The Cornell Report - Industry Response

Paul Cherubini paulcher at concentric.net
Mon May 24 01:33:40 EDT 1999


Doug Yanega wrote:

> So, (2) where are the industry-sponsored studies comparing the spread
> and effects of Bt-toxin-laden pollen with pesticides? That would seem to be
> the bottom line here. If the studies don't exist, and industry won't pay,
> then I'm not sure you can claim that grants to do the work are a waste.

Doug, the industry says "Ongoing monitoring of Bt corn fields by
companies since their introduction [three years ago in 1996] further
shows that very little pollen lands on adjacent milkweed leaves."

I have not personally seen the monitoring studies refered to above, but
if they are true, how is it realistically conceivable that the Bt corn
pollen, released for only a week or two out of the whole summer, could
have an even a miniscule regional monarch population impact ?

Beyond that, those of us like me who have 20 years practical work
experience working with agricultual insecticides think in a bit
different way about potential impacts than many of you in academia. We
ask ourselves the question: "How could we kill lepidopteran caterpillars
with this Bt corn pollen IF WE PURPOSELY WANTED TO? 

In other words, is it conceivable this Bt pollen dust would make a HOT
NEW COMMERICIAL INSECTICIDE POWDER? Think of the enormous multi-million
dollar potential uses it would have if that were true!  By gosh, if that
were true, the chemical & seed companies would be out in the corn fields
trying to harvest thousands of tons of the gold mine Bt corn pollen! 

Hell they could use the miracle corn pollen powder in their own seed
storage warehouses to combat their troublesome Indian Meal Moth
infestations instead of fogging the warehouses with Vapona or Pyrethrin
insecticides (have you ever visited a big vegetable seed company
warehouse like Pioneer Hybrid Seed International and seen the lep
infestation problems they have or seen their aluminum phosphide
fumigation chambers that are used because the Vapona and pyrethrins
don't always provide complete control against seed damage)?

But,of course, the chemical & seed companies have no doubt long known
the Bt corn pollen isn't hardly a good lep caterpillar killing agent
(even though it might be in theory or in unrealistic lab tests) and thus
has no promise as a commecial lep insecticide product .  My guess is
they well know whatever monarch or other non-target lep caterpillar
tests have and will be done, they won't reveal any significant potential
impacts on any species (at least even remotely comparable to the killing
power of conventional insecticide sprays and dusts). 

Paul Cherubini, Placerville, California


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