The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is currently deciding whether or not to approve an application by Dow Chemical for its controversial genetically engineered (GE) corn variety that is resistant to the highly toxic herbicide 2,4-D, one of the main ingredients in Agent Orange.
Today, the USDA extended the public comment period on this issue until the end of April 2012, largely due to pressure from the Center for Food Safety (CFS), the nation's leading organization in the fight to regulate GE crops. If approved, CFS has vowed to challenge USDA's decision in court, as this novel GE crop provides no public benefit and will only cause serious harm to human health, the environment, and threaten American farms.
Dow's "Agent Orange" corn will trigger a large increase in 2,4-D use--and our exposure to this toxic herbicide--yet USDA has not assessed how much, nor analyzed the serious harm to human health, the environment, or neighboring farms. This GE corn will foster rapid evolution of resistant weeds that require more toxic pesticides to kill, followed by more resistance and more pesticides--a chemical arms race in which the only winners are pesticide (aka biotechnology) firms.
The advent of Dow's 2,4-D resistant corn is a clear indication that first-generation GE, herbicide-resistant crops--Monsanto's Roundup Ready (RR) varieties--are rapidly failing. RR crops, which comprise 84 percent of world biotech plantings, have triggered massive use of glyphosate (Roundup's active ingredient) and an epidemic of glyphosate-resistant weeds. These resistant "superweeds" are regarded as one of the major challenges facing American agriculture.
2,4-D corn is only the first of many new herbicide-resistance crops being developed by the biotechnology industry to usher in a new era of increased chemical use that represents a very significant opportunity for Dow, Monsanto, DuPont, Bayer, and Syngenta. These "biotechnology" companies are actually pesticide firms that have acquired a large portion of the world's seed supply, and they use biotechnology to create synergies between their seed and pesticide divisions. In short, biotechnology = pesticide + seeds. One indication of this is that nearly two-thirds of GE crops pending approval by our USDA (13 of 20) are herbicide-resistant.
Dow now falsely suggests that 2,4-D crops (2,4-D soybeans and cotton are also under development) are the solution to weed resistance. Far from solving the problem, however, a peer-reviewed study recently published in the prestigious journal Bioscience, entitled "Navigating a Critical Juncture for Sustainable Weed Management," suggests that these new GE crops will foster a huge increase in 2,4-D use, and thereby pour oil on the fire, triggering an outbreak of still more intractable weeds resistant to both glyphosate and 2,4-D. This study validates similar findings made by CFS in a 2008 report and in Congressional testimony on resistant weeds in 2010.
2,4-D drift and runoff also pose serious risk for environmental harm. Because it is such a potent plant-killer, 2,4-D can harm animals by killing the plants they depend on for habitat and food. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Marine Fisheries Service have found that 2,4-D is likely having adverse impacts on several endangered species, even now. 2,4-D is currently used to control weeds primarily in cereal grains, golf courses and lawns. Its use in corn has been extremely limited. USDA's approval of 2,4-D resistant GE corn will sharply increase the overall use of this toxic herbicide, worsening these impacts and likely placing many other species at risk.
American farmers are also rightly concerned that the introduction of 2,4-D resistant corn will threaten their crops: 2,4-D drift is responsible for more episodes of crop injury than any other pesticide. As Indiana farmer Troy Roush told me: "In my experience, 2,4-D is an herbicide that can and does drift considerable distances to damage neighboring crops. We can expect greatly increased use of 2,4-D with Dow's new corn, and that could wreak havoc with soybeans, tomatoes, and other crops my neighbors and I grow."
If approved, millions of acres of Agent Orange corn could be planted as early as next year, raising concern for its adverse health impacts. 2,4-D was one of the main ingredients in Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used by the U.S. in the Vietnam War. Agent Orange was contaminated with dioxins, a group of highly toxic chemical compounds, which are responsible for a host of serious medical conditions--from diabetes to cancer to birth defects--in Vietnam veterans as well as Vietnamese and their children. Industry's own tests show that 2,4-D is still contaminated with dioxins.
Many studies show that 2,4 D exposure is associated with various forms of cancer, Parkinson's Disease, nerve damage, hormone disruption and birth defects, according to Dr. Amy Dean, an internal medicine physician and President-Elect of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine. Dr. Dean believes that because it poses significant health risk, exposure should not be increased, but significantly reduced to protect the public's health.
USDA's public comment period on 2,4-D resistant corn is open until April 27, 2012. Tell USDA that you don't want "Agent Orange" corn. Comments may be submitted to the agency through our action link at: http://bit.ly/AgentOrangeCorn. For more information on 2,4-D corn, see our two-page fact sheet and more extensive Food Safety Review.
For anyone to compare an active ingredient to Agent Orange is not being honest, Andrew.
In your biased spin you fail to mention the extent at which these and other herbicides are regulated to ensure the safety of the environment and the consumer. In agriculture applications there are tons of regulations that need to be followed in the handling and safe application of anything. Also, it does not take very much of any of these herbicides to get the job done. Your story makes it sound like it is being sprayed in high concentrations from helicopters, killing everything in site when in fact it can be applied in safe concentrations and with equipment that keeps the herbicide application localized to the field or part of the field. But alas, everything is a conspiracy. It is greed and corruption. Lets try it your way for a while and see what happens. Here is a glimpse, inflation due to decrease in yields, food shortages due to decrease in yields, increased poverty and hunger in third world countries, civil unrest due to food shortages, and the list goes on and on. And how do events like this start?
Genetically mutated food is not the way of the future, and it should not be a part of the present either. It is time for it to be a whispered crime of the past beside DDT, Thalidomide, Agent Orange and all other horrible, shameful creations we humans have come up with.
THIS decision by the USDA will set the stage for the future of this battle, and if passed, I say Canada should shut the doors to the spread of this corrupt and dangerous corporation/government and all their products.
Any product by Dow or Monsanto will not get my support or the support of many others, particularly the four million Vietnamese still suffering today from the efffects of Agent Orange and the US Vietnam Veterans who are also suffering. I doubt very much if the veterans would want to eat any food produced by Dow and Monsanto.
2,4,5-T was the ingredient that was full of the toxins in agent orange. The author purposely fails to mention this.
The antiGMO frankennuts are getting goofier by the day.
Dioxins are a very different case. Keep exposure to as little as possible. They are found in some wood smoke so we have a mildly greater tolerance than some of our test animals.
Excuse my ignorance, but in my country we have been using 2,4-D's and other phenoxys on corn since "2,4-D", ie late 40's. Is the gain from GMO's to increasing corn tolerance to the product to allow for earlier application? If so, no big advance in the potential extent of its use. As the use of glyphosate has generated so many resistant weeds, other chemicals need to be used.
That is the obscenity of the whole situation. To have total reliance on one mode of action is to expect failure. Despite the propaganda ex the PR people of Monsanto who told us that no weeds would ever develop resistance to glyphosate.
I totally agree with Mythbuter68. Spent too much time in the mid late 70’s reviewing claims re human health damage caused by 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, but not from Agent Orange as it was not used in this country. Simpler to confirm the presence of active Ghosts than to show that those chemicals did it.. Be careful when making ex cathedra pronouncements using extrapolations.