FDA Shelves Pesticide Use Report
File this under "The Fix Is In". In a move that stretches credulity, the U.S. Department of Agriculture stopped publishing a data set relied on by farmers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, chemical and pesticide makers and the Organic Consumer's Association.
Since 1990, this agency report was the best data available and cited by anyone with a stake in knowing what pesticides and chemicals exist, are in use, where they're used, what crops they're sprayed on and any results observed in field.
In 2003, the Natural Resources Defense Council used the data to sue the EPA for failure to assess whether the common herbicide atrazine threatened the viability of endangered Chesapeake Bay sea turtles, Texas salamanders and 16 other aquatic species.
The EPA monitors only a handful of chemicals discharged into the environment. The chemical industry produces thousands of chemicals that are not monitored in any way.
I guess the old "what you don't know won't hurt you" is the operative policy directive. That way, you can't make a case for anything as the cause. It's not that the data, facts, or circumstances are invalid.
Our public agencies tasked with protecting our health, safety, environment and quality of life are understaffed or staffed with ideologs who believe unchecked supervision of corporate behavior is in our best interest.
It seems that the only interests benefiting from lax enforcement and compliance standards are the same corporate interests who prefer we remain distracted. They want us to stay engaged in the argument about whether global warming, peak oil or ever more severe weather patterns are even worth the discussion.
Forget about mad cow, salmonella, bovine hormones, genetically modified foods. We don't want to know. Actually several states are in court right now fighting to "not" have to label GMO or cloned foods.
Reminds me of my favorite advice from Dean Vernon Wormer from the movie Animal House: "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
