03/June/21

 

This month the UK government is expected to follow through on Boris Johnson’s promise to “liberate the UK’s extraordinary bioscience sector from anti–genetic modification rules” by removing safety checks and (probably) GMO labelling and traceability from some crops and livestock made with experimental new genetic engineering techniques. An announcement will be made by 17 June. The potential resulting change in the law could speed commercialisation of GM wheat for people who can't “use a toaster properly”, in the words of GM Freeze. GM Freeze is raising funds to object to a proposal by Rothamsted Research to field-trial a gene-edited low acrylamide wheat. Acrylamide is a probable carcinogen that forms in wheat products that are cooked at too-high temperatures, such as burnt toast. GMWatch

 

 

Facebook will no longer take down posts claiming that COVID-19 was man-made or manufactured, a company spokesperson said, a move that acknowledges the renewed debate about the virus’ origins. Facebook’s policy tweak arrives as support surges in Washington for a fuller investigation into the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19 after the Wall Street Journal reported that three scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized in late 2019 with symptoms consistent with the virus. The findings have reinvigorated the debate about the so-called Wuhan lab leak theory, once dismissed by the mainstream media as a fringe conspiracy theory. Politico