09/May/22

 

The biotechnology company Revivicor has become embroiled in a scandal over the death of a transplant patient after he received a gene-edited pig heart that turned out to be infected with a pig virus. The transplant, the first of a pig organ into a living human being, took place back in January of this year when surgeons from the University of Maryland Medical Center transplanted the genetically engineered pig heart, provided by Revivicor, into a 57-year-old man with end-stage cardiac disease. The controversial operation was hailed as a milestone in xenotransplantation, the process of moving tissues between species, but the patient died just two months later and now it seems a pig virus may have contributed to his death. GMWatch

 

 

The Institute for Responsible Technology has published a video tribute to Dr Árpád Pusztai, the public interest scientist whose experiments woke up the world to the dangers of GM crops, and who died in December last year. The video shows interview footage of Arpad and describes the findings and significance of his experiments. Institute for Responsible Technology on Youtube

 

 

In an interview with Patrick Holden of the Sustainable Food Trust, Dr Michael Antoniou talks about the impacts of GMOs on our personal and planetary health. He discusses the dangers of gene editing and how consumers may unwittingly find themselves no longer able to avoid GM products, as government regulation is weakened. With his research team he has also pioneered research into the impact of glyphosate, the globally used herbicide also known as Roundup, with shocking impacts on mammalian health. Sustainable Food Trust

 

 

Sheldon Krimsky, a leading scholar of environmental ethics who explored issues at the nexus of science, ethics and biotechnology, and who warned of the perils of private companies underwriting and influencing academic research, died on April 23 in Cambridge, Mass. He was 80. Dr Krimsky, who taught at Tufts University in Massachusetts for 47 years, warned in a comprehensive way about the increasing conflicts of interest that universities faced as their academic researchers accepted millions of dollars in grants from corporate entities like pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. [GMW: This is a moving tribute. Our own tribute is here https://www.gmwatch.org/en/106-news/latest-news/20018.] New York Times