The monarch butterfly controversy: scientific interpretations of a phenomenon

The future development and use of agricultural biotechnology has been chall enged by two preliminary studies indicating potential risk to monarch butte rfly populations by pollen from corn engineered to express proteins from Ba cillus thuringiensis. Likewise, these studies have also challenged the way in which science should be performed, published in scientific journals and communicated to the public at large. Herein, we provide a history of the mo narch controversy to date. We believe a retrospective view may be useful fo r providing insights into the proper roles and responsibilities of scientis ts, the media and public agencies and the consequences when they go awry.