editobiogb4 25 years of experience

While the media again plugs the same old clichés against the Americans, about the European Union’s universal moral guarantee and the south as the eternal victim, unsurprisingly, the World Trade Organisation rather than at last reconciling the international productivity and organic models,
is going to ratify, regardless of a situation which already exists (it isn’t because GMOs were not regulated that the INRA (National Agricultural Research Institute) and the like didn’t use them), that real progress is above all ideological and that one cannot have globalisation without globalism. Also, it isn’t the transgenic Awakening which will bring us out of the deep sleep that the Seattle summit is going to lay down......
In effect, despite the warnings of the World Health Organisation, globalisation and competition laws are imposing the fatal trio: produce always more or less dear, quality more and more mediocre, where vulnerability to infections and cancers rises, while the pharmaceutical firms watch their profits made up as much by their agricultural interests (chemical fertilisers, pesticides, antibiotics) as by human medications.
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Also with this logic, they must know that
intensive breeding implies the use of medications which enable the animals to survive the abnormal conditions they are subjected to until their slaughter: preventative antibiotics, curatives, growth stimulants, synthetic vitamins (as one otherwise finds in the chemists in winter!).
Despite rigorous controls, guarantees of non-toxicity have not been supplied, 3 proofs:
- Ivermectin, anti parasitic, neurotoxic, used in veterinary medicine.
For the WHO the acceptable levels are 15?g/mg in the liver and 20 mg/kg in fat, if one kills the animal 28 days after the end of treatment, to leave time for the product to be eliminated. But the Americans, major exporters of meat to Europe, are going to impose on us a limit for beef of 100 for liver and 40 for fat, because they estimate they are not toxic to humans.
- Pesticide residues.
Even if the level conforms to legislation for each pesticide, they add up, the residues increase the potential for toxicity. Moreover, certain of them are not detectable, because they are degraded into various metabolites some of which could be more dangerous than the pesticide itself ("manèbe" is a fungicide which degrades into ethylene-thio-urea, a carcinogen).
-Numerous pesticides prohibited in France (*aldrine, dicrotophos, dieldrine, etrimfos.**..) are in use in third world countries, where the regulations are almost non-existent or poorly applied. These pesticides are found in coffee, cocoa and tropical fruits on sale in France.

Consequences

- Long term, allergic reactions, cancers and genetic effects:
an editorial in The Lancet (15/4/95) mentions 3 studies (Swedish, Scottish and French) which have established that over 150 years the concentration of sperm in human semen has fallen by 50%.
In the same period the number of cases of testicular cancer have doubled, as have the number of cases of abnormal development of male genitals. According to The Lancet these anomalies may be linked to the massive use of pesticides.
- Medium term : the resistance of staphylococcus is due to excessive use of, and the consumption of meat containing residues of avorparcine, an antibiotic used as a growth promoter. The ban in 1995 of avorparcine alone from animal feeds is however insufficient, because the other antibiotics used in intensive breeding can cause the same phenomena.
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About GMO(s) Genetically Modified Organisms

These are the species of animals or vegetables which have had the genes of other species introduced into their genome, which sometimes come from the other kingdom. The most likely risk is to public health.
Also transgenic maize carries a gene coded for resistance to Ampecillin, an antibiotic which is used a lot in human medicine.
Another type of risk : if one introduces a tomato gene into the genome of chickens, anyone who is allergic to tomatoes could have an allergic reaction to eating chicken !

About Nitrates (see mineral waters in french)

In Brittany 80% of drinking water comes from rivers, the standard of 50 mg of nitrates per litre is regularly exceeded. But these nitrates, which come from the intensive use of fertilisers and manure spreading on the fields, transform into nitrites which are toxic to unweaned babies, and into carcinogenic nitrosamines.
Today, a lot of producers conscious of the absurd system in which they are engaged are attempting a new approach and to return to methods closer to the traditional but economically viable.
Difficult, because the agro-chemical industry, the state and the WTO look badly on these initiatives......
As a result, the Organic Awakening is necessary ! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Translation by Steve Huddy -

steve@shuddy.fsnet.co.uk
In update 00/03/02
- TERMINATOR-GMOs: « Sterilize the living for the profit of the agro-chemical giants »
- ESSENTIAL OILS (Valnet)
- FAQ & reactions (March)
- Dr Vercoutère "scandal of water and meat pollution"

freely inspired from FR(Sc&Vie n°971, Aout 1998 p60 to 65)

BIOGASSENDI 25 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE, PERSONAL ADVICE AND RESULTS