Daily Food & Ag Digest
Every day, the staff of the Genetic Literacy Project scours the Web for stories on a range of agricultural and food issues, including the GMO debate, conventional and organic farming, regulations, new breeding technologies and sustainability. We publish excerpts of those stories and encourage our readers to visit the original publications for the complete stories.
RFK Jr.’s autism panel packed with bizarre collection of cranks and conspiracists
U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has filled an autism committee with friends, associates, and former colleagues who believe that autism ...
Unpasteurized milk scandal: 2% of the U.S. drinks unpasteurized milk but it causes 22x more infections
Consumption of unpasteurised milk in the United States has presented a public health challenge for decades because of the increased ...
Should you follow RFK, Jr.’s guidance to replace seed oils in your diet with beef tallow? Not if you want to stay healthier
“Make frying oil tallow again,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. And just like that, Steak ...
France launches 4-part plan to counter health disinformation
Faced with the rapid growth of information channels, the rise of social networks, and the virality of false or misleading ...
RFK, Jr. dilemma: American Medical Association leadership split over whether to ostracize HHS secretary or vainly try to educate him
A meeting ... between the head of the American Medical Association and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has prompted ...
Disinformation exploding on TikTok about agriculture and food
In an alarming development for food manufacturers, new research has revealed that over a third of Gen Z would rather ...
Despite $12 billion in losses defending the safety of glyphosate, Bayer reiterates support for the herbicide
There may be a day when Bayer Crop Science decides it needs to exit the glyphosate business, George Gough, director ...
Repurposing the husks and other fibrous residue from seed crops could be converted into carbon-storing building supplies
Agricultural waste that is usually burned or left to rot could play a far bigger role in tackling climate change ...
MAHA’s obsession with raw milk kills New Mexico newborn
A newborn baby has died in New Mexico from a Listeria infection that state health officials say was likely contracted from raw ...
MAHA turns its ire towards what it claims are unsafe, industry-friendly EPA chemical rules
Last year, prominent activist Kelly Ryerson was so frustrated with the EPA ... that she and other MAHA supporters drew ...
Consumer alert: ‘Natural,’ ‘Low fat’ and ‘light’ are among many unregulated labels that confuse food shopper
The world of food labeling and marketing is often an impenetrable forest of terms, numbers, and nutritional facts that turns ...
Spewing misinformation about cultivated meat, Arizona lawmaker wants to send science innovators to prison
The season of state-level attempts to ban cultivated meat has begun. [In January], policymakers in Virginia, South Dakota, and Arizona ...
China leads Asia in its slow embrace of genetically modified crops
Asian countries are shifting their position on GMOs, though the pace and motives differ by country, said Nandini Roy Choudhury, ...
Glyphosate’s contributions to cutting greenhouse gas emissions
I get many emotive emails about the evils of glyphosate, many of them from sources who also send me anti-vax ...
Agriculture is both victim and contributor of climate change. Here’s how plant breeding can help turn the tide
Climate change exerts an unparalleled impact on agriculture. Yet the sector also contributes 20% to the annual increase to human-driven ...
Viewpoint: Activists attempt to create a scandal over retracted 25-year-old narrative summary on glyphosate safety falls flat
[W]e learned that an old narrative review published 25 years ago about glyphosate has been retracted. Of course, as soon ...
‘We are approaching a watershed moment for psychedelic health care with ‘magic mushroom’ psilocybin the star’
In the billion-dollar race to commercialize psychedelic medicine, psilocybin, a naturally occurring hallucinogen better known as magic mushrooms, or “shrooms,” ...
What’s at stake as Europe attempts to depoliticize its agricultural biotechnology regulations and bring them more in accord with science
The current European regulatory framework relating to new genomic techniques (NGTs) is undergoing a thorough review. The ruling of the ...
Restrictions on synthetic dyes and ultra-processed foods: RFK, Jr.’s MAHA movement policies gain traction in statehouses
When one of Adam Burkhammer’s foster children struggled with hyperactivity, the West Virginia legislator and his wife decided to alter ...
Viewpoint: With indiscriminate cuts to food programs, the U.S., not nature, is destabilizing global agriculture
[L]ately, the United States, not nature, has created the biggest uncertainty for global agriculture. Until last year, when the Trump ...
Viewpoint: France’s Le Monde endorses bizarre activist conspiracy disinformation about the ‘dangers’ of gene-edited crops
Le Monde published on December 10 (date on the web) and 11 (date of the print edition, published the day ...
Supreme Court agrees to review Bayer’s request to block lawsuits claiming federally-approved herbicide glyphosate causes cancer
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review Monsanto’s appeal seeking immunity from lawsuits related to its popular herbicide, Roundup ...
Viewpoint: Why RFK, Jr.’s promotion of ‘natural medicines and food’ is simplistic, often ignorant, and sometimes dangerous
Often, we’re given a choice between certain things – such as foods, medicines or procedures – that are deemed natural, ...
Bayer on SCOTUS: It should not face liablity in state courts for alleged health damages caused by its weedkiller Roundup (glyphosate) when independent federal agencies have reviewed thousands of studies and labeled it safe
The U.S. Supreme Court today announced that it will review the Durnell Roundup™ case. Monsanto petitioned the court to hear ...
How MAHA policies are fast-changing the ingredients in popular foods
Make America Healthy Again. Ozempic. Fibermaxxing. Powerful forces are pushing the U.S. food industry to make what could be the ...
Bloated advice: MAHA influencers are flooding social media with misinformation on gut health
“I had one patient who saw a TikTok video about doing a colon cleanse, bought something over the counter to ...
‘A whole lot of (methane) gas’: Grass-fed beef is not better for the climate, experts agree
Roughly a quarter of all global greenhouse gases come from food production, and beef accounts for the single biggest share ...
