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.
Checked-by: Melodi Cornett
Media Awareness Project
P. O. Box 651
Porterville, CA 93258
(800) 266-5759 Contact: Mark Greer (mgreer@mapinc.org)
Webmaster: Matt Elrod (webmaster@mapinc.org)
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