Tag: gene editing

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

    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 […]

  • 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 […]

  • 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 […]

  • 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 […]

  • Victory! GE mosquitoes will not be let loose on Florida community

    by Friends of the Earth US Citizens/environment will not be impacted by novel experiment releasing millions of GE mosquitoes WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Food and Drug Administration announced that it will not move forward with the controversial release of millions of genetically engineered mosquitoes in the community of Key Haven in Monroe County, Florida. The […]

  • Podcast: Synthetic Biology & Gene Drives – Should We Be Concerned?

    Podcast: Synthetic Biology & Gene Drives – Should We Be Concerned?

    “Genetic engineering is passé. Today, scientists aren’t just mapping genomes and manipulating genes, they’re building life from scratch – and they’re doing it in the absence of societal debate and regulatory oversight.” – Pat Mooney, Executive Director of ETC Group, whose mission is to access the consequences and impacts of new technologies. Listen to the […]

  • SynBio, Gene Editing and Other New Stuff: Same Concerns, Supersized

    SynBio, Gene Editing and Other New Stuff: Same Concerns, Supersized

    by Mary Lou McDonald (Safe Food Matters) New words like “synthetic biology”, “GMOs 2.0”, “CRISPR”, and “new biology” are being heard.  And new compounds are in our fragrances, flavourings, cosmetics and foods. The new words are for new techniques of genetic engineering. What are the techniques and their products, and should we be concerned? New […]

  • Stop industry writing the rules on GM – Australia action

    Stop industry writing the rules on GM – Australia action

    Documents revealed under Freedom of Information laws show that the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) has been colluding with industry for years to deregulate a range of new genetic modification (GM) techniques. And now the rest of us have just 6 weeks to make the case why they should be regulated! If the […]

  • Gene Editing and Seed Stealing

    Gene Editing and Seed Stealing

    by Chee Yoke Ling and Edward Hammond (Project Syndicate) AUSTIN, TEXAS – Four hundred years ago, John Rolfe used tobacco seeds pilfered from the West Indies to develop Virginia’s first profitable export, undermining the tobacco trade of Spain’s Caribbean colonies. More than 200 years later, another Briton, Henry Wickham, took seeds for a rubber-bearing tree […]

  • A Collision Course with Unintended Consequences

    A Collision Course with Unintended Consequences

    by Melody Meyer (Organic Matters) In an early morning jaunt to Sacramento last week my car was rear ended.  I serve on the California Organic Products Advisory Committee (who by the way are looking for new members), and was on my way to attend a subcommittee meeting when boom—a fine young man rammed me in […]