Hi all
I am loathe to engage in this contentious topic but I couldn't let this go without comment:

> Of course the genes got in the pollen which was collected by the local bees in Italy and as a result an anti-biotic treatment for (I presume) foulbrood no longer worked.

Response

> Development of genetically modified (GM) plants is contentious, in part because bacterial antibiotic resistance (AR) genes are used in their construction and often become part of the plant genome. This arouses concern that cultivation of GM plants might provide a reservoir of AR genes that could power the evolution of new drug-resistant bacteria. We have considered bacterial DNA transfer systems (conjugation, transduction and transformation) and mechanisms of recombination (homologous recombination, transposition, site-specific recombination and DNA repair) that together might productively transfer AR genes from GM plants to bacterial cells, but are unable to identify a credible scenario whereby new drug-resistant bacteria would be created. 

An assessment of the risks associated with the use of antibiotic resistance genes in genetically modified plants: report of the Working Party of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, Volume 53, Issue 3, 1 March 2004, Pages 418–431.  https://academic.oup.com/jac/article/53/3/418/791375

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