U.S. Foreign Policy and the Gordian Knot
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If you’re wondering what discussion of U.S. foreign policy has to do with organic food, just bear with me.
The Gordian Knot—a legend from antiquity–was a knot in a rope that tied an oxcart to a post, a knot so intricate that no one could untie it because they could not find its ends. That is, until Alexander the Great came along and, presented with the challenge of untying the knot, drew his sword and with one stroke cut the knot in two, after which it became easy to untie.
There’s the warrior for you: decisive, thinking outside the box, goal-oriented.
Cut to today where President Obama is faced with his version of the Gordian Knot: the U.S. needs to fight and defeat the Islamic State (ISIS), which right now is in a pitched battle with Syrian and Iraqi Kurds. To defeat ISIS, he needs to help the Kurds with troops, but he has pledged not to send American “boots on the ground.” Turkey is right there with a mighty military that, if it joined forces with the Kurds, could defeat ISIS, but Turkey has been fighting Kurdish separatists for four decades. The sight of Kurds and Islamic jihadists slaughtering each other is much to Turkey’s liking, so the Turks are so far sitting this one out, which is alienating its American allies, who are desperate for it to join the fight. Meanwhile, America is trying to assist “moderate” Syrian rebels who are trying to oust the Syrian government of President Bashir Assad. But it was the rebel movement that spawned ISIS and Al Qaeda-affiliated groups, along with more moderate rebel groups. Al Qaeda and Isis are our sworn enemies. Meanwhile, Iraq is slowly being devoured by ISIS. Iraq’s military, despite a trillion dollars of our support, is feckless. Meanwhile, Iran is allied with Assad’s government, and so is Hezbollah in Lebanon—and this troika is bombing the moderate rebels as well as the civilian population of Syria. And it’s these rebels we need to fight ISIS. Turkey, meanwhile, would love to see Assad gone and many in that country are urging it to join with the Kurds and rebels to defeat the Assad regime, so far without success. And so we are in the middle of the shifting sands of Middle Eastern politics, blood feuds, religious sectarianism, ancient animosities, tribal hatreds, and murderous barbarians. It’s indeed a Gordian Knot.
Alexander would have waded into this hot mess and killed them all. Not an option for Obama. How does Obama cut this Gordian Knot? Turkey has suggested establishing a neutral zone along its border with Syria and Iraq with a no-fly zone overhead. But so far we’ve rejected it. However, we could begin to cut that knot if we accepted Turkey’s proposal. We have put together a coalition of Arab and European states to fight ISIS. The coalition could also establish that zone and stock it with enough troops to prevent ISIS’s incursions. There’s reason for Palestinians and Israelis to join that humanitarian effort, too. All refugees—those fleeing ISIS, Syrians, Iraqis, Kurds, all the polyglot religious adherents of the region—welcome and cared for. Many countries could provide food, medicine, shelter, and educational services for the children. And IFOAM—the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements—in addition to being an advocacy organization—could organize organic food aid for the dispossessed. Just look at the slaughter going on: Assad has killed 200,000 of his own citizens. Iraq has lost hundreds of thousands. ISIS seems intent on pursuing religious and ethnic genocide. Certainly a safe haven is needed. Certainly the organic community could make a big difference with food aid.
Am I a dreamer here? Well, I’m not the only one.
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EPA APPROVES HERBICIDE THAT COMBINES ROUNDUP WITH 2,4-D
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ignoring more than 60 members of Congress and a half a million citizens, has approved a deadly new herbicide, Dow’s Enlist Duo, made from a combination of Monsanto’s Roundup and Dow’s “Agent Orange” 2,4-D, the Organic Consumers Association reports.
The new herbicide will be used on Dow’s newly approved corn and soy crops, engineered to withstand massive doses of the new “Deadly Duo” herbicide.
And why are these genetically re-engineered corn and soybeans needed? To withstand the new Enlist Duo herbicide from Monsanto and Dow. And why is Enlist Duo herbicide needed? Because Roundup alone has caused the emergence of super-weeds that have developed resistance to it. So in the twisted logic of Monsanto, Dow, and the EPA, the way to defeat herbicide-resistant weeds, whose development was caused by the use of herbicide to begin with, is to come up with even more toxic herbicide. It’s really less about weed control and more about having product to sell to farmers, isn’t it?
Where will the vast percentage of these new crops go? To feed animals on factory farms.
With the approval of Dow’s Enlist crops and Deadly Duo herbicide, the EPA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which also signed off on the crops, have signaled that they have no intention of ending the rampant escalation of the use of increasingly toxic poisons by industrial agriculture.
The only way to stop them is by shutting down demand for GMO crops. That will take millions of consumers switching to organic, non-GMO food at the supermarket—and that means boycotting meat, eggs and dairy from factory farms. It also means labeling GMO foods so we can boycott them.
The profits to be gained for Monsanto and Dow from sales of the new seeds and double-dose herbicide does reveal why Big Ag, Biotech, and the pesticide industry has ponied up $100 million to defeat GMO labeling laws in Oregon and Colorado next month.
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FARM USE OF ANTIBIOTICS KEEPS GROWING
Remember how the federal government recently decided to finally take on the major threat that antibiotic resistance poses to human health, yet somehow failed to address the meat and poultry industries’ routine overuse of antibiotics—despite acknowledging that said overuse is definitely contributing to the problem? Well, new data out from the FDA shows just how big of an oversight this is. The gist: more antibiotics are being fed to livestock than ever. And you can bet that humans are going to pay the price. So writes Lindsay Abrams in Salon.
Between 2009 and 2012, the FDA report finds, the amount of antibiotics deemed medically important for humans that were given to farm animals increased 16 percent. More than two-thirds of those were tetracyclines, which humans depend on to treat everything from acne to Lyme disease to chlamydia, and which are already becoming less useful as resistance takes hold. Also increasing in use, The New York Times notes, are cephalosporins (used for pneumonia, strep throat and skin and urinary infections, they’re “particularly popular among pediatricians”), despite the fact that the FDA moved to restrict their use in 2012.
The antibiotic industry’s go-to excuse—that they’re mostly using the drugs for disease prevention—continues to ring false. In 2012, the FDA data shows that “antibiotics with a proven use for growth-promotion outsold antibiotics with only a therapeutic use by a ratio of 2.2:1.”
“We know that the overuse of antibiotics on the farm is leading to more antibiotic resistant pathogens that threaten humans–-and FDA’s own figures show that the agency’s inaction is making the problem worse,” said New York Congresswoman Louise Slaughter in a statement. “Until the FDA enacts a mandatory regulation that puts human health before industry profits, Americans will continue to live under an increased threat of untreatable infection.”
And who are the major players in this industry? They include Archer-Daniels-Midlands, Bayer, Elanco, Novartis, and 22 others—many of them also manufacturers of agricultural pesticides.
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GMO CONTAMINATION PUTS MONTANA FARMERS AT RISK
Experimental genetically engineered (GMO) wheat was discovered in July, 2014, at a Montana research facility that has not legally grown the variety since 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has revealed.
“Once again, USDA and the biotech industry have put farmers and the food supply at risk,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director for Center for Food Safety. “Coexistence between GMO and non-GMO crops is a failed policy that fundamentally cannot work. Genetic contamination is a serious threat to farmers across the country.”
In the same announcement, USDA closed its investigation into a May, 2013, GMO wheat contamination episode in Oregon without any explanation for the incident. That contamination episode led to closures of vital export markets and a class action lawsuit against Monsanto by wheat farmers.
“Just as USDA closes one fruitless investigation, it tries to bury the story of yet another contamination. USDA cannot keep treating these as isolated incidents; contamination is the inevitable outcome of GMO crop technology,” said Kimbrell. “It’s time for Congress to take definitive action.”
Monsanto is currently in the process of settling a class action lawsuit brought by wheat farmers impacted by the Oregon contamination episode, which forced exports to several Asian and European markets to be suspended and cost farmers millions of dollars. USDA records reveal that Monsanto has conducted 279 field tests of herbicide-resistant wheat on over 4,000 acres in 17 states since 1994. Monsanto has received at least 35 notices of noncompliance from 2010 through 2013, more than any other company.
“Farmers, not the biotech industry, are on the hook for these contamination episodes. There must be accountability for Monsanto,” said Kimbrell. “USDA should, at a minimum, immediately place a moratorium on open-air field testing of genetically engineered crops.”
After a decade of field trials, Monsanto dropped efforts to introduce Roundup Ready GMO wheat in 2004 in the face of intense international opposition from consumers, farmers, wheat millers, and food companies. However, after a six-year hiatus, Monsanto once again began extensive field-testing of GMO wheat in 2011.
Opponents of GMO wheat have long argued that it would contaminate conventional wheat, making it unsellable to many markets that reject GMO products. The U.S. is the world’s biggest exporter of wheat, an $8 billion business. A 2005 study estimated that the wheat industry could lose $94 to $272 million if GMO wheat were introduced. Past transgenic contamination episodes involving GMO corn and rice have triggered over $1 billion in losses and economic hardship to farmers.
In late 2005, the USDA’s own Inspector General issued a scathing report detailing numerous violations of agency rules in regulating genetically engineered crop field trials. USDA officials did not know the locations of many field trials it was charged with regulating, and did not conduct required inspections of others. In 2002, the National Academy of Sciences also criticized serious deficiencies in USDA’s regulation of genetically engineered crops.
In 2013, Center for Food Safety joined over 150 organizations and businesses in a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack calling on the agency to protect the wheat industry by implementing necessary protections from GMO contamination.
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ROUNDUP LINKED TO CANCER–AGAIN
There is a disturbing parallel between the exponential growth of biotech agriculture and the spread of a cancer in the human body, writes Jeff Ritterman, M.D. in Truth-Out.
Cancers are cells that reproduce rapidly and haphazardly with no regard for the greater good of the organism. Cancer cells consume valuable energy, starving out normal cells. They grow so wildly and so quickly that they crowd out their neighbors. They send off emissaries to start new cancer colonies. They make harmful substances that damage healthy cells. They spread relentlessly. In the final sad irony, when the cancer cells reach their growth peak, they kill their host and die in the process.
Like a cancer, biotech agriculture has crowded out its neighbors and is spreading relentlessly. Also like a cancer, it makes harmful substances. Roundup is one of them. As more acreage comes under GM cultivation, we can expect Roundup use to continue to increase. Roundup kills plants, causes birth defects in vertebrates, and is linked to cancer. Can a living planet withstand the continuous assault from this poison any more than the human body can withstand the attack from an aggressive cancer?
Read the whole article at http://truth-out.org
Jeff Ritterman, M.D. is vice president of the board of directors of the SF Bay Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. He is the retired chief of cardiology at Kaiser Richmond and a former Richmond, California, city councilman.
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FRACKING WASTE BEING DUMPED INTO DRINKING WATER
Almost 3 billion gallons of oil industry wastewater have been illegally dumped into central California aquifers that supply drinking water and farming irrigation, according to state documents obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity.
The wastewater entered the aquifers through at least nine injection disposal wells used by the oil industry to dispose of waste contaminated with fracking fluids and other pollutants.
The documents also reveal that Central Valley Water Board testing found high levels of arsenic, thallium, and nitrates—contaminants sometimes found in oil industry wastewater—in water-supply wells near these waste-disposal operations.
“Clean water is one of California’s most crucial resources, and these documents make it clear that state regulators have utterly failed to protect our water from oil industry pollution,” said Hollin Kretzmann, a Center attorney. “Much more testing is needed to gauge the full extent of water pollution and the threat to public health. But Governor Brown should move quickly to halt fracking to ward off a surge in oil industry wastewater that California simply isn’t prepared to dispose of safely.”
The state’s Water Board confirmed beyond doubt that at least nine wastewater disposal wells have been injecting waste into aquifers that contain high-quality water that is supposed to be protected under federal and state law.
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