Last night, as the Genetic Technology Bill made its final pass in the Commons, MPs promised abundant fields and supermarket shelves groaning with genetically improved foods. The most recent House of Commons research briefing says: “Examples of current GE [gene-edited] products include soybean oil with reduced saturated fat sold in the USA and a tomato sold in Japan that accumulates a chemical that lowers blood pressure. For the future, a range of wheat, chickpea, and peanut products with health benefits are in development, alongside products aimed at consumer convenience such as seedless fruits and corn that is higher in thickening starch.” The official narrative around the bill promotes gene editing as both a food security imperative – to protect the UK from shortages due to the war in Ukraine – and a near mythical Brexit benefit: “the first step in securing our future food security as a nation". However, no such crops exist or are anywhere near being commercialised. Beyond GM

 

 

Plucky Mexico is pushing back hard against American demands that it cancel a planned ban on GM corn and the herbicide glyphosate, writes journalist Michael Balter. Washington is insisting there is no scientific basis for the bans and that they violate the US-Canada-Mexico Agreement on trade. The official US position is that GMOs and commonly used herbicides, such as glyphosate, have been scientifically demonstrated to be safe for human consumption. But the science is anything but conclusive. Indeed, with regard to glyphosate, there is mounting evidence pointing in the opposite direction. Dozens of studies strongly suggest that the herbicide, even in relatively low concentrations, has demonstrably harmful effects on humans, animals, insects (especially bees), microbes and the environment in general. Truthdig

 

 

A study found levels of the widespread herbicide and its breakdown products reduced, on average, more than 70 percent in both adults and children after just six days of eating organic. [GMW: This study was published in 2020 and we've reported on it before, but as it's important, we're giving a reminder.] EHN

 

 

Journalist Michael Balter reports "a wave of social media triumphalism among Lab Leakers, due to a Wall Street Journal report that the US Department of Energy has changed its evaluation on COVID origins from undecided to a likely lab origin — albeit it with 'low confidence'". He writes: "The news was quickly picked up by media outlets around the world, including other legacy media in the US such as the New York Times, and CNN featured a long segment on the news." However, he adds, "As more sober observers realize, the DoE evaluation does not mean the debate over COVID origins has ended, even though the department’s new estimation is reportedly based on some kind of new information not yet revealed. If anything, a serious debate is just now beginning, with Republicans in Congress launching at least two new investigations and key players (Fauci and others) likely to face subpoenas or at least invitations to testify." Michael Balter's Substack

 

 

Virologists who worked to squelch consideration of a lab origin of COVID-19 in early 2020 worked in tandem with leaders in scientific research funding, according to their private emails. Leaders of the National Institutes of Health in the US and the Wellcome Trust in the UK played an undisclosed role in persuading virologists to write an influential article asserting a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2, according to a memo released by investigators with the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. A March 2020 paper in Nature Medicine titled “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” assured the public that the virus’ genome claimed an origin in wildlife. Hundreds of news organisations cited the article to assert that the lab leak theory was a “conspiracy theory”. But the new congressional memo shows that the lead author of the article told the scientific journal that the writing had been “prompted” by then-Wellcome Trust director Jeremy Farrar, leader of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci, and NIH Director Francis Collins. Farrar was recently appointed as chief scientist of the World Health Organization. US Right to Know

 

 

In March 2020, the paper, "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2" assured us the COVID-19 virus could not have been genetically engineered. But, as journalist Michael Balter writes on Twitter, the evidence now shows that "This was NOT an independent scientific evaluation but a paper made to order for political purposes": "This new evidence just released by the House committee on COVID origins is damning. It shows that nearly everyone involved in the pivotal Proximal Origins paper has been dishonest about how it came about and the involvement of Fauci and Farrar." Michael Balter on Twitter @mbalter

 

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