Woman Receives Anonymous Threats after Opposing Monsanto
After losing a 3-day old daughter to kidney failure, a woman named Sofia Gatica from Argentina made a decision to spearhead an anti-Monsanto movement with other mothers of sick children. Monsanto is a biotechnology, agrochemical company which has been polluting the environment and human health with herbicides, pesticides, genetically modified foods, and other substances for decades. Numerous cases have been brought against Monsanto for biological damage and even death — such is the recent case in which farmers say the biotech giant’s creations spawned ‘devastating birth defects‘.
Near where Gatica lives, there are soybean fields covering the land where farmers spray loads of chemicals on the crops. The primary weed killer used on the fields is the one and only Roundup, the most popular herbicide used by farmers which contains the active ingredient glyphosate. Gatica didn’t initially connect the chemical exposure to her baby’s death until she noticed that many of her friends and neighbors were also experiencing health problems.
“I started seeing children with mouth covers, mothers with scarves wrapped around their heads to cover their baldness, due to chemotherapy…There are soybeans to the north, to the south, and to the east, and when they spray, they spray over the people because there’s no distance,” Gatica said to a Grist reporter.
In fact, researchers found that people in her area had three to four agricultural chemicals in their blood, including one chemical, endosulfan, which is banned in over 80 countries. The researchers also found that 33 percent of the residents were struck with cancer. In other previous German findings, Monsanto’s Roundup was present in all urine samples tested at an amount of 5 to 20-fold the established limit for drinking water, showing how prevalent these chemicals really are.
In retaliation to Monsanto and their highly used chemical creations, Gatica worked to create an international movement against Monsanto with other activists. A few years ago, after co-founding a group called Mothers of Ituzaingó, she and her group initiated the first epidemiological study of the area which found high rates of neurological and respiratory disease, birth defects, infant mortality, and cancer rates more than 40 times the national average. She then continued to find researchers to study the links between pesticides, herbicides, and health problems, while engaging in protests voicing concerns over the issues.
“We blockaded the spraying machines. We would get into the fields to block them. We carried out protests at the Ministry of Agriculture and the Health Ministry. We took sick people to the ministry,” she said.
Over the course of a few years, mandatory buffer zones between aerial spraying and neighborhoods has been put in place thanks to the activist movement. In addition, Argentina’s Supreme Court decided that agrochemicals could not be sprayed near living areas.
However, while Gatica and other activists successfully created change, the process wasn’t necessarily easy. In fact, there were even direct threats.
“Somebody came inside my house with a weapon. I was told not to ‘screw around with the soybeans.’ I would get phone calls where I’d be told that I would only have two children the next day,” she said. “I had the police investigate this, but I was told that the file was secret,” she added after being questioned as to whether she ever found out who made the personal attacks.
Interestingly enough, previous research found that Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Roundup exhibits direct toxicity to human cells, effectively killing them off even at low doses. The toxicity and negative impact on young children is even greater, and is most detrimental to infants or unborn babies. Although Gatica started alone and was even directly threatened, she rose above these complications and effectively ignited change – she will not be the last.
Do they have a email. We need to inform them on how to protect themselves from these chemicals. Also does any one know if they have linked up with activists here in this country?
Federal ethanol policy increases Government motors oil use and Big oil profit.
It is reported that today California is using Brazil sugar cane ethanol at $0.16 per gal increase over using GMO corn fuel ethanol. In this game the cars and trucks get to pay and Big oil profits are the result that may be ready for change.
We do NOT support AB 523 or SB 1396 unless the ethanol mandate is changed to voluntary ethanol in our gas.
Folks that pay more at the pump for less from Cars, trucks, food, water & air need better, it is time.
The car tax of AB 118 Nunez is just a simple Big oil welfare program, AAA questioned the policy and some folks still agree.
AB 523 & SB 1326 are just a short put (waiver) from better results.
Monsanto Board of Directors
William U Parfet
Principal Occupation: Chairman and Chief Executive. Officer, MPI Research, Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MPI Research, Inc., a pre-clinical toxicology research laboratory, since 1999; Co-Chairman of MPI Research, LLC, 1995-1999. Director: Stryker Corporation and Taubman Centers
Hugh Grant
Principal Occupation: Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, Monsanto. Chairman of the Board of Monsanto Company since October 2003; President and Chief Executive Officer of Monsanto Company since May 2003; Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Monsanto Company, 2000-2003; Co-President, Agricultural Sector, old Monsanto Company, 1998-2000. Director: PPG Industries, Inc.
George H Poste
Ph.D D.V.M. Principal Occupation: Chief Executive, Health. Technology Networks and Director, Arizona Biodesign. Chief Executive of Health Technology Networks, a consulting group specializing in the application of genomics technologies and computing in healthcare, since 1999; Director of the Arizona Biodesign Institute, a combination of research groups at Arizona State University, since May 2003; Chief Science and Technology Officer and Director, SmithKline Beecham, 1992-1999. Director: Exelixis, Inc. and Orchid Cellmark, Inc
Jan Fields
Jan Fields is President, McDonald's USA, LLC. In this role, Ms. Fields is responsible for the strategic direction and overall business results of the 14,000 McDonald’s restaurants in the United States.
David L Chicoine
David L. Chicoine is the President of South Dakota State University
Robert J Stevens
Chairman of Lockheed Martin since April 2005. Chief Executive Officer of Lockheed Martin since August 2004, President of Lockheed Martin since October 23, 2000, Chief Operating Officer of Lockheed Martin from October 2000 to August 2004, Executive Vice President and. Chief Financial Officer of Lockheed Martin from October 1999 to March 2001, Vice President of Strategic Development of Lockheed Martin from November 1998 to October 1999; President and Chief Operating Officer of the former Lockheed Martin Energy and Environment Sector from January 1998 to June 1999; President of Lockheed Martin Air Traffic Management Division from June 1996 through January 1998; Executive Vice President and Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Air Traffic Management from December 1993 to May 1996; General Manager of Loral Systems Manufacturing Company from 1987 to 1993; director of Monsanto Company
Charles Steven McMillan
Principal Occupation: Retired Chairman and Chief. Executive Officer, Sara Lee Corporation. Chairman of the Board of Sara Lee Corporation, a global consumer packaged goods company, October 2001-October 2005, Chief Executive Officer of Sara Lee Corporation, July 2000-February 2005; President of Sara Lee Corporation 2000-2004; President and Chief Operating Officer, Sara Lee Corporation, 1997-2000.
Frank V AtLee III
Principal Occupation: Retired President, American. Chairman of the Board of Monsanto Company, 2000-2003; Interim president and chief executive officer, Monsanto Company, December 2002-May 2003; Chair, Advisory Committee, Arizona Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, 2002-2004; President of American Cyanamid Company, a major pharmaceutical company, 1993-January 1995; Chairman of Cyanamid International, 1993-January 1995.
John W Bachmann
First elected a director in 2001. Senior Partner, Edward Jones, St. Louis, Missouri, since 2004, and Managing Partner from 1980 to January 2004; financial services. Mr. Bachmann began his career at Edward Jones in 1959. He is also a director of the Monsanto Company. (also sits on the Board of parent company of American Airlines)
Gwendolyn S King
President of Podium Prose, a Washington, D.C. speaker's bureau and speechwriting service, since 2000. Founding Partner, The Directors' Council, a corporate board search firm, from October 2003 to June 2005; Senior Vice President of Corporate and Public Affairs of PECO. Energy Company (formerly Philadelphia Electric Company) from October 1992 until her retirement in February 1998; Commissioner of the Social Security Administration from August 1989 to September 1992; director of Pharmacia from 1999 to 2003; director of Countrywide Financial Corporation from 2001 to 2004; director of Monsanto Company and Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (also on the Board of Lockhead Martin)
Arthur H Harper
Principal Occupation: Managing Partner, GenNx360. Managing Partner, GenNx360 Capital Partners, a private equity firm focused on business to business companies, since 2006; President and Chief Executive Officer, Equipment Services Division, General Electric Corporation, 2002-2005; Executive Vice President, GE Capital Services, General Electric Corporation, 2001-2002. Director: Gannett Co., Inc.
See: Occupy Monsanto. Research for yourself. Stay Healthy.
I think the victims should start suing the farmers first so they can stop cultivating this dangerous chemical on their fields.
William Parfet has the best racket of them all. Use Monsanto to make money, while Monsanto is finding new ways to make people sick. Then Parfet makes money at MPI Research running “safety” studies for life saving treatments the sick people need.
Source: http://www.occupymonsanto360.org (http://s.tt/19VWP)
And the "safety" studies conducted at MPI Research, under Parfet, are as corrupt as Monsanto.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSlo72hv2_A
When we buy inorganic coffee, or GMO soybeans or corn in our many processed foods, we not only injure ourselves, but we are supporting these reprobate corporations like Monsanto, to aerial spray on poor indigenous people where this Frankenfood is produced, and poison their land and water.
I've seen the cancer rates, as above, and the pictures of deformed children, and suffering people of all ages. (See Youtube videos) Can we afford to continue supporting this lifestyle, at the immiseration and physical harm of others?
Occupy an Ethical Planet.