Last week the USDA released aDraft Environmental Impact Statementon newly developed 2,4-D resistant genetically modified corn and soybean traits.
当互联网上爆发出支持生物技术的支持者,庆祝对另一条转基因生产线放松管制时,我不禁注意到参与辩论的稻草人的数量!因此,正在展开的2,4- d灾难中“不,谢谢”的一面得到了公平的代表,这就是为什么一些可持续发展热衷者不认为这种潜在的“替代方案”有一丁点可取之处。
Surprise! USDA Does What Biotech Industry Wants
Last Friday the USDA moved forward towardsderegulating 2,4-D resistant Enlist GMO corn and soybean seeds, made by Dow AgroSciences. Like every other biotech product submitted for its consideration since the 1990s, the USDA recommends full deregulation of the Dow’s new Enlist seeds as the‘preferred alternative.’
The newly minted seeds resist 2,4-D and several other herbicides. Dow intends for Enlist to compete with Monsanto’s Roundup Ready line, which has facilitated some really amazingRoundup Ready superweedsbut otherwise has become decreasingly helpful to growers.
The USDA has a long history of prioritizing the goals and objectives ofagricultural chemical companies, and their approach to deregulation of Dow’s new GMO crops don’t look likely to diverge from that well-worn track.
GMO Problems
If you haven’t been following the issues surrounding genetically modified crops over the last few years — first of all, I’m glad you’re starting to do so! Welcome to EDB! — let’s recap, to bring you up to speed.
Genetically modified crops rely on heavy fossil fuel inputs for their manufacture, testing, transport, marketing, and application, and depend on monoculture farming that increases bothpest problemsandsoil erosion. Herbicide-resistant GMO crops lead toescalating herbicide useand — since evolution is a thing, and both plant and insect pest species tend to do it very rapidly — the rapid emergence of resistant weeds (or with crops like Bt corn,resistant rootworms).
Then — happily for chemical companies like Dow and Monsanto, but unhappily for farmers and everyone downstream — growers have to up the poison-ante, and use more or additional poisons to take care of the pest problem that last year’s GMO-superstar-seed promised to alleviate.
Unfortunately once new genes are released into an ecosystem, we’ve seen over and over that the outcome can’t be planned, controlled, or retracted. Even somegenetic engineersview this contamination as a deeply troubling and potentially dangerous problem. We keep finding GMOs where they absolutely should not be, like in arandom wheat fieldor inexported corn that’s not supposed to be from genetically modified seed. Worse yet, GMO crops bringgenetic contaminationto their whole surrounding environment; traits inserted into food or cotton crops by Monsanto or Dow routinely also manifest in wild plants around those fields, with completelyunpredictableenvironmental outcomes.
The unlimited political power of global megacorporations like Monsanto also draws concern from ethics-minded eaters — biotech-dependent agriculture represents a devastatingly sophisticated method by which money can be extracted from poor farming communities. In addition to the corporate dependency intrinsic to the GMO-driven agricultural model, biotech companies are also notorious forbullying farmers,bribing government officials, attempting toprevent journalistsfrom disclosing harmful effects of their products, and overtlyusurping democracyto prevent any and all regulation of GMO foods and crops.
The corporate entities who profit from new biotech products are also the ones exclusively charged with investigating whether they’re a good idea or not. And guess what?! It turns out that (in the opinion of the companies who sell GMO seeds) they are always a really super-great idea!
Unfortunately that doesn’t usually reflect reality: when it comes toworld hunger,pest problems,herbicide and pesticide usage, orsustainability, biotech-reliant agriculture has eitherfailedto yield promised results or has made existing problemsworse. In terms ofeconomics,global climate change,accountabilityandtransparency,biodiversity,world hunger, andenvironmental stewardship, an agricultural system reliant on biotechnology products has worked hard to earn skeptical resistance from conscientious consumers, growers, and residents of our increasingly distressed planet.
Because of these and other concerns, public demand for bothGMO labelingand organic food is skyrocketing right now. While the biotech industry’s regulatory BFFs pushGMO apples,GMO salmon,GMO pigs, GMO EVERYTHING they’re asked to push, therest of the worldand the U.S. public wantsless转基因食品。
Genetically modified crops bring a particular problem set to the table; so when we talk about adding a new poison-resistant genetically modified food crop to the modern agricultural scene, let’s not pretend that 2,4-D stands alone awaiting our inspection.
2,4-D Inspected
With all those things in mind, let’s consider the 2,4-D resistant crops that the USDA is so keen to deregulate.
Developed in the 1940′s, 2,4-D was one component of the weaponized defoliant known as Agent Orange. By itself, 2,4-D has beenshownto double the incidence of birth defects in children of pesticide applicators. It is suspected to increase incidence ofnon-Hodgkins lymphoma. 2,4-D is also reported to negatively effect endocrine and immune function, and to impair respiratory and central nervous system function. According to one toxicitysummary, at high levels of exposure 2,4-D acts as a central nervous system depressant that can cause severe health problems:
[High rates of exposure to 2,4-D] can cause stiffness of arms and legs, incoordination, lethargy, anorexia, stupor, and coma (EPA, 2007). It is also a respiratory system irritant that can cause prolonged difficulty breathing, coughing, burning, dizziness, and temporary loss of muscle coordination (EXOTOXNET, 1996). Other symptoms of 2,4-D poisoning include irritation, inflammation, itching, and headache (CDC NIOSH, 2005). The primary target organs of the chemical are the eye, thyroid, kidney, adrenals, ovaries, and testes (EPA RED Decision, 2005).
Long-term animal studies of 2,4-D’s chronic exposure have shown effects on the blood, liver, and kidneys (EPA, 2007). Studies have also revealed slight chronic symptoms including a reduction in weight and changes in blood chemistry (NPTN).
It is observed to be a developmental toxicant. Some observed effects are increased gestation length, skeletal abnormalities, and effects on the thyroid and gonads (EPA RED FACTS, 2005).
Unsurprisingly, 2,4-D is also toxic to birds, bees, and fish.
According to a Des MoinesNBC news affiliate, Dow itself predicts that 2,4-D use will likely skyrocket if the USDA follows through with deregulation (or even if it doesn’t):
陶氏化学在声明中预测,到2020年,2,4- d的使用量将增加75%到300%,即使美国农业部维持对Enlist玉米和大豆的监管。根据预测,如果放松管制,使用将增加200%至600%。
Based on recent history, deregulation and widespread cultivation of herbicide resistant crops generates two predictable effects: increased use of that herbicide, and rapid emergence of ‘superweeds’ resistant to that poison. Adding 2,4-D to the mix of poisons permeating our farmland, ground water, and farm workers offers financial rewards to its manufacturers, but precious little else to anyone else — we’ll be right back here in a couple of years, needing a new GMO seed and toxin to battle weeds resistant to 2,4-D.
This particular USDA move has broader implications than simply deregulating one new GMO trait; it would also clear the way forstacked-resistance GMO crops engineered to resist both Roundup and 2,4-D, so that growers can douse the same field with infinite quantities of TWO poisons instead of just one. Then we’ll need a new GMO seed-toxin combo to battle DOUBLY resistant superweeds.
And so forth and so on forever and ever, locked into a continually escalating poison war against our own food and our own habitat.
Meanwhile we’re still burning through those fossil fuels, making things harder for already-troubled bees, eroding topsoil through a farming system completely reliant on monocropping, and supporting the biotech industry’s monopolization of the global food supply.
To 2,4-D deregulation dissenters, every bit of that picture looks pretty ugly.
So Basically
Deregulating 2,4-D would exacerbate rather than relieve ongoing problems within our food system. For many consumers, environmentalists, and scientists, many reasons exist to object to biotech-reliant agriculture in general and 2,4-D deregulation in particular.
But by all means, let’s not talk about any of that!
Straw Men and Logical Fallacies
Alogical fallacyis a mistake in reasoning — a flawed frame, skewed to bend the picture to illustrate an argument that otherwise would fall apart. Reading coverage of USDA’s move to deregulate yet another GMO seed enabling unlimited quantities of yet another poison to be dumped on our food crops, a couple of persistent fallacies routinely masquerade as pro-biotech arguments.
These are my favorites — perhaps because I see them so frequently in pro-GMO advocacy campaigns:
- Straw man fallacy —歪曲对手的论点,让对手更容易攻击。
- Burden of proof fallacy-声称举证责任不在于提出主张的人,而在于质疑或质疑该主张的人。
- Ad hominem fallacy— attacking your opponent’s character or personal traits to undermine their argument, rather than addressing points they raise.
Forbes recently ran an article to helpfully illustrate my point, titledPollan, Marion Nestle Lead Activist Hype Of Discredited Link. Can you spot the two fallacies already on parade, right in the headline?
Here’s an excerpt:
According to scientists, it’s an effective herbicide and plant growth regulator widely and safely used for decades in household weed killers, such asScotts TurfBuilder,农民也是如此。对反对者来说,这是“橙剂”。
That’s factually untrue. As agricultural scientist Steve Savagehas writtenon the independent website Biofortified, “Agent Orange, a defoliant used in the Vietnam War, was made with two herbicides: 2,4-D (the one that the new corn tolerates), and 2,4,5-T. The 2,4,5-T was unknowingly contaminated with a dioxin, something that was only later recognized as a significant human safety issue. Yes, 2,4-D was part of Agent Orange, but it wasn’t what made Agent Orange a danger back in the 1960s.”
Hellooo, Mr. Straw Man! I was expecting you, please come on in and make yourself at home (since I see you’re going to anyway).
The objections that opponents have to 2,4-D deregulation don’t begin and end with its presence in Agent Orange. Please refer to, well, everything I just said above.
The author goes on to assert that:
Invoking the problem of superweeds is often a crafty surrogate for attacking GMOs (one of Pollan’s favorite tactics)–typical of the way ideologues rather than scientists or independent journalists evaluate a complex problem…
Pollan et al. not only invoke the Agent Orange canard to spread dicey environmental interpretations of complex issues, as part of their crusade they show no compunction about misrepresenting an unrelated national tragedy [regarding Agent Orange use].
因此,2,4- d放松管制的批评者是狡猾但头脑简单的激进主义改革者,他们不懂科学或新闻。是的,这听起来完全像是对波伦和雀巢关于依赖生物技术的食品生产和2,4- d管制的合理反驳。
Also — quick reminder! — the whole Agent Orange thing isn’t the crux of the issue, despite attempts to paint it such. See above.
“没有人能证明转基因食品是危险的”的说法还没有出现在新出现的、显然很快就要解除管制的2,4- d抗性粮食作物的报道中;但请放心,它会的。我敢打赌素食甜甜圈会出现在这篇文章的评论中!这里有另一个快速提醒:如果我声称某种食物对人们来说是安全的,我的工作是在把它喂给人们之前证明它是安全的。“除非你证明它是真的”——那是草率的逻辑和草率的科学。
For the Record
Most things in the world aren’t all good or all bad. If there’s an appropriate and positive use of biotechnology in agriculture, I’m convincible. A scientific world view requires an open mind, and if the evidence argued that a specific genetically modified food did more good in the world than harm — that is a hypothetically possible premise, and I would consider that evidence with interest.
But based on observable evidence since the biotech monopolization of our food system in the 1990s, in its current form — withunchecked political manipulationof our legislative and regulatory systems, with exemption from fair and accuratelabelingof biotech products, with industry allowed topreventindependent or unflattering research of their products from seeing the light of day, with no data anywhere ever regarding potential human health effects related to GMO consumption, withsubsidizationof environmentally unsustainable farming practices to the near-exclusion of alternate approaches — we’ve allowed the emergence of a food system in which profit motive trumps objective investigation.
以目前的形式,以及目前这种短视的利益驱动的不规范程度,生物技术产业正在把我们带向一条不可持续的、充满麻烦的道路——我们需要停车检查地图。
生物技术倡导者可以用任何他们喜欢的名字来称呼转基因反对者或2,4- d批评者,或者歪曲他们的观点,假装橙剂是一个热点问题,其实它并不是:它不会改变任何一个原因,即对转基因生物的日益依赖以及与之相关的化学物质并不能代表一个积极的或可持续的前进道路。我们正走在错误的方向上:我们需要的不是放松对抗2,4- d转基因种子的管制,而是一条全新的道路,一个不那么短视的旅行社,以及坐在驾驶座上的公共利益(而不是企业的贪婪)。
Given the monstrous political power and bottomless advertising budgets of those who control U.S. food policy at this point in history, that’s a tall order.
So read all you can about these issues, consider them critically, and share what you find: vital things like the global food supply shouldn’t be left to straw men to defend.
Image credit:pesticide cornphoto byMarcin Balcerzak, viaShutterstock.
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