Nature Biotechnology, one of the most prominent and prestigious scientific journal in the world has accused a number of biotechnology companies or provoking a suicidal tussle with environmental opponents, exposing themselves to charges of highhandedness, negligence and unnecessary commercial risk.

The row concerns the insistence of producing pharmaceutical drugs in plants used by humans for food. Why use food plants which might be accidentally contaminated with genetically modified material, when other, non food plants are available? That is, pharmaceuticals cold inadvertently find their way into food and feed crops through mix ups (as with StarLink Corn in the USA) or through pollen born gene flow.

Nature referred to an incident when non modified soy beans and corn were contaminated with corn engineered to produce an experimental pig vaccine. The journal expressed the opinion that concern about potentially toxic substances in food is not "antiGM" (anti-genetic modification)" After all is this really so different from ...manufacturers packaging pills in candy wrappers or flour bags [and] storing its compounds ... outside the perimeter fence?

Nature accuses the biotech industry and some of its supporters of taking a stand that is principled and libertarian rather than sensible. "They argue there is an unalienable right for every corporation to develop whichever technology it wants ...whenever it wants. The specific right in question is the right to grow drug containing corn crops in the US corn belt."

In language bordering on insult and sarcasm, Nature states, "It seems that an industry in which the Ph.D. is the intellectual norm is either incapable of learning a simple lesson from the past, or cannot bring itself to act appropriately, despite what it has learned previously".

It is rare indeed for a scientific journal dedicated to an industry to so forcefully criticize that industry.

Nature advises, "Let's grow pharma plants, but let those plants be Arabidopsis, or flax, or duckweed."