By Andrew Hiller
WASHINGTON (VR)—The nature of food we eat is changing rapidyly.
It's
nearly impossible to know what you eat even if you choose your food
locally or purchase primarily organic foodstuffs. Modifications can make
plants bigger, heartier, and according to the chemical companies,
better than they were before... but much of these foodstuffs though
heavily tested cannot possibly have undergone longitudinal testing. That
is, we don't know how the accumulation of chemicals or long term
exposure to some of these products could impact the body.
Now,
scientists at DOW have developed genetically engineered corn and
soybeans that can withstand the application of materials used in Agent
Orange chemical weapons. To look into this and the cost-benefit analysis
as well as the longer term implications of this type GMO, we've brought
in Patty Lovera, Assistant Director of Food & Water Watch.
"One of the main reasons that crops have been genetically engineered" Lovera explains, "is so you can grow
the corn or the soybeans and they've been genetically engineered to survive being survived with a specific herbicide."
In
this case, the herbicide is 2, 4-D, half of the notorious Agent Orange.
The chemical is gaining popularity in use because weeds have grown
resistant to many of the solutions currently in use, thus making
sprayers seek out more lethal and toxic materials.
The
problem with this, according to Lovera is manifold: runoff may take the
herbicide into our drinking water, it may carry it to fields where non
protected plants may suffer or die, and little independent testing has
been done on the long term effects of these solutions to humans or to
plant life.
"We
know we're going to see more use of 2 4-D and that brings a lot of
environmental hazards, a lot of health hazzards, and we just think it's
the wrong approach in dealing with agriculture and the pressure they
have with weeds."
No comments:
Post a Comment