HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0385.118 2012-2014 Page 1 of 3
Murashige, Laura COUNTY CLERK
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From: Maika [suneaglefly @msn.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 03, 2013 10:50 AM 1013 SEP -3 12. ,4
To: counciltestimony @co.hawaii.hi.us
Subject: Testimony for Bill 109 -Vote Yes to Support
Hearing Date 9/4/13
To: Public Safety and Mass Transit" (PSMT)
Bill # 109
From: Michael Silveria
I Hereby submit my testimony and Vote yes in support to pass Bill 109.
Hawaii county upon the Island of Hawaii is a closed and sensitive ecological
environment. Whatever is introduced into our environment will eventually effect life
as we know it for many generations of children and grandchildren. Our
responsibility as caretakers of this Aina is now being faced with an unprecedented
and unknown threat to the long term health of our Island. GMO crops are an
experiment that cannot be considered safe by any research that does not include
stringent non-bias multigenerational testing in controlled environments and then in
nature. This has not happened. Instead of this rigorous scientific testing
,through a terminology called "substantially equivalent"the biotech industry in collusion
with the US government have convinced lawmakers that GMO foods are 'just about"the
same as crops developed by Mother Nature! This does not require a PHD to understand that
this is not true.
Arpad Pusztai, a highly respected molecular biologist and a world expert on plant lectins, was
one of the first scientists to raise concerns about the safety of genetically modified foods. In
the late 1990s, Pusztai conducted research on GM potatoes for the Rowett Institute in
Scotland. The potatoes were genetically altered to produce lectins, natural insecticides, to
protect them against aphids. Pusztai found that the potatoes damaged the animals'
gut, organs, and immune system. In 1998, Pusztai expressed his concerns about
GM foods on a British television program and was promptly suspended and forced
to retire from his job, ordered to hand over all his data, and threatened with legal
action if he spoke to anyone on the subject.
Dr. Pusztai's research was later peer reviewed and published in The Lancet, a leading British
medical journal. In 2005, he received the Whistleblower Award from the German Section of
the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) and theFederation of
German Scientists . In 2009, Pusztai and his wife received the Stuttgart peace prize.
Comm. No. 3 85-•
Ref.To: PIPSN yG
9/3/2013 Ref. Date SLY 0 4 L013
Page 2 of 3
From the Institute of Science in Society
Studies on the GM process have shown that the foreign gene inserts invariably damages the
genome, scrambling and rearranging DNA sequences, resulting in inappropriate gene
expression that can trigger cancer.
'It suggests that transgenic DNA can move around the genome with a range of
unpredictable effects, from disruption of normal functions to modification of
expressed products that become toxic agents to the generation of new strains of
bacteria and viruses,' Quist says. 'There are a lot of theoretical reasons to believe
that most of the transformation events are going to be ultimately unstable,
particularly as they have been put in another environment', adds GM specialist Dr
Michael Hansen from the US Consumers Union.
Expert Jeffrey M. Smith, author of the #1 GMO bestseller, Seeds of Deception, and Genetic
Roulette, links GMO to toxins, allergies, infertility, infant mortality, immune dysfunction,
stunted growth, and death. Whistleblowers who proved these scientific findings were fired,
threatened, and gagged, and warnings by FDA scientists were ignored.
The list below expresses why the use of GMO crops and the toxic pesticides that support
them have been allowed into our environment in the first place. If multinational corporations
can purchase our government policy by placing key personal in our government so they can
make profit from dangerous substance in our environment, then we can understand why we
must make Hawaii an example of placing human health and the health of our environment
over the potential for corporations to make monetary profit.
'The hope of the (biotech) industry is that over time the market is so flooded [with GMOs]
that there's nothing you can do about it, you just sort of surrender', say Don Westfall, vice-
president of Promar International, a consultant to the biotech and food industries in
Washington. We cannot stand idly by and allow this to happen.
Our governments and our Academic institutions have been hijacked so corporations can push
there agendas down our throats. Please do not be coerced into believing these GMO products
are safe. They are not.
A report by Food and Water Watch found that nearly 25 percent of research funding at land
grant universities now comes from corporations, compared to less than 15 percent from the
USDA. Although corporate funding of research surpassed USDA funding at these universities
in the mid-1990s, the gap is now larger than ever. What's more, a broader look at all
corporate agricultural research, $7.4 billion in 2006, dwarfs the mere $5.7 billion in all public
funding of agricultural research spent the same year. In 2005, nearly one third of
agricultural scientists reported consulting for private industry. Corporations endow
professorships and donate money to universities in return for having buildings, labs
and wings named for them.
Please vote for the safety of our food and our Aina by supporting Bill 109 and voting for
9/3/2013
Page 3 of 3
support of its passage.
Mahalo,
Michael Silveria
PO Box 1501
Kealakekua, Hawaii 96750
Partial List of TOXIC Pesticides used by the GM Seed
Industry in Hawaii
Accent,(Nicosulfuron, produced by DuPont, parent of Pioneer Seed)
Aquamaster, open (Roundup, Glyphosate, produced by Monsanto)
Atrazineherbicide, Triazine family (Syngenta)
Asana XL rice, soybean (Esfenvalerate, produced by DuPont)
Banvel herbicide, (dicamba, dimethylamine salt of dicamba)
Basagran, nutsedge/broadleaf, corn (sodium salt of Bentazon, also produced
by BASF)
Baythroid XL,Hoppers, earworm, corn (beta-cyfluthrin, restricted use pesticide,
extremely toxic to fish and aquatic invertebrates, produced by Bayer)
Bicep II Magnum, herbicide, weeds, corn (Metolachlor & Atrazine, Syngenta)
Buctril,herbicide (bromoxinil, Bayer),
Callisto,herbicide, nutsedge, corn (Mesotrione, Syngenta)
Carbaryl,insecticide (Sevin)
Dimethoate,insecticide
Dual II Magnum, herbicide, corn (S-metolachlor, produced by Syngenta)
Ignite 280SL + AMS, herbicide, corn, open (Glufosinate-ammonium, Bayer)
Lasso (alachlor, produced by Monsanto)
Laudis, herbicide broadleaf, corn (tembotrione, Bayer)
Liberty herbicide (glufosinate-ammonium, Bayer)
Lorsban advanced, cutworm, thrips, worms, corn (chlorpyrifos, Dow Chemical)
Oberon2SC, whiteflies, rice (Spiromesifen, Bayer)
Penncap-M, cutworms, corn (methyl parathion)
Permethrin, insecticide, leaf hoppers, corn (Pounce)
Phostoxin Pellets, insects, rice, soybean, corn (aluminum phosphide, restricted
use pesticide)
Princep, triazine herbicide (Simazine, Syngenta)
Prowl , herbicide (Pendimethalin, BASF)
Quadris, fungicide, rice, soybean (azoxystrobin, Syngenta)
Roundup Powermax, screening, open, corn (Monsanto)
Tilt, fungicide, blights, corn (Propiconazole, Syngenta)
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