Seeking serious debate? You’ve been CRISPR-conned.

 Updates
Jun 212019
 
Seeking serious debate? You've been CRISPR-conned.

Civil Society Statement on CRISPRcon 2019 CRISPRcon advertises itself as a forum that brings together a broad selection of diverse voices to discuss the sweeping potential implications of CRISPR technologies for our food, health and ecosystems. Widespread and grave concerns about the potentially disastrous consequences for humanity and nature arising from CRISPR technologies have been expressed by groups, both local, national and international. Well-known scientific researchers and institutions have expressed serious fears about the unwanted [More]

Synthetic Biology Shopper’s Guide: updated and in stores now!

 Economic Impacts, Environmental Impacts
Sep 112018
 
Synthetic Biology Shopper's Guide: updated and in stores now!

SynBioWatch, in collaboration with Friends of the Earth US and the Independent Natural Food and Retailers Association (INFRA), is launching an updated version of our Synthetic Biology Shopper’s Guide. The guide has been printed and is being distributed in over 350 locations of INFRA members across the USA in October. Download the Shopper’s Guide in PDF format or view it below. If you want to help stop the rise of underregulated extreme genetic engineering, sign [More]

News Release: “Bleeding” veggie burger has “no basis for safety,” according to FDA

 ! Featured, Corporate Wheeling & Dealing, Gene editing, Health & Safety, Regulation & Oversight, Updates
Aug 222017
 
News Release: “Bleeding” veggie burger has “no basis for safety,” according to FDA

Documents show that makers of the “Impossible Burger” ignored FDA’s warnings about safety of burger’s key GMO ingredient Cross-posted from ETC Group.  August 8, 2017 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Creators of a fake-meat burger made with a high-profile genetically engineered ingredient may have landed their experimental industry in a sizzling food safety mess, casting doubt on a Silicon Valley foodtech investor bubble. As reported on in today’s New York Times, recently obtained documents from the U.S. [More]

New “Biotech for Biofuels” compilation released

 Updates
Jun 042017
 
New "Biotech for Biofuels" compilation released

via Biofuelwatch: “Biotechnology for Biofuels” includes in-depth investigations of three biofuel companies – Algenol, Mascoma, and Solazyme/TerraVia, and will be updated with forthcoming reports on algal and ligno-cellulosic biofuels, followed by further materials. Policy-makers and industry leaders are pinning their hopes on biofuels and an entire bioeconomy where fuels, consumer goods, plastics, chemicals and materials currently derived from fossil biomass (oil, coal, natural gas) will instead be produced from living biomass (trees, crops, microbes). They [More]

Biofuelwatch Responds to First Open Pond Testing of GMO algae

 Updates
May 092017
 
Biofuelwatch Responds to First Open Pond Testing of GMO algae

Cross-posted from Biofuelwatch.  In response to the University of California San Diego and Sapphire Energy’s publication of results from open pond testing of genetically engineered microalgae, Biofuelwatch warns that such tests are far more risky than most people realize, and should be cause for concern, not celebration. It is assumed, and these tests in fact confirmed, that GE microalgae will almost certainly escape into the wild from open air ponds. Once escaped, these single celled [More]

African Centre for Biodiversity releases briefings on risks of new GM technologies

 Health & Safety
Apr 062017
 
African Centre for Biodiversity releases briefings on risks of new GM technologies

Cross-posted from African Centre for Biodiversity. Link: http://acbio.org.za/two-simplified-briefings-introducing-new-gm-technologies-and-biosafety-risks/ Last month, the African Centre for Biodiversity released two simplified briefings on plant breeding and gene editing. These reports introduce the novel techniques and their associated biosafety concerns, refuting the claim that crops developed with these methods represent technological progress in ‘precision’ and ‘safety’. Click here to download the Plant Breeding report Click here to download the Gene Editing report  

Is “Food-Tech” the Future of Food?

 Biotech business news, Corporate Wheeling & Dealing, Gene editing, Updates
Apr 052017
 
Is “Food-Tech” the Future of Food?

by Dana Perls, senior food and technology campaigner with Friends of the Earth US. Cross-posted from   https://medium.com/@foe_us/is-food-tech-the-future-of-food-49bd414cfb8b  Today in San Francisco at the Future Food-Tech conference, multinational food and agrichemical corporations, Silicon Valley investors, PR companies, big ag astroturf groups, and biotech startups are gathering to map out the future of our food system — and attract investment into this sector. Companies ranging from PepsiCo to Cargill are in attendance and Vladimir Putin’s former PR Firm Ketchum [More]

Four Steps Forward, One Leap Back on Global Governance of Synthetic Biology

 Gene Drives, Gene editing, Regulation & Oversight
Dec 202016
 
Four Steps Forward, One Leap Back on Global Governance of Synthetic Biology

UN Biodiversity Convention grapples with threats posed by extreme biotech industry CANCUN, MEXICO — This week, 196 countries meeting at the 2016 UN Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) Conference of the Parties made progress on the global governance and oversight of synthetic biology. Synthetic biology (syn bio) has become one of the most fiercely debated topics at the Biodiversity Convention, almost 7 years after civil society first brought the need for precaution and regulation of the [More]

Greater regulation needed on synthetic biology at the COP 13

 Events, Regulation & Oversight
Dec 152016
 
Greater regulation needed on synthetic biology at the COP 13

by Friends of the Earth International Friends of the Earth International and allies call for greater regulation on synthetic biology at the COP 13 Mariann Bassey Orovwuje (Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria) and member of the Friends of the Earth International delegation at the thirteenth Convention of the Parties of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 13) in Cancun, Mexico, presented a statement on behalf of the Civil Society Working Group on Synthetic Biology during [More]

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