Sat, 16 Feb 2008

Pest evolves resistance to GM crops

From my rather rudimentary knowledge of biology, I'd always assumed this would happen, although apparently this assumption was lost on the researchers developing GM cotton.

From my rather rudimentary knowledge of politics and business, I'll make a prediction of what will happen next: said researchers will find another toxic gene from another species to insert into cotton and proclaim the problem solved.

For these researchers I'd like to offer the following bit of wisdom from John W. Campbell:

History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes it just yells, 'Can't you remember anything I told you?' and lets fly with a club.

You can expect to see a story quite similar to this one in about 15 years, covering the resistance of the bollworm to the next generation of genetically modified cotton.

An insect pest that is supposed to be killed by a type of genetically modified cotton crop with an in-built toxin gene has developed resistance and is beginning to spread in parts of the United States, a scientific study has found.

(link) [The Independent]

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