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Project Genetic Engineering and the Environment // Background Information Videos

Testbiotech shows increasing number of patents on food plants and New GE

Gene Drive - intervention in the "germline" of natural diversity

Transgenic maize is contaminating traditional varieties in Brazil

Another example of uncontrolled spread of genetically engineered organisms

11 March 2022 / Researchers at the Brazilian agricultural research agency, Embrapa, have found large-scale transgenic contamination of traditional maize varieties. According to the study that has been published in the journal Plants, transgenes were found in one third (34 percent) of around 1,000 samples taken in 2018/19 and 2020/21 in states in the east and northeast of the country.

‘New GE’ deregulated through the backdoor

EU Commission: Eggs from CRISPR/Cas hens will not be risk assessed or labelled

4 March 2022 / Eggs and laying hens originating from transgenic hens could be marketed in the EU without these having to undergo an approval process, and without being labelled. This is the conclusion that can be drawn from a letter sent by the EU Commission to the German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) in July 2021. The letter now was made public after a request from the German Union of Peasant Farmers (AbL).

CRISPR/Cas patents: ethical boundaries strengthened

Controversial claims amended or deleted

22 February 2022 / Following an opposition filed by Testbiotech, the European Patent Office (EPO) has amended a patent on CRISPR/Cas (EP 3401400) gene scissors. The Nobel Prize laureates, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, are named among the inventors in the patent. The claims covering human, animal and plant cells were deleted, and intervention in the human germline explicitly excluded.

EU Parliament votes against import approvals for transgenic plants

Soybeans and cotton from BASF not welcome

16 February 2022 / The EU parliament has voted against two resolutions for import approval of transgenic soybean (GMB151) and cotton (GHB614) produced by BASF. The plants are resistant to herbicides, such as glyphosate and isoxaflutole, soybean GMB151 also produces an insecticidal toxin. Reasons for rejection are, for example, the damage that cultivation of the plants can cause in countries like Brazil. The Parliament also criticises the insufficient risk assessment conducted by European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).