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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0385.204 2012-2014 Page 1 of 1 COUNTY CLERK Murashige, Laura COUNT V ' Y " A1! From: Shannon Rudolph [shannonkona @gmail.com] 2013 SEP 10 AN II: 16 Sent: Friday, September 06, 2013 10:07 AM To: undisclosed-recipients: Subject: Kaua'i - EPA's first major cases involving genetically-modified organisms Aloha Council! Passing this on... Mahalo, Shannon Rudolph - Kona In EPA's first major cases involving genetically-modified organisms, Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. and Dow AgroSciences paid fines totaling nearly $20,000 for failing to comply with EPA's experimental use permits governing the testing of genetically modified corn. As part of its settlement, Pioneer was required to test its biotech corn plot in Kauai, Hawaii, and report its findings to assure that an experimental gene grown in the corn had not been transferred to adjacent seed corn fields. During testing, the company paid a fine of $72,000 for failing to immediately notify EPA of test results that initially indicated the experimental gene may have spread to seeds grown nearby. Follow-up testing indicated that the initial results were either false or attributable to an unrelated field test regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. EPA regulates biopesticides under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). http://www.epa.gov/region9//annualreport/04/compliance.html How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. Anne Frank Comm. No. 3$S. �d Ref. To: Pi/o•sAf 7G Ref. Date SEP 2 3 ZU13 9/10/2013 Page 1 of 5 Murashige, Laura COUNTY CLERK (' 14 From: Shannon Rudolph [shannonkona @gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, September 07, 2013 10:40 AM 243E43 ��� 6 To: undisclosed-recipients: Subject: ***Larry Schneider. M.D. - Kilauea, HI Aloha Council! Passing this on... Mahalo, Shannon Rudolph - Kona THE PESTICIDE GMO PARADIGM, THE PERFECT BUSINESS MODEL Larry Schneider. M.D. Kilauea, HI Why are the chemical companies fighting so hard against Bill 2491 on the idyllic island of Kauai? DISCLOSURE The chemical companies cannot disclose. They are mandated to know the literature, scour the globe for publications, and know information that is relative to adverse effects of their chemicals. They know what everyone else in the world knows, except one major group, their employees. Beyond this though, all of the companies have internal documents for all the things you would expect them to have collected over the years. This includes accidental spillage, accidental spraying and the workers who get sick too. They have documentation of every complaint by a neighbor, person in the community who file a complaint for illness due to contact with their chemicals. But they still tell their employees that the workplace is a safe environment. They bring in consultants to meet and speak with the workforce. The employees become their biggest supporters. While they seduce their own workforce, they have in their possession, documents and publications indicating the health risk of pesticides. Those at highest risk are their employees, the workers who are field employees as spray applicators. Even the EPA, which is slow to react to the health risks, has sent letters to the manufacturers of chemicals that they are concerned that many chemicals, including pesticides have detrimental effects at very low doses. The EPA sent the companies' letters warning them of their concern, asking them to respond to those concerns. After hearing all the submitted manufacturer feedback the EPA created a regulation that was published June 14, 2013 telling the entire world that there is a justifiable concern about low dose effects of chemicals that work by interfering with normally occurring hormones in humans and wildlife, a phenomenon known as endocrine disruption. The chemicals the EPA will screen were chosen because they occur in drinking water where significant populations may be exposed. This effect, of interfering with the hormonal system is a huge problem in disease creation and formation of birth defects. Yet the companies continue to tell their employees, who believe their bosses that the chemicals are safe and the world is wrong. Thus the disclosure, which seems like a no brainer to the rest of the world, becomes the company's biggest fear. The fear becomes reality when the awareness of their workforce increases as they manifest the diseases. This will transform the supportive workforce to a furious collection of 9/10/2013 Page 2 of 5 workers who have been lied to for years and now are dying, sick or passing terrible diseases to their kids and their children's' children. THE IMPERFECT STORM The agrichemical companies have a perfect situation to create a scenario with freedom to operate without scrutiny. Their purpose in Kauai is to use the land and resources as a laboratory to experiment with genetically engineered crops and pesticides. They test and produce new chemicals and seeds. They talk about farming and feeding the world. But in reality there is no food produced on Kauai to taste. Every large project in history that could have catastrophic outcomes is tested in a region of isolation. in case things go really bad. Nuclear weaponry was tested in tiny pacific atolls and remote deserts of the mainland. Doesn't it make more sense to create seeds and food for the mainland, in the mainland in the same soil, climate and conditions? Logistically, those test sites in the same regions have similar conditions. They can get the products easily and simply to the local populace and the animals that they feed. That concept makes more sense. Instead they put their test sites next to precious ecosystems surrounded by beautiful waters. If the experiment goes haywire and creates catastrophic effects on the adjacent crops, plants, land, animals and humans, the damage is contained by the size and its remote location as an island in the Pacific. The companies also have ideal weather, unlimited water, fertile soil, and a small controllable population. More important they have a government they feel they can manipulate, coerce and control. Business wise, this is brilliant strategy. Damage and losses can be contained and isolated to Kauai. Imagine instead if this test was run in Iowa and there were a doomsday moment. It could spread throughout the Western Hemisphere, uncontrolled. The ability to operate without scrutiny is purposely designed into their corporate experimental policy and possible because the segregation of agencies with individualized enforcement policies in the government that regulate this new HYBRID industry. Our government is forthright in their desire to encourage and help companies develop new science. This industry is able to slip through the cracks as long as it does not take the products developed to market as food. The Hawaii Department of Agriculture and The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulate the initial phase that gives permission and describes specific obligations to individuals and companies for the right to start tests involving planting and chemicals to be used in this experimentation. When given an application to start an experiment, it is reviewed and an Experimental Use Permit (EUP) is issued. The data submitted in the application process includes preliminary testing that indicates safety in the test protocol and purpose of the initial study. It does not have any knowledge or content about the safety of the products developed in the future, neither in the short term nor in the long term. Knowledge of the safety of an undeveloped product cannot be given at the time of experimental protocol design. This is a complete unknown. During the course of experimentation, the experimenters must keep documentation and report any and all adverse events, their evaluations, remedies used to deal with the events and the outcomes. In the use of pesticides, this utilizes evaluations of the health of people, soil, air, land, plants, animals and water. No one outside of the companies and the regulatory agencies has knowledge of the experimental protocols specifics. If they hoard this information and keep it undisclosed, no independent organizations 9/10/2013 Page 3 of 5 can ever study the studies. Therefore, if the experimenter fails to gather and or disclose, no bad information is ever known about the on goings in these crop fields and the adjacent properties. If nothing is known, it makes it easier to proclaim to the world that your concepts are safe and that no bad data is available in the literature. The EPA and state are forthright in their declarations that they do an inadequate job of on site inspections and oversight. They depend on ethical experimenters to interact with them to discuss and evaluate problems. The FDA does not scrutinize them until the foods go to market. As long as they don't sell the product as food, they hide beneath the FDA radar. The golden ticket these companies have is: 1) they do not disclose, and 2) they are protected by law via the Senate Bill 940, section 735, the so called" "Monsanto Protection Act". It gets even better. The companies are proud to say that the data is inadequate in terms of health risks for genetically engineered foods. How can they say this? It is easy. One reason is that the genetic engineers do not publish many papers that say their work is bad. That would be bad for job security. Their employers would frown upon this concept. If they were employed at Universities, the corporate grants would disappear. So it just does not happen. The health care profession has a hard time studying the adverse health effects of their products and/or exposure to their chemicals. This is in large part because the companies do not share this information. How do you study the effect of complete unknowns when they come into the hospital? They ability to keep health care people from publishing data is further aided by their creation of new patentable products. This also helps them to stay competitive in the market place. Every couple of years the patents are tweaked so that they have a constant source of"new innovative products" and they keep filling the pipeline with new genetic splices into new products. This is primarily for economic reasons, but an enormous secondary gain is that is makes product liability risks virtually zero. In human disease it is very difficult to isolate one variable. Our life styles are so varied and complex, it is impossible to keep a large group of people in identical situations and for study purposes being able to change only one variable, that being one particular food that they consume. That is why a lot of the studies involve animals, which can have a controlled environment in a cage. The experiment can keep everything the same and just alter the feed in the experimental groups. This compiles "cleaner" data. Human studies require much more time to get adequate confidence that one particular food creates disease. But if you where running a company to maximize profit and minimize risks, I would suggest the following: 1) Keep information secret, 2) Do not disclose anything as long as no one can file suit, 3) Take advantage of the reality that the EPA and Hawaii Department of Agricultural will not independently show up much, if at all, until they are made aware of problems, 4) Disclose no problems, and keep lobbying the government to stay immune from litigation and make sure you can continue running a covert secrecy filled business to provide another layer of protection to the corporate financial summary, 5) Change one variable in genetically engineered food every 2-3 years. By the time 9/10/2013 Page 4 of 5 anybody discovers any problems with yesterday's products, the company has moved on to develop newer products., 6) Keep developing "new" products that will have the same lag time for independent others to gather data, 7) Thus the industry can, in perpetuity can claim to the world that there is insufficient data, 8) Design and engrain this into the corporate philosophy. The benefits derived from the above outlined plan in that it allows the company to raise prices for the newly developed products and lets them kill old product lines that prevents others from gathering data to show the specific risks of that specific product. This continual refreshing of a portion of a gene here or there, keeps them out of the medical literature in high numbers and concomitantly mitigates risks. If they get into litigation, they cut their losses by claiming that they no longer make the product identified in the suit. They will further claim that their interest is to continually create safer, better products. Letting yesterdays products die off and refreshing the product line with a "new food" they limit their future damages. It is a brilliant business strategy. Look at how the public and some of the council people gravitate to their argument of limited data. Corporately they know their entire existence is going to continually involve challenges from an informed public. But the profits are so high, the inconveniences are worth the trouble. Even today any studies published about first generation Bt foods that create problems can be discounted. They no longer make that product. They continually move on. Change the chemical ratios of the pesticides on a frequent rotation This and other strategies are effective to many and are helpful to put doubt into peoples as they go through events like (Kaua'i's) BILL 2491. Genetically engineering new species of food by cross breeding species incapable of natural breeding every couple of years is not going to make people healthier. The beautiful part of their business plan is that they can make billions in profit and never get caught, unless, they pick the wrong group to battle. 1 believe that they picked the wrong battle, the people of Kauai. THE ONE RISK THEY FACE IS DISCLOSURE TO THEIR EMPLOYEES WHO WILL BANKRUPT THEM FROM A CLASS ACTION SUIT. THAT IS WHY THEY ARE FIGHTING SO HARD, WHEN THEY OTHERWISE HAVE A PERFECT BUSINESS PLAN. How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. 9/10/2013 Page 5 of 5 Anne Frank 9/10/2013 Page 1 of 3 Murashige, Laura COUi°QTY `A All From: Shannon Rudolph [shannonkona©gmail.com] Sent: Monday, September 09, 2013 12:57 AM 2013 SEP Q °i 11 6 To: undisclosed-recipients: Subject: Fwd: Photo FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE THOUSANDS OF KAUAI RESIDENTS Ai TAKE TO THE STREETS Aloha! 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MY uMw Joel Guy, Hanalei Grass Shack Productions(with permission) Photo&Video FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 9/10/2013 Page 2 of 3 THOUSANDS OF KAUAI RESIDENTS TAKE TO THE STREETS An estimated 4000 people marched today on Kauai over concerns around the agrochemical/GMO industry's impacts on the island, and in support of the"right to know"and the"right to protect." Residents are particularly concerned about the impacts of very large amounts of Restricted-Use Pesticides (RUPs) on human health and the environment. Marchers gathered at Vidinha Stadium, where they began with a pule (Hawaiian prayer) before proceeding down Rice Street to the County Council Building. On arrival, they circled the building and chanted "pass the bill."The march is being called the largest in the island's history. Tomorrow the Kauai County Council reconvenes to discuss Bill 2491, which would require disclosure by the five agricultural companies that use 98% of Restricted-Use Pesticides on the island. As the march proceeded down the mile-long path, marchers chanted "pass the bill,""2491,"and "stop poisoning us, the garden island's had enough."As marchers approached the council building, loud cheers erupted as organizer Fern Rosenstiel repeated"we are united Kauai!" Impacted community members, doctors, scientific experts, cultural practitioners, moms and teachers spoke at a public rally that also included music by Makana, Donavon Frankenreiter and other local musicians. Three council members—co-introducers Gary Hooser and Tim Bynum, along with JoAnn Yukimura —came to voice their support for pesticide disclosure and greater protections from the impacts of the agrochemical/GMO industry. The bill requires 4 votes to pass. The island's mayor Bernard Carvalho was amongst the large crowd that stood in the relentless sun listening to hours of impassioned speaking. Young people were some of the most visible at the march. Waimea valley resident and young father Nate Dickinson spoke of concern for the health of his family, who live surrounded by experimental GMO operations and have faced severe and unexplained health issues. Bryce Boeder, another young westside resident, said it was"time for the island to shift from the chemical based monoculture to an organic permaculture." Another young local woman, Hoku Cabebe thanked marchers for coming out"not just for the bill but for our future; not just for Kauai but for a better world." Four of the world's largest agrochemical/GMO corporations currently use some of Kauai's best agricultural lands to test their new technologies. Because many of their operations are experimental,the agrochemical/GMO corporations often spray several Restricted-Use Pesticides simultaneously (called "stacking"), in combinations that are not regulated and have never been studied for their immediate and long-term dangers to human health. Around 18-tons of Restricted-Use Pesticides (RUPs)are used on the island annually by these operations. RUPs are those deemed so toxic that the that EPA requires they be applied only by or under the direct supervision of trained and certified applicators. They are banned in many other countries. Dr Lee Evslin said, "I am here to lend scientific credibility to the reasons for this march. The American Academy of Pediatrics came out 10 months ago with a strongly worded statement linking pesticide use to delays in neurological development, endocrine abnormalities, behavioral issues and an increase in childhood cancers such as leukemia. They recommend buffer zones and the right to know." 9/10/2013 -a�Iill�tr � Page 3 of 3 Through "Right to Know" Bill 2491, residents are seeking basic disclosure of pesticide use by the five companies that use 98% of RUPs on the island. The bill sets up a buffer zone between where these dangerous pesticides are used and schools, hospitals, residential areas and waterways. The bill also mandates that a health and environmental study be conducted, and in the meantime, puts a temporary moratorium on new operations. The industry has threatened that if Bill 2491 passes they will be forced to fire workers. But bill supporters point out that, financially, there is no reason that the bill should be a major cost to the companies, who already keep internal records on pesticide application activity. The moratorium is only on expansion of the industry, and does not shut-down any existing operations. Addressing rumors that Bill 2491 will regulate local farmers, Kauai Kunana Dairy owner Louisa Wooton said, "I'm 100% behind Bill 2491. It does not affect small farmers whatsoever. I read it frontwards and backwards before I was ready to lend my support and it's really really good for agriculture!" In response to claims by the industry that Bill 2491 is unconstitutional, local attorney Elif Beall said: "Bill 2491 has been reviewed by some of the country's top attorneys specializing in pesticide and GMO regulation. The consensus among Public Interest experts is that Bill 2491 is constitutional and well within the County's powers to protect the health and welfare of its residents and natural resources. Several of the country's top attorneys have offered to defend the bill pro bono if it is challenged in court." Supporters of the bill say that there has been a complete failure of state and federal agencies responsible for the regulation, monitoring and protection of people's health in relation to pesticide use by the agrochemical/GMO operations on the island, so the county must act. The"Mana March"was organized by a broad coalition of groups and individuals, reflecting the diversity of concern around what has been called"the biggest issue Kauai has ever faced." Contact: Andrea Brower Phone: (808) 634-7905 Email: abro262©aucklanduni.ac.nz VIDEO - http://www.takvid.com/video/4224?fb action ids=509971345752306&fb action types=og.likes How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. — Anne Frank 9/10/2013