11/March/22

 

On 10 March, Center for Food Safety (CFS) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for unlawfully withholding records regarding FDA’s environmental assessment of genetically engineered (GE) salmon and a planned Ohio-based production facility — a major expansion from current capacity. The FOIA lawsuit comes on the heels of CFS and allies’ successful lawsuit holding FDA’s approval of GE salmon unlawful. FDA's approval marked the first time any government in the world had approved a GE animal as food. GMWatch

 

 

Big ag lobby groups are using the war in Ukraine as an excuse to attack the EU Farm2Fork sustainability objectives. Eighty-five organisations have strongly condemned this move, saying in an open letter to the Commission, "The crisis in Ukraine is yet another reminder of how essential it is to implement the Green Deal and its Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies. More than ever, the EU must shift towards healthy, socially and environmentally friendly farming practices, such as agroecology, organic farming, and agroforestry, which provide the only path to ensuring long-term food security, food sovereignty, and the overall sustainability of the food systems. We must turn away from intensive agriculture, industrial fisheries and aquaculture." Corporate Europe Observatory

 

 

The use of synthetic pesticides in parks and other green public spaces in urban areas is to be banned in the EU, with member states obliged to cut overall use by 50%, according to a leaked draft regulation. The move is said by the European Commission to be necessary owing to the failure of a number of EU member states to act on previous guidance on reducing the use of chemical pest control. The Guardian

 

 

Studies attesting to a natural spillover origin of COVID-19, including some recently highlighted in the press, fail to provide convincing proof. In contrast to SARS and MERS, there is no direct evidence for a natural spillover of COVID-19. Neither the virus nor antibodies to the virus have been identified in animals sampled in Wuhan in 2019 or early 2020. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists