Dear
Mr. President,
There’s the direct war on children—killing them with bullets bombs and missiles—and the indirect war—degrading the environment and social structure, keeping them poor, undereducated and unhealthy. Some weapons straddle both categories—they kill directly but they keep on killing. Weapons that contain depleted uranium—used in Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya—kill intended targets but also scrambles the DNA of survivors which causes cancers and a host of other problems for them and high rates of birth deformities and early death for their children. The chemical weapons Saddam Hussein used against the Iranians and Kurds and the atomic bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki also had this effect. Indirect war on children includes embargoes on other countries and here at home, cuts in child health care, food programs and education. But there’s another more subtle way we wage war on children—by genetically modifying and filling their food with a potent stew of additives and chemicals—pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and hormones. One study found more than 150 chemicals in the pollen and wax of beehives. In this morning’s NYT there’s an article on the mass deaths of honeybees and the link to a new pesticide, neonicotinoid, which those clever scientists at Bayer and Monsanto have embedded into their patented seeds so it becomes part of the plant’s structure. Neonicotinoids are now the most widely used pesticide in the world; it’s in everything from soybeans and sunflowers to sugar beets, corn and canola. When neonicotinoids began to be widely used around 2005 the rate of honeybee deaths jumped from 5-10% a year to 30%; it’s now 40-60%. That’s scary. No bees, no pollination, no food. With all the chemicals used on crops today it’s hard to sort out but hundreds of studies point to neonicotinoids. GMOs, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, the chemical companies are waging all-out war on the food we eat, the food our children eat, and the bees that make it all possible. Some countries have outlawed neonicotinoids, the European Food Safety Authority declared it an unacceptably high risk to bees and this month the EPA was sued for failing to adequately evaluate it but on Tuesday you signed the Monsanto Protection Act (written by Monsanto and added to the spending bill by Sen. Roy Blunt), which allows them to continue to sell, and farmers to plant, GMO crops, immune to lawsuits and regulation by the FDA. The war of self-annihilation rages on.
There’s the direct war on children—killing them with bullets bombs and missiles—and the indirect war—degrading the environment and social structure, keeping them poor, undereducated and unhealthy. Some weapons straddle both categories—they kill directly but they keep on killing. Weapons that contain depleted uranium—used in Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya—kill intended targets but also scrambles the DNA of survivors which causes cancers and a host of other problems for them and high rates of birth deformities and early death for their children. The chemical weapons Saddam Hussein used against the Iranians and Kurds and the atomic bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki also had this effect. Indirect war on children includes embargoes on other countries and here at home, cuts in child health care, food programs and education. But there’s another more subtle way we wage war on children—by genetically modifying and filling their food with a potent stew of additives and chemicals—pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and hormones. One study found more than 150 chemicals in the pollen and wax of beehives. In this morning’s NYT there’s an article on the mass deaths of honeybees and the link to a new pesticide, neonicotinoid, which those clever scientists at Bayer and Monsanto have embedded into their patented seeds so it becomes part of the plant’s structure. Neonicotinoids are now the most widely used pesticide in the world; it’s in everything from soybeans and sunflowers to sugar beets, corn and canola. When neonicotinoids began to be widely used around 2005 the rate of honeybee deaths jumped from 5-10% a year to 30%; it’s now 40-60%. That’s scary. No bees, no pollination, no food. With all the chemicals used on crops today it’s hard to sort out but hundreds of studies point to neonicotinoids. GMOs, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, the chemical companies are waging all-out war on the food we eat, the food our children eat, and the bees that make it all possible. Some countries have outlawed neonicotinoids, the European Food Safety Authority declared it an unacceptably high risk to bees and this month the EPA was sued for failing to adequately evaluate it but on Tuesday you signed the Monsanto Protection Act (written by Monsanto and added to the spending bill by Sen. Roy Blunt), which allows them to continue to sell, and farmers to plant, GMO crops, immune to lawsuits and regulation by the FDA. The war of self-annihilation rages on.
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