Hi All.

    According to an article in this month's 'Beekeepers' News', the Ministry
of Agriculture, Fisheries and Foods here in the UK have recently got round to
publishing advice given in February 1999 by the Advisory Committee on Novel
Foods and Processes, which advised strongly against permitting Monsanto's GM
cotton to be used here as it contains a gene for resistance to streptomycin
and spectinomycin, and horizontal transfer could potentially lead to the
appearance of antibiotic resistant gonorrhoea. If this is possible, then that
seems to add weight to rumours of a gene terramycin resistance having
possibly transferred into Paenobacillus larvae. I wish I had had that piece
of information a few months ago; I was at a conference on GM (an annual
get-together of scientists and theologians), and when I raised the terramycin
issue, I was told dismissively that it was 'impossible'. Anything but, by the
sound of it.

Regards,

Robert Brenchley

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