New genetic engineering techniques will be subject to EU GMO regulation
25 July 2018 / The European Court of Justice today ruled on the regulation of new methods of genetic engineering. According to the ruling, plants that are changed in their genetic condition through application of new genetic engineering methods cannot be exempted from existing EU GMO regulation. Testbiotech welcomes this decision. The Court follows a similar legal interpretation as provided in legal dossier that was published by Testbiotech already some weeks ago.
Testbiotech to release a video clip showing a possible future scenario
18 July 2018 / Today Testbiotech is releasing a video clip about the first mushroom to be created through having its genome manipulated by CRISPR-Cas. It is worldwide the first CRISPR organism to be approved for use in food production: US authorities gave their go-ahead in 2016. Because no additional genes were inserted, the regulatory authorities did not request a detailed risk assessment. As yet, the mushroom is not available on the market.
No more co-authorship of EFSA members of staff with the biotech industry
Tuesday, 17 July 2018
In response to a letter from Testbiotech, the Executive Director of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Bernhard Url, announced to “ensure that in the future EFSA staff members will no longer co-author scientific publications with industry affiliated scientists”. Testbiotech recently complained about a publication on the risks of cultivating genetically engineered maize in Spain. The main author, Yann Devos works for EFSA; one of the co-authors, Alan Raybould, works for Syngenta, a company that wants to sell its genetically engineered maize seeds.
Joint publication of experts from German regulatory authority and biotech industry
2 July 2018 / In a recent publication jointly prepared by experts from the German regulatory authority (BVL) and US corporation DowDuPont, the experts have explicitly confirmed significant differences between new methods of genetic engineering and conventional plant breeding. According to the publication, plants manipulated with methods known as genome editing can be identified and traced in most cases. This position is in contradiction to previous BVL statements denying such differences.
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