There's nothing new about the controversy concerning antibiotic marker genes in genetic engineering...it's an old arguement. The differences is, in Europe, they decided genetic engineering is evil. Also, at this time specifically they can use these kind of arguments to aid in trade wars and protectionism.
The gene markers this article apparently focuses on are related to Novartis (not Monsanto) corn, which is grown widely in the US. The speculation is apparently based on the remote possibility of genes "jumping" from corn dust -- which there is a lot of during corn milling -- and imparting meningitis with resistance to a specific antibiotic, via people's noses and airways. This has never been proven to happen, according to Novartis.
As usual, there's a few critical details missing from that story. Firstly, for the marker genes used elsewhere in genetic engineering (by Monsanto and others), the same genes are already in 20-40% of all bacteria in the world, including those in your gut, in water (drinking and swimming), and foods. It's likely that any food which has bacteria, such as cheese or yogurt, would be more "dangerous" in this way. In fact, since in these cases the genes are in live bacteria -- which can transfer genes much more readily than food -- you could write a story just like the BBC story, but instead talk about the dangers of eating yogurt, cheese, drinking water, or swimming...or even burping from your gut. Also, antibiotics are used in animal feed all over the place, which likely is a far greater risk, all things considered.
This all said, it might be true that the specific genes (relatd to specific antibiotics) Novartis is using are not found as widely in nature as the ones Monsanto and others are using. In that case, some might be convinced to plant non-Novartis corn. It should be noted that the reason US companies (such as Monsanto) choose specific antibiotic resistance genes is that they map to "used up" antibiotics, where the gene is already all over the place in live (and dead) bacteria.
There is an interesting possible benefit to all this, in the long term. Monsanto and others are doing research on how to remove antibiotic resistance genes. It's possible that someday this technology could be utilized to affect environmental bacteria, so less of them are resistant to older antibiotics. This could help medical science greatly. Finally, genetic engineering doesn't require these types of genes, and there is research on other methods already going on.
Re:
Meningitis fear over GM food
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