Monsanto, the world leader in the production of genetically engineered (GE) staple crops, has long claimed that its broad-spectrum herbicide Roundup is safe.

In fact, they have even used the following slogans to describe it:

• "It's Safer than Mowing"
• "Biodegradable"
• "Environmentally Friendly"

What we are now finding out - unfortunately long after hundreds of millions of pounds of the chemical have already been applied to U.S. soil - is that Roundup is proving to be a pervasive environmental threat, one that may already be poisoning a good portion of the world's remaining natural water supply.

The FDA has restricted the use of a minor antibiotic used by the meat industry. It's a small step to counter the widespread overuse of antibiotics on healthy animals, which helps create antibiotic-resistant bacteria that harms humans.

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration restricted the routine use of a class of antibiotics known as cephalosporins in livestock, it picked an easy target. The agency's move is better than nothing, but nonetheless it is a reminder of the FDA's achingly slow and timid efforts to wean agriculture off the overuse of important medications. Call it a tiptoe forward after a recent giant step in the other direction and a long era of standing in one place.

Eighty percent of the antibiotics used in this country are given to chicken, pigs, turkey and cattle, not because the animals are sick but to fatten them and prevent illness from sweeping through crowded pens. Evidence has been building for decades that the overuse of antibiotics in livestock has helped lead to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which then present a threat to human health.

Is it wise to have the flu vaccine, or Tamiflu, or would you get better protection just from taking vitamin D? Having a vaccine should be a matter of personal choice; we don't think that government or insurance companies or medical societies should be telling you what to do. If you're bothering to read this then you're clearly smart enough to make your own decisions about your own health. While you are deciding, here is a second opinion.

So What About Vaccines?

A major review appeared in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases (1) in October (principal author Prof. Michael Osterholm, a respected researcher into infectious diseases). The paper, which found only 31 studies worthy of inclusion out of a massive 5,700 screened, concluded that there was only good evidence for moderate flu vaccine efficacy in healthy adults, and no real evidence of protection in those over 65 years, or for that matter in children. Of course it is the elderly, and particularly the frail elderly, that doctors are more concerned about - and in whom 90% of flu cases occur - and there was no evidence that flu vaccine prevents flu infection in this group.

Let's do that again; after nearly 6,000 studies of all sorts, there is no good evidence that flu vaccine prevents flu in its main target population.

Yet another reason to test GMOs for safety.

Chinese researchers have found small pieces of rice ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the blood and organs of humans who eat rice. The Nanjing University-based team showed that this genetic material will bind to receptors in human liver cells and influence the uptake of cholesterol from the blood.

The type of RNA in question is called microRNA (abbreviated to miRNA) due to its small size. MiRNAs have been studied extensively since their discovery ten years ago, and have been implicated as players in several human diseases including cancer, Alzheimer's, and diabetes. They usually function by turning down or shutting down certain genes. The Chinese research provides the first in vivo example of ingested plant miRNA surviving digestion and influencing human cell function in this way.

Should the research survive scientific scrutiny -- a serious hurdle -- it could prove a game changer in many fields. It would mean that we're eating not just vitamins, protein, and fuel, but gene regulators as well.

According to an article published this month in the journal Nature Biotechnology, Monsanto is facing biopiracy charges in India.

In an unprecedented decision, India's National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), a government agency, declared legal action against Monsanto (and their collaborators) for accessing and using local eggplant varieties (known as brinjal) to develop their Bt genetically engineered version¹ without prior approval of the competent authorities, which is considered an act of "biopiracy."²

The journal of Nature Biotechnology reported:

"An Indian government agency has agreed to sue the developers of genetically modified (GM) eggplant for violating India's Biological Diversity Act of 2002. India's National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) is alleging that the developers of India's first GM food crop - Jalna-based Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company (Mahyco) partnered with St. Louis - based seed giant Monsanto and several local universities - used local varieties to develop the transgenic crop, but failed to gain the appropriate licenses for field trials. At the same time, activists in Europe are claiming that patents on conventionally bred plants, including a melon found in India, filed by biotech companies violate farmers' rights to use naturally occurring breeds. Both these pending legal cases could set important precedents for biopiracy in India and Europe."

Around 4,500 French-made breast implants at the center of a scandal over their rupture risks were used in Mexico for 16 years, with no serious problems reported, according to plastic surgeons here.

"We've calculated that around 4,500 implants of the PIP (Poly Implant Prothese) brand have been inserted, that's our first estimate. We've had no reports of fatalities, cancer or problems among patients," said Alejandro Duarte, president of the Mexican Association of Plastic Surgery.

Duarte called for women with the implants to visit a doctor, without panic.

"We're not going to take the attitude of other countries like France or Venezuela which fell into panic or hysteria," Duarte told a news conference late Wednesday.

"If the implants are in a good state, it's not necessary to remove them, as some European countries have demanded."

1. Chilean Sea Bass

Keith Ayoob, Associate Professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine

"It's way over-fished and there are many other choices. I can't do that one, much as I used to love it." Instead, Ayoob recommends occasional canned tuna and tuna sushi.

2. Squeeze cheese

Diane Henderiks, R.D., Personal Chef/Culinary Nutritionist

This aerosol cheese is "so unnatural and processed, full of salt, phosphates, fat," says Henderiks.

3. Processed deli meats

Dr. David Katz, Director, Yale University Prevention Research Center

"What IS in them???" says Dr. Katz.

In the mainstream media (and the popular consciousness programmed to consume it) defective genes are spoken about as if they were "disease time bombs," fatalistically programmed to go off inside of us, thanks to flawed genetic contributions of our ancestors. And yet, despite common misconceptions, monogenic diseases, or diseases that result from errors in the nucleotide sequence of a single gene are exceedingly rare. In fact, less than 1% of all diseases fall within this category...

Following the completion of the Human Genome Project (HGP) in 2003 it is no longer accurate to say that our genes "cause" disease, any more than it is accurate to say that DNA is sufficient to account for all the proteins in our body. Despite initial expectations, the HGP revealed that there are only 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA (genome), rather than the 100,000 + believed necessary to encode the 100,000 + proteins found in the human body (proteome). Did you follow that? There are not even enough genes in the human body to account for the existence of the basic protein building blocks that make it possible, much less explain the behavior of these proteins in health and disease states!

The "blueprint" model of genetics: one gene → one protein → one cellular behavior, which was once the holy grail of biology, has now been supplanted by a model of the cell where epigenetic factors (literally: "beyond the control of the gene") are primary in determining how DNA will be interpreted, translated and expressed. A single gene can be used by the cell to express a multitude of proteins and it is not the DNA itself that determines how or what genes will be expressed. Rather, we must look to the epigenetic factors to understand what makes a liver cell different from a skin cell or brain cell. All of these cells share the exact same 3 billion base pairs that make up our genetic code, but it is the epigenetic factors, e.g. regulatory proteins and post-translational modifications, that make the determination as to which genes to turn on and which to silence, resulting in each cell's unique phenotype.

The level of radiation exposure from holding the tissue box against the body for one hour would be equivalent to a chest X-ray, said state health officials.

Health officials said they've removed a dozen metal box tissue holders containing small amounts of radioactive material from four Bed, Bath & Beyond stores in New York.

None of the boxes were sold to the public, said the company.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission notified state health officials Tuesday that a shipment of metal box tissue holders to four Bed, Bath & Beyond stores were found to contain low levels of Cobalt-60.

Cobalt-60, a man-made product using cobalt, has been used to sterilize medical equipment and in radiation therapy for cancer patients.

Compelling new scientific evidence suggests United Nations peacekeepers have carried a virulent strain of cholera -- a super bug -- into the Western Hemisphere for the first time.

The vicious form of cholera has already killed 7,000 people in Haiti, where it surfaced in a remote village in October 2010. Leading researchers from Harvard Medical School and elsewhere told ABC News that, despite UN denials, there is now a mountain of evidence suggesting the strain originated in Nepal, and was carried to Haiti by Nepalese soldiers who came to Haiti to serve as UN peacekeepers after the earthquake that ravaged the country on Jan. 12, 2010 -- two years ago today. Haiti had never seen a case of cholera until the arrival of the peacekeepers, who allegedly failed to maintain sanitary conditions at their base.

"What scares me is that the strain from South Asia has been recognized as more virulent, more capable of causing severe disease, and more transmissible," said John Mekalanos, who chairs the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School. "These strains are nasty. So far there has been no secondary outbreak. But Haiti now represents a foothold for a particularly dangerous variety of this deadly disease."

More than 500,000 Haitians have been infected, and Mekalanos said a handful of victims who contracted cholera in Haiti have now turned up in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and in Boston, Miami and New York, but only in isolated cases.