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Saturday, March 2nd, 2019

Scathing Report Accuses the Pentagon of Developing an Agricultural Bioweapon .

Author:     George Dvorsky
Source:     Gizmodo
Publication Date:     10/04/18 2:10pm
 Link: Scathing Report Accuses the Pentagon of Developing an Agricultural Bioweapon .
Stephan:   Here is yet another story of the United States engaging in what it seems to me is a violation of the Geneva Convention on biological and chemical warfare. We have bombed countries for these kinds of programs. Indeed, it was the basis for the Iraq War, remember weapons of mass destruction? Something has gone deeply wrong in the almost entirely unregulated American war machine, and it has the potential to produce an apocalypse.

Crops in Kansas as seen from space.
Image: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

A new technology in which insects are used to genetically modify crops could be converted into a dangerous, and possibly illegal, bioweapon, alleges a Science Policy Forum report released today. Naturally, the organization leading the research says it’s doing nothing of the sort.

The report is a response to a ongoing research program funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Dubbed “Insect Allies,” the idea is to create more resilient crops to help farmers deal with climate change, drought, frost, floods, salinity, and disease. But instead of modifying seeds in a lab, farmers would send fleets of insects into their crops, where the genetically modified bugs would do their work, “infecting” the plants with a special virus that passes along the new resilience genes.

If you think this sounds scary, you’re not alone. The lead author of the new Science Policy Forum report, Richard Guy Reeves from the Department of Evolutionary Genetics […]

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