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| Crabgrass- Are the Poisons Enough to Kill the Weeds? |
A Warning posted on June 11,
2014 by Just Label It, and written by Mary Ellen Kustin (EWG) announced the EPA
was poised to approve Dow Chemical’s bid
to market a new toxic weed killer. The agency had failed to consider the weed
killer’s danger to children’s health, as the federal law requires, it said.
The new toxic herbicide would be marketed to farmers
to spray on fields of corn and soybeans that have been planted with recently
developed genetically engineered varieties built to withstand the spraying. The
spraying could be used indiscriminately.
Just think of how many (hundreds ) of processed foods contain elements of corn and soybeans!
It is now up to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture to allow the new GE corn and
soybean crops to be sold without regulation on the open market, in which case, the
EPA will follow suit and approve the weed killer created to be used on those
crops.
EPA is accepting public comments through June 30,
2014 on their pending decision to approve the weed killer. They could make
their final decision anytime after the comment period closes.
The Just Label It group, insists that consumers have
the right to know what is in the foods they buy in the open market, and
advocates full disclosure of Genetically Modified Organisms, as well as the
toxins used in producing such products.
The Just Label It group claims the EPA failed to fully assess the serious health risks of a new herbicide formulation that, if approved, would lead to the largest increase in use of a known toxic weed killer in decades. The group also says EPA’s assessment omitted the possibility of inhaling 2,4-D – even though that’s one of the primary routes of exposure for people. EPA also disregarded the immune and reproductive toxicity of 2,4-D and overlooked potential links to Parkinson’s and cancer.
So, WHY ask for approval of a three-fold increase in use of a toxic herbicide that’s been linked to cancer, Parkinson’s, reproductive problems and immune system failure?
Because the last toxic herbicide designed to work with genetically engineered plants stopped working, is the Justification.
How many
increases in toxic chemicals will be needed to keep up with the ability of
weeds and insects adapt to the poisons and
to resist them? And you want to eat
foods that are altered to tolerate toxins that people will unknowingly end up
eating?
Dow AgroSciences (a subsidiary of Dow Chemical
Company) has asked EPA to rubber-stamp its application for widespread
distribution of Enlist® Duo herbicide, a mixture of 2,4-D and
glyphosate, the main herbicide found in Monsanto’s best-selling RoundUp® weed
killer.
• EWG’s analysis of
EPA’s recent risk assessment for 2,4-D and Enlist® Duo finds that the agency
did not take steps to protect children’s health, as required by the Food
Quality Protection Act. (• Environmental
Working Group, www.ewg.org.)
EPA is accepting public comments through June 30, 2014 on their pending decision to approve the weed killer. And they could make their final decision anytime after the comment period closes.
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| Sweet Corn. Do we want the corn enough to risk the toxins? Virtually all corn is genetically modified. |
Dow is hoping to market Enlist to corn and soybean farmers for whom Monsanto’s RoundUp no longer works because the weeds in their fields have become resistant to it. USDA estimates that more than 60 million acres of farmland is infested by weeds that have proved Monsanto’s scientists wrong about GE crops requiring fewer weed-killers.
If Enlist Duo is approved, farmers would use it on varieties of corn and soybeans that Dow has genetically engineered to survive blasts of 2,4-D.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the approval would lead to between a three- and whopping seven-fold increase in today’s use of 2,4-D on crops by 2020.
In the rise and fall of Monsanto’s RoundUp and “RoundUp Ready” crops, we’ve watched a “miracle” weed killer designed to work with specially genetically engineered crops lead, first, to the acceleration of herbicide-resistant “superweeds” and, ultimately, application of even more herbicides.
USDA reports that some weeds are already growing resistant to 2, 4-D, which has been used for decades but at nowhere near the amounts under consideration by EPA.
Even though Dow’s Enlist® Duo is even more toxic than Monsanto’s RoundUp, the EPA’s analysis is that they:
Failed to fully account for the risk to children;
Disregarded endocrine toxicity and immunotoxicity findings from animal studies.
Ignored 2,4-D inhalation, one of the primary routes of pesticide exposure for
communities in the vicinity of sprayed fields; and
Overlooked serious impacts on wildlife, including endangered species and honeybees.
The science is clear: allowing Enlist Duo into the marketplace would be a disaster to people’s health – especially to children close to fields where the toxic weed killer would be applied – and would keep us on the path to even more toxic weed killers in the future.
Click here to sign a petition demanding that the EPA deny Dow Chemical Company's application to use a combination of glyphosate and 2,4-D on GE crops.
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See more at: http://justlabelit.org/epa-disregards-toxic-weed-killers-risks-to-children/#sthash.vWJMsuww.dpuf
Note: Written Materials were gathered from a Just Label It Petition.
Images were modified from a Better Homes and Gardens Garden Book, 1968 .
