Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Terminator ban in Canada

A mere week after the governator visits us, a private bill to ban the terminator has been introduced by the agriculture critic of the NDP (a federal party here in Canada...yes we have more than 2 parties). The terminator 5-gene contruct is used by Monsanto to block germination of seeds from transgenic plants. The idea is that transgenic seeds can only be grown for one generation and bought again every year. On one hand it is good to have a means control the spread of transgenics into the wild. However, in theory this terminator can be passed along in the pollen, it just wont germinate. Some of the fears have to do with gene-pollution but i suspect the reason India and Brazil have already banned it have more to do with food security. It'll be interesting to see what happens...


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