Articles

Keep GM food out of our fields and off our plates (quick and easy action for EU and non-EU citizens)

The European Commission is asking for your opinion on new GMOs produced with gene editing techniques like CRISPR. We've told them to apply existing GMO regulations to all GMOs and to stop trying to sneak GM food onto our fields and plates untested and unlabelled. Send your own message to the Commission at

https://www.gmwatch.org/en/19882-tell-the-commission-no-to-gmos

Save the date for the upcoming ProTerra Webinars

In its study on new genomic techniques, published on the 29th of April, the EU Commission has announced a "targeted policy action“ based on an impact assessment. What does this mean for EU GMO legislation, what are possible scenarios, how would the European food and feed sector be affected, especially the Non-GMO sector? The webinar will give an update and an analysis of recent developments.

In May this year, a Research Entomologist with the USDA contacted me and shared this message:

I remember your full-page ad in the New Yorker several years ago when you predicted the disaster with dicamba-resistant transgenic soybeans. And guess what, it came true. And more to come: https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/crops/article/2021/04/28/bayers-future-five-way-herbicide

He was highlighting that the next Bayer-Monsanto GMO crop in the regulatory pipeline to be approved is now “stacked” with five different herbicide-tolerant traits to deal with the rise of “superweeds” that are increasingly herbicide resistant. My ad he was referring to was an advertorial I had written in response to a clueless pro-GMO puff piece in the New Yorker in 2014.

Discovery of "catastrophic" unintended effect of CRISPR gene editing may have caused slump in companies' stock. Report: Claire Robinson

CRISPR gene editing is often presented as a straightforward, precise, and safe procedure. But recent research findings on CRISPR gene editing for gene therapy applications show it can lead to massive damage to chromosomes. The phenomenon is known as chromothripsis.

An article in Nature Biotechnology about the new findings describes chromothripsis as "an extremely damaging form of genomic rearrangement that results from the shattering of individual chromosomes and the subsequent rejoining of the pieces in a haphazard order".

The Third World Network is pleased to announce the publication of a new title, Product Patent Protection, the TRIPS LDC Exemption and the Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Industry by Sudip Chaudhuri, in its Intellectual Property Rights Series.

As a least developed country (LDC), Bangladesh is currently exempted from the requirements under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to grant patent protection for pharmaceutical products. Consequently, there is scope for the country’s pharmaceutical industry to manufacture and sell medicines whose production would otherwise be controlled by a patent-holding firm.

The New Yorker makes no effort to sound Canadian or look like real life Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser, but he still steals the show

A dispute between a Canadian farmer and an agribusiness behemoth over intellectual property rights might sound a trifle dull, but Percy vs Goliath just goes to show casting can make all the difference. That’s not to say the film has necessarily made a convincing casting choice by hiring New Yorker Christopher Walken to play real life Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser.

Summary

New data concerning chromothripsis may affect the long-term outlook of companies such as Crispr Therapeutics.

The long-term impact on health of gene editing may not be known until around 2040.

Given the uncertain outlook, investors may be wise to re-evaluate their positions in companies employing DNA double strand breaks to edit the genome.

Peasants and Indigenous Peoples feed more than 70 percent of the world and are key agents in the preservation of biocultural diversity in food systems. The importance of seeds, traditional knowledge and innovations have been increasingly recognized as crucial factors in efforts to stop the rapid loss of biodiversity.

Currently, peasants and Indigenous Peoples’ food systems and seed management practices are threatened by industrially-produced food, restrictive seed laws, intellectual property claims and gene modification. The expansion of industrial agriculture has come with a dramatic decrease of agricultural biodiversity.

500 tonnes of Indian GMO rice were used in many countries to make, among other things, sweets for the Mars company

You may have seen recent reports about an unauthorised GMO turning up in some Mars products. The article below sheds more light on the contamination.

Download the statement in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French

“Genetically engineered trees are not a climate solution. They are a dangerous distraction, and a threat to forests and communities that will worsen the climate crisis rather than fix it.”

As concern about the climate crisis intensifies, so does rhetoric surrounding the role of forests, trees and carbon storage in climate mitigation. The science is clear that halting destruction of forests, which includes respecting the territorial rights of communities and peoples who depend on forests, is among the most effective, proven, and available means of removing carbon from the atmosphere, and that undisturbed forests with diverse species, rich intact soils and deadwood store far more carbon than industrial tree plantations.