BIOTECH INDUSTRY URGES CAUTION ON BUTTERFLY STUDY
Date: 24-May-99
Country: USA
The study, by a team led by John Losey of Cornell University, involved butterflies in a laboratory that were fed milkweed dusted with pollen from Bt corn, a GM variety. The butterflies ate less than those on normal milkweed and nearly half of their larvae died.
The results of the study, published on Thursday in the British science journal Nature, drew a swift reaction from backers of the multibillion dollar U.S. biotech industry, which for months has been fighting a public relations war with vocal opponents of GM crops and foods in Europe.
The Biotechnology Industry Organisation, a Washington, D.C.-based group representing more than 850 biotechnology companies, universities and research centres, said that the Cornell study needed further evaluation and context.
"Even if the reported results are validated, there are strong reasons to believe they are not relevant to monarch caterpillars in the wild," the group said.
"Ongoing monitoring of Bt corn fields by companies since their introduction further shows that very little pollen lands on adjacent milkweed leaves. It is thus highly likely that in the natural setting, outside the laboratory, most monarch larvae would never encounter significant amounts of corn pollen. This means the real potential for any negative impact is negligible," the industry group said.
Bt corn is named for Bacillus thuringienis, a bacterium found in soil that is toxic to a major crop pest, the European corn borer. The Bt gene is added to corn seeds as a built-in pesticide and has also been widely used in cotton seeds.
U.S. farm groups said this spring that more than 27 million acres of GM corn, mostly of the Bt variety, would be planted in the U.S. this year. More than half the 14 million acres planted to cotton in the U.S. were expected to be of Bt strains.
St Louis, Mo., based Monsanto Co. , the industry leader in farm biotechnology whose GM seed patents include varieties of corn, soybeans, cotton, sugar beets and potatoes, said that the Cornell findings deserved study but needed context.
"Considered in total, research conducted in the field supports the safety of Bt crops for beneficial and other non-target insects. The laboratory study in Nature provides interesting information but reflects a situation very different than that actually prevalent in the natural environment," Monsanto said in a statement.
Monsanto stressed that the use of GM crops in recent years has sharply reduced the amounts of chemicals used in fields.
Des Moines, Iowa-based Pioneer Hi-Bred International , the world's largest producer of corn seed, also stressed the benefits of GM varieties balanced against the perceived risks.
"We are very concerned about the environment, making sure our products are safe. This (Bt corn) has been approved by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)," said Dirck Steimel, a Pioneer spokesman.
"The butterfly feeding was very controlled in this and not in a natural setting. We feel that while this study is fine, far more research needs to be done. The thing to remember is Bt is a very environmentally beneficial product that reduces spraying," Steimel said.
