04/June/20

 

The Ninth Circuit court has dealt a blow to Monsanto by vacating the US Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of the controversial pesticide dicamba, saying the agency failed to properly assess the risks of its widespread chemical use. The three-judge panel unanimously vacated the EPA approval of dicamba, a herbicide that has caused issues due to its tendency to drift when applied, thereby damaging neighbouring crops. The ruling effectively makes it illegal for farmers to continue to use the product. “A review of the record shows that the EPA substantially understated the risks that it acknowledged,” wrote US Circuit Judge William Fletcher. “The review also shows that the EPA entirely failed to acknowledge other risks.” GMWatch

 

 

A growing number of scientists say it is possible that the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic was created in a laboratory. Leading immunologists and geneticists said there are two unusual aspects of SARS-CoV-2 that raise the possibility it was man-made rather than a naturally-occurring virus. The first is that the virus binds to human ACE2 receptor cells more strongly than it does to any other animal, including bats. The second is that it has a “furin cleavage site” that its closest genetic bat-coronavirus relative, RaTG13, does not have. This site makes it significantly more infectious. The Daily Telegraph (Australia)

 

 

A former head of MI6 has said he believes the coronavirus pandemic "started as an accident" when the virus escaped from a laboratory in China. In an interview with The Telegraph, Sir Richard Dearlove said he had seen an "important" new scientific report suggesting the virus did not emerge naturally but was man-made by scientists. Dearlove pointed to a scientific paper published this week by a Norwegian-British research team who claim to have discovered clues within SARS-CoV-2's genetic sequence suggesting key elements were "inserted". The Telegraph; comment by GMWatch

 

 

Is considering a genetic-manipulation origin for SARS-CoV-2 a conspiracy theory that must be censored? That is the title of a new scientific analysis of the structure of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. In the course of answering that question, the authors, based in Austria and Canada, provide evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was not naturally occurring. The theory that the Wuhan’s Huanan seafood market was the first source for animal–human viral transmission, long promoted by China, some Western scientists and the media, is now discredited, even by the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CCNS