Word: strobel
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Late last week a cordon of Montana State University police stepped aside as Gary Strobel, a professor of plant pathology, led a group of onlookers to a stand of 13 American elms in the Bozeman campus research grove. He took a chain saw and severed the trees six inches above the ground. Then the trunks were sawed into sections and trucked to an incinerator. The stumps were doused with a powerful herbicide, and the surrounding soil was fumigated. Said a tearful Strobel: "Now maybe I can go back to other things...
...Strobel admitted he had injected the elms with genetically altered bacteria in an attempt to treat them for Dutch elm disease. The experiment had shown encouraging results, but it was, he acknowledged, an act of civil disobedience that was in violation of Environmental Protection Agency regulations. After receiving a reprimand from the EPA and a warning that any similar experiments in the next year must be co-sponsored by another investigator and receive special permission from the university, Strobel requested that the elms be disposed of to end controversy over his actions. His troubles, however, were not yet over...
Disturbing new evidence emerged last week that Strobel had released altered bacteria into the environment prior to his experiment with the elms. In an Aug. 10 letter to the EPA, Strobel admitted he had released a "new strain of Rhizobium meliloti . . . in South Dakota, Montana, California and Nebraska in 1983-84." The Rhizobium had been altered to enhance nitrogen fixation in alfalfa plants. Though it is not yet clear that those experiments violated regulations in force at the time, they are under investigation by Montana State...
Plant Pathologist Gary Strobel knew that he needed permission from the Environmental Protection Agency to inject genetically altered bacteria into 14 trees in the hope of protecting them from Dutch elm disease. But the approval process can take months, and the Montana State University professor wanted to get on with his experiment. So in June he made the injections anyway...
...action, which Strobel discussed with Montana State University's biosafety committee last week, incensed Jeremy Rifkin, the activist who has led a crusade against releasing genetically altered bacteria into the environment. Rifkin, who contends that man-made bacteria might proliferate out of control, demanded that the EPA and other agencies "immediately terminate" the experiment and destroy the trees. But EPA Spokesman Al Heier, acknowledging that the agency's regulations are "somewhat complex," said "nature has enough controls that this product would not get out of hand. That's likely what our final determination will...