Insect Population Control Using Genetic Engineering

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Abstract
Pest insects pose at least 2 major threats to man: they destroy his food, the demand for which is ever increasing with his exploding population; and they threaten his health by transmitting major diseases. Chemical insecticides have been used generally to control pest populations. However, there are basic drawbacks to chemicals: they tend to select for resistance in the target pests, thus making the pesticides useless; there are sometimes unexpected and damaging side effects of the pesticides in the environment, such as increases in numbers of secondary pests, the destruction of natural predators and parasites, and reproductive failure in non-target animals; and there may be residues left in the foodstuffs whose effects are not fully known. To overcome these restrictions, increasing attention is being given to alternative insect control methods.

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