The New GMO Labels Are An Outrage

 
Action Alert

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USDA Makes GMOs Disappear

It’s official: the “mandatory” GMO labeling rule will obscure more than it makes transparent. Action Alert!

The USDA has released its final GMO labeling rule, and it’s not good. As we feared when the agency released its proposal earlier this year, the so-called GMO labeling law will apply only to a narrow set of foods. Congress and the USDA have offered a number of loopholes and exemptions to food companies, undermining any semblance of a consumer’s right to know. It’s as if the USDA asked the food industry to write the rule themselves.

The problems start right at the foundation. The agency has decided to use the term “bioengineered”—a term many Americans may not be familiar with—rather than GMO. When the proposal was released, we pointed out that this is straight out of an Orwellian playbook. Many Americans know the term “GMO” and can connect it to the labeling debate—so the government decides to use a different term that sounds more innocuous. If the government was actually concerned with communicating information clearly to consumers, they would simply use the term “GMO” and not other terminology with which Americans may not be familiar.

The problems continue with the definition of “bioengineered.” The final rule defines bioengineered as a food that 1) contains genetic material that has been modified through in vitro recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) techniques and 2) for which the modification could not otherwise be obtained through conventional breeding or found in nature”—essentially, combining DNA from two different sources, usually two different organisms.

This definition is preposterous and entirely inadequate to capture all the different techniques for genetically modifying food that are currently being used or are in development. Gene-editing using CRISPR is one example, where scientists manipulate an organism’s own DNA to silence certain genes or express otherwise silent genes. This technology does not look like it will be covered under the final rule because the USDA argues that gene editing produces results that could have been obtained through conventional breeding. For example, the USDA recently decided that a CRISPR-created non-browning mushroom did not have to be regulated, and following the USDA’s logic, the GMO labeling rule will not apply. That’s right: a genetically modified mushroom will not have to be labeled as GMO because the USDA thinks that the genetic change could be accomplished through normal means. A similar determination could be made regarding the Arctic Apple, a non-browning apple made through a technology called RNA interference (RNAi), a gene editing technique for blocking the expression of certain genes. There are other techniques, including TALENs and ZFNs, the products of which will likely not have to be labeled.

The issue is that these technologies are the future of agriculture, with some observers noting that “with new gene editing techniques, [GMOs] will no longer be necessary.” The USDA, taking cues from Congress, has written a labeling rule that applies exclusively to obsolete technology. The USDA’s definition of a GMO completely misses the point. Even if a particular change could have been brought about through traditional breeding, the fact that it was brought about through genetic modification in a laboratory means that consumers have a right to know, end of story.

It seems likely that this was the endgame all along. Remember that the food industry supported the legislation that underpins this rule. It isn’t hard to imagine that they were given assurances that the rule would do nothing to disrupt business as usual.

The problems don’t stop there. The rule establishes a threshold for the “inadvertent or technically unavoidable” presence of GMO material of up to five percent; foods that meet this criteria will not have to be labeled as bioengineered. What is galling here is that the USDA was considering three alternatives for this threshold, one of them being 0.9%, but chose the option most generous to industry. So, an ingredient in a food can have up to 5% of its weight be GMO if it is “unavoidable” or “inadvertent” and not have to identify that there is GMO material in the food.  (Note: food containing any amount of a bioengineered substance that is not inadvertent or unintentional must be labeled.) The plain fact, once again, is that even if the presence of a small number of GMOs is “inadvertent or unavoidable,” consumers still have a right to know.

There is another way that the USDA has narrowed the foods that will have to carry GMO labeling. So-called “highly-refined foods” made from GMO crops—such as sugar from GMO sugarbeets or high fructose corn syrup from GMO corn—will not require a label. The USDA argues that the presence of GMOs cannot be detected in refined products. Once again, consumers have been sold out. Just because current testing techniques cannot detect GMO material in a finished product does not mean there is no modified genetic material in the food. The whole point of a GMO labeling law is to provide consumers with information, so those who wish to avoid GMO foods can easily do so. If refined foods made from GMO ingredients are exempted, the spirit of the law is undermined.

Finally, the USDA has altered the symbol that may be used by companies to communicate the presence of GMOs. Some early proposals looked like a smiling face. The symbol the USDA chose says “bioengineered” rather than GMO and depicts a field and a sun, which is intentionally deceptive. These are natural images used to communicate the presence of decidedly un-natural ingredients in a food. It’s as if the PR department at Bayer/Monsanto came up with it themselves!

If you think that your state can pass a stronger labeling law, think again. The law passed by Congress prevents states from instituting labeling laws that differ with the federal law.

This process has been a complete sham since the beginning, starting with the fact that food companies can label their food with scannable codes rather than plain language on the package. That’s right: a company can avoid putting a plain language GMO label on their food altogether and instead slap a scannable code which they know most people won’t scan anyway, and which requires the customer to have a smart phone handy. The rule to implement the law favors the food industry at every conceivable turn. This is the definition of cronyism: the US government catering to special interests rather than citizens.

Action Alert! Write to Congress and the USDA, telling them that this rule is an outrage and must be changed to better represent a consumer’s right to know. Please send your message immediately.

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Social Media’s Assault on Natural Health

Natural health sites are under attack. It’s time to fight back. Action Alert!

The internet has profoundly changed how humans communicate and receive information. It allows disparate individuals to form communities around shared interests. It is a new kind of forum where ideas can be disseminated freely and openly. At least, that’s what sites like Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Wikipedia, and other titans of the internet would have us believe. But the current reality of the internet is less an open sandbox and more a story of the dominance of a few powerful gatekeepers increasingly exerting control over what kind of information can be shared.

As far as we can tell, the issue of vaccination is particularly susceptible to censorship. This isn’t surprising, as vaccination is a controversial issue. However, reasonable people can ask reasonable questions about the safety and efficacy of vaccines—indeed they should, since it is undeniable that vaccines are not without risk. One only need consult the government’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and the millions it has paid out to victims of vaccines to verify this fact. Yet organizations that post information about the dangers of vaccination are singled out as “fake news” purveyors and censored.

This censorship has affected ANH and other organizations. We had posts related to vaccines removed from Pinterest for violating the site’s misinformation policy. An email from the site stated that the policy includes “things like promotion of false cures for terminal or chronic illnesses, and anti-vaccination advice.”

What were the offending posts that were too dangerous for public consumption? One simply said, “A growing number of victims are coming forward to report serious and deadly adverse reactions after receiving the controversial HPV vaccine.” Another said, “New studies show autism rates in vaccinated children are nearly five times higher than in unvaccinated children.” Another said, “The amount of injected heavy metals in vaccines has never been studied for safety, only efficacy.” Is this content really worthy of censorship?

Pinterest went on to explain that it relies on information from the CDC and WHO to help determine if content violates their guidelines, but if government health authorities become the sole arbiter of what a “false cure” is, then we’re in big trouble. The implications should be obvious: is any treatment that isn’t FDA-approved a “false cure”? Is a doctor who doesn’t toe the line of mainstream medicine and the orthodoxy of the American Medical Association pedaling “false cures”?

Pinterest has also gone after GreenMedInfo, another natural health site, for “violating their misinformation policy” with content on vaccines, except this time the site went further and removed all of GreenMedInfo’s content. The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), Mercola.com, and others have been similarly censored by Pinterest.

Censorship of natural health is also occurring on Wikipedia, the free internet encyclopedia. Our friends at ANH-International point out that Wikipedia articles promoting natural, non-drug therapies have been targeted for deletion or manipulation. Scottish diabetes expert Dr. Malcolm Kendrick’s Wiki page has been deleted because his views on cholesterol and heart disease don’t match up with mainstream narrative. Visit the diabetes page on Wikipedia, and you won’t find any information on the efficacy of certain diets in tackling type 2 diabetes because those references have been removed by skeptics lest the public learn about non-drug interventions for that illness.

Facebook has also gotten in on the action, having allegedly deleted over 80 pages dedicated to natural or alternative health. These were pages with millions of followers, not insignificant pages on the periphery.

It’s no secret that ownership of traditional media (newspapers, television networks, etc.) has become increasingly concentrated. A few corporations control the vast majority of traditional media, and it shows: read the pages of most mainstream publications and you’ll find an almost unwavering dedication to the medical establishment—probably because these publications rely on the advertising dollars of the pharmaceutical industry to stay afloat. The internet promised to democratize the news, to allow people searching for content outside of the mainstream to find organizations they identify with. The fact of the matter is that most of this sharing of information is happening on platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest, and others, but we are in danger of losing this autonomy to the censors.

If we continue down this path, there will be grave consequences. Science advances through skepticism, through the questioning of orthodoxy and accepted norms. If anything that deviates from the party line of the FDA or CDC is forbidden or censored, how can we improve our health system? How can medicine advance if the safety of statins cannot be questioned, as one NYT writer would have it? Science also changes over the years as new research and evidence come to light, and what was once considered “alternative” becomes the mainstream. Consider that the government’s Dietary Guidelines committee recently withdrew longstanding recommendations to avoid high-cholesterol foods—something natural health experts have been saying for years.

We must push back against this growing trend of gagging free speech.

Action Alert! Write to Congress and urge them to ask their colleagues in the Energy and Commerce Committee to hold a hearing on internet gatekeepers restricting free speech. Please send your message immediately. 

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FDA Flouting Congress on CBD

While Congress gives CBD the green light, FDA still has its stop sign up. Action Alert!

For a while now, we’ve been telling you about the threats to cheap CBD oil. One of those threats has been that the DEA includes hemp and CBD in the definition of marijuana, which is a Schedule 1 drug—that is, it has no recognized medical benefit. This was plainly inaccurate, and Congress has rectified the error: the Farm Bill removes “hemp” from the definition of marijuana. While there are still some challenges and uncertainty, this is an important step towards ensuring consumer access to affordable CBD oil.

The legalization of hemp means that so long as CBD oil is extracted from hemp and has less than 0.3% THC (the compound that gives the “high” associated with marijuana), it is no longer considered a controlled substance.

The main hurdle that is still in place is the FDA. After the Farm Bill was approved, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb released a statement reminding us that, while CBD may no longer be a controlled substance, it is still subject to FDA jurisdiction. The statement reiterates the FDA’s position that CBD is not a dietary ingredient (and thus illegal to put in a supplement) because it is the active ingredient in an approved drug and was the subject of clinical investigations before it was sold in supplements. For more background on these issues, read our article on the back channel at the FDA that allows Big Pharma to turn supplements into drugs.

CBD shows much promise. There are also thousands of published scientific studies on CBD and its beneficial health effects on pain, inflammation, seizures, rheumatoid arthritis, and other inflammatory conditions. If the FDA’s position doesn’t change, the only way for consumers to legally get CBD will be by buying the FDA-approved drug, which will cost $32,500 a year.

While we work to eliminate this nutrient-to-drug pipeline at the FDA, this is still an important victory for CBD. Let’s express our appreciation by writing to Congress and thanking them for this step.

Action Alert! Write to Congress and thank them for taking steps to legalize CBD oil; write to the FDA and tell them to back off CBD oil supplements. Please send your message immediately.

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Heart Disease Drugs Cause…Heart Disease

A stunning study reveals the truth about statins. Action Alert!

Research published in the journal Atherosclerosis concludes that statin use increases coronary plaques, which limit blood flow and can lead to heart attacks and strokes. Yes, you read that correctly. Statins, medicines meant to prevent cardiovascular disease, are actually causing it. It should be the nail in the coffin for statins, but the crony FDA won’t do anything to threaten the mega-profits Big Pharma makes off of the millions of patients who buy them. We need to force the agency’s hand by creating a public outcry against these dangerous drugs so they are taken off the market.

The study took place at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles and involved 6,673 participants with no known history of heart disease. The patients who took statins were at an increased risk for obstructive coronary artery disease.

Statins are also overprescribed. A recent review points out that medical guidelines recommend the use of statins for people with no history of symptoms when their expected risk of developing heart disease over the next ten years is 10 percent—a threshold that makes about 3 out of every 10 adults eligible for statins. It is a boon for the pharmaceutical industry, but bad news for patients who will needlessly take a medicine that actually increases the risk of developing the disease they are tying to avoid!

Sadly, increased risk of heart disease is one among many dangerous side effects of statins:

• Statins interfere with the production of coenzyme Q10, which supports the body’s immune and nervous systems, boosts heart and other muscle health, maintains normal blood pressure, and much more.
• Statins weaken the immune system, make it difficult to fight off bacterial infections, and increase the production of cytokines, which trigger and sustain inflammation.
• They make some patients unable to concentrate or remember words, and are linked to muscle and neurological problems, including Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
• Statins inhibit the beneficial effects of omega-3 fatty acids by promoting the metabolism of omega-6 fatty acids, which increases insulin resistance and the risk of developing diabetes.
• There is evidence that statin use blocks the benefits of exercise. Exercise increases the activity and numbers of mitochondria, cells’ “power plants” that process sugars and fat. The study found that with statin use, mitochondrial activity actually decreases with exercise.
• Statins work by reducing the body’s ability to produce cholesterol, which is essential to brain health—the brain is 2% of the body’s weight, but contains 25% of the entire body’s cholesterol.
• Statin users have a higher incidence of nerve degeneration and pain, memory loss, confusion, depression, and a higher risk of ALS and Parkinson’s, according to Dr. David Williams in his July 2014 Alternatives newsletter. Statins also decrease carotenoid levels. Carotenoids, which are found in fresh fruits and vegetables and act as antioxidants, have a number of benefits, including protecting against cell damage, aging, and chronic diseases.
• Statin drugs may also be driving Americans to overeat: a twelve-year study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that statin users increased their calorie intake by 9%, and fat consumption by 14.4%, over the study period, whereas those who didn’t take statins didn’t significantly change in either measure.
• An animal study linked statin use to muscle damage. Animals that exercised on statins had 226% more muscle damage than those not given statins.
• They affect the quality of sleep.
• Statins increase the risk of prostate and breast cancer.
• Statins are known to cause liver damage by increasing the liver’s production of digestive enzymes.
• Statins also speed aging and lower sex drive.
• Statins have been linked to aggressive and violent behavior in women.

Heart disease, as many of us know, is one of the leading causes of death in the US, killing about 610,000 people each year. Big Pharma—in the belief that cholesterol is the primary factor in heart disease—developed statin drugs that would lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease. The drugs, which have been accompanied by massive marketing campaigns, are huge moneymakers for the drug industry, to the tune of about $29 billion worth of sales in 2013. That’s the kind of outrageous money you make when you convince one in four Americans over the age of 45 to take statins.

All of the above-mentioned effects should be enough to yank statin off the market—and now there is evidence that they cause the illness they are meant to prevent. It is an outrage that they are still being prescribed and sold to millions of Americans. What more proof do we need that the FDA is owned by Big Pharma, that the agency uses its power to protect the drug industry rather than our health?

The recent study on statins use also seems to provide further proof that cholesterol is not the problem. In fact, cholesterol is vital to human health. We’ve noted in the past that cholesterol isn’t the ticking time bomb most people have been led to think—in fact, the real danger is that our cholesterol levels can get too low as we age! Even “bad” cholesterol is essential. You can read more of our coverage of cholesterol here.

The good news is that heart disease can be entirely reversed through diet! In a recent article, Dr. Joseph Mercola stated that the Paleo diet can be very effective in reducing blood pressure and triglyceride levels—more effective, actually, than any statin drug. In addition, Dr. Mercola recommends a ketogenic diet, which actually increases fat intake, albeit using healthy fats. Other natural ways to increase heart health include: reducing grains and sugars in the diet, eating fermented foods, getting enough omega-3 fatty acids, optimizing vitamin D, and making sure you get enough sleep.

It is a crime that the FDA continues to allow the use of statins by millions of Americans when the evidence of harm is so clear and there are safer, natural alternatives that actually work. Statins must be taken off the market now.

Action Alert! Given the dangers of statins, tell the FDA to take these medicine off the market Please send your message immediately.

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A Nose Full of Lies

New Flu Vaccine More Dangerous and Less Effective
Action Alert

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New Flu Vaccine More Dangerous and Less Effective

Why does the CDC continue to push ineffective vaccines to prevent the flu while staying silent on the benefits of natural medicine?  Action Alert!

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently greenlit the nasal flu vaccine (FluMist) after advising the public to avoid that product for the last two years because it had not appeared to work as well against the H1N1 strain of the virus (even though the overall effectiveness of the flu vaccine in the 2017-2018 season was just 40%). It’s time for the CDC to stop guaranteeing profits for the vaccine industry and to start telling us the truth about how to really avoid the flu.

What caused the CDC’s change of heart? According to some reports, members of the CDC were worried that sidelining the nasal vaccine would mean fewer people get vaccinated—demonstrating that the CDC is more concerned with vaccination rates than with safety. It must just be a coincidence that high vaccination rates mean higher profits for the vaccine industry.

Is FluMist safe? According to the package insert, the nasal vaccine does not contain mercury or aluminum, two adjuvants that are particularly troubling, but it does contain monosodium glutamate (MSG) which has been linked with a long list of negative health effects including thyroid damage, kidney dysfunction, brain lesions, seizures, increased risk of infertility, diabetes, and endocrine disruption.

Consumers should also note the warnings listed in FluMist’s package insert, namely that FluMist “has not been studied in immunocompromised persons,” and has an increased risk of hospitalization in children younger than two. Additionally, the package insert states that FluMist’s safety and effectiveness has not been established in pregnant women, nursing mothers, geriatric adults, or children younger than two. Needless to say, these warnings do not inspire a great deal of confidence.

Dr. Russel Blaylock has also pointed out that there are specific dangers with spraying things into our noses because many compounds can be carried directly to the brain through the olfactory nerves, where they can accumulate and cause inflammation. Chemicals carried to the brain in this manner are not blocked by the brain’s barrier system and can end up in the areas most affected by Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Taking a nasal vaccine, then, is especially dangerous because there is a risk that a live virus can enter the brain and cause inflammation and neurodegeneration. (The Blaylock Wellness Report March 2017).

What about the flu vaccine overall? The track record is not good. Estimates from the CDC suggest the overall effectiveness of the 2017/2018 flu vaccine is around 40 percent. A meta-analysis found that 71 people needed to be vaccinated in order for a single case of influenza to be avoided; contrast that with another review article which found that, for every 33 people taking a vitamin D supplement, one person would be spared an acute respiratory infection. And let’s not forget that some flu shots still contain mercury, a dangerous neurotoxin. This is further evidence of what we’ve been saying for years: the flu shot, especially when compared with natural medicine, is ineffective and dangerous.

Given the facts about the flu vaccine’s dangers and ineffectiveness, it is shameful that the CDC continues to push this medical treatment, yet refuses to tell the truth about natural medicines that actually work. Is the CDC really more concerned about lining the pockets of vaccine-makers than with actually telling us how we can protect ourselves from the flu?

We’ve written previously that vitamin D, intravenous vitamin C, liposomal vitamin C, vitamin A, and garlic all have strong antiviral properties. The reason you may not have heard about these treatments is that they are cheap and natural. They can’t be patented, and therefore no company can afford to pay as much as $2.56 billion to take them through the FDA’s drug approval process.  Hence, they can’t make claims to cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent the flu or any other disease—even if we know they do.

Why does this happen? The simple answer is money. Natural medicines can’t make money for drug companies, and drug companies fund the FDA. So, naturally, the CDC and the FDA stay silent, and instead push whatever new product the industry has devised, no matter the risks.

Action Alert! Tell the CDC and FDA that, instead of pushing yet another ineffective and risky vaccine, they tell the truth about cheap, safe, and effective natural anti-viral medicines to avoid the flu this season. Please send your message immediately.

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