GMWatch News Review archive

Review 599: GMOs in General, Part II

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Welcome to our latest Review, which leads with a focus on PATENTS ON PLANTS, which is one of the hottest topics causing dissent among EU policymakers in the GMO deregulation battle. We also follow with alarming developments regarding GMO MICROORGANISMS, where profit-driven development is rushing ahead of regulators’ ability to keep up. In fact, rather than even trying to keep up, the EU Commission is moving in the opposite direction from the precautionary principle, and is making moves towards relaxing safety rules around these organisms (see DEREGULATING GMO MICROORGANISMS). Meanwhile there are ongoing GMO RISKS AND HARMS, most of which involve GMOs already out there. There’s positive news in the GMO TREES section, predictably involving a non-GMO approach, and some heartening scientific findings regarding BIODIVERSITY.

PATENTS ON PLANTS
Biotech lobby groups are set to trap farmers and breeders in patent minefield
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On 18 May the European Parliament is expected to vote on a new law that would exempt food plants obtained from new genetic engineering techniques (NGTs) from existing GMO rules. The deregulation of NGTs will undermine food safety standards and consumers' right to choose – and is also likely to lead to further concentration in the seed sector through the patenting of food crops. An article by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and GMWatch shows that industry lobby groups are trying to allay concerns about the impact of patented crops with shallow and misleading arguments. A new survey shows that most EU citizens oppose patents on plants and animals. Lobby documents obtained from the European Commission show that industry lobby groups Euroseeds and CropLife Europe, representing biotech multinationals like Bayer and Syngenta, underplay the problems linked to patents and propose inadequate ‘solutions’. For instance, the voluntary licensing platforms industry has set up do not provide a solution to increased dependence for small- and medium-sized breeding companies, nor to increased concentration in the seed sector. A short news piece about CEO and GMWatch’s more detailed article, with quotes from the authors, is here.
European Patent Office tries to knock out European rule intended to prevent patents on traditional plant breeding
The European Patent Office has granted a patent claiming traditionally bred tomatoes with resistance to a plant virus to the Dutch company Rijk Zwaan. The gene variants with resistance to the pathogen were discovered in wild tomatoes found in countries of origin such as Peru. These wild tomato plants were simply crossed with tomato plants that are grown and marketed in Europe. European patent law explicitly prohibits patents on the processes of crossing and selection as well as on the resulting plants. This prohibition was reinforced and strengthened in 2017. At that time, the new rule was introduced on the initiative of the EU to specifically prohibit patents on plants resulting from crossing and selection. The claims in this patent are worded and designed to circumvent the prohibition on plant patents: to avoid mentioning the words ‘crossing and selection’, plant breeding is instead described as ‘growing seeds to produce plants’. The patent claims all tomato plants that inherit the natural gene variants with resistance to the virus as obtained from crossing and selection with the wild tomato plants. This clearly undermines the EU’s new rule.
GMO MICROORGANISMS
TAKE ACTION: Stop the AI ‘Bio-Timebomb’ before it starts!
This sounds like a bad movie, but it’s real: right now, AI tech CEOs are handing out “recipes” for bioweapons – deadly viruses – to anyone with an internet connection. New “bio-AI” tools (or “biological AI models”, BAIMs) are being released that can help even a complete amateur design deadly viruses and bioweapons. A terrifying new study found that 97% of the bio-AI tools have ZERO safeguards! Ursula von der Leyen and the EU Commission are supposed to be our shield against this, but they left a massive, gaping hole in the new AI law that could kill millions or even threaten life on Earth. These bio-AI tools are slipping through the cracks while greedy tech giants race to release them before anyone can stop them. Sign the petition to tell the Commission to close the loopholes for bio-AI tools now and hold tech executives personally liable for any harm caused!
Genetically modified microorganisms: What are the risks, and who’s watching?
When most people hear “GMOs”, they think of crops, for instance, corn or soybeans engineered to resist herbicides or pests. But scientists have been quietly engineering something far smaller and potentially more consequential: microorganisms. Bacteria, yeasts, and fungi have been genetically modified and, in some cases, released into the environment on a massive scale, sometimes without the public even knowing. A new review article published in the journal Microorganisms by a team of eight scientists, physicians, and researchers argues that we are moving too fast. The technology to create genetically modified microorganisms (GMMs) has outpaced the regulations designed to keep them in check, and the potential consequences, for human health, for soil, and for the climate, deserve urgent attention – not least, because deregulation is now on the agenda (see next section). A summary of the new article is here. Beyond Pesticides comments on the article here.
DEREGULATING GMO MICROORGANISMS
Following plants: EU plans relaxation of rules on genetically modified microbes
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The European Biotech Act (procedure 2025/0406) is a legislative proposal introduced by the European Commission in December 2025. It aims to strengthen the EU’s biotechnology and biomanufacturing sectors, including in health, by ‘simplifying’ regulation. It would remove the need for environmental risk assessments for certain genetically modified microorganisms (GMMs) defined as low-risk. As a result, bacteria and other microorganisms modified using new genetic engineering techniques (called NGTs in the EU) could be released into the environment more quickly and under less stringent conditions – for example, as fertilisers, pesticides, or feed additives. Fields in the USA are already being sprayed with such bacteria. In the name of reducing bureaucratic hurdles in the EU, existing testing and control requirements would be largely eliminated. But deregulation poses massive risks to ecosystems, to GMO-free agriculture, and to public health. Furthermore, ensuring freedom of choice would be impossible. (Link in header is to German language text)
European Economic and Social Committee warns against deregulating genetically modified microorganisms
The European Economic and Social Committee, a mandatory EU consultative body, has recently released its opinion regarding the European Biotech Act. It includes comments on the GMMs proposal. It stresses that “simplification must not become deregulation” and says: “The EESC stresses that innovation involving genetically modified microorganisms must fully respect the precautionary principle. Any regulatory streamlining should remain conditional on a case-by-case risk assessment, effective traceability and environmental monitoring proportionate to open uses, safeguarding health, ecosystems and agricultural diversity, including organic farming. Risk-based approaches should therefore ensure detectability, reversibility and environmental post-release oversight (particularly when microorganisms may interact with soils, water or food chains).” The Committee explains: “There is a limited knowledge of microbial diversity, microbiome interactions and horizontal gene transfer. Precaution therefore remains scientifically justified.” To access the opinion, go to the link in the header above and put this reference into the search box: CCMI/257 – EESC-2026-00031-00-01-AC-TRA
MORE GMO DEREGULATION
European Commission’s legal initiatives to deregulate GMOs
A number of legal initiatives aimed at deregulating genetically modified organisms, involving plants, animals, and microorganisms (see above), are currently under way at EU level. Inf’OGM has previously published an article taking stock of these initiatives. In December 2025, many additional proposals were made by the European Commission. Inf’OGM has summarised the various procedures in the form of tables. These will be updated as work on these initiatives progresses.
EU Biotech Act: Precaution sacrificed in the name of innovation?
In a recent proposal for regulations claiming to “strengthen the biotechnology and biomanufacturing sectors”, the European Commission wants to see these sectors governed by a policy that “balance innovation with safety, equity and environmental protection”. However, the text mainly aims to promote industrial competitiveness and attractiveness to investors. It provides for faster authorisation procedures for “biotechnology products”, a lighter regulatory framework, and prioritisation of so-called “strategic” projects in order to reduce time to market. The proposal is likely to result in inadequate environmental and health risk assessments that do not meet the challenges at stake, and that risk ignoring the precautionary principle. 
GMO RISKS AND HARMS
Acceleration hotspots of North American birds’ decline are associated with GMO agriculture
North American bird populations are not only declining, but they’re also shrinking faster with each passing year – particularly in regions shaped by intensive agriculture, according to a new study in Science. The Canadian NGO Stop the Spray B.C. comments on the study: “GMO crops typically use the most pesticides and use the most fertiliser. The Midwest hotspot of bird declines is the GMO heartland. Another ‘win’ for the biotech-GMO industrial complex.” 
Scientists try to develop weight loss gene therapy
Scientists are aiming to train human bodies via gene therapy to make their own “GLP-1” weight loss drug. But as well as the huge expense, there are massive risks. “The drugs, you can stop,” Giles Yeo, a professor at the University of Cambridge who studies the genetics of obesity, said of people who experience nausea and vomiting after taking GLP-1 medications. “If you genetically modify someone and they can’t stand it, they’re screwed”.
GMO TREES
American chestnut: Cross-breeding for blight resistance takes “giant leap forward”, leaves GM in the dust
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The American chestnut tree is widely considered to be on the brink of extinction in the United States, due to widespread infection by an imported pathogenic fungus that causes chestnut blight, even though some wild American chestnuts continue to thrive. Much-hyped attempts to genetically engineer blight-resistant American chestnuts have failed. Now, in what Glenn Davis Stone, Senior Research Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Studies at Washington and Lee University, called a “giant leap forward in American chestnut restoration”, scientists have found that crossing American chestnuts with naturally blight-resistant Chinese chestnuts results in hybrids with substantial blight resistance, as well as resistance to another problematic disease called root rot. The hybrids have around 70% American chestnut ancestry. In contrast, the GM approach is proving disappointing. All these results are reported in a new paper about the various research approaches.
GM as “shortcut to creating a truly American blight-resistant chestnut”
Read the story of the failed attempts to genetically engineer a blight-resistant American chestnut tree.
BIODIVERSITY
The Black Death’s counterintuitive effect: as human numbers fell, so did plant diversity
Between 1347 and 1353, Europe was gripped by the most catastrophic pandemic in its history: the Black Death. The plague wiped out between one-third and a half of Europe’s population. In rural areas, Black Death mortality caused intense labour shortages. Entire villages were left empty as rural economies collapsed. In many places, cultivated fields were abandoned and reclaimed by woodland, scrub and deer. Given the negative effects that people have had on nature in recent times, we might expect this “rewilding” to have enabled biodiversity to flourish. However, a new study uncovers a counterintuitive result: when Europe’s human population crashed, plant biodiversity also plummeted. The findings call into question conservation policies that advocate for removing or reducing human influence from Europe’s landscapes to protect biodiversity. One such policy initiative is rewilding. Yet many of the most biodiverse locations in Europe are those with a long history of low-intensity, mixed agriculture. To rewild these human-formed landscapes may risk eroding biodiversity, according to new research.