Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Corn Resistant and Roundup




This is an email from SumOfUs.org.

SumOfUs is a world-wide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy. You can follow them on Twitter, and like them on Facebook.


In only one day, the USDA will decide whether to allow Dow to introduce corn resistant to one half of the chemical mixture Agent Orange into our food supply. Widescale use of Roundup has led to a new generation of resistant weeds, and the next step in the pesticide arms race is 2,4-D -- a chemical linked to cancer, Parkinson's and reproductive problems. 

Farmers that sign up to use genetically-engineered 2,4-D-resistant corn will be required to spray down their fields with both 2,4-D and Roundup, double-dosing our food, our soil and our waterways with the toxins. Some experts estimate this will increase the use of 2,4-D 50-fold, even though the EPA says the chemical is already our seventh-largest source of dioxins -- nasty, highly toxic chemicals that bioaccumulate as they move up the food chain and cause cancer, developmental damage, and birth defects.

We can stop this. The use of 2,4-D is banned entirely in parts of Canada and Europe. Already, nearly 100,000 SumOfUs.org members have signed our comments to the US Department of Agriculture, demanding they not to approve Dow's new 2,4-D- resistant corn. If approved, it could lead to widespread industrial use of the toxic herbicide.


This is part of a growing problem, an escalating herbicide war going on across America’s heartland. From 1996 to 2008, herbicide usage increased by 383 million pounds. Nearly half of this took place between 2007 and 2008 after the introduction of another strain of herbicide-resistant plant pushed by Dow. Like Roundup before it, 2,4-D is only a temporary solution that will require more and more tons of toxins and more and more potent chemicals leaching into our food supply.

2,4-D is nasty stuff and has been linked to a number of health problems, such as tripling the rates of non-Hodgkins lymphoma in Nebraska farmworkers exposed to it and causing reproductive problems -- birth defects and high rates of miscarriage -- in both mice and men exposed to it in the lab and field.


-Kaytee, Claiborne Taren and the rest of the team

Citations and further reading:


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4 comments:

  1. Signed!

    Thanks for your action, Kristy.

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  2. Hey Kristy! Looking good over there!! I'm finishing up LiveFit trianer this week and I don't have the results I wanted. The example I like to give people is when I workout my muscles pop when I'm not they go back to being this string bean arm. Any advice?

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    Replies
    1. Hi Heather, I am not familiar with LiveFit trainer, but o me it sounds like you get a "ump" in your arms so they look full and cut after training them only. I am guessing you are doing many reps with light weight, so they become engoreged with blood, and the actual muscle development is lacking. I always recommend heavy weights and as many reps as possible with good form. Train them twice a week too. Arms could be in the 10 to 12 rep range depending on muscle being trained. Are your weights heavy or light and what rep range are ou using?

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