Bt insectidcide in pregnant women cont…

By Jason Major

TechNyou

I have noticed that the research finding the presence of Bt insecticide proteins in women’s tissues and blood is still getting bandied around the internet blogs and news, in the last two days in particular. Here is one story from TV New Zealand.  Not sure why the sudden interest considering the story broke more than a month ago and TechNyou put up a post about then.

In response David Tribe has posted a response with some interesting papers about just how prolific in the environment the Bt bacterium is and it has nothing to do with the genetically modified crops carrying the Bt genes. The bacteria does what bacteria do – divide and get into stuff. Plus, as posted in the TechNyou post on this, the organic farmers use the Bt as an approved insecticide. Home gardeners, myself included, have a packet of Dipel or similar insecticide, of which the active ingredient is Bt, to control the pesky caterpillars that destroyed my mint and lettuce this year.

The questions to be asked  is what is the source of the Bt proteins found in the blood and tissues of these women, and are these proteins actually toxic in the first place?  They are toxic to the caterpillars of moths and butterflies and possibly some other closely related insect species, but not much else that I have found out about. Humans, as far as I know, don’t have the protein receptor on our cells that allow the Bt proteins to attach to our cells.  Happy, however, for someone to enlighten me on this.