The September 14 issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) includes a package of six papers examining the effects of Bt corn pollen on monarch butterflies. According to a New York Times article about the studies, the research demonstrates Bt corn poses little risk to monarchs because the pollen is not toxic in the concentrations that larvae would encounter under field conditions. The papers are available online at www.pnas.org.
This new research comes at a particularly crucial time for industry since the Environmental Protection Agency is scheduled to decide by September 30 whether to renew the regulatory permits for Bt crops.
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