OpenGov - Open Government Brainstorm

51. Monsanto – Many Reasons to Pierce the Corporate Veil and Prosecute: Monsanto is the largest producer of genetically modified seeds, in the world. Monsanto is a monopoly and should be broken up. This corporation is, by my consideration, the most corrupt private organization in the world, second only to big oil or Wall Street bankers. Their goal is to control all food by redesigning seed with foreign traits. Whether these traits are beneficial or toxic, no one will ever know, until it’s too late. They have gotten around the FDA requirements to test their redesigned foods by propping up their own phony research and arguing that to retest by the government would we a waste of time and taxpayer money. They had board members appointed to the FDA to write their own rules. Monsanto certainly knows how to manipulate our government to do whatever they feel like doing. Monsanto was originally an herbicide producer, with such famous labels as Round-Up herbicide, pesticides, dioxins, DDT, rBGH bovine growth hormone, PCBs, aspartame, and Agent Orange. Now they modify seeds with foreign genes. Monsanto does not modify seeds by genetically assessing the genome of the seed and adding foreign DNA precisely to a known location of the seed genome. Monsanto adds foreign DNA by the shotgun method of coating very fine metallic slivers with foreign DNA and shooting it into the seed that has been soaked in an enabler formula. The seed that germinates and does not overtly show bad mutations is the seed they foster onto the world.

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Round Up Ready modified corn is a corn that is resistant to a direct spray of Monsanto’s Round Up herbicide (glyphosate). This allows farmers to spray entire fields with Round Up to control weeds. Round Up was once packaged with the label of biodegradable, but since had to remove this as it was untrue. I do no know if or how long it takes for Round Up to break down or whether the broken down components of Round Up are harmful to people and the environment. I do know that DDT that was once approved as a pesticide was not harmful in its unbroken form, but once light broke it down into component parts it became highly toxic and a deadly carcinogen. DDT was not water soluble and it bonded to fat, which means it is still in those fields where it was used forty years ago.

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Break Monsanto’s patents on seed bank genomes. Monsanto raided many seed banks and took seed samples, had those genomes genetically mapped, and then patented them all. Monsanto didn’t invent these genomes; they only had them genetically assessed. No rights of ownership should be given to this company for seed varieties held by seed banks.

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Ban Terminator seed technology. Terminator is a new seed design that only grows if a special coating or fertilizer is used. Grains produced from terminator variants are sterile. Corn is fertilized by wind blown pollen from the tassels. Pollen can cross species from other fields by this act. Genetic drift from terminator strains will sterilize the genomes of other genetic variants. The reason for creating this sterile seed program is to lock in their profits. Each season farmers will have to come to Monsanto to buy seeds, they will not risk the potential of other seed types since they may be contaminated with terminator. If the farmer saves seed from prior year’s harvest it could be infected with terminator and once planted, may show voids in the field were seed never germinated. Once this genie is released in the genetic winds, it will become unstoppable.

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Ban “rbGH and rbST hormones used in increasing milk production in cows. These chemicals are injected in cows every two weeks in mega doses. These artificial hormones are very similar to human growth hormones and do leach into the milk, especially the few days after the biweekly mega dose of hormones. Pasteurization does not remove or destroy any of these growth hormones. Milk products from producers that use these hormones must be separated from those who do not and labeled as such. Iowa used to have the best milk in the industry, not anymore. These hormones do affect the flavor of the milk. I was in Hawaii for a few months and their diaries do not use artificial growth hormones and their packaging labels say this “No Artificial Growth Hormones”, also the milk tastes great. Cows who are injected with these hormones often suffer from udder diseases, which increase the needs to inject them with an antibiotic, which also leeches into the milk. Currently milk produced in Iowa carries the label, “No Artificial Growth Hormones Added” or “No Hormones Added” this is an intentional mislabeling of a product, since no where in the world does any dairy add growth hormones to the milk, they add it to the cows that produces the milk.

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I encourage everyone to view the movie “The World According to Monsanto”

49. American Farmer Rights to Save Seed: American farmers should have the right to save seed for next years planting regardless of genome used. No business or person should ever own a patent on life.