A neurologist who believes his patients are suffering from a suspicious illness has pleaded with the Canadian government to carry out environmental testing he thinks will show the involvement of the herbicide glyphosate. For more than two years, dozens of people in the Canadian province of New Brunswick have experienced a distressing array of neurological symptoms, initially prompting speculation that they had developed an unknown degenerative illness – and that figure is believed to be far higher than official reports. On 30 January, neurologist Alier Marrero sent a letter to both Canada’s top public health official and the province of New Brunswick’s chief medical officer, warning them of “troubling” new developments and pleading for action and warning some of his parents were in “advanced stages of clinical deterioration and near end of life”. Among those developments, he said recent laboratory tests on a number of patients showed “clear signs of exposure” to glyphosate, as well as other compounds linked to herbicides, adding that many of those tested had levels “many times over the detection limit”. The Guardian

 

 

EU Commission officials have stated that new GM techniques have the potential to reduce pesticide use. But a new report by Foodwatch shows evidence to the contrary. Foodwatch has analysed existing scientific literature on disease-resistant new GM crops and found that not a single trait near commercialisation has the potential to reduce pesticide use. And contrary to what the industry has been promising for decades, older-style genetically engineered crops have never led to a reduction of pesticide use on national scale. In the USA, Brazil and Argentina – where genetic engineered crops are widely grown – pesticide use is higher than ever. Foodwatch

 

 

When the first baby born using a controversial procedure that meant he had three genetic parents was born back in 2016, it made headlines. The baby boy inherited most of his DNA from his mother and father, but he also had a tiny amount from a third person. The idea was to avoid having the baby inherit a fatal illness. His mother carried genes for a disease in her mitochondria. Swapping these with genes from a donor — a third genetic parent — could prevent the baby from developing it. The strategy seemed to work. Now clinics in other countries are offering the same treatment. But it might not be successful. In two cases, babies conceived with the procedure have shown what scientists call “reversion": The proportion of mitochondrial genes from the child’s mother has increased over time, from less than 1% in both embryos to around 50% in one baby and 72% in another. Fortunately, both babies were born to parents without genes for mitochondrial disease; the technique was used to treat infertility. But the scientists behind the work believe that around one in five babies born using the three-parent technique could eventually inherit high levels of their mothers’ mitochondrial genes. For babies born to people with disease-causing mutations, this could spell disaster — leaving them with devastating and potentially fatal illness. MIT Technology Review

 

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