U.S. Rep. Mark Souder wins Vleeptron 12 Monkeys Prize

image from the motion picture
"12 Monkeys" directed by Terry Gilliam
inspired by Chris Marker's short film
"La Jetée" (1962)

INSET: Fusarium oxysporum
Fusarium culmorum Sporen
im Lichtmikroskop
bei 400-facher Vergrößerung

[a spore of the fungus
Fusarium oxysporum
magnified 400 x
from the enius AG website]

Fusarium oxysporum gehört zur Gattung des Fusarium. FusariumFusarium kommt sehr häufig in Futtermitteln, Lebensmitteln, Getreide, Anstrichen und Tapeten vor. Die meisten Fusarium-Arten sind Pflanzenparasiten und können Mykotoxine (Schimmelpilzgift) bilden. ist eine Gattung der Schimmelpilze.

help help the man is insane we're all going to die of mass starvation

If you think the Bush Administration's and the Fundie-era politicization of Science doesn't affect you, stop eating food for a month -- to get a realistic sense of a Future shaped by the politicization of Science.

Vleeptron is proud to award the first 12 Monkeys Prize to U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, Republican psycho frothing loony rabid fundie from Fort Wayne, Indiana USA, and wishes to remind all the voters of Fort Wayne that Souder is up for un-election on Tuesday 7 November 2006.

~ ~ ~

New Scientist (issue 2549 page 6)
Saturday 29 April 2006

Call for biowar on drugs

Congressman Mark Souder has been busy in his personal war on drugs. As well as fighting against the legalisation of cannabis for medical use (see below), the Indiana Republican has slipped a provision into a bill calling for the fungus Fusarium oxysporum to be used as a biological control agent against drug crops in foreign countries.

The CIA, however, has had moral doubts about using the fungus. In 2000, a CIA official told The New York Times that it was unsafe both for humans and for the environment: "I don't support using a product on a bunch of Colombian peasants that you wouldn't use against a bunch of rednecks growing marijuana in Kentucky."

The Department of Agriculture and the Drug Enforcement Agency agree. Fusarium species are highly prone to mutation, so they can readily change hosts and infect plants they were not supposed to. This was the main reason Florida's Department of Environmental Protection rejected the fungus in 1999 as a biocontrol agent for use on outdoor marijuana crops.

The House of Representatives proposal to use F. oxysporum in biocontrol is not included in the Senate version of the bill, which concerns the office of the US "drug czar", and a committee will now meet to decide on the final version.

Meanwhile, Bausch & Lomb recalled a contact-lens solution last week amid fears that it is associated with the spread of an eye disease across the US. The disease is caused by F. oxysporum.

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from imbd
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Date of birth (location)
29 July 1921
Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France
Trivia
Chris Marker took name Marker from Magic Marker pen. (show more)

Sometimes Credited As:
Jacopo Berenzini