Gene-edited plants and animals are GM foods, EU court rules
▻https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/25/gene-editing-is-gm-europes-highest-court-rules
Plants and animals created by innovative gene-editing technology have been genetically modified and should be regulated as such, the EU’s top court has ruled.
The landmark decision ends 10 years of debate in Europe about what is – and is not – a GM food, with a victory for environmentalists, and a bitter blow to Europe’s biotech industry.
[...] The court sided with the French agricultural trades union, Confédération Paysanne, which brought the case, arguing that new and unconventional in vitro mutagenesis techniques were likely to be used to produce herbicide-resistant plants, with potential health risks.
A study published in the journal Nature last week found that the gene-editing technology #Crispr-Cas9 can cause significantly greater genetic distortions than expected, with potential “pathogenic consequences”.