www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

The European Commission is seeking to fine France more than $200,000 a day
for failing to implement safety standards for biotech experiments, February
2006.

The case primarily involves research and industrial use of genetically
modified viruses and bacteria.

The European Union's executive agency told the EU's high court Wednesday
that France had not adopted legislation the EU passed in 1990. The rules
require member nations to set up emergency plans for dealing with accidents
in biotech labs and inform emergency services about the hazards.

Some scientists are concerned that without adequate controls, microscopic
bugs engineered with novel genes taken from other species could get loose
from laboratories and mix with naturally occurring species, creating
combinations that could be lethal or unchecked by natural predators.

Plant-based vaccine for chickens approved: The U.S. Department of
Agriculture has approved for use in chickens a vaccine produced by
genetically engineered plants, the first time it has signed off on such a
plant-based manufacturing process.

Normally vaccinations involve injecting whole viruses that are dead or have
their infectious and dangerous elements removed. Here, scientists inserted
bits of the genetic material from the virus into tobacco cells to produce a
protein that provokes an immune response in chickens to Newcastle disease.

Several biotechnology companies and university researchers are, to save
manufacturing costs, splicing human genes into crops such as tobacco and
rice to produce drugs to fight cancer and other diseases.

Those projects are still experimental and confined to small plots. Still,
these biotech developments generally incite angst among those who fear food
crops spliced with animal DNA to produce drugs will accidentally mix with
conventionally grown crops, tainting the food supply.

But in this case, Indianapolis-based Dow AgroSciences LLC teased out the
vaccine from tobacco plant cells confined to the factory rather than in
whole plants grown outdoors.

Dow doesn't intend to immediately sell the Newcastle disease vaccine, which
would be administered by injection. Dow says the commercial market is
already crowded.

[heraldnet.com]

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