Monarchs and the Bt Transgenic Corn Pollen Scare

[Chris Conlan]

Let me see how many birds (or monarchs) I can kill with one stone (pollen
grain?) here.

1) In response to the fellow who quoted earlier studies about Bt persisting
in the environment (and insisted Paul didn't have the whole story) -- those
studies use a very different formulation of Bt grown by bacteria and
formulated as a spray-on product.  The environmental persistence of that
formulation can't be compared to that of the toxin produced by the corn
plant in Bt corn.  Studies still need to be done (or published) on this.

2) The government does require non target studies as part of the product
registration procedure.  These studies usually include a variety of
organisms from bees to worms. You can't test everything - there is too much!
 

3) The young larvae of European Corn Borer (primary target of Bt corn) will
eat the pollen when it is present.  This is likely part of the reasoning
behind expressing the toxin in the pollen.

4)  Bt toxin does not act as a chitinase!  It must be ingested and works in
the insect gut.   

5) Rather than nit-pik the Cornell study to death (and believe me you
could!) let's cut to the bottom line.  What's the real risk here?  We can't
definitively say just yet but even when you lay down some fairly exaggerated
assumptions it still doesn't add up to much.  Paul Cherubini already did
this quite nicely so I'll just leave it at that.  When all this hype is over
(can't happen too soon) it will probably be discovered that the monarch
populations (as well as other non-target leps) are in no danger from Bt
corn.   

Chris