On Fri, 16 May 2003 02:35:02 GMT, animaux wrote:

On Thu, 15 May 2003 20:30:53 +0100, "Tumbleweed"
wrote:

Not much of a choice if its a meaningless word.
And on the other hand, eco-terrorists scaremongers come up with labels
that
scare the public, and prevent a choice that way, since they brainwash
the
public into believing that every genetic change is bad unless it
occurred
randomly.

"Eco-terrorist?" Now that's a useless term if I ever saw one. The fact
is,
Round Up ready corn or X is indeed harmful. BT spliced into corn is
killing
monarch butterfly larva, that's a fact.



from http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns9999499
Reports that 22 million monarch butterflies have been slaughtered in Mexico
have been greatly exaggerated, according to the World Wildlife Fund and
American Monarch researchers.
"It's been overblown," says Monica Missrie, monarch butterfly co-ordinator
for the WWF in Mexico City. "It was probably two or three million." ......
But Missrie told New Scientist that the mass deaths were probably caused by
cold, not pesticides. Recent heavy snowfalls in the area would have been
particularly devastating to butterflies trying to winter in the heavily
logged forest, she says. A similar cold snap in 1996 also killed millions
of Monarchs.

"It can look like they were sprayed," says Missrie, because the
butterflies' fat comes to the surface of their wings when they die, giving
them an oily feel. The WWF has sent biologists into the field to collect
samples and they expect to confirm the cause of death within a few weeks.

see also http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991274

Tim.