'Agent Orange Corn': Biotech Companies Are Waging a Chemical
Arms Race on Our Food Supply
Instead of protecting the American people from a poison, the
USDA is acting as a salesman for Dow.
Photo Credit: © igor.stevanovic/ Shutterstock.com
January 16, 2014
The Obama administration announced last week that it expects to approve corn
and soybeans that have been genetically engineered by Dow Chemical company to
tolerate the toxic herbicide — 2,4-D. They are planning this approval despite
the fact that use of this herbicide is associated with increased rates of deadly immune
system cancers, Parkinson’s disease, endocrine disruption, birth defects, and
many other serious kinds of illness and reproductive problems.
Weed ecologists are unanimous in warning that approval of
these crops will lead to vast increases in the use of this poisonous
chemical. Researchers at Penn State say that in soybeans alone,
planting of crops resistant to 2,4-D would increase the amount of 2,4-D sprayed
on American fields to 100 million pounds per year — four times the current
level. The researchers predict a cascade of negative environmental impacts, and
add that the increasing use of the herbicide would actually worsen the epidemic
of superweeds it is intended to address, by causing weeds to become resistant
to multiple herbicides.
A coalition of 144 farming, fishery, environmental and
public health groups have asked the USDA not to approve the 2,4-D resistant
crops. Citing studies that predict dire consequences to both human and
environmental health, they add the concern among farmers that 2,4-D would drift
onto their property and kill their crops, causing serious economic damage in
rural communities.
But you have a chance to prevent this from happening. We
have now entered a 45 day period during which the USDA’s Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is inviting public comments.
The biotech industry continually reassures public officials and the public that
genetically engineered foods reduce the amount of pesticides applied to our
crops. Is this claim scientifically valid? Or is it just a myth propagated for
PR purposes?
A recent study, conducted at Washington State
University, provides a conclusive answer. The study was authored by agronomist
Charles Benbrook, a former executive director of the National Academy of
Sciences. Using official US Department of Agriculture data, he and his team of
researchers looked at the effect on pesticide use of the first 13 years (from
1996 to 2008) of GM crop cultivation in the United States.
Their conclusion?
“Genetically engineered crops have been responsible for an
increase of 383 million pounds of herbicide use in the U.S. over the first 13
years of commercial use of GE crops.”
Total Herbicide Volume Applied…
There may be controversy over whether GMO foods are safe for
human consumption. But there is virtually no controversy over the fact that
herbicides, like all pesticides, are dangerous.
The enormous increase in herbicide use that has occurred as a direct result of
the planting of genetically engineered crops has not only poisoned the air, the
water, the soil, and farm workers. It has also been directly responsible for
the development of the super-weeds that now plague 50% of our agricultural
acreage. The biotech industry’s answer to these super weeds — their new corn
and soy seeds that have been genetically engineered to be resistant to 2,4-D —
would only make our food production systems even more tightly tethered to the
pesticide treadmill that has produced the problem in the first place.
Monsanto and Dow Chemical company refer to their new
2,4-D-resistant seeds as an “innovation that works for tomorrow.” They call it “the future of
farming.” But these genetically engineered seeds would actually take American
agriculture back more than a half-century. 2,4-D was introduced in the
1940s, and became notorious during the Vietnam war for its use as part of the
chemical weapon known as “Agent Orange.” This is why the 2,4-D-resistant crops
developed by Dow AgroSciences are frequently referred to as “Agent Orange crops.”
Agent Orange, the defoliant used as a weapon of war in
Vietnam, is a mixture of equal parts 2,4-D and another related
herbicide, 2,4,5-T. The aircrews charged with spraying Agent Orange used a
sardonic motto – “Only you can prevent forests,” a shortening of the famous
forest service warning to the general public – “Only you can prevent forest
fires.”
But of course, Agent Orange was — and is — no joke. The
Vietnamese government estimates that 400,000 people were killed or maimed,
and 500,000 children born with birth defects, as a result of the U.S.
military’s use of Agent Orange in that country. The Red Cross of Vietnam
estimates that even all these years later there are still a million people in
the country disabled due to our use of Agent Orange.
The biotech industry says that referring to crops that have
been genetically engineered to be resistant to 2,4-D as “Agent Orange crops”
isn’t fair. They acknowledge that 2,4-D was one of Agent Orange’s primary
ingredients. But where is the evidence, they ask, that 2,4-D, by itself, is
dangerous?
There is in fact considerable evidence linking the weedkiller 2,4-D, by itself, to
cancer, lowered sperm counts, birth defects, neurological damage and other
serious health harms. Dozens of studies in
humans have reported an association between exposure to 2,4-D and non-Hodgkin’s
lymphoma, a cancer of the white blood cells that can be fatal.
Convinced by such research, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and
parts of Canada have banned 2,4-D. But instead of protecting the American
people from this poison, the USDA is acting as a salesman for Dow. If we don’t
stop this, we’ll soon be spraying massive quantities of 2,4-D on our fields and
farms. That’s why it’s so important that you make your voice heard during this
crucial 45 day window.
Monsanto, Dow, and the other corporations that stand to
profit enormously from the use of these crops say that they are
necessary to combat the epidemic of superweeds. But these superweeds have come
into being precisely because of the overuse of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide
on crops that have been genetically engineered to be Roundup-resistant.
Monsanto’s Roundup Ready GMO technology was designed to
enable farmers to weed their fields by spraying them with Roundup, killing the
weeds but not the genetically engineered Roundup Ready plants. But what has
happened, as many scientists warned it would, is that weeds have increasingly
become resistant to Roundup, which has led to farmers using more
and more of Monsanto’s weedkiller. This skyrocketing increase in herbicide use
has been a disaster to biological diversity in our fields, for instance nearly
wiping out milkweed, thus causing a severe decline in Monarch butterfly
populations.
Meanwhile, the number of weeds resistant to Roundup has
grown to epidemic levels. Weeds that can no longer be controlled by Roundup now
infest roughly half of farmers’ fields. The biotech industry says the
solution is their next generation of genetically engineered crops that are
resistant to 2,4-D and other herbicides. But many scientists are warning that we’ll only see the same sad thing again.
The effect will be to generate still more intractable weeds resistant to
multiple herbicides. And then we’ll need even more toxic pesticides to address
the problem.
It’s a chemical arms race. Fortunately, you can do something
about it.
Here’s how to make your voice heard:
2) LET THEM KNOW HOW YOU FEEL.
3) Don’t buy meat from factory farms. The primary use of
genetically engineered corn and soy are as livestock feed in factory farms.
John Robbins is the author of many international
bestsellers, including Diet for a New America and The Food Revolution, that
have collectively sold more than 2 million copies and been translated into 27
languages. John has received the Rachel Carson Award, the Albert Schweitzer
Humanitarian Award, the Peace Abbey's Courage of Conscience Award, Green
America's Lifetime Achievement Award, and countless other accolades.
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