Wikipedia: Genetically modified organism/Talk

Difference (from prior major revision) (minor diff, author diff)

Changed: 1c1,4

There's also the bit about Monsanto's "terminator seed" (so named it because it was intended to be self-terminating), which turned out to be lethal to Monarch butterflies and caused quite a controversy because of it. I didn't add this bit as it would just get moved here anyway by some [Divine Wikipedian]? since I would have failed to mention the x million cases of animals and insects not dying as a result of ingesting a GMO product.

(confused comment)

LDC's response to confused comment:

Monsanto's "terminator" seeds were merely seeds engineered to produce seedless plants so that farmers would have to keep buying seed from Monsanto. Farmers figured out pretty quick that this was a bad idea and the business model failed, as it should have, in the free market. The Monarch story was about corn engineered to be worm-resitant, so it wouldn't need to be grown with pesticides. A study showed that its pollen was also toxic to monarch caterpillars, who feed exclusively on milkweed. Milkweed often grows near corn fields, but the study failed to show that any significant amount of pollen actually gets onto milkweed leaves where any caterpillars might be harmed, and of course it entirely ignored the fact that without the gene mod, the fields would have been sprayed with pesticide that kills them all without question, so the gene can only be the benefit of the butterflies. --LDC

(confused comment)

LDC's response to confused comment:
Monsanto's "terminator" seeds were merely seeds engineered to produce seedless plants so that farmers would have to keep buying seed from Monsanto. Farmers figured out pretty quick that this was a bad idea and the business model failed, as it should have, in the free market. The Monarch story was about corn engineered to be worm-resitant, so it wouldn't need to be grown with pesticides. A study showed that its pollen was also toxic to monarch caterpillars, who feed exclusively on milkweed. Milkweed often grows near corn fields, but the study failed to show that any significant amount of pollen actually gets onto milkweed leaves where any caterpillars might be harmed, and of course it entirely ignored the fact that without the gene mod, the fields would have been sprayed with pesticide that kills them all without question, so the gene can only be the benefit of the butterflies. --LDC