This might seem like just a quirky finding except for one thing: it comes in the midst of a revolution in biologists’ understanding of what are called trans-generational effects. The term refers to consequences of toxic exposure that strike a generation or more down the line. In the case of vinclozolin, the chemical affects how genes in the male rats’ sperm are turned on or off. (This is called an epigenetic change.) All the male rats that inherit the damaged DNA get sick young, and the damage persists down at least three generations, to the great-grandsons of exposed rats.
That kind of transgenerational genetic change was first reported in 2005 by scientists led by Michael Skinner of Washington State University; until then, no one knew that the effects of environmental toxins can be felt down through the generations. It doesn’t happen through harmful mutations, which become rarer with each generation. Instead, the culprit seems to be molecular “on” and “off” switches that get attached to the sperm’s DNA, and which do persist through the generations. Today’s study is the first to show that females can tell something is wrong.
title: “Sins Of The Fathers” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-22” author: “Roy Bridges”
It has been many months since the RodrMguez brothers were captured by a special drug force, and they have begun to talk. Even in Cali, where Gilberto, 57, and Miguel, 51, posed for years as legitimate businessmen, their confessions of drug trafficking, illegal enrichment and criminal conspiracy have stripped away the last shreds of the family’s claim to honor and respectability. But the brothers’ children are standing fast. ““Your father is your father,’’ Humberto says. ““If all your life you have loved him, why are you going to stop because of these circumstances?''
Humberto and four other young members of the clan recently sat for an exclusive interview with NEWSWEEK. Humberto RodrMguez Mondragn, 33, is Gilberto RodrMguez’s third son and heads the supermarket chain that is one of the family’s many legitimate businesses. His older brother, Jaime, 36, and his first cousin Juan Carlos RodrMguez Abadia, 31, run a chain of discount pharmacies. Humberto’s sister, MarMa Alexandra, 27, is a member of the board of directors of the family conglomerate, which employs 7,000 Colombians and which, in addition to the retail chains, includes pharmaceutical labs and a soccer team. William, 31, is Miguel RodrMguez’s oldest son and a lawyer in Cali. In a five-hour conversation, the RodrMguezes talked about the charges against Gilberto and Miguel and their own predicament as heirs of the world’s most notorious drug kingpins. ““This situation of drug trafficking has raised our profile to the point that today, we are talking to NEWSWEEK,’’ Jaime said. ““But the truth is, I never wanted a profile like this.''
They said they knew little about the family enterprise while growing up. ““We have never had an open conversation about their involvement in “the business’,’’ Alexandra said. ““Do you think they came to us and said, “We are traffickers’? No, not even now.’’ While there are no charges against them in Colombia, Humberto and the others have been targeted by a special unit of army and police, the Bloque del Bsqueda, which busts drug traffickers. They believe their phones are tapped. Their movements are followed, their bank accounts have been frozen. ““These children watched their fathers in this line of work since they were little,’’ said Col. BenjamMn Nez Nez, commander of the Bloque del Bsqueda. ““They can’t sneak away now. They still have their businesses bought with ill-gotten gains.''
The children dismiss such talk as ““the stigma of the last name.’’ As they tell it, Gilberto and Miguel RodrMguez were disciplinarians who emphasized hard work and high moral standards. Still, said Jaime, ““there was always somebody who said, “Hey, your father is a drug trafficker.’ We’d argue with them, call them liars.’’ The truth came out in 1984, when Gilberto was arrested in Spain and extradited back to Colombia for trial. (He was acquitted.) In 1989, the younger generation bought the family’s aboveboard interests from their father and uncle. But the taint of trafficking and the intensifying pursuit of the cartel’s profits have forced them to try to liquidate their businesses. Washington has barred U.S. companies from doing business with firms connected to the RodrMguez family.
The clan lives in fear of the knock on the door. Last year Humberto and Alexandra were briefly arrested when a police raiding party crashed one of their business meetings, then released when the cops discovered there were no orders to detain them. In May, William was shot and nearly killed by unknown gunmen while eating dinner at a Cali restaurant. Six people died, including two of his best friends. Pale, drawn and nervous, he walks with a limp and at one point in the interview opened his shirt to show the bullet wounds from the attack. ““Who is going to go out and eat with me now?’’ he complained. ““This is worse than having AIDS.''
U.S. officials, who say the cartel was responsible for 80 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States, are pressing Bogot to destroy the syndicate. In June, Gilberto, Miguel and 72 associates were charged in a 203-page federal indictment in Miami with drug trafficking, racketeering and the widespread bribery of Colombian officialdom. The RodrMguez brothers are unlikely ever to see a U.S. courtroom because Colombia does not permit the extradition of its citizens. But the June indictment was a blow to the family because it also alleged that William took over the cartel after his father’s arrest on Aug. 6, 1995 – and that William ““initiated efforts to retaliate for the arrest of his father . . . including directing others to locate and/or kill witnesses who could potentially testify against his father.''
William denied the charges. ““If there is anything that would give [Gilberto and Miguel] pain in this life, it would be that one of us becomes involved,’’ he said. The deputy commander of Colombia’s National Police, Gen. Luis Enrique Montenegro, says there is ““no basis’’ for saying the younger generation of the RodrMguez family shares their fathers’ guilt – a statement that seems to include William. But the stigma has been passed to the next generation – and guilty or not, it is theirs for keeps.
