United States of America

In late April 2026, the French government supported the deregulation of GMOs produced using new techniques of genetic modification (GMO/NGT). A month earlier, however, the French Embassy in the United States had sent the government a memo detailing the situation in that country. Despite more than 140 marketing authorisations, only a few GMO/NGT are actually on the market there… but with significant patent-related issues. The situation described bears no resemblance to the promises made by multinational corporations or the European Commission.

In late February, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended granting marketing authorisation for a vaccine marketed under the name mCombriax. This is an mRNA “vaccine” against COVID-19 and seasonal flu, developed by Moderna, intended for people aged 50 and over. This opinion will be forwarded to the European Commission, which could adopt the marketing authorisation decision. Given that mRNA technology is still in its infancy and has not yet really proven itself in the medical field, this favourable opinion is somewhat surprising.

A patent confers the right to prevent third parties from exploiting an invention. Whilst historically it applied to specific technical objects and/or the processes for obtaining them, its extension to living organisms – and subsequently to genetic information – has transformed its scope. Between the broadening of claims, mechanisms for extending protection and growing legal uncertainties, patents now represent a threat from the biotechnology industry to fundamental economic and societal issues, particularly food sovereignty.

A dispute over patent rights to Crispr/Cas9 has been ongoing for several years between its main discoverers, universities and research institutes. To date, the outcome of this dispute and its impact on the Crispr/Cas9 economy remain unpredictable. Added to this is an ongoing dispute over Crispr applications between the parties to the main dispute and companies. Despite this, the widespread use of this tool for modifying living organisms, and the associated health, environmental and socio-economic consequences, seem inevitable.

At the end of November 2025, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article on a clinical trial of a messenger RNA vaccine against seasonal influenza. The article was written by researchers working for Pfizer, the company that developed the vaccine. Pfizer is keen to show that its vaccine is more effective than conventional vaccines. However, independent experts have pointed out major omissions and inconsistencies in the publication, which minimise or even call into question the trial’s conclusions.

The Asilomar Conference (California, United States) on ‘recombinant DNA’ was organised in 1975 by molecular biology researchers. Its aim was to define the safety conditions necessary for handling genetically modified bacteria shortly after the first attempts at transgenesis.
Today, despite their medical, agricultural and environmental promises, biotechnological advances, combined with other technologies such as ‘artificial intelligence’, are above all a sword of Damocles hanging over all living things. In 2025, a new Asilomar conference failed to produce a joint statement by the participants.

Having described the complexity of the question of the origin of Sars-Cov2, the main players and their research (GOF, etc.), then the history of the pandemic (part 1 and part 2), we can give the opinions of the various parties, without any of them being totally convincing.

After describing the main issues and key players (part 1)i, we will now trace the prehistory of Covid-19, followed by its history, which has received more media coverage.

A Covid-19 epidemic (acronym for ‘coronavirus disease 2019’) was officially declared in January 2020 in the city of Wuhan, then quickly turned into a pandemic spreading throughout the world. The rapid spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (for ‘Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome’), responsible for this pandemic, led to lockdowns being imposed on everyone, regardless of age group or susceptibility to the disease. It has disrupted the lives of billions of people. But where did the virus come from? This three-part article aims to describe what is known about the origin of this virus and why it should matter to us, here and now. All those involved in this pandemic story are undoubtedly hiding part of the truth.

In the first part, we explain the issue and why it may be of interest to us, even after the pandemic is over, and describe its main players. In the second part, we will review the history of this pandemic. In the third part, we will give the opinions of various institutions on its origin.

A few months ago, Living Carbon, a US start-up, announced that it had developed and planted genetically modified poplar trees in 2023. These trees are said to absorb more quickly carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases whose current accumulation in the atmosphere and oceans is causing problems for the Earth’s climate. As part of this program, Living Carbon is acquiring carbon credits to finance its work. The aim is to reduce the photorespiration of poplar and pine plants. What is photorespiration? What would be the ecological repercussions of this modification of photosynthesis?

“Artificial intelligence” (AI) is used to extract and restructure information from raw or unstructured data. Companies are using it to identify phenotypic traits associated with genetic sequences. Referring to a recent patent application by the company Inari, the German NGO Testbiotech points out the risks associated with the combination of new genomic modification techniques (NGT) and AI. It condemns the possible abuses of patentability and the need for robust GMO regulations. However, Inari has already filed other similar applications, which raises questions about the legal impact of such rights and their adaptation to AI-driven technologies.

The digitization of living organisms is the subject of a growing number of projects. Computer data, generated and stored in ever-larger “data centers”, are used by “artificial intelligence” matrices. These data are of all kinds: genetic sequences, proteins, etc. In these fields, which require increasing natural resources, investments are multiplying.