Dr. Mercola discusses GMO Labeling

Get GMO Out of California! Out of this World!

tues. de-grease.

Crap-O-iLL !!!

screw-up from the top
oil is always turmoil
leave it!

tuesday afternoon de-light

Crap-A-Border-or-Boredoor!!!

police brutality, cultural impunity, border control cover-up.




(go to democracynow homepage)

friday, the 13th-the best day in april

Crap-a-man-made-Border!!!

The Story of Mario, a Tijuana Cop

Friday, 13 April 2012 10:49By David Bacon, Truthout | Report

Tijuana Border Crossing. (Photo: Dennis S. Hurd / Flickr)Mario is a Tijuana cop. Mario died not long ago, but driving with him through the streets of downtown was always a journey into the reality of the border. Mexico is a young country, in terms of the average age of its inhabitants. The average age of border crossers is even younger - 20 years old. And in the streets of Tijuana live hundreds of street children even younger than that. As Mario pilots his patrol car, he talks about the kids we see in a very matter-of-fact way. "There are so many living on the street here," he says. "Some are abandoned by their parents when they go across the border, or when they arrive in Tijuana from other parts of Mexico. As the kids get older, they learn to steal or to become prostitutes, and they leave the street."

We drive through the honky-tonk area of downtown. Some of the buildings at the bottom of Avenida de la Revolucion, as it gets close to the border, are falling down. Others have broken boards and doorways on their front facing the street. There are small, dirt-paved alleyways through the blocks, where the bands of street children live. According to Mario, "they sleep in hotel rooms, under food carts, or in abandoned buildings during the day. Some rob people at night. They take drugs - mostly crack, crystal or glue."

His stories sound like tales from Oliver Twist. "Doña Lupe," he says, "has thirty three children. She used to be a pollera [someone who guides people across the border]. Then she taught her kids to sell roses in the street in front of the clubs. They'd surround a customer, and while they're asking him to buy roses, they've hidden a knife in the bunches. Someone cuts the pocket of the pants of the customer, and their wallet falls out. She taught them to be robbers and prostitutes, and as the kids have grown up and had kids of their own, they were taught to be prostitutes and robbers too. It's passed down from generation to generation."

Mario had been a policeman for 21 years the last time we drove through downtown together. He was a member of the Grupo Beta, and says, when he started, he believed that those crossing the border without papers were just criminals. "I thought they deserved to be caught and punished because they were breaking the law," he says. "But after a while, I began to understand that immigration and undocumented people exist in many countries - that it's a global phenomenon. After that, I began to look at myself as their protector, rather than as their enemy."

Mario describes many situations in which he just hung out with border crossers at the border and talked. "Once I felt the same fear that they feel," he remembers. "I was sitting with a group of people in an area of the border where there was no fence - quite a while ago since places like that don't exist anymore. They got so involved in their conversation that they didn't notice the migra pulling up until it was on top of them with the lights on the truck flashing. When the truck came up, everybody ran. I ran too. I felt the same fear inside me that they did. If I had identified myself, they would never have arrested me, but I didn't think about that. I just felt afraid and I ran."

Mario remembers another incident that helped him understand the fear. "Once the Grupo Beta squad was called to a place where a lot of pollos [border crossers] had assembled to jump the fence," he recalls. "A whole lot of them jumped over, and began to run. The border patrol was about a hundred yards away. There were two brothers among the pollos, and the migra got one. After they had him, his brother began to throw rocks at the agents, to get them to let him go. So then the migra began to chase the one throwing rocks. He ran to the wall and began climbing back over into Mexico. As his hand grabbed the top of the fence, and he was hanging there, the agents grabbed his legs and pulled him down. They threw him down into the dirt, and one of the agents put his foot on his neck. Then he pulled out his pistol, and shot him in the head."

There's not much love lost between the US Border Patrol and Tijuana cops. Border Patrol agents think the cops are all on the take from drug gangs, Mario says. And the cops think the Border Patrol is filled with agents who look down on Mexicans. He says he was mistreated by the migra himself once. He was standing with a group of pollos at the border crossing, and they were standing just at the line. A Border Patrol vehicle came by and sprayed water from a puddle on them, and they began to yell. One of the agents got out of the car, and came at them with his club drawn. He called Mario an "hijo de su madre." "He didn't speak Spanish well enough to say the insult properly," he laughs. "I told him to calm down, or the people would get mad and start throwing rocks. The agent challenged me again, asking me if I wanted to make something of it.

"Later I met him at a dinner the Border Patrol gave for the agents in Grupo Beta. 'Do you remember me?' I asked him. You told me that I was an 'hijo de su madre.' The agent said he was sorry. 'If I'd known it was you, I'd never have said anything,' he told me. Then I told him that my boss had known I was hanging out with the pollos, I'd have been in trouble too. We both laughed."

I once asked Mario what he thought the border should be like. "I've thought about that a lot," he says. "I've come to the conclusion that it's OK the way it is. Every country has the right to protect its sovereignty." At one point, the Mexican government sent him to the border with Guatemala after the Guatemalan government had asked the Mexican government to investigate many complaints of beatings and rapes. Mario says he found that these crimes were being committed by former police and border guards themselves.

"They were committing horrible abuses of people," he says, "much worse than anything that happens here in the north. We criticize the U.S. government for sending army troops to patrol the border here, but the Mexican government sends troops to the border with Guatemala, and nobody says anything. What would happen if our roles were reversed? Lots of Americans live in Rosarito, and have houses and jobs. The government doesn't say anything because it thinks they're good for the economy. But what would happen if the U.S. fell into the same kind of crisis we have now in Mexico, and millions of people wanted to come here? We'd build a wall twice as tall as it is now."

----------------

DAVID BACON

David Bacon is a writer and photographer. His new book, "Illegal People - How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants," was just published by Beacon Press. His photographs and stories can be found at http://dbacon.igc.org.

Crap-O-Pension-Con-Sultans !!!

Private consultants rake in public pension fund fees

Map & Data Resources | ByMike Alberti | Pensions, State government

Apr. 4, 2012 — The woes of public pension funds have generally been placed squarely at the feet of public employees, who are often accused of having bloated pension packages that are neither realistic in today's economy nor fiscally sustainable. But much of the damage to pension fund account balances occurred as a result of losses incurred during the collapse of the bubble in 2008 to 2009.

Who has been responsible for fund performance? A recent article in The New York Times shed some light on the huge amounts of money that public pension funds pay each year to Wall Street firms for the service of managing their assets.

But external management fees are only part of the expenses that pension funds pay to private companies. Most funds also retain “investment consultants” who advise them on how to allocate their assets. The fees paid to these consultants in many cases are equal to a sizable portion of the amount of money that pension funds pay to their own employees.

Consider the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest public pension fund in the country. In fiscal year 2011, CALPERS had 2,366 employees and paid out a total of $155,965,000 in salaries and wages, according to its annual report. That same year, the fund paid a total of $48,707,000 to more than 100 investment consulting companies, equal to nearly a third of the amount that was spent on its own employees’ salaries.

The visualization below — a work in progress — presents data on a range of public pension funds for fiscal years 2009, 2010, and 2011 (in this visualization, you need to select the individual fund you wish to view; on the next page the data are presented in table form).

In addition to the total fees paid to all investment consultants, the visualizations also show the fees paid to the highest-paid individual consultants; the amount spent on employee salaries and wages; the rate of return on the fund’s investments over one-, three-, and five-year periods (measured from the year selected); and the total amount paid to external consultants expressed as a percentage of salaries and wages. This last measure ranges from the single digits to more than 90 percent in the case of the Indiana Teachers’ Retirement System.  

The fees paid to consultants are often less than transparent. The data visualized below and on the next page were gathered from the annual reports of the individual funds, and in some cases from supporting documents and disclosures. Other funds not included in the visualizations did not disclose consultant fees in those reports. When contacted, representatives of such funds agreed that those fees were a matter of public record. However, very few were willing or able to produce them. In some cases — such as with the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, the Texas Employee Retirement System, and the Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois — we were told that the only way to obtain the disclosure of those fees was by submitting a state Freedom of Information law request.

(Read More)

the friday night fever kind of friday night fever

Crap-A-War-Crime-Hawk !!!


An extended interview with Julian Assange recorded during filming of John Pilger's latest film The War You Don't See.

Sunday After Noom

Crap-O-Beings

Tibetan exile, Jamphel Yeshi, set himself on fire during a protest against the upcoming visit                                      of Chinese President Hu Jintao to India. (photo: Stringer/Reuters)

RSN FEATURE: Tibet Under Siege

By Jane Ayers, Reader Supported News

30 March 12

Reader Supported News | Feature

It is now very obvious to the world community: something is very wrong and very bad in Tibet to make these peaceful monks and nuns set themselves on fire. The whole world is watching in sadness and shock, and every time another Tibetan dies from these acts, the collective heart breaks, but the world's eyes are also opened. Why, why, why? What is happening?

The Tibetan hunger strikers (who just ended their 30 day fast outside the United Nations) pointed out that "undeclared martial law" is in effect. Obviously the immense concern is a reality: Chinese officials conducted a formal closure to all foreigners (and journalists) to the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) from February 20 to March 31, and have many monasteries locked down.

It is during this time period that the majority of protesting Tibetan monks and nuns have been setting themselves on fire. Thirty Tibetans are confirmed to have self-immolated since the first on February 27, 2009. But alarmingly - and most important - it is over the past two weeks (since March 16) that most of these self-immolations have taken place. These suicides are occurring in the blackout period happening right now, during the crackdown by Chinese authorities on all monasteries of Tibet. Many monasteries are in lockdown, and all communication to the outside world has been shut down.

These fire suicides include 25 men and 5 women. Out of the 30 Tibetans, 22 are known to have died following their protest with fire. Six of the monks (of the 30 total) were from the Kirti Monastery in Ngaba, and eight were former monks at the same monastery. The two nuns who self-immolated were from Mame Dechen Chokorling nunnery in Ngaba.

Tibetan Youth Sets Himself on Fire to Protest Chinese President's Arrival at Economic Summit in India

Just two days ago, one more Tibetan-in-exile youth, Jampa Yeshi, set himself on fire and ran through the streets outside the BRICS 5-Nation Economic Summit in New Delhi, India. Chinese President Hu Jintao is to meet with leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa this week. Jampa Yeshi, who had escaped from Tibet in 2006, was rushed to the hospital with critical injuries, suffering burns over 85% of his body. He died this morning.

His Holinesses the Dalai Lama and Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa. (photo: Karmapa in Europe)

The Associated Press reported today that China blamed the Dalai Lama of "single handedly" planning this specific suicide in India because the Chinese President was visiting. Tibetan rights groups announced that it was not planned, and was a surprise to all when it occurred. The Dalai Lama has stated that the self-immolations resulted because of the "cultural genocide by Chinese."

The International Campaign for Tibet stated that "the Chinese government is the responsible party as the restive situation in Tibet continues to escalate, and Tibetans continue to sacrifice themselves to free others from the suffering."

(Read More…)

Crap-A-Fracka!!!

Activists rally against money in politics in Washington DC, 01/21/11. (photo: Public Citizen/flickr)

The Fracking Industry Buys Congress

By Sharon Guynup, Environment News Service

22 February 12

WASHINGTON, DC, February 16, 2012 (ENS) - A natural gas drilling rush is on in rural North Dakota. And with it, residents are reporting growing numbers of respiratory ailments, skin lesions, blood oozing from eyes, and the deaths of livestock and pets.

Elsewhere, residents of Texas, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Wyoming and other states who thought they'd hit the lottery by signing natural gas drilling leases have watched their drinking water turn noxious: slick, brown, foamy, flammable.

In December, for the first time, federal regulators scientifically linked hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to the contamination of an aquifer, refuting repeated industry claims that the practice does not pollute drinking water.

A stream near Pavilion, Wyoming (Photo by Violet Clark/Legacy Images)

It happened in the rural ranching community of Pavillion, Wyoming, an area riddled with 162 natural gas wells dug between 1990 and 2006. Despite a decade of complaints from residents that their reeking water was undrinkable - and that many suffered from nerve damage, asthma, heart trouble and other health problems - state officials did nothing.

Finally the EPA stepped in, launching a three-year study running from 2008 to 2011.

In its report, the EPA identified numerous fracking chemicals in Pavillion's water. Cancer-causing benzene was found at 50 times safe levels, along with other hazardous chemicals, methane, diesel fuel, and toxic metals - in both groundwater and deep wells.

Now, across the country in Pennsylvania, the EPA is testing drinking water in 61 locations in Susquehanna County for possible fracking-related contamination.

Nationwide, residents living near fracked gas wells have filed over 1,000 complaints of tainted water, severe illnesses, livestock deaths, and fish kills. Complaints, sometimes involving hundreds of households, have risen in tandem with a veritable gold rush of new natural gas wells - now numbering about 493,000 across 31 states.

This month's hearings on the EPA's Pavillion report, led by the House subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, have been contentious, with pro-drilling politicians and industry representatives attacking its conclusions.

"The EPA is trying to go after fracking everywhere they can," said subcommittee chairman Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican. "They've had absolutely no proof that fracking had polluted drinking water, that I know of."

Both he and industry spokesmen implied that the media had created a poorly-informed frenzy, spreading fear and mistrust of fracking.

A natural gas well using hydraulic fracturing (Photo courtesy EPA)

However, James Martin, the EPA's regional administrator for the West, testified that cement casings that should have protected drinking water were weak or missing - a possible source of contamination.

Other witnesses, including Dr. Bernard Goldstein, of the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health, argued that the public should be concerned, noting that policy makers lack adequate information to protect public health.

Still, the fracking industry goes virtually unregulated. Why? The answer is money.

The oil and gas industry has reaped billions in profits from fracking. And since 1990, they've pumped $238.7 million into gubernatorial and Congressional election campaigns to persuade lawmakers that fracking is safe, which has effectively blocked federal regulation.

Republican candidates received at least three times more cash than Democratic candidates. Fracking industry spending especially targeted oversight - members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Congressman Joe Barton addresses the Tea Party Patriots American Policy Summit, February 2011 (Photo by Gage Skidmore)

Top Congressional recipients include Joe Barton and John Cornyn, both Texas Republicans, with contributions of $514,945 and $417,556 respectively; Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, who received $372,450; and Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican who took in $275,499.

James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, who accepted $357,788, claimed the EPA study was "not based on sound science but rather on political science."

The industry spent an additional $726 million on lobbying from 2001.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett also received hefty election support - $361,207. Corbett has signaled willingness to sign a fracking bill passed by the state Senate this month that offers huge benefits to natural gas drillers and essentially prevents municipalities and environmentalists from taking action against the location of wells.

Today, only four of 31 fracking states have significant drilling rules, while the gas industry is exempted from seven major federal regulations.

One of these, the "Halliburton loophole," pushed through by former Vice-President/former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney, exempts corporations from revealing the chemicals used in fracking fluid - bypassing the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts.

Congressman John Cornyn addresses the American Conservative Union's Conservative Political Action Conference, February 11, 2012. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)

Recently, five states have adopted disclosure rules, though they still allow for "proprietary trade secrets."

Another loophole leaves hazardous waste, including contaminated soil, water and drilling fluids, unregulated by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

Still another loophole dodges the Superfund law, which requires that polluters remediate for carcinogens like benzene released into the environment - except if they come from oil or gas.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, which was invented by Halliburton in the 1940s, injects water, sand and chemicals into the ground at high pressure, blasting apart shale bedrock to release natural gas. However, industry's reassurance that fracking is an old technology with a proven safety record is misleading.

Modern fracking is drastically different, using new chemical mixtures and millions rather than thousands of gallons of water injected at far higher pressure. It takes between one and 10 million gallons of water to frack one well.

Last week it was revealed that one well in Carrollton, Ohio, required 969,024 pounds (484.5 tons) of chemical additives, 5,066 tons of sand and 10.5 million gallons of water. Up to 40 percent of that water returns to the surface, carrying toxic drilling chemicals, high levels of salts, and sometimes, naturally-occurring radioactive material.

A 1990 industry study concluded that radium in drilling wastewater dumped off the Louisiana coast posed "potentially significant risks" of cancer for people who regularly eat fish from those waters.

Most fracking water remains underground, potentially polluting aquifers and drinking water. Streams and groundwater can be contaminated by spills, surface wastewater pits, and by millions of tons of chemical-laden dirt removed during the drilling process. Sewage treatment plants aren't equipped to treat chemicals or radioactivity in frackwater that could end up in drinking water.

Today, 65 probable fracking chemicals are federally listed as hazardous. Many others remain unstudied and unregulated, making it impossible to assess the effects on water resources.

EPA documents note that some "cause kidney, liver, heart, blood, and brain damage through prolonged or repeated exposure," and that fracking fluid migrates over unpredictable distances through different rock layers.

Last August, a national association of pediatricians published concerns that children are more susceptible to fracking chemical exposure than adults.

Millions of gallons of water from Texas' Trinity River near Fort Worth is pulled for fracking. (Photo by Don Young)

Clearly, the natural gas industry needs federal regulation, something President Barack Obama pledged in his State of the Union speech in January.

Now, as Interior Department officials draft new fracking rules for public lands, environmentalists are warning that they must not be swayed by industry: they must mandate full disclosure of fracking chemicals, well stability, and proper wastewater disposal.

The EPA is being urged to impose these rules nationwide, and do further studies on human health and environmental impacts. Federal health agencies are calling for a nationwide study that tracks people living near drilling sites.

Congress is being urged to pass the Frac Act, repealing Safe Drinking Water Act exemptions. Industry-friendly state agencies - like those in Texas that sometimes approve new drilling permits in two days, but haven't inspected many wells in years - are being prompted to institute real oversight.

In 2011, during the worst drought and biggest wildfires in Texas history, the natural gas industry used more than 13 billion gallons of Texas water in fracking operations.

EPA's report creates an incentive for the natural gas industry to increase political spending to further influence public opinion and impact the outcome of November's Congressional elections. That flow of spending has increased after last year's U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United ruling, with industry no longer hindered by a century-old ban on corporate spending around elections.

Environmentalists argue that natural gas companies must be held to the same regulatory standards as the rest of America's industries. Real oversight means that Exxon, Koch Industries and other oil and gas companies would be prevented from exerting even more influence over the political process. Otherwise, federal loopholes that allow water to be poisoned and health to be ruined will never be closed.

Find out how much money flows to your Congressperson by reading Common Cause's "Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets" report online.

So Sunny And yet So Cold

Crap-us-Sick-worLDs!!!

Dr. Gunter is not only a good doctor, but a 

great writer as well,.. but that was only a small 

factor why I found myself  in tears reading this 

story…   

Unsafe and poorly-performed abortions are a major cause of maternal mortality 

and morbidity. Banning abortion does not reduce the numbers of women who 

attempt it. (photo: Charlie Shoemaker/Corbis)

Anatomy of an Unsafe Abortion

By Dr. Jen Gunter, Dr. Jen Gunter's Blog

15 February 12

 was in clinic when I heard the overhead STAT page to the emergency room.

As I sprinted down the stairs, I ran through the possible scenarios. I wasn’t on call, so the day to day gynecologic emergencies weren’t my purview. I hadn’t operated on anyone in the past few weeks, so unlikely to be one of my own patients with a complication.

Logically there was only one conclusion.

A nurse was holding the staff entrance to the ER open. From the look on her face I surmised this was to save the minute or two it would take to punch in the numbers on the lock and inquire at the desk for patient’s whereabouts.

"Down there," she pointed.

On the gurney lay a young woman the color of white marble. The red pool between her legs, ominously free of clots, offered a silent explanation.

"She arrived a few minutes ago. Not even a note." My resident was breathless with anger, adrenaline, and panic.

I had an idea who she went to. The same one the others did. The same one many more would visit. A doctor, but considering what I had seen he could’t have any formal gynecology training. The only thing he offered that the well-trained provers didn’t was a cut-rate price. If you don’t know to ask, well, a doctor is a doctor. That’s assuming you are empowered enough to have such a discussion. I was also pretty sure his office didn’t offer interpreters.

I needed equipment not available in an emergency room. I looked at the emergency room attending. "Call the OR and tell them we need a room. Now." And then I turned to my resident. I was going to tell him to physically make sure a room, any room, was ready when we arrived, but he had already sprinted towards the stairs. He knew.

We didn’t wait for an orderly. A terrified medical student and I raced down the hallway with the gurney. The amorphous red pool dripped onto the floor as we rounded the corner to the elevators.

The double doors that led to the operating rooms swung open. "The urology room. They’re between cases," my resident shouted.

I saw an anesthesiologist out of the corner of my eye. "You. Now!" Most emergencies can wait a few minutes to check in at the front desk and for the anesthesiologist and nursing staff to take stock of the situation. This was not one of them.

The urologist, whose room I appropriated, blustered and sputtered in behind me. "What the fuck are you doing barging in, I’ve got another case…" but as we moved my patient over to the operating table and he saw the blood, he stopped. He grabbed a tray of instruments and opened. "I’ll be your scrub."

The anesthesiologist was pissed. Not really mad, more riled up than anything. No one likes to be blind sided, no matter how well intentioned. And he probably thought I was over reacting. That is until he put in another intravenous.

"Fuck." What looked like blood tinged water flashed back.

And now they all understood what I knew the second I laid eyes on this patient. Abortions that go horribly wrong bleed out. Quickly.

The room filled with surgeons, nurses, and students eager to help. To do something. Anything.

I opened the vagina and by feel clamped through the holes on either side of the uterus where I knew from experience I would find the uterine arteries, the likely site of the puncture. I didn’t know which side, and at that point it didn’t matter. I just needed to stop the blood flow. It took less than a minute. She would have bled to death if I had opened her belly.

As the bleeding had stopped, it was up to the anesthesiologist to fix the hematologic tempest. A vascular system so traumatized by sheer blood loss that it had run haywire and lost the ability to clot. Disseminated intravascular coagulation. This is how many young women die when an abortion goes wrong.

My hands started to shake. Everything from leaving my clinic to this point had been one crescendoing adrenaline-fueled reflex. Now that there was nothing physically for me to do the energy had to go somewhere.

I looked around. A forest of IV poles, laden with blood instead of fruit. Everyone not directly helping was running back and forth to the pharmacy or blood bank. A nurse and another surgeon started to clean the floor. We were all bonded by this nameless woman whose life we were desperately trying to save. And we were bearing witness, because we knew if she died it was unlikely anyone would read about her in the paper. It was unlikely her family would protest. A myriad of potential reasons. Shame of the abortion. Distrust of government. Fear of immigration officials.

The urologist, a grizzled older man with whom I had nothing in common except a medical degree and this patient, rested his hand on my shoulder. It was a kind, fatherly gesture. The weight was comforting.

"You done good." He said. And then he added, "Those bastards."

I knew he was referring not just to the physician who did this procedure, but to everyone in society who had contributed to a disadvantaged woman finding herself in such a desperate situation.

God-damned-the-Crap-Gene-Modif-A-microRNA !!!

New research shows that when we eat we're consuming more than just 

vitamins and protein. Our bodies are absorbing information, or 

microRNA. 01/09/12. (art: Greenpeace)

The Very Real Danger of Genetically Modified Foods

By Ari LeVaux, The Atlantic

10 January 12

hinese researchers have found small pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the blood and organs of humans who eat rice. The Nanjing University-based team showed that this genetic material will bind to proteins in human liver cells and influence the uptake of cholesterol from the blood.

The type of RNA in question is called microRNA, due to its small size. MicroRNAs have been studied extensively since their discovery ten years ago, and have been linked to human diseases including cancer, Alzheimer's, and diabetes. The Chinese research provides the first example of ingested plant microRNA surviving digestion and influencing human cell function.

Should the research survive scientific scrutiny, it could prove a game changer in many fields. It would mean that we're eating not just vitamins, protein, and fuel, but information as well

That knowledge could deepen our understanding of cross-species communication, co-evolution, and predator-prey relationships. It could illuminate new mechanisms for some metabolic disorders and perhaps explain how some herbal medicines function. And it reveals a pathway by which genetically modified (GM) foods might influence human health.

Monsanto's website states, "There is no need for, or value in testing the safety of GM foods in humans." This viewpoint, while good for business, is built on an understanding of genetics circa 1950. It follows what's called the "Central Dogma" (PDF) of genetics, which postulates a one-way chain of command between DNA and the cells DNA governs.

The Central Dogma resembles the process of ordering a pizza. The DNA knows what kind of pizza it wants, and orders it. The RNA is the order slip, which communicates the specifics of the pizza to the cook. The finished and delivered pizza is analogous to the protein that DNA codes for.

We've known for years that the Central Dogma, though basically correct, is overly simplistic. For example: Pieces of microRNA that don't code for anything, pizza or otherwise, can travel among cells and influence their activities in many other ways. So while the DNA is ordering pizza, it's also bombarding the pizzeria with unrelated RNA messages that can cancel a cheese delivery, pay the dishwasher nine million dollars, or email the secret sauce recipe to WikiLeaks.

Monsanto's claim that human toxicology tests are unwarranted is based on the doctrine of "substantial equivalence." This term is used around the world as the basis of regulations designed to facilitate the rapid commercialization of genetically engineered foods, by sparing them from extensive safety testing.

According to substantial equivalence, comparisons between GM and non-GM crops need only investigate the end products of DNA translation: the pizza, as it were. "There is no need to test the safety of DNA introduced into GM crops. DNA (and resulting RNA) is present in almost all foods," Monsanto's website reads. "DNA is non-toxic and the presence of DNA, in and of itself, presents no hazard."

The Chinese RNA study threatens to blast a major hole in that claim. It means that DNA can code for microRNA, which can, in fact, be hazardous.

"So long as the introduced protein is determined to be safe, food from GM crops determined to be substantially equivalent is not expected to pose any health risks," Monsanto's website goes on. In other words, as long as the pizza is OK, the introduced DNA doesn't pose a problem.

Chen-Yu Zhang, the lead researcher on the Chinese RNA study, has made no comment regarding the implications of his work for the debate over the safety of GM food. Nonetheless, his discoveries give shape to concerns about substantial equivalence that have been raised for years.

In 1999, a group of scientists wrote a now-landmark letter titled "Beyond Substantial Equivalence" to the prestigious journal Nature. In the letter, Erik Millstone et. al. called substantial equivalence "a pseudo-scientific concept" that is "inherently anti-scientific because it was created primarily to provide an excuse for not requiring biochemical or toxicological tests."

To these charges, Monsanto responded: "The concept of substantial equivalence was elaborated by international scientific and regulatory experts convened by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1991, well before any biotechnology products were ready for market.

This response is less a rebuttal than a testimonial to Monsanto's marketing prowess. Establishing the concept of substantial equivalence worldwide was a prerequisite to the global commercialization of GM crops. It created a legal framework for selling GM foods anywhere in the world that substantial equivalence was accepted. By the time substantial equivalence was adopted, Monsanto had already developed numerous GM crops and was actively grooming them for market.

The OECD's 34 member nations could be described as largely rich, white, developed, and sympathetic to big business. The group's current mission is to spread economic development to the rest of the world. And while that mission has yet to be accomplished, OECD has helped Monsanto spread substantial equivalence to the rest of the world, selling a lot of GM seed along the way.

The news that we're ingesting information as well as physical material should force the biotech industry to confront the possibility that new DNA can have dangerous implications far beyond the products it codes for. Can we count on the biotech industry to accept the notion that more testing is necessary? Not if such action is perceived as a threat to the bottom line.

Ari LeVaux writes Flash in the Pan, a syndicated weekly food column that has appeared in more than 50 newspapers in 21 states. Learn more at flashinthepan.net.