Despite New Health Law, Some See Sharp Rise in Premiums. Corn insecticide linked to great die-off of beneficial honeybees. New research has linked springtime die-offs of honeybees critical for pollinating food crops — part of the mysterious malady called colony collapse disorder — with technology for planting corn coated with insecticides. The study, published in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology, appears on the eve of spring planting seasons in some parts of Europe where farmers use the technology and widespread deaths of honeybees have occurred in the past. In the study, Andrea Tapparo and colleagues explain that seeds coated with so-called neonicotinoid insecticides went into wide use in Europe in the late 1990s. The insecticides are among the most widely used in the world, popular because they kill insects by paralyzing nerves but have lower toxicity for other animals. Almost immediately, beekeepers observed large die-offs of bees that seemed to coincide with mid-March to May corn planting.
Explore further: Bird lovers take part in sixth annual Great Cocky Count. Monsanto Shifts ALL Liability to Farmers. Farmers like genetically modified (GM) crops because they can plant them, spray them with herbicide and then there is very little maintenance until harvest. Farmers who plant Monsanto's GM crops probably don't realize what they bargain for when they sign the Monsanto Technology Stewardship Agreement contract. One farmer reportedly 'went crazy' when he discovered the scope of the contract because it transfers ALL liability to the farmer or grower.
Here is the paragraph that defines Monsanto's limit of liability that shifts it to the farmer: G. Edward Griffin, author of 'The Creature From Jekyll Island', and numerous other books and documentary films, and Anthony Patchett, retired assistant Head Deputy District Attorney, Los Angeles County Environmental Crimes/ OSHA Division explain the consequences of the Monsanto contract in the video below. Also See: Mike Ludwig | Why Monsanto Always Wins This includes contamination of other farms.
Contamination of processing equipment is another risk. FDA Urged to Prohibit Carcinogenic "Caramel Coloring" ~ Newsroom ~ News from CSPI. CSPI Says Artificial Caramel Coloring is Quite Different from Real Caramel February 16, 2011 WASHINGTON—The “caramel coloring” used in Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and other foods is contaminated with two cancer-causing chemicals and should be banned, according to a regulatory petition filed today by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. In contrast to the caramel one might make at home by melting sugar in a saucepan, the artificial brown coloring in colas and some other products is made by reacting sugars with ammonia and sulfites under high pressure and temperatures.
Chemical reactions result in the formation of 2-methylimidazole and 4 methylimidazole, which in government-conducted studies caused lung, liver, or thyroid cancer or leukemia in laboratory mice or rats. Photo Credit: Jorge Bach, CSPI “Carcinogenic colorings have no place in the food supply, especially considering that their only function is a cosmetic one,” said CSPI executive director Michael F. I worked for Monsanto and will be releasing documents detailing how Monsanto planned to kill off bee colonies in order to introduce a "new and improved" species of bee that will only pollinate Monsanto crops : politics. Supreme Court: Data Mining Of Prescription Drug Records Is Free Speech. The Drug Market Scam: Why You Pay Way Too Much for Bad Medicine (And Bernie Sanders' Solution) | Drugs.
June 2, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Drugs are cheap. There are few drugs that would sell for more than $5-$10 a prescription in a free market. The government gives patent monopolies to provide an incentive for drug companies to carry through research. We can do better and Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed a way. This money would come from a tax on public and private insurers. The country is projected to spend almost $300 billion on prescription drugs this year. The Sanders prize fund bill would go far toward eliminating the problems that pervade the drug industry. We would also end the phony moral dilemmas we create for ourselves with drug patents. The Sanders prize fund could also put an end to many of the deceptive marketing practices that the industry now employs to push their drugs, overstating the benefits of their drugs and concealing potentially harmful side effects.
FDA and Makena: Agency opens up competition for premature pregnancy drug. Reporting from Washington — The Food and Drug Administration took the unusual step Wednesday of inviting specialty pharmacies to make an end run around a company that obtained exclusive rights to a pregnancy drug and promptly raised the price from $20 a dose to $1,500. The drug, a synthetic form of progesterone trade-named Makena, is recommended as a weekly injection for women at high risk of delivering prematurely, beginning between 16 and 18 weeks' gestation until 36 weeks. The action by K-V Pharmaceutical Co. boosted the total cost of the drug during a pregnancy from about $400 to $30,000, igniting a firestorm of objections. Then K-V sent letters to pharmacies threatening that the FDA would punish them if they compounded their own versions of the drug.
On Wednesday, the FDA declared it would do no such thing. Until early this year, women obtained the drug from so-called compounding pharmacies, which produced it on a made-to-order basis. But in February, the FDA granted St. Antibiotics pipeline ‘drying up,’ WHO warns : epiNewswire. 2 Paths of Bayer Drug in 80's: Riskier One Steered Overseas. A division of the pharmaceutical company Bayer sold millions of dollars of blood-clotting medicine for hemophiliacs -- medicine that carried a high risk of transmitting AIDS -- to Asia and Latin America in the mid-1980's while selling a new, safer product in the West, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.
The Bayer unit, Cutter Biological, introduced its safer medicine in late February 1984 as evidence mounted that the earlier version was infecting hemophiliacs with H.I.V. Yet for over a year, the company continued to sell the old medicine overseas, prompting a United States regulator to accuse Cutter of breaking its promise to stop selling the product. By continuing to sell the old version of the life-saving medicine, the records show, Cutter officials were trying to avoid being stuck with large stores of a product that was proving increasingly unmarketable in the United States and Europe. But in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, it became a killer.