28/January/20

 

A scientist has warned that gene-edited foods could prove toxic or allergenic and that if the UK scraps or weakens EU rules after Brexit, public health could be put at risk. Dr Michael Antoniou voiced his concerns at the Oxford Real Farming Conference earlier this month. Now they have been featured in an article in The Sunday Times by its science editor Jonathan Leake, titled, "GM food: Keep EU rules or risk health, says gene expert". GMWatch

 

 

Tests by the US National Toxicology Program (NTP) have found that some complete commercial formulations of glyphosate-based herbicides are genotoxic (damage DNA), but that glyphosate on its own ("glyphosate technical") is not genotoxic. Furthermore, the NTP says neither glyphosate nor its formulations cause oxidative stress. These findings are significant because in 2015 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen, naming genotoxicity and oxidative stress as two main mechanisms. But there are problems with the NTP's argument, as GMWatch explains. GMWatch

 

 

Five years ago, the owner of Missouri’s largest peach farm started noticing damage to his orchard. A year later, Bader Farms estimated a loss of more than 30,000 trees. A lawsuit filed by the farm in 2016 alleges Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, and herbicide maker BASF are to blame because the weedkiller drifted from other fields. Weed scientist Aaron Hager commented, "I've never seen anything quite like this — what some of the implications and consternations that the technology has brought in. I've lost track of the number of times that people have said, 'Yeah, we used to sit next to the neighbors in church on Sunday. We don't even want to be in the same congregation with them anymore.'" KRCU/NPR

 

 

For years, Monsanto and BASF have been blaming alleged crop damage from the weedkiller dicamba on other factors, including weather, other pesticides and applicator misuse. But on the first day of a civil trial in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in Cape Girardeau, internal company documents presented in opening arguments showed that both companies were warned about the herbicide’s potential to damage other crops. Documents also showed the companies prepared for complaints about the weedkiller prior to the new genetically modified dicamba-tolerant crop systems being released. InvestigateMidWest.org