Tag Archives: NK603 corn

New Salk Institute Study Reveals More Detailed Picture of “Scrambled Nature” of Gene Insertions in GMOs

Plant molecular biologists have known for decades that the techniques they use to genetically engineer plants are error prone and can result in GMOs with unintended: mutations in host plant genes, insertion of vector backbone DNA sequences, small duplications or … Continue reading

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Golden Rice: Of Good Intentions, Insertional Mutants, Human Error, and the Need for Better Regulation of GMOs

After learning that the genetically engineered (GE) Golden Rice “event” being bred into varieties of rice favored by Indian farmers turned out to have a mutation—a mutation created as a result of the genetic engineering process itself (you can check … Continue reading

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Food Evolution Film Neglects to Mention Important Facts…Like Glyphosate is a Probable Human Carcinogen

The film Food Evolution, despite being narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, has been called “a slick piece of GMO propaganda” by Marion Nestle, a prominent nutrition scientist at NYU who was interviewed for it. In response to Nestle’s tweet on … Continue reading

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Update on “Extra DNA” and Other Problems with Crop Genetic Engineering

I received an email recently from a distinguished professor of plant sciences who encouraged me to update my knowledge of the “extra DNA” problem I mentioned in an article published in the January 2018 issue of Comstocks magazine. He sent me … Continue reading

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Informing USDA’s and FDA’s Thinking About Crops/Foods Derived From Plant Varieties Produced Using Genome Editing Techniques Like CRISPR-Cas9

Both the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have asked the public for comments on how these agencies might deal with crops and foods derived from new plant … Continue reading

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What Did Monsanto’s Robb Fraley Really Learn From Bill Nye?

I read a piece by Robb Fraley, Monsanto’s Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, called “What I’ve Learned From Bill Nye” in the Huffington Post a few weeks ago. In it, Fraley wrote that he had Bill to thank … Continue reading

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Scientific Uncertainty and Professional Ethics as Related to GMOs

Fred Gould, the chairman of the committee that produced the most recent National Academies report on GMOs, and I were invited to speak at the third and final NSF-funded workshop on the topic of “Scientific Uncertainty and Professional Ethics: Getting … Continue reading

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Would Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman Have Signed that GMO Letter?

From what I have read about him, I am pretty sure that Richard Feynman would not have signed the recent letter in which a large percentage of our living Nobel laureates urged Greenpeace to end its opposition to genetically modified organisms … Continue reading

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Preparing for Regulating Future Products of Biotechnology by Learning from the Past

In response to a memorandum issued by the Executive Office of the President last July, representatives of the agencies that regulate the products of biotechnology in the United States–FDA, EPA and USDA–participated in a meeting at UC Davis today titled … Continue reading

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GMOs and Democracy

The start of a comment made in response to my last post—“Maybe it is undemocratic but in this case…”—still bothers me. It also worries me when I hear plant molecular biologists say: “I would normally be in favor of labeling, … Continue reading

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