Socialist Action /July 1999
 FIGHTBACK by Sylvia
Weinstein
A Fungus Among Us
Reading the morning newspaper is enough to strike fear in the hearts
and minds of everyone of us. In The New York Times of July 27, there are
two stories on the first page that should shake us out of morning lethargy.
First is the story that the Environmental Protection Agency will ask
the government to pass legislation to remove the additive MTBE from gasoline
because it is polluting our drinking water. It was supposed to make our
air less poisonous to breathe.
The gasoline companies, which increased the cost per gallon when they
added MTBE, are now going to raise the price per gallon for taking the poison
out. Either way the oil companies win. We lose.
In 1990 Congress passed rules that oil companies put an oxygenate, (a
chemical that incorporates an oxygen atom) in gasoline to promote more thorough
burning in engines. Most oil companies chose the ingredient known as MTBE,
or methyl tertiary butyl ether.
What was designed to clean the air has turned into a poison in our drinking
water. Five to ten percent of our drinking water is contaminated with MTBE,
which has proven to be a carcinogen by the EPA because it has caused cancer
in animals.
The poison affects small children the most. Especially small children
who drink water in their bottles with formula.
Why wasn't this tested before it was added to gasoline? Why does the
government use the population as laboratory rats for its experiments.?
Now comes an even bigger danger-a fungus designed to be dropped from
a plane onto marijuana plants.
For years drug agents have been stalking the marijuana crops growing
in Florida. Now the "brains" of the state's Office of Drug Control
think they have the solution. They are planning to dust suspected areas
with a marijuana-eating, soil-borne fungus called Fusarium oxysporum.
The fungus, a bioherbicide engineered specifically to attack plants
like marijuana, is otherwise "harmless," insists the Montana company
that developed it.
Jim McDonough, who was hired by Gov. Jeb Bush to head Florida's Office
of Drug Control, is considering a plan to use the fungus. (Gov. Bush was
involved in the great Savings and Loan debacle several years ago, and we
are still paying for that!)
Now that McDonough is beginning to encounter strong criticism by many
environmentalists for the fungus proposal, he vows that the fungus will
not be used until it is tested in rigidly controlled conditions at a Florida
site.
David Struhs, secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection,
spelled out the dangers in a letter to Mr. McDonough dated April 6, 1999.
"Fusarium species," he wrote, "are capable of evolving
rapidly. Mutagenicity is by far the most disturbing factor in attempting
to use a Fusarium species as a bioherbicide. It is difficult, if not impossible,
to control Fusarium species."
 "I personally do not like the idea of messing with
mother nature," said Bill Graves, senior biologist at the University
of Florida Research Center in Homestead, Fla.
"I believe it's going to create its own problems. If it isn't executed
effectively, it's going to target and kill rare and endangered plants.
The mutated fungi can also cause disease in large numbers of crops-including
tomatoes, peppers, flowers, corn, and vines.
In Peru, angry farmers have recently accused the United States of using
a soil fungus to destroy coca in the Upper Huallaga Valley, saying that
fungus has spread to banana, yucca, tangerine, and other food crops.
So in reality, the United States has already tested its fungus in Third
World countries. Now they are ready to test it on us.
History shows that if there is a profit to be made from DDT, MTBE, or
any other poison, then capitalists will be ready to use it. All it has to
be is profitable.
Socialist Action /July 1999 |