Six out of 11 key executives for Canada’s largest GMO and pesticides lobby group, CropLife Canada, previously held senior government positions with the country’s pesticide and food safety regulators for years, a new investigation has revealed. The findings, reported by Quebec-based environmental group Vigilance OGM, follow investigations by Canada’s National Observer (CNO) and Radio-Canada that exposed how pesticide producers and federal officials closely collaborated to protect industry interests. Among the key lobbyists highlighted in the report is Pierre Petelle, CropLife Canada’s President and CEO, who spent five years as a senior policy analyst with Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) – an agency accused of being so completely captured by industry that it has adopted its goals of promoting pesticides and GMOs at the expense of scientific and regulatory integrity and the public interest. GMWatch

 

 

Bill Gates has described India as his "laboratory" in which he can try things out and then export the results to other countries. Gates Foundation critic Tim Schwab comments, "Listen to Gates's storytelling about India – a 'chaotic' yet 'vibrant' place with a lot of potential...that only a rich, white man knows how to harness." Tim Schwab on X @TimothyWSchwab

 

 

In its new briefing, The Vegan Society says it cannot recommend lab-grown meat. Lab-grown meat "products include starter cells derived from animals" and "they aren't vegan". It says, "essentially there are kinder alternatives out there," and plenty of them. In an opinion included in the briefing, Dr Corey Lee Wrenn of the University of Kent writes: "In vitro meat may be palatable for venture capitalists, but it is unlikely to create meaningful social change for non-human animals." @GMWatch on X

 

 

A final report by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in the US provokes questions over whether some in the scientific community – including EcoHealth Alliance, the American nonprofit that collaborated on novel coronavirus discovery and engineering research with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and its president Peter Daszak – could face criminal charges stemming from the COVID-19 tragedy. The report’s findings – the culmination of two years of work by congressional investigators, the review of more than one million documents and dozens of transcribed interviews and public hearings — include evidence that Daszak misled the committee on questions central to the COVID-19 origins mystery. Daszak exported gain-of-function coronavirus experiments to China; shirked his duty to probe his Wuhan colleagues for lab notebooks, viral samples and genomic data; and helped to falsely persuade millions that the idea of a Wuhan lab leak was a conspiracy theory, the committee’s investigation shows. US Right to Know

 

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