Unapproved GMO wheat found in Oregon; Japan cancels US wheat imports.

W. Nicholson Price GMO Food, Nicholson Price

By Nicholson Price

One fear about GMOs is that they will escape whatever controls are placed them and end up in the wild.  A version of that story appears to have come true in the wheat industry this week, when the USDA announced that farmers in Oregon had discovered an unexpected and unapproved patch of Roundup-Ready genetically modified wheat in a conventional wheat field.  Monsanto developed Roundup-Ready wheat (which is not resistant to its Roundup herbicide) and tested it between 1998 and 2005, but it was never approved for sale and was discontinued.  Japan has cancelled or suspended orders of wheat from the Pacific Northwest in response.

h/t to Grubstreet; see also recent posts on GMOs and the environment and on Monsanto’s patent protection of GMOs.

W. Nicholson Price

Nicholson Price is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. Previously, he taught law at the University of New Hampshire. He holds a PhD in Biological Sciences and a JD, both from Columbia, and an AB from Harvard. He clerked for Judge Carlos T. Bea on the Ninth Circuit, and was then appointed as an Academic Fellow at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard. Nicholson teaches patents and health law and studies life science innovation, including big data and artificial intelligence in medicine. He recommends reading Bujold, Jemisin, and Older. His work has appeared in Nature, Science, Nature Biotechnology, the Michigan Law Review, and elsewhere. Nicholson is cofounder of Regulation and Innovation in the Biosciences, co-chair of the Junior IP Scholars Association, and a Core Partner at the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.