Dr Mercola: Bill Gates: One of the World’s Most Destructive Do-Gooders? (Plus: Monsanto and GMO Foods)

Dr Mercola: Bill Gates: One of the World’s Most Destructive Do-Gooders?

Gates Video

Story at-a-glance

• Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, aims to end world hunger by growing more genetically engineered food crops—a philanthropic plan that may be gullible at best, and destructive at worst, both to the environment and humanity
• Monsanto and other biotech companies have collaborated with the Gates Foundation via the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to promote the use of genetically modified (GM) crops in Africa
• Gates supports the use of Golden Rice, which has been genetically modified to produce beta-carotene that your body can convert to vitamin A. It’s promoted as a way to alleviate vitamin A deficiency, which is common in developing countries. However, beta carotene is fat soluble, and many third-world inhabitants eat a very low-fat diet, which would seriously impede or block the conversion.
• According to one study, a woman would have to consume 16 pounds of Golden Rice per day to get the recommended amount of vitamin A; a child would have to eat 12 pounds, raising serious doubts about the usefulness of this invention

Bill Gates: One of the World’s Most Destructive Do-Gooders?

By Dr. Mercola

Above, ABC’s “Nightline,” Bill Weir talks with Microsoft founder Bill Gates about his charitable endeavors.

Gates’ latest plan is to try to end world hunger by growing more genetically modified (GM) crops.

He’s already invested $27 million into Monsanto Company—leading some countries to reject his charity due to the high risks, such as:

• New disease vectors
• Mutated pesticide-resistant insects
• Resistant “superweeds”
• Contamination of surrounding non-GM crops

We already know how deeply entrenched the U.S. government has become with Monsanto.

For a visual illustration of their ‘revolving-door-relationship’ with the governmental regulatory agencies, see the graph toward the bottom of this article.

It is this type of government infiltration that allowed genetically engineered alfalfa to be approved without any restrictions at all, despite the protests of the organic community and public comments from a quarter of a million concerned citizens.

In Bill Gates, Monsanto also has one of the wealthiest and most influential “philanthropists” supporting their agenda and spreading misleading propaganda about their products.

In recent years, it has become disappointingly clear that Gates may be leading the pack as one of the most destructive “do-gooders” on the planet… His views on what is required to make a difference in poverty- and disease-stricken third world nations are short-sighted and misinformed at best. A recent article in the Seattle Times¹ joins me in arguing that Bill Gates’ support of genetically modified (GM) crops as a solution for world hunger is based on unsound science. A team of 900 scientists funded by the World Bank and United Nations, investigated the matter over the course of three years, and determined that the use of GM crops is simply NOT a meaningful solution to the complex situation of world hunger.

Instead, the scientists suggested that “agro-ecological” methods would provide the most viable means to ensure global food security, including the use of traditional seed varieties and local farming practices already adapted to the local ecology.

“Philanthropy is the Enemy of Justice”

In a recent article with the same headline, “Philanthropy is the Enemy of Justice”, Robert Newman criticizes² the choice of Bill Gates as the designated “voice” of the world’s poor at the World Economic Forum, held in January.

“Am I saying that philanthropy has never done good? No, it has achieved many wonderful things… But beware the havoc that power without oversight and democratic control can wreak,” Newman writes.

“The biotech agriculture that Lord Sainsbury was unable to push through democratically he can now implement unilaterally, through his Gatsby Foundation. We are told that Gatsby’s biotech project aims to provide food security for the global south. But if you listen to southern groups such as the Karnataka State Farmers of India, food security is precisely the reason they campaign against GM, because biotech crops are monocrops which are more vulnerable to disease and so need lashings of petrochemical pesticides, insecticides and fungicides – none of them cheap – and whose ruinous costs will rise with the price of oil, bankrupting small family farms first. Crop diseases mutate, meanwhile, and all the chemical inputs in the world can’t stop disease wiping out whole harvests of genetically engineered single strands.

Both the Gatsby and the Bill and Melinda Gates foundations are keen to get deeper into agriculture, especially in Africa. But top-down nostrums for the rural poor don’t end well.”

I agree. Donating patented seeds, which takes away the farmers’ sovereignty, is not the way to save the third-world poor. As reported by Netline last year³, Monsanto and other biotech companies have collaborated with the Gates Foundation via the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to promote the use of genetically modified (GM) crops in Africa. The Gates Foundation has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to AGRA, and in 2006 Robert Horsch was hired for the AGRA project. Horsch was a Monsanto executive for 25 years. In a nutshell, the project may be sold under the banner of altruism and ‘sustainability’, but in reality it’s anything but. It’s just a multi-billion dollar enterprise to transform Africa into a GM-crop-friendly continent.

Conflicts of Interest Abound

Gates’ philanthropic methods came under scrutiny back in August 2010, when it was discovered that The Gates Foundation had purchased 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock; dramatically increasing its previous holdings—and hence its financial conflicts of interest—in the biotech firm. AGRA-Watch commented on the ties stating⁴:

“The Foundation’s direct investment in Monsanto is problematic on two primary levels,” said Dr. Phil Bereano, University of Washington Professor Emeritus and recognized expert on genetic engineering.

“First, Monsanto has a history of blatant disregard for the interests and well-being of small farmers around the world, as well as an appalling environmental track record. The strong connections to Monsanto cast serious doubt on the Foundation’s heavy funding of agricultural development in Africa and purported goal of alleviating poverty and hunger among small-scale farmers. Second, this investment represents an enormous conflict of interests.”

It would be naive to think that all these philanthropic collaborations are designed to solve any problem besides how to help Monsanto monopolize the world’s food supply with expensive patented GM seeds, and the herbicides to go with them.

In the interview above, Gates claims the seeds would be donated to the impoverished areas in question. But seriously, how long would the seeds remain free? There’s rarely such a thing as a free lunch anymore, and it appears highly unlikely that Monsanto is poised to “feed Africa” indefinitely… And since you cannot save Monsanto’s seeds from year to year, they will literally own the areas and the people they temporarily donate their seeds to. And once you own the rights to all the food grown around the globe, you literally rule the world.

That appears to be the goal. And only sane, rational, thinking people can stop them. It’s really too bad that Gates has signed up as a lackey for “the Dark Side,” as it were, instead of using his unfathomable wealth to really create positive, sustainable change.

It’s an undisputed fact at this point that the introduction of genetically engineered crops lead to diminished biodiversity, which is the direct opposite of what the world needs. Truly, in order to save the planet and ourselves, small-scale organic and sustainable farming must not only prevail but flourish, and GM crops do not help, but rather threaten their existence. Seeds have always been sold and swapped freely between farmers, preserving biodiversity, and without that basis, you cannot have food sovereignty. And with fewer farmers, “feeding the hungry with GM crops” is nothing but a pipe dream.

Both Genetically Engineered Seeds and Herbicides Pose Risks to Environment and Human Health

Besides the threat to the environment and to agricultural practices, GM crops also bring a whole host of health concerns; not just from the GM seeds, but also from the herbicide used: Monsanto’s Roundup. It’s the world’s best-selling herbicide, which is designed to be partnered with genetically engineered “Roundup Ready” crops.

According to a shocking report⁵, regulators were aware as early as 1980 that glyphosate, the active chemical ingredient of Roundup, caused birth defects in lab animals. However, the information was not made public. Instead, regulators misled the public about glyphosate’s safety, and with the introduction of Roundup Ready crops, the use of Roundup has skyrocketed.

According to Monsanto. NO⁶:

“Dr. Andres Carrasco, a lead embryologist at the University of Bueno Aires Medical School and the Argentinean national research council, discovered that glyphosate-based herbicides like Monsanto’s Roundup formula caused deformations in chicken embryos that resembled the kind of birth defects which where reported in areas like La Leonesa, where big agribusinesses depend on glyphosate to treat genetically engineered crops.”

Golden Rice: a “Trojan Horse”

The idea that you can end world hunger with genetically engineered crops is simply not very well thought through. Last summer, I reported on The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s donation of $20 million toward the development of so-called “golden rice“—yet another untested GM crop that risks bringing economic and ecological disaster. Golden rice has been genetically engineered to produce beta-carotene, which your body can convert to vitamin A. It’s been promoted as a way to alleviate vitamin A deficiency, which is common in developing countries where people don’t have regular access to beta-carotene-rich foods, like vegetables and fruits.

However, while this sounds all well and good in theory, the reality of a beta-carotene producing rice may not be all it’s cracked up to be. According to Food Freedom⁷:

“Golden rice is a Trojan horse for pushing through GE-friendly biosafety regulations under the guise of humanitarian aid. Once in place, these regulations open the door for the biotech industry to bring in commercial, patented GE crops; USAID and Monsanto accomplished exactly this in Kenya with their sweet potato project.”

It may be easier to see why so many people question this kind of philanthropy once you understand a bit more about the product itself, and why it likely cannot ever live up to its own hype. In this case, your body can only convert beta-carotene to vitamin A under certain conditions. Specifically, beta-carotene is fat-soluble, which means dietary fat is required for your body to convert it into vitamin A. But many people in developing countries eat very low-fat diets, as they simply do not have access to animal foods or other fat on a regular basis. Furthermore, malnourished people might not be able to convert beta carotene to vitamin A efficiently, so taken as a whole, the actual usefulness of golden rice is debatable.

The soundness of the idea becomes even more questionable when you consider the unrealistic amounts of rice you’d have to consume each day to obtain the recommended amount of vitamin A. As stated in a golden rice case study from Iowa State University⁸:

“Even if golden rice is successfully introduced … a woman would need to eat 16 lbs. of cooked rice every day in order to get sufficient Vitamin A, if golden rice were her only source of the nutrient. A child would need 12 lbs.” [Emphasis mine]

What people in the developing world need in order to receive ample dietary vitamin A is access to a diverse range of nutritious foods — including animal products like eggs, cheese and meat and vegetables such as dark leafy greens and sweet potatoes. This is the type of diet that is attained from biodiverse farming — the opposite of what will occur if GM crops like golden rice get planted on a large scale.

Learn More about Genetically Engineered Foods

Many Americans are still unfamiliar with what GE foods are, which is understandable when you consider that these foods do not need to be labeled in the U.S. We have a plan to change that, and I urge you to participate, and to continue learning more about genetically engineered foods and associated risks, and help your friends and family do the same.

To start, please print out and use the Non-GMO Shopping Guide, created by the Institute for Responsible Technology. Share it with your friends and family, and post it to your social networks. You can also download a free iPhone application, available in the iTunes store. You can find it by searching for ShopNoGMO in the applications.

An even better strategy is to simply buy USDA 100% Organic products whenever possible, (as these do not permit GM ingredients) or buy whole fresh produce and meat from local farmers. The majority of the GMO’s (genetically modified organism) you’re exposed to are via processed foods, so by cooking from scratch with whole foods, you can be sure you’re not inadvertently consuming something laced with GM ingredients. When you do purchase processed food, avoid products containing anything related to corn or soy that are not 100 percent organic, as any foods containing these two non-organic ingredients are virtually guaranteed to contain genetically engineered ingredients, as well as toxic herbicide residues.

To learn more about GM foods, I highly recommend number of great films and lectures available, including:

• Hidden Dangers in Kid’s Meals
• Your Milk on Drugs – Just Say No!
• Everything You Have to Know About Dangerous Genetically Modified Foods

Does Monsanto “Own” the U.S. Government?

Is sure seems like it at times. Genetically engineered seeds are now banned in Hungary, as they are in several other European countries, such as Germany and Ireland. Peru is also following the precautionary principle, and has even passed a law that bans genetically modified ingredients within the nation for 10 years⁹.

In the U.S., however, the opposite to consumer protection is taking place, with certain states actually passing legislation that protects the use of GM seeds and allows for unabated expansion! To date, 14 states have passed such legislation and Michigan’s Sen. Bill 777, if passed, would make that 15.

The Michigan bill would prevent anti-GMO laws and would remove “any authority local governments may have to adopt and enforce ordinances that prohibit or regulate the labeling, sale, storage, transportation, distribution, use, or planting of agricultural, vegetable, flower or forest tree seeds.” Bills like these are obviously music to Monsanto’s ears, which spends millions of dollars lobbying the U.S. government at the federal level for favorable legislation that supports the spread of their toxic products. In the first quarter of 2011 alone, Monsanto spent $1.4 million on lobbying the federal government — a drop from the year before, when they spent $2.5 million during the same quarter.

If we all had several million to spend on lobbying efforts, the world would undoubtedly be a very different place… If you aren’t familiar with the power of lobbying please view the recent 60 minutes expansion on it, which is one of the best 60 Minute episodes I have seen in 40 years.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7387331n

Not only that, but once you realize just how many of Monsanto’s employees have simply shifted into positions of power within the federal government, it suddenly becomes easy to understand how this biotech giant has managed to so successfully undermine common sense within the U.S. government.

Your Opportunity to Eliminate Genetically Engineered Foods from the U.S.

In 2007, then-Presidential candidate Obama promised to “immediately” require GM labeling if elected. So far, nothing of the sort has transpired.

Video:  Obama Promises to Label GMOs

Labeling of genetically engineered food is way overdue… Here’s how you can get involved to rectify the situation:

• Whether you live in California or not, please donate money to this historic effort
• Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the California Ballot. It may be the only chance we have to label genetically engineered foods.
• Distribute WIDELY the Non-GMO Shopping Guide to help you identify and avoid foods with GMOs. Look for products (including organic products) that feature the Non-GMO Project Verified Seal to be sure that at-risk ingredients have been tested for GMO content. You can also download the free iPhone application that is available in the iTunes store. You can find it by searching for ShopNoGMO in the applications.
• For timely updates, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
• Look for in-depth coverage of the issue at the Institute for Responsible Technology, subscribe to Spilling the Beans, and check out their Facebook or Twitter.

In the meantime, the simplest way to avoid genetically engineered foods is to buy whole, certified organic foods. By definition, foods that are certified organic must never intentionally use genetically engineered organisms, must be produced without artificial pesticides and fertilizers and come from an animal reared without the routine use of antibiotics, growth promoters or other drugs. Additionally, grass-fed beef will not have been fed genetically engineered corn feed, although now that genetically engineered alfalfa is approved, grass-fed will not always mean they animals have not consumed genetically engineered feeds..

Be assured that what happens in California will affect the remainder of the U.S., so please support this important state initiative, even if you do not live there!

Source: Dr. Mercola

Related:

GM Crops Are Sown in Wildlife Refuges Across U.S.

Genetically Modified Food to Make Mankind “Retarded” (Controllable) Already in the 21st Century

Bill Gates Confirms Population Reduction Through Vaccination on CNN

Bill Gates: Register Every Birth by Cellphone To Ensure Vaccination, Control Population Growth 

Monsanto Battle Continues After Suing Midwest Farmers for Saving Seeds

Germany's superbug is weaponized with Bubonic Plague DNA

Killer E.coli 'being spread by terrorists' --

The Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure has warned it would not be beyond al-Qaida to launch a food-based attack. (Some believe it is much more sinister than that and not by al-Qaida.) The deadly E.coli outbreak could have been spread by terrorists, say doctors. They fear rogue groups may have deliberately implanted the killer germ into fresh produce. Poisoning food supplies would be the perfect way for terror groups to be taken seriously, experts believe.

Germany's superbug is weaponized with Bubonic Plague DNA ---

"On Tuesday [May 31], the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that [leading German E. coli researcher Helge] Karch had discovered that the O104:H4 bacteria responsible for the current outbreak is a so-called chimera that contains genetic materia from various E. coli bacteria. It also contains DNA sequences from plague bacteria, which makes it particularly pathogenic." ...Helge Karch, the director of the Robert Koch Institute (Germany's CDC) who heads a consulting laboratory at the Münster University Hospital in Germany, says that he has discovered that the super killer contains DNA from E. coli, which is what he expected. It also contains DNA from the organism that causes plague, responsible for wiping out a quarter of Europe's population during the Black Death (1348-1351). Bubonic plague is caused by Yersinia pestis and is one of the most feared of all disorders.

SINCE IT APPEARS WE HAVE A "SOUPED UP," WEAPONIZED E-COLI, HERE ARE SOME PLAGUE FACTS:

How do people get plague?

• By the bites of infected fleas
• By direct contact with the tissues or body fluids of a plague-infected animal
• By inhaling infectious airborne droplets from persons or animals, especially cats, with plague pneumonia
• By laboratory exposure to plague bacteria

What are the signs and symptoms of plague?

When a person is bitten by an infected flea or is infected by handling an infected animal, the plague bacteria move through the bloodstream to the lymph nodes. The lymph nodes swell, causing the painful lumps ("buboes") that are characteristic of bubonic plague. Other symptoms are fever, headache, chills, and extreme tiredness. Some people have gastrointestinal symptoms.

If bubonic plague goes untreated, the bacteria can multiply in the bloodstream and produce plague septicemia (septicemia plague), severe blood infection. Signs and symptoms are fever, chills, tiredness, abdominal pain, shock, and bleeding into the skin another organs. Untreated septicemia plague is usually fatal.

Pneumonic plague, or plague pneumonia, develops when the bacteria infect the lungs. People with plague pneumonia have high fever, chills, difficulty breathing, a cough, and bloody sputum. Plague pneumonia is considered a public health emergency because a cough can quickly spread the disease to others. Untreated pneumonic plague is usually fatal.

How soon after exposure do symptoms appear?

Symptoms usually begin within 2 to 6 days after exposure to the plague bacteria.  http://www.dhpe.org/infect/plague.html

AS COMPARED TO E-COLI:

How can you get sick from the harmful type of E. coli ?

• E. coli infections can be spread by many food sources such as undercooked ground beef, unpasteurized apple cider and milk, ham, turkey, roast beef, sandwich meats, raw vegetables, cheese and contaminated water.
• Once someone has consumed contaminated food or water, this infection can be passed from person to person by hand to mouth contact.
• E. coli does not survive in the air, on surfaces like tables or counters and is not spread by coughing, kissing or normal, everyday interactions with friends and neighbors.
• Poor hand washing and improper food handling are factors that lead to the spread of this illness.

http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/pub/disease/ecoli.html

---

Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2011 14:45:56 -0700
From: kimberlydawley@yahoo.com

Subject: er, maybe not .... Germany backtracks on sprouts as E. coli source
To: ohwarriorgoddess@hotmail.com

E. Coli as a Biological Weapon

E. Coli has long been considered by biological weapons experts as a weapon of choice.

For example, in the 1960s, as revealed by a declassified MoD report, the Porton Down laboratory in Ireland conducted trial bio-warfare tests with the bacteria near two population centers – Swindon and Southampton.

The tests involved releasing the bacteria into the environment and the report referred to the bacteria as especially valuable in that “highly satisfactory results” could be achieved with such a weapon.

In 2002, the CDC studied disease reporting laws for twenty-four biological agents that could be used as weapons, including anthrax, botulism and E. coli.

In developing the list of agents, officials focused on factors like morbidity and mortality, the stability of the agent that allows for distribution in a population, the ease with which it can be mass produced, and especially the use of such an agent to create public fear and “potential civil disruption.”

In 1997, Dr. R.E. Hurlbert of Washington State University wrote that genetically modifying E. coli in particular is not very difficult, but the ability for public health officials to tell the difference has become very difficult.

“Defining the target systems and the nature of a particular BW is not difficult, but deciding if it is a ‘natural biological product’ or one constructed by genetic engineering is becoming more difficult as our knowledge and skills improve in these technologies. For the purposes of this discussion I define a ‘Natural BW’ as one obtained from wild type strains or from selected mutants randomly induced spontaneously or by classical mutagenic procedures (e.g. exposure to UV or X-ray irradiation, chemical mutagenesis etc.). Therefore a ‘genetically engineered BW’ is defined as one constructed by the nonrandom modification of a gene.”

So then the question remains, is this latest E. coli strain a natural mutation, or one that was artificially created for use as a weapon?

EHEC is Known as a “Genetic Workhorse”

This problem is compounded by the fact that E. coli can be genetically modified very easily. In the list of biological agents at cbwinfo.com, the online information warehouse on chemical and biological weapons, the EHEC toxin (the one from the current outbreak that is causing HUS), only became recognized as a threat in the 1980s.
In its original form, the verotoxin could be especially fatal for children and the elderly. It is also listed as:

“…the workhorse of molecular genetics and genetic engineering. It may be relatively easy to modify EHEC into a potent biological weapon using relatively unsophisticated technology.”

One thing terrorists are known for is being especially creative in building weapons using unsophisticated technology. And the fact that this latest outbreak includes this “genetic workhorse” suggests that this could potentially be the work of biological terrorism.

Authorities Struggle to Find the Source

According to an LA Times report, scientists have conducted genetic sequencing and identified the two strains of E. coli that this latest outbreak is a genetic product of.
This new strain has more “aggressive genes”, making it a dangerous, potentially deadly weapon. According to WHO food safety expert Hilde Kruse, this strain is “…more virulent and toxin-producing than the many E. coli strains people naturally carry in their intestines.”http://www.topsecretwriters.com/2011/06/mutant-strain-of-e-coli-bacteria/

Germany backtracks on sprouts as E. coli source

AP – A man balances on a pile of cucumbers collected for destruction at a greenhouse compound outside Bucharest, …

By JUERGEN BAETZ and DAVID RISING, Associated Press Juergen Baetz And David Rising, Associated Press – 11 mins ago

HAMBURG, Germany – First they pointed a finger at Spanish cucumbers. Then they cast suspicion on sprouts from Germany. Now German officials appear dumbfounded as to the source of the deadliest E. coli outbreak in modern history, and one U.S. expert called the investigation a "disaster."

Backtracking for the second time in a week, officials Monday said preliminary tests have found no evidence that vegetable sprouts from an organic farm in northern Germany were to blame.
The surprise U-turn came only a day after the same state agency, Lower Saxony's agriculture ministry, held a news conference to announce that the sprouts appeared to be the culprit in the outbreak that has killed 22 people and sickened more than 2,330 others across Europe, most of them in Germany, over the past month.

Andreas Hensel, head of Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, warned, "We have to be clear on this: Maybe we won't be able anymore to identify the source."

Last week, German officials pointed to tainted cucumbers from Spain as a possible cause, igniting vegetable bans and heated protests from Spanish farmers, who suffered heavy financial losses. Researchers later concluded the Spanish cucumbers were contaminated with a different strain of E. coli.

"This investigation has been a disaster," Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told The Associated Press.

"This kind of wishy-washy response is incompetent," he said, accusing German authorities of casting suspicion on cucumbers and sprouts without firm data.

The European Union's health Commissioner defended German investigators, saying they were under extreme pressure as the crisis unfolded.

"We have to understand that people in certain situations do have a responsibility to inform their citizens as soon as possible of any danger that could exist to them," John Dalli said in Brussels.
In outbreaks, it is not unusual for certain foods to be suspected at first, then ruled out.

In 2008 in the U.S., raw tomatoes were initially implicated in a nationwide salmonella outbreak. Consumers shunned tomatoes, costing the tomato industry millions. Weeks later, jalapeno peppers grown in Mexico were determined to be the cause.

In 2006, lab tests mistakenly pointed to green onions in an E. coli outbreak at Taco Bell restaurants in the U.S. Investigators considered cheddar cheese and ground beef as the source before settling on lettuce.

With the culprit in the European crisis still a mystery, authorities stopped short of giving sprouts a clean bill of health. German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner reiterated the warning against eating sprouts, as well as tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce, which have also come under suspicion.

The agriculture ministry for Lower-Saxony state said 23 samples from the organic sprouts farm tested negative for the highly aggressive, "super-toxic" strain of E. coli that is killing people, with tests on 17 more samples still under way.

"A conclusion of the investigations and a clarification of the contamination's origin is not expected in the short term," the ministry said.

However, the negative test results do not mean that previous sprout batches weren't contaminated.

"Contaminated food could have been completely processed and sold by now," ministry spokeswoman Natascha Manski said.

In that case, the number of people stricken might keep rising for at least another week as the produce that could be causing the infections may have already been delivered to restaurants and grocery stores. More than 630 of the victims are hospitalized with a rare, serious complication that can lead to kidney failure. In a major difference from other E. coli outbreaks, women — who tend to eat more fresh produce — are by far the most affected this time, said Germany's national disease control center, the Robert Koch Institute. The majority of them are between 20 and 50 years old and tend to be highly educated, very fit, and lead healthy lifestyles, Friedrich Hagenmueller of Asklepios Hospital in Hamburg said.

"What do they have in common: They are thin, clean, pictures of health," he said.

Ulrike Seinsche is one of the women diagnosed with the serious complication that can lead to kidney failure.

"I really got scared when the blood results came and were so bad and the doctors became hectic," she said from her hospital bed in Hamburg.She was quickly transferred into intensive care, got cramps and suffered "real death fear," she said. "Now, I'm actually stable."

Osterholm, whose team has investigated a number of foodborne outbreaks in the U.S., said authorities should trace foods back to their suppliers — which is exactly what led German officials to single out the sprout producer, linking it to several restaurants where more than 50 people fell ill.

Since 1996, about 30 outbreaks of foodborne illness in the U.S. have been linked to raw or lightly cooked sprouts. Sprouts were also implicated a 1996 E. coli outbreak in Japan that killed 12 people and reportedly sickened more than 9,000.

At an EU health ministers meeting Monday in Luxembourg, Germany defended itself against accusations it had acted prematurely in pointing to Spanish cucumbers.

"The virus is so aggressive that we had to check every track," said Health State Secretary Annette Widmann-Mauz.

The EU will hold an emergency meeting of farm ministers Tuesday to address the crisis, including a ban imposed by Russia on all EU vegetables.

Source:  Yahoo.com

Related:

The E.coli Outbreak in Europe is BioWar ???

The E.coli outbreak in Europe is BioWar ???

Europe Blog: Waterboarding The World, Part 1:
Out of nowhere a strange new deadly disease has sprung up in Europe, causing an explosion of over 3,500 serious illnesses and 35 or more deaths in at least 10 European nations (and now 4 suspected cases in the U.S. - Ed.).  There are four scientific indications that this is a case of man-engineered Advanced Biowar, as well as strong circumstantial indications that this is a part of something much larger politically.

Scientifically, the four strong indications of an Advanced Biowar (genetically engineered recombination DNA) basis for this new outbreak are as follows:

(1) Multipoint release.  That is the disease has quickly come from nowhere and is in multiple locations almost overnight.  It is now in at least ten European nations.  In writing this article, I have had to change the numbers twice (total illnesses and deaths and nations involved) as the numbers are increasing almost hourly.
(2) Multi-drug resistance.   Chinese scientists, at the Shenzhen, China laboratory BGI (working with scientists at the University Medical Center of Hamberg-Eppendorf)  have confirmed that the new bacterium carries genes that make it resistant to several classes of antibiotics!  Patients often have bloody diarrhea, and many require intensive care including kidney dialysis.

More Here...

 

Alex talks with Mike Adams of Nat­ural News about evi­dence that the deadly e.coli bac­terium sweep­ing Ger­many was cooked up in a lab.

 

Evidence Suggests Superbug was Bioengineered

by Steve Beckow - http://stevebeckow.com/2011/06/evidence-suggests-superbug-was-bioengineered/

Here we go again….  I’m surprised that we didn’t have to wait for Matthew to tell us this time. We’re definitely catching on. No comfort for those who lost their loved ones. Thanks to Roth.

Forensic evidence emerges that European e.coli superbug was bioengineered to produce human fatalities

Monday, June 06, 2011
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com, http://www.naturalnews.com/032622_ecoli_bioengineering.html

(NaturalNews) Even as the veggie blame game is now under way across the EU, where a super resistant strain of e.coli is sickening patients and filling hospitals in Germany, virtually no one is talking about how e.coli could have magically become resistant to eight different classes of antibiotic drugs and then suddenly appeared in the food supply.

This particular e.coli variation is a member of the O104 strain, and O104 strains are almost never (normally) resistant to antibiotics. In order for them to acquire this resistance, they must be repeatedly exposed to antibiotics in order to provide the “mutation pressure” that nudges them toward complete drug immunity.

So if you’re curious about the origins of such a strain, you can essentially reverse engineer the genetic code of the e.coli and determine fairly accurately which antibiotics it was exposed to during its development. This step has now been done (see below), and when you look at the genetic decoding of this O104 strain now threatening food consumers across the EU, a fascinating picture emerges of how it must have come into existence.

The genetic code reveals the history

When scientists at Germany’s Robert Koch Institute decoded the genetic makeup of the O104 strain, they found it to be resistant to all the following classes and combinations of antibiotics:

• penicillins
• tetracycline
• nalidixic acid
• trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazol
• cephalosporins
• amoxicillin / clavulanic acid
• piperacillin-sulbactam
• piperacillin-tazobactam

In addition, this O104 strain posses an ability to produce special enzymes that give it what might be called “bacteria superpowers” known technically as ESBLs:

“Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamases (ESBLs) are enzymes that can be produced by bacteria making them resistant to cephalosporins e.g. cefuroxime, cefotaxime and ceftazidime – which are the most widely used antibiotics in many hospitals,” explains the Health Protection Agency in the UK (http://www.hpa.org.uk/Topics/Infect…).

On top of that, this O104 strain possesses two genes — TEM-1 and CTX-M-15 — that “have been making doctors shudder since the 1990s,” reports The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis…). And why do they make doctors shudder? Because they’re so deadly that many people infected with such bacteria experience critical organ failure and simply die.

Bioengineering a deadly superbug

So how, exactly, does a bacterial strain come into existence that’s resistant to over a dozen antibiotics in eight different drug classes and features two deadly gene mutations plus ESBL enzyme capabilities?

There’s really only one way this happens (and only one way) — you have to expose this strain of e.coli to all eight classes of antibiotics drugs. Usually this isn’t done at the same time, of course: You first expose it to penicillin and find the surviving colonies which are resistant to penicillin. You then take those surviving colonies and expose them to tetracycline. The surviving colonies are now resistant to both penicillin and tetracycline. You then expose them to a sulfa drug and collect the surviving colonies from that, and so on. It is a process of genetic selection done in a laboratory with a desired outcome. This is essentially how some bioweapons are engineered by the U.S. Army in its laboratory facility in Ft. Detrick, Maryland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation…).

Although the actual process is more complicated than this, the upshot is that creating a strain of e.coli that’s resistant to eight classes of antibiotics requires repeated, sustained expose to those antibiotics. It is virtually impossible to imagine how this could happen all by itself in the natural world. For example, if this bacteria originated in the food (as we’ve been told), then where did it acquire all this antibiotic resistance given the fact that antibiotics are not used in vegetables?

When considering the genetic evidence that now confronts us, it is difficult to imagine how this could happen “in the wild.” While resistance to a single antibiotic is common, the creation of a strain of e.coli that’s resistant to eight different classes of antibiotics — in combination — simply defies the laws of genetic permutation and combination in the wild. Simply put, this superbug e.coli strain could not have been created in the wild. And that leaves only one explanation for where it really came from: the lab.

Engineered and then released into the wild

The evidence now points to this deadly strain of e.coli being engineered and then either being released into the food supply or somehow escaping from a lab and entering the food supply inadvertently. If you disagree with that conclusion — and you’re certainly welcome to — then you are forced to conclude that this octobiotic superbug (immune to eight classes of antibiotics) developed randomly on its own… and that conclusion is far scarier than the “bioengineered” explanation because it means octobiotic superbugs can simply appear anywhere at any time without cause. That would be quite an exotic theory indeed.

My conclusion actually makes more sense: This strain of e.coli was almost certainly engineered and then released into the food supply for a specific purpose. What would that purpose be? It’s obvious, I hope.

It’s all problem, reaction, solution at work here. First cause a PROBLEM (a deadly strain of e.coli in the food supply). Then wait for the public REACTION (huge outcry as the population is terrorized by e.coli). In response to that, enact your desired SOLUTION (total control over the global food supply and the outlawing of raw sprouts, raw milk and raw vegetables).

That’s what this is all about, of course. The FDA relied on the same phenomenon in the USA when pushing for its recent “Food Safety Modernization Act” which essentially outlaws small family organic farms unless they lick the boots of FDA regulators. The FDA was able to crush farm freedom in America by piggybacking on the widespread fear that followed e.coli outbreaks in the U.S. food supply. When people are afraid, remember, it’s not difficult to get them to agree to almost any level of regulatory tyranny. And making people afraid of their food is a simple matter… a few government press releases emailed to the mainstream media news affiliates is all it takes.

First ban the natural medicine, then attack the food supply
Now, remember: All this is happening on the heels of the EU ban on medicinal herbs and nutritional supplements — a ban that blatantly outlaws nutritional therapies that help keep people healthy and free from disease. Now that all these herbs and supplements are outlawed, the next step is to make people afraid of fresh food, too. That’s because fresh vegetables are medicinal, and as long as the public has the right to buy fresh vegetables, they can always prevent disease.

But if you can make people AFRAID of fresh vegetables — or even outlaw them altogether — then you can force the entire population onto a diet of dead foods and processed foods that promote degenerative disease and bolster the profits of the powerful drug companies.

It’s all part of the same agenda, you see: Keep people sick, deny them access to healing herbs and supplements, then profit from their suffering at the hands of the global drug cartels.

GMOs play a similar role in all this, of course: They’re designed to contaminate the food supply with genetic code that causes widespread infertility among human beings. And those who are somehow able to reproduce after exposure to GMOs still suffer from degenerative disease that enriches the drug companies from “treatment.”

Do you recall which country was targeted in this recent e.coli scare? Spain. Why Spain? You may recall that leaked cables from Wikileaks revealed that Spain resisted the introduction of GMOs into its agricultural system, even as the U.S. government covertly threatened political retaliation for its resistance. This false blaming of Spain for the e.coli deaths is probably retaliation for Spain’s unwillingness to jump on the GMO bandwagon. (http://www.naturalnews.com/030828_G…)

That’s the real story behind the economic devastation of Spain’s vegetable farmers. It’s one of the subplots being pursued alongside this e.coli superbug scheme.

Food as weapons of war – created by Big Pharma?

By the way, the most likely explanation of where this strain of e.coli was bioengineered is that the drug giants came up with it in their own labs. Who else has access to all the antibiotics and equipment needed to manage the targeted mutations of potentially thousands of e.coli colonies? The drug companies are uniquely positioned to both carry out this plot and profit from it. In other words, they have the means and the motive to engage in precisely such actions.

Aside from the drug companies, perhaps only the infectious disease regulators themselves have this kind of laboratory capacity. The CDC, for example, could probably pull this off if they really wanted to.

The proof that somebody bioengineered this e.coli strain is written right in the DNA of the bacteria. That’s forensic evidence, and what it reveals cannot be denied. This strain underwent repeated and prolonged exposure to eight different classes of antibiotics, and then it somehow managed to appear in the food supply. How do you get to that if not through a well-planned scheme carried out by rogue scientists? There is no such thing as “spontaneous mutation” into a strain that is resistant to the top eight classes of brand-name antibiotic drugs being sold by Big Pharma today. Such mutations have to be deliberate.

Once again, if you disagree with this assessment, then what you’re saying is that NO, it wasn’t done deliberately… it happened accidentally! And again, I’m saying that’s even scarier! Because that means the antibiotic contamination of our world is now at such an extreme level of overkill that a strain of e.coli in the wild can be saturated with eight different classes of antibiotics to the point where it naturally develops into its own deadly superbug. If that’s what people believe, then that’s almost a scarier theory than the bioengineering explanation!

A new era has begun: Bioweapons in your food

But in either case — no matter what you believe — the simple truth is that the world is now facing a new era of global superbug strains of bacteria that can’t be treated with any known pharmaceutical. They can all, of course, be readily killed with colloidal silver, which is exactly why the FDA and world health regulators have viciously attacked colloidal silver companies all these years: They can’t have the public getting its hands on natural antibiotics that really work, you see. That would defeat the whole purpose of making everybody sick in the first place.

In fact, these strains of e.coli superbugs can be quite readily treated with a combination of natural full-spectrum antibiotics from plants such as garlic, ginger, onions and medicinal herbs. On top of that, probiotics can help balance the flora of the digestive tract and “crowd out” the deadly e.coli that might happen by. A healthy immune system and well-functioning digestive tract can fight off an e.coli superbug infection, but that’s yet another fact the medical community doesn’t want you to know. They much prefer you to remain a helpless victim lying in the hospital, waiting to die, with no options available to you. That’s “modern medicine” for ya. They cause the problems that they claim to treat, and then they won’t even treat you with anything that works in the first place.

Nearly all the deaths now attributable to this e.coli outbreak are easily and readily avoidable. These are deaths of ignorance. But even more, they may also be deaths from a new era of food-based bioweapons unleashed by either a group of mad scientists or an agenda-driven institution that has declared war on the human population.

Additional developments on this e.coli outbreak

• 22 fatalities have so far been reported, with 2,153 people now sickened and possibly facing kidney failure.

• An agricultural ministry in Germany said that even though they now know the source of the outbreak is a German sprout farm, they are still not lifting their warnings for people to avoid eating tomatoes and lettuce. In other words, keep the people afraid!

• “The German variant of E coli, known as O104, is a hybrid of the strains that can cause bloody diarrhoea and kidney damage called ‘hemolytic uremic syndrome’.” (http://www.independent.ie/world-new…)

• A total of ten European nations have reported outbreaks of this e.coli strain, mostly from people who had visited northern Germany.

• The following story is in German, and it hints that the e.coli outbreak might have been a terrorist attack (http://www.aerztezeitung.de/medizin…). Yeah, a terrorist attack by the drug companies upon innocent people, as usual…

Learn more:  http://www.naturalnews.com/032622_ecoli_bioengineering.html#ixzz1OYlXsve4

RELATED ARRTICLES:

• Germany steps up hunt for deadly E.coli source
• Three suspected cases of mystery e-coli in US

Links to relevant articles: 

Deadly E.coli outbreak in Europe caused by rare strain of bacterium, UN confirms ~ link

E.coli Outbreak Linked to Aggressive New Strain ~ link

EHEC: Update from Spiegel ~ link

Killer germ very antibiotic resistant: German researchers ~ link

Europe E.coli is toxic new strain, trade row grows ~ link

Killer E.coli strain described as deadliest yet ~ link

E.coli in Europe outbreak never seen before - with video ~ link

WHO: E.coli outbreak cause by new strain ~link

Never seen before E.coli strain hits Europe - video ~ link

Outbreak in Europe blamed on 'super-toxic' strain ~ link

UK confirms E.coli cases linked to German outbreak - with video ~ link

Cucumbers cleared, sources of E.coli not yet found ~ link

Thanks to Dr. Bill Deagle, MD, for his advice and to various readers of my blog for sending me links and information and to Lord Stirling for post.