17/December/20

 

One argument promoted by those seeking to exclude gene-edited organisms from regulation, including at the national level, is that organisms engineered with gene-editing techniques do not fall within the definition of a Living Modified Organism (LMO), the term used for a GMO in the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. But a new briefing from the Third World Network and GeneWatch UK shows that currently deployed gene-editing technologies and applications, including all techniques involving CRISPR-based systems, clearly fall within the Protocol’s definition of an LMO, whether they involve inserting, deleting or editing sequences of genomes. Third World Network and GeneWatch UK

 

 

Green MEPs Tilly Metz and Eleonora Evi argue that the EU must no longer be complicit in the destruction of primary forests, expansion of monocultures and use of toxic chemicals banned in the EU through the continued import of GM crops. They write, "None of the GM soybean varieties grown in Brazil and Argentina are approved for cultivation in the EU, and several chemicals that are used on these crops are not allowed for use inside the EU. By allowing the import of these GM crops, mostly to feed industrially farmed animals, the EU turns a blind eye to farming practices that it would not tolerate within its borders – an unacceptable double standard." GMWatch

 

 

The New York-based EcoHealth Alliance is a US non-profit with multiple crucial roles in the current pandemic. When the SARS-CoV-2 virus first emerged in Wuhan, the EcoHealth Alliance was financing the Wuhan Institute of Virology to collect and study novel bat coronaviruses. Its President, Peter Daszak, has been the media’s primary expert chosen to explain the origins of the pandemic. Of the two major international committees now tasked with investigating the origins of the virus (the WHO committee and the EAT Lancet committee), Daszak is a member of the first and the head of the second. In none of Daszak’s media appearances, nor during discussions of EcoHealth Alliance’s role before or during the pandemic, has it been revealed that almost $40 million, representing one third of EcoHealth Alliance’s total budget, is derived from the US Department of Defense. This revelation, plus evidence of other close military ties, adds a significant new dimension to analyses of the EcoHealth Alliance, the underlying purpose of its activities, and potentially, the origins of the pandemic itself. GMWatch