06/August/20

 

Imagine GM mosquitoes designed to inherit their genes at a very fast pace, jeopardise the food chain, and wipe out their natural siblings by making them infertile. According to scientists there is a risk the so-called gene drive could even spread from mosquitoes to butterflies, killing pollinators en masse, risking crops, plants and entire ecosystems. Nobody pushing the new technology has a solution to mitigate those risks, but even so there are plans in action to make this a reality. Most of the funding to make this happen is being provided by the US military and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Sign a petition to ask the European Commission and Council to prevent the release of gene drive organisms into the environment and to work for a global moratorium on the release of these organisms at the Conference Of the Parties (COP) of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). WeMove.EU

 

 

Farm, food and environmental standards are devolved responsibilities in the UK, with England, Wales and Northern Ireland able to set their own standards. That worked within the EU regulatory framework, which set strict limits to the degree to which standards can vary between or within member states, but without that, post-Brexit, it could be chaos. Now add to the mix the UK government's plan to deregulate gene-editing in England but not the rest of the UK — it's a recipe for mayhem. GMWatch comment on Private Eye article