Filipino Ruling on Bt Eggplant

A recent decision by an appeals court in the Phillipines about genetically modified food was a striking victory for environmentalists who oppose many modern technologies that are 'destroying nature', and an ominous defeat for science and reason and the thoughtful search for solutions to some of humanity's biggest problems. In a very real way, the decision also threatens the lives and health of hundreds of millions of people around the world.The court ordered a halt to field trials of eggplant bioengineered to increase productivity and reduce the use of industrial pesticides. This genetic modification , inserting a gene from a common soil bacterium ( Baccillus thuringiensis or Bt) that produces a naturally occurring pesticide, has been in use globally for more than a decade and is used in a quarter of the corn and half the cotton grown worldwide. It has been extensively researched, and the overwhelming scientific consensus is that it poses no threat to human health, and no more of a threat to the environment than any method of hybridization to create new traits in plants, which humans have been doing since the dawn of agriculture. [More]