zhengli conduct is intended to help scientists get ahead of any coronavirus that might have the potential to emerge as a human pathogen. 

The reality is this: There is little evidence that this research has prepared us to meet the challenges of the current COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, there are suspicions that the research may have caused the virus.

There’s also ample evidence that Baric has strong ties to Big Pharma—thanks to laws that allow researchers at publicly funded universities to commercialize their research.

Read ‘Dr. ‘Coronavirus Hunter’ Ralph Baric: Preparing Us for a Pandemic? Or Putting Us in Peril of One?’

Visit our Gain-of-Function Hall of Shame

SIGN THE PETITION: Stop the Genetic Engineering of Viruses! Shut Down All Biowarfare Labs Now!

ACTION ALERT

Oh No, Joe!

If we’re ever going to have food and farming policies that support organic regenerative farmers, ranchers—and consumers—we’re going to need someone leading the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) who supports those policies.

Unfortunately Joe Biden’s team is already headed in the wrong direction. In fact, the Biden campaign hosted a veritable “pesticide party” at the Democratic National Convention (DNC).

On Tuesday, August 18, corporate lobbyist Philip Karsting, who is also chair of Biden’s rural advisory committee, hosted a DNC event sponsored by the worst agribusinesses, including numerous pesticide and genetically engineered seed companies and trade groups.

Who was on Karsting’s DNC pesticide party invite list? Corteva (a spin-off of DowDupont), Bayer, the Biotechnology Innovation Organization and CropLife.

If that weren’t bad enough, Biden is said to be on track to appoint Heidi Heitkamp, businesswoman, lawyer and former senator of North Dakota, to run the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Isn’t it about time a real organic regenerative farmer took the helm at the USDA?

SIGN THE PETITION: Tell Biden the next Secretary of Ag must be a champion of regenerative organic food & farming.

SUPPORT OCA & CRL

Dirty Politics

The political scene, especially in D.C., is about as ugly as it’s ever been. We’d love to stay out of it.

But there's no way to decouple U.S. politics and the U.S. food & farming system.

If we want better food—and cleaner water, healthier soils, fair wages for farmers, farmworkers and everyone else who works in the food system—we need better food & farming policies.

Dirty politics, the kind we have now where the worst corporations in the world have the most say over how food is grown and produced, leaves us with, well, plain old dirt. All in the name of profits for a handful of CEOs and corporate shareholders.

Our elected officials allow corporations to take what once once healthy soil, and strip it of the rich biological life critical to growing healthy food—and it's all done with your money, through taxpayer-funded subsidies.

We’d love to stay out of politics. But we can't. And we won't.

Come November, no matter who claims the White House, it will be up to all of us to demand a secretary of agriculture who supports you—your health, your environment, your right to healthy food.

Your donations, to either Organic Consumers Association or Citizens Regeneration Lobby, will help us win this battle for the future of food.

Make a tax-deductible donation to Organic Consumers Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit  

Support Citizens Regeneration Lobby, OCA’s 501(c)(4) lobbying arm (not tax-deductible)

Donate $100 or more and we’ll send you a copy of Ronnie’s new book   

Click here for more ways to support our work

COVID-19

Knowledge & Power

In October 2019—10 weeks before the first COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China—the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sponsored “Event 201,” a pandemic preparedness simulation.

From the official “Event 201” website:

“Event 201 simulates an outbreak of a novel zoonotic coronavirus transmitted from bats to pigs to people that eventually becomes efficiently transmissible from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic. The pathogen and the disease it causes are modeled largely on SARS, but it is more transmissible in the community setting by people with mild symptoms.”

This “scripted tabletop exercise” included everything we now see playing out in real time, in the real world, from PPE shortages, lockdowns and removal of civil liberties to mandated vaccination campaigns, riots, economic turmoil and the breakdown of social cohesion. 

A new documentary includes highlights from the event. The documentary, “Plandemic Indoctornation” has been banned from most social media platforms.

Before you dismiss this documentary as a “conspiracy theory,” you need to actually watch it. And you need to understand these indisputable, verifiable facts:

• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) owns the patent for SARS-CoV (the virus responsible for SARS) isolated from humans. In 2007, the CDC filed a petition with the patent office to keep their coronavirus patent confidential. They also own patents for detection methods, and for a kit to measure the virus

• By law, one cannot patent naturally-occurring DNA. If SARS-CoV is natural, then the patent is illegal. If the virus is manmade, the patent is legal, but the creation of the virus would be a violation of biological weapons treaties and laws. So, either way, the CDC has engaged in illegal activity

• Because the CDC owns the patent on SARS-CoV, it controls who has the ability to make inquiries into it. Unless authorized, you cannot look at the virus, you cannot measure it or make tests for it, since they own all those patents. This means the CDC has a major profit motive

• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill owns a patent describing methods for producing recombinant (genetically engineered) coronaviruses

Nobody likes to believe there are dark forces at work with the potential to destroy our health, and our society. It’s easier to believe in “goodness and light.”

But ignoring the facts doesn't erase them.

Knowing—and acknowledging—the facts is our only path to empowerment.

Read ‘Mystery Thriller, Starring Bill Gates, Fauci and the WHO’

Watch ‘Plandemic Indoctornation’

MORE ON COVID-19

Protect yourself from COVID-19: Visit StopCovidCold.com

Near Misses at UNC Chapel Hill’s High-Security Lab Illustrate Risk of Accidents With Coronaviruses

The Pandemic Is Taking a Toll on Americans' Mental Health. A New CDC Study Shows Who We Need to Worry About Most.

SIGN THE PETITION: Stop the Genetic Engineering of Viruses! Shut Down All Biowarfare Labs Now!

#BOYCOTT BIG MEAT

Tyson the Terrible

There are a number of interesting companies vying for top honors in this year’s Corporate Accountability’s Corporate Hall of Shame contest—including McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. 

But we vote for Tyson. We hope you will, too. 

According to Corporate Accountability:

“Tyson nominated for not adequately addressing the protection of its workers from COVID-19 during a global pandemic, even when they were pressured to put people ahead of profits. Their inaction resulted in thousands of cases of the disease, and multiple deaths among its workers and their families.”

“Not adequately addressing” worker protections is an understatement. 

While Tyson lobbyists were crying crocodile tears on Capitol Hill, claiming the food supply chain would "break" unless Congress demanded slaughterhouse workers show up to work, tens of thousands of industry workers had already tested positive for COVID-19. The Counter reported:

“The meatpacking giant’s business practices during the pandemic have drawn increasing scrutiny as more information comes to light. Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker called for an investigation of Tyson and other meatpackers after the export data came to light. In May, the family of a meat cutter who contracted Covid-19 and died filed a lawsuit claiming the company failed to provide her with personal protective equipment.”

Tyson was terrible long before the pandemic.

In 2016, the Big Meat company was called out for being the No. 1 water polluter in the agribusiness sector. The company has faced multiple lawsuits over the years related to water pollution.

We sued Tyson last year for making false advertising claims. And we recently filed a related claim against Tyson with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Tyson also has a long history of cheating farmers (or contract growers, as the industry calls them).

We could go on. But we won't. Suffice it to say, Tyson plays prominently in our #BoycottBigMeat campaign. We'd love to see the meat giant get its due.

TAKE ACTION: Nominate Tyson for the Corporate Accountability Hall of Shame

LITTLE BYTES

Essential Reading

Best & Worst Salmon Brands–Smoked, Frozen, Canned & Prepared

Black Farmers File Suit Against Monsanto Seeking to Block Sale of Roundup

Corporate Agribusiness/USDA Collude on Shift to Industrial-Scale Organics

Regenerative Organic Certification Launches To Prioritize Soil Health and Farmworker Justice in Food Products

Bill Gates Secretly Dictates Global Food Policy, Too

A Veggie That's a Fruit, With More Vitamin C Than an Orange

Farmed Salmon Is Getting Worse