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quaker bill

(8,262 posts)
Tue Jul 9, 2013, 07:46 PM Jul 2013

But there is the thing about BT

You could sprinkle it on your cheerios straight up from the bottle every morning. It would not be tasty, but you would not become ill.

You see this bacillus produces a protein which just so happens to be configured in a way that locks neatly into the enzyme a number of insect specific gut commensal bacteria use to hydrolyze cellulose polymers into component sugars that the insects can then utilize for food. Our gut is not adapted to use these commensals. When BT does its job the larvae bloat with undigested cellulose, but die of starvation.

This is unlike the acetocholine esterace inhibitors so often used in neurotoxic pesticides a pathway where we share a much more similar biochemistry with insects. These compounds are far more similar to sarin gas, and quite deadly to humans. The compounds are so similar that the same equipment can be used to make both. These were the "dual use" facilities Saddam had which were paid for with US ag dept money and were later converted to chem weapons.

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