"I think the medical literature is completely clear that pesticide exposure is bad for children's health, and it is incumbent upon the state to ensure that those health impacts are prevented."
Lukens said she was not even allowed to attend the Agriculture and Health Secretary's press conference. A Health Department official said only news media representatives were allowed in.
From Stephen Fox: Get used to this kind of stranglehold and cloture over serious non-corporate journalists in the coming years....
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According to an article by Amy Martyn in Consumer Affairs:
"Attorneys for the food safety and environmental groups defending Kauai's ordinance had argued that companies like Syngenta could still do business in Kauai, even under the regulations. 'Ordinance 960 doesn't tell the plaintiffs or anybody else, you can't do business in Kauai County. You have to follow these disclosures and you have to have buffer zones,' Paul Achitoff, the attorney for EarthJustice, testified.The attorney representing Syngenta countered with the argument that Kauai's self-protective ordinance should be struck down entirely. "Over and over again you see references to them -- to the council members saying, We don't want to hurt the local farmers, we don't want to get the little farmers. We just want to get the seed companies. And that's what they did, and they did it in ways that are in fact irrational," Paul Alston said in open court.
What this means in and for Kauai is quite unclear: Syngenta announced last fall that it will sell about 6,000 acres of land in Kauai and operate under contract with a different landowner in Hawaii.
Further, Syngenta is in talks to be acquired by a Chinese chemical company for $43 billion.
This article is not going to leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling that this ruling about Hawaii is going to help anyone in the United States or anywhere else who is opposed to the basic science of GMO's or to massive pesticide use. Nor do I as the author of this article have a clue what will come next or what this bifurcated ruling will mean in the long run, except in the context of the Supreme Court and its soon to be appointed 9th member.
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