Would You Eat Half of an Agent Orange?

The article below may seem to have a misleading title. Of course it is meant to grab your attention.

But I don't want to eat and drink this stuff, on Top of Round Up! In Europe all foods containing genetically modified ingredients are Marked, so I don't have to buy them if I choose not to. This is Not the case here or in Canada. In Japan they are waiting to see what Americans Look like after about ten to fifteen years of eating genetically modified crops, which require Specific pesticides and herbicides.

I have been asked, "Haven't crops Always been genetically modified to increase yield?" It's a good question and here is the difference.

Throughout history women and men have noticed what plants produced the most food or the best tasting food. They did cross polinate the best Plants to get the best harvests. Animals were and are bred because they produce the richest milk, the most meat, etc.

But genetically engineered crops or Organisms, (GMO's) are genetically manipulated plants into which the geens of a bacteria not normally found in that plant may be added. They may contain genetic material from a plant which will Not naturally cross polinate (breed) with them, or genes from a fungus or virus not normally found in the plant or its normal soil. These plants may yield more corn, but sometimes experiments withsome plants, (such as potato for example) turn out plants toxic to humans in the third or later generations. Such plants have to be withdrawn from the market before being sold.

GMO's are also often fragile, requiring specific chemicals (made by the same companies which engineer the plants) to protect them from weeds or common garden and farm pests.

Another problem with GMO's is that when protected with large quantities of such chemicals, they Will cross polinated with Non-genetically Modified crops. Some farmers have been taken to court by these same chemical companies and accused of "stealing" their GMO crops, infringing on GMO Patent Rights. Sometimes these farmers Never Wanted anything to Do with genetically modified grain or soy.

For these reasons and those in the article below I respectfully ask you to consider signing the petition. I have had cancer twice, we had a dioxin (sorry about spelling) superfund clean up here in Southwest Mo. (it was the Whole of Agent Orange) which made farmers and animals sick, and who can say Which chemicals in Agent Orange took the health of our veterans from the Vietnam War?

Next week, the USDA will decide whether to allow Monsanto and Dow to introduce one
half of the chemical mixture Agent Orange into our food supply.
Widescale use of Roundup has led to a new generation of resistant weeds, and the
next step in the pesticide arms race is
2,4-D -- a chemical linked to cancer, Parkinson's and reproductive problems.
Farmers that sign up to use genetically-engineered 2,4-D-resistant corn will be required
to spray down their fields with both 2,4-D
and
Roundup, double-dosing our food, our soil and our waterways with the toxins. Some
experts estimate this will increase the use of 2,4-D 50-fold, even though
the EPA says the chemical is already our seventh-largest source of dioxins -- nasty,
highly toxic chemicals
that bioaccumulate as they move up the food chain and cause cancer, developmental
damage, and birth defects.
We can stop this
. The use of 2,4-D is banned entirely in parts of Canada and Europe, and right now
the US Department of Agriculture is accepting public comments on 2,4-D to decide
whether or not to approve the widespread industrial use of the toxin.
Add your name to our letter to the USDA urging them to deny approval for Dow's 2,4-D-resistant GMO corn.
This is part of a growing problem, an escalating herbicide war going on across America’s
heartland. From 1996 to 2008, herbicide usage increased by 383 million pounds. Nearly
half of this took place between 2007 and 2008 after the introduction of another strain
of herbicide-resistant plant pushed by Dow.
Like Roundup before it, 2,4-D is only a temporary solution
that will require more and more tons of toxins and more and more potent chemicals
leaching into our food supply.
2,4-D is nasty stuff and has been linked to a number of health problems, such as
tripling the rates of non-Hodgkins lymphoma in Nebraska farmworkers
exposed to it and causing reproductive problems -- birth defects and high rates of
miscarriage -- in both mice and men exposed to it in the lab and field.
Tell the USDA - we don’t want Monsanto’s toxic pesticide.
-Kaytee, Claiborne Taren and the rest of the team
------------------------------------------------------
Citations and further reading:
Overview of the toxic effects of 2,4-D
, Sierra Club, January 2005.
A Case-Control Study of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and the Herbicide 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic Acid (2, 4-D) in Eastern Nebraska
, Epidemiology, 1990.
Reregistration Eligibility Decision for 2,4-D
, EPA, June 2005
chemicalWATCH Factsheet
, Beyond Pesticides, July 2004
GM Crops Increase Herbicide Use in the United States
, Institute of Science in Society, January 2010
Study Links Weed Killer to Reproductive Problems
, Los Angeles Times, September 2002
Agent Orange in Your Backyard: The Harmful Pesticide 2,4-D
, The Atlantic, February 2012
'Agent Orange' Corn: The next stage in the chemical arms race
, The Center for Food Safety, February 2012
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