Monsanto Douses Colombia

Here's a proven formula for human disaster: Take one part avarice from the Monsanto corporation, add one part arrogance from federal officials, mix, spray on a small foreign country, then cover up the mess with official secrecy.

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Subject:   Monsanto Douses Colombia...............
 Date:      Wed, 8 Aug 2001 08:12:56 -0400
From:        Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:     Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)

To:     Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
          Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation 

cc:    Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov

Dear Mr. Helliker,  I thought you might like to read the following article entitled: Monsanto Douses Colombia by Jim Hightower, AlterNet dated July 17, 2001.

Here's a proven formula for human disaster: Take one part avarice from the Monsanto corporation, add one part arrogance from federal officials, mix, spray on a small foreign country, then cover up the mess with official secrecy.

This is the formula used in Vietnam, where Pentagon officials liberally doused the countryside (and people) with a monsoon of Monsanto's toxic defoliant, Agent Orange. At the time, corporate and government officials both claimed that while this stuff would strip a jungle's foliage bare, it posed no health threat to humans. They lied -- as we learned after 50,000 birth defects, hundreds of thousands of cancers, and untold numbers of deaths from Agent Orange exposure.

Now, Monsanto and our government are applying their disastrous formula to Colombia, where hundreds of thousands of gallons of Monsanto's toxic herbicide, Roundup, are being sprayed on the jungles and the people.  Once again, our government claims that while this stuff will decimate a field of coca (from which cocaine is made), it poses no risk to humans. And, once again, they're lying.

Indeed, as reported by CorpWatch in the online news service, AlterNet, Monsanto's own label warns that Roundup is a deadly threat to plants, pets, people, and all other living things. Plus, the Roundup being sprayed in Colombia is supercharged, creating toxic exposure 100 times higher than allowed in the U.S. Not to worry, say the officials, for our satellite-directed planes are so precise that only the coca plants are getting sprayed. Yet the people who live there testify that their villages, water supplies, vegetable crops, and even school yards are routinely drenched, widespread sickness.

This is Jim Hightower saying ... The official Monsanto-Government lie was embarrassingly exposed last December when Senator Paul Wellstone was taken to Colombia to witness the pinpoint accuracy of our spraying.  Standing well away from the coca field, the senator was drenched in Roundup on the very first flyover. Oops.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11175

Well Mr. Helliker, Mark Twain once noted: "Get your facts first, then you can distort them as much as you please."  Once again we see that your "registered" POISONS are again contaminating and harming non-target species and the "officials" are again distorting the facts and are clearly lying.  All of this needless suffering and destruction because of avarice and arrogance.  When will it be "legal" (in your opinion) to use safe and far more effective (unregistered) alternatives to actually control pest problems?  Please Protect the People and not the POISON "industry" Profits!

Respectfully,  Stephen L. Tvedten

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