Musings: As My Mama Used to Say

The state Legislature today will take up the topic of genetically engineered fish, considering a bill that would ban their cultivation, propagation or farming in state marine waters.

Though the Civil Beat editors displayed their bias in the headline — “No GMO Fish in Hawaii, Please” — reporter Chad Blair was even-handed in his brief coverage, noting:

HB 686 does not explain why GMO fish need to be banned from local waters.

That's because, as one commenter noted, “there isn't a good scientific reason. It's just a general fear of technology coupled with nostalgia for 'the good old days.'”

Guess sales of the cheesy chicks calendar haven't gone too well, as Babes Against Biotech admitted it doesn't have the dough to fund a fulltime fearmongerer lobbyist this year.

But no worries, since activism has always been second to self-promotion among the anti-GMO crowd. Which is why BAB's Nomi Carmona didn't post any testimony on the BAB Facebook page, just a selfie at the Capitol:

Uh, might wanna close your mouth before the flies get in, as my Mama used to say. Or as Mr. Rogers used to say, "Can you spell narcissist?" 

Nomi was very upset that Alicia Maluafiti, a woman who spends her free time and money rescuing abandoned animals, yet is nonetheless regularly maligned by the antis because she lobbies for Crop Life America, called out the anti-GMO movement in Hawaii for what it is: 

“Mainland activists trying to save us from ourselves” and “21st Century missionaries.”

Oh, such race-baiting, huffed Nomi, who hails from California. Nope. Just the truth. Which is why none of the anti-GMO groups can actually survive on local funding.

Alicia was testifying against HB 2564, which would establish a pilot project requiring certain agricultural entities to plant vegetative buffer zones around five as yet undesignated schools, one on each island. Though not Lanai, because apparently the activists don't give a shit about the keiki there.  

But then the bill goes on to specifically exempts treatments by termite companies.

So you can't spray ag pesticides in a field a mile from a school, but you can use pesticides directly on school grounds and buildings. But this is not about agriculture, it's about keiki health. OK, got it.

Speaking of keiki, Malia Chun – sister of Kauai Councilman Mason Chock and one of those suing to keep Bill 2491 alive – sent her mom to allege that Malia's kids are sick from pesticides. As "proof," she cited hair samples that showed exposure to 36 pesticides, eight of them restricted use.

Curious, I did a bit of research, and found this paper:

In order to identify associations between indoor air contamination and human exposure to pesticides, hair samples from 14 persons (9 adults and 5 children below 12 years) were collected simultaneously with the air of their 5 contrasted houses. Three houses were situated in Alsace (France), one in Lorraine (France) and one in Luxembourg (Luxembourg). Houses were located in urban (n=3), semi-urban (n=1) and rural areas (n=1). Twenty five (25) pesticides were detected at least once in indoor air samples and 20 pesticides were detected at least once in hair samples. The comparison between hair and air samples for the same sampling periods shows that pesticides detected in the two matrices were not necessarily associated. Exposure profiles varied from one home to another but also between inhabitants of the same home, suggesting that exposure can be different between inhabitants of the same home.

I hate to break it to folks, but pesticides are ubiquitous. You can pick them up even when you don't live anywhere near an agricultural field. Why, they're even found in — gasp — organic food. As Forbes reported, using the latest USDA-PDP (Pesticide Data Program) information as a source (emphasis in the original):

What that transparent source of tax payer-supported research indicates is that 40 different synthetic pesticide residues were detected on organic food samples at levels similar to what was seen for the comparable conventional food samples. In both cases the amounts are too small to be a health/safety concern.

For organic advocates and organic marketers this sort of information leaves one of two possibilities. They can agree with the EPA and other responsible agencies that consumers need not be concerned about the low-level pesticide residues found in either conventional and organic food. Alternatively they could choose not to believe those authorities and be forced to conclude that organic food is unsafe.

But then, that would require logic.

One of the things that irritates me most about the anti-GMO movement, especially now that it's broadening its message to include pesticides, is its total disconnect from the reality that many GM crops actually reduce pesticide use. This has been documented in Bt cotton, corn, brinjal (eggplant) and papaya.

Heck, even the anti-corporate spiel is turning out to be a crock, now that so many pure, altruistic, consumer-minded organic companies have opted for the big bucks and sold out to large corporations:

Yeah, that's the problem with the real world. Things just aren't so black-and-white, so cut-and-dried, as a Facebook meme.