--------------------------------------------------------------------<e|- <FONT COLOR="#000099">Never lose a file again. Protect yourself from accidental deletes, overwrites, and viruses with @Backup. Try @Backup it's easy, it's safe, and it's FREE! Click here to receive 300 MyPoints just for trying @Backup. </FONT><A HREF="http://click.egroups.com/1/6349/6/_/1406/_/966087304/"><B>Click Here!</B></A> --------------------------------------------------------------------|e>- Please send as far and wide as possible. Thanks, Robert Sterling Editor, The Konformist http://www.konformist.com http://www.konformist.com/2000/drugwar/drugfungus-hogshire.htm http://www.konformist.com/2000/drugwar/drugfungus.htm Spring 1998 Covert Action Quarterly Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website: http://www.caq.com THE DRUG WAR'S FUNGAL SOLUTION? Jim Hogshire The USDA has been tinkering with the genetic code of a dangerous fungus trying to target and wipe out the Andean coca and poppy crops. But if anything goes wrong, the fusarium fungus may end up destroying food crops and a whole lot more. This past August, a piece of good news came from the maze of nameless buildings at the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Beltsville, Maryland. Dr. Deborah R. Fravel, a plant pathologist at the laboratory for Biocontrol of Plant Diseases (BCPD) had turned the tables on a nasty, tomato-eating fungus called Fusarium oxysporum. She had developed a "benign" strain of the fungus that "inoculates" the tomatoes, much as a vaccine protects a child against certain diseases. And the fungus is nasty. A virulent mutation of fusarium, called "Race 3" has been a bane to Florida and Georgia farmers who have trouble controlling it with even the strongest fungicides. Around the world, fusarium also destroys watermelons, chickpeas, basil, bananas, and hundreds of other crops. The blight, in all its myriad permutations, can lie dormant in the soil for years without a host plant and then springs to life, causing devastating "wilt disease." Fear of introducing the disease is one reason Japan is loath to accept US produce. While some strains of this fungus are relatively harmless to most plants, other types of fusarium can produce mycotoxins poisonous to humans. The Fungus Among Us But the USDA press release was warm and fuzzy describing "good" fungi "helping plants to help themselves." There was no mention of Fravel's part in dozens of projects aimed at producing a lethal, but "natural" herbicide from the same fungus for a very different purpose. Fravel's efforts are part of a cabal of scientists working hand in hand with the DEA, the State Department, and foreign governments to produce an herbicide designed to effect the drug war's Final Solution: total elimination of the world's illicit coca crops and opium poppies - the same goal recently announced by the United Nations. Fravel's boss at the BCPD, Dr. Robert D. Lumsden, is a prominent figure in the eradication research program. Lumsden's work with mutant strains of Fusaruim oxysporum over the past few years has taken him to sites around the world and across the country. At the University of Montana in Bozeman, he and another ARS plant pathologist, Dr. Bryan A. Bailey, are in the midst of a five-year study of the toxic effects of F. oxysporum and other fungi on opium poppies and marijuana. According to one of Lumsden's reports, unlike chemical herbicides, "these naturally-occurring fungi are safe for humans and the environment." Lumsden worked with Bailey to develop a granular formulation fusarium mycotoxin, for testing at sites "foreign and domestic." A government coca field in Hawaii was eventually used to test the mycotoxin, along with traditional chemical herbicides. A 1995 study of fusarium herbicide showed "significant kill" of coca bushes while other studies indicate a 60 to 90 percent kill-rate for opium poppies. When scientists no-ticed that ants sometimes carried away the poison pellets, Fravel and Bailey looked for ways to make them more attractive to the insects - so they would take the herbicide deeper into the soil. The ants (which preferred their pellets flavored with olive oil) were found to carry the fungus both "outside and inside their bodies." Changing Genes Later research by Bailey and others identified the gene responsible for one strain's deadly effects on coca. They then developed a way "to allow alteration of the gene expression." They began to play with the fungus' genetic code. The ARS's long-standing interest in manipulating the fusarium fungus is revealed in a series of studies it commissioned. One experiment set out "to construct a genetic map of Fusarium moniliforme" and "to identify mutants that affect the synthesis of" its mycotoxins. Another study proposed "the development of strains with enhanced pathogenicity" that could wipe out coca plants "using molecular genetic manipulations involving fungal proteins." The ARS branch in Ft. Detrick, Maryland, carried out the "successful transformation of Fusarium oxysporum" by "DNA sequence encoding." Claiming that it would have "limited environmental impact," another ARS study acknowledged that a "biocontrol strategy for coca" using Fusarium oxssporum had been "developed and successfully field tested in small scale trials." Researchers hint that they took their cue for the mycotoxin from a naturally occurring outbreak of fusarium wilt destroying crops in Peru's Upper Huallaga valley. An ongoing ARS project, begun in 1993, noted: "Studies of a naturally-occurring epidemic of fusarium wilt in Peru have been concluded which verify that the epidemic is progressing and causing significant disease in the coca producing regions of Peru. Already, the natural epidemic of fusarium wilt in the coca producing areas of Peru is causing farmers to abandon their fields. A protein produced by Fusarium oxysporum which is toxic to E. coca has been purified and its gene cloned. The data indicate that a bioherbicide using Fusarium oxysporum which is effective against coca can be produced and proof of concept field tests are being initiated." As early as 1991, Peruvian campesinos testified that they witnessed helicopters carrying DEA agents and Peruvian police dropping pellets containing the fungus onto coca fields; however, there is no other solid evidence to support the allegation that the pellets actually contained fusariurn. Other press accounts allege a direct link between the DEA and the use of fusarium: "The US Drug Enforcement Administration resumed full cooperation with the Peruvian police in 1994, when [the] strategy shifted to destroying illegal coca plantations using a mushroom known scientifically as fusarium and colloquially among the peasants as 'the coca-eater.'" Because there are so many strains or races of fusarium, it may not be possible to determine if this outbreak affecting coca and other crops is a result of natural causes or human intervention. Eat Stuff and Die The problem with creating any "bug" that will eat just one thing and then obediently cease to exist is obvious. All life-forms mutate and adapt, especially a simple organism like a fungus; sooner or later it will learn to eat something else. A similar situation occurred in 1971, when Richard Nixon misinterpreted a theory about "an insect which could consume poppy crops" and then die. Nixon, preoccupied by this imaginary weevil, by then dubbed the "screw worm" (because it was supposed to die after intercourse), asked Congress for funding. When Nixon's advisors could not be assured that this "screw worm" would be host specific - i.e., it might eat the worid's supply of poppy crops and then adapt to another host, such as rice or wheat - they lost interest in the project. Eventually even these knuckleheads dropped the idea. But research into doper bugs continued. In 1996, Bailey, Lumsden, and Fravel - working on a project at North Carolina State University in Raleigh - wrote that their finely tuned pathogen "kills only coca and does not harm other plants." A recently launched study, however, suggests that the fusarium formulas are still not specific enough. One ARS investigator is studying the "ubiquitous species-complex of Fusarium oxysponum [that] is currently being investigated as a biological control agent. However, this fungus encompasses broad genetic variability that has not yet been delineated." There is, the researcher continues, "still a need to characterize genetically the strains that attach Erthrroxylon [coca] and/or Papaver [poppies] as well as those that occur in soils and on crop plants growing in close proximity." Translation: the innumerable strains of the fungus could possibly attack adjacent crops and do God-knows-what to everything else. Perversely, the government touts the fungus project as environmentally friendly because it avoids the use of chemicals. For years, the US has browbeaten Andean pro-ducer countries into using US-produced herbicides such as Roundup (glyphosate), and to kill off the "source" of the US drug problem. The Andean nations have balked, arguing that US consumer demand drives production, not the other way around. With the threat of withholding millions in aid dollars to bolster its side, Washington has demanded eradication. Local growers are then left not only without a cash crop, but sick from the toxic effects of the herbicides. Protests over the health effects of herbicides prompted Bolivia and Peru to stand up to Washington and prohibit Roundup--like herbicides for coca and poppy eradication. In early March 1996, Colombia abruptly halted herbicide fumigation in retaliation for being "decertified" for not complying with US drug war demands. Humans exposed to Monsanto Corporation's Roundup - the current chemical of choice - can suffer damage to the stomach, heart, kidneys, lungs and skin. Glyphosate, according to a 1993 study by the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health, was the third most commonly-reported cause of pesticide illness among agricultural workers. Another study from the Berkeley school found that it was the most frequently reported cause of pesticide illness among landscape maintenance workers. As a drug eradication chemical, glyphosate has another problem: It can be washed off for 8 hours after it is sprayed on, making it vulnerable to rain - and farmers who rush into the freshly poisoned fields to wash the toxins off their crops. Armed with the more potent herbicide Spike (tebuthiuron), the US is now pushing to use that defoliant in the drug war. Manufactured by Dow AgroSciences (formerly DowElanco and then Eli Lilly before that merger), the use of tebuthiuron has been hawked in Congress by Rep. Dan Bunon (R-IN) - a longtime recipient of money from both Indianapolis based-Eli Lilly and Dow. While killer fungi and many poisonous herbicides are not approved for use in the US, people in developing countries often have no say in what toxins are released in their communities. If some US officials have their way unilateral decision-making could become the norm. At a hearing he chaired on "certification" of nations in the drug war, Dan Burton told the State Department's narcotics point man, Robert Gelbard, how to handle countries that refused to be defoliated: "Tell the president [sic] of Peru and Bolivia at about 5:00 in the morning, 'We've got a bunch of aircraft carriers out here, and we're coming down through those valleys, and we're gonna drop this stuff, this tebuthiuron...' I think we should consider, if this really is a war on drugs, doing it unilaterally and violating the territorial boundaries of those countries and dropping that stuff. Now, I know that doesn't sit well with the State Department, but either we deal with it or our kids continue to suffer and our society continues to let this cancer grow." Whether "our" kids should be "protected" by poisoning "their" kids, however, is a policy issue that seems to escape US drug warriors. In their zeal to sound ever tougher on drug issues, Washington policy makers - together with fearless scientists eager to test their theories on other people's communities - may soon have a new biological doomsday weapon to unleash on their southern neighbors. At best, fusarium could become the latest bit of humiliation unilaterally rammed down the throat of Andean nations. At worst, the fungus could run amok unleashing the modern day equivalent of the Great Potato Famine. May 2000 ALARM OVER U.S. FUNGUS EXPERIMENTS ABROAD US experiments in Southern countries using microbial fungus to eradicate narcotic crops have raised great concern over the effects on human health, the environment and legitimate crops. This microbial fungus use is prohibited in the United States itself. By Chakravarthi Raghavan Third World Network Features Geneva: An international non-profit group has called on the Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), meeting in Nairobi on 15-26 May, to act to halt experiments abroad by the United States to use 'Agent Green' microbes to kill narcotic crops. In a briefing paper for delegates to the 5th COP meeting, the 'Sunshine Project', a non-profit group based in Seattle and Hamburg, has complained that the US government was planning the testing and widespread application of microbial fungus to attack plants producing coca, opium poppy and cannabis (marijuana). This microbial fungus use, the group notes, is prohibited in the United States itself, while the UN General Assembly in 1998 had specifically turned down proposals for the use of pathogens to kill narcotic crops. The microbial pathogens, the Sunshine Project says, pose risks to human health and to biodiversity, and their use is being promoted abroad - in Asia and the Amazon regions - by the United States as part of its war against narcotics. The pathogens have been tested only for their effectiveness against 'weeds', and not for safety for human health and the environment. The NGO group says that the US has begun conducting test programmes on fungi (Pleospora sp. and others) to kill opium poppy and marijuana. In the Andes and western Amazon, the US is planning testing and widespread application of a fungus that attacks coca - Fusarium oxysporum, f. sp. Exythoroxilum. These pathogens threaten human health and biodiversity in the Americas and Asia. The US Congress, the briefing document says, has recently appropriated $23 million for development of the pathogen agents and, in the Americas, is linking the fungal pathogen plan to the US aid programmes. These anti-crop fungus programmes have been labelled as 'bio-control' research to eliminate weeds, the NGO says. 'While plants producing narcotics are certainly undesirable, they are not "weeds" by any logical policy or regulatory definition. And "bio-control" is a misnomer for these pathogens. Legitimate bio-controls protect cultivated crops, but the US pathogens kill them.' And by appropriating the language of a legitimate branch of science, biological controls, the US programme has put the reputation of a growing and promising field of research at risk. The briefing document points out that in 1989, an expert group working on law enforcement and drug control issues for the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs first suggested the use of biological agents to kill narcotic crops. Though nothing came of this, the US unilaterally pursued scientific development of the idea, with limited bilateral cooperation particularly from former Soviet research institutions in newly independent Central Asian states. In 1997, at US prodding, the Vienna-based UN Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) acted on the 1989 recommendation of experts and incorporated it into a global plan for eradication of illicit crops, SCOPE (Strategy for Coca and Opium Poppy Elimination). But the UN General Assembly in 1998 rejected the SCOPE move, and the idea of using narcotic crop pathogens was eliminated from the multilateral agenda. But the US, and some in the UNDCP, 'seem to have clung to the idea and are on the verge of implementing it', says the Sunshine Project. But since the US unilateral push for the use of these pathogens risks political exposure, the US Government has been pushing others to follow its lead. In a 1999 State Department cable (obtained under the Freedom of Information Act), the US Secretary of State has exhorted the UNDCP 'to find more support for fungal eradication, and to solicit funds from other governments, in order to avoid the perception that this is solely a US Government initiative'. But there has been little support from other countries, the Sunshine Project notes. While the UK provided some small supplemental funding for US-sponsored experiments with opium poppy fungus in Central Asia in the mid-1990s, no other donor country has responded to the US calls for support. The NGO briefing paper notes that with the exception of manual and mechanical plant removal, crop eradication programmes using chemical herbicides have been controversial. As early as 1988, the UN ECOSOC pointed out that drug eradication programmes should not use methods harming the environment or humans. Some countries like Bolivia, Peru and Thailand have laws or implemented policies banning chemical eradication because of the negative impacts of herbicides on the environment, human health and legitimate crops. Civil society opposition to such eradication has been intense. Applied in massive quantities from the air, such chemical herbicides as glyphosate (RoundUp), tebuthiuron (Spike) and hexaninone harm humans and biodiversity. But the US and the UNDCP maintain that herbicides used in specified ways are 'environmentally safe and non-toxic for humans'. But the US finds even these herbicides not strong enough, and is promoting fungal eradication to create plant sprays more lethal and long-lasting than glyphosate. Recently, Peru passed a law banning the use of biological agents in coca eradication. The UNDCP admitted in January this year that Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have refused to carry out field-testing of opium poppy myoherbicide. And in a report for the Colombian Ombudsman for the Environment, leading Colombian scientists have said the use of such agents in Colombia represents 'a great danger both for humans as well as the Colombian environment and biodiversity'. The Sunshine Project notes that the use of fungal narcotic control has been halted in Florida, the world's top producer of cannabis. A private company, Ag/Bio Con, which is connected to the United States Department of Agriculture, proposed using a cannabis-killing strain of Fusarium oxysporum in Florida. But the head of the Florida department of environment protection squashed the idea, saying this species was capable of evolving rapidly, and its mutagenicity is by far the most disturbing factor in its use as a bio-herbicide - it's impossible to control the spread of the Fusarium species. The mutated fungi, it was noted, could cause disease in a large number of crops - tomatoes, peppers, flowers, corn and vines - and is normally considered a threat to farmers as a pest, and not as a pesticide. The Fusarium species is more active in warm soils and can stay resident in the soil for years. This longevity and enhanced activity in Florida weather conditions could lead to an increased risk of mutagenicity. Despite this assessment, the Sunshine Project charges that the US is pressing the programme to the point when it is close to large releases. Field-tests are being conducted in Central Asia and there is enormous pressure on Colombia to sign an agreement for testing of the coca-killing fungus F. oxysporum. The potential target acreage is in excess of one million hectares, and the US envisions its wide use in Asia and Latin America. The US claims that the pathogens are environmentally safe, are host-specific and don't present any danger to humans. But these claims are dubious, charges the Sunhine Project. Biodiversity concerns include the impact of altering fungi populations on highly fragile ecosystems, the impact on non-target plant species, on soil ecology and pollinators, difficulties of control or withdrawal once released, toxicity problems, lack of clarity about the fungi's 'natural occurrence' and origin, and the possibility of future introduction of living modified organism pathogens. The US pathogen-testing has been done primarily to assess their effectiveness in killing plants, not for their environmental or human safety, nor have the pathogens been proved to be safe to other species. Testing for host specificity has been very narrow, and has not included close relatives of target species. Testing has also disregarded complex and fragile ecosystems in much of South and South-East Asia and the Andes and Amazon basins. And in some US testing, the 'host-specific' fungi have attacked both related and non-related species. The NGO paper also says that the Agrias (Agrias Claudina) butterfly, which depends on coca's wild relatives in the Amazonian rainforests, would be endangered. The Nairobi meeting of the COP, the NGO briefing paper suggests, should declare that the development of any pathogen to deliberately kill any cultivated crop is contrary to the objectives of the CBD. It should also assess potential impacts of narcotic plant pathogens on agriculture. The COP should also convey to the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs prior to its March 2001 session the concerns of the COP over such international eradication programmes for their effects on biological diversity and rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. - Third World Network Features -ends- About the writer: Chakravarthi Raghavan is Chief Editor of SUNS (South-North Development Monitor), a daily bulletin, and Third World Network's representative in Geneva. When reproducing this feature, please credit Third World Network Features and (if applicable) the cooperating magazine or agency involved in the article, and give the byline. Please send us cuttings. Third World Network is also accessible on the World Wide Web. Please visit our web site at http://www.twnside.org.sg 2044/2000 ----- Peace! *STRIDER* Sector Air Raid Warden at /RENEGADE/ /RENEGADE/ news_service: http://fornits.com/renegade/ DEDICATED TO SPIRIT, TRUTH, PEACE, JUSTICE, AND FREEDOM Bay_Area_Activist list: http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?fetch=54 usenet: news:alt.thebird news:misc.activism.progressive chat: http://jupiter.beseen.com/chat/rooms/i/1055/ e-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION -- Ethiopian Proverb If you are interested in a free subscription to The Konformist Newswire, please visit http://www.eGroups.com/list/konformist/ and sign up. 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