23/May/22

 

The UK government's environment secretary George ("Useless") Eustice has been briefing the media to boost the prospects of GM gene-edited crops and foods, which the UK government is hell-bent on allowing into our fields and onto our plates at warp speed by removing safety checks and GMO labelling. According to an article in the i newspaper, for which Eustice is the only named source, "supermarket shoppers will be able to buy food produced using genetically-edited ingredients from as early as next year". But the article contains several lies and misleading claims. GMWatch

 

 

If you're in the UK and you missed last night’s broadcast of BBC Countryfile featuring Dr Michael Antoniou talking about the dangers of gene-edited crops, you can watch it at the above link. The gene editing segment starts 10 minutes in (exact start 10:10). BBC Countryfile

 

 

An article in the Telegraph claims that "The production of gene-edited crops is to be sped up to help guarantee British food supplies in the wake of the conflict in Ukraine." But even Julian Little, the UK biotech industry’s former spin doctor in chief, feels the need to distance himself from the idea that gene-edited crops are a quick fix for the Ukraine crisis. He points out that new laws allowing farmers access to gene-edited crops won't be passed until 2023 at the earliest and that the Telegraph "is over egging it a little". GMWatch on Twitter

 

 

Economist Jeffrey Sachs has called for an independent investigation of information held by US-based institutions that could shed light on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Sachs and his co-author said that federal agencies and universities possess evidence that has not been adequately reviewed, including virus databases, biological samples, viral sequences, email communications, and laboratory notebooks. Sachs and his co-author also highlighted a tantalising scientific detail that may be an indication that SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, originated in a laboratory: A sequence of eight amino acids on a critical part of the virus’s spike protein that is identical to an amino acid sequence found in cells that line human airways. The Intercept