Dr. André Leu, IProf., D.Sc., BA Com., Grad Dip Ed, International Director of Regeneration International:

There are an enormous number of published scientific studies showing that GMOs and their associated pesticides are responsible for multiple serious health problems for people, animals, and the wider environment.

The widespread adoption of GMO crops in the U.S. has resulted in a massive increase in the application of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, as the primary method of weed control.

A landmark study on glyphosate by Panzacchi et al. was published on June 10, 2025, examining total lifetime exposure to the so-called ‘safe’ levels to which most people are subjected.

The study found that the lowest dose of 0.5 mg/kg, which is four times lower than the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed ‘safe’ level, led to increased rates of both benign and malignant tumors at various anatomical sites compared to the controls. These tumors included leukemia, skin, liver, thyroid, nervous system, ovary, mammary gland, adrenal glands, kidney, urinary bladder, bone, endocrine system, pancreas, uterus, and spleen.

It also validates the accuracy of Genetically engineered crops, glyphosate and the deterioration of health in the United States of America, where Dr. Nancy Swanson, our co-authors, and I demonstrated how glyphosate and GMOs are linked to over 20 chronic diseases in the U.S.

Read about the first credible peer-reviewed lifetime study of GMOs and Roundup  –This article is from a new series where André examines the latest research, news, and historical context on agricultural topics, sounding the alarm on the dangers of toxic farming practices and with detailed information to help us move towards a more healthier, regenerative and organic future through agroecology.


Read the new series on pesticides here

TAKE ACTION:

Tell Sec. Kennedy: Ban Insecticide-Producing GMOs!

Make Your State the First to Ban Monsanto’s Roundup Weedkiller!

National Organic Coalition reports:

“Last week, USDA announced a sweeping reorganization that would relocate nearly half of its 4,600 Washington, D.C.–based employees to five regional offices around the country. This change follows the loss of over 15,000 USDA employees through the administration’s Deferred Resignation Program (DRP). The National Organic Program (NOP)—which oversees organic certification and protects the integrity of the organic label—was hit hard by the DRP, losing approximately one-third of its staff.

NOC is deeply concerned that this reorganization could further undermine the NOP’s capacity to fulfill its mission at a time when organic’s credibility and growth depend on robust oversight and enforcement. But the potential fallout doesn’t stop there. USDA’s reorganization could also jeopardize essential research functions and interrupt the critical services that farmers rely on from USDA agencies.

Earlier this year, NOC, alongside the Organic Trade Association and Organic Farmers Association, delivered a joint letter signed by over 1,300 organic farms, businesses, and organizations urging Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to protect the staffing and mission of the NOP. A well-staffed and fully functioning NOP is vital to maintaining trust in the organic label and supporting the continued growth of the $72 billion organic sector.”



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by Tambra Raye Stevenson, Civil Eats:

“Because of its diminished civic infrastructure and a supermajority of lawmakers aligned with corporate interests, Oklahoma is ground zero for Project 2025—a test site for policies that aim to shrink the public safety net, dismantle food programs, and silence local voices. What’s happening here isn’t accidental; it’s strategic. Oklahoma serves as the canary in the coal mine—a warning sign for the nation. While places like D.C. retain its SNAP increase due to organized networks of nonprofits, activists, and local leaders who push back, Oklahoma lacks the protective layers like the civic networks that once thrived.

The state’s rapid policy shifts are not just harming its own people—they’re laying the groundwork for what could happen across the country if communities don’t organize, speak up, and reclaim power over their food and futures.

In the absence of citizen-powered safeguards, Oklahoma is particularly vulnerable to state and federal threats to food security. In June, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt was among the 13 Republican governors who opted out of participating in the federal summer nutrition program.”

Learn more and read how “all people, not just corporations or disconnected policymakers, should have the power and agency to shape what’s grown, what’s eaten, and how we are nourished”

Kelly McCarthy & Melanie Schmitz, ABC News:

“Chef José Andrés, the outspoken founder of the humanitarian group World Central Kitchen, is imploring the international community to intervene to ease the dire food crisis in Gaza, on the heels of his nonprofit resuming its aid operations there after a five-day hiatus.

The Spanish American chef penned a new op-ed in The New York Times over the weekend titled ‘The World Cannot Stand By With Gaza on the Brink of Famine.’

He posted a link to the op-ed on his personal Instagram, writing: ‘There is no excuse for the world to stand by and watch two million human beings suffer on the brink of full-blown famine.’

‘A starving human being needs food today, not tomorrow,’ Andrés wrote. ‘People of good conscience must stop the starvation in Gaza. If we want to light the darkness, we need to extend our soul to the hungry. And we need to do it now.’

Read about how the pause in operations came as hundreds of Palestinians were killed trying to access food from aid distribution sites run by a U.S.- and Israeli-backed group, amid what the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health and global humanitarian groups have described as a forced starvation campaign by Israel

Rupendra Brahambhatt, ZME Science:

“Amish are a group of people in the United States and parts of Canada who live a very simple, traditional lifestyle and mainly rely on farming and livestock for their livelihood. They still ride horse buggies and typically stay away from modern gadgets such as TVs and smartphones. In recent years, the mystery behind the Amish resistance to allergies led scientists from several universities to compare the Amish with other traditional farming groups, particularly the Hutterites.

Both groups have similar ancestry and lifestyles. However, only Amish children showed extremely low allergy and asthma rates. This finding suggested that genetics isn’t the answer. Something else is at play here. So the researchers looked at how children in each group interacted with their environment. They found a major difference.

’The Hutterite kids and pregnant moms don’t go into the animal barns. Kids aren’t really exposed to the animal barns until they’re like 12 or so, when they start learning how to do the work on the farm. The Amish kids are in and out of the cow barns all day long from an early age,’ Ober said.”



Learn about “the farm effect”

At Organic Bytes, we’re committed to sharing critical information on the latest research and news in regenerative organic agriculture. Our Regeneration International Director, André Leu, regularly offers expert insights into the dangers of toxic farming practices and shows us the way forward through agroecology and soil building farming solutions.

Our articles are more than just informative – they’re a call to action. We’ve helped readers understand the science behind banning GMOs and glyphosate, speak out against harmful pesticides, and stay informed on the latest developments in how food is produced.

When you donate to OCA or our sister organization, Regeneration International, you’re helping us equip people with the tools and knowledge to create a healthier, more organic regenerative food system.

Help us Inspire action and advocacy for a better food system!

Make a tax-deductible donation to Organic Consumers Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit

Make a tax-deductible donation to Regeneration International, our international sister organization

Have you considered making a gift from your IRA?

Order André Leu’s book, The Myths of Safe Pesticides

Helen Pilcher, Science Focus:

“Take a stroll through the supermarket and you’ll find plenty of products stuffed with ‘friendly bacteria.’ Bacteria – the good guys! Chug them down and they’ll help to look after you.

We’re used to the idea that our guts are teeming with microbes and that they can be topped up with fancy yoghurts. We give the bacteria somewhere to live and, in return, they help us to digest our food. It’s a mutually beneficial, two-way street.

Only this cosy relationship isn’t quite what it seems.

Hidden among their ranks is a dark cabal of interlopers. To call them ‘unfriendly bacteria’ would be an understatement. These are microbial hell-raisers and as we get older, they slowly start to wreak havoc.

It turns out that our gut microbes aren’t always the good guys we think they are. A growing body of evidence suggests that our gut bacteria play a key role in many of the negative aspects of aging, such as disease, frailty and the faltering of the immune system.

But all isn’t lost. We may not be able to stop getting older, but as we learn to harness the power of the microbiome, we can use it to help us age better and avoid ill health.”

Learn about good biome and bad biome

by Alice Park, TIME:

“Named after its founder—the world’s richest woman and an heir to the Walmart fortune—the school will train students over the next four years in a radically different way from the method most traditional medical schools use. And that’s the point.

Instead of drilling young physicians to chase symptom after symptom and perform test after test, Alice Walton wants her school’s graduates to keep patients healthy by practicing something that most doctors today don’t prioritize: preventive medicine and whole-health principles, which involve caring for (and not just treating) the entire person and all of the factors—from their mental health to their living conditions and lifestyle choices—that contribute to wellbeing.

Those aren’t new ideas, of course, but traditional medicine has only paid lip service to them. Experts have noted that while as much as 80% of medical education focuses on biology, about 60% of premature deaths are due to behavioral factors including lifestyle habits like diet, exercise, and smoking.”

Read about the building, with soaring glass walls, includes not just a wellness studio and gym, but a rooftop park, healing gardens where students can study, growing gardens for producing healthy foods, and a reflection pond

Ryan Nebeker writes for FoodPrint:

“In common parlance, people talk about that consolidation as ‘the death of the family farm,’ usually assuming that the industrially scaled operations that replace them are run by corporations. While it’s true that most of the money in agriculture is quickly funneled away from rural communities towards large corporations, there’s an important detail this narrative misses: As the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and other lobbyists for Big Agriculture are quick to point out, the bigger and bigger farms that dominate U.S. agriculture are family farms, too.

That line is sometimes deployed as a shallow ‘gotcha’ to dissuade people from talking about agriculture’s very obvious consolidation problem. But as lawyer, activist and author Sonja Trom Eayrs details in her recent book, ‘Dodge County, Incorporated,’ the fact that factory farms are usually family businesses is central to understanding the way that industrial agriculture has run small farms out of business and hollowed out entire communities.”

Read how rather than presenting a narrative of faceless corporate takeover, Eayrs tells a story of deep community fracture, one driven by some farming families expanding their businesses by capitalizing on the flight of their neighbors

Susan Schneider writes for NAUTILUS:

“A few weeks ago, GPT-4 prompted me when I logged in. ‘Would you like to see my description of you, based on our chats, to share on social media?’ the chatbot asked me. Being an AI ethicist, I wearily answered ‘yes’ to see what it was up to. It then generated a flashy paragraph about my personality traits. I did not share it. But days later, after a quick web search, I could see on platforms like Reddit and LinkedIn that numerous users had enthusiastically posted their own AI-generated personality blurbs.

This might seem like an innocuous party trick, but it raises a crucial issue: AI chatbot platforms, especially ones that gather user information across multiple sessions, can profile the personalities of users with remarkable acuity. For example, when I assented to GPT-4 telling me about myself, it provided accurate results on several standard personality tests commonly administered in the field of psychology.

It did this not by testing me directly, but by gleaning insight into my personality based on information from my chat history. This might sound improbable, but this ability was validated by recent research showing that large language models (LLMs) accurately predicted big-five personality traits (Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) from text interactions with human interlocutors.”

Read how this feature reveals a deeper capability of “intellectual leveling” that should concern us all

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Researchers Quietly Planned a Test To Dim Sunlight. They Wanted To ‘Avoid Scaring’ the Public.

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Almost 50% of Microplastic Pollution Comes From Cars. Here’s Why.

Earth Appears To Be Developing New Never-Before-Seen Human-Made Seasons, Study Finds

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