Trump strikes nine more deals with drugmakers to lower prices Many details of agreements with the companies remain unclear By Daniel Payne and Elaine ChenAug. 31, 2026

https://www.statnews.com/2026/08/31/trump-most-favored-nation-drug-pricing-new-round-price-cuts-announced/?utm_campaign=the_readout&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--IAmaiNKoQUxkxAMKF-aFvX79Gyhz_zRr5c29Z-lLFc7eoZhZcgzeLjjeQ6hoDr956Q4hHqdK94P-5sD--kp74M_sCxw&_hsmi=436432001&utm_content=436432001&utm_source=hs_email Trump strikes more drug pricing deals with biotechs President Trump yesterday announced that his administration has made deals with nine new companies, joining the 17 that it previously struck agreements with. The new companies are: Alcon, Astellas, BeOne, BridgeBio, CSL, Sun Pharma, Kyowa Kirin, Teva, and UCB. The agreements are similar to the earlier ones — to sell new medications to U.S. patients at prices comparable to the lowest prices in peer countries, and to offer their drugs to Medicaid at “most-favored nation” prices. But also like the earlier deals, the details of these agreements have not been released and it's unclear what the impact on overall drug costs will be.

Fact vs misinformation: An official EU guide to GMOs and gene-edited foods European Parliament | September 1, 2026

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2026/09/01/fact-vs-misinformation-an-official-eu-guide-to-gmos-and-gene-edited-foods/ The rules governing new gene editing techniques for plants – called “new genomic techniques” (NGTs) – are being changed at EU level. Gene-edited plants will be divided into two categories, depending on the type and number of edits involved. Those with few genetic changes that could have occurred through conventional breeding techniques will be considered conventional plants, while the rest will have to follow the same strict rules as GMOs.

‘Right-to-try’: Montana’s new law allows licensed center for therapies not yet approved by FDA Washington Post | September 1, 2026

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2026/09/01/right-to-try-montanas-new-law-allows-licensed-center-for-therapies-not-yet-approved-by-fda/ Montana has become the first state to license clinics that can sell access to experimental treatments still working through the FDA’s approval pipeline — a striking expansion of the “right-to-try” movement, reports Vicki Norton for The Washington Post.

African science innovation is growing exponentially, but it’s almost entirely absent from Wikipedia. Why that’s a problem. SciDev.Net | September 1, 2026

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2026/09/01/african-science-innovation-is-growing-exponentially-but-its-almost-entirely-absent-from-wikipedia-why-thats-a-problem/ Africa’s scientific output is surging, but you’d barely know it from Wikipedia: the continent accounts for roughly 10 percent of the site’s articles, yet science and technology topics make up less than 1 percent, as Duncan Mboya reports for SciDev.Net.

Five alarming ways ‘autonomous AI’ can go rogue New York Times | September 1, 2026

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2026/09/01/five-alarming-ways-autonomous-ai-can-go-rogue/ In July 2026, Hugging Face discovered a cyberattack unlike any it had seen before — only to learn the culprit wasn’t a human hacker but a swarm of OpenAI’s own AI agents that had broken loose during a routine security test, as the The New York Times’ Dylan Freedman reports. Over months, the agents escaped their sandboxes, taught themselves to cooperate, and quietly hacked both OpenAI’s and Hugging Face’s systems for weeks before anyone caught on.

Politicizing science: Trump’s pick to head the FDA—Heidi Overton— promotes an ‘alternative system’ of ‘conservative-based science’ Scientic American | September 1, 2026

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2026/09/01/politicizing-science-trumps-pick-to-head-the-fda-heidi-overton-promotes-an-alternative-system-of-conservative-based-science/ President Trump’s nominee to run the Food and Drug Administration once called for conservatives to build their own scientific journals and steer research funding toward right-wing policy goals, as Scientific American’s Adam Kovac reports.

Viewpoint: Follow the money: How Bloomberg Philanthropies and the NGO Lighthouse Reports manufactured a Big Food safety scandal David Zaruk | August 31, 2026

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2026/08/31/viewpoint-heres-how-bloomberg-philanthropies-funded-lighthouse-reports-cynically-twisted-the-data-to-prove-big-food-is-trying-to-block-safety-measures/ What happens when you want to run a campaign, but you have very limited data and evidence? One strategy more increasingly used is to hire an activist NGO like Lighthouse Reports to fabricate an investigation they can funnel through their tried and tested noise machine. What happens if the budget has been cleared but there is no story? No problem. Lighthouse Reports has experienced spinmeisters capable of communicating insignificant research like it was a groundbreaking exposé. Just pay the Dutch NGO enough and they’ll deliver?