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European Court Ruling Raises Hurdles For CRISPR Crops (sciencemag.org)
Okian Warrior shares a report from Science Magazine: Hopes for an easier regulatory road for genetic engineering in European agriculture were dashed by the Court of Justice of the European Union. In a closely watched decision, the court ruled that plants created with new gene-editing techniques that don't involve transferring genes between organisms -- such as CRISPR -- must go through the same lengthy approval process as traditional transgenic plants. Many researchers had argued that regulators should take a lighter touch when evaluating products created with the new technologies, but environmental groups and their allies successfully argued that they should be subject to the same EU rules that apply to other genetically modified organisms.
The case focused on crops that have been made resistant to herbicides without transferring genes from other species. The French government had passed a law exempting these new gene-edited crops from regulation under the European Union's directive on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which requires an assessment of risks to health and the environment, as well as labeling, tracking, and monitoring of the products. Confederation Paysanne, a French union in Bagnolet representing small farms, and eight other groups, sued and charged that the plants modified with gene-editing techniques should be regulated under the GMO directive, because they could cause significant harm. The court decided that gene-editing techniques are covered by the GMO directive because they "alter the genetic material of an organism in a way that does not occur naturally." (The court exempted conventional mutagenesis -- the unnatural use of chemicals or radiation to create mutations for plant breeding -- because it has "a long safety record.") It also said the new gene-editing techniques have risks that could be similar to those of transgenic engineering.
The case focused on crops that have been made resistant to herbicides without transferring genes from other species. The French government had passed a law exempting these new gene-edited crops from regulation under the European Union's directive on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which requires an assessment of risks to health and the environment, as well as labeling, tracking, and monitoring of the products. Confederation Paysanne, a French union in Bagnolet representing small farms, and eight other groups, sued and charged that the plants modified with gene-editing techniques should be regulated under the GMO directive, because they could cause significant harm. The court decided that gene-editing techniques are covered by the GMO directive because they "alter the genetic material of an organism in a way that does not occur naturally." (The court exempted conventional mutagenesis -- the unnatural use of chemicals or radiation to create mutations for plant breeding -- because it has "a long safety record.") It also said the new gene-editing techniques have risks that could be similar to those of transgenic engineering.
The court exempted conventional mutagenesis -- the unnatural use of chemicals or radiation to create mutations for plant breeding -- because it has "a long safety record."
Maybe it's just because I've played so much Fallout, but I'll take genetically edited food over irradiated food any day....cutting out genes (and as the summary says, not adding genes-especially genes from other organisms)has to be inherently safer than dosing what's destined to be our food with radiation.
If the radiation is to create mutations in the seed, then that is not the same as irradiating your food. They're merely trying to increase the rate of mutations in hope that some are positive mutations.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Firstly, they're not talking about irradiating the food that ends up on your plate. They're talking about using radiation to increase natural mutation rates in the process of developing new strains. Crops subsequently grown from those strains are in no way "irradiated".
Secondly, there are lots of different kinds of radiation. Sunlight is radiation, and it is mutagenic, hence skin cancer if you don't cover up. It's highly unlikely that they are using the kind of radiation that leaves things radioactive for this kind of thing, they'll be using gamma rays or weak x-rays. All your looking for is a mutation rate a few times higher than would occur naturally in sunlight, and the plants would at no stage be radioactive.
Oh no... it's the future.
to make sure, for example, pesticide resistance in a crop doesn't get crossed with a wild relative of the crop and spread to a wild population of an undesirable plant.
The OBVIOUS way to ensure this doesn't happen is to edit out the pollen production so that the GMO plant IS NOT CAPABLE OF REPRODUCTION. The gene can't pass to the wild stock if there is nothing being passed.
This is known as a "terminator gene", and the anti-GMO activists vehemently objected to it, and were successful in getting terminator genes banned in both Europe and America.
Why? Answer: Because it removes one of their best objections to GMO. They want to make GMO intentionally MORE RISKY just so that they have stronger objections. They don't want GMO to be safe, they want it to be banned, at any cost.
The actions of these idiots are indefensible.