General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFlint, Michigan, meet Kauai, Hawaii -- where minority children are being exposed to
a different kind of chemical.
Doctors in Hawaii are concerned that an increase in serious birth defects including babies born with organs outside of their bodies -- may be related to the spraying of extremely high levels of insecticides.
Corn crops in Kauai (mostly grown for export to the mainland) are subjected to 17 times the level of insecticides as in the mainland with no buffer zones between the spraying and the community, as in some other states. The crops are GMs that have been specifically designed to withstand the pesticides but childrens bodies havent been.
The chemical companies that own the land have avoided modern EPA compliance with a decades-old permit that grandfathered-in their toxic waste discharges.
As in Flint, Michigan, the children being sacrificed to greed are largely minorities.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/23/hawaii-birth-defects-pesticides-gmo
Pesticides in paradise: Hawaii's spike in birth defects puts focus on GM crops
Nelson, a Californian, and other local doctors find themselves in the eye of a storm swirling for the past three years around the Hawaiian archipelago over whether a major cash crop on four of the six main islands, corn thats been genetically modified to resist pesticides, is a source of prosperity, as the companies claim or of birth defects and illnesses, as the doctors and many others suspect.
SNIP
Waimea, a small town of low, pastel wood houses built in south-west Kauai for plantation workers in the 19th century, now sustains its economy mostly from a trickle of tourists on their way to a spectacular canyon. Perhaps 200 people work full-time for the four giant chemical companies that grow the corn all of it exported on some 12,000 acres leased mostly from the state.
In Kauai, chemical companies Dow, BASF, Syngenta and DuPont spray 17 times more restricted-use insecticides per acre than on ordinary cornfields in the US mainland, according to the most detailed study of the sector, by the Center for Food Safety.
SNIP
Nelson, the pediatrician, points out that American Academy of Pediatrics report, Pesticide Exposure in Children, found an association between pesticides and adverse birth outcomes, including physical birth defects. Noting that local schools have been evacuated twice and children sent to hospital because of pesticide drift, Nelson says doctors need prior disclosure of sprayings: Its hard to treat a child when you dont know which chemical hes been exposed to.
Her concerns and those of most of her colleagues have grown as the chemical companies doubled to 25,000 acres in a decade the area in Hawaii they devote to growing new varieties of herbicide-resistant corn.
SNIP
In the process of what he called doing my homework, he discovered that the companies, unlike regular farmers, were operating under a decades-old Environmental Protection Agency permit to discharge toxic chemicals in water that had been grandfathered from the days of the sugar plantation, when the amounts and toxicities of pesticides were much lower. The state has asked for a federal exemption for the companies so they can avoid modern standards of compliance.
enough
(13,266 posts)oasis
(49,434 posts)Hawaiian Island chain. We lived on Oahu for 25 years and always recommend Kauai to our guests who visited us from the mainland.
This revelation about the toxicity which exists in waters of the "Garden Isle" is quite alarming.
Thank you for posting an important problem that seems to be flying under the MSM radar.
pnwmom
(109,020 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)"This report was supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism."
This is a link to the Fund for Investigative Journalism's homepage, which will include links to how to apply for grants and about work they are funding now.
http://fij.org/
This link goes directly to their donations page for those who might want to cut to the cash:
Make a Donation
The Fund for Investigative Journalism is a 501(c)3 organization. Your donations are tax-deductible and help us support investigative reporters in local communities, and throughout the world.
The Fund depends on donations from foundations and individuals.
http://fij.org/donate/
hunter
(38,339 posts)Many of their behaviors are indefensible.
suffragette
(12,232 posts)What a perverted process and a dangerous result.
K&R
pnwmom
(109,020 posts)What a racket.
questionseverything
(9,665 posts)surprised you posted it tho since you support hc and she supports monsanto
pnwmom
(109,020 posts)on the TPP though I think he's been a great President overall.
And I assume that many progressives support Bernie Sanders despite his votes against the Brady bill and for the PLCAA, not because of them.
SunSeeker
(51,771 posts)I can't imagine how the corn would be profitable after the cost of shipping it all the way across the Pacific.
Hawaii has a very progressive state government. I don't understand how this has been allowed to go on.
hunter
(38,339 posts)... that would be far more difficult in places with random corn pollen on the wind.
Practically everything about industrial scale corn monoculture sucks.
Ethanol for fuel sucks.
Factory farmed meat sucks.
High fructose corn syrup sucks.
None of these things are good for us or our planet.
Cheap corn is hideously expensive in its side effects, but the giant corporations producing it do not pay those costs; all of humanity does, some more than others.
The comparison to Flint is a good one.
DFW
(54,465 posts)Maybe the former administration made sure the incoming one didn't know about the exemption? Even so, now that this is known and out in the open, it is incumbent on the State to sue for recompense (they'll have to, as the chemical companies will say "no proof!" and stop the excessive pesticide use immediately. Corn isn't indigenous to Hawai'i anyway is it? What's the matter, they didn't want to poison kids in red states for fear of turning them blue?
Mister Ed
(5,945 posts)He was a gentle and thoughtful young man in his late twenties. We talked a long while about his island. At one point, he shook his head ruefully and said, "The island has everything we could need. But strangely, everything we make or grow is shipped away to the mainland, and everything we eat or use is shipped in."