Journalist Carey Gillam has developed deep insight into the risks and rewards of the modern-day food system. In the first half, she discussed the world's most popular weed killer-- glyphosate/Roundup which is used everywhere from backyard gardens to golf courses to millions of acres of farmland. For decades, it’s been touted as safe, but she reported that a growing body of evidence indicates just the opposite-- research ties the chemical to cancers and a host of other health threats. Initially when glyphosate was introduced by Monsanto, farmers loved the herbicide as it killed weeds without harming their crops. Then, Monsanto developed GMO crops that could specifically work well with glyphosate.

But it turned out to be unhealthy for consumers, Gillam said, "as that weed killer stays in the crops, and stays in the food." On the human health side, she continued, "there is a link to cancers, specifically the blood cancer, Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma," and this was confirmed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2015. She interviewed Teri McCall, who lost her husband to the disease-- he had run a small farm in Cambria, California and had used glyphosate on their crops. McCall is one of 3,000 plaintiffs who have sued Monsanto. Gillam recently returned from meetings in Paris and Brussels with members of the European Parliament, who are considering a ban on glyphosate.

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Neurosurgeon for the last 25 years, including 15 years teaching at Harvard Medical School, Eben Alexander, M.D., spoke about his transcendental Near-Death Experience (NDE), in which he was driven to the brink of death and spent a week deep in coma from an inexplicable brain infection. He also shared his recent work into non-local consciousness, along with his co-author Karen Newell. During his NDE, his perspective shifted from a kind of primitive earthworm view to an ultra-real spiritual realm that he called the "gateway valley."

In this valley, there was tremendous plant life and lots of souls dancing around, he continued. Above, he witnessed, "swooping orbs of angelic choirs...emanating chants, and anthems...that would just thunder through my awareness." Coming back from this experience, Alexander has concluded that the world is not as it appears, and the external matter around us is constructed within in our own consciousness. This view, he added, jibes with recent findings in quantum physics, suggesting that there is not an objective reality that is independent of the observer.

News segment guests: Lauren Weinstein, Catherine Austin Fitts, Steve Kates