sf wrote:
> Scary news!

Glufosinate is marketed under the trade names Basta or Liberty - active
on both broadleaf and grass-type weeds of certain genuses. It's used
to select for genetically engineered plants in tissue culture, as well.
The Basta resistence gene won't be turned on in humans - we do not
possess the promoter which activates the gene. It's likely to be
digested as amino acids and used for energy. A bigger threat is any
other gene which may have been spliced in simultaneously on the same
piece of DNA as the Basta gene. The most likely candidate is kanamycin
resistance gene, or another antibiotic gene. These genes *can* become
transferred to the sub-nuclear DNA of the gut flora in the human
intestine and become part of the "organism" which is the human. The
risks to human health, though likely small, are unknown.

-L.