NATURE|Vol 448|23 August 2007 NEWS IN BRIEF

Field trials for GM food Asthmatics win payment in diesel-fumes lawsuit get green light in India Asthma patients in Tokyo last week welcomed a cash settlement India’s first genetically modified (GM) food from car manufacturers and crop is a step closer to reaching the dining the Japanese government. The table. The government has approved field one-time payment resolved a trials for a strain of brinjal (aubergine) decade-long legal battle in which carrying a Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) gene. the asthmatics blamed diesel car Jalna-based Mahyco, the Indian venture fumes for their illness. KIM KYUNG-HOON/REUTERS of US seed giant Monsanto, claims its insect- The automakers, including resistant variety gives better yields with Toyota, Honda and Nissan, will less pesticide use. To avoid possible cross- provide ¥1.2 billion (US$10.5 contamination with farmers’ crops, the trials million) to the plaintiffs, and a will be carried out in government farms. further ¥3.3 billion to support But critics already campaigning against Bt a five-year health plan for the cotton — currently the only GM crop grown patients. The central government in India — say the brinjal trials are illegal. and Tokyo metropolitan Full biosafety data on the brinjal tests government will each contribute ¥6 billion to the medical programme. have not yet been generated, says Kavitha Kuruganti of the Centre for Sustainable scientists — to pay for relocation, housing starting dose “should be considered for Agriculture, based in Hyderabad: “The trials and research. “This is about the rescue of patients with certain genetic variations”. would open doors for entry of GM tomato, science and learning,” says Goodman. Warfarin is widely used in patients with okra, mustard, corn, rice and five other food artificial heart valves and those at risk crops in the pipeline.” The government says of blood clots. But it can cause massive that a committee of experts reviewed all WWF sues over threat to and sometimes fatal bleeding. The two available biosafety data and concluded they endangered whales gene variants flagged by the FDA encode were in order. enzymes involved in warfarin’s breakdown Last month, in the Sea of Okhotsk, Russia, and its function as an anticlotting agent. a conglomerate of energy firms lowered Although the FDA has demanded similar Gates Foundation helps a 28,000-tonne platform for drilling for labelling on four other drugs, warfarin Iraqis escape the conflict oil on to a base on the sea floor. They did is the first major drug to be labelled in it very carefully — in part to keep down this way. “This means that personalized The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation the noise, as the last feeding grounds of medicine is no longer an abstract concept is getting into the business of helping the western Pacific population of grey but has moved into the mainstream,” says persecuted Iraqi academics continue their whales (Eschrichtius robustus) lie some Larry Lesko, director of the FDA’s Office of research abroad. A $5-million grant will 7 kilometres away. Clinical Pharmacology. help support the Scholar Rescue Fund run But environmentalists and some by the Institute for International Education scientists say construction of the platform (IIE), which aims to raise $15 million for was not quiet enough. So the environmental India to expand research Iraq. group WWF and activist group the Corner institutes and universities The Gates Foundation is best known for House have taken legal action against a its $33-billion bankroll and for tackling UK government department. The WWF The Indian Planning Commission has health problems such as malaria and HIV. claims that the department conditionally rolled out a seven-year plan to set up eight The new grant is a one-time award, not a promised financial support for part of the more Institutes of Technology — the élite shift in focus, says a spokesperson for the Sakhalin-II project without approving its science and technology universities. Also in foundation. environmental impact. the US$32-billion plan are 7 new national As Iraqi professors come under increasing A department spokesperson calls the business schools and 20 Institutes of threat of violence, many have sought case “flimsy” and points out that the Information Technology. help to temporarily flee the country, says environmental review was in fact one of the The push follows a call by Prime Minister IIE president Allan Goodman. So far, 41 conditions that would have to be met for Manmohan Singh to put Indian science on grants have been awarded to Iraqis — 27 to approval. It is estimated that the Okhotsk the global map by upgrading its research region harbours the equivalent of 45 billion facilities. There are also plans for 30 more barrels of oil. ‘central universities’ — one in each of the 16 states with no such institution at present, Anticlotting agent gets and 14 in states that offer free land. Notice to authors and readers gene-specific label change Nature and the Nature journals have refined their policy on competing financial interests. MOHAMMED AMEEN/REUTERS The US Food and Drug Administration Nature requires that all authors declare that they (FDA) is changing the label on a widely used do or do not have competing financial interests drug to include information about how two relevant to their submission. If an article in Nature genes may affect dosage requirements. does not contain such a statement, readers can The FDA said on 16 August that the label assume that authors declared to the editors that on warfarin, a popular blood-thinner with they have no competing financial interests. See www.nature.com/authors/editorial_policies/ Car-bomb wreckage near Baghdad University the trade name Coumadin, is to be revised. competing.html for full details of the policy. highlights the perils for some Iraqi academics. The new version will state that a lower

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