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revbones

(3,660 posts)
4. They didn't predict any problems with klebsiella planticola either that I recall
Sun Mar 13, 2016, 12:39 PM
Mar 2016

The Deadly Genetically Engineered Bacteria that Almost Got Away: A
Cautionary Tale

In the early 1990s a European genetic engineering company was preparing to field test and then commercialize on a major scale a genetically engineered soil bacteria called Klebsiella planticola. The bacteria had been tested--as it turns out in a careless and very unscientific mannner--by scientists working for the biotech industry and was believed to be safe for the environment. Fortunately a team of independent scientists, headed by Dr. Elaine Ingham of Oregon State University, decided to run their own tests on the gene-altered Klebsiella planticola. What they discovered was not only startling, but terrifying-- the biotech industry had created a biological monster--a genetically engineered microorganism that would kill all terrestrial plants. After Ingham's expose, of course the gene-altered Klebsiella planticola was never commercialized. But as Ingham points out, the lack of pre-market safety testing of other genetically altered organisms virtually guarantees that future biological monsters will be released into the environment. Moreover it's not only genetic engineering that poses a mortal threat to our soil ecology, the soil food web, as Ingham calls it. Chemical-intensive agriculture is slowly but surely poisoning our soil and our drinking water as well.



http://online.sfsu.edu/repstein/GEessays/Klebsiellaplanticola.html

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