Science Controversies
International group of economists, geneticists calls for relaxed crop gene-editing rules to promote food security
With renewed attention to implementation and regulation, new plant breeding technologies such as gene editing could make an important contribution ...
Gene therapy for beta-thalassemia blood disorder one step closer to European approval
The first gene therapy to treat a rare blood disorder is one step closer to approval [March 29] following a ...
Pew survey: Americans science literacy ‘mixed’, partisanship drives many viewpoints
A new Pew Research Center survey finds that many Americans can answer at least some questions about science concepts...The survey, ...
USDA bioengineered food labels could further confuse consumers about GMO ingredients
When Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Law in 2016, they hoped to end ...
EU health commissioner calls for updated CRISPR-edited crop rules
The ‘new plant breeding techniques’ need new EU legislation that takes into account the latest advanced technologies, EU Health Commissioner ...
Viewpoint: Esketamine promises to boost depression treatments—but we don’t know enough about long-term effects
With great fanfare, a new antidepressant entered the U.S. market in March [2019], the first fundamentally new medicine for depression ...
Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren promises reversal of Bayer-Monsanto merger to end corporate ‘stranglehold’ on farmers
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren promised to break up big agricultural businesses to end their “stranglehold” over farmers and mount ...
Viewpoint: We need to speed up biosimilar drug approval process
Generic versions of brand-name small-molecule drugs saved Americans more than $1 trillion between 1999 and 2010. Biosimilars now have the potential ...
Podcast: ‘Just the wife’—how sexism in science obscured achievements of four groundbreaking researchers
Dr Kat Arney tells the stories of four women from the history of 20th century genetics, and explores how sexism ...
Huntington’s risk spawns niche IVF market for people who don’t want a diagnosis
When Jennifer Leyton was going through IVF, her doctors would tell her very little. They turned off the ultrasound screen ...
Viewpoint: USDA should take over animal gene-editing regulation from FDA to boost food innovation
With critical export markets still restricted by trade disputes and mounting concerns about animal disease risk....[p]roper regulatory oversight for an ...
Why recent measles outbreaks may represent a ‘new normal’
Back near the start of this century, before the full damage of Andrew Wakefield’s debunked study linking measles vaccine and ...
Video: USDA GMO labeling rules favor agriculture industry over consumers, activist group says
New GMO food labels....are “provoking the ire of environmental groups who say the rules favor agriculture industry interests over environmental ...
Viewpoint: It’s time Europe updates its 18-year-old GMO rules to regulate CRISPR-edited crops
‘In lectures, I often try to clarify things by using the tomato as an example,’ says Ernst van den Ende, ...
China revives discredited ‘malarial therapy’ as cancer treatment
American surgeon Henry Heimlich is best known for inventing a way to rescue choking victims, but a quarter-century ago, he was vilified ...
5 farmer tips to avoid ‘fear-based’ food marketing at the grocery store
Whether you realize it or not, we are inundated with fear-based marketing labels every time we set foot in a ...
Did medieval Black Death reach as far as sub-Saharan Africa?
[S]ome researchers point to new evidence from archaeology, history, and genetics to argue that the Black Death likely did sow ...
We need a ‘global registry’ of all human gene-editing research, World Health Organization panel says
An influential committee of the World Health Organization said on [March 19] that it would be “irresponsible” to try to ...
‘Better safe than sorry’? Precautionary thinking stokes unjustified fear of GMOs, chemicals, biologist says
“Better safe than sorry.” That’s a great lesson for a child when a parent explains why she should wear a ...
Japan’s plan to deregulate CRISPR-edited crops may trigger backlash from consumers still wary of GMOs
Japan will allow gene-edited foodstuffs to be sold to consumers without safety evaluations as long as the techniques involved meet ...
Arkansas says food companies can’t call lab-grown protein ‘meat’
Food manufacturers will soon have to comply with "truth in labeling" legislation that aims to protect Arkansas' meat and rice ...
There’s a war on ‘prediabetes’ and why that may be bad medicine
In medicine, prevention is usually an unalloyed good. But in this case, other diabetes specialists argue, medical and epidemiological data ...
Viewpoint: FDA plan to regulate CRISPR-edited animals as drugs will keep innovative products off the market
[T]he U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed mandatory premarket new animal drug regulatory evaluation for all food animals ...
Podcast: Geneticist Mary-Claire King nearly quit science—then discovered the first breast cancer gene
Mary-Claire King's stellar career has covered human and chimp evolution, finding BRCA1 and reuniting families that have been torn apart ...
Relapse risk could be predicted by cancer’s ‘internal wiring’
The "internal wiring" of breast cancer can predict which women are more likely to survive or relapse, say researchers. The ...
Uganda’s GMO bill could become law without President’s assent
After more than a decade of deliberations, a bill that governs the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Uganda ...
Is it easier to get cancer than previously thought?
[C]ancer might arise more easily than previously thought. By doing experiments on both yeast cells and on human cells in ...
