Upon reading some thoughtful discussion in my last diary about GMO development and testing, I see an opportunity to present this as two distinct issues. One is arguably a bit more esoteric and the other more tangible. If you're interested, please continue past the blip.
This email arrived in my inbox today, courtesy the Oregon Right to Know movement:
Dear Friend,
As a supporter of Measure 92, we knew you’d be as outraged as we were when we heard this:
The USDA is considering approving Monsanto’s new genetically engineered cotton and soybeans that are resistant to the herbicides dicamba and glufosinate, chemicals that have been linked to adverse human health impacts such as reproductive and developmental harm, kidney damage, lung and colon cancer and Hodgkin’s lymphoma. These herbicides poison our soil and water and are toxic to birds, fish and other essential organisms in our environment.
We need less toxic pesticides in our food system and our environment, but if Monsanto gets its way, we’re going to get more.
Tell the USDA to protect our health and food supply and reject Monsanto’s new GMO crops.
Monsanto’s latest creation is only the most recent in a series of GMOs engineered to withstand massive amounts of toxic pesticides making their way into our food system. The USDA recently approved Dow Chemical’s risky new genetically engineered corn and soy manufactured to resist massive doses of 2,4-D -- a key ingredient in the toxic Vietnam War defoliant Agent Orange.
Now, Monsanto is going a step further by trying to introduce these dicamba- and glufosinate-resistant crops.
Enough is enough -- we can’t keep poisoning our food supply with even more toxic pesticides.
Tell the USDA to get off the chemical treadmill and protect our health and environment instead of Monsanto’s profits.
If the USDA allows the use of more genetically engineered crops engineered to withstand the application of millions of pounds of toxic herbicides like dicamba and glufosinate, it will increase the risk that organic and non-GMO farms will be harmed by pesticide drift and genetic cross-contamination.
Dicamba easily moves away from where it’s been used, and windy conditions or poor application only make the problem worse. Organic and non-GMO farmers are already hugely impacted by GMO agriculture. The last thing they need is for Monsanto’s dicamba and glufosinate resistant crops to be approved.
Tell the USDA to reject Monsanto’s dicamba- and glufosinate-resistant GMOs.
Thank you,
Oregon Right to Know
The email makes an important point about the GMO debate, that there are two distinct issues:
1. Esoteric risks in accelerating food evolution through DNA bio-engineering and cross-contamination. I'll accept this as a valid topic for further learning and debate. Bio-engineering is a young science, with lots to learn about both potential risks and benefits.
2. Tangible environmental and health risks introduced by the fundamental mechanism of GM farming. I'll focus on this: public concerns about living near open-air test fields and consuming pesticide-treated food products.
Monsanto's bio-engineering mechanism has been fairly straightforward: choose or invent a specific toxin that kills as much unwanted flora and fauna as possible, and use genetic bio-engineering to create an "antitoxin" to protect (in this case) desirable flora from that toxin.
The email cites three toxins that are known to be in use: dicamba, glufosinate and 2,4-D, along with the observation that:
Dicamba easily moves away from where it’s been used, and windy conditions or poor application only make the problem worse.
And this:
...dicamba and glufosinate [are] chemicals that have been linked to adverse human health impacts such as reproductive and developmental harm, kidney damage, lung and colon cancer and Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
One source of concerns is the agency responsible for approving and regulating environmental toxins, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA)
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS):
Q: Why did APHIS decide it needed to prepare an EIS [Environmental Impact Statement]?
A: In this case, APHIS prepared an EIS because, under NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act], it determined that its regulatory decision regarding these two products could significantly affect the quality of the human environment.
[...]
Q. What issues are analyzed in the final EIS?
A. In addition to broad environmental and human impacts, the final EIS analyzes the potential development of new herbicide-resistant weeds. While APHIS found that the wider use of these new GE plants would help growers manage weeds, the wider use would also likely result in an increased chance of the development of weeds resistant to dicamba.
Organized concern about pesticide release through open-air cultivation and testing certainly is not "snake-oil" as some
biotech industry supporters have stated.
Now consider this illustration of prevailing wind direction and runoff at one Monsanto test farm in Kihei, South Maui:
The subject test farm sits less than a mile away from established neighborhoods as well as South Maui's public elementary school, in a climate zone featuring afternoon trade winds and red dust everywhere as evidence of the unstable nature of volcanic soil.
In short, whatever Monsanto sprays onto its South Kihei test field has an unobstructed, active path into several residential neighborhoods.
We know that Monsanto uses their farms to test new products, and that Monsanto workers routinely wear protective suits when working in their outdoor "labs".
What we don't know is, what are they spraying, and when, and in what quantities on their test farms? Dicamba, glufosinate, 2,4-D or some other experimental, undocumented toxin?
When Maui residents lobby for disclosure, that is primarily what they want to know. They are people who live in the direct path of those arrows in the photo, plus others who live adjacent to at least two other in-county test farms, plus those who simply care about the health and welfare of their loved ones and neighbors.
I hope this clarifies the nature of the GMO Moratorium movement in Maui, and other areas where the bio-tech industry may be testing in close proximity to people. Let's recognize this first as a tangible issue of toxicity, requiring great care and transparency, including environmental impact study. The more esoteric debate about potential risks in rapid DNA mutation is important, but it indeed is a separate issue.