“Agent Orange” Herbicide Pulled by EPA

After initially receiving the agency’s rubber stamp, a dangerous pesticide has been removed, at least temporarily, from the market.
Following a lawsuit filed by a coalition of groups led by the Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has stated that it is revoking the registration of Enlist Duo, a combination of glyphosate and 2,4-D.
Approved a year ago by the agency, Enlist Duo was created by Dow Agrosciences for use on the next generation of GMO crops.
The basis of the legal challenge was that, in approving Enlist Duo, the EPA had failed to consider the impact of the herbicide on threatened and endangered plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act, which requires that agencies consider the impact their actions will have on endangered species.
Dow’s Enlist Duo—and Monsanto’s combination of dicamba and glyphosate, Xtend—are the biotech industry’s answer to “superweeds” that are now resistant to Roundup, the herbicide that has been increasingly dumped on American crops. To kill this new generation of weeds, Dow turned to 2,4-D, which, as we’ve reported in the past, is one of two active ingredients in Agent Orange, the chemical that wreaked havoc on the Vietnamese population and US troops alike during the Vietnam War and which is linked to a long list of horrible diseases and health conditions.
It is extremely disconcerting that it takes a legal action under the Endangered Special Act to compel the EPA, charged with protecting the public from these kinds of dangers, to conduct thorough safety reviews of dangerous chemicals. At this rate, it will be humans who are endangered. Bravo to the Center for Food Safety for holding the agency accountable—and shame on the EPA for making such actions necessary.
 
Other articles in this week’s Pulse of Natural Health:
TPP a Disaster for Natural Health
Eleven States Join the Push for Medical Monopoly
Coca-Cola Scandal: Emails Prove Deception