Articles

Let us celebrate International Seed Day, not World Intellectual Property Day

#InternationalSeedDay

We are living in extraordinarily challenging times. The COVID-19 health crisis has fomented an economic crisis, and exposed the underlying risks, fragilities, and inequities in our food systems. It is essential for us to reclaim our seed diversity, biodiverse ecosystems and bio-cultural landscapes, that support nutritious local food systems and millions of livelihoods. In light of the pandemic, we demand the full protection and fulfillment of the rights of small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples across our planet.

On April 26th, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) celebrate the World Intellectual Property Day 2020 under the slogan “Innovate for a green future”.

Request to cease use of pre-harvest glyphosate in soybeans and reply to questions regarding its use

In response to our questionnaire dated March 17 2020, you responded on March 27 by e-mail, but you did not answer our questions 1 to 4.

Domestic agriculture is in a deep crisis due to trade agreements such as the TPP, the EU-Japan EPA, and the US-Japan FTA. We believe that the pursuit of safety in order to compete with cheap imported agricultural products is the best way to increase confidence in domestic agriculture and to survive. Many of the JAs under your organization are actively reducing the use of pesticides and pursuing environmentally friendly agriculture. Not only do we want you to produce safe agricultural products, but we also want to support domestic agriculture, which is responsible for Japan’s food self-sufficiency, and we worry about the health of the producers who are spraying pesticides.

An article appeared in Tokyo Shimbun on January 24, 2020 that reported on the use of genome editing to exterminate invasive fish. The research is being pushed forward as a study by the National Research Institute of Aquaculture.

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Consequently, Consumers Union of Japan wrote to the research center on January 29 to express our concern and to ask a number of questions. We consider that this type of genome editing can have a large impact on related species, the natural environment, as well as the entire ecosystem. This impact due to the release of genome-edited fish must be analysed very carefully. On February 17 we received a reply from the research center.

Editing tool is found to be prone to making off-target "nicks" in DNA

The gene-editing tool known as CRISPR-Cas12a or Cpf1 has been viewed as a better choice than other Cas editing tools because it was believed to be more precise and less prone to making off-target cuts in DNA.

But a new paper shows that Cpf1 is not as clean or specific as touted. The researchers employed in vitro assays using a vast collection of synthesized DNA molecules containing variations on the editing site sequence. They found that Cpf1 was highly prone to making off-target single-strand cuts, or "nicks", in the double-stranded DNA molecules. Off-target double-strand DNA cuts were also found, albeit at a lower frequency than the single-strand nicks.

Monsanto will pay a $39.5 million class action settlement for falsely claiming that Roundup weed-killer targets an enzyme that is only found in plants.

The issue was that Monsanto promoted Roundup’s safety for people and pets by claiming that glyphosate, the active weed-killing chemical, targets an enzyme that is only found in plants.

The lawsuit claimed that the enzyme is actually found in people and pets, where it is essential for maintaining the immune system, digestion, and brain function.

By Neal Baer, a television writer and producer and lecturer on global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School.

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As a television writer and producer of “ER,” “SVU,” and most recently “Designated Survivor,” I draw on audiences’ love-hate relationship with uncertainty to play on their emotions. I know that audiences love plots riven with unexpected twists and turns.

When we’ve emerged on the other side of the pandemic, Covid-19 will someday make a good story. But I worry that CRISPR could make Covid-19 look like child’s play.

CRISPR is a new genetic tool that lets scientists cut out a DNA sequence in an organism’s genome and replace it with another. The hope is that this ingenious scissors-and-glue system will be used to treat devastating genetic diseases like sickle cell anemia and beta thalassemia.

But there’s a dark side to CRISPR. A scientist or biohacker with basic lab know-how could conceivably buy DNA sequences and, using CRISPR, edit them to make an even more panic-inducing bacteria or virus. What’s to stop a rogue scientist from using CRISPR to conjure up an even deadlier version of Ebola or a more transmissible SARS?

The Farm to Fork Strategy aims to make farming healthier and more environmentally friendly – but it might also prove to be a back-door entry point for gene-edited products

The European Commission’s Farm to Fork Strategy (F2F) is a key component of the European Green Deal, a "new growth strategy" that "gives back more than it takes away".

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"New genomic techniques" are, of course, new GM techniques. It is baffling that the Commission planned to assess their status under EU law because the European Court of Justice – the highest legal authority in the EU – ruled in 2018 that these new techniques fall under the EU's GMO regulations. That means that products of the new techniques must go through safety checks and carry a GMO label. Did the Commission really think it understood the law better than the Court? Or was it just desperate to find a way to rescue "new GM" from the scrutiny of safety assessments and labelling?

As for the Commission's potential "proposal", this is almost certainly an attempt to change the GMO regulations to allow gene-edited (and possibly all GM) products easier access to market.

Companies are claiming all around the world that nobody is able to differentiate between their new GMOs and plants that have acquired the same targeted mutation naturally or through traditional breeding methods. But a contrario they claim to be able to accurately characterize their own plant varieties by genetic tools, as evidenced by the work performed at the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). Fortunately, the same methods and tools are usable to differentiate new GMOs from non-GM plants, provided a political will exists to roll out the appropriate protocols.

The Center for Food Safety has asked the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to review a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decision to approve soy leghemoglobin as a color additive for use in ground beef analog products. The advocacy group claims that the FDA’s decision was not based on “convincing evidence” that is required by regulation.

The FDA approval of a genetically engineered (GE) soy protein used in the” Impossible Burger” over objections by CFS. The ingredient is also referred to as genetically engineered “heme,” soy leghemoglobin. It is the color additive Impossible Foods uses to make its plant-based burger appear to “bleed” as if it were real beef.

The March 17 civil action by CFS asserts that FDA used the wrong legal standard when it reviewed and approved GE heme to be used in raw Impossible Burgers sold in grocery stores. Instead of using the color additive safety standard that specifies “convincing evidence that establishes with reasonable certainty that no harm will result from the intended use of the color additive,” FDA conflated that standard with the food additive safety standard, which does not specify that there must be “convincing evidence.”

Environmental impacts of CRISPR/Cas and its challenges for risk assessment

17 March 2020 / In a new report, Testbiotech provides an overview of the latest research developments in environmental risk assessment and new methods of genetic engineering (also known as ‘genome editing’ or ‘new genomic technicques’). The authors come to the conclusion there are imperative scientific reasons for all organisms derived from these new techniques to undergo mandatory risk assessment before they can be released or marketed. Therefore, regulation requirements foreseen by current GMO law in the EU must be mandatory whether or not additional DNA sequences are inserted. In addition, a broad range of ethical and social issues must be taken into account by the regulatory decision-makers.

The report focuses on possible impacts that new methods of genetic engineering (genome editing) can have on the environment. It is primarily concerned with CRISPR/Cas nucleases classified as ‘site directed nucleases’ SDN-1 and SDN -2. These applications are not meant to introduce additional gene sequences. Nevertheless, the pattern of intended and unintended changes and the resulting new combinations of genetic information arising from genome editing will, in most cases, be different in comparison to those derived from conventional breeding. These differences co-occur with biological characteristics and risks that need to be fully investigated before any conclusions on the safety of the new organisms can be drawn.