Global Consequences And Connecting The Dots On Gmos: Independent Film ‘Transgenic Wars’ Makes A Huge Impact
When we talk about the problems with genetically modified crops and their effects on humans and wildlife, we often end up talking in very abstract terms.
There is the honeybee die-off, likely caused by the ubiquity across the U.S. of Monsanto’s glyphosate-laden Roundup.
Then there are the numbers, the crop acres that are devoted to growing GMO soy and corn in the U.S., and the numbers of tons of the stuff that we feed to the animals that will become our food.
Occasionally we find more human stories like the groups of farmers suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that are in the process of suing Monsanto, but for the most part we don’t really connect the dots and get a look at the complete picture of GMOs and how they impact people’s lives in real terms.
Well now French investigative journalist Paul Moreira has attempted to do just that with his “Transgenic Wars,” an award-winning film spans Europe and Latin America, examining the ways that genetically engineered crops affect both livestock and human health.
He also looks at the use of glyphosate and atrazine, the powerful pesticides that make the GMO crops so frightening, as they are doused with the stuff. Interestingly, Moreira also touches on the chemical 2,4-D, an ingredient in Agent Orange, the effects of which are still being felt in Southeast Asia–and which was also created by Monsanto.
The film has already gotten nearly a million and a half views, and has a classic scene in which GE cheerleader and former Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore is challenged on camera by Moriera to drink a glass of Roundup if he thinks it’s so safe.
His refusal has him saying he’s “not stupid” and will go down in history as one of the great comeuppances of modern times.
Moreira’s journey begins in Denmark, where pig farmers there noticed that a mysterious malady they called the “yellow death” that struck their piglets with terrible diarrhea and killed around 30 percent of them disappeared just as mysteriously when they stopped using GMO soy from Argentina into the pig’s feed.
So Moreira follows the story to South America, where he visited a small village called Avia Terai, which is surrounded by GMO fields. Many children there are stricken with strange illnesses–one little girl has brownish-black spots all over her skin; some waste away with undiagnosable degenerative diseases. The elderly, on the other hand, are dying of cancer.
He speaks to one mother who brings her children inside whenever they hear the tractor spraying the crops, as they never know if it is water or what they call “the poison.”
It is a truly disturbing, must-see film for anyone concerned with the big picture on GMOs. Check it out here.
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http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/09/24/transgenic-wars-gmo.aspx