A Former Federal Scientist Sends An Open Letter to the Minister of Health

Last week, Dr. Thierry Vrain, a former scientist with the federal government in Canada, reached out after watching an interview I did with Dr. Ray Seidler, a former senior scientist at the EPA. 

Dr. Vrain was the designated spokesperson to assure the public of the safety of GMO crops.  He is an unlikely and powerful crusader to be speaking out about the dangers of these crops.

Monsanto Claims to Ditch Herbicide While Selling More of It

Genetically modified seed giant Monsanto likes to trumpet its "commitment to sustainable agriculture." The story goes like this: by generating novel, high-tech crop varieties, Monsanto will wean farmers off of synthetic chemical poisons. The company even markets its flagship product, seeds genetically engineered to survive its own Roundup weed killer, as a tool they can use to to "decrease the overall use of herbicides."

USDA Scientist: Monsanto's Roundup Herbicide Damages Soil

August hasn't been a happy month the for the Monsanto PR team. No, I'm not referring to my posts on how Gaza and Mexico don't need the company's high-tech seeds—the ones it will supposedly be "feeding the world" with in the not-so-distant future.

Monsanto's real PR headache involves one of its flagship products very much in the here and now: the herbicide Roundup (chemical name: glyphosate), upon which Monsanto has built a highly profitable empire of "Roundup Ready" GM seeds.

The problem goes beyond the "superweed" phenomenon that I've written about recently: the fact that farmers are using so much Roundup, on so much acreage, that weeds are developing resistance to it, forcing farmers to resort to highly toxic "pesticide cocktails."

SEC Investigates Monsanto's Roundup Biz

While I have been fixating on the USDA's decision to ramp down oversight of the GMO seed industry, another federal agency has been quietly asking hard questions about the business practices of the industry's dominant player, Monsanto.

The SEC is investigating Monsanto's tactics for defending the market for its herbicide, Roundup. The news emerged just before the July 4 holiday weekend, during Monsanto's press conference about its quarterly financial earnings. Company execs boasted of a 77 percent increase in profit before dropping a mini-bombshell, The Wall Street Journal reported:

Monsanto said it was cooperating with a previously undisclosed U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission probe into its customer incentive programs for herbicides in fiscal years 2009 and 2010, and had received a subpoena to provide related documents.