MOJO SCOOPS NEW YORK TIMES ON COLOMBIAN ANTI-COCA HERBICIDE STORY

A front page story in the July 6, 2000 edition of The New York Times,
"Fungus Considered as a Tool to Kill Coca in Colombia," (registration
required) reports on how the US is pressuring Colombia into
field-testing a coca-killing herbicide that may pose serious threats
to the environment and human health. That's old news to readers of the
MoJo Wire, Mother Jones magazine's online sister publication, which
broke the story ("Drug Control or Biowarfare?" by Sharon Stevenson and
Jeremy Bigwood) back on May 3, 2000.

The MoJo Wire also reported critical details of the story that the
Times didn't cover. While the Times acknowledges that
environmentalists have raised concerns about the herbicide, known as
fusarium oxysporum, it doesn't explain the scientific evidence
underpinning those concerns; in fact, the experts quoted at length in
the Times piece downplay the environmental risks, asserting that the
main concern is whether fusarium will be effective against coca
plants. The MoJo Wire article, however, includes links to a host of
scientific research papers and US government studies showing that
fusarium can attack plants besides coca, including food crops; and
that it can pose a lethal danger to people and animals with weakened
immune systems.

The Times story also doesn't mention an amendment to the upcoming $1.3
billion Colombian aid package, added last March by Rep. Benjamin
Gilman, R-NY, which virtually forces Colombia to move toward deploying
the herbicide. The amendment , also linked to from the MoJo Wire
article, requires 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
things, "tested, environmentally safe mycoherbicides." Fusarium
oxysporum is the only mycoherbicide that has been considered for this
use.