A private member’s bill supporting mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food in Canada was selected randomly for debate in our House of Commons this month.
Bill C-517 went to second reading on April 3, and a second hour of parliamentary debate could take place in as early as two weeks, as per the House of Commons calendar. After a second debate, the House will be called upon to vote on the bill. If you are concerned about feeding your children genetically engineered foods, it’s important to make sure that a majority of Members of Parliament vote in favour of Bill C-517. If the Bill passes second reading, it will be returned for a third and final reading, followed by a vote by all of Canada’s 301 Members of Parliament.
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Why should we be concerned with Atrazine? It’s only a cheap but popular weed killer used largely by corn and sorghum farmers in the Midwest. Farmers love it because it’s well, cheap and works well. It destroys those little pests right quick. It also runs off the fields and into streams and rivers like nobodies business causing behavioral problems in fish and frogs as well as sexual abnormalities.
Atrazine levels have spiked since 2004 and analysis done by the group Syngenta Corp Protection has deemed these levels to be harmful to the ecosystems in the area. This article from the Washington Post states, “The federal government first approved atrazine in the 1950s, but it came under increased scrutiny in the late 1990s after Tyrone B. Hayes, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California at Berkeley, did a series of studies — first for chemical companies and then on his own — that indicated that tiny amounts of the pesticide de-masculinized tadpoles of African clawed frogs. The European Union declared it a harmful “endocrine disrupter” and banned it as of 2005, but the EPA decided to allow its continued use after determining that the agency lacked a standard test for measuring the hormone-disrupting effects of chemicals. ”
Readings on these areas are being done by Sygenta every four days per each individual site. Despite these findings and this discovery by The Washington Post is anything being done? If a tiny amount of these chemicals is considered this harmful to the frogs and fish in these watersheds why is that not enough? Does it have to reach levels where a cancer outbreak in humans occurs? Do children need to be born with abnormalities and a family sues the weedkiller company for something to be done? In 2004 the levels were 100 times over the limit of what is considered safe and when the problems began in the ecosystems. 100 times! Yet, it’s still going on. We are still just checking up on the situation, maintaining the status quo.
It makes me sick. The chemicals and toxins that we just dump into our water supply, the run-off of these pesticides and the way we pollute our world is maddening and it makes my head spin. We wonder why there is so much cancer in this world and yet we allow these types of things to continue all because it makes life in the short run a little easier. It is only in the long run and with hindsight that we see the error of our ways. Well, this isn’t hindsight. This is NOW. We have to step up and say enough is enough! There is a whole new generation to think of and teach. Just like that last three generations that should have gotten the message. We teach our children that Mr. Yuck means poison. Does that mean we start labeling our farms with Mr. Yuck stickers? Probably not. Perhaps this says it best, “What’s most disturbing about the information you’re talking about is all that EPA requires Syngenta to do is monitor Atrazine in a few key sites,” Hayes said. I guess that makes it all OK then. “Industry’s been allowed to have such a huge hand in the regulation of Atrazine.” Give Industry a hand folks. They are doing a kick-ass job.
Salmon Sprout Baby Trout in Experiment WTF? Are we really so far gone that we can’t find another, more natural way to preserve various fish species? Perhaps I’m being naive but the idea of tinkering with nature (hello GMO’s) so that we don’t have to change our ways disgusts me.
