A conference in honour of the great scientist Dr Árpád Pusztai, who died in 2021, is to be held in Edinburgh on 26-27 May 2023. The conference is titled, "The integrity of science: A conference about the conflict between public policy and independent science, in honour of Dr Árpád Pusztai (1930 – 2021)". The conference will be in two parts:
* Day one (26 May) will honour Dr Pusztai and will recall his work and discuss his findings on GM potatoes, which he found harmed the health of laboratory rats.
* Day two (27 May) will probe the continuing conflicts between public policy and critical science, with the purpose of improving public understanding and use of science. The conference is being organised by the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER) and others. You can attend in person or online. We at GMWatch plan to attend in person. Register here. ENSSER

 

 

The EU Environment Council is meeting in Brussels today. On the agenda is the topic of new genetic engineering in agriculture and its effects on ecosystems. The organic farming associations Bioland and Demeter are taking the discussion as an opportunity to warn once again of the consequences of deregulating new genetic engineering in EU GMO law. The EU Commission intends to present a legislative proposal on "new genomic techniques" (NGT) in 2023, which will allow the marketing and deliberate release into the environment of plants created using new genetic engineering without comprehensive precautionary measures. This is not only a problem for organic farmers. At stake is whether GMO-free cultivation will be possible at all in the future. In order to ensure the coexistence of different cultivation methods and freedom of choice for consumers, binding regulations are still needed, emphasise Bioland and Demeter. GMWatch

 

 

Environment ministers meeting today in Brussels will discuss the EU Commission’s plans to deregulate crops produced with new GM techniques. Ahead of today's talks, Austrian environment minister Leonore Gewessler, supported by Cyprus and Hungary, circulated a press release arguing that new GM crops should be subjected to stringent environmental and health safety checks and that "vague assumptions" of new GMOs' supposed potential to improve sustainability is not a suitable basis for legislation. A German minister is also taking a strong stand in favour of strict regulation of new GM products. Germany's deputy food and agriculture minister Silvia Bender said, "As of today, we are unable to identify NGT [new genomic technique] organisms unless we have the relevant sequence information. As a consequence of this, there have been calls for NGT organisms to be deregulated. I believe that this conclusion is too shortsighted and it doesn’t comply with my understanding of transparency." GMWatch

 

 

A conference on the detection of new GMOs, including gene-edited ones, concludes today in Berlin. GMWatch attended online and has summarised the findings at the URL above. The conference participants confirmed that if GMO developers provide regulators with the whole genetic sequence, good quality reference samples of the GMO and non-GMO comparators, and a validated detection method, there is no problem in detecting known and authorised new GMOs. That includes new GMOs with small gene edits, such as single nucleotide variations. Unknown/unauthorised GMOs can't yet be detected as there is no prior knowledge of the genetic sequence. But GMWatch points out that this has always been the case, even for some older-style GMOs, so new GMOs don't change this situation. Also, some scientists think that such unknown GMOs might be detectable in future. Meanwhile there are alternative means of tracing new GMOs through the food and feed chain, such as blockchain. GMWatch

 

 

This year the EU will decide on the re-approval of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, the world’s most popular and controversial weedkiller. Exposure to the herbicide not only poses a risk to human health and other living organisms, it also threatens biodiversity and the future of agriculture. Published in collaboration with the European Greens, PAN Europe’s new report shows that much safer non-chemical alternatives exist for all known major uses of glyphosate-based herbicides and how the transition to a glyphosate-free agricultural system is economically feasible. GMWatch

 

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