22/July/21

 

Canadians can now comment on the federal government’s proposal to increase the amount of glyphosate herbicide residue allowed on certain grains and legumes until Sept 3, Health Canada announced Tuesday — up 45 days from the original July 20 deadline. “This [extension] is based on the level of interest and number of received to date, in addition to delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic,” says the Health Canada website. To comment on Health Canada’s proposal, click here. CTV News

 

 

The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) has published a report on its findings of consumer perceptions of gene-edited food. The findings show "consumers wanted thorough regulation and transparent labelling if GE foods reach the UK market". Most consumers felt labelling should always inform the consumer of the presence of GE ingredients using the full term "genome edited". [GMW comment: The consumers that took part in this exercise should be congratulated for reaching this sensible conclusion in spite of the lies and false assumptions that the FSA promotes in its report. These include calling gene editing "precision breeding" (we know it's far from precise) and assuming – without any scientific evidence – that gene editing outcomes "could also be achieved using traditional breeding". Studies show that gene-editing procedures produce many unintended effects, meaning that a gene-edited organism could be very different from a traditionally bred organism with the same intended trait, both genetically and on the compositional level. So assuming equivalence is simply not scientifically justifiable.] UK FSA

 

 

A biotech company is harvesting the first GMO salmon right now. It's shocking because just last year a court found FDA's first-ever approval of this GMO salmon to be illegal because it violated core environmental laws. But until FDA makes a new decision, GMO salmon could still be coming (unlabelled) to your plate in a restaurant, especially if that restaurant buys seafood from Samuel and Sons Seafood, which just announced purchasing this GMO salmon. We are at the tipping point of GMO food animals threatening public health and our environment. Biotech companies are currently developing GMO tilapia, trout, catfish, pigs, and cows. Tell restaurants to protect wild salmon, public health, and the environment by pledging never to serve GMO salmon! Center for Food Safety

 

 

Both the temperature and tempers are running hot this summer, as herbicide injury surfaces across the Midwest and South once again. Dicamba remains the primary source of complaints, although cases of 2,4-D injury are also being reported. In October 2020, EPA granted new labels and five-year registrations to three dicamba herbicides - XtendiMax (Bayer), Engenia (BASF) and Tavium (Syngenta) - for use over-the-top of genetically modified Xtend and XtendFlex soybeans and cottonfields. The agency added some new rules, including national cutoff dates and use of new volatility reduction agents in the tank. Yet regulators are watching complaints tick upwards in some states, many from soybean fields with uniform cupping injury, suggesting volatilized dicamba is still at work. DTN Progressive Farmer

 

 

Endocrine disruption expert Pete Myers has written the foreword to a new scholarly book that sheds light on the human and environmental impacts from widely used herbicides, offering a potential antidote to the industry playbook downplaying their harm. The book, Herbicides: Chemistry, Efficacy, Toxicology and Environmental Impacts, is published by Elsevier and edited by Robin Mesnage of King's College London and Johann G. Zaller of the University of Natural Resources and Life Science (BOKU), Vienna. It contains a large body of research on glyphosate-based herbicides. In his foreword. Myers describes some structural reforms that are urgently needed in pesticide regulation. Environmental Health News