This is the second of two parts. Part one can be found here
Yesterday I wrote about the U.S. government’s once-secret mycoherbicide program in which scientists are genetically altering fungi to kill certain plants. Chemical herbicides like Roundup are already being used in our so-called drug war, and some Republican politicians are now promoting the use of mycoherbicides as a “safe” alternative.
The use of mycoherbicides has been condemned by the scientific and environmental communities. In 1999, Florida’s drug czar proposed using mycoherbicides to eradicate marijuana in the state. The idea was met with disapproval from just about everyone, including Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection, and the attempt was stopped.
In 2000, the use of mycoherbicides was included in Plan Colombia, a U.S. counternarcotics program, this time to eradicate coca. Despite global condemnations, the plan passed with support from Republican representatives, Dan Burton, Mark Souder, and Dana Rohrabacher among others. Bill Clinton signed the legislation, but nixed the use of mycoherbicides.
In the spate of adverse publicity surrounding Plan Colombia, the mycoherbicide project was discovered to have been started in 1998, funded by the U.S., and was being run through the United Nations Drug Control Program (UNDCP). The UK suffered embarrassment when their involvement in the program was revealed in documents obtained from the U.S. State department.
In the wake of this, in February of 2001, the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed Resolution B5-0087/2001, instructing that the European Union “must take the necessary steps to secure an end to the large-scale use of chemical herbicides and prevent the introduction of biological agents such as Fusarium oxysporum, given the dangers of their use to human health and the environment alike.”
A press release from The Sunshine Project:
The European Parliament’s decision is a blow against these policies because it rejects not just one biological agent (Fusarium oxysporum); but the entire approach. Thus, European Parliament resolution is an important step toward a global ban on the use of biological weapons against illicit crops called for at a December meeting in France by an international group of more than eighty non-profit organizations.
But apparently global condemnation and overwhelming scientific evidence means nothing to a certain type of Republican here in the states. Here’s a background paper written in April of 2001 — mere weeks after the European Resolution was passed — from one of their “think tanks” the Heritage Foundation:
Finally, both the White House and Congress should review the effectiveness of aerial eradication with a general-purpose herbicide that kills plants indiscriminately but has only a temporary effect. Definitive research on naturally occurring mycoherbicides that remain active over several years, like the fungus attacking coca plants in Peru, should be accelerated.
These people just won’t stop! In March of this year, Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher was at it again, pitching mycoherbicides as though it’s a new, exciting idea. From the transcript of the house committee meeting on International Relations, here’s Rohrabacher hectoring the committee:
This is no longer a secret and classified issue, because it has been brought up before here in this panel. Why are we not using the herbicide in question that–how do you pronounce it–mycoherbicide–that was developed in Uzbekistan and gone through tests here that could eliminate the entire poppy crop in Afghanistan very quickly without having to risk all of these people’s lives? Why have we not gone forward with that? And where does that stand after we have already allocated money for the research and development to make sure that that was a viable alternative?
[…]Does anyone else know about the herbicide and want to comment on the herbicide?
[…] Let me note that I brought this up several times. And if you are responsible for Afghanistan and you do not know the answer to this question, I would suggest that you go back and do your homework.
[…]For the record, what we understand–I say we, the number of us who have been working on this project–is that the poppy production could be eliminated within a week in Afghanistan; and it would only attack the poppies and would have no impact on human beings and would eliminate poppy production for over a decade in Afghanistan. I want to know why we are not doing that? And I am putting everybody on record right now that we are going to follow up on this every hearing that we have dealing with Afghanistan in the next 6 months and are going to expect an answer on that.
[…]What I see outlined today is not going to solve this problem unless we do something much more dramatic in terms of eradication and bold eradication.
Then in June of this year, Burton and Souder proposed an amendment and urged swift action:
Burton, chairman of the House International Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, submitted an amendment to the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act (ONDCP Act) to urge study of mycoherbicides. Burton’s amendment instructs the Director of the ONDCP “to present Congress” within 90 days of the law’s enactment “a plan of action to [ensure] that an expedited, complete, and thorough peer review of the science of mycoherbicide as a means of illicit drug crop elimination is conducted by the appropriate government scientific research entity.”
So we have Rohrabacher, Burton and Souder pushing mycoherbicides again. They zealously promoted the idea in 2000 and it was rejected. Now they’re proposing it again as though no one’s ever heard of it before. Rohrabacher gives a six month deadline in March, and in June Burton and Souder say 90 days. They are coordinated and they have a timeline.
The right wing Republicans always tell us exactly what they want and what they intend to do. Here we have Mr. Rohrabacher laying it out quite well — they want funding and they want to use mycoherbicides. They intend to take bold, dramatic steps very quickly. I don’t know what they’re planning next, but at the very least, we should not be funding these studies with taxpayer money.
I urge everyone to contact their representatives to voice their opposition to this research. I urge you to call the members on these committees and tell them you do not support this idea. I urge you all to contact the environmental groups and NGOs that were involved in stopping this program in 2000, and let them know the fanatics are at it again. When Rohrabacher asked if anyone in the committee had heard of the mycoherbicide program, the answer was no. Please, let’s change that.
(cross-posted from Unbossed. Many thanks to the Unbossed team for their help!)
