Crucial votes are coming up on 11 December 2023 in the Council (EU Member States) and Parliament’s Agriculture Committee on the European Commission’s proposal to deregulate GM plants made with “new genomic techniques” (NGTs) such as gene editing. This proposal has been widely condemned by groups representing the interests of the environment, consumers, farmers, and the organic and non-GMO industry sectors, as well as by independent scientists. Newly disclosed lobby documents show that the European Commission and some MEPs have jumped to obey industry’s orders in designing a GMO deregulation law that will harm health, biodiversity, and farmers. The documents show that even in the last days before publication of the Commission’s final proposal on 5 July, it had been changed to weaken it even further and push GM herbicide-tolerant (HT) crops into European fields – in line with the wishes of these same corporations. Indeed, while industry was pushing the deregulation of NGTs with the claim that they would help to reduce pesticide use, at the same time their misleading lobby campaign has led to the derailing of the pesticide reduction law (SUR). GMWatch

 

 

A number of European scientists have issued a joint statement warning against approval in the EU of plants obtained from new genetic engineering (new GM or new genomic techniques, NGT) that are not risk assessed. The signatories work in the fields of (among others) molecular biology, technology assessment, environmental sciences, and medicine. None of them have any economic interests linked to the development and marketing of agricultural genetically engineered organisms. The experts from Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK are opposing a legislative proposal brought forward by the EU Commission, which would in future allow the environmental release of plants obtained from new genetic engineering without prior risk assessment. They point out that the proposed legislation ignores the main differences between new genetic engineering and conventional breeding as well as the associated risks. GMWatch

 

 

With Bayer facing investor pressure to resolve thousands of lawsuits over its Roundup weedkiller after being hit with $2 billion in verdicts in recent weeks, all eyes are on a trial wrapping up in Philadelphia. Plaintiffs have won the last four trials over their claims that the product causes cancer, each time securing a larger verdict. Those losses ended a nine-trial winning streak for Bayer, shattering investor and company hopes that the worst of the Roundup litigation was over. In the ongoing case, Pennsylvania resident Kelly Martel claims she developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma from using Roundup. Her case will help test whether plaintiffs' recent victories were an aberration, or the payoff from favourable court rulings and a shift in plaintiffs' strategy. Interviews with lawyers on both sides, and a review of trial transcripts, suggest several factors could explain the difference in outcomes. Those include judges' rulings allowing jurors to hear testimony about regulatory issues related to Roundup, which Bayer has called misleading, and a new emphasis by plaintiffs lawyers on chemicals in the product other than its active ingredient, glyphosate. Reuters

 

 

A new study shows toxic chemicals in UK whales and dolphins are exceeding safe limits. Almost half of marine mammals around the UK are being poisoned. The most abundant pollutant found was PCBs — discharged from the former [Monsanto] site in Newport on the Severn estuary. Phys.org

 

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