Drug Control or Biowarfare--

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Drug Control or Biowarfare--

 

 

 

 

 

Biological Warfare

Powerful New Herbicide May Kill More than Plants

 

Drug Control or Biowarfare?

by Sharon Stevenson and Jeremy Bigwood

 

Source: MoJo News Wire

http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/coca.html

 

May 3, 2000

 

The US is strong-arming Colombia into unleashing the latest weapon in

the war on drugs: a powerful new herbicide. But along with killing

coca plants, the toxic fungus may pose serious dangers to the

environment and human health -- threats so compelling that Florida has

suspended plans to test the fungus for its own anti-drug efforts.

 

The big American suddenly stood up, leaned over the table and said to

the Colombian in a low voice, " You'd better be careful not to talk to

the press! "

 

Dr. David C. Sands, scientist and entrepreneur, was meeting with

advisors to the Colombian Ministry of the Environment last March to

push a new drug-war weapon marketed by his company: a special toxic

fungus which would kill coca plants. The Colombian scientist who

raised Sands' hackles had pointed out that the fungus could also

attack humans with weakened immune systems -- a condition common among

the often undernourished and generally unhealthy poor coca farmers and

workers in the tropical rain forests of Colombia, where Sands wants to

carry out a massive spraying program. " He didn't care, " said the

Colombian, who asked not to be named.

 

Sands is not the only party pushing this new biological weapon. The US

Congress is demanding that Colombia apply the controversial fungus in

order to receive $1.6 billion in emergency bailout funds for

Colombia's antidrug/counterinsurgency strategy called Plan Colombia.

Last March, Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-NY, tacked on an amendment to the

pending aid bill requiring President Clinton to certify that the

Colombian government " has agreed to and is implementing a strategy to

eliminate Colombia's total coca and opium poppy production " using,

among other means " tested, environmentally safe mycoherbicides. " Myco

= fungus; herbicide = plant killer.

 

Steve Peterson, an official with the State Department's International

Narcotics and Law Enforcement division, says they want to see

mycoherbicides used because they would be " more cost effective and

more environmentally friendly " than chemical herbicides.

 

The trouble is that abundant evidence indicates that the only

mycoherbicide being considered for this purpose, Fusarium oxysporum,

may in fact, in massive application, pose serious dangers to the

environment and human health. Florida has put an indefinite hold on

its plans to test the fungus for its own antidrug efforts after

environmentalists and a state official warned that it could mutate,

spread rapidly, and kill off other plants including food crops. And

for over a decade, coca growers in Peru have accused the US of

secretly applying the fungus there to attack coca plants -- in the

process also harming food crops and farm animals. Moreover, the fungus

can, under certain circumstances, cause lethal infections in humans

with weakened immune systems. None of this, however, has dimmed US

government enthusiasm for the project -- nor that of Sands'

corporation, which stands to profit if the fungus is adopted for

widespread use.

 

Years of US-funded aerial spraying have so far failed to even slow

Colombia's thriving industries of coca plants, which produce the raw

material for cocaine, and opium poppies, which are used to make

heroin. The country's cocaine and heroin production has more than

doubled since 1995.

 

The New York Times reported in early May that US-funded spraying of

the herbicide glyphosate (marketed as Roundup by Monsanto Company) may

have exposed scores of Colombian villagers to harmful toxins and

damaged nondrug crops. But the proposed Fusarium program, experts say,

could unleash far worse consequences.

 

The UN Cover

 

The Congressional hardball mandating fungus use follows a less

coercive approach to push Colombia into playing guinea pig for the

first real on-the-ground testing of the toxic Fusarium oxysporum

strain called EN-4. The first approach was through a United Nations

Drug Control Program-proposed project to establish a research station

to conduct field trials for eventual large-scale application of the

fungus. Although the UN representative in Colombia, Klaus Nyholm, said

the draft agreement is " not what the Colombians want, " it certainly

reflects what the US State Department wants and has sold to Congress.

The proposed agreement turns over results of at least 12 years of

research by the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research

Service (ARS) to refine the use of fungi against narcotic " weeds. " The

agreement openly takes political cover under the UN umbrella. A May

1999 Action Request by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright pushes

the UNDCP to get other countries to ante up " in order to avoid a

perception that this is solely a (US government) initiative. "

 

Which, of course, it is. " It was an American interest, " said Nyholm.

" It wasn't my idea. "

 

While the concept of using herbicides against weeds and camouflaging

foliage (such as Agent Orange in Vietnam) is not novel, using them

against crops is. Ironically, the great majority of research on

Fusarium focuses on combating it as a major food-crop killer. The

soil-borne mold infects crops by secreting toxins into their roots,

which then putrefy and dissolve the plant's cells, often eventually

killing them, or worse, poisoning humans or animals who feed on

contaminated plants or plant products. The fungus can survive in soil

for years.

 

The idea of using a fungal herbicide to kill drug plants began in the

1970s after a fungus, later identified as EN-4, began to kill off the

coca at a soft drink research plantation in Kauai, Hawaii. In 1986,

the ARS began a full-blown research project, classified for a time, to

find a biological agent to kill coca. By 1991, the government had

invested at least $14 million in it. Congress has now given the State

Department $23 million originally slated for mycoherbicide development

in the US, which State plans to pass on to the UN.

 

By getting the UN to take on the fungus project, the US not only gets

political cover, but makes it harder to get information about the

program. Unlike the US government, the UN has no Freedom of

Information Act guaranteeing outsiders access to official documents.

 

The US Congress' arm-twisting to make Colombia use the fungus even

before it has been tested for environmental and human safety raises

the fundamental issue of informed consent by the Colombian people. The

program could easily be construed as having a nonpeaceful purpose,

thus contravening the international Biological Weapons Convention and

morphing it from " biocontrol " into " biowarfare. " While both the US and

UN stridently object to the latter term, the secrecy surrounding the

project -- the lack of independent monitoring of the US fungus

development, the lack of media exposure to the project, and the

classified nature of the development program in its early years --

leave serious questions unanswered.

 

Colombia targeted

 

When we visited Colombia in late March to research this article, the

UN proposal had already landed in the Ministry of Environment, which

must approve its use. At a meeting with ranking officials, however, it

became clear that the Ministry had precious little to go on in making

their decision. The vice minister of the environment and her aides

gathered around the conference table were asking us, the journalists,

to supply them with information. Neither the US government nor the UN

agency pushing the plan had given the Ministry the detailed available

documentation on the genesis and development of Fusarium oxysporum

that they would need to help decide if it was safe to apply. Ministry

staffers were reduced to trying to cull information from the Internet.

What they had found there was evidence that Fusarium oxysporum could

mutate to gobble other plants and could be dangerous to animal and

human health.

 

Ministry advisers also told us that Peruvian organizations had not

responded to queries on the fungus epidemic that had affected coca

fields there. Since 1991, Peruvian coca growers have charged that they

have seen helicopters fly over their coca fields emitting a brown or

white cloud which caused their coca and food crops to die and sickened

their farm animals. Many of the farmers believe these helicopters are

part of an American antidrug campaign, a charge the US denies.

Research in 1993 by a US-funded Peruvian scientist showed that many of

the food crops were infected by the same fungus species that had

killed the coca.

 

There are many troubling aspects to the UN proposal. It maintains that

EN-4 already exists in Colombia, which is convenient since introducing

a foreign pathogen to the country would present a problem under

international law; UN representative Nyholm, however, says there is no

EN-4 in Colombia. The proposal admits that fungus development,

large-scale production, storage, and application techniques for

Fusarium already exist; now, it says, all that's needed are

" large-scale " field trials to compare different formulations and

application rates, and assess the environmental impact. Yet it doesn't

specify how they would measure the safety of these trials. Nowhere in

the draft is any noninvolved stakeholder monitor established to

oversee research and development in Colombia. And while the vice

minister says they have yet to approve the fungus, the draft proposal

and State Department " Action Request " both make clear that someone in

the Colombian government has already demonstrated a willingness to

forge ahead, with or without the Environment Ministry's approval.

 

This is no small matter in Colombia, home to the world's second most

diverse biosystem -- one that is uniquely vulnerable to the potential

threat posed by the massive spraying of a toxic, mutative fungus in

vast swaths of jungle.

 

Will it really attack only coca?

 

Department of Agriculture research documents on the fungus explicitly

avow that it is environmentally safe and would attack only coca. But

Colombian researchers and scientists are far from convinced -

especially given Fusarium's notorious tendency to mutate.

 

Colombia is no stranger to Fusarium, a genus that includes several

strains besides EN-4. " There's a group of scientists who've been

working [to combat] Fusarium here for a long time, " said Vice Minister

Martinez. In fact a major epidemic of one Fusarium strain hit the

flower growers in the plains of Bogotá a few years ago, and as a

result, growers could no longer plant in the contaminated earth --

they were forced to switch to soilless hydroponics systems.

 

US scientists also maintain that the EN-4 strain will only attack

plants within the genus Erythroxylum, of which coca is one. But there

are over 200 other plant species within that genus, many of which are

found in Colombia, which EN-4 could then kill besides its intended

target. Plants of the Erythroxylum genus are also used by indigenous

populations for medicinal and religious-cultural practices would also

be at risk.

 

Moreover, a 1995 International Institute of Biological Control report

on the ARS fungus program admitted that non-Erythroxylum North

American plants under stress could be infected by EN-4. Surprisingly,

this seems to be the only research testing EN-4's ability to attack

other plants. Luis Parra, an herbicide expert recommended to us by the

American Embassy who oversees the glyphosate spraying of coca and

opium in Colombia, says he has " a lot of doubts " about Fusarium. " I

don't believe in the specificity of these organisms, " he said. " It is

very different to apply an herbicide (such as glyphosate) that has a

known and predictable and undeniable risk, than to apply a microbe

(such as a mycoherbicide) where the risks are still unknown. "

 

Risks extend to human health

 

While the US continues to murmur its " environmentally safe " mantra,

Eduardo Posada, head of the Colombian Center for International

Physics, believes that Fusarium can be devastating to people with

lowered resistance due to immunological diseases or malnutrition --

common conditions among the farmers who often live near the coca

fields that would be sprayed with the fungus.

 

" The mortality rate for people infected by Fusarium is 76 percent, "

wrote Posada in a letter to the minister of environment. He lists the

scientific literature indicating that Fusarium toxins are " highly

toxic " to animals and humans, and that the use of ants to spread the

fungus (research actually done by ARS scientists), could cause the

ecosystem to be affected much faster than imagined.

 

None of that, however, appears to trouble David Sands.

 

Pecuniary interests? Presenting Dr. Sands

 

Vice Minister Claudia Martinez was ordered by the Colombian ambassador

in Washington to receive Dr. David C. Sands, a professor at Montana

State University in Bozeman and the vice president of Ag/Bio Con

(agricultural biological control), a company that markets the fungus.

He is listed as a major researcher of the fungus in the UN proposal,

and it was he who first isolated EN-4 for ARS in Hawaii. Yet now he

seems to be more appropriately classified as a free-lance businessman,

hawking his company's version of a fully developed fungus field-ready

for " precision delivery from high altitude " application by large C-130

cargo planes -- as a picture in his literature shows.

 

Sands has no shortage of influential contacts. Ag/Bio Con has retained

a prominent DC consulting firm to lobby on bills related to

mycoherbicide development. The company's officials include a retired

Air Force General with a background in research; Sands has received a

Navy research award and has traveled with ranking US government

personnel to a similar fungus project in Kazakhstan and Russia.

Through his Congressional connections, he arranged a face-to-face

meeting with President Andrés Pastrana in Washington last January.

 

Sands did not return repeated phone calls for comment on this article.

 

Sands received nationwide attention for Ag/Bio Con in spring and

summer of last year, when he -- along with Colonel Jim McDonough, a

former top aide to US drug czar General McCaffrey who had taken a new

job as Florida's top drug official -- tried a similar sales job to use

another strain of Fusarium to control Florida's burgeoning marijuana

industry. David Struhs, the head of Florida's Department of

Environmental Protection, reacted with a strongly cautionary letter

saying: " Fusarium species are capable of evolving rapidly ...

Mutagenicity is by far the most disturbing factor in attempting to use

a Fusarium species as a bioherbicide. It is difficult, if not

impossible, to control the spread of Fusarium species. The mutated

fungi can cause disease in a large number of crops, including

tomatoes, peppers, flowers, corn and vines, and are normally

considered a threat to farmers as a pest, rather than as a pesticide.

Fusarium species are more active in warm soils and can stay resident

in the soil for years. Their longevity and enhanced activity under

Florida conditions are of concern, as this could lead to an increased

risk of mutagenicity. "

 

Having been rebuffed by the state of Florida -- failing even to

convince the state authorities to initiate a simple experiment in a

quarantined test site -- Sands apparently set his sights on Colombia.

 

Two scientists who attended Sands' Colombia presentation said he first

presented himself only as a scientist, not mentioning Ag/Bio Con. When

asked about aerial application, they said he got flustered seeing they

already had his sales literature. His goal seemed to be to find four

hectares anywhere to use for a field trial.

 

The US full-court press

 

That goal may be within reach. With the State Department pushing the

UN and the US Congress threatening fund cutoffs, the pressure is on

and the stakes high.

 

Two biologists who made a case on Colombian TV against the UN proposal

say colleagues have told them to cool the rhetoric. One, who asked

that his name not be used, says he received telephone threats after

his statements and is now watching his mouth. " Various times I've

answered the phone and they've said ... they know where they can find

me, where I teach, at what times I go out and I think that the country

has enough heroes, " he told us.

 

In response to the pressures, the Ministry of Environment has come up

with a preliminary counterproposal, calling for back-to-basic research

on " native micro-organisms with biocontrol potential " in the coca

zones. The proposal does not rule out the unpredictable and dangerous

Fusarium, as some scientists have demanded. But it does call for a

long, meticulous study emphasizing safety over the expediency urged by

the State Department and members of Congress.

 

After all, why should the people of Colombia expose themselves to a

risk the people of Florida refused to run? " If we're going to ask, for

example, the Colombians to do something, " said Andy Bernard, spokesman

for the Florida Office of Drug Control, " we ought to have the guts to

do it here as well. " What do you think?

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Sharon Stevenson is a freelance journalist who has lived and worked in

Peru for eleven years. Jeremy Bigwood is an ethnobotanist and

journalist based in Washington D.C.

 

Research support for this article was provided by a grant for Research

and Writing from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.