Drug Control or Biowarfare? Source: MoJo News Wire 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.
by Sharon Stevenson and Jeremy Bigwood
http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/coca.html