The US has approved use of the world’s first vaccine for honey bees. Earlier this year, biotech company in Georgia received conditional approval for the vaccine from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The vaccine was engineered to prevent fatalities from American foulbrood disease, a bacterial condition which is known to weaken colonies by attacking bee larvae. As pollinators, bees play a... 

The US Department of Education weathered sharp criticism over the weekend for its decision to add a rainbow to its Facebook profile picture. By noon Friday, the federal education department’s social media team had swapped out their original blue background for the fanatically pro-gay rainbow image, mirroring the Obama administration’s loud support for the recent supreme court decision on gay marriage. While... 

According to a new voluntary certification program of the US Department of Agriculture, food manufacturers will be allowed to add a label that does not mention GMOs in foods. This is evidenced by a leaked internal document that the Associated Press obtained, Pravda.Ru reports. The move has been widely interpreted as an attempt to head off a growing movement for mandatory labeling of GMO ingredients. The... 

A major study of men’s sperm found that those who ate regular quantities of fruit and vegetables that had pesticide residue on them had half the sperm count of men who ate less, a new study showed. The Harvard University study, the first of its kind on the issue, analyzed sperm samples from 155 men who attended a fertility clinic during 2007-2012, Reuters reported. The men involved were attending... 

For the first time US regulators have approved commercialized biotech apples amid attempts by the organic industry and other institutes to block the genetically modified fruit. The two apple varieties modified to resist browning are developed by the Canadian company Okanagan Specialty Fruits Inc., and were approved by the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service... 

While the state of Oregon gears up to test its shores for radioactive contamination from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, university scientists have found that radiation levels in some albacore tuna caught off its coast have tripled. According to researchers at the University of Oregon, the results came after tests analyzed the cesium levels in 26 tuna caught prior to the 2011 nuclear calamity... 

A budget provision protecting genetically-modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks was extended for three months in an approved US House of Representatives’ spending bill on Tuesday evening. Called “The Monsanto Protection Act” by opponents, the budget rider shields biotech behemoths like Monsanto, Cargill and others from the threat of lawsuits and bars federal courts from... 

Food-stamp use in the US rose by over 1 million during the past year to a record 47.6 million, or nearly one in six Americans. According to a report released by the US Department of Agriculture on Friday, food-stamp use rose 2.4 percent in May, with more than 15 percent of the US population now receiving benefits. There were about 32 million Americans on Food Stamps when President Barack Obama took... 

A new report has revealed that the rice supply in at least 30 countries may have already been contaminated with genetically modified strains from US exports, thereby threatening worldwide contamination. A new report by the GM Contamination Register has disclosed US Department of Agriculture findings from 2006 and 2007, which show that the department detected traces of unapproved GM rice in over 30... 

What happens when you allow commercial interests free rein over a nation state’s food and agricultural policies? Consumers and farmers end up paying the price. Take the current predicament of wheat contamination in the US. Genetically engineered (GE) wheat is not approved to be grown for commercial use in the US or anywhere else in the world. Yet the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced... 

Monsanto claims it has no idea how its herbicide-resistant strain of wheat made its way onto an Oregon field. The global biotech giant based in Missouri says it abandoned research on it in 2004 and is mystified by its emergence nearly a decade later. Monsanto tested the GMO varieties in 17 US states between 1998 and 2004. Although it also tested the GM wheat in Oregon, the company claims it destroyed... 

In the wake of a massive US Department of Agriculture report highlighting the continuing large-scale death of honeybees, environmental groups are left wondering why the Environmental Protection Agency has decided to approve a “highly toxic” new pesticide. The continuing mass death of honeybees, known scientifically as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and a “pollinator crisis,” could...