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Bt kills indiscriminately and is carried around the yard in pollen, so if you were counting on the lady bugs to kill the aphids, it's going to kill the lady bugs. As for the proteins having no effect on people, it would be more accurate to say no proven effects on people. Monsanto's doing a good job of killing off any rigorous scientific studies.
AmyInNH wrote:Bt kills indiscriminately and is carried around the yard in pollen, so if you were counting on the lady bugs to kill the aphids, it's going to kill the lady bugs. As for the proteins having no effect on people, it would be more accurate to say no proven effects on people. Monsanto's doing a good job of killing off any rigorous scientific studies.
Amy,
Are you confusing Genetically Engineered plants and their pollen, which contain the gene for the expression of the BT toxin with the live Bacillus thuringiensis (BT) bacteria? These are two entirely different issues. Actually the Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria would cut into Monsanto’s business because they can’t patent it. If you want to outlaw the use of the Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria you may find a friend in Monsanto.
Over my lifetime (I'm now 65) I've had a special spot in my heart and mind for caterpillars and their butterfly or moth adults. Over the last couple of decades it seems to me that numbers of the agriculturally harmless kinds have been declining. I know some of this is due to habitat loss, but I wonder about the effect of Bt introduction into the environment!
This is where organics fail. Spraying to kill in any fashion is a losing battle (maybe other than very site specific and temporary applications). Unless a being can kill or injure u there is never a reason to kill it. If you must kill it for food and it's not a choice but a fact of survival then maybe that changes, but to kill good and bad bugs all at once over and over to grow things where they should not be grown is a failure of human intelligence. We are growing weaker as a people and taking all the "beneficial" species with us. Organic growing has become just another avenue of human technogy it is not a natural food. See masanobu fukuoka
