Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – Green Our Vaccines Rally

The following is a transcript of Robert F. Kennedy’s speech for the Green Our Vaccines Rally in Washington, DC, June 4th, 2008. This speech, posted on the Generation Rescue website is reprinted with permission.

Thank you very much. I’m so happy to see all of you out here today, finally telling the truth to this congress which needs to hear the truth for the first time, and as Boyd Haley says, the press isn’t telling it to them. You know, the one exception is UPI, that has done a great job, and we need to give them an applause for what they’ve done, ‘cause they’re the only media outlet that is telling the truth on this issue.

I didn’t want to get involved in this issue, I got dragged into this issue because the truth became undeniable to me—and I was working on mercury issues from an environmental standpoint: coal burning power plants, which discharged an enormous amount of mercury, and about eight years ago, the EPA said that in nineteen states, because of mercury discharge from power plants, it is now unsafe to eat any freshwater fish in the state. In forty-nine states, at least some of the fish are unsafe to eat because of mercury. In fact, the only state where all the fish are still safe to eat is Wyoming—Dick Cheney’s home state, where the republican-controlled legislature has refused to appropriate the money to test the fish.In all the other states, at least some, most, or all the fish are unsafe to eat. Every state on the Atlantic coast has fish advisories; every state in the Gulf coast now has fish advisories; if you eat tuna fish, the FDA will warn you not to eat too much of it; swordfish, all these fish, and why?

Because it causes neurological injury in children.

So the government scientists are acknowledging that even tiny, infinitesimal amounts of mercury—parts per billion—will cause

profound neurological injury in children. And I was working on these issues, and mothers started coming up to me and said, “You know, the biggest exposure is not coming from power plants, or old mining claims, or old mining claims, as you might think. It’s coming from our own vaccines.” And they asked me to work on it, and to just look into it. And they were not hysterical people. They were scientists, they were doctors, they were psychiatrists, they were pharmacists, they were people that had their feet on the ground. They had attended the conferences, they had read the scientific literature, they had calmly and deliberately gone through this, and they had reached a conclusion. And the conclusion was that the vaccines were destroying the health, were making the sickest generation of American children in the history of our country. And I started looking into it, and somebody provided me with the Simpsonwood memo, which I then published in Rolling Stone.

Simpsonwood was the transcripts of a secret meeting that was held between CDC and seventy-five representatives of the vaccine industry, in which they reviewed a report that CDC had ordered, the Stratton study of the hundred-thousand children in the United States Vaccine Safety Database. And when they looked at it themselves, they said, “It is
impossible—” this is a quote, “It is impossible to massage this data to make the signal go away. There is no denying that there is a connection between and Thimerosal in the vaccines. And they said—this is what they said, I didn’t say this, this is their own scientists, their own conclusion of the best doctors, the top people at CDC, the top people in the pharmaceutical industry.

And, you know, when they had this meeting, they had it not in Atlanta, which was the headquarters of the CDC, but at Simpsonwood, at a private conference center, because they believed that that would make them able to insulate themselves from a court request under the Freedom of Information law, and they would not have to disclose the transcripts of these meetings to the public. Somebody transcribed the meetings, and we were able to get a hold of it.

You have them talking about the Verstratten study and saying there’s a clear link not just with autism but with a whole range of neurological disorders: speech delay, language delay. All kind of learning disorders: ADD; hyperactivity disorder and the injection of these vaccines [sic]. And they could tell because, as you know, vaccine protocols were dramatically increased.

When I was a little boy, we only got three
vaccines. But my children, five of my six children, got twenty-two vaccines. Beginning in 1989—that’s the Thimerosal generation. That’s the vaccine generation, and it’s the sickest generation in the history of this country. And I looked at these, I read, and I was astonished, because I have worked on environmental issues for twenty-five years, and I know what “captive agency phenomena” is. It’s the dynamic by which the regulatory agencies become captured by the industries they’re supposed to regulate. And there’s all kinds of mechanisms that encourage that, or provoke that, or promote that to happen.

But I was shocked, because I know many of these people in CDC, and I know the people in the FDA, and I know that when they entered those agencies, they entered with a good heart, intending to do the right thing. But something had corrupted them. They got sucked into a vortex because they made decisions that were wrong, and instead of admitting it to the public, they covered it up to protect themselves. And it was very clear, and then I got a hold of the correspondence between the doctors and between CDC, rebuking each other and saying, “Why didn’t we look at this? Why didn’t somebody do a mass loading before we did these, approved these protocols with twenty-two vaccines to these children? Why didn’t we do this?” Rebuking themselves, rebuking each other. And then, the Simpsonwood transcripts, after the first, maybe two hours in which they’re talking about the undeniability of the connection between autism and Thimerosal; the impossibility of massaging the data further in order to try and eliminate those
signals. That’s what they spend the first two hours.

The rest of the meeting they spend talking about, “How do we hide this?” from the press, from the public, and from what they call the “predatory bar,” all the lawyers out there who may represent people who were injured by their negligence. And the end of that meeting, they make a few decisions. One is, for Stratton, the man who designed, who constructed the study, is hired the next day by GlaxoSmithKline and shipped off to Switzerland. And six months later, he sends in a redesigned study that includes cohorts that are—predictably—who are too young to have been diagnosed as autistic.

So he loads the study down, the data down, and they tell the public that they’ve lost all the original data. This is what CDC says to this day, that it does not know what happened to the original data in the Verstratton study. And they publish this other study that is a corrupt and crooked what we call “tobacco science,” done by a bunch of “biostitutes, of crooked scientists who are trying to fool the American public.
Then Kathleen Stratton, of CDC and IOM,says, “What we need is, we need some studies that will disprove the link.” So, they work with the vaccine industry to gin up these four phony European studies that are done by vaccine industry employees, funded by the vaccine industry, and published in the American Academy of Pediatrics magazine, which receives eighty percent of its revenue from the vaccine industry. And none of these scientists disclose any of their myriad conflicts, which conventional ethics
rules require them to do. It’s not disclosed.

And these studies—and you know, I’ve made a profession of reading phony science, of junk science, of “tobacco science,” because I see it every day. I’ve sued over four-hundred polluters, and this how they defend themselves. They hire these phony scientists, “tobacco scientists,” they produce these phony reports—so I know how to read them. So I did something that not a single member—you see the press here, and all there?—not a single member of this press corps, I can guarantee you, has ever read any of those studies. It has not happened. What they read was the CDC’s description of those studies, which has nothing to do with what’s in the studies. And you need to read these studies—and I’m talking to you guys, and you

need to read them critically, and that woman, I called that woman who wrote that TIME magazine article, and I called the editor of The Washington Post when they said, you know, “Well, this is the newest mythology, they’ve removed the Thimerisal from the vaccines and autism rates have not gone down.”

How many times have you read that repeated by these people from the press? That is an industry talking point that the industry knows is a lie—everybody knows that’s a lie. The amount of Thimerisal today in the flu vaccines is about sixty percent of what they claim to have removed from all the other pediatric vaccines. So, I looked at these, I read these studies, and I saw studies that weren’t even good—that wasn’t even high-quality fraud. It is low—these are low quality fraud, the worst—I mean, anybody, you don’t even need a scientist to advise you and tell you where the fraud is. And I’ll tell you what they—I’ll just tell you what one of them, the big one that they all rely on, the Danish study, where they said, okay, in 1992, Denmark banned Thimerisal. And after that, autism rates continued to climb. Therefore, there is no association between autism and Thimerosal. That’s the study.

What they didn’t tell you is that in 1992, Denmark was concerned about the connection between Thimerisal and autism, and about this huge rise in autism, and it began for the first time requiring registering autism as a reported illness in Denmark. So all the people who had autistic children suddenly had to register them for the first time. Plus, in Copenhagen, they founded a new clinic to treat autistic kids, which gave people a huge financial incentive and health incentive to register their children. So it’s the registry that went up, not the incidents of autism that went up. But they didn’t say that in the study. They never mention the Copenhagen clinic. They never mention the change in the rules in Denmark.

They just show you the graphs, of Thimerisal is banned here, and autism continues to go up. Well, the reason the autism rates rose was because—was an artifact of their data collection processes. It had nothing to do with the reality on the ground of the occurrence of autism. So, and you’ve heard all of their other studies, and you know, they all have this guy Paul Offit. You guys know him? And he is the poster child for the term “biostitute.” This a man who has made himself the spokesperson for the vaccine industry. He portrays himself as an independent scientist, he does not disclose the millions of dollars of transactions.

Let me just close up by saying this, that—and I started out by saying this—that, you know, they, these people, one of the worst crimes that they’ve done—and, you know, I’ve talked to The New York Times, and I said, you know, “You guys had Judith Miller, you know, talking for a year about the Iraq War, and saying how what a great thing it is and covering up the truth from the government spokespeople.” And I said, “There’s no difference what you’re doing, and then you had to come out and apologize,” and the Times publically apologized for that. And I said, “You’re going to have to apologize for this someday, for what you’ve done here. Because what you’ve done here, that war’s going to cost us three trillion dollars, but the treatment of these children, and cost to our society, from what you have done, from what you are doing to this generation of children, is going to far exceed the cost of the Iraq War.” And somebody is going to have to come to terms with that, and ultimately, the American press has completely let down our democracy.

And one of the things you see repeated again and again, is that these are, that the women, you know, who claim that their children—and I’ve gotten now hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of letters, and that’s not hyperbole, that’s not exaggeration, from women who had the exact same experience. They bring a perfectly normal two-year old, who’s exceeded all of their milestones, to the doctor to get—who they trust—to get their pediatric flu shots, their MMR vaccines at the age of two.

They get that shot, the child goes into seizure, develops a fever that night, and over the next three months loses her or his ability to speak, to interact with his brothers and sisters, engages in stereotypical behavior—head-banging screaming, biting—and lose all capacity for social interaction. And they’ve lost this child, and they watch it happen, and it’s happened thousands and thousands of times, and you hear that story once or twice, and you say, “Well, maybe it’s an anomaly,” but you hear it a hundred times, and you have to say, “We’ve got to start looking at this.” And nobody—the CDC had said, “No, we’re not going to look at it. We’re going to cut off all funds to anybody that wants to look at it.”

Why isn’t the press asking that question? Why aren’t they asking CDC, “Why don’t you study the Amish, like UPI did? You know, why don’t you study these home-schooled kids?” Thirty-thousand studied by the UPI and no autism in that group. They studied all the Amish in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. There’s only—there should be a hundred and thirty autistic kids. There are four. And three of them were adopted after receiving their vaccines, and the fourth one lived downwind of a coal-burning power plant. So we know what the truth is, and what we’ve got to stop doing is blaming the mothers, which is what they’ve done.

These are not hysterical women. These are people I—you know, I have a child who has allergies, life-threatening anaphylactic allergies, and asthma. My wife knows better than any doctor. She can put her hands on that boy and she knows what’s wrong with him. She knows if his chest is tightening up, she knows exactly what allergen triggered his allergy. She knows what’s gone wrong with that child, and these mothers know what made their child sick.

Anyway, keep fighting, and ultimately we’ll get these people to move, too. You’ve got to not just show up here, this is a really important rally, you’ve got to contact your congresspeople and make sure they understand this issue and that they’re going to operate, and let’s not let them go one more day without some legislation banning this stuff and getting it out.

Monsanto Company Profile Part IV of IV

Monsanto’s Roundup

Roundup is a broad-spectrum herbicide, a weed and grass killer, upon which Monsanto built its empire. Monsanto developed Roundup’s main ingredient, glyphosate, and held the patent until 2000.

As we have come to expect with Monsanto’s products and practices, Roundup is not without controversy, not only for its detrimental effects on the environment, but also due to corporate deception and lies. In 1996, Monsanto was sued by the Attorney
General of the State of New York Consumer Frauds and Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Bureau for consumer fraud “in broadcast and print media, including television, radio, magazines, brochures, and at point-of-purchase displays.” Among the cited examples of Monsanto’s lies are the following:

“Remember that environmentally friendly Roundup herbicide is biodegradable. It won’t build up in the soil so you can use Roundup with confidence along customers’ driveways, sidewalks and fences …”

“Glyphosate is less toxic to rats than table salt following acute oral ingestion.”

“You can feel good about using herbicides by Monsanto. They carry a toxicity category rating of ‘practically non-toxic’ as it pertains to mammals, birds and fish.”

Monsanto, while refusing to admit that it violated any laws or that it agreed with the findings of the Attorney General, did agree to the Assurance of Discontinuance and to refrain from any publicity that expresses or implies Roundup to be safe, non-toxic, harmless, free from risk, biodegradable, non-leaching, good for the environment, or/and is safer or less toxic than other herbicides. Monsanto also agreed to pay a $50,000.00 fine. ¹

This slap on the wrist did not cause
Monsanto to stop making false claims overseas. In 2007, France fined Monsanto for false advertising, for claiming Roundup to be biodegradable and that it leaves the soil clean after use. ²

Roundup is certainly toxic to humans and animals. It can be absorbed by plants that grow in soil sprayed by the herbicide. Studies have shown endocrine disruption and effects on human placental cells. Roundup leaches into groundwater and has a half life of up to 3 months in water.³

Europeans and GMOs

For the most part, Americans have blithely accepted GM crops, assuming the USDA and the FDA would never allow dangerous foods to be grown and sold for human or animal consumption. Europeans are not so trusting. We asked Brad Mitchell, Director of Public Affairs for Monsanto, why he believes Europeans to be so resistant to GM crops.

“I don’t have any magic answers,” he said. “I have my own beliefs, and it’s not necessarily Monsanto’s. I think a lot of it has to do with mad cow disease, BSE, and the fact that at the time that we moved in with a lot of technology and tried to introduce it into Europe that we weren’t necessarily sensitive to that fact that a lot of citizens at that point had lost faith in the regulatory system, had

sort of lost faith in the ability of the government to protect them. All of the sudden you have this new scary thing. I think some activists moved in who opposed GMOs and sort of filled that vacuum. And I think it was just a ripe environment. I think it was the wrong time and the wrong approach. Again, that’s my personal belief and not Monsanto’s.”

GMO Compass’s website is dedicated to providing information about GMOs to the European people. This pro GMO organization gives clear information about many of the issues surrounding GMOs and how they are tested and approved in Europe.

The European Food Safety Authority or EFSA, established in 2002, serves as the “central authority for the evaluation of food and feed safety in the EU.” The GMO Panel is an expert committee of independent scientists from a range of disciplines who are charged with the task of authorizing or rejecting a GMO food based on scientific evidence.

The first safety issue with GM foods centers around the effects of introducing a new gene into a plant’s DNA, which generally results in the formation of a new protein. If this protein is new to humans, it could have effects on our health. The first concern is an allergic response.

“The safety of a particular protein regarding
toxicity is assessed using animal feeding tests. For food additives or herbicide residues, these kinds of tests are routine. When results from animal trials are applied to humans, considerable extra safety measures must be taken.

“Safety evaluations must include tests to find out if the new protein could trigger allergies. Several criteria are known that suggest allergenic potential. If one or more of these criteria are met, the GM plant expressing this protein is unlikely to receive clearance in the EU.”

The second safety issue is whether unforeseen changes have resulted in the plant’s metabolism as a result of the gene transfer.

Two tests measure these changes. The first is a chemical analysis that measures nutritional value, vitamin content, and toxin levels. This test would indicate that the food is substantially equivalent if these measurements do not differ from those of the same plant’s conventional counterpart. If the results differ, further testing is indicated.

The second test is a feeding test. “In these tests, the whole food is fed to animals such as rats or chickens over an extended period of time. It is anticipated that any dangerous ‘side effects’ of the GM food would be made noticeable by changes affecting, for instance, the animal’s immune system or its internal organs.

This sounds good until reading on.

“Toxicological assessments on test animals are not explicitly required for the approval of a new food in the EU or the US. Independent experts have decided that in some cases, chemical analyses of the food’s makeup are enough to indicate that the new GMO is substantially equivalent to its traditional counterpart. Feeding tests are only requested in cases of doubt.

“Nonetheless, the results of animal tests are routinely presented to the European safety assessment authorities. In recent years, biotech companies have tested their transgenic products (maize, soy, tomato) before introducing them to the market on several different animals over the course of up to 90 days. Negative effects have not yet been observed.”

90 days? 90 DAYS!!!

Oh, wait! There’s more!

“GMO critics claim that feeding studies with authorized GMOs have revealed negative health effects. Such claims have not been based on peer-reviewed, scientifically accepted evaluations. If reliable, scientific studies were to indicate any type of health risk, the respective GMO would not receive authorisation. ⁴

So, once again, we have a situation where the tests that are approved are conducted by the companies themselves. And all the other tests that say there are problems with GMOs are not scientifically accepted evaluations. And the longest period required for the scientifically approved tests is 90 days. 4

Where are the long term studies? Where are the human studies? Where are the generational studies?

Monsanto’s Brad Mitchell said, “If you look at EFSA, The European Food Safety Authority, they basically said what FDA has and South American authorities. So the opposition to GM foods and AG [agriculture] technology in general in Europe seems to be more based on philosophy and personal feelings versus science. I wouldn’t say that they are any less valid, but we don’t have a conflict in regulatory bodies between the U.S. and Europe. It’s a conflict in social acceptance.”

If Brad Mitchell is right in his first assumption, that Europeans don’t trust regulatory agencies partially due to Mad Cow Disease, perhaps they’ve heard the story told by Monsanto whistleblower, Kirk Azevedo.

Kirk was approached by Monsanto and offered a job back in 1996. Kirk had been

raised on a farm, and had worked with a competitor testing pesticides and herbicides. Kirk was fascinated by Monsanto’s GMO crops and looked forward to being a part of Monsanto as the company forged ahead to make the world a better place.

As a young scientist, Kirk was also interested in Mad Cow Disease and its cause, improperly folded proteins called prions. He had learned about how these strange proteins cause healthy proteins to become misfolded, which over time cause holes in the brains of the cows. Prions survive cooking. In cows, the disease may incubate undetected for 2 to 8 years; in humans, it is thought to incubate up to 30 years.

At Monsanto, Kirk worked with two varieties of GM cotton; one of which was Roundup Ready® cotton. A Monsanto scientist told Kirk the plant contained several unknown proteins. While the scientist was unconcerned about these new proteins, Kirk became very concerned.

He had learned normal testing protocols in his previous job working with herbicides and pesticides. Plants from test fields were always destroyed. They were never allowed to enter the food chain. This was a basic safety precaution. But at Monsanto, creating new DNA with rogue proteins that could be toxic or allergenic or could even lead to

another prion-type disease, they were skirting normal safety protocols and feeding their test plants to cows—cows that were part of our food chain.

Kirk explained his concern to the PhD in charge of the test plot. The supervisor refused to destroy the plants. He even told Kirk Monsanto was doing it that way everywhere. So Kirk shared his concerns with co-workers to no avail before going outside the company to the California Agricultural commissioners. He spoke to more commissioners and to people at the University of California, but got nowhere; blank stares told him the technology was beyond their comprehension. They did not understand the threat. Kirk, of course, was ostracized. Any action that did not lead to commercialization of the product was an unwanted intrusion. He left the company and entered chiropractic school.

He continued to research prion disease and its possible relationship to GM crops. He remained concerned that cows and the people who ate them were used as test subjects, and we still don’t know the result of that experiment.

Safety Concerns

The safety concerns over GM or GMO crops will never be addressed unless or until we stop the revolving door governance between big business in general and Monsanto in particular.

Too often, executives who work for Monsanto or have close ties to Monsanto are later placed in positions of power within the government regulatory agencies, and often go right back to working at Monsanto. Brad Mitchell downplays this using his own experience as a measure. “Well, you know I came from working for the state ethics commission in my previous job. And you know when I came back, I work for Monsanto. If I went back to the state department, I would not be able to make decisions for a year related to Monsanto…Is a year enough? I don’t know. And there are other provisions. Are they enough? Those

rules are constantly being reviewed, but as a regulator I never made a single decision where there weren’t at least four other people who had some say over that or some responsibility over me.”

These restrictive measures were certainly not in place in the FDA for Margaret Miller. Miller, while working for Monsanto, put together a report for the FDA which was used to determine whether or not Monsanto’s bovine growth hormones were safe. When she went to work for the FDA, her first task was to determine whether or not to approve the Monsanto report, the very one she herself had submitted. The instances of revolving door appointments and employments are too numerous to list. Simply google revolving door and Monsanto to view them all. ⁵

The reality is we have no idea what the long term effects of eating GM foods will be for humans. But what do we know?

Rat studies have shown liver changes, stomach lesions, and third generation reproductive failure.
Farmers who fed their pigs Bt corn report severe reproductive failures and bizarre events such as pigs giving “birth” to bags of water with no fetuses.
The only human feeding study proved the modified genes jumped into human gut bacteria and combined DNA.⁵

If Monsanto is so proud of their GMO foods, why do they resist labels that inform the consumer of what they are eating? On his blog, Brad Mitchell says, “Opposition to GM labeling is not based on anyone wanting to hide this information. Its <sic>just that given our system only requires labeling for information that people need to know about, a significant concern with mandatory GM labeling is that people will assume there is something risky with GMs. To date, every GM crop approved in the US has been determined by the government to be equivalent to its non-GM equivalent. I know some people disagree with this, but this is the determination in the US and most other governments.”

He told us, “Monsanto did not sue a dairy farmer because he labeled his milk, Monsanto sued because of ‘how’ he labeled his milk. What we were trying to prevent was misleading labeling of milk as being rBST free. And many of the milk companies out there who were labeling it where doing so in a way that was in violation of FDA guidelines and made it basically sound like our product wasn’t safe, and the scientific consensus, at
least in this country, was that it is.”

And Brad reminds us that we can be sure we are eating GMO free foods by choosing organic foods. And yet, can we be sure our organic foods have not become contaminated?

Aside from not knowing the specific health risks of Bt foods, we are standing on the brink of a greater disaster—contamination of the world’s food supply. GMOs are not contained. The seeds are blown into neighboring tracts of land and carried great distances by birds.

“I can kind of understand why someone who wants pure food wouldn’t want GM, genetic material in his corn,” says Brad Mitchell. “Realistically, he’s not going to be able to tell the difference. It’s not going to taste any different. It’s not going to be substantially different at all and you’re going to need some very sophisticated machinery/equipment to even tell if there has been any movement of genetic material. And in fact there has been genetic material of hybrids and everything moving around between corn for as long as there have been different varieties of corn. So I guess I would ask what the real significance is versus what the philosophical concern is… To date, in my mind, and most of the regulators in the world, the risks have not been demonstrated. Now if we demonstrate real risks, you know, I’ll switch, and say we shouldn’t be doing this. But I haven’t seen them.”

We see reports that regulators are not seeing the risk because they are looking the other way, because they are bribed, because their jobs are threatened, and because no long term studies are required. Again, the greatest threat is the fact that we’ve opened Pandora’s Box. How will we have a choice, how will we “pull the plug” on this great experiment if we confirm the worst, that genetic engineering of plant and animal DNA in our food chain is disastrous to our health and to our food supply?

What we know for certain is that we are dealing with a company that has a history of corruption—lies, bribes, cover-ups. Monsanto brought us Agent Orange, dioxin, PCBs and DDT. They covered up massive contamination of superfund sites in the U.S. and in other countries. Now they bring us GMOs and ask us to trust them—saying they would never hurt us. This, the same company who covered up the contamination in Anniston, dumping toxic waste into unlined landfills and dumping millions of pounds of dangerous chemicals into creeks and rivers before standing by and witnessing health repercussions of the residents including thousands of children whose problems included cancer, birth defects, and cerebral palsy. This company stood by for decades doing nothing. They lied on the stand. Their true culpability was revealed through documents they had tried to conceal.

“Will we look back on it and say we made some mistakes with GMs? Possibly. Some people would say probably,” says Brad Mitchell. “Are we going to look back and say, ‘Oh, my God, this was a huge mistake?’ No, I don’t think so.”

Our point exactly, Mr. Mitchell. “I don’t think so” isn’t good enough. Our health, our lives, and the future of our food depend on our actions today.

Sources:

Refusing a C-section – A Mother’s Right?

Many have blogged about the New Jersey mother who lost her parental rights for refusing a C-section and acting erratically during labor. What is unclear is whether she refused to sign permission for a C-section in the event one was indicated or if she refused when the baby was in distress and doctors wanted to perform one. It may be a moot point, considering the child was born vaginally and without complications, but still there is a clear distinction between signing a cart blanche permission to allow doctors to do whatever they want before the need arises, and refusing care when an unborn child is experiencing fetal distress.

The parents’ rights have now been terminated and the court cites chronic mental illness on both their parts as the reason. (The mother had received mental health care for 12 years prior to the incident.) Many blogs make the point that if the mother had not refused a C-section, her mental health would not have been in question. We don’t necessarily agree.

If this couple was receiving on-going care for chronic mental illness, Child Protective Services likely would have been notified about their case by their mental health worker. But so little is known about the actual facts in this case (and the links to the court ruling are broken on multiple sites), most of what is posted is assumption.

In another case in 2004, a mother was charged with murder for refusing a C-section for her twins. One was stillborn. This mother also had drug and alcohol issues. The case was plea bargained and the murder charge was dropped.

While both of these cases have extenuating circumstances, it is still quite clear that a woman no longer has the right to refuse an invasive procedure without facing parental termination or, in the case of a child’s death, murder charges.

Michael Edwards, Chief Editor – Was Accused of Child Molestation

The previous article is one of many appalling stories I’ve read since I’ve been the editor-in-chief of OLM. I used to believe that these stories were rare. Because of my own experience, I now pay more attention. I know horrific cases of injustice are all too common.

The day my daughter was born, I constantly argued with the doctors and nurses. They convinced my wife that she needed antibiotics. They told us several times that she might need a C-section. Once our daughter was born, they also convinced my wife that our baby might die if she did not receive IV antibiotics. They threatened to call child protective services if we didn’t comply. They later admitted the IV antibiotics were given as a precaution. In other words, they lied. Our whole experience was a nightmare. But that’s another story. That’s not what this article is about. This article is about my experience with our justice system.

When my wife and I separated, my daughter was two years old. The separation was a mutual decision, and at first we got along pretty well, but it wasn’t long before our relationship went from good to bad. It would take a book to reveal every important or significant detail of this story, which I am in the process of writing. For now, let me just say that I wrongly lost my parental rights; I am no longer recognized as my daughter’s father, and I am currently on probation for my “crimes.”

My daughter and I were very close. In fact, we were much closer than she and her mom. In the weeks prior to the allegation, she told everyone who would listen, “I want to go live with my daddy.” My daughter was four years old when, out of nowhere, my ex-wife accused me of child molestation. The court indicted me for rape, incest, aggravated child molestation, and child molestation.

It didn’t matter that I’d passed a polygraph to the contrary with flying colors, or that a psycho-sexual evaluation found that I was not a child molester. Nor did it matter that her hymen was fully intact with no scarring or tearing. In the first of many revelations that convinced me the world had gone mad, my lawyer told me the DA would find a doctor to testify that a child’s hymen can grow back. As crazy as this sounds, my attorney, himself a former DA, said such testimony was common practice. Can you imagine?

My daughter had a persistent rash. My ex-wife called and reminded me to check that rash on my daughter’s last visit. When she was examined 19 days later, she still had the rash—a red area, with one tiny “skin tear” a millimeter in size, halfway between her vagina and anus. When asked by the hospital social worker, “Did Daddy touch you down there?” she said, “Yes.” She was right. I had touched her “down there.” I had checked her rash.

A rash of this sort is typical in young children, caused by anything from bubble bath to not wiping well. In her case, rashes were the typical result whenever she ate refined sugar.

From the moment I was charged with this crime, I was ordered not to speak to my child or to my ex-wife. I spent a year in jail awaiting trial. My resources were drained. My family’s resources were quickly exhausted. I was assigned a lawyer. On the day my trial was to start, I was told that even though I had “raped my daughter” I could take a plea and walk out of the courtroom–go home that very day with time served and probation. I refused.

I wanted to go to trial. I argued with my attorney, insisting on a trial, but I was facing a maximum term of life plus 30 years in prison. Finally I was convinced that the risk was just too great, especially since my lawyer’s trial preparation had been minimal, at best. But I refused to lie and say I was guilty. I agreed to take a plea called “Alford v. South Carolina.” Through this plea, I could maintain my innocence. The judge agreed I could take this plea, but only if I agreed to a 6-month prison sentence in addition to time served. He also agreed to include “first offender status,” which means I will not need to register as a sex offender after my probation is completed. The felony will be hidden from most background checks. Unless I want to work a high security job like at an airline or a bank, no one need ever know about my conviction. That is, unless I tell them.

I will tell them.

I have never tried to keep this case a secret. I never intend to.

I’ve been told I was very, very lucky, that the DA didn’t think I was guilty. No one, from the parole officers who reviewed my case while I was in prison to the probation officers assigned to me since my release, can make sense of my initial charges and the resultant deal. “What exactly did you supposedly do here?” my probation officer asked me with a look of bewilderment. They all say I dodged a bullet. They all say I am lucky. But I don’t feel lucky. I lost my child.

My court-mandated therapist knows I’m not a pedophile, but we continue to meet; our sessions are included in the terms of my probation.

The law is on my side for a successful habeas corpus, but I don’t yet have the money to fight a successful court battle. If I raise the money before the deadline, I can show that the arresting police officer, who also interviewed my child, gave false information at the indictment. A habeas corpus could result in one of two things: the right to a new trial or the charges being dropped.

A habeas corpus would put me back at the beginning—as if I had never gone to prison or served any time on probation. I could be re-arrested, to await my day in court, to face a jury—twelve people who will have no idea I’ve already served my time. And then, I could win. Or I could lose.

I am still in a lot of pain. I am willing, but not yet able, to fight back. I may never get the ruling reversed. I may go to trial and win. But even if I were to prove my innocence and successfully sue the county for millions, I’m told there is no legal precedent that will allow me to regain my parental rights. I’m told, “They just don’t do that.” Win or lose, my daughter and I have already lost. This isn’t something either one of us will ever “get over.”

I am braced for the worst outcome. If we don’t conform like the sheep we are meant to be, our government, our society in general, is likely to hurt us. People have a tendency to sit on their high horses and look down on others for being different, for bucking the system. They can take everything away from you. Almost everything.

For now, I fight back in a different way. They took my freedom. They took my child. But they didn’t take my morality. They didn’t take my integrity. They didn’t break me.

I fight back by publishing a magazine the goes against the grain. I fight back by speaking out against what I firmly, in the bottom of my heart, believe are lies and injustice perpetrated against the American people. I fight against the degradation of our food supply. I fight for our health.

I come across too radical for some, but I know from personal experience that corruption in the name of money, power, ego, and social standing is everywhere—in business, in the pharmaceutical industry, in the agricultural industry, in government. This is why I publish OLM. This is why I work 80 plus hours a week. Right now, this is the only way I can fight back.

You may have heard the government is imposing their idea of health care on us. People may go to jail for refusing health insurance. People may go to jail for refusing vaccinations. People will undoubtedly lose their children for refusing these mandates. For those of you who worry about things like this, you have every reason to fear.

For those of you who have lost a child or children due to non-conformity, I feel your pain. For those of you who started a business selling health food and/or supplements and did everything you could to be in full compliance but were still ruined by the lawless FDA and/or the FTC, I know it happens. For those of you who have been forced to do something you were not comfortable with for fear of legal trouble, I understand completely.

It’s a tough world out there. I have no easy answers. I will tell my story. I will finish my book. I plan to start a non-profit one day to help fight injustice. Regardless, I know I will keep fighting. Even if I end up living under a bridge with nothing left, I will go to my local library and blog on their free computer. For right now, I am doing all I can do.

For those of you who have been a victim of our “justice” system or big business, I say fight back if you can, any way you can, even if it’s just through telling your story.

Hysteria – Letter From the Editor

There are such extremes in our society. Take politics for instance. No matter what the left side does, Fox news will inevitably find a flaw with it. If Obama said exactly what Bush would say or acted exactly as Bush would act in any given situation, Fox would scream that he is an idiot. (In fact, in some situations, Obama does seem to act exactly like Bush).

You’ve got the same extremes with so many issues. Take vaccinations. A small portion of the population believes that any and all vaccinations are bad. Nearly everyone else thinks children should have 40 or more vaccinations by the time they’re 18. Some guys will refuse to go to the doctor unless they’ve lost an appendage, while others will rush to the emergency room for a fever of 102.
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that people are becoming more and more divided, more and more extreme, and consequently, more and more hysterical. A perfect example is the bill HR 875. You have, for the most part, three sides to this issue; those who don’t know anything about it, those who believe it to be a much needed law that can protect us from the evil bacteria that plague our nuts and vegetables, and others who believe the bill will outlaw organic farming.

With arguments from vaccinations, to global warming, to politics, I tend to disagree with both sides. People seem to choose a side in popular arguments just to shore up their identity. I’m usually left shaking my head, thinking that both sides are missing the whole point. Consequently, people on both sides often think I’m a crazy radical who just doesn’t “get it”. But I’m cool with that.

Michael Edwards

Signature

Editor in Chief

Monsanto Company Profile part II of IV

Monsanto is a new company. No longer a chemical company, the new Monsanto is an agricultural company, a leader in biotech and GMO technology. Their pledge begins with these words:

We want to make the world a better place for future generations. As an agricultural company, Monsanto can do this best by providing value through the products and systems we offer to farmers.”

Sustainable Yield Initiative

Monsanto states its goal is to increase yields while maintaining or reducing inputs of energy and pesticides through the use of genetically modified crops. Monsanto’s Sustainable Yield Initiative puts forth a goal to double crop yields in corn, soy, and cotton by the year 2030, from the baseline year, 2000. “That’s in countries that have bio-technology, that have adapted that,” says Brad Mitchell, Director of Public Affairs. “And do that using 1/3 less inputs, so nitrogen, water, etcetera… And by doubling those yields we will improve farmer’s lives because more yield means more money in their pockets, and profitability increases.”

Mitchell brags that their biotech is “…skill neutral technology. A farmer in the middle of Iowa will use it and then you can also have a farmer in Argentina use it and it will yield pretty well. It’s something that both can use on their farm no matter how much–if he has 500 acres or 5 acres, they both benefit.”

Monsanto’s biotech seeds are patented. Farmers are not allowed to retain patented seeds from a crop. Each season they are required to purchase new seeds. For this, Monsanto has come under attack, with critics claiming this practice to be unnatural and unsustainable. Mitchell says, “… a lot of people make a big deal about Monsanto patentingseeds, and how this is going to lead to control over the seed supply and that sort of thing. I have two responses to that. One is, first, patenting of seeds is not new and it’s not unique to either Monsanto or biotech. And if you don’t believe me, go google raspberry and patents and see what you come up with. There are plenty of patent varieties of raspberries out there, and everything from asparagus to zucchini. Basically if people Genetic Modification didn’t have the ability to patent the result of their breeding, there would be no incentive for them to do so.”

Mitchell continues, “The other part of it that I find a little bit amusing and a little bit disheartening is that when people say, ‘Oh well, you can’t save patented seeds. This is the end of the world.’ Well, we’ve had hybrid seeds in production and available to farmers for just about 70 years. And with the vast majority of hybrid seeds, you can’t save those either. And nobody’s made a big deal about that. And the reason you can’t save hybrids, some of them are patented, but more importantly, the offspring seed doesn’t have the genetic consistency of the parent, so no farmer will ever save a hybrid seed because they are not going to know what they are getting. Farmers who have had hybrid seed available for over 70 years they choose them because namely because they give better yields. Some of them have some other traits that they appreciate.”

Due to patent protection and patent infringement investigations, Monsanto employs a number of investigators. Mr. Mitchell could not tell us the exact number, but he estimates the number to be around 40. “And those aren’t all full time, doing this for us, they’re private investigator firms, so a good part of the year they’re not doing save-seed stuff, they’re doing other whatever else investigators do. These are private firms.”

Lawsuits Against Farmers

In films that criticize Monsanto and their relationship with farmers, Monsanto is accused of using their investigators and lawsuits to harass and intimidate. Mitchell says that out of half a million customers, Monsanto has filed 138 lawsuits for patent infringement and nine went to trial; the others settled out of court.

“Now, we kind of have to do this for three reasons,” Mitchell says. “One is we’re not going to make any money if people aren’t buying our products. I mean there’s the patent infringement issue. Two is we owe it to our stockholders, because they invest in this. And a good part of it is, you know, frankly, we put ten percent of our money into research and development, so the third part of this is really if people are getting this technology without paying for it, we’re not going to be able to do that. And we’re not going to see the state of technology today…probably a lot of your readership would like that but not necessarily a lot of the farmers out there.”

“So we’ve got about half a dozen people who have claimed that we have committed these misdeeds. I don’t see it. I was actually outat a farm the other day and we had a seed patent investigation in the neighborhood, and he goes, ‘You know, my neighbor is really upset with you guys. He’s furious with how you handledthis seed patent infringement case.’ (Against the farmer we had a case against and we settled.)’ And I said,’Uh-oh. What’s his problem? And he said, ‘He doesn’t think you went after enough.’ So what we typically hear from farmers is, “Look, I gotta pay for it. Yeah, I’d rather not pay for it and I’d rather not pay for gasoline or my taxes either, but if I’m going to do it, the other guy better, too, because it’s not fair.” Farmers who have
settled cases with Monsanto have said they cannot discuss the terms of the settlements, that Monsanto insisted on non-disclosure clauses. Mitchell insists the opposite is true, that the farmers were the ones who asked for the non-disclosures. “Unfortunately what’s happened is that people have turned that against us and said, ‘Well, Monsanto requested these.’ We don’t request nondisclosure and we never have. We, in the past, have agreed to it, but we don’t do it anymore for that very reason.” The money from all of the settlements has been donated to agricultural charities and scholarships. “The ones that actually went through full trial [9 cases], we do retain that, mainly because trials are expensive.”

Human Rights

Hugh Grant, Monsanto Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, is quoted on Monsanto’s website. He states, “As an agricultural and technology company committed to human rights, we have a unique opportunity to protect and advance human rights. We have a responsibility to consider not only how our business can benefit consumers, farmers, and food processors, but how it can protect the human rights of both Monsanto’s employees and our business partners’ employees.”

Monsanto identifies nine elements in its human rights policy: child labor, forced labor, compensation, working hours, harassment and violence, discrimination, safety, freedom of association, and legal compliance.

Forced, indentured, or bonded labor is unacceptable to Monsanto and Monsanto rejects corporal punishment of any type. Compensation is to meet or exceed minimum wage standards, regardless of performance measures. Monsanto states they will comply with all laws and industry standards with regard to working hours. Harassment, violence, and discrimination will never be tolerated. Monsanto is committed to safety, to the rights of workers to join or not join organizations of their choosing, to associate
freely and bargain collectively. And last but not least, Monsanto states that it “will comply with all applicable local, state and national laws regarding human rights and workers’ rights where the company does business.”

While Monsanto supports young people working within the agricultural business, it wants to ensure that all applicable local, state, and national laws are followed and that none of its business partners practice exploitive child labor practices. To this end, in India Monsanto has added “no child labor” clauses into farmer and third party contracts, has instigated a massive farmer awareness campaign with posters, door to door visits, leaflets, postcards, field audits 10-12 times during the 45-60 pay pollination period (auditors conducted more than 10,000 field visits in 2007), and written farm attendance reports.

Monsanto has also employed incentive/disincentive schemes, paying farmers an incentive if they employ only adult labor. If a farmer is found to be in violation, the child(ren) are removed from the field, the farmer becomes ineligible for incentives, and Monsanto discontinues production with the farmer the following year. The Monsanto Fund, established in 1964, gives funds to communities in the United States and around the world in the company’s areas of operations, including a residential learning center for child laborers, in a further effort to stop the practice of using child labor.

In 2007, The Monsanto Fund pledged 12.6 million to numerous causes around the world.

In our final report on Monsanto, we will discuss seed monopolies, Indian farmer suicides, conflicting reports on crop yields, Roundup safety, and bans on GM crops.

Click here to read part III

Mandatory Vaccinations

Who Owns Your Body?

If you think the U.S. Constitution guarantees its citizens the right to refuse a compulsory vaccination program, think again. It never has. Mandatory vaccination laws date back to 1809, giving states and municipalities the right to enforce compulsory vaccination under police powers, which are designed to protect the public health and safety. Children are required to be vaccinated to attend day care centers and schools, young adults are required to show proof of vaccinations to attend college, and soldiers must submit to vaccinations required by the military.¹

Currently exemptions are allowed for medical and religious reasons. Some states allow exemptions for philosophical or moral convictions. But what will happen if we face a public health emergency—real or contrived? The governor, the state board of health, or the state health officer may expand compulsory vaccinations for children and adults in response to bioterrorism or a pandemic and can choose to levy fines and/or force quarantine for those who refuse.

On June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the flu pandemic alert for the influenza A virus H1N1 (called Swine Flu) to a level 6, the highest level. WHO’s July 6th update reports 94,512 laboratory confirmed cases and 429 deaths worldwide. The United States of America reports the highest number of cases with a total of 33,902 laboratory confirmed cases and 170 deaths. To clearly see the increase rate, compare these numbers to the CDC’s July 24th update report of 43,771 cases of novel H1N1 in the United States and 302 reported deaths. ²

Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO’s Director General,reports, “…the overwhelming majority of patients experience mild symptoms and make a rapid and full recovery, often in the absence of any form of medical treatment.” So far, the pandemic is of moderate severity, though this could change. “The virus writes the rules and this one, like all influenza viruses, can change the rules, without rhyme or reason, at any time.” Severity can also vary from one country to another due to many factors.

Though most of the severe and fatal infections were reported from adults 30-50 years of age, the majority of cases in areas of “large and sustained outbreaks” have occurred in people under 25. Dr. Chan warns we are still in the early stages of this pandemic and that countries who have seen a peak in cases should prepare for a second wave. She also states, “I understand that production of vaccines for seasonal influenza will be completed soon, and that full capacity will be available to ensure the largest possible supply of pandemic vaccine in the months to come.” ³

Influenza pandemics can indeed result in widespread morbidity and fatalities. We have only to look back to the pandemic of 1918-1919, the Spanish Flu, which infected one-third of the world’s population and killed 50 million of the approximately 500 million it infected.4 (Wikipedia and the CDC ⁵ state that the number of deaths could have actually been as high as 100 million). Many died within hours of their first flu symptoms from virulent pneumonia. The Spanish flu was a H1N1 Influenza A subtype, as is the current Swine Flu (or novel H1N1),⁴ though the current pandemic flu is obviously a less virulent strain.

If you follow news reports on the current pandemic, you will notice nearly every report reminds us that a vaccination is in development and will soon be available.

Though the historical and legal precedence was already in place for mandatory inoculations, fears of an avian flu pandemic early in this decade set government wheels in motion. President Obama was one of five senators to introduce the Pandemic Preparedness and Response Act in October of 2005, a bill that was not passed. However, the fear of an avian flu outbreak and the looming threat of bio-terrorism did result in recent laws that further pave the way for compulsory vaccinations if the government declares the need while holding the drug companies harmless if death or illness results from vaccinations: The Project BioShield Act of 2004 (S. 15) and The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act (2006) are two examples.

The Project BioShield Act further erodes safeguards for safety of vaccinations by expediting and streamlining the approval process in case of a health emergency. The three main components of Project BioShield are:

Ensuring that resources are available to pay for vaccines and other drugs
Speeding up NIH research and development by authorizing NIAID to accelerate the normal contracting, scientific peer review, and approval processes
Providing new emergency-use authorization for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for medical treatments that have not been formally approved and licensed ⁷

The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act allows the Health and Human Services Secretary to declare an epidemic or disease to be a national emergency. The current pandemic has been declared a national health emergency and anti-viral drugs which have not been approved for young children will now be allowed due to the emergency. Some believe this act allows the HHS secretary to mandate vaccinations. The language is unclear. There is no question that HHS purchases the vaccine, stockpiles the vaccine, pays the states to distribute vaccines, decides who will first receive vaccines, and so forth.

A level 6 pandemic is characterized by the person to person spread of disease with community level outbreaks, in at least 2 countries in more than one WHO region. The level system does not take into account severity or mortality.⁶ The United States has declared the pandemic to be a national emergency. The question now is what criteria will be used to mandate vaccinations?