Articles

Public's opportunity to demand more testing and stricter regulation ends on May 7

BELLINGHAM, Wash., May 5, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Genetically engineered animals are being developed at an accelerating pace, and could, with few regulations and limited testing, be arriving on dining room tables in the US in 2021. That's due in part by efforts made by the previous administration to deregulate biotechnologies. On the final day of Sonny Perdue's tenure as head of the US Department of Agriculture, a proposal was made to move oversight and regulation of GE animals from the FDA to the USDA -- a move that would significantly reduce the safeguards that protect the US public dating back to the Obama administration.

A coalition of civil societies, under the aegis of GMO-Free Nigeria Alliance and the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), on Thursday, called for the urgent ban on genetic modifications of food crops and animals due to negative impacts on agriculture and the ecosystem.

Members of GMO-Free Nigeria Alliance and the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) also demanded the repeal of the National Biosafety Management Agency Act (NBMA) due to enormous discretionary powers conferred on the agency and little room for oversight.

Displaying placards with inscriptions such as “No to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), Our food, our life,” the group, marched round the city centre in Benin and submitted a petition to the Edo State Ministry of Environment and Sustainability.

Testbiotech points to already existing legal flexibility

30 April 2021 / The EU Commission has published a report on new genomic techniques (New GE, genome editing) in plants and animals. They have concluded that the current EU GMO regulation should be reformed. Its fundamental goals are to promote New GE applications in agriculture and to foster international trade, technology and product development. The Commission is also demanding that decisions on market approvals should consider the potential benefits and not only the outcome of risk assessment. Safety for health and environment should nevertheless be guaranteed. A public consultation will be held in the coming months to resolve open questions.

Testbiotech plans to contribute to the consultation and also sees the need for some adjustment. One reason: in many cases, the risk assessment of the New GE applications is much more complex compared to ‘Old GE’. At the same time, Testbiotech also points out that current regulation provides enough flexibility for adjustments. This is not only relevant for standards in risk assessment. For example, the EU Commission can already take potential benefits into account in its decisions on market approvals. However, as Testbiotech emphasises, these aspects must not be confused with scientific questions of risk assessment.

The EU's existing legislation on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is not "fit for purpose" for new genomic techniques and needs to be adapted to contribute to sustainable food systems, a European Commission study has concluded.

(.....)

EUobserver recently revealed how the NGO Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) uncovered new lobbying techniques aimed at deregulating new GMOs via climate-friendly narratives.

"DG SANTE [the EU Commission branch responsible for this report] has clearly listened more to the biotech lobby than to anyone else. Its study on new GMOs is yet another example of the corporate capture of EU decision-making," said Nina Holland, a researcher at CEO.

These groups have previously warned that the unintended effects of new GMOs are still unpredictable, amid concerns about the possible loss of agricultural diversity.

"GMOs by another name are still GMOs, and must be treated as such under the law," said Greenpeace.

On Thursday morning, workers from a British company placed basketball-size cardboard boxes into six yards in the Florida Keys.

Then they added water.

In a week or so, 12,000 male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes will – one by one – begin buzzing out of each box, the first genetically modified mosquitoes to be released in the United States.

BRUSSELS: A new European Union study finds that the two decade-old legislation on genetically modified organisms should be revamped, a process environmentalists claim will open the door to a new generation of bio-engineered crops being allowed into the EU market without proper checks.

(.....)

“The European Commission has fallen hook, line and sinker for the biotech industry’s spin, and has set the future of food and farming in the EU down a dark path," said Mute Schimpf of Friends of the Earth Europe, reflecting the views of many environmentalists.

She said that the study was “suggesting tearing up decades of the precautionary principle, by allowing new GM crops onto our fields and plates without safety tests".

EU officials were insisting though that the study was the first step in a long legislative process that needed to get approval from the bloc's member states and the European Parliament where big changes could be made.

In its publication on the future handling of new genetic engineering methods, the EU Commission gives broad space to the positions of promoters of genetic engineering, but wants to stick to safety for consumers and the environment as guiding principles. Safety, protection of "Ohne Gentechnik" and organic farming as well as GMO labelling are explicitly mentioned, but fall far too short in the conclusions.

"There is a more than obvious need for improvement here," comments VLOG’s Managing Director Alexander Hissting: "The current rules already allow plants to be approved after comprehensive safety testing and risk assessment and with labelling of the products as GMOs. There is no ban. So there is no need for change at all. No one should seriously question careful testing and approval procedures. To foist unmarked GM food onto consumers would mean a massive loss of confidence in politics and food business.

New GMOs are being promoted in a study by the European Commission ignoring the precautionary principle and the freedom of choice for farmers and consumers. The Biodynamic Federation Demeter International is deeply concerned by this position and reiterates the necessity to oppose any deregulation of GMOs.

(.....)

GMO regulation

In view of the upcoming discussions on a potential new policy on new GMOs, the Federation urges the European Commission and the EU Member States to “take a clear stand against a deregulation of all new GMOs fully enforcing the precautionary principle of the ECJ ”. “Prior risk assessment and authorisation, as well as traceability and labelling, are essential for all products on the market to ensure the freedom of choice for both farmers and consumers, as well as to limit the risks to our health and the environment”, says Clara Behr, Head of Policy and Public Relations at the Federation.

BRUSSELS (AP) — A new European Union study finds that the two decade-old legislation on genetically modified organisms should be revamped, a process environmentalists claim will open the door to a new generation of bioengineered crops being allowed into the EU market without proper checks.

(.....)

“The European Commission has fallen hook, line and sinker for the biotech industry’s spin, and has set the future of food and farming in the EU down a dark path,” said Mute Schimpf of Friends of the Earth Europe, reflecting the views of many environmentalists.

She said that the study was “suggesting tearing up decades of the precautionary principle, by allowing new GM crops onto our fields and plates without safety tests.”

The study released today by the European Commission on products from new GM techniques like CRISPR-Cas shows that the institution has been lending its ears almost entirely to the biotech industry.

(.....)

Nina Holland, researcher at Corporate Europe Observatory said: “DG SANTE has clearly listened more to the biotech lobby than to anyone else. Its study on new GMOs is yet another example of the corporate capture of EU decision-making. This started right from the Commission's extremely biased stakeholder consultation that fed into this study, favouring industry voices.”