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After foods, the Canadian government has turned its attention to seeds derived from new genetic modification techniques. Without any real democratic debate, it is allowing these GMO seeds to be released into the environment without health and environmental risk assesment. After foods in May 2022 [1], the Canadian government has turned its attention to seeds. On […]

In 2023, German and Spanish customs notified the presence of transgenic rice on their territory. This GM rice is not allowed for importation into Europe. Commercial cultivation is currently very limited. Only the golden rice, genetically modified to produce vitamin A, is cultivated in the Philippines. However, since 2006, GM rice has been regularly found […]

After transgenic mosquitoes, Oxitec is disseminating transgenic larvae of Spodoptera frugiperda (OX5382G) on several thousand hectares in Brazil. This agricultural pest has become resistant to several chemical insecticides and to many transgenic Bt plants. Will the release of males with biased progeny circumvent these resistances? Brazil is the second country, after the United States, in […]

“The industry can influence the scientific literature used for […] the work of experts”. This observation was not made by NGOs opposed to Bayer, Corteva or other multinationals. It was formulated by a committee of French experts, the Anses, which is notably involved in dealing with applications for GMO and pesticide authorizations. In a report […]

On 24 April 2023, the European Ombudsman opened an inquiry against the European Commission in the context of the planned revision of the GMO regulation. Whereas the European Commission is losing support on its legislative agenda, this inquiry seems to weaken it even more. For several years, the European Commission has been considering a new […]

Commissioned by the European Parliament, a recent report examines the independence and transparency policies of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The agency is responsible for issuing scientific opinions on applications for authorisation to market GMOs. The report concludes that it can do better. Created in the wake of the mad cow crisis and other […]

At the beginning of March 2023, the french expert agency, the Anses, listed the situations which limit the quality of its scientific expertise, such as conflicts of interest, urgency, the impossibility of taking into account the most recent data, etc. The GMO dossier is not quoted among the examples, but the observations made by the […]

The European Commissioners will not discuss the potential new regulatory framework for GMOs on June 7, 2023, as initially planned. Indeed, the Commission has decided to postpone its internal discussions to the end of June at the earliest. But the context of the last few weeks may also suggest that such a proposal might not […]

For the two years, the European Commission has apparently been losing several supporters to its project to deregulate many GMOs. The concerns of several member states came to light on March 16, 2023, during a meeting of European environment ministers. A week before the European Council of Environment Ministers on March 16, 2023, Austria sent […]