This section contains 714 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) |
Genetically modified (GM) foods have been the source of heated debate, with GM corn often at the center of controversy. American corn farmers have faced a constant battle with the corn borer, a voracious insect that costs farmers nearly $1 billion a year in pesticides and other measures to prevent damage to corn crops. In 1995 scientists from Plant Genetics Systems developed corn seed it called StarLink, which contained a corn borer–killing gene that poisoned the borer, saving farmers time and money. Because StarLink contained a protein, Cry9C, that resembled a substance found to trigger violent allergies in some people, U.S. federal regulators threatened to ban it. Aventis, a European pharmaceutical company that had purchased Plant Genetic Systems, asked if it could instead sell the StarLink seed to farmers who would use it only for feed corn...
This section contains 714 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) |