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Wednesday, June 25th, 2014

Texas Requests ‘Emergency Use’ of Restricted Herbicide to Kill Superweeds

Author:     Center for Food Safety
Source:     Center for Food Safety/Reader Supported News
Publication Date:     21-Jun-14
 Link: Texas Requests ‘Emergency Use’ of Restricted Herbicide to Kill Superweeds
Stephan:   This is the antipode to the previous article. Any scientist who understands evolutionary process would not only understand but predict the failure of toxins. This seems patently obvious to me. No toxin kills every lifeform to which it is targeted. And the ones that survive mutate until the toxin is rendered harmless -- exactly what is happening here. How could anyone not understand that? Particularly since the same thing is happening with antibiotics, so the point is made double down. And yet in some state governments, particularly Red value states, militant denial and studied non-awareness leads to some variation of this situation in Texas. It is a notable example of willful ignorance, and self -destruction.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is requesting comments on a petition filed by the Texas Department of Agriculture to permit emergency use of the hazardous herbicide propazine to kill herbicide resistant weeds infesting Texas cotton. Calling the resistant weeds an emergency, Texas requested to use hundreds of thousands of pounds of the toxic chemical on up to three million acres of cotton.

‘This request clearly demonstrates that that herbicide-resistant crops-by generating an epidemic of resistant weeds-lead directly to increased use of hazardous chemicals,” said Bill Freese, a science policy analyst at Center for Food Safety. ‘EPA should reject this request.”

Propazine is a possible human carcinogen and a ‘restricted use pesticide”-the EPA’s category for particularly hazardous agricultural chemicals. The EPA has found that propazine, like atrazine, is an endocrine disruptor (disrupts the hormonal system) and that when fed to pregnant rats, it causes birth defects in their young. Propazine is persistent, requiring years to break down, and is detected in both ground and surface waters. The European Union has banned propazine due to its toxicity.

Granting the emergency request to use propazine to kill glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth-also known as pigweed-would lead to a 10-fold increase in the use of the toxic herbicide, […]

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