Danyele wrote
plants engineered to resist pests or even weedkillers will cross with
wild
weed relatives,with the serious dangerous result of breeding superweeds
and
super pests.
It's my understanding that these jkpests and weeds are called superpests
and superweeds because they resist chemical pesticides and herbicides.
Now, if we don't use synthtic pesticides, how can these bugs and weeds
be "super?" Shouldn't regular organic practices eliminate them just as
easily as "regular" pests and weeds? (Except perhaps for Bt resistant
bugs) In addition, these "Super" weeds and pests carry a biological cost
to produce these extra chemicals or enzymes that allow them to resist
synthetic pesticides. This cost probably results in lower fecundity for
these organisms, which mean the resistant strain will probably not last
long in nature. Only if we continue to use synthetic chemicals, which
would provide a strong evolutionary pressure to preserve the particular
chemical pathway that provides resistance to the synthetic chemical. It
would probalby be hard to find at DDT resistant mosquito in the U.S.
becuase we no longer use DDT.
Personally, I'm more concerned about bacteria crossing and creating a
bacterium that is resistant to known antibiotics and yet can do grave
environmental damage. Or any GE bacteria released into hte environment
because we can't kill off all the bacteria int he world in an effort to
stop the one that went bad. We can't even kill Kudzu and we can see
that. Or chemicals produced in these GE products that canse
environmental or human health problems.
Deborah Turton
