| | 18/March/24
| | Canada: Seed regulatory modernisation – what's at stake? The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is continuing its Seed Regulatory Modernisation review that could bring major changes to the seed system. Canada’s seed regulations currently protect farmers and the public interest – but this could soon change, warns the National Farmers Union (NFU) of Canada. Multinational seed and chemical corporations are lobbying for big changes that would affect farmers’ access to seed, the cost of seed, and about who has a say over future regulations – to benefit themselves at the expense of farmers and the public interest. You can help create the pressure needed to keep Canada’s seed regulations working for farmers. From now until the May 1, 2024 deadline the CFIA is running a survey: the CFIA Winter 2024 Seed Regulatory Modernisation Consultation. The NFU has prepared a Farmers' Guide to help you answer the questions in support of farmers’ interests. National Farmers Union Kevin Folta tells the truth (for once) Amidst a lot of hype about gene editing addressed to Canadian farmers, GMO booster Kevin Folta slipped in a crucial admission (reported at the end of the article as a paraphrasis, not a direct quote): "However, gene editing has limitations. The crucial traits in plants, like drought tolerance and nutrient use efficiency, are governed by dozens or hundreds of genes. Plant scientists still need traditional plant breeding to solve the big challenges within global agriculture." We at GMWatch could have said it ourselves. In fact, we have, many times. GMWatch comment on article in the Western Producer COVID-19: The future of the lab leak theory Recent developments in the lab leak theory of COVID-19’s origins have been significant. New documents revealed by US Right to Know under FOIA legislation (see item below) have added evidential flesh to the suggestion that work was underway to assemble viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2. The new specifics include the purchase of particular DNA cutting enzymes whose use had previously only been inferred by sequence analysis of SARS-CoV-2 as likely signatures of viral genetic engineering. But the new FOIA evidence, though damning in suggesting basic manipulation and a lab escape, collectively explains only a fraction of the SARS-CoV-2 genome. Where did the rest come from? Why should we care? In this article, originally posted as a thread of tweets, Drs Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson highlight new evidence showing that before appearing in Wuhan, SARS-CoV-2 developed features that required substantial evolution after exiting its bat reservoir host. They state that the evolutionary pathway needed for this can be inferred and it is incompatible with any standard or obvious zoonotic process. Key features of SARS-CoV-2, in short, are difficult to reconcile either with genetic engineering or a zoonosis. The simple explanation for them, Drs Latham and Wilson write, is selection and evolution in immunocompromised human lungs, presumably one of the Mojiang miners. Drs Latham and Wilson conclude that most likely, SARS-CoV-2 was simultaneously a lab leak, a reverse engineered virus, and an evolutionary product of a miner lung, since these theories are compatible with each other and in fact complementary. Independent Science News COVID-19: US scientists proposed to make viruses with unique features of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan [GMWatch note: This article was published in January but is relevant to the above item and significant in itself.] American scientists planned to work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology to engineer novel coronaviruses with the features of SARS-CoV-2 the year before the virus emerged from that city, according to documents obtained by US Right to Know. While rare in nature, these features were central to the esoteric research interests of the scientists working with the Wuhan lab, those documents show. Scientists divided over the so-called “lab leak” and natural origin hypotheses have for years pored over the arcane language of a US-China research proposal called “DEFUSE” describing coronavirus engineering experiments. The DEFUSE grant proposal was led by EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak. Now, drafts and notes uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act reveal fresh details about the intended research. Specifically, the scientists sought to insert furin cleavage sites at the S1/S2 junction of the spike protein; to assemble synthetic viruses in six segments; to identify coronaviruses up to 25 percent different from SARS; and to select for receptor binding domains adept at infecting human receptors. The genome of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, matches the viruses described in the research proposal. 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