Word: frostban
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Outside the courtroom, Rifkin warned that the widespread use of ice-minus would lead to all sorts of natural disasters, including the disruption of rainfall patterns. (Lindow and his backers say this is hogwash. They note that the ice-fighting bacteria, developed into a commercial product called Frostban, was sprayed on a test field in 1987. As they predicted, it proved harmless.) Typically, Rifkin would plunge into a scientific setting, armed with papers from dissident researchers, and warn about the potentially catastrophic consequences of inadequately regulated research. Says geneticist Zinder: "The accusations are made simply, with simple words...
...defeats have been caused by a maze of confusing Government regulations, harassing legal actions and in some cases the industry's own blunders. Only last month, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency fined Advanced Genetic Sciences $20,000 and suspended its permit to field test a preparation called Frostban, which contains re-engineered bacteria designed to retard the formation of frost on plants. The agency charged that the Oakland firm misrepresented data and violated the national pesticide-control law by conducting outdoor tests without a permit. (EPA officials had been alerted by newspaper stories initiated by the indefatigable Rifkin...
...A.G.S. executives, the suspension of their permit to field test Frostban marked still another in a series of frustrating delays. As long ago as 1982, the company began partly financing the research efforts of Steven Lindow and Nickolas Panopoulos, plant pathologists at the University of California, Berkeley, who were attempting to engineer bacteria that would inhibit the formation of frost on plants. Their long-range goals: to extend the growing season and reduce crop damage caused by unseasonal frosts, which costs U.S. farmers at least $1.5 billion every year...
While that ruling was being appealed, A.G.S. was proceeding on its own. Late in 1984 it applied to the EPA for a permit to test Frostban on a strawberry patch in Monterey County, Calif.; last November the agency granted A.G.S. permission to spray some 8 trillion altered bacteria onto the field. But unknown to the EPA, the financially struggling company had already conducted outdoor tests of Frostban...
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