A New Wave of Gene-Silencing Pesticides is About to be Sprayed on Your Food
(Source: Alliance for Natural Health)
The EPA has already failed at protecting Americans from the dangers of chemical pesticides, but this new generation of products opens a whole new can of worms on safety that the EPA is doing its best to ignore. Action Alert!
Are you ready for the next generation of gene-altering compounds that are going to be sprayed on your food? Welcome to the world of RNAi (short for ribonucleic acid interference) pesticides, products which work by “silencing” genes that are essential to life in target pests. These pesticides aren’t genetically modified (GM) themselves, helping lift what would have otherwise been a major regulatory burden that they don’t like. The goal for RNAi pesticides is for them to modify the genetics of the pests that feed on the crops—as well as any other species that happen to get caught in the crossfire. As we’ve seen with GM soil microbes, the EPA is treating RNAi products like any other pesticide, which ignores an entirely new set of risks and dangers associated with these products. Like GM soil microbes, this technology is being used to solve a problem the agrichemical industry itself created. Does this sound familiar when you reflect on “pill-for-an-ill” medicine?
