Dr. Mercola Interviews OCA's Ronnie Cummins: The Fight For GMO Labeling In California

By Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
The largest opportunity to give people the right to know if their food is genetically engineered will occur with the California ballot initiative - officially known as Proposition 37. Your support before the November 6 vote can make all the difference between winning and losing.

The California ballot initiative will require labeling of genetically engineered foods, and end the routine industry practice of labeling and marketing such foods as "natural."

In the interview above, Cummins expands and gives an important update on the status of this extremely important initiative, and the upcoming vote.

Encouraging News from California

     "The ballot initiative to label genetically engineered food - or now the official Proposition 37 - is quickly gathering momentum," Cummins explains. "Earlier this year in May, we turned in a million signatures of California registered voters, which enabled us to get on the ballot. We've raised approximately four million dollars so far in cash and hard pledges from organizations and businesses. We are getting very good coverage in the press, both the alternative media (online social media) and the corporate media."

     The industry is worried; they're starting to pour in more and more money. They haven't yet started their advertising campaign, but we're expecting this TV and radio ad barrage to begin any day now.

      They're starting to panic. They're doing everything they can at the federal level, but the bottom line is that the lobbyists and the large agribusinesses and biotech's' special interest, they don't really have much control over the voters in California. Come November 06, people are going to go into that voting booth. If six or seven million of them vote 'Yes' on Prop 37, this will become a law not only in California, but across the entire United States."

According to Cummins, Canada is watching this issue closely, and if California passes this law for mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food, it looks like Canada will do so as well.

How to Fight Obesity and Climate Change at the Same Time

By Sarah Laskow

LOUISVILLE - This city's Broadway displays its own array of neon signs - two dozen fast-food restaurants, as diverse as McDonald's and the local Indi's - beckoning along a 2.8-mile corridor bookended by low-income neighborhoods on the front lines of a multimillion-dollar battle against obesity.

The street symbolizes one of many hurdles facing officials here working to put a severely overweight population on a diet. After all, Kentucky is where Colonel Harland Sanders first made his famous fried chicken and a hotel invented the Hot Brown, a turkey-bacon sandwich drowning in Mornay sauce.

The street symbolizes one of many hurdles facing officials here working to put a severely overweight population on a diet. After all, Kentucky is where Colonel Harland Sanders first made his famous fried chicken and a hotel invented the Hot Brown, a turkey-bacon sandwich drowning in Mornay sauce.

A Fight Over the Future of Farming: U.N. Ag Group vs. Big Ag

By Tom Laskawy

"The present paradigm of intensive crop production cannot meet the challenges of the new millennium," says a new report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

In other words: Big Ag, step aside. It's not as if the world is being fed particularly well at the moment -- and prospects are dimming for chemical agriculture in a resource-restricted, warming world.

The FAO has been very active in attempts to make world agriculture more sustainable. It published an influential 2006 report on animal agriculture's environmental and climate impact, and it was behind the 2008 International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development report, which laid out a vision of the future of agriculture in the developing world based on the principles of agro-ecology rather than on chemically intensive industrial agriculture.

Building on that work, the FAO has now published a "policymaker's guide" for developing-world agriculture called "Save and Grow" that begins like this:

 The Green Revolution in agriculture, which swept much of the developing world during the 1960s, saved an estimated one billion people from famine. Thanks to high-yielding crop varieties, irrigation, agrochemicals and modern management techniques, farmers in developing countries increased food production from 800 million tonnes to more than 2.2 billion tonnes between 1961 and 2000. Intensive crop production helped to reduce the number of undernourished, drive rural development and prevent the destruction of natural ecosystems to make way for extensive farming. Those achievements came at a cost. In many countries, decades of intensive cropping have degraded fertile land and depleted groundwater, provoked pest upsurges, eroded biodiversity, and polluted air, soil and water. As the world population rises to a projected 9.2 billion in 2050, we have no option but to further intensify crop production. But the yield growth rate of major cereals is declining, and farmers face a series of unprecedented, intersecting challenges: increasing competition for land and water, rising fuel and fertilizer prices, and the impact of climate change.

Cancer fight

Dominique Moore: fought Hodgkin's lymphoma

Last summer, I was filming scenes for the children's TV series Hotel Trubble, whilst battling an incessant, burning itching all over my head and body.

When it first started a year earlier, I thought the itching was eczema - I'd had it before - but it wouldn't go away, it only got worse.

Unknown to me and my colleagues, I had Hodgkin's lymphoma - but it would be months before I was diagnosed.

At work filming, the itching was a real problem.

I would scratch my head so much that my wig would fall off and the sound of the scratching would be picked up by the microphones.

On one occasion, it got so bad that I burst into tears on set, but the cameras were still rolling. I cried silently until the director said "cut" - then I ran off set, the pain was unbearable.

Continue reading the main story“Start QuoteAfter consultations with four separate doctors and numerous tests, I still was not getting an answer.”

End QuoteDominique Moore The weird thing was, I had no visible scarring on my skin - so it was hard for my friends and colleagues to understand the pain I felt.

It felt like burning, like my skin was breaking all over my body. Friends staying over at my house told me I used to scratch so loudly at night, the sound would keep them awake.

No answers

But no-one could figure out what was wrong. After consultations with four separate doctors and numerous tests, I still was not getting an answer.

When a food allergy was suggested, the cooks at work started making separate meals for me.

The film set was hot - maybe it was some kind of heat rash? Or perhaps it was a reaction to the materials used in the wigs and costumes, or even the detergents used to clean them?

Then I saw a fifth doctor, who booked me in to see a dermatologist at the hospital. At the same time I noticed a lump on my neck and told them about it. I was referred to a haemotologist and next to a surgeon.

The surgeon said the lump would have to be removed straight away. That was a big change for me: I had quickly gone from trying to get rid of eczema to needing my first ever operation.

Two weeks later they told me I had Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system.

Continue reading the main storyLymphoma Lymphoma affects the lymphatic system which carries white blood cells around the body Lymphoma is the third most common cancer in childhood There are two kinds - Hodgkin's lymphoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is more common in children while adolescents are more prone to Hodgkin's lymphoma Source: BBC Health I wasn't prepared for that: I was 24 years old and didn't think cancer was something you get so young.

But I didn't think I'd die. I thought: "So what happens next?"

My family kept me strong through the months of treatment that followed.

I also had a "buddy" throughout my time in hospital - a woman who had gone through the same condition.

This was a huge comfort, someone who understood exactly what I was going through.

After months of chemotherapy, the itching eventually stopped. I was also amazed that my hair was still my own - I thought I would lose it all and had planned to do some crazy designs with my head - but I got lucky.

Early this year I had a PET scan which found that I no longer had the cancer cells in my body.

I couldn't believe it. I kept on asking the doctor over and over again. I still need to keep going back for check-ups, but I feel like I've been given a new life.

Dominique Moore was speaking to CBBC's Newsround.