Posted on 09/10/2001 3:34:25 PM PDT by anymouse
Studies of corn that is genetically engineered to produce its own insect killer found that the crop is having virtually no impact on monarch butterflies that live in farm fields.
The scientists say that the real danger to the butterflies may be the spraying of weed killers and insecticides, not the growing of the gene-altered corn.
The studies, which are being published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, will likely clear the way for the Environmental Protection Agency to renew registrations for the two most-used varieties of the corn.
EPA, which has already reviewed data from the studies, announced this summer that it did not think the corn posed a significant risk to monarchs.
Monarch larvae feed on the leaves of milkweed plants, which are often found in Midwest corn fields. But the scientists estimated based on field studies that at most 500 in a million caterpillars larvae would die from eating corn pollen that is deposited on the milkweed.
``By and large, at least with the current, dominant varieties on the market, it doesn't look like you're ever going to get a pollen density in the field that would reach the threshold where you would have some kind of detrimental effect,'' said one of the scientists, Iowa State University entomologist John Pleasants.
The scientists said that earlier laboratory studies that suggested the pollen could be toxic to butterflies may have been flawed because ground-up parts of the corn plant were mixed in with the pollen.
The biotech corn, known as Bt corn for a bacterium gene that makes it toxic to the European corn borer, grabbed worldwide attention in 1999 after release of a lab study at Cornell University. That finding produced a public outcry in Europe and calls from environmental groups to curb the spread of genetically engineered crops.
Bt varieties account for nearly 20 percent of this year's corn crop.
Yeah, sure. Facts. What I want to know is who paid for the research that established these "facts"?
In addition, these researchers said probably the butterflies in the original study died from the corn itself not the pollen. That's comforting. Let's go eat a whole bunch. On second thought, you go eat a whole bunch.
This is in a traditional migration route that gets regular university scrutiny's.
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