Tag Archives: USDA

Gene Editing’s Extra DNA Problem: Déjà Vu All Over Again

UC Davis researcher Alison Van Eenennaam described the experience of learning that the “poster animals for the gene-editing revolution” do not, after all, comprise the “same outcome [that] could be achieved by breeding in the farmyard,” like she and her collaborators … Continue reading

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U.S. Grain Industry Believes USDA APHIS’s “New Proposed Rule [for regulating GMOs] Is Fundamentally Flawed”

I’ve got to give credit to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) for persistence. USDA APHIS has proposed new rules for regulating genetically engineered (GE) crop plants (AKA genetically modified organisms: GMOs) … Continue reading

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Disappointment in the First 25 Years of GMO Foods

The world’s first, commercially available GMO (genetically modified organism) created for human or animal food was first sold in U.S. grocery stores twenty-five years ago today. I can still remember the excitement my colleagues and I at Calgene, Inc. felt as … 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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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: All Facts, No Fiction

I participated in two panel discussions on genetic engineering called “GMOs: All Facts, No Fiction” that were sponsored by the University of California’s Global Food Initiative in 2015. One was held at UC Davis on November 3rd and the other … Continue reading

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Genetic Engineering is Very Different Than Traditional Breeding

The United States National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have established a committee to study the “economic, agronomic, health, safety, or other impacts of genetically engineered (GE) crops and food.” The committee’s results may be used to reassess the … Continue reading

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California EPA to List Glyphosate as Known to the State to Cause Cancer

In case you haven’t already heard… The California Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has posted notice of its intent to list glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup® and other related herbicides, as “known to the … 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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Let USDA APHIS Know that GMOs Should be Regulated

USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has been regulating genetically engineered (GE) crops over the last two decades based on whether development of those products involved use of organisms deemed “plant pests.” (Whether that strategy has been science-based … Continue reading

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