Booming demand for balsa wood, used to make turbine blades for wind energy, is ravaging Amazon forests and indigenous communities — in the name of “green power.”

Story at a glance:

• The rapid expansion of wind energy has led to increasing demand for windmills and balsa wood to build them.
• The tropical tree is facing exploitation and being cleared from Amazon forests, causing potentially more environmental problems than the windmills it creates can solve.
• Wind turbine blades can be up to 328 feet (100 meters) long; each blade requires 150 cubic meters of balsa wood, which is several tons.
• China is a major consumer of balsa wood, purchasing 85% of Ecuador’s exports in 2020.
• The Open Democracy video, “A Green Paradox,” documents how the rush for balsa wood to create “green” wind energy has destroyed local indigenous communities and decimated ecosystems.

Balsa, a tree that’s native to South America, is a coveted resource. Growing up to 98 feet (30 meters) and ready for harvesting in just three to four years from planting, balsa holds the promise for high profits for those who grow them.

Adding to its value, balsa wood is flexible and light yet very strong, making it an ideal material for manufacturing bridges, skis, boats and wind turbine propellers.

In an ironic tragedy, however, the rapid expansion of wind energy has led to increasing demand for windmills and balsa wood to build them.

Now, the tropical tree is facing exploitation and being cleared from Amazon forests, causing potentially more environmental problems than the windmills it creates can solve.

Rush for balsa wood causes devastating deforestation

Wind turbine blades can be up to 328 feet (100 meters) long. Each blade requires 150 cubic meters of balsa wood, which is several tons.

With demand on the rise from Europe and China, “balsa fever” set in, particularly in Ecuador, the No. 1 exporter of balsa wood, which produces 75% of the global market.

Prices of balsa wood have also skyrocketed, rising 30% from 2015 to 2019, when balsa wood worth $219 million was exported from Ecuador.

China is a major consumer of balsa wood, purchasing 85% of Ecuador’s exports in 2020.

In the Open Democracy video above, you can see how the rush for balsa wood to create “green” wind energy has destroyed local indigenous communities and decimated ecosystems.

In June, the Achuar Nationality of Ecuador declared that it would not allow deforestation to obtain balsa wood in its territory.

In a social media post, they wrote, “Don’t make any investment, even if you cut down balsa you won’t be able to extract it, it won’t be sold.”

However, indigenous leaders bowed to pressure in some communities nonetheless, allowing loggers to retrieve the wood.

According to Open Democracy:

“It’s a decision that has caused pain, rejection and division among families and has had consequences for the ecosystem of the islands and for the river itself. The balseros bring alcohol, drugs and prostitution, and pollute the extraction sites with plastics, cans, machinery, gasoline and oil spills.

“They abandon used chains from their chainsaws. They eat the turtles and chase away the parrots, toucans and other birds that feed on the flowers of the balsa trees. The breakdown of ecosystems by illegal deforestation has profound impacts on the balance of local flora and fauna, which will never recover.”

The demand for balsa to construct more wind turbines has even led to a black market, in which the wood is being harvested without appropriate permits, leading to further environmental damage.

According to a report from the Universidad de Navarra:

“China requires so much balsa wood because it is implementing a plan for the construction of wind turbines in order to increase its own production of clean energy and rely less on coal, and with the goal also to position itself globally in the sector, as it has done with photovoltaic panels.

“In order to achieve the goals of the plan, the Chinese government has subsidized a large number of Chinese producers for the purchase of tons of balsa wood, which has boosted demand so much that it has also led to farmers in Ecuador producing it illegally, without official permits, and generating a black market.

“This black market is causing serious environmental problems, such as contributing to the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest to plant balsa and exploit it, so that communities living in the Amazon have been severely affected by the booming demand for such timber.”

Further, China declared in December 2020 that it intended to increase its use of wind and solar power by fivefold by 2030.

Wind turbines pose a ‘green paradox’

One of the cornerstones of the Green New Deal is the end of U.S. fossil fuel consumption in less than a decade.

Efforts are underway to install wind turbines on every U.S. coastline in order to generate enough power to run close to 10 million homes.

But the call for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by using “clean” energy sources — like wind, solar and geothermal avenues — to meet 100% of U.S. power needs ignores the pitfalls of these “green” alternatives.

One study, for instance, found that meeting U.S. electricity demand using wind would require turbines to cover 12% of the continental U.S.

The Manhattan Institute reported:

“The land area of the continental United States is about 2.9 million square miles (or 7.6 million square kilometers). Twelve percent of that would be about 350,000 square miles (or 912,000 square kilometers). Therefore, merely meeting America’s current electricity needs with wind would require an area more than twice the size of California, which covers about 164,000 square miles (424,000 square kilometers).”

This isn’t even taking into account the ecosystems and local communities being destroyed by deforestation for balsa wood. It’s a “green paradox” of sorts, “solving” one environmental dilemma only to create another.

According to Open Democracy:

“Wind energy has already become a key aspect of global strategy and is set for further expansion in the coming years. But there are downsides to this boom. The deforestation pressure on balsa has been brutal for the Amazonian Indigenous people of Ecuador, while the pressure on regions in Europe to host new wind farms brings with it conflict.

“This has created a green paradox. We need to decarbonize the global economy as soon as possible, and wind energy is a central part of that equation. However, this form of renewable energy will not be ethical or sustainable until every component involved is guaranteed not to cause further harm to the planet and its people.”

How the green pact could destroy Amazonian communities

The Green New Deal (Green Agenda), “Build Back Better,” the Fourth Industrial Revolution (the transhumanist movement) and The Great Reset, officially introduced by World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab and then-Prince Charles in June 2020 — all exist to further and facilitate the implementation of Agenda 21.

Agenda 21 (Agenda for the 21st Century) is the inventory and control plan for all land, water, minerals, plants, animals, construction, means of production, food, energy, information, education and all human beings in the world.

The European Green Deal is more of the same — introduced by the European Commission in December 2019 to, in part, replace fossil fuels with “cleaner” energy sources.

But as Open Democracy noted, “As a result of the 2019 pact, the financial outlook for renewables, including wind power, boosted the number of wind farm construction projects in Europe, and added to China’s wind rush.”

[…]

Forests destroyed, birds killed — how green is wind energy?

Wind energy has become a poster child for the Green New Deal and its move toward green, sustainable energy. But the fact remains that virtually all mass-scale methods — whether it be for food, energy, or otherwise — have significant downsides, wind energy included.

Logging Amazon rainforests to create massive wind turbine propellers is the opposite of sustainable. Meanwhile, birds and bats — many species of which are already endangered — are suffering. It’s estimated that 600,000 to 949,000 bats, and up to 679,000 birds, are killed annually by wind turbines in the U.S.

But the number of wind turbines has increased significantly since these estimates were calculated, which means many more are probably affected. Areas, where wind farms are built, are also in peril, as the giant structures have a significant socio-economic impact.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/amazon-deforestation-wind-energy-cola/

By  Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

Proponents of 5G say the technology will address the “digital divide” by increasing online services to the underserved — but critics say 5G is a marketing move the telecommunications industry is using to put their equipment up everywhere and strip away regulatory oversight.

But critics — including Theodora Scarato, executive director of the nonprofit research and education group Environmental Health Trust — said the 5G rollout is more about corporate greed than it is about helping people access fast and reliable internet.

5G uses higher frequencies on the electromagnetic radiation (EMR) spectrum than prior wireless technologies and, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), can operate in these radiofrequency (RF) bands: low-band (less than 1 GHz), mid-band (1 to 6 GHz), high-band (24 to 95 GHz) and unlicensed bands (5.9, 6 GHz and above 95 GHz).

Scarato told The Defender that 5G is a marketing term used to promote promises about “bridging the digital divide” when what’s really being marketed is the deregulation of the wireless industry.

“I see it as a corporate land grab. That’s what it is,” she said.

The wireless industry creates and uses the hype around 5G to install their equipment faster and more cheaply, Scarato said. They do this by convincing public officials that communities need this technology and that the established public review processes are too slow and must be streamlined, to allow companies to deliver the technology rapidly and with little oversight.

5G push prioritizes profits over people

What this means for the wireless industry is that they are able to expand their infrastructure without having “to deal with all the people,” Scarato said.

It’s people — from the perspective of the wireless industry, she said — that are the “roadblocks to getting your equipment up because people don’t like it. It’s ugly. [They worry about] the radiation, the fire risk. All of these reasons why people want a more responsible placement for this equipment can be pushed aside when you just change the rules.”

Kim Mack Rosenberg, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) acting general counsel, said, “It is critical that we dig below the surface to try to understand the motivation of corporations in expanding 5G networks.”

Rosenberg told The Defender:

“While companies tout that 5G allows for greater connectivity, more reliability and helps to close the digital divide, the bottom line is, in many respects, the actual bottom line for telecom companies and related industries.

“5G creates the potential for extraordinary profits, hence the push for more and more deregulation. However, deregulation carries with it significant risks.”

Scarato pointed out that over half the states in the U.S. have legislation in place that allows them to fast-track approval of 5G and small cell technology.

“Policies at every level of government, local, state, and federal are loosening — fast-tracking — and allowing corporations to put their equipment up really close to where we live, work and play,” she said, adding that public officials put forward such legislation by reasoning that, “Well, we have to have this new technology, so we have to make it easier for companies.”

CHD, joined by a coalition of community and environmental groups — including Fiber First LA — that is advocating for safe technology in March sued Los Angeles County in California for adopting amendments that allowed the fast-tracked proliferation of wireless infrastructure without due process and without residents’ right to appeal.

Brenda Martinez, Los Angeles County resident and activist with Fiber First LA, said that for years she has witnessed public officials, such as the county board members, “use lower income community’s needs to push the agenda of Big Telecom.”

Martinez — a fellow with CHD’s EMR program — told The Defender that before the COVID-19 pandemic, the telecommunication companies offered only fiber optic (wired) connection, which is faster than wireless internet, to more affluent areas of LA.

“Lower-income communities were stuck with wireless — which is more profitable to the telecom industry and more expensive for the people,” she said.

During the pandemic, lower-income communities experienced “very expensive internet fees, scams from telecom and faulty hot spots … despite the fact that we had thousands of new antennas and cell towers popping up,” Martinez said. “I hope everyone can see now that those bills being pushed so hard are not for the benefit of their constituents.”

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce in May advanced seven bills that lawmakers said are intended to streamline and speed up the deployment of wireless infrastructure, including 5G, across the country.

Odette Wilkens, a technology attorney for more than 20 years, said the deployment of wireless infrastructure such as 5G — rather than fiber optics, which she claims is a safer, superior technology — is likely to exacerbate, not solve, the digital divide and will serve the interests of the wireless industry, not the interests of U.S. citizens.

Wilkens, who also is president and general counsel for Wired Broadband Inc., a nonprofit that advocates for hard-wired high-speed internet, told The Defender:

“The phrase ‘reducing regulatory barriers’ is being used as a euphemism to erect barriers against local government and residents, to take away their right to hearings and their right to be heard.

“In fact, regulations are designed to protect local government power and residents’ health, safety and welfare, and to preserve residents’ right to due process.”

5G rollout ‘outrageous’ for ignoring harms

The infrastructure being installed as part of the 5G rollout not only carries 5G frequencies but may also include 2G, 3G and 4G, Scarato noted. “So when you get a 5G small cell in front of your house, it might be called that — but until you actually look at the technical specs, it could be a variety [of frequencies],” she said.

Small cells are individual wireless transmitters distributed roughly every 100-450 meters that can be mounted on utility poles or other structures, such as a fence. Before 5G, most wireless networks were built using a system of macro transmitters in the form of cellular towers. The 5G network uses both cellular towers and small cells.

Rosenberg said deregulation not only carries the general inherent risk of decreased oversight, but it also opens the door for other risks, too.

“There are serious human health concerns with 5G, safety concerns regarding animals and the environment, and privacy and cybersecurity risks, among others,” Rosenberg said. “As is the case with many industries, we are wise to not accept at face value that expansion of 5G networks and access to these networks is good for us.”

Dr. David Carpenter, environmental health sciences professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY), said it is “outrageous” that the U.S. government is allowing the rollout of 5G without any research to document that it is not harmful.

Carpenter — who received his doctor of medicine degree from Harvard Medical School and now directs the University at Albany’s Institute for Health and the Environment — told The Defender, “The 5G rollout is of benefit to industry, not to the public, and is causing major harm to everyone.”

He added:

“It is known that 5G doesn’t travel so far and is easily blocked by rain, leaves and other physical barriers, so the telecommunication companies are placing these mini cell towers in urban areas in front of every sixth to eighth house.”

According to industry experts interviewed by the Environmental Health Trust, 5G antenna radiation is emitted as a concentrated rather than a diffused beam, with output power 20 to 35 times more than 4G, Scarato told The Defender.

Carpenter said 5G is being rolled out without any input or approval from the public.

Consensus is building on 5G dangers

Meanwhile, at least 430 scientists and doctors have signed the “5G Appeal” which calls for an immediate ban on 5G because it “will substantially increase exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF), that has been proven to be harmful for humans and the environment.”

Additionally, thousands of medical doctors have called for an “immediate moratorium on 5G, wireless smart metering and any other new RF emissions,” as well as the “establishment of public safety limits to be biologically protective against adverse health effects.”

A July 2021 report, “Health impact of 5G,” requested by the European Parliament concluded that the commonly used frequencies of 450 to 6,000 MHz are probably carcinogenic for humans and clearly affect male fertility with possible adverse effects on the development of embryos, fetuses and newborns, Scarato pointed out.

Carpenter said, “It is still uncertain how dangerous 5G by itself is since the higher frequency EMFs are more easily blocked than those from 3 and 4G, which we know can penetrate the brain and the body, causing cancer, cognitive dysfunction and the syndrome of electromagnetic hypersensitivity.”

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/5g-rollout-harm-regulation-profit/

Developed nations requiring the most neonatal vaccine doses tend to have the worst childhood mortality rates, according to a peer-reviewed study published July 20 in Cureus Journal of Medical Science.

“Health authorities emphasize that vaccines save lives,” lead author Neil Miller told The Defender. “Yet our data suggests that when developed nations require two versus zero neonatal vaccine doses, or many versus fewer vaccines during infancy, there may be unintended consequences that increase all-cause mortality.”

Miller, director of the Institute of Medical and Scientific Inquiry in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has been researching this topic since the early 2000s. In a 2011 paper with the same co-author — Gary S. Goldman, Ph.D., an independent computer scientist — they showed that developed countries requiring the most vaccine doses for infants had the least favorable infant mortality rates.

In 2021, they replicated those results using updated data, and earlier this year, they responded to critics of their findings.

In their latest study, Miller and Goldman expanded the scope of their earlier analyses to consider the effects of two vaccines — hepatitis B and tuberculosis — both typically given soon after birth.

The study calculated the effect of these shots on mortality rates for neonates (up to 28 days post-birth), infants (up to 1 year old), and children under 5. Analyses were all based on separate data from 2019 and 2021.

Mortality data and vaccine schedules were collected from UNICEF, the World Health Organization and national governments.

Nations were categorized by the number of neonatal vaccine doses (zero, one or two) mandated for newborns to determine if statistically significant differences existed in mortality rates for the three age groups.

After applying standard statistical analyses to the data, the study found a strong association between vaccinations and rates of neonatal, infant and under-5 mortality for both years studied.

“Our findings would be considered moderate correlations which are statistically significant,” Miller said. The correlations are positive, meaning that the more vaccine doses given, the higher the mortality.

“In these circumstances health authorities expect to see negative correlations, that is, a decline in mortality with more vaccine doses. So, any statistically significant positive correlation is a genuine concern,” Miller said.

Miller calculated a highly significant difference of 1.28 deaths per 1,000 live births in the mean infant mortality rates between nations not giving their neonates any vaccine doses, and those requiring vaccination against both hepatitis B and tuberculosis.

For each reduction of six vaccine doses administered during infancy, the infant mortality rate improved by approximately one death per 1,000 live births.

A hallmark of good science is the good-faith openness to test one’s conclusions, a practice Miller and Goldman followed here. To validate their conclusions, the researchers applied 18 different statistical analyses to the data. This is like using several different camera angles to confirm whether a tennis ball hit the line or was out.

Seventeen of 18 statistical treatments confirmed the original conclusion that the more vaccines given, the higher the infant and early childhood mortality rates.

Neonatal deaths and all-cause mortality

In most nations, more than half of all infant deaths (within the first year) occur during the neonatal period (the first 28 days of life), and about 75% of those deaths occur within one week after birth when hepatitis and tuberculosis vaccines are administered.

Deaths occurring during the neonatal period have a disproportionately high impact on the reporting of infant and under-5 mortality rates, but the longer after vaccination the deaths occur, the less likely physicians are to associate them with vaccines given right after birth.

“Hepatitis B and tuberculosis vaccines given shortly after birth, when the immune system is immature and the newborn’s weight is low, may increase vulnerability to serious adverse reactions and deaths that ultimately contribute to higher mortality rates moving forward,” Miller said.

Globally, the top causes of premature death in the under-5 population are premature birth complications, trauma during birth, pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria. These statistics are heavily skewed by developing countries, where hygiene, nutrition, medical care and record-keeping are not up to best-in-class standards.

In the U.S., accidents and homicides are the main causes of infant and early childhood mortality. The leading medical causes for death in infants and children under 5 are developmental and genetic conditions and the consequences of premature birth.

According to Miller:

“Premature birth and low birth weight are common causes of neonatal death, but since vaccines are administered within 24 hours of birth, when these factors are most relevant, it is possible that some of these deaths were precipitated by birth-dose vaccines.

“However, since cause-of-death classifications associated with infant vaccination do not exist, doctors and coroners are compelled to misclassify and conceal vaccine-related fatalities under alternate cause-of-death classifications.”

Relying on all-cause mortality instead of “vaccine-induced injury” — or some other subjective assessment of the cause of death — greatly reduces what is termed “diagnostic bias.”

While considerable uncertainty may exist regarding why someone died, the death itself is not in question.

Miller discussed some of these potentially confounding factors in an earlier paper on vaccines and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), published in 2021 in Toxicology Reports. That study identified SIDS and “suffocation in bed” as common misclassifications: of all reported SIDS cases post-vaccination, 75% occurred within 7 days after the shots.

What does it all mean?

Although using all-cause mortality data reduces many sources of bias, it considers only inputs and outputs, in this case, vaccine doses and death. It ignores everything that happens before the dose and between the shots and death.

This means some unknown factor may be at work causing vaccinated children to expire.

But the positive correlation between vaccine doses and mortality is most easily explained by the conclusion that the number of lives saved by preventing deadly infections is fewer than the lives lost from increased susceptibility to other serious health threats.

Miller’s study also found that vaccines administered shortly after birth correlate more strongly to infant mortality than to neonatal mortality.

This suggests that the negative effects of early vaccinations may be delayed, perhaps by predisposing children to adverse reactions to shots given later, or to other health threats.

Studies have shown that vaccinated low-weight infants have an increased risk of developing life-threatening apnea — sudden, unexplained breathing cessation, especially during sleep. In an earlier investigation of 30 SIDS incidents, the authors found that apnea preceded death by an average of eight weeks.

“This might explain why vaccines administered during the neonatal period are more highly correlated with deaths that occur in the post-neonatal period,” Miller said.

Miller concluded his study with a plea to health authorities worldwide to reconsider mandatory childhood vaccination schedules:

“Vaccine policymakers have an obligation to determine the full impact of their current vaccination schedules on deaths from any cause. More safety research is needed on the number of childhood vaccines that are administered concurrently, cumulatively, and the sequence in which they are given, to confirm they are providing the intended effects on child survival.”

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/infant-vaccines-all-cause-mortality/

Agribusiness watchdog OrganicEye today demanded the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) hold a public hearing — or face litigation — on the use of mRNA and other genetically engineered vaccines in organic livestock production.

The use of such genetically modified products violates the legal definition of “organic,” the group said.

The request comes after reports that the USDA and some organic certifiers have “quietly looked the other way” as commercial livestock producers have begun using genetically engineered vaccines in animals producing organic-certified meat, eggs and dairy products, according to OrganicEye.

One of the most important differences — perhaps the key difference — between conventional and organic food is the organic label’s strict prohibition on genetically modified farm inputs and ingredients, as laid out in the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990.

OrganicEye said that rather than enforcing this rule, the USDA has sanctioned a “don’t ask, don’t tell” protocol — pushed by Big Ag — that allows producers to administer genetically engineered vaccines to animals and still label them “organic.”

The issue is urgent, according to Mark Kastel, executive director of Wisconsin-based OrganicEye, because of the imminent use of mRNA vaccines for livestock, which are currently being developed with massive funding from government and industry.

“The impetus for us to act now is the impending introduction of vaccines for livestock produced using mRNA technology similar to that used by Pfizer and Moderna to produce their respective versions of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine,” Kastel stated.

“There is a continuing controversy in the country concerning this new technology and we should work to preserve organics as the last safe haven for eaters who want to secure a truly ‘natural’ diet,” he added.

It is “unacceptable,” the nonprofit stated, for the USDA to “kick the can down the road” on this highly controversial issue.

OrganicEye is calling on the USDA’s National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) to convene a meeting of all stakeholders, not only with industry interests who want these vaccines, Kastel told The Defender, but also with “people who have a concern — whether they’re farmers that don’t need them and feel they’re being competitively injured by competing against these livestock factories, or whether they’re consumers who have a general concern about genetic engineering and the food supply.”

“They have a right to be heard,” he said.

A corrupted oversight process

Synthetic materials are by default banned in organics, unless they have been explicitly permitted because they are deemed “essential” to production and have been evaluated and determined to be safe for human health and the environment.

Congress created the NOSB in the 1990s to recommend industry standards for regulating such materials. It is a powerful advisory board — the USDA cannot allow any synthetic substances in organic production unless the NOSB has explicitly approved and recommended them.

The board was designed to represent stakeholders from across the organics industry, including small farmers and consumers, but it has increasingly become dominated by powerful agribusiness lobbyists — and as a result, increasingly subordinate to agribusiness’ dictates.

The first question that must be investigated, Kastel said, is whether vaccines are “essential” for livestock at all. They are generally not required in livestock production “other than some state regulations pertaining to interstate transportation of livestock,” he said.

But many producers, particularly in industrial agriculture, vaccinate their animals anyway to “mitigate risks.”

Kastel said a hearing would allow the public to investigate whether “there’s any good justification coming from anybody other than people involved in conventional livestock production for the use of vaccines.”

Or, maybe animals “maintained in a healthy environment with plenty of outdoor access and pasture for ruminants like beef and dairy cows on family-scale farms,” don’t need any vaccines at all — let alone genetically modified ones, he said.

Many vaccines previously approved for organic production have been phased out and replaced with vaccines produced through genetic modification.

At recent NOSB meetings, accredited organic certifiers admitted that they do not check to see whether vaccines used violate the prohibition against genetic engineering — despite the fact that federal regulations mandate their review.

In response, the NOSB recommended the USDA approve a regulatory amendment allowing for the use of these genetically modified vaccines in organic production in cases where the traditionally produced vaccine was no longer available.

In a policy brief also released today, OrganicEye called this move “likely illegal” because “in all cases, vaccines produced using methods of genetic engineering/modification are clearly forbidden by the national organic standards and are currently excluded from use.”

The USDA did not enact that recommendation and has stated it won’t act in this regulatory area.

In other words, Kastel said, the USDA is saying they “have no intention to do new rulemaking,” and are instead letting things stand — taking a “don’t ask, don’t tell,” approach to regulating GMO vaccines.

Dr. Hubert Karreman, doctor of veterinary medicine, North Carolina dairy farmer, charter fellow of the American College of Veterinary Botanical Medicine and former NOSB member, said that instead, the USDA could and should “create a very clear, easily understandable categorization system such that organic farmers don’t use a genetically engineered vaccine by mistake.”

OrganicEye charges the USDA’s reluctance to create that system is due to the influence of “powerful lobbyists and industry interests, mostly with expertise in conventional livestock production as in the case of vaccines,” who have an interest in producers continuing to rely on vaccines, rather than “providing more healthful and secure living environments for domesticated animals.”

In its policy brief, OrganicEye proposed the USDA create a clear categorization for vaccines, review all vaccines for safety prior to approval — including for the persistence of “foreign” DNA, RNA and antibodies in meat — and develop a way to deal with concerns that arise from that review, including removing such vaccines from the market if need be.

OrganicEye is also promoting a campaign to put pressure on the Biden administration to reduce its dependence on political appointees from corporate agribusiness in organic regulatory oversight — a practice that has resulted in the legally questionable conduct the group is protesting.

Veterinarians: ‘Not enough known’ about long-term effects of mRNA vaccines for livestock

“The successful application of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 has further validated the platform and opened the floodgates to mRNA vaccine’s potential in infectious disease prevention, especially in the veterinary field,” according to a study published last year in the journal Viruses.

But, Kastel said another reason for holding a public hearing is that there are many open questions about the safety of mRNA vaccines for animals and humans.

Dr. Max Thornsberry, R-CALF USA animal health committee chair, said in an April briefing for R-CALF USA, a nonprofit representing the interests of independent U.S. cattle producers, that research has shown mRNA likely passes to humans who have consumed products from an mRNA-injected animal.

Research published in JAMA also shows the persistence of COVID-19 antibodies in the human breast milk of vaccinated mothers. And recent research showed that Moderna recommended against vaccination of nursing mothers.

This raises questions, Kastel said, about how animals injected with GMO vaccines, particularly for diseases that don’t even affect humans, might introduce new antibodies into the human food supply. The associated risks need to be studied and evaluated, he said.

Thornsberry added that mRNA research is “still in its infancy, no one really knows the full impact it has on either humans or animals, particularly its long-term impact,” and that it, therefore, warrants greater research on safety and greater transparency.

Holistic veterinarian Dr. W. Jean Dodds told The Defender in January that, “Not enough is known at this time if mRNA vaccines can generate any long-term effects on reproduction or lifespan of domestic farm stock.”

“As livestock become part of the human and animal food chain, we need to be sure that no abnormal cellular or molecular changes to the animal could be induced by this type of vaccine,” Dodds added.

GMO vaccines already in use, but ‘no way for consumers to know’

Concerns that mRNA injections could end up in animal products meant for human consumption prompted warnings from cattle producers and calls for mandatory country of origin labeling so consumers can choose meat from countries that don’t allow mRNA shots in meat animals.

Backlash quickly ensued, with legacy media painting the concerns as “conspiracy theories,” “fearmongering” and “misinformation,” and issuing a series of misleading “fact checks.”

But several new government- and industry-funded studies are, in fact, already underway to develop mRNA vaccines for livestock, part of the massive expansion of the animal vaccine industry projected to be worth at least $26.12 billion by 2030.

Researchers at Iowa State University are undertaking a project funded by the USDA to develop mRNA vaccine technology to prevent bovine respiratory syncytial virus.

Pharmaceutical company Zoetis developed an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine for animals that was administered to animals at zoos throughout the country.

And researchers in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service experimented with vaccinating captive-bred black-footed ferrets against COVID-19. They also experimented with social distancing and quarantine of ferrets.

“Third-generation vaccines,” including DNA, RNA and recombinant viral vector vaccines, are not only currently administered to livestock — they also are being developed for companion animals and wild animals.

Merck Animal Health has for several years marketed a “customizable vaccine” made with “RNA particle technology” to make swine flu and other virus vaccines customized to specific animal herd needs.

And the USDA allows two “DNA” novel vaccines and avian influenza vaccine for poultry and a swine influenza vaccine.

Citing the need for biosecurity, in September 2022, the New South Wales government fast-tracked the world’s first mRNA vaccines for foot-and-mouth disease and lumpy-skin disease, in a five-year multimillion-dollar deal with U.S. biotech company Tiba Biotech.

There is no way for consumers to know whether genetically engineered vaccines are being used in livestock to produce USDA-certified organic meat, eggs or milk.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/usda-policy-gmo-vaccines-organic-livestock/