SciDev.Net

Mexican molecular biologists are up in arms about a new law that effectively bans most biotechnology in Mexico.

The law imposes up to a nine-year prison sentence on anyone who works with any transgenic organisms, even in the lab.

Some observers think the ban might have been a legislative response to the controversial report that maize in southern Mexico contained genes apparently acquired from illegally planted transgenic stock (see Mexico confirms GM maize contamination).

Reference: Science 296, 1591 (2002)