January 26, 2006 · Issue 74
ORGANIC BYTES
Environmental, Consumer, and Health News Tidbits with an Edge… From the Organic Consumers Association
www.organicconsumers.org Please forward this publication to family and friends, websites, print it, & post it. Knowledge is power!
This Valentines Day:
Unchain Your Heart!
The OCA has assembled some handy-dandy materi-
als to help you evade one of the biggest romance-
making no-no’s—giving a bad gift. The sweets you
were thinking about buying your sweetie may not
be so sweet after all. Over 40% of the
world’s chocolate comes from
Côte d’Ivoire, where the Inter-
national Labor Organization
and US State Department
have reported widespread
instances of child slavery.
The majority of cut flowers
in the US are imported from
Colombia and Ecuador and have
been sprayed with up to 24 differ-
ent toxic pesticides. This Valentine’s
Day show your loved one that you truly care.
To help stoke the flames of passion, and to support
Fair Trade & organics, check out OCA’s Unchain Your
Heart Valentines campaign center:
www.organicconsumers.org/valentines/
Water Fight: Bolivia vs. Bechtel
Last week brought an end to one of the greatest
water battles in history. The people of Bolivia have
reclaimed ownership of their water from the Bechtel
Corporation. In 1999, Bechtel made an arrangement
with the Bolivian government to take ownership
of the water supply and charge citizens for its use.
Within weeks of the takeover, Bechtel raised water
rates by 50% and made it illegal to gather rainwater
without a permit. The ensuing citizen revolt forced
Bechtel out of the country. Bechtel then sued
Bolivia for $50 million for “profit losses.” But last
week, after four years of legal disputes and public
pressure, the case was dropped. “This is the first
time that a major corporation like Bechtel has had
to back down from a major trade case as the result
of global citizen pressure,” said Jim Shultz, exec-
utive director of The Democracy Center in Coch-
abamba, Bolivia. Bechtel’s surrender coincides with
the election of indigenous populist farm leader, Evo
Morales, who has long been a sharp critic of Bechtel
and other transnational corporations operating
in Bolivia. www.organicconsumers.org/Politics/
bechtel012006 .cfm
Alert Update: EPA Ignoring Public Opposition
to Testing Chemicals on Kids
Several months ago, the Organic Consumers Association alerted its readers to an EPA pro-
posed rule that would allow pesticide and other chemical testing on children. Thanks to all
of you, over 50,000 comments were generated to the EPA condemning this proposal. Despite
overwhelming input from citizens, congress, and EPA’s own scientists opposing
the proposed rule, the agency’s administrators have announced they
are days away from approving the proposal and allowing chemical
testing on children. “The fact that EPA allows pesticide testing of
any kind on the most vulnerable, including abused and neglected
children, is simply astonishing,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA.
Even EPA’s own scientists are speaking out against the agency’s
proposed rule. “I am somewhat dismayed that this rule was pre-
sented in such a complex—and I would have to say, tricky—way,”
said Suzanne Wuerthele, a regional toxicologist for the EPA. Earlier
in 2005, Congress mandated that the EPA must ban all chemical test-
ing on humans without exception, in order for the agency to be allocated
its full budget. EPA has clearly failed to do this with this proposed rule. Tell
Congress to advise the EPA against publishing this rule:
Take action here: www.organicconsumers.org/epa6.cfm
Mad Cow North America: Stop the Madness
Another case of Mad Cow disease has been detected in Canada. The discovery increases
the pressure on the USDA to commit to more stringent testing of cattle in the US, and to
stop feeding slaughterhouse waste, blood, and manure to cattle. A new study out of the UK
shows that even miniscule parts of an infected animal can lead to widespread contamina-
tion. “Based on this new research, if just one infected cow entered the US feed supply and the
brain and spinal cord of that animal were maximally dispersed in feed, it could potentially
infect 45,000 other cows,” says Dr. Michael Hansen of the Consumers Union (Consumer
Reports). While countries like Japan now test all of their cattle for the fatal disease before
they enter the food supply, only about one in 90 animals is tested in the US.
Learn more and sign the Mad Cow USA petition: www.organicconsumers.org/madcow.htm
Alert: Help New Mexico Ban Aspartame
Aspartame, also known as NutraSweet, is currently in 6000 food products and in over 500
pharmaceutical preparations, despite over three dozen peer-reviewed scientific studies out-
lining its toxicity. Most recently, a study was published in the November, 2005 issue of
Environmental Health Perspectives, demonstrating that rats consuming aspartame had a
higher incidence of tumors, leukemia, lymphoma, and other cancers. In light of this evi-
dence, legislation has been introduced in New Mexico that would ban aspartame. Introduced
in the state Senate by Albuquerque Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pino (D) as Senate Bill 250, and
in the state House by Gallup Navajo Rep Irvin Harrison (D) as House Bill 202, the measure
draws upon statutes that allow the state to regulate poisonous and deleterious food addi-
tives in the interest of public health. A successful bill of this type could set a powerful prec-
edent for the whole country. In order for this bill to take the next step, an Executive Message
must be given by Governor Bill Richardson.
Take Action: Support legislation banning aspartame: www.organicconsumers.org/aspartame1.cfm

Quick Tidbits
g Humans have been raising and domesti-
cating cattle and other animals for over
1,300 generations, and raising food crops for 10,000
years. For most of that time, farming has been car-
ried out organically, most often with good results
in terms of producing high-quality natural food
and preserving the environment and biodiversity..
But everything changed 60 years ago when cor-
porations like Monsanto and Dupont started push-
ing a “Fatal Harvest” of synthetic chemicals to the
world’s farmers. This week, Ronnie Cummins, the
Organic Consumer Association’s National Director,
discusses the past, present and future of organic
agriculture in OCA’s blog with his new daily posting
of Biodemocracy Bytes.
Read and post your thoughts and questions here:
www.organicconsumers.org/chat/viewforum.php?f=19
g A well known
national col-
umnist for Scripps
Howard News Service,
Michael Fumento, has been
canned after the press out-
let discovered he had been taking
money from corpora- tions as incen-
tive to bias his articles. The
pro-biotech “journal-
ist” has regularly released
columns praising Monsanto as
a savior of global agriculture. Two weeks ago,
Scripps Howard News Service fired Fumento when
they found out he had received a $60,000 “dona-
tion” from Monsanto.
www.organicconsumers.org/ge/columnist011606.cfm
g Tumeric with some types of vegetables can
actually help prevent and treat prostate
cancer, says a new Rutgers study in the January 15
issue of Cancer Research. The authors say tumeric
demonstrates “significant cancer-preventive quali-
ties in laboratory mice.” When the seasoning is com-
bined with phenethyl isothiocyanate—a naturally
occurring substance in broccoli, Brussels sprouts,
cabbage, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi turnips, and
watercress—the combination of the two “could be
effective in treating established prostate cancers,”
say researchers.
www.organicconsumers.org/school/tumeric011706.cfm
Organic Bytes is a publication of the Organic Consumers Association · For many more food issue daily headlines: www.organicconsumers.org/log.html
6101 Cliff Estate Road · Little Marais, MN 55614 · 218·226·4164 · fax: 218·353·7652 · Subscribe to Organic Bytes: www.organicconsumers.org/organicbytes.htm
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Feel free to print Organic Bytes for posting on bulletin boards and staff break tables. You are welcome to use this material for your newsletters.
Organic Bytes #74· January 26, 2006 · page 2
Pesticide Industry Rocked by Three Recent Alarming Studies
This month’s issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine reports a new study show-
ing pregnant women and children exposed to pesticides and insect sprays run double the
risk of developing childhood leukemia. Researchers carried out detailed interviews with
280 mothers of children with acute leukemia and found disturbing connections between
fungicides/insecticides and leukemia. Describing the results as “significant”, the authors
said that preventive action should be considered to reduce health risks to children.
www.organicconsumers.org/school/leukaemia012006.cfm
A new study in the January issue of Epidemiology has found that a that a pesticide byprod-
uct found in the blood of 90% of US men could be causing male sterility or other adverse
effects in men. Researchers with the University of Michigan, Harvard University and the US
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took urine samples from 268 males undergoing
treatment for low sperm counts. Researchers measured by-products of a pesticide, chlorpy-
rifos, and found that men with the lowest testosterone levels also had the most pesticide by-
product in their systems. www.organicconsumers.org/toxic/testosterone011706.cfm
Scientists at UC Berkeley conducted a study published in this week’s issue of Environmental
Health Perspectives wherein they found that extremely low levels of pesticides kill frogs. The
bulk of safety research is typically done on individual pesticides, but this study created a
low level mix of pesticides comparable to what frogs would experience near an average
farm in the Midwest and found that it killed 35% of the frogs in the study. “Given these
adverse effects and the continued increase and use of pesticides in agriculture over the
past 50 years, it is likely that pesticides have played and will continue to play a role in
amphibian declines,” wrote the study’s authors. Humans are ingesting these same
toxic pesticides in non-organic food and in their drinking water.
www.organicconsumers.org/toxic/062501.cfm
Government Asks General Mills for Advice on Organic Standards
Consumers are frequently being ignored when it comes to maintaining strict
National Organic Standards, while industry is being offered an ever-increasing
voice. The OCA and the Consumers Union have filed a complaint with the USDA
regarding recent appointments of industry representatives as “consumer representatives” to
the organic community’s watchdog panel over organic standards. Congressional legislation
on organic standards, passed in 1990, created a special organic advisory board to help over-
see and develop organic standards. This panel of experts is known as the National Organic
Standards Board (NOSB). Federal law indicates that the NOSB must be a balanced Board
representing the broad interests of the organic community, and include four farmers, two
handlers/processors, one retailer, one scientist, three consumer advocates, three environ-
mentalists, and one certifying agent.
Recently, the USDA broke traditional consensus by appointing five new members to the
NOSB without any public comment. The consumer representative seats were handed over
to industry by the USDA, ignoring qualified candidates from the consumer sector. New so-
called “consumer representatives” included Katrina Heinze, a manager at General Mills,
and Daniel Giacomini, a consultant to the dairy industry. Just as we’re going to press we
have learned that General Mills, responding to OCA and public pressure, has asked that
Heinze’s appointment as “consumer representative” be cancelled. By loading the NOSB with
industry representatives, the USDA threatens to undermine consumer trust in the organic
label. www.organicconsumers.org/SOS/critics011906.cfm Get involved with OCA’s Safeguard
Organic Standards campaign: www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm