Has anyone mapped the geographical spread of the resistance? Eg, Did it
start in the corn or cotton or rape or soy belts?
Ron

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Mann [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, 5 January 2001 7:40 a.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [NZNBAList] AFB - GM crop connection possible
...

Bees in the US are increasingly afflicted with a strain of antibiotic
resistant American foulbrood (AFB). Before the advent of antibiotics,
this bacterial infection was the most serious bee disease in the
world. Tetracycline had been used effectively against AFB for 40 years
until 1996. In that year, tetracycline resistance was confirmed in
both Argentina and the upper Midwestern states of Wisconsin and
Minnesota. Since then, it has spread to at least 17 states in the US,
including New York, and to parts of Canada. During the 1990s, millions
of acres of Round-up Ready crops were planted in the US, Canada, and
Argentina.  According to my information, the antibiotic resistant gene
used in the creation of Round-up Ready crops was for resistance to
tetracycline.  After 40 years of effective usage against an infective
bacterium found in the guts of honeybees, suddenly two geographically
isolated countries develop tetracycline resistance simultaneously. A
common thread between the US, Canada and Argentina is the widespread
and recent cultivation of GM crops containing tetracycline resistant
genes.