PsychoCorp #1—FMC Product Banned in U.S. Kills Lions in Africa

by Heidi Stevenson

While hyping its "Commitment to Stewardship" campaign to avoid "causing harm to humans, the environment, or wildlife," FMC has been selling its pesticide to African nations after it was restricted in the U.S. and banned in Europe. The product, Furadan, is such an effective poison that Kenyan cattle herders have sprinkled it over carcasses to lure and kill lions. Oddly enough, its manufacturer, FMC, sees it a little differently.

FMC takes its image for Commitment to Stewardship and Corporate Responsibility seriously, and has launched a website, Furadan Facts, to prove it. One of its core principles is to "responsibly steward our agrochemical products so that growers will benefit from their use in agriculture without causing harm to humans, the environment, or wildlife." In their own study of the Kenyan lion deaths, they found no evidence to suggest that their product was responsible. Their findings (quoted from their website) include:

• The lodge and staff quarters are area [sic] almost entirely encircled by an electric fence making it virtually impossible for a hippo to enter the lodge grounds to feed.
  • It's nice to know that lodge and staff quarters are "almost" entirely surrounded by an electric fence, but I can't figure out how the lions are supposed to know that hippos can't get in.
• No Furadan products were used at the lodge or by the staff on their small garden.
  • Of course, I'm delighted that staff didn't use Furadan—though that does beg the question of why not, since FMC claims it's safe, and there's also the niggling detail that it wasn't reserve staff members who used it to poison lions.
• There is no agriculture in the Maasai Mara Reserve, so there is no reason to use Furadan or any other agricultural products within the Reserve.
  • Well, I can't argue with that.
• No detectable residues of carbofuran [generic for Furadan] were found in soil or plant samples.
  • It's good to hear that there were no detectable residues of Furudan in soil and plant sample—though how the samples were selected and taken goes unexplained, and why they looked for such samples everywhere but on and in animals is a tad confusing.
• It is unlikely that the hippos died from direct ingestion of Furadan granules since a single hippo would have to eat 700,000 granules to reach a toxic dose. A single lion would have to consume 19,680 kg of hippo meat or about 10 entire hippos to reach a toxic dose.
  • Since the concern is about lions dying from Furadan poisoning, the examination of hippos is...well, I can't quite figure that one out. Since the Furadan was simply poured on top of the bait animals, it's a bit hard to see what eating entire animals has to do with the poisoning, but then, the inability to comprehend why it's important that hippos weren't poisoned is probably related to why I can't see that, either.

All of this is quite interesting—but none of it explains why Kenyan herders buy Furadan to poison lions. And it certainly makes one wonder why, if their product is so harmless, FMC opted to stop selling it in Kenya.

FMC vice president, Milton Steele, has stated, "We will not resume sales until such time as we can be assured that the deliberate widespread misuse of our product won't occur, and if we can't be assured of that there is going to be no more sales to Kenya." Didn't their study demonstrate that it isn't being misused? Or am I still missing something?

Back to Planet Earth

Whatever planet FMC wants us to think we live in, the one the rest of us occupy has found that Furadan is devastating to the earth, animals, and humans. The EPA has restricted its use in the US, where the deaths of two million birds has been blamed on it, and is planning to ban it entirely. The USDA fought that ruling, which should clarify that it works for the benefit of agribusiness, not the people. The EPA's website states that "products containing carbofuran generally cause unreasonable adverse effects on humans and the environment and do not meet safety standards, and therefore are ineligible for reregistration." A more enlightened Europe has banned it completely. However, where there's a profit to be made, FMC is not far behind, and there are profits aplenty in Africa.

In honor of FMC's scorched earth efforts to promote profits over all other concerns, we are delighted to award them with the first Psycho Corporation Award! Congratulations! Take this award to the bank—and be sure to show it to your children, who will surely honor your efforts when you explain to them why there aren't any more safaris.