Want a round of Round Up with your beer? The German beer industry is in shock after finding that 14 different popular beer brands have traces of the ‘probably’ carcinogenic herbicide, glyphosate – an ingredient found in Monsanto’s best-selling weed killer, Round Up. Germany’s Agricultural minster is playing down the risks in order to save one of the countries’ best-selling exports.
On Thursday, the Vermont state Senate gave final approval to a bill legalizing recreational marijuana, beginning in 2018. If it reaches the governor’s desk, Vermont will be the first state in the nation to legalize the drug without a referendum.
The bill cleared the regulatory hurdle when Sen. Becca Balint, a Democrat, who had originally opposed the measure, changed her vote.
The Senate rejected amendments to push off decriminalization until 2019, but opted to place warnings on marijuana packaging similar to those on cigarette boxes.
According to a long-standing myth (and it IS a myth), drinking lots of coffee can sober you up if you’re drunk. While coffee can’t bring you back to reality or fix a sick liver, it may protect the organ against damage.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Thursday that 9 people in Minnesota and Wisconsin had been diagnosed with E. coli poisoning, including 2 individuals who had to be hospitalized, but have since recovered. The source of the outbreak has been traced back to alfalfa sprouts from Jack & The Green Sprouts in River Falls, Wisconsin.
The CDC said in an announcement:
Two South Kona coffee growers have reportedly filed a lawsuit against Monsanto, claiming that the company lied about the possibility for glyphosate, the main ingredient in Round Up, to cause cancer.
Big Pharma won big today when the Senate nearly unanimously approved Dr. Robert Califf as the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). And not everyone is happy about it.
Califf was confirmed for the job in a vote of 89 to 4 after weeks of opposition from a handful of senators, including presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who had attempted to block the longtime cardiologist and academic researcher. [1]
Three key scientific studies that would reveal possible risks to human and environmental health from the use of the herbicide chemical glyphosate have been held back in the name of ‘trade secret protection.”
Some think that with minimal market saturation, GM wheat could become a strong seller in the US, just like genetically modified corn, soy, canola oil, cottonseed, and other GM crops. Monsanto ditched the efforts to develop this particular crop 10 years ago, but has relatively recently begun working to create a new strain of the crop. Why the sudden interest again in GM wheat? [1]
Monsanto isn’t cheering the news that U.S. organic food sales have approached $37 billion annually, up 12% from just a year ago, but the trend shows no sign of slowing. This double-digit growth is expected well into the future, suggests a Nutrition Business Journal report. [1]
Kenneth Frazier, a chief executive of Merck & Co. and chairman of the industry lobbying group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, wants you to know why drug prices have gotten so out of hand.
According to Frazier:
