Agrochemical companies sue to block anti-GMO law in Hawaii

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Agrochemical companies sue to block anti-GMO law in Hawaii
Source: Reuters - Sat, 11 Jan 2014 10:11 PM

By Christopher D'Angelo

LIHUE, Hawaii, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Three of the world's largest agrochemical companies have filed a lawsuit in Hawaii to block a law enacted on the island of Kauai in November to limit the planting of biotech crops and the use of pesticides.

DuPont, Syngenta and Agrigenetics Inc, a company affiliated with the Dow AgroSciences unit of Dow Chemical Co, filed suit Friday in U.S. district court in Honolulu. The suit claims the action in Kauai is unconstitutional and seeks an injunction permanently barring enforcement of provisions of the law.

"The ordinance is invalid," Paul Minehart, a spokesman for Syngenta, said in a an interview. "It arbitrarily targets our industry with burdensome and baseless restrictions on farming operations by attempting to regulate activities over which counties in Hawaii have no jurisdiction. These activities are already regulated by governmental agencies under state and federal laws."

The Kauai law requires large agricultural companies to disclose pesticide use and GMO crop plantings while establishing buffer zones around schools, homes and hospitals.


Read more: http://www.trust.org/item/20140111215325-2uv7c/

[Cha]

1. Fuck them. All they have to do is "disclose" what poisons they're

using and freaking "buffer zones"!.. and that's too much for them.

We knew this was coming.

[djean111]

2. This is what the TPP is all about.

Corporations will tell us what to eat, poison the land and water, and tell us to fuck off.
And also tell us to give them all of our money.

[They_Live]

6. yes

keep spreading the word. TPP is not good.

[SoapBox]

3. I wonder...

How many "agrochemical company" executives and chemists, eat ONLY organic and non-gmo foods?

[Archae]

9. What about vice versa?

How many organic agribusiness CEO's eat what most of the rest of us eat, from the large farms, since the price is so much less?

[Berlum]

16. None*

They are not stupid.

* I woo-d imagine.

They are not stupid.

[7962]

4. "It arbitrarily targets our industry with burdensome and baseless restrictions"

So then I guess laws banning plastic bags would also be illegal. Or laws banning certain types of ammo.
Since the GOP is all for states rights, they should fully support Hawaii in their effort to regulate their own state.
This could be the way to stop these products. When Wal Mart stopped selling milk with growth hormones (i think thats what it was), the industry quit using them because WM sold so much of their product.

[BrotherIvan]

5. Fuck them

Please stand tall Kauai! Hopefully you will have some states to stand with you soon.

[Submariner]

7. And we will meet Monsanto in the streets

Bring it on.

[Archae]

10. This is pure bullshit.

Hysterical usage of scare tactics, and terms.

"Poison"

"Frankenfoods"

And that picture of a particularly ugly rat crossed with corn.

All the available *CREDIBLE* evidence says this is woo. Bullshit.

When was the last time anyone here ate a wild banana?



Had a wild chicken?



Ate wild pig?

[JohnyCanuck]

12. A medical research scientist disagrees that concerns about GMOs are just "woo"

NYT's Amy Harmon slammed over pro-GMO article


snip

GMO foods and the trust issue
New York Times, January 9, 2014
The Opinion Pages|Letters
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/09/opinion/gmo-foods-and-the-trust-issue.html?_r=0

To the Editor:

Re “On Hawaii, a Lonely Quest for Fact” (front page, Jan. 5):

Your article about genetically modified crops says that there is a “global scientific consensus” that they are safe, and suggests that opponents are driven by emotion, not fact.

As a medical research scientist, I disagree that there is any such consensus, and there is no evidence that any genetically modified product is safe. There is no required safety testing, no epidemiological study relating consumption to health.

Although the industry aggressively tries to discredit all studies showing potential harm, there are many showing toxicity in animals that predict serious medical consequences in humans from long-term exposure. Finally, contrary to industry claims, genetically modified crops have produced no increase in yield, have elevated the use of herbicides tenfold, and have resulted in no social or economic benefit except for the reduction of factory farm labor costs.

The public has every right to distrust what it is told about genetically modified food safety.

DAVID SCHUBERT La Jolla, Calif., Jan. 6, 2014

The writer is a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php/news/archive/2014/15244-nyt-s-amy-harmon-slammed-over-pro-gmo-article

And here are 297 more scientists who agree with him

[glinda]

8. They should be banned from the Islands altogether. Just throw them off.

[mahina]

27. I'mI'm with you. our Gov, not.

These guys $pread the love for political favor and poisonedour soil , water and our kids.

[ffr]

11. After seeing the harm we're doing to our food supply, bees, soils, water table and ourselves

our family has taken the first steps to buy as much organically and locally grown foods as possible.

All this unnatural artificial stuff we're doing doesn't fit nature's plan. I don't see how it can be sustainable. Giant mono crops require pesticides. The pesticides go into us or into other animals or hydrological systems that eventually go into us or adversely effect the eco system. It's a downward spiral. I choose nature.

[DeSwiss]

13. FU!

K&R

[L0oniX]

14. Gee ...corporations trying to control governments ...whodathunkit

Are ya ready to make war against the corporations yet? That kind of war is one that may be worth fighting.

Oh but we don't want to hurt peoples 401k investments do we?

[Berlum]

15. "You'll swallow our poison and like it." - Scientific Materialist Totalitarian Corp., Inc. (R)

[Archae]

17. "Scientific Materialist" = Bill O'Reilly's "Secular Progressive."

A handy dandy strawman to blame and to knock down.

The fact that neither one actually exist, doesn't mean squat to O'Reilly or to you.

[Berlum]

18. Handy dandy straw man, kinda like "woo" ?

Funny about that.

Will have to meditate on the matter further.

[Archae]

19. Woo does exist.

http://www.skepdic.com/quackery.html

http://www.skepdic.com/faithhealing.html

http://www.skepdic.com/chiro.html

You never have defined exactly what the hell a "scientific materialist" is, you just throw the term around to denigrate anyone who *GASP* wants actual evidence, not just claims and anecdotes.

Like Anne Coulter throws around "traitor" or "treason" at anyone she doesn't like.

"Drinking homeopathic water cured my headaches!"
(Ignores the aspirin he or she took with it...)

[Berlum]

20. Poo, too. It exists. In vast quantities, far exceeding anything in the woorld

* poo = the preformed pronouncements of scientific materialists (not scientists) and also the vast agglomeration of dangerous "medical" and "environmental" atrocities they have committed and continue to commit in their rigid, brain-eating fundamentalist belief in materialism.

[Archae]

21. Thanks for proving one scientific fact.

You have nothing to back up your claims.

Zilch. Zero.

[Berlum]

22. Google is your fiend, Arch

Start here ww.experienceproject.com/question-answer/What-Are-Some-Of-The-Worse-Atrocities-Committed-On-The-Name-Of-Science/311710nd then

and then google scientific or medical atroctiesl. Get back to me in a decade or so when you have finished sifting through the mountains of poo that you are unable to "believe" exist.

[Archae]

23. Link doesn't work.

Even after adding the third "w" to the beginning.

As to medical atrocities, no one (at least no one sane,) denies that medical atrocities have occurred.

The most notorious I can think of were the "medical experiments" done by Nazis on concentration camp victims and the mentally ill.

Close behind is the Tuskegee "syphilis study."

Right after I list Andrew Wakefield and his "autism study" for money that may have killed thousands by now.

Any and every actual science can be misused.

What's important here is the scientific method you denigrate is self-correcting, so those who misuse science are taken to task.

The Nazi "doctors" died in disgrace. Or in hiding.
The Tuskeegee "doctors" have likewise been disgraced.
Andrew Wakefield has been exposed, and lost his medical license.

Now, define exactly what is this boogieman you keep deflecting from, the "scientific materialist."
If you can't, (or more likely, simply won't,) it will prove that you have nothing.

[Berlum]

24. "Agrochemical companies sue to block anti-GMO law in Hawaii"

You are doing a fab job distracting from the OP topic, arch, just as the knee-jerk attacks so common on DU about "woo" distract routinely from the treacherous screw job Scientific Materialist Chemical Corps & Big Mutant Gene, Inc. are perpetrating on the earth and its people.

I'm sure the agrochemical companies are thrilled by your diligent and sustained efforts. You are a workhorse, that's for sure.

And now you deign to challenge me to fit through a mouse-hole game you have invented for your own devices with your own rules. Nice try.

But like the organic food executives who shun crappy, sick-making, hormone-distorting chemicalized & gene-altered "food-like products," I'm not stupid. I've no interest in your game, only a level of concern about your ongoing use of the STRAWMAN pejorative of "woo" to make broad-brush attacks on what you do not understand because it does not mesh with your rigid beliefs. That's even more alarming than -- heaven forbid -- the smidgens of criticism I emit not of science, but of the pervasive Scientific Materialism which is such a pernicious corrupting and damaging influence in the world.

[agent46]

25. Another TPP test case gearing up just in time

The TPP will make it law that a corporation can rightfully sue governments for impeding its pursuit of profit within the borders of that state or nation. TPP is not simply Obama's NAFTA, as has been posted disingenuously elsewhere. It's part of the staged progression of global corporatism - the last nail in the coffin of state sovereignty. In case you missed that class, it's called FASCISM.

[proverbialwisdom]

26. More.

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20140111_3_companies_sue_to_block_Kauais_new_law_on_GMOs_pesticides.html?id=239768391

3 companies sue to block Kauai's new law on GMOs, pesticides
By Star-Advertiser staff

POSTED: 12:42 p.m. HST, Jan 11, 2014
LAST UPDATED: 12:38 a.m. HST, Jan 12, 2014

Syngenta, Pioneer Hi-Bred and Agrigenetics -- an affiliate of Dow -- have sued to block Kauai County from implementing its new genetically modified organism and pesticide regulation law.

The law, which takes effect in August, imposes greater disclosure requirements on restricted use pesticides and creates buffer zones for crops near schools, homes, and hospitals.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court, contends that the law irrationally prohibits the biotechnology companies from growing any crops — GMO or not — in arbitrarily drawn buffer zones, and restricts the companies' pesticide use within the buffer zones.

The disclosure requirements, the lawsuit argues, expose the companies to risks of "corporate espionage, vandalism and environmental terrorism."

Proponents of the new law decried the lawsuit as "shameful."

"Kauai's ordinance is a sound and well-crafted law. The industry's challenge is without merit, and we will vigorously defend it," said George Kimbrell, senior attorney with the Center for Food Safety.

Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff said, "The chemical industry has been using bullying and misinformation all along to try to derail this law. They consider their impacts on the health of Kauai's residents as collateral damage."

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Link from: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_29059.cfm
Related: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024286798