The Center for Food Safety is launching a campaign to stop Dow Chemical’s so-called “Agent Orange” GMO crops. The genetically engineered corn and soybeans resist 2,4-D, a powerful herbicide that is one half of the chemical Agent Orange that caused illness and death in Vietnam veterans.
The campaign includes a petition to USDA and President Obama, a website, and a video. Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of CFS said in a statement, “Dow Chemical has a long and troubling history selling dangerous chemicals and poisons, and now they are targeting our food supply. Monsanto isn’t the only bad actor out there. Companies like Dow Chemical have gotten a free pass – but no longer. We are launching this campaign to give people the chance to fight back, to speak with one voice and stop Dow Chemical’s ‘Agent Orange’ crops.”
The chemical 2,4-D is a defoliant that has been associated with immune system cancers, Parkinson’s disease, endocrine disruption, and problems with reproductive systems. Since Monsanto’s Roundup Ready crops are causing superweeds to evolve with resistance to that herbicide, 2,4-D resistant crops are being marketed as a “solution”. Studies have shown that from 1996 to 2006, the amount of glyphosate, the active compound in Roundup, that has been applied to Roundup Ready GE soybean fields has increased by 600%.
And Roundup apparently isn’t the “harmless” chemical Monsanto has claimed. Glyphosate interrupts the shikimate pathway in plants, which mammals do not have. But the bacteria in our intestines, which are critical to our immune systems, do have the shikimate pathway. That may be how glyphosate is harmful to people.
Scientists think that these new 2,4-D resistant Dow Chemical crops will trigger an epidemic of more herbicide-resistant weeds that are able to withstand both chemicals. Kimbrell added, “Dow Chemical’s Crops are the worst possible application of biotechnology. They offer zero consumer benefit, while doubling down on the most devastating aspects of industrial agriculture. Instead of feeding the world, Dow Chemical’s new genetically engineered crops will poison it.”
Many consumer, public health, and medical groups have registered their opposition to these GE crops with the USDA. You can find out more information by visiting CFS’s website, called Dow-Watch.org.
