NEWS: EPA Totally Okay With Your Mutation

POLITICS: EPA Totally Okay With Your Mutation

The Environmental Protection Agency wants to kill our unborn babies and watch us mutate. That is the only reason I can come up with that explains the agency’s decision to allow a new pesticide, methyl iodide, to be used on crops. The decision seems to go against why the agency was created in the first place, but hey, we’re living in the Bush years. Up is now down.

Okay, so explain this:

Yep, we definitely should get that shit out there. I don’t know what could possibly go wrong. The EPA can’t say there weren’t warned. Last month, 54 scientists, including 5 Nobel laureates, sent a letter that included a scary message.

The pesticide will be used mainly for strawberry fields in California and Florida. Methyl iodide will replace methyl bromide, which can no longer be used because it damages the ozone layer. That leads one to the obvious question: Why do strawberries hate us?

The EPA disagrees with the scientists and has approved the pesticide to be used for one year. The agency will also create “buffer zones” to protect neighbors and farm hands. I’m going to go out a limb here and say that if something needs a “buffer zone,” then I don’t want it used.

Methyl iodide will be sold under the name Midas, in what may be the most ironic name of all time. Midas has been approved for use on strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, ornamentals, turf, trees and vines. The pesticide is injected into soil before crops are planted. It kills insects and diseases without leaving a residue on crops, but can evaporate and drift into neighborhoods and groundwater.

Thankfully, Midas would still need to be approved by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, an agency that is a bit harsher with approvals than the EPA. Hopefully, California will make a more educated decision than the EPA, because I don’t want my DNA to mutate.

Robert Bergman, the Gerald E. K. Branch Distinguished Professor at UC Berkeley's chemistry department explained why Midas is very, very bad.

I’d like to take a pass on the mutation thing. I’d also like to kick someone at the EPA in the nuts. The scientists actually went to the EPA for a meeting to explain why Midas was bad news, but the EPA had already made their decision.

Yeah, but the EPA had a “thorough analyses” that lasted four years. Also, the company that makes Midas used to have a guy named Elin Miller as their chief executive. He now is a top official at the…EPA. Hi, George Bush! I thought your filthy little hands would pop up somewhere! George is big on putting people from the corporate world into positions that are supposed to protect us from the corporate world. The manufacturer spent $11 million over eight years attempting to get Midas approved. Turns out they only had to call their buddy, George.

The results are obvious. Now we will live in this world.

Strawberry fields forever.

Corporate feudalism strikes again.

Go organic, y'all.

...it's got what plants crave...

Is there anyone who truly believes that any of the fox in the hen house three letter acronym agencies are actually "in business" to look out for the citizenry anymore? I'm almost shocked that there hasn't been an effort to bring back DDT... hell, it's cheap and it works.

You should be eating British strawberries anyway.

I see you left out the part of the EPA's studies that showed that the levels people would be exposed to were well below what would lead to the effects you mention. Wouldn't want that to get in the way of a balanced presentation of the issue, would we?

You know that part where people for years have been saying that this isn't CNN?

Looks like it heads right for the liver. I wonder if the effects could be, um, cumulative? No, probably not, the EPA would never make a mistake like that

This article makes me happy. Why? Because there is a strawberry field three block south of a middle school in my home town. I'm excited for the potential of this chemical to be used on that strawberry field, migrate into the canal that runs parallel to it and the middle school and turn all of those pesky chirruns into flipper babies. Fuck yes. Flipper babies.

Hey, relax. The EPA said it's safe...

But what if the mutations cause cool superpowers?

Be patient, we're getting to that.

Really great point. Turns out I'm not a five year old and can see bullshit when I read it. I'll go with the 54 scientists and nobel laureates over the guy who used to work for the company.

Why don't you move next to a stawberry field to show your support?

Oh good, I was afraid they'd stick with their original ban. I see the logic though, next to cancer I suppose West Nile is like a runny nose. I say we should bring back xray machines in shoe stores too...

I'm sure he's devastated by your witty repartee.

Jesus, did that make me laugh.

So, lets get this straight- To Conservatives:
Voluntary Abortions=Bad
Involuntary Abortions=Good
If you don't CHOOSE for your fetus to die, it's ok, especially if there's money to be made that will eventually make it's way into republican coffers. Besides, there's a lot of liberals in California, and who cares if they can't reproduce?

No it doesn't. Besides being highly toxic to humans and wildlife, DDT was also taken out of circulation because it began to lose effectiveness against insects, which have much shorter life cycles and can thus adapt much quicker.

Do you know how many cumulative things there are in nature that are toxic to humans? You should probably stop eating fish and seafood (especialy predatory ones) now since they accumulate mercury in their bodies. The Sun bombards you with stellar radiation daily, not to mention all the other cosmic rays passing through the galaxies. There's probably plenty of particulate matter, NOx or sulfur compounds building up in your lungs too if you live in an urban area. You wash your clothes and dishes with detergent? Do you use soap? Yep, those carry an incremental cancer risk as well.

Your DNA is mutating every day regardless of what they pump unto a field of crops. While I'm not advocating pesticides per se, used responisibly it isn't going to turn us into a race of Morlocks.

Okay, that does it. I'm staying in the house, not bathing and wearing an aluminum foil suit. Will I be safe then?

So...what would happen if a spider was there when they put down the chemicals, and was MUTATED, and then I was there on a field trip and got bit by it?

That's it. I'm going to make sure that this ban doesn't happen, and then hang around in strawberry fields putting spiders on myself GODAMMIT!

Aluminum has been linked to Alzheimer's.

I for one welcome our new mutant super-powered overlords...

I don't know. Depends on if you have asbestos or do regular radon screening. And who KNOWS what's lingering in your tap water. It might also help if you stand a few feet away from the microwave and don't sit too close to your computer and TV.

As long as they don't build Vats to dip us all in to ensure their "Unity," I'll have no problem with them.