[MedicalConspiracies] Demand for mandatory labeling of geneticallymodified foods in SOUTH AFRICA

[Guest guest]

Secretary of ParliamentMr. J. RamrockParliamentCAPE TOWN/SOUTH AFRICA By e-mail INPUT FOR CONSUMER PROTECTION BILLREQUEST TO REINSTATE THE GMO LABELLING CLAUSE 29 (1) (a) MAY 2008 As a citizen of this nation I hereby exercise my constitutional rights to ahealthy environment and healthy food, the right of informed choice andconsent and participation in decision-making processes relating to thiscontentious issue, the right to information and above all the individual'shuman right to bodily integrity, the latter being the most significantprovision of the Nuremberg Code, which sets forth the legal requirements forhuman experimentation, i.e. " voluntary consent of the human subject isabsolutely essential". Likewise, the 1948 Universal Declaration of HumanRights declares bodily integrity central to both human rights and humandignity and the International Covenant on Civil and Po-litical Rightsunmistakably declares that "no one shall be subjected without his freeconsent to medical or scientific experimentation". By deliberately ignoringthe precautionary principle enshrined in the Cartagena Protocol onBiosafety, to which South Africa is signatory, and refusing to implementmandatory labeling of GM products, this government allows its citizens to beused as guinea pigs of multinational biotech companies, sacrificing thenation's health for corporate greed. I hereby demand the immediate implementation and reinstatement of mandatoryGMO labelling in the Consumer Protection Bill. Failure to comply with myrequest endorsed by millions of citizens of this nation constitutes an actof criminal negligence and wilful intent to do grievous bodily harm and Iwill not hesitate to lay a respective charge against the decision-makers inthis process with the Human Rights Commission. Unless severely intelligence-challenged, the decision-makers in ourgovernment, particularly the former and current minister of agriculture,cannot be that naïve and oblivious to the fact that the concept of"substantial equivalence" is by no means based on evidence-based science butwas coined by scientifically-illiterate lawyers of the biotech companies andwritten into law by HW Bush who issued an Executive Order proclaiming GMplants (soya, corn) to be "substantially equivalent" to their traditionalcounterparts and therefore not needing any special health safety study ortesting. Ethical scientists and researchers, including my own daughter whois a genetic researcher with a B Sc. Honours degree in molecular geneticsand a B Sc. Master's degree in genetics, refute the validity of thesubstantial equivalence principle and consider it the biggest farce andfraud ever committed in the science field. The FDA, supposedly establishedto protect peoples' health, and other regulatory bodies such as EPA blindlyadopted this ill-begotten ruling, which, however, is not surprising giventhe amply documented corrupt symbiosis between the FDA and pharma andbiotech companies. And anyone involved in the GM debacle, as I have been forthe past ten years, is well aware of the meanwhile legendary revolving doorat the FDA, the best example of which was the approval of aspartame andMonsanto's rBGH drug, which was approved against the advice and conscienceof the FDA's own scientists thanks to the moles planted in the FDA byMonsanto, such as Michael Taylor.. The wording of the approval, i.e. "therisks to animals and humans is MANAGEABLE" goes down in history as the mostappalling case of total disre-gard to human health by the very agency thatis supposed to protect the latter and is the first time ever that aveterinary drug had been approved for human consumption because the risk wasconsidered manageable. Of course, it will be "manageable" and abillion-dollar scoop for the cancer industry, given the fact that accordingto independent researchers, scientists and physicians NOT bought and fundedby biotech companies rBGH may cause colon, prostrate and breast cancer. It is absolutely shocking that our government keeps parroting thescientifically nonsensical ramblings of the FDA and of the well-remuneratedspin-doctors of biotech companies, i.e. that genetically engineered foodsare "substantially equivalent" to their traditional counterparts andtherefore safe for human con-sumption. GMOs contain antibiotic-resistantmarker genes, viral promoters and foreign proteins never before consumed byhumans and not found in crops produced through normal means ofhybridization. In addition, neither the FDA nor any other regulatory body are testing theseproducts themselves and rely on the edited and "cooked" summaries providedby the very companies they are supposed to regulate. In fact, NO HUMANSAFETY STUDY HAS EVER BEEN CONDUCTED, except for one small "study" -referred to as the "Newcastle Feeding Study" - conducted in 2003, whichproved beyond a shadow of a doubt that even after one small meal containingGM soya, transgenes could transfer out of GM food into gut bacteria atdetectable levels. There is now overwhelming evidence documented in scientific literature ofdeaths attributable to GM products. In addition to the high toxicity ofMonsanto's MON 863, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt by scientists fromCRIIGEN last year, another study conducted by Russian scientist IrinaErmakova showed that 55% of the offspring of rats fed on GM soya died withinthree weeks of birth. The second study by Manuela Malatesta and colleaguesin the universities of Pavia and Urbino in Italy showed that mice fed on GMsoya experienced a slowdown in cel-lular metabolism and modifications toliver and pancreas. The third study conducted by YCSIRO in Australia showedthat the introduction of genes from a bean variety into a GM pea led to thecreation of a novel protein which caused inflammation of the lung tissue ofmice. In view of the indisputable evidence provided by thousands of eminentresearchers and scientists that GMOs are toxic and thus pose a threat toboth animal and human health, it is absolutely inconceivable that thisgovernment voluntarily keeps embracing the shackles of unscrupulousmultinational biotech companies with total disregard for the health of itscitizens. Likewise appalling is the fact that, in violation of the statedCodex principles respecting diversity of opinion, the South Africangovernment bowed to the bullying tactics of the U.S. and withdrew itsstatement CRD 21 arguing for mandatory labeling of all genetically modifiedfoods from the Codex process at the recent Codex meeting in Ottawa, Canada.Surely, those in our governments who showed such deplorable lack of backbonemust be aware of the fact that in the absence of any human safety studyhaving ever been conducted, force-feeding the whole nation with potentiallydangerous and toxic GMOs without the peoples' knowledge and above allCONSENT constitutes human experimentation which is prohibited and inviolation of the Helsinki Declaration, which clearly states that any time"there is research on human beings, each potential subject must beadequately informed of the aims, methods, anticipated benefits and potentialhazards of the study and the discomfort it may entail. He or she should beinformed that he or she is at liberty to abstain from participation in thestudy and that he or she is free to withdraw his or her consent toparticipation at any time". Given the fact that South Africa is the only country on the Africancontinent that grows its staple food (white maize) in genetically modifiedform and that the poorest of the poor are consuming a product laced withantibiotic-resistant marker genes and the most commonly used promoter, i.e.the cauliflower mosaic virus, which is closely related to the Hepatitis Band HIV virus, this government should also be held responsible and liablefor the sharp rise in HIV infections and multi-drug resistant tuberculosiscases. In this context, I refer to my article (below) which has beenpublished in the U.K., the U.S. and Canada. Correlation between GMOs and multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis---by IngridBlank "Instead of blaming multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis on patients and theiralleged non-adherence to the prescribed drug regime, it would be prudent toinvestigate and eradicate the underlying cause for multi-drug-resistanttuberculosis and other drug and antibiotic resistant infectious diseasesfirst - namely commercial gene technology! The disaster unfolding on aglobal scale is exactly the reason why the first genetic engineers calledfor a moratorium in the Asilomar Declaration of 1975. For decades, reputableand ethical scientists such as Dr. Mae Wan Ho and Prof. Joe Cummins havewarned -substantiated by scientific evidence - that horizontal genetransfer, i.e. the transfer of genes by vectors (viruses and otherinfectious agents)designed to cross species barriers and thus enhancing thepotential for creating new viral and bacterial pathogens, will result in thecreation of superbugs and multi-drug resistant diseases. According to theseeminent genetic researchers, strains of bacteria "crippled" in thelaboratory can survive in the environment and exchange genes with otherorganisms. DNA from dead and living cells persists in the environment andtransfers to other organisms. Naked viral DNA (virus without its viralcoat)is even more infectious and may well be taken up by mammalian cellsincluding our own! In addition, viral DNA has shown to resist digestion inthe gut of mice, enters the blood stream to infect white blood cells, spleenand liver cells. One such virus most commonly used as a promoter in geneticengineering is the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) which, due to itsrecombination hotspot, is prone to break and join with other DNA tointegrate into the cell's genome, which could activate host genes and leadto cancer. In addition, CaMV is closely related to the Hepatitis B and HIVvirus and due to its ability to propagate in plant and insect hosts afterrecombination may also recombine with related Hepatitis B and HIV to createa most powerful disease in a large number of people consuming large numbersof virus genes incorporated into crop plants. In the South African setting,the number of people at risk could not get any larger, since our governmentunilaterally decided without the peoples' knowledge and above all priorCONSENT, to grow our staple food (white maize) in genetically modified formwithout adhering to the precautionary principle, thus violating ourconstitutional rights to a healthy environment and healthy food. For thereasons described above it is therefore imperative to demand immediateimplementation of mandatory labeling of genetically modified food productsin compliance with our constitutional rights of informed choice and consent,participation in decision-making processes and above all the individual'sright to bodily integrity, the latter being the most significant provisionof the Nuremberg Code, which sets forth the legal requirements for humanex-perimentation, i.e. " voluntary consent of the human subject isabsolutely essen-tial". Likewise, the 1948 Universal Declaration of HumanRights declares bodily integrity central to both human rights and humandignity and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rightsunmistakably declares that "no one shall be subjected without his freeconsent to medical or scientific experimentation". By deliberately ignoringthe precautionary principle and refusing to implement mandatory labeling ofGM products, this government allows its citizens to be used as guinea pigs,sacrificing the nation's health for corporate greed. There is no such thingas "substantial equivalence". This phrase was coined by scientificallyilliterate lawyers of the biotech industry and in 1992 written into law byH.W. Bush, who proclaimed GM plants to be "substantially equivalent" totheir tradi-tional counterparts and therefore did not need any specialhealth safety study or testing. Ethical scientists and researchers considerthis the biggest farce and fraud ever committed in the science field.Contrary to what the corporate yarn spinners of biotech companies want the public to believe, not one single human safety study has ever been conducted!One does not need a PhD in genetics to see the correlation between GMOs andthe sharp rise in HIV infections and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis andother diseases. The decision-makers who keep violating our human right tobodily integrity by unleashing these toxins into our environment and foodchain without our knowledge and consent must be held accountable. Sincerely,Ingrid Blank/Merrivale/South Africa --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~To to this group, send email to: MedicalConspiracies- (AT) googl (DOT) com