John Robbins\u00a0<\/strong> The Obama administration\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0last week that it expects to approve corn and soybeans that have been genetically engineered by Dow Chemical company to tolerate the toxic herbicide \u2013 2,4-D. They are planning this approval despite the fact that use of this herbicide is\u00a0associated<\/a>\u00a0with increased rates of deadly immune system cancers, Parkinson\u2019s disease, endocrine disruption, birth defects, and many other serious kinds of illness and reproductive problems.<\/p>\n Weed ecologists are unanimous in warning that approval of these crops will lead to vast increases in the use of this poisonous chemical.\u00a0Researchers at Penn State<\/a>\u00a0say 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 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n A coalition of 144 farming, fishery, environmental and public health groups\u00a0have asked<\/a>\u00a0the 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.<\/p>\n But you have a chance to prevent this from happening. We have now entered a 45 day period during which the USDA\u2019s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is inviting public comments.<\/p>\n The biotech industry continually\u00a0reassures<\/a>\u00a0public 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?<\/p>\n A recent\u00a0study, 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.<\/p>\n Their conclusion?<\/p>\n \u201cGenetically 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.”<\/p>\n 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\u00a0dangerous<\/a>. 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\u00a0super-weeds<\/a>\u00a0that now plague 50% of our agricultural acreage. The biotech industry\u2019s answer to these super weeds \u2013 their new corn and soy seeds that have been genetically engineered to be resistant to 2,4-D \u2013 would only make our food production systems even more tightly tethered to the pesticide treadmill that has produced the problem in the first place.<\/p>\n Monsanto and Dow Chemical company\u00a0refer<\/a>\u00a0to their new 2,4-D-resistant seeds as an \u201cinnovation that works for tomorrow.\u201d They\u00a0call<\/a>\u00a0it \u201cthe future of farming.\u201d 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 \u201cAgent Orange.\u201d This is why the 2,4-D-resistant crops developed by Dow AgroSciences are frequently\u00a0referred to<\/a>\u00a0as \u201cAgent Orange crops.\u201d<\/p>\n Agent Orange, the defoliant used as a weapon of war in Vietnam, is a\u00a0mixture<\/a>\u00a0of equal parts 2,4-D and another related herbicide, 2,4,5-T. The aircrews charged with spraying Agent Orange used a sardonic motto \u2014 \u201cOnly you can prevent forests,\u201d a shortening of the famous forest service warning to the general public \u2014 \u201cOnly you can prevent forest fires.\u201d<\/p>\n But of course, Agent Orange was \u2013 and is \u2013 no joke. The Vietnamese government\u00a0estimates<\/a>\u00a0that 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth defects, as a result of the U.S. military\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n The biotech industry says that referring to crops that have been genetically engineered to be resistant to 2,4-D as \u201cAgent Orange crops\u201d isn\u2019t fair. They acknowledge that 2,4-D was one of Agent Orange\u2019s primary ingredients. But where is the evidence, they ask, that 2,4-D, by itself, is dangerous?<\/p>\n There is in fact considerable\u00a0evidence<\/a>\u00a0linking the weedkiller 2,4-D, by itself, to cancer, lowered sperm counts, birth defects, neurological damage and other serious health harms. Dozens of\u00a0studies<\/a>\u00a0in humans have reported an association between exposure to 2,4-D and non-Hodgkin\u2019s lymphoma, a cancer of the white blood cells that can be fatal.<\/p>\n Convinced by such research, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and parts of Canada have\u00a0banned<\/a>\u00a02,4-D. But instead of protecting the American people from this poison, the USDA is acting as a salesman for Dow. If we don\u2019t stop this, we\u2019ll soon be spraying massive quantities of 2,4-D on our fields and farms. That\u2019s why it\u2019s so important that you make your voice heard during this crucial 45 day window.<\/p>\n Monsanto, Dow, and the other corporations that stand to profit enormously from the use of these crops\u00a0say<\/a>\u00a0that they are necessary to combat the epidemic of superweeds. But these superweeds have come into being precisely\u00a0because<\/a>\u00a0of the overuse of Monsanto\u2019s Roundup herbicide on crops that have been genetically engineered to be Roundup-resistant.<\/p>\n Monsanto\u2019s 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\u00a0resistant to Roundup<\/a>, which has led to farmers using more and more of Monsanto\u2019s weedkiller. This skyrocketing increase in herbicide use has been a disaster to biological diversity in our fields, for instance nearly wiping out\u00a0milkweed<\/a>, thus causing a severe decline in Monarch butterfly populations.<\/p>\n 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\u00a0half<\/a>\u00a0of farmers\u2019 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\u00a0warning<\/a>\u00a0that we\u2019ll only see the same sad thing again. The effect will be to generate still more intractable weeds resistant to multiple herbicides. And then we\u2019ll need even more toxic pesticides to address the problem.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a chemical arms race. Fortunately, you can do something about it.<\/p>\n John Robbins is cofounder of the\u00a0Food Revolution Network<\/a>, which provides information and inspiration to help you heal your body and your world with food. He is the author of many bestsellers, including\u00a0The Food Revolution<\/a>,\u00a0No Happy Cows<\/a>, and\u00a0Diet For A New America<\/a>. He is also the recipient of the Rachel Carson Award, the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Award, the Peace Abbey\u2019s Courage of Conscience Award, Green America\u2019s Lifetime Achievement Award and many other accolades.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Could this be the dumbest thing the USDA has ever done? John Robbins\u00a0 RINF Alternative News The Obama administration\u00a0announced\u00a0last week that it expects to approve corn and soybeans that have been genetically engineered by Dow Chemical company to tolerate the toxic herbicide \u2013 2,4-D. They are planning this approval despite the fact that use of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-106330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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