19/February/21

 

The Co-op has become the first UK supermarket to reject gene-edited food crops and animals without strict assessment and labels. The move comes amid a Government review on the controversial foods. Ministers are consulting on removing some controls, which might include dropping mandatory labelling on foods which contain gene-edited ingredients. The Co-op has thrown its weight behind the #NotInMySupermarket campaign coordinated by the groups Beyond GM and SlowFood UK. Daily Mail

 

 

The Physician Payments Sunshine Act is a US law that requires companies to report monies and gifts they give physicians, which are known to influence what doctors prescribe or promote. Thanks to the Sunshine Act, you can look up doctors on a public database to see who is paying them and how much. Several other countries have passed or are considering similar laws. Nothing similar exists in other disciplines like plant biology, climate science, or toxicology. We need a “sunshine law” for science that would expose all sorts of conflicts of interest and industry manipulation that skew research on food, synthetic chemicals, pesticides, air pollution, genetic technology, and the climate. Grist

 

 

Testbiotech has won an important opposition filed at the European Patent Office (EPO). A patent held by the Max Planck Society will now be changed to delete all claims covering genetically engineered vertebrates. In its original form the patent covered many different species from mice to great apes. The animals were to be genetically engineered to develop symptoms of Parkinson's disease and for use in experiments. The new EPO decision was based on ethical considerations; the expected suffering of the animals would have been disproportionate to any substantial medical benefit as requested in European law. Testbiotech