Science Controversies
Fears that China has used prisoners’ organs for transplants prompts call for retraction of more than 400 scientific papers
A world-first study has called for the mass retraction of more than 400 scientific papers on organ transplantation, amid fears ...
Boosting the body’s innate cancer immunity
The focus on immunotherapy puts us at risk for forgetting that the principal role of the immune system is tumor ...
Confused about the USDA’s bioengineered food labels? Here’s everything you need to know
In December 2018, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) finalized the standards for mandatory “GMO” labeling by releasing the ...
Why the quest to create ‘super babies’ is a ‘fool’s errand’
Gene-edited babies should probably always be prohibited, not because of fears of creating inequalities and advantaged “super babies,” but because ...
Controversial brain preservation company Nectome seeks second, more ethical, chance
Robert McIntyre would like to get a few things straight. That “waiting list” of people plunking down $10,000 to have ...
Viewpoint: USDA’s bioengineered food rules will confuse consumers and could cost $200 million per year
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has created what may be the most bewildering, least cost-effective regulation ever. In July 2016, ...
Genetically modified chickens lay cancer-treating eggs
Researchers have genetically modified chickens that can lay eggs that contain drugs for arthritis and some cancers. The drugs are ...
Amid growing tensions with US, China poised to accelerate GMO crop imports, boost trade with Brazil
Brazil and China are expected to hold their first high-level political and economic talks since 2015 later this year, Brazil’s ...
How your history with the flu could shape your body’s response to vaccines
If you’ve ever gotten a flu shot — and then, later that season, gotten the flu — you were more ...
USDA, FDA set to finalize joint oversight of lab-grown meat
The USDA and FDA are ready to finalize an agreement for joint oversight of meat grown in a petri dish, ...
Questions arise over US scientist’s role in CRISPR baby controversy
An American scientist at Rice University was far more involved in the widely condemned “CRISPR babies” experiment than has previously ...
U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski reintroduces GMO salmon labeling bill, rejects USDA biotech disclosure rules
Alaskan Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski on [January 30] reintroduced the Genetically Engineered Salmon Labeling Act, to ensure that any salmon ...
A breakthrough cure for cancer? Beware the hype
There is a good rule of thumb – whenever a headline asks a question, especially a provocative question, the answer ...
CRISPR could make wheat safe for people with Celiac disease
Research in the Netherlands and at the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) in the UK has found that gene-editing ...
Indian biotech research may get a boost from court ruling that upheld Monsanto’s patent on GMO cotton
Some scientists in India have welcomed a supreme court ruling that reinstates a patent on genetically modified cotton that had ...
‘CRISPR babies’ prompt review of international gene-editing guidelines: They ‘were not clear enough’
Less than two years after producing an exhaustive report on human genome editing, the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and the National ...
Push to use gene editing to fight invasive predators rejected in New Zealand
A lobby group is calling for an end to a ban on investigating whether genetic technologies could be used to kill predators ...
Viewpoint: The ‘Dangerous Idea’ of group differences is latest iteration of ‘left wing hysteria’ attack on evolutionary biology
Defending the veracity of racial biological differences are often, incorrectly, deemed to be justifications of social inequality ...
China’s latest ‘ethical mess’: Cloning diseased gene-edited monkeys
Chinese researchers have cloned five gene-edited monkeys with a host of genetic disease symptoms, according to two scientific papers published ...
What does ‘natural’ mean? New study probes consumers’ nuanced and inconsistent views on healthy food labels
In mid-December 2018, a nationwide survey of over 1,200 U.S. food shoppers was conducted to determine beliefs and preferences related ...
Alzheimer’s vaccine shows promise in early stages
For two decades, biotech companies trying to tackle Alzheimer’s disease have had little success. While vaccines have often shown promise for certain ...
Indiana state lawmaker introduces lab-grown meat labeling bill, citing need for food transparency
[Indiana] Rep. Terry Goodin, a Democrat from Austin, said he believes if someone grows meat in a laboratory petri dish, they ...
Nigeria approves its first GMO food crop
After nearly a decade of research by its own scientists, Nigeria has approved its first genetically modified (GM) food crop ...
Can aggressive cancer cells be transformed into ‘harmless fat’?
Imagine if you could turn aggressive cancer cells into harmless fat. Scientists in Switzerland say they've done just that, in ...
Agriculture commissioner says EU must decide if ‘science or politics’ will drive gene-edited crop regulations
The European governments have to decide whether science or politics are applied when it comes to issues such as new ...
China’s approval of 5 GMO crop imports could fuel investment boom in biotech research
Lost in the news of contentious U.S.-China trade disputes was a meaningful regulatory approval that will improve agriculture around the ...
Viewpoint: We’re letting bureaucracy get in the way of diagnostic innovation
Should we be making it easier for companies to bring new tests to market, rather than having a process that ...
