In spite of more important issues like same-sex marriage and flag burning, the politicians of this country still have an unhealthy obsession with their war on drugs. People are being locked in prison and fired from jobs for smoking or possessing some marijuana. Meanwhile people are losing their health insurance and retirement savings while corporate executives drive their companies into the ground and then take multi-million golden parachutes as all the workers lose everything.
A few months ago Bausch and Lomb announced a recall of their ReNu contact lens cleaning fluid, because it was causing a dangerous fungus to grow on users eyes that could cause blindness. Now the congress is pushing the spraying of Fusarium keratitis on the crops “of a major drug producing country” namely Colombia. Oddly enough the Colombian government is not too happy about the idea of spraying a fungus that can cause permanent blindness on a large portion of the country. Neither are most parts of the government that have actually had to deal with drug enforcement.
The Colombian government has come out against it. And those entities of the U.S. government that have studied the use of Fusarium for more than 30 years don’t recommend it either: The Office of National Drug Control Policy, also known as the Drug Czar’s office, CIA, DEA, the State Department and the USDA have all concluded that the fungus is unsafe for humans and the environment.
The only ones who actually seem to like the idea are the fascist republicans in congress like Dan Burton (R-Ind). These guys have no problem poisoning Colombian farmers or sending troops off to die in the middle east. But everyone who actually knows anything about the reality of the situation is against it. It’s no wonder that the longer republicans stay in power the more people around the world hate the United States.