4) Selective pressure explains the phenomenon of antimicrobial resistant "supergerms" as well as pesticide resistant insects. It's a well-documented phenomenon.

5) To ensure that classes of pesticides continue to be effective, the best strategy for farmers is to use them carefully and sparingly, and only when there is clear evidence that doing so will prevent yield losses. This approach is called integrated pest management, or IPM.

6) Bacillus thuringiensis, the bacterium that produces the "Bt" pesticides that have been incorporated into corn, soy, and cotton genomes, has a long history of being used for pest control in organic agriculture.

7) These chemicals produced by Bacillus thuringiensis are particularly toxic to insects and essentially benign to birds, and most notably (for us) to mammals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis#Toxicology_studies

8) Another desirable attribute is that Bt toxins do not persist in the soil and water. You can spray crops with the Bt organism without too much concern of lingering effects.

9) If you're going to end up with pesticides in your food, Bt toxins are not a bad choice at all. This is why it works for transgenic food crops, but it is also why it was so irresponsible to widely plant crops with continual expression of the relevant genes.

10) When use of Bt crops became widespread, it was just a matter of time before pests developed resistance to the Bt toxins. And now it has happened. The only surprising part is that it has taken so long for it to become agronomically relevant.

11) The situation with Bt is very sad. We are in danger of using a safe and fairly innocuous tool for managing insect crop pests on crops. Why? Because of convenience for farmers and profits for pesticide companies.

12) Genetic engineering as a technology does not need to be harmful. Foresight and creative thinking could have prevented this. Imagine a world where crop plants contained the Bt gene but it would only be turned on when prompted by some other chemical agent.

13) Or, as the NPR article notes, there could have been stiffer regulations to limit the relative area of Bt crops that were planted. But that isn't the world that we live in.

14) As Aaron Vansintjan noted in this brilliant thread, a core piece of the Modern mindset is favoring simplicity over complexity. https://twitter.com/a_vansi/status/1318994054114402304

15) IPM is hard, requires a sophisticated understanding of pest biology, requires continual monitoring. Planting millions of acres of Bt crops and touting the environmental benefits of not needing to spray is easy. Modernity favors the easier answer.