The Impossible Burger is a plant-based burger, the key ingredient of which is a protein called soy leghemoglobin (SLH for short), derived from genetically modified (GM) yeast. It's already being sold in restaurants and supermarkets in the US. In 2019 the manufacturing company, Impossible Foods, applied for permission to market the burger in the EU and the UK. However, the results of a rat feeding study commissioned by Impossible Foods and carried out with SLH suggest that the burger may not be safe to eat. Rats fed the GM yeast-derived SLH developed unexplained changes in weight gain, changes in the blood that can indicate the onset of inflammation or kidney disease, and possible signs of anaemia. GMWatch

 

 

Kevin Folta has attacked GMWatch's recent reporting on the Genetic Literacy Project’s long delayed disclosure of its Bayer funding and his alleged involvement in securing that cash. Responding to our article in a series of tweets, Folta complained that GMWatch had subjected him to “a decade of defamation” and that we “just post defamatory pieces about me and claim I'm a paid shill”. Folta also maintained that he had “zero funding from any company, and even if I did, that does not affect the science. The work published is scientifically on target.” But the veteran science reporter and journalism instructor Michael Balter shot back in a tweet, “Again @kevinfolta lies about what conflicts of interest in science mean and gaslights his followers/the public. The person with the potential conflict does not decide themself whether it affects their judgment. This is just what someone bought and paid by industry would say.” Balter went on to accuse Folta of "amazing gaslighting" over Bayer's cash. GMWatch

 

 

The President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, in a speech at the 77th United Nations General Assembly, demanded an end to the “irrational” war against drugs that is destroying the Amazon rainforest and harming his country through the aerial spraying of glyphosate herbicides on coca crops. During his speech, the Colombian president stated that “the forest that is being saved is at the same time destroyed” and gave as an example the use of glyphosate herbicide to eradicate illegal coca plantations in Colombia. “To destroy the coca plant, they throw poisons, mass glyphosate that runs through the waters, arrest their planters and imprison them. For destroying or possessing the coca leaf, one million Latin Americans are murdered and two million Afro-descendants are imprisoned in North America”, he said. News Release

 

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