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Viruses Spread by Insects to Crops Sound Scary. The Military Calls It Food Security.
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of New York Times
Posted: October 8th, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/science/darpa-gene-editin...
Within the Defense Department, one agencys recent project sounds futuristic: millions of insects carrying viruses descend upon crops and then genetically modify them to withstand droughts, floods and foreign attacks. But in a warning published Thursday in the journal Science, a group of independent scientists and lawyers objected. They argue that the endeavor is not so different from designing biological weapons - banned under international law since 1975 - that could swarm and destroy acres of crops. Once you engineer a virus that spreads by insect, it is hard to imagine how you would ever control it, said Guy Reeves, a researcher ... who contributed to the critique. You havent just released a transmissible virus - youve released a disease, he added. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa ... launched the Insect Allies research program in 2016, budgeting $45 million over four years to transform agricultural pests into vectors that can transfer protective genes into plants within one growing season. The critics said publishing the new research findings could establish preliminary instruction manuals for developing offensive biological weapons. Foreign military programs are often driven by perception of competitors activities, the critics warn, and the mere announcement of this program may motivate other countries to develop their own capabilities in this arena indeed, it may have already done so.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption and GMOs.
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