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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Robert Mann <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 31 May 2000 09:51:17 +1200
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>I am sorry that as a consultant ecologist Robert did not express an opinion.

        The reason is no further than Glyn's next sentence.


>I wish there was better information available.

        The story is far less intelligible than was the famous Aug 98 TV
statement that a certain GM potato had damaged rats which had eaten it.
In that case, a leading scientist (280 papers, a half-doz books) himself
summarised the results.  In the present case, a person (Beatrix Tappeser)
'outed' the actual researcher.
        The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) can amplify stray traces of DNA
to any arbitrary extent, and can therefore produce preliminary results that
are very misleading.  (Some men are in gaol wrongfully as a result of its
misuse in crime investigations.)  Until we have a description in
conventional scientific form, we won't know what to think.  I find it
difficult to imagine how Beatrix's 'outing' could be justified.


> The worrying aspect to my
>mind, and I wish I knew more about this, is that I believe GM technologists
>use antibiotic resistant marker genes to help identify the successful, or
>other wise, transfer of the genes actually being manipulated.   I hope a
>Bee-L expert can explain this reassuringly.

        Many current GM crops were created using that method.  It has been
among the hazards complained of by critics like me.  I should add that
other hazards of GM have generally been interpreted as worse  -  see
www.psrast.org and www.ucsusa.org.


>If antibiotic resistant genes are transferred to the bacteria in the gut of
>honeybees what does this imply for the use of Terramycin against EFB and the
>bacteria in our own alimentary canal if we swallow antibiotic resistant
>genes in GM pollen?

        I'm not sure whether terramycin-resistance has been used in
creation of any current GM crops; I think not, but I'm unsure.

R


-
Robt Mann
consultant ecologist
P O Box 28878   Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand
                (9) 524 2949

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