We have been conditioned to fear many things, especially what is different from us. We are afraid of bugs, bacteria, and things that are scary, so we kill them. We have yet to make the connection that in killing other things we are also killing ourselves.
The environmental impact of agricultural chemicals alone is, to my mind, sufficient scientific and ethical argument for putting an end to their use. But agricultural chemicals such as pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, and their household counterparts are destroying more than soil and water.
Like many people, I am worried about our climate crisis. But in certain locations, you can imagine a future where global warming is not that bad. It might mean warm weather all the time, new beachfront properties, and growing citrus trees or coffee plants in Pennsylvania. And if you are truly honest with yourself, saving the polar bear might not make your top 10 list of things to do this year. It is heartbreaking to watch mother polar bears and their babies drowning because they can't swim far enough to reach ice or land. But it is so far away and feels so hard to address. Maybe you write a check and feel better, but that doesn't really change much.
Meanwhile, autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), diseases virtually unheard of a few decades ago, are now diagnosed regularly. Of every 100 children born today, one will be diagnosed with autism before the age of 8.1 About 4.4 million children between the ages of 4 and 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD. Rates of asthma, diabetes, and childhood obesity are at all-time highs and scientists can't explain why the number of children with food allergies has increased 18 percent in the last decade.2 Is it a coincidence that the prevalence of these problems has increased as we have increased the use of chemicals to grow our food?
Experts might claim that our reporting and diagnostic technologies are better than they used to be, which is probably true. But compared to other countries where the reporting is just as good (if not better), we in the United States spend far more on health care, but have dismal results. Our life expectancy is the shortest and our infant mortality rate is the highest of any developed nation.3 In many of the countries whose citizens have longer life spans than Americans do, a lot of the chemicals that we believe are necessary to grow food have already been banned.
On his way out of office, President George W. Bush halted the program that tests pesticide levels on fruits, vegetables, and field crops because the cost—$8 million a year—is “too expensive.”4 That's just one small example of where our priorities are when it comes to protecting our health and that of our children.
According to the Mount Sinai Medical Center Children's Environmental Health Center (CEHC) in New York City, more than 80,000 new chemical compounds have been introduced since World War II. Many of them are used in agriculture. There are 3,000 so-called high-production-volume chemicals, meaning that more than 1 million pounds of each are produced or imported in the United States each year. More than 2.5 billion tons of these chemicals are released into the environment in the United States alone each year. In addition, more than 4 billion pounds of pesticides are used annually in the United States—to kill everything from agricultural pests to inner-city cockroaches to microbes and bacteria in schools and hospitals. Traces of all of these chemicals can be detected in virtually each and every one of us. Yet only half of the compounds have been even minimally tested and less than 20 percent have been tested for their effects on fetal nervous systems. (What parent would agree to that sort of testing in the first place? And yet all of our children have already been exposed.) At least 75 percent of the manufactured chemical compounds that have been tested are known to cause cancer and are toxic to the human brain.5
“Failure to test chemicals for toxicity represents a grave lapse of stewardship,” says Philip Landrigan, MD, professor and chairman of the CEHC. “It reflects a combination of industry's unwillingness to take responsibility for the products they produce coupled with failure of the US government to require toxicity testing of chemicals in commerce.”
The Harvard-trained Landrigan is a pediatrician and epidemiologist who has dedicated his life to being a leader in public health and preventive medicine. He's worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and has published more than 500 scientific papers (as well as five books). A retired captain in the US Naval Reserve's Medical Corps, Dr. Landrigan chaired the National Academy of Sciences group whose research led to the passage of the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, which is the only environmental law with explicit provisions for the protection of children. You could not find a physician or activist who has been more committed to protecting children's health from environmental toxins. His pioneering research into the toxicity of lead at low levels was responsible for the federal mandate to remove lead from gasoline and paint. (Lead arsenate was also heavily used as an agricultural pesticide before the introduction of newer chemical compounds.) Dr. Landrigan has also worked hard with some success to get other chemicals banned from homes. These include organophosphates, which are toxic to the brain and nervous system and cause thousands of deaths from poisoning every year. Unfortunately, they are still commonly used as pesticides on farms today and residues are often tracked into homes.
A study published in 2009 in the journal Therapeutic Drug Monitoring documented the first definitive connection between the most common childhood cancer, a form of leukemia, and the very organophosphate pesticides that Dr. Landrigan has been trying to get banned.6
Dr. Landrigan is also concerned about the widespread use of antibiotics in raising animals for human consumption. The devastating practices employed in large-scale meat production have been the subject of entire books. Dr. Landrigan characterizes these facilities as “animal slums.” Animals raised in those conditions frequently suffer from stress-related infections, so they are routinely treated with antibiotics as a “preventive” measure. Even worse, antibiotics are fed to livestock to promote growth (since it's cheaper than using real food). The rampant use of antibiotics to treat all food animals (cattle, hogs, and poultry) in these slums is shortsighted and dangerous, as many doctors have attested. Even the FDA is calling for a ban.7 Could you imagine keeping your children on antibiotics full-time just to keep them “healthy”?
To feed our demand for cheap food, we have put ourselves and especially our children's lives at risk. According to an article in the Archives of Otolaryngology, there has been an “alarming” increase in drug-resistant infections in children—especially in the ears, sinuses, head, and throat (tonsils). In the period between 2001 and 2006, MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylo-coccus aureus) head and neck infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria in children have more than doubled—from 12 percent in 2001 to 28 percent in 2006.8 Dr. Landrigan attributes this increasing resistance to overuse of antibiotics in raising our food. When asked if he sees increased incidence of drug-resistant infections in his own practice in New York City, he replies that it is “all over the place” and it “worries the hell out of me.”
Dr. Landrigan has good reason to be worried. MRSA affects children and healthy adults. It had been confined to hospitals, but now you can catch MRSA at gyms, schools, day care centers, and military barracks. The Union of Concerned Scientists has repeatedly warned of a link between MRSA and the overuse of antibiotics on large hog farms. A peer-reviewed study in Applied and Environmental Microbiology confirmed that MRSA is found on almost half the pork and 20 percent of beef samples taken from a sampling of 30 supermarkets in Louisiana.9 The European Union, South Korea, and many other countries prohibit preventive use of antibiotics in the factories where animals are raised for meat.10 Not in the United States. In fact, farmers can just go to their local farm stores to buy a 50-pound bag of antibiotics—without a prescription.11
In response to the spiraling rise of bacterial and viral infections, many concerned parents, hospitals, and schools have begun indiscriminately using antibacterial products. But those very products are part of the problem. Think of it this way: You and your kids are washing your hands in pesticides. The EPA recently allowed triclosan, the predominant antibacterial agent used in products from shampoo to water bottles to crib liners, to be re-registered (chemicals need to go through a periodic re-registration process in which all of their risks are reviewed), even though the EPA acknowledges that triclosan interacts with androgen and estrogen receptors and affects the thyroid gland in rats. The EPA acknowledges that triclosan is linked to antibiotic resistance, and that it is showing up in fish and drinking water. The EPA doesn't have to look at triclosan again until 2013.12
The Endocrine Society was founded in 1916 to research the role of hormones on our health. It recently released a major report to raise concern about the effects of chemicals, including the organochlorinated pesticides, on our health. “In this first Scientific Statement of The Endocrine Society, we present the evidence that endocrine disrupters have effects on male and female reproduction, breast development and cancer, prostate cancer, neuroendocrinology, thyroid, metabolism and obesity, and cardiovascular endocrinology. Results from animal models, human clinical observations, and epidemiological studies converge to implicate EDCs [endocrine-disrupting chemicals] as a significant concern to public health.”13 The Endocrine Society also validated what is known as the low-dose or inverse dose response factor, which means that any dose—even small ones—have the potential to do major damage. The statement also called attention to the direct link that the Agricultural Health Study has found between increased prostate cancer rates, methyl bromide (a fungicide used heavily on strawberries, among other crops), and many pesticides.
While “endocrine” seems like a fairly non threatening term, there is one endocrine disease we are all familiar with: diabetes. Endocrine disrupters include the organophosphate pesticides, atrazine, bisphenol A, lead, mercury, and many other common chemicals we ingest daily—though we don't intend to.
Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen has a hypothesis about autism that's called “the extreme male theory,” which theorizes that a hormonal imbalance leads to “overmasculinization” of a child's brain. Harvey Karp, MD, a world-renowned pediatrician, recently proposed that exposure to endocrine disrupters might be the cause.14
Diabetes and autism are both increasing to epidemic proportions. Until recently, synthetic chemicals have escaped blame.
What about cancer? Despite investing billions and billions of dollars in research money, cancer death rates have remained fairly flat since the 1950s.15 Two well-researched books, The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Devra Davis, PhD, and The Politics of Cancer Revisited by Samuel S. Epstein, MD, reveal that experts have known since the 1930s about the connection between environmental toxins, hormones, and cancer. And yet, as Dr. Davis documents in her book, the companies that fund lobbying groups have actively suppressed information, infiltrated and run the charitable organizations that are supposed to cure them, and invested in huge advertising campaigns to create a public sense of confidence in the very companies that are withholding and perverting the truth.
“In America and England, one out of every two men and one out of every three women will develop cancer in their lifetime,” Dr. Davis writes. “Cancer is the leading killer of middle-aged persons, and, after accidents, the second-leading killer of children.”16 Both she and Dr. Epstein list as irrefutable causes of cancer pesticides, including atrazine and arsenic; hormones, including artificial growth hormones that are used on animals; and the thousands of chemicals (and plastics) that are hormone disrupters. It's truly an outrage that our government has not done more to prevent the use of these known carcinogens. But, as I will show you in greater detail, researchers in our hospitals and universities are often funded by the companies who produce the chemicals being studied. The research, unless clearly supportive of the funders and their products, is often suppressed or simply ignored.
Over the years, the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) has established a definitive link between pesticides and Parkinson's disease, certain cancers and diabetes.17 The following excerpt from the study findings, as reported in the National Institutes of Health newsletter, shows just how much we already know about the toxic effects of pesticides, and just how little we are really doing about it. (The emphasis on phrases below is my own.)
Research involving pesticide applicators in the AHS shows that exposure to some agricultural chemicals may increase the risk of diabetes, confirming the findings from earlier studies.
The study found a link between diabetes and seven pesticides: aldrin, chlordane, heptachlor, dichlorvos, trichlorfon, alachlor and cyanazine. The strongest association with the disease was found for trichlorfon, although the number of applicators with heavy use was small.
Scientists with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) analyzed data from nearly 1,200 participants in North Carolina and Iowa who developed diabetes after they enrolled in the long-term AHS study.
“The burden of diabetes is increasing around the world,” said Dr. Dale Sandler, who oversaw the research at NIEHS. “We hope what we've found will inspire other scientists to pursue additional studies on this important issue.”
Although three of the insecticides studied—chlordane, aldrin, and heptachlor—are no longer on the market, measurable levels of these and other pollutants are still detectable in the general population and in food products. These chemicals are organochlorines, as is dioxin, which has been shown to increase the risk of diabetes among Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange.
Participants who had used the herbicides alachlor and cyanazine had a higher risk for developing diabetes, particularly those participants who had used these chemicals repeatedly over their lifetime.
“Because few studies have looked at the association between herbicides and diabetes, more research is needed to confirm these findings,” Dr. Sandler said.
As in other studies, AHS results confirmed the known link between obesity and diabetes. In fact, the strongest associations were found among overweight and obese participants. This may be because people with more body fat are more likely to store high levels of pollutants than people who are lean.”18
This story also illustrates the classic technique of delay and doubt: the perpetual need for “more research,” even though this study confirms other earlier studies. Our government pays for research and then doesn't act on it. Continuing to do scientific research is essential. But not acting on it is dangerous.
There is more disturbing news from the halls of research labs around the world. Researchers are starting to see extremely disturbing trends in fertility rates, gender, and general resilience of certain species (including ours).
It started with frogs and alligators. Why are alligators’ penises shrinking? Why are boy toads turning into girl toads? Why are fireflies disappearing from the summer night skies?19 What's the cause of what has been called colony collapse disorder, which has been causing honeybees to disappear? Why are bats succumbing to the mysterious white-nose disease? Perhaps you wouldn't care if all the bees and bats died—after all, bees can be a pain during summer picnics and bats can be scary. But aside from the fact that these animals are essential to our survival on this planet, they are also indicators of the viability of life for us. They are our canaries in the coal mine.
Already we are seeing these indicators infiltrate our own species. Genital deformities in human males are on the rise, as are sperm abnormalities and testicular cancers. And girls are experiencing an earlier onset of puberty and problems that lead to infertility and cancer later in life.20
Warren Porter, PhD, a zoology and environmental toxicology professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, points to recent scientific findings and concludes that not only are we threatening our own and our children's fertility, but low-level exposures could also pose threats to our immune, hormonal, and neurological systems and especially our developmental processes. These functional changes may be the result of alterations in the regulation and expression of our genes (DNA). What's really scary is that the genetic expression changes may be becoming heritable.21 Chemicals that have already caused genetic expression changes in rats include vinclozolin, a common fungicide used on grapes, and bisphenol A, found in plastic baby bottles and toys. There is no guarantee that, if environmental chemicals can induce such changes and make them heritable in humans, even if we stop using the chemicals right now, we could return our DNA to a healthy, normal state.
Dr. Porter is no stranger to the chemical companies or the EPA. Many years ago, despite threats from chemical companies, he and his colleagues published a study showing that aldicarb (an N-methyl carbamate), an insecticide commonly applied to citrus, cotton, potatoes, and watermelon crops and added to irrigation water, is a powerful immune suppressant. That means it reduces your body's ability to fight off disease. The greatest effects were at the lowest doses (1 part per billion), 100 times lower than the EPA's safety standard.22 Rather than remove aldicarb from the market as a result of that study, the EPA ceased funding Dr. Porter's research. Aldicarb is still used heavily today. In fact, it was the chemical that in 1984 caused the disaster at Bhopal, India, killing thousands of Indians instantly and leaving more than 100,000 chronically ill, deformed, and in pain. (Check out http://bhopal.org for the full horror story.) But you don't need a manufacturing plant explosion to cause damage. Scientists, including Dr. Porter and Dr. Landrigan, are all seeing the inverse dose response to many chemicals—from aldicarb to lead. They have found that in some cases smaller doses actually do more harm than larger doses.23 This flies in the face of all the government standards that set “allowable safe limits” to chemical exposures. In a scientific paper published in 2003, Wayne Welshons and colleagues demonstrated that at low concentrations of estrogen-mimicking chemicals, the EPA model for assessing biological effects underestimated those effects by a factor of 10,000!24 There are no safe limits, no matter how small. As Dr. Landrigan says about lead, “the biggest bang for the buck still occurs at the lowest doses.”
Larger doses, of course, cause death.
In 2002, Porter and colleagues published a paper showing that a weed killer commonly used on lawns that includes 2,4-D caused abortions and absorption of fetuses. A representative from a chemical company that sells this product approached a dean at his university and demanded that the paper be retracted. The dean replied that the peer-review process would settle any concerns and, thankfully, responsible scientific process prevailed since there was no credible scientific evidence presented to counter the data in their paper. Yet products that contain 2,4-D remain the most commonly used herbicides in the world today, with more than 46 million pounds applied in the United States every year.25 Once again, just because a toxic chemical is scientifically proven to be harmful doesn't guarantee that our government will respond in a way that protects us.
Porter's 1999 study shows how atrazine and nitrates in drinking water can alter the aggression levels, thyroid hormone levels, and immune systems of mice. It's not good. Many studies have shown that atrazine, one of the herbicides most commonly used in the United States, is an endocrine disruptor, which has demasculinized frogs, caused mutations in the frogs’ testes and ovaries, diminished their essential ability to call for a mate, damaged sperm quality in frogs and possibly humans, and contaminated groundwater.26 The European Union banned atrazine in 2003, yet more than 76 million pounds are applied in the United States each year. In 2006, the EPA issued a statement declaring that the use of atrazine posed no threat to the US population, including children and infants.27 It based this conclusion on the results of a few studies done by Syngenta, the maker of atrazine. Although Syngenta is a Swiss company, it has a very large US business. (In 2005, the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit advocacy group, sued the EPA over what it called “backroom deals with pesticide makers” like Syngenta.28) When you look up atrazine on the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water section of the EPA's Web site, it attributes these health effects to short-term exposure to it: “congestion of heart, lungs and kidneys; low blood pressure; muscle spasms; weight loss; damage to adrenal glands.” Long-term exposure can cause cancer. Thousands of wells in America are contaminated with atrazine.29
Atrazine is banned in Switzerland, which is where Syngenta is based.
Fortunately, the EPA—under new leadership—has agreed to review the safety of atrazine.30 The USDA has stated that banning atrazine would reduce crop production by 1 percent.31
Before we move on from the topic of chemicals and their devastating effects on our health, there is one more chemical—or, rather, combination of chemicals—we need to discuss. Its brand name is Roundup.
Roundup is the most widely used weed killer in America, thanks to the intensive efforts of its manufacturer, Monsanto, to market it. Weeds are both a real problem for farmers and an aesthetic one. In the fields, weeds compete for energy with crops, but a weedy field also looks messy (which, believe it or not, truly matters to a lot of farmers). There are many organic solutions for weed control, including the planting of cover crops, mulches, burning, and good old manual labor, but the easiest way to get rid of weeds is to spray them with Roundup. Roundup is a broad-spectrum herbicide—which means that it kills many plants, including crops. For decades, farmers used Roundup to clear the fields of weeds before planting, then as a spot herbicide thereafter (relying more on tilling the soil to control weeds than on spraying). Monsanto then developed corn and soybean seeds altered into genetically modified organisms (GMOs)32 to resist being killed by applications of Roundup. Since 1998,33 when “Roundup Ready” GMO seeds were first introduced, growth has been both controversial and fast. Currently, 91 percent of all soybeans, 85 percent of all corn, and 88 percent of all cotton in the United States are grown from GMO seeds.34
These plants are exposed to heavy applications of the herbicide and survive—all the way to our tables. Like many of the toxic chemicals I write about in this book, Roundup is used by home owners, too. You'll see commercials for Roundup on television during spring and summer sporting events, being promoted as the manly way to get rid of weeds (no squatting required). There are other herbicides with the same active ingredient.35 It's used on farms, golf courses, home lawns, roadway berms, and railway corridors. Hunters use it in the woods and city dwellers use it in sidewalk cracks.
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, which also contains surfactants and nonionic (fat-soluble) solvents. Glyphosate has always been promoted as being fairly inert. And surfactants are purportedly no big deal—they are just the means for helping the glyphosate stick to the plants. I can't tell you how many farmers, foresters, hunters, and gardeners I have talked to who have said, “Yeah, Roundup is totally safe. It breaks down after a few months and we've been told it's no problem.” Well, the scientific literature says that that is not true.36 And because the surfactant is considered inert, the manufacturer doesn't have to tell you what's in it.37
But the surfactant allows Roundup to get inside the plants that we eat. You can't wash off the contaminants. Roundup is “in the plant, not just on the plant,” Dr. Porter explains. “Fat-soluble chemicals [in Roundup] have the master entry key into the plant and into our bodies, because every cell in our body is a fatty membrane. So anything that is fat soluble can cross the blood-brain barrier and also the placental barrier. Fat-soluble chemicals are the nonionic solvents in these chemical mixtures. In order for any kind of pesticide to have a biological effect on a plant, it's got to get inside a cell to kill it.
“Before Roundup Ready soybeans were on the market,” he continues, “the tolerance for Roundup was 3 ppm [parts per million]. Soybean seeds were meeting that requirement, since farmers were not using excessive amounts of Roundup on their crops. Once the Roundup Ready soybeans showed up at the marketplace, they had concentrations up to 20 ppm, indicating that farmers upped the application rate since it wouldn't kill the plants. So Monsanto went to the EPA and asked to have the tolerance raised. Otherwise, the soybeans could not be sold. The tolerance was raised not only in the US, but in Australia and other countries where substantial amounts of the Roundup Ready soybeans were being grown. (But not in the European Union, which has still banned GMOs) This is why genetically modified crops will have higher concentrations of pesticides in them.”
You might be thinking this isn't such a big deal if you don't eat that much soy anyway. Just the occasional edamame serving or soy milk in your latte, right? Wrong. Soy is in everything, from Crisco to infant formula, nondairy creamers to vegetable oil, ketchup to crackers, crayons (!) to veggie burgers and vegan cheese. So if you are a vegan or vegetarian who is not eating primarily organic foods, you and your family could be eating a lot of contaminated GMO foods. And, thanks to our government, none of those products need to be labeled as containing GMOs. (But given the extent of their usage by farmers, you can pretty much assume they are in everything not labeled organic or non-GMO.)
Just to be clear: According to Dr. Porter, GMO foods might contain higher levels of chemicals inside of them than organic foods.
And they're getting inside of us.
Fortunately, some people are brave enough to keep an eye out for us. A recent report by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine has called for an immediate “moratorium on genetically modified food.” The organization, made up of doctors and other professionals interested in the “clinical aspects of humans and their environment,” has stated that “several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system. There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation. . . . Also, because of the mounting data, it is biologically plausible for Genetically Modified Foods to cause adverse health effects in humans.”38
The group's goal is to alert and educate doctors, who are likely noticing increases in strange symptoms and perhaps not understanding that the food people eat every day might be causing them.
What is wrong with us? Why do we seem to care so little about our own safety, our own health, and the future of our children? Why are we willing to pay thousands of dollars for in vitro fertility treatments when we can't conceive, but not a few extra dollars for the organic foods that might help to preserve the reproductive health of our own and future generations?
Newspaper editorials and TV programs question whether or not organic foods are healthier for us or worth the extra cost, yet they ignore the growing concerns of doctors and scientists about the long-term impact of consuming foods treated with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Whether or not organic foods are more nutritious (some studies have shown they are, some have shown they aren't) isn't the most important point.
The most important point is that growing scientific evidence suggests that the toxic chemicals we are using to grow food are destroying us.
Plant nutrition is a reflection of the ongoing degradation of our soil quality, seeds, and farming methods. The USDA and scientists elsewhere have been measuring the nutritional value of different foods for more than 50 years and have found significant nutrient declines in all crops in all regions over the past several decades.39 Scientists disagree on why this is happening, suggesting everything from inconsistent methods of measurement to agribusiness's relentless quest for higher yields, but the USDA to date has shown a shocking lack of interest in the problem. And government funding for nutritional research is microscopic compared to funding for other types of research.
Here is what we do know: Plants, animals, and people have immune systems. When we are in a natural environment and take good care of ourselves—eat right, exercise, sleep well, use basic hygiene techniques, feel loved and cared for, and actively take part in our communities—our immune systems are typically healthy and strong. Constant exposure to natural pests taps into our inner resilience and makes us stronger, enabling us to develop antibodies to fight external threats. But when we try to sterilize our environment (or the other extreme, let it be truly dirty) or try to exterminate a weed, an insect, or a disease, nature fights back just as we would, launching even stronger attacks. The result is viruses, diseases, and superpests that become resistant to pesticides. The more we try to isolate ourselves and control nature, the weaker and more vulnerable we become.
As Bill Miller, MD, chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the Lehigh Valley Health Network in Allentown, Pennsylvania, has observed, as a rule we are “overfed and under-germed.”
There is so much more we can study to help illuminate the problems with chemicals. But there is enough evidence to know now that synthetic chemicals are destroying our health and our ability to reproduce and, thus, our ability to survive as a species. Agricultural chemicals have statistically and significantly been implicated in causing all sorts of cancers, behavioral problems, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism, Parkinson's disease, reduced intelligence, infertility, miscarriage, diabetes, infant deformities, and low birth weight. And with endocrine disruptions come genital deformities, early puberty, gender “issues,” and, again, diabetes and cancer. But all this research comes from the few scientists courageous enough to swim against the tide, to resist the easy funding offered by chemical and pharmaceutical companies and the pressure of their peers who rely on that funding.
We are allowing a few major global corporations, in collusion with our government, to poison us along with the bugs, the fungi, the weeds, and the increasingly common crop diseases. While these products are advertised as ways to control nature and our environment, we are in fact more out of control and vulnerable than ever. In our efforts to exterminate weeds, bacteria, fungi, insects, and diseases we may also be exterminating ourselves.
I am not accusing these companies of willfully exterminating the entire human race. That would be genocide. Although, as you will see in Part 2 of this book, many chemical companies are no strangers to the concept of genocide.
Much as tobacco companies suppressed information and test results that showed how deadly their products were, much as they lobbied and advertised intensively to defend their right to sell products that would kill people, the chemical companies have worked hard to quash research that suggests their products are harmful. And part of their defense has been a major advertising and lobbying push that insists we simply cannot survive without their products, without GMOs, without chemicals. We can't feed the world without synthetic-chemical farming, they tell us.
The bad news is that China, the land that has brought us tainted toys and melamine in baby formula, is just getting on the GMO bandwagon.40
From the beginning of time, we've had a love/hate relationship with nature. On one hand, nature is the source of all abundance and the resources that allow us to live and thrive—all our food, our shelter, and our enjoyment. On the other hand, nature can be brutal and cruel—earthquakes, floods, droughts, and fires have often come without warning or reason. Without protection, we are vulnerable and fearful. As a species, we remember starvation, famine, and plagues and don't want those things to happen again.
What is the antidote to fear? Control. Our use of chemicals to help us grow food stems from the primal desire to control nature and plays into our fear that we won't have enough or be safe until we control nature.
Yet, it's very obvious that we will never be able to control nature. We may be able to understand it and work with it, but the universe is much larger and more powerful than any one of us or even all of us can be. The sad truth is that we are just a small blip on the surface of time, a ripple on the ocean of life. None of which has stopped us from trying to control nature, or from trying to make ourselves immortal. (And it turns out that trying to control nature can be a very lucrative business.)
We need to begin looking at nature and this land and the soil as our allies rather than our enemies. We need to be courageous enough to change the economic and political models that reward destruction. Each and every one of us needs to be willing to take action.
The results of this great chemical experiment are in and the findings are clear, yet they have been withheld, intentionally buried or, even worse, simply ignored.
Eliminating chemicals one at a time will never make a big enough difference. The chemical industry is adept at changing names and formulas just enough to placate government regulators. By seemingly eliminating known toxins like DDT, Alar (daminozide), and lead, we are lulled into an illusion of safety. But it is an illusion. There is only one way to ensure our safety:
We must stop poisoning ourselves now. We must remove chemicals from the process of growing, harvesting, and preserving food.
I believe it's possible to make this essential change. When you see what it's like to be a chemical farmer these days, and just how and why we ended up in this horrible situation, you will understand that it's our moral and ethical duty to change. And the possibility for success is backed by science, government studies, and frankly, common sense.
We must demand organic; and we must do it now.