CRISPR gene editing creates a "mess" in the cattle's cellular makeup, but the FDA thinks it doesn't matter. Report: Claire Robinson

US regulators at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have cleared the way for the sale of beef from gene-edited "slick-haired" cattle after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded the animals do not raise any safety concerns.

As state regulators consider field trials, scientists and advocates point to potential risks, lack of public consultation.

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s decision last week to allow the release of billions of genetically engineered mosquitoes in California and Florida has several environmental and public health groups worried about the potential impacts of the experimental releases on public health and the environment.

The EPA move follows last year’s pilot field trial in the Florida Keys where, starting April 2021, the British biotechnology company Oxitec and the Florida Keys Mosquito Control released half a billion of these transgenic mosquitoes.

Today, Center for Food Safety (CFS) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for unlawfully withholding records regarding FDA's environmental assessment of genetically engineered (GE) salmon and a planned Ohio-based production facility—a major expansion from current capacity. The FOIA lawsuit comes on the heels of CFS and allies' successful lawsuit holding FDA's approval of GE salmon unlawful. FDA's approval marked the first time any government in the world had approved a GE animal as food.

A class-action lawsuit filed at the end of last year alleged that Non GMO (genetically modified organism) claims on many of Gerber’s baby food products are false and misleading because the products contain ingredients derived from genetically modified crops and protein and/or dairy sources derived from cows raised on genetically modified feed.

Company also Agrees to Plead Guilty to Felony Offenses Related to Banned Pesticide Alleged in $10 Million Deferred Prosecution Agreement Filed in 2019

LOS ANGELES – In court documents filed today in Hawaii, Monsanto Company agreed to plead guilty to 30 environmental crimes related to the use of a pesticide on corn fields in Hawaii, and the company further agreed to plead guilty to two other charges related to the storage of a banned pesticide that were the subject of a 2019 Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA).

Average shoppers likely to be bewildered at complexity of new GMO labeling law

On January 1, 2022, the federal Bioengineered (BE) Food labeling law will take full effect. Under the BE labeling law, certain food products that are made with GMOs will require a disclosure of bioengineered ingredients.

The BE labeling law, known formally as the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard or NBFDS, was introduced in 2016 as a federal response to state-level GMO labeling campaigns. However, this law is not nearly as comprehensive as either the state laws it is meant to replace nor the Non-GMO Project Standard. With a comparatively limited scope, categorical exemptions and inconsistent labeling requirements, the BE labeling law is insufficient to protect a consumer’s right to know what’s in their food.

The FDA has sent shockwaves through the off-the-shelf CAR-T space, slapping a clinical hold on all of Allogene Therapeutics’ AlloCAR T clinical trials in response to an abnormality that could theoretically cause cancer.

At this stage, there are a lot of unknowns, and the range of possible outcomes run from a short delay to Allogene’s programs right up to a more intractable problem for the entire off-the-shelf cell therapy space. Analysts at Jefferies expect the clinical hold to be resolved, albeit after many months of work, but at this stage it is impossible to rule out other scenarios.

In May this year, a Research Entomologist with the USDA contacted me and shared this message:

I remember your full-page ad in the New Yorker several years ago when you predicted the disaster with dicamba-resistant transgenic soybeans. And guess what, it came true. And more to come: https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/crops/article/2021/04/28/bayers-future-five-way-herbicide

He was highlighting that the next Bayer-Monsanto GMO crop in the regulatory pipeline to be approved is now “stacked” with five different herbicide-tolerant traits to deal with the rise of “superweeds” that are increasingly herbicide resistant. My ad he was referring to was an advertorial I had written in response to a clueless pro-GMO puff piece in the New Yorker in 2014.

Summary

New data concerning chromothripsis may affect the long-term outlook of companies such as Crispr Therapeutics.

The long-term impact on health of gene editing may not be known until around 2040.

Given the uncertain outlook, investors may be wise to re-evaluate their positions in companies employing DNA double strand breaks to edit the genome.

Download the statement in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French

“Genetically engineered trees are not a climate solution. They are a dangerous distraction, and a threat to forests and communities that will worsen the climate crisis rather than fix it.”

As concern about the climate crisis intensifies, so does rhetoric surrounding the role of forests, trees and carbon storage in climate mitigation. The science is clear that halting destruction of forests, which includes respecting the territorial rights of communities and peoples who depend on forests, is among the most effective, proven, and available means of removing carbon from the atmosphere, and that undisturbed forests with diverse species, rich intact soils and deadwood store far more carbon than industrial tree plantations.