PARIS (AP) — French children will soon be able to frolic in the grass without risk of intoxication.

Pesticides will be banned in all public green spaces from Sunday while non-professional gardeners will no longer be able to buy pesticides over the counter.

For years, health advocates have urged the public to read the ingredients and ignore the marketing. For years, consumers have ignored the health advocates.

But lo! It looks as if they’re finally listening.

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But Nielsen also created a separate category with its own, narrower criteria. For that category, market researchers took a closer look at ingredients, store placement (is it in the “Natural” aisle?), and the rest of the brand. Anything USDA-certified organic, for example, was in; anything with genetically modified organisms or artificial or synthetic ingredients was out. The growth in that narrower category was nearly triple the growth in the broader one, at 11.2 percent.

Products of new genetic engineering techniques must be tested, regulated, and labelled as GMOs – VLOG

In Europe the GMO label has become the equivalent of a skull-and-crossbones for many retail sectors and shoppers, resulting in a situation where GM ingredients are rarely used in food meant for human consumption. Pro-GMO lobbyists hope that a new wave of “gene-edited” plants and animals will escape GMO labelling and enter the food supply unnoticed and unopposed. They have even dubbed the new techniques “new plant breeding techniques” (NPBTs) in an apparent attempt to avoid the unpopular “GM word”.

A new study (Mesnage et al.), using new molecular profiling method, has found that Monsanto's genetically engineered herbicide-tolerant corn event called NK603 is not "substantially equivalent" to non-GM corn. The concept of substantial equivalence is used by Health Canada as a guide in their safety assessments of GM foods. The GM trait NK603 is used in many corn varieties grown across Canada, and ends up in processed food ingredients and animal feed. Health Canada approved the GM corn event called NK603 in 2001.

The new study is: Mesnage R, Agapito-Tenfen S, Vilperte V, Renney G, Ward M, Séralini GE, Nodari N, Antoniou MN. An integrated multi-omics analysis of the NK603 Roundup-tolerant GM maize reveals metabolism disturbances caused by the transformation process. Scientific Reports, 2016; 6:37855. Open access: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep37855

GENETICALLY MODIFIED mustard is not needed

The proposal to allow cultivation of the genetically modified (GM) oilseed mustard (Brassica juncea) DMH-11 (also tolerant to the herbicide, glufosinate ammonium) is based on the paradigm that conventional breeding techniques cannot produce hybrids with sufficient yields.

However, this paradigm doesn’t take into account recent advances with either conventional breeding or the production of hybrid varieties, both of which can produce high-yielding varieties.

Judge ruled that co-existence between GM soybeans and honey production is not possible.

Countries all around the world are banning GM foods and products, the pesticides used to grow them, or placing severe restrictions on their use. In fact, people all over the world are organizing mass demonstrations, and resisting the biotech companies who develop these GMOs and pesticides, in particular Monsanto. More and more studies are making international headlines showing the health and environmental dangers associated with pesticides and GMOs.

Mexiko bans genetically modified soybeans

Now Mexico is making headlines by banning Monsanto products. A group of beekeepers was successful in banning Monsanto from planting genetically modified soybeans. Originally Monsanto had received permission to plant their GM seeds in a large area of land, despite the protests organized by thousands of beekeepers, citizens, major environmental groups, the National Institute of Ecology, and Mayan farmers. But a district judge overturned the Monsanto permit as he was convinced by the scientific evidence showing the threats GM crops had on honey production in the Yucatan peninsula. He went even further, and ruled that co-existence between GM soybeans and honey production is not possible.

UN Biodiversity Convention grapples with threats posed by extreme biotech industry

CANCUN, MEXICO — This week, 196 countries meeting at the 2016 UN Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) Conference of the Parties made progress on the global governance and oversight of synthetic biology. Synthetic biology (syn bio) has become one of the most fiercely debated topics at the Biodiversity Convention, almost 7 years after civil society first brought the need for precaution and regulation of the new set of biotechnologies to this UN body.

During the 13th Conference of the Parties (COP 13) to the CBD, countries agreed to investigate how digital genetic sequences may be used to commit biopiracy and warned against a risky new genetic extinction technology called gene drives. They also agreed on a working definition of synthetic biology (2) and to support an ongoing expert group to move forward international discussions on the topic. However, this progress was undermined by a significant ‘move backwards’ in safety oversight and risk assessment when a key standing expert group expected to issue risk assessment guidelines for synthetic biology was dissolved.

“Syn bio was among the hottest topics on the negotiating table,” explains Jim Thomas of ETC Group, who sits on the CBD’s expert group on Synthetic Biology. “Governments now get it: they need to urgently grapple with how synthetic biology and other fast moving, risky technologies are threatening biodiversity, local economies and the rights of farmers and Indigenous Peoples.”

EFSA’s conclusion on NK603 is false

The basis of GMO approvals worldwide is the concept of substantial equivalence, meaning that the GMO maize is compositionally the same as the non-GMO counterpart (nearest relative).

In 2009 the EFSA GMO Panel concluded that “maize NK603 is compositionally equivalent to conventional maize”, except for the intended change – the presence of extra proteins that make the maize tolerant to glyphosate herbicides such as Roundup.

However, the new study, by a team of researchers led by Dr Michael Antoniou at King's College London, shows that EFSA’s conclusion is false and that the genetic engineering process has had far-reaching unintended effects on the composition of NK603 maize.

No new GM plants have been authorised for cultivation in the EU in almost 20 years. In the coming weeks, the European Commission will submit to the Member States’ experts three draft regulations aimed at the authorisation for cultivation in the EU of two GM maize varieties (Bt11 and 1507) and at the renewal of one further variety- Mon 810. There is a high risk that these regulations will pass, even though a clear majority of EU citizens is against the use of biotechnologies in fields and food.

The European Parliament has already made its view clear, as it objected to these three authorization proposals back at the beginning of October. The responsibility is now in the hands of the Member States to do likewise, and you can make the difference!

Austin, Texas, 19 December (Edward Hammond) – Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have adopted a decision on sequence information of genetic resources that sets in motion a plan intended to lead to an important decision at their next meeting in two years’ time.

The decision was adopted by the 22nd meeting of the CBD Conference of the Parties Cancun (COP), Mexico, which ended on Saturday, 17 December.

The plan is a compromise that emerged after developing countries, concerned that the proliferation of sequences and other genetic information in the internet “cloud” is promoting biopiracy, proposed that the Cancun meeting adopt a decision clarifying that sequence information should be treated equivalently to physical biodiversity samples for the purposes of benefit sharing.

Under pressure, developed countries’ negotiators acknowledged that gene sequences “are an issue to be dealt with.” The European Union, Australia, and others insisted, however, that they were unprepared to negotiate in Cancun because they had not anticipated that the issue would arise. This reason was offered despite a preliminary exchange on the subject at a meeting of the CBD’s Subsidiary Body on Science, Technical, and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) in May of this year, and gene sequences appearing in bracketed text in the Convention’s draft decision on synthetic biology.