Science Controversies
Podcast: ‘Domino effect’—Activist groups may try to purge more herbicides after court bans drift-prone Dicamba
Farmers were blindsided during the heart of spraying season when a 9th Circuit Court in California vacated the registrations of ...
Viewpoint: Anti-vax extremists bully public health officials. We can’t let them win
Since mid-April, 27 state and local health leaders across 13 states have resigned, retired, or been fired, some citing threats ...
Anti-biotech groups call for EU-wide ban on disease-fighting gene drives, defying scientists’ recommendations
[Editor's note: More than 78 European environmental and agricultural organizations have signed a letter calling for a moratorium on gene ...
‘They let us down’: Botched COVID-19 response seriously shakes public confidence in the CDC
The C.D.C., long considered the world’s premier health agency, made early testing mistakes that contributed to a cascade of problems ...
First COVID-19 vaccines on track to arrive late 2020, faster than thought possible
Three companies with funding from the US government—AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Moderna—are on track to distribute the first commercial ...
CRISPR might save Cavendish bananas from extinction—but would it be a long-term solution?
Supermarket shelves may still be stocked chock-full of bananas, but the industry is growing increasingly alarmed. The fungal disease [TR-4], ...
Viewpoint: It’s time to expand the definition of ‘meat’ to include lab-grown beef
It’s no secret by now that the case against meat keeps getting stronger. The social, environmental and ethical costs of ...
Viewpoint: Bayer’s $10 billion glyphosate settlement follows familiar pattern of legalized plunder
The only reason Bayer is paying anybody anything is a flawed U.S. tort system that left the company little choice ...
GM insect-resistant, herbicide-tolerant corn poses no health risk, EU food safety officials say
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO Panel) has published the Scientific Opinion which reports ...
FDA won’t approve a coronavirus vaccine unless there is ‘clearly demonstrated proof’ it’s effective
[A coronavirus vaccine must] be at least 50% more effective than a placebo in preventing the disease [to be FDA ...
Gene drives: How do we foster innovation without damaging ecosystems?
.... [G]ene drive technology has fundamentally added the ability of humans to modify wild organisms, not only domesticated organisms. With ...
Viewpoint: Reporting COVID-19 data is not ‘rocket science’ – yet US response has been a spectacular failure
Tragically, the United States, unable to match other countries’ response, has tallied the most cases and deaths in the world ...
Podcast: Getting from one generation to the next – the life and work of pioneering embryologist Dame Anne McLaren
Geneticist Dr Kat Arney reflects on the life and work of Dame Anne McLaren, one of the leading embryologists of ...
Quest for a coronavirus vaccine ‘reinvigorating’ anti-vax conspiracy theories
There is no COVID-19 vaccine, but there are already COVID-19 vaccine conspiracies. Even as vaccines for the disease caused by ...
Viewpoint: Court-enforced dicamba weedkiller ban is about eliminating GMOs, not protecting farmers
....[T]he U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit .... banned the use of Dicamba weed control products at the ...
Mexico pledges to ban glyphosate weedkiller by 2024 to ‘protect human health and the environment’
“Given the scientific evidence of glyphosate toxicity, demonstrating the impacts on human health and the environment, the Secretariat of Environment ...
Another pandemic? New swine flu identified in China could jump to humans
[A] new finding that pigs in China are more and more frequently becoming infected with a strain of influenza that ...
Race science? Can AI ‘predict’ criminality through facial analysis?
With “80 percent accuracy and with no racial bias,” the paper, A Deep Neural Network Model to Predict Criminality Using ...
How biotech-wary regenerative agriculture movement can benefit from CRISPR gene editing
The link between biotech and conventional farming will no doubt cause many regenerative agriculture purists to balk at the idea ...
China approves imports of 125 GMO crops, animal drugs following strict safety reviews
The five corn and three soybean species have characteristics such as resistance to pests and weed killers. They will only ...
France’s proposed 2022 glyphosate weedkiller ban would harm conservation agriculture, USDA says
The French government’s agricultural research institute found that banning glyphosate will significantly increase production costs for French farmers practicing no-till ...
Viewpoint: Human challenge trials – volunteers intentionally infected with COVID-19 – are ‘uninformative, unnecessary and unethical’
Deliberately infecting volunteers with SARS-CoV-2 to test the efficacy of vaccine candidates is unnecessary, uninformative, and unethical. … [O]ne prominent ...
Court order blocking California glyphosate cancer label could spark more legal challenges to Prop. 65
On June 22, 2020, U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb (Eastern District of California) granted summary judgment in favor of ...
As temperatures rise, gene editing helps climate proof the global food supply
“The largest single global change that threatens food security is high temperature,” said Donald Ort, a professor of plant biology ...
Repairing retinas and restoring vision: Generating photoreceptors directly from skin cells offers ‘quick and easy’ therapy
Damage to the retina can have serious consequences and lead to retinal diseases. Even cutting edge medicine like cell therapy ...
Canadian glyphosate-cancer lawsuits against Bayer may proceed regardless of US settlement
.... [T]he agreements, between Bayer and numerous law firms in America, don’t apply to potential class action lawsuits in Canada, ...
Farm to Fork tempest: EU defends plan to make 25 percent of agriculture organic, ignoring farmer skepticism
[Editor's note: EU farmers are skeptical of a new government initiative to make 25 percent of Europe's farmland organic by ...
