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One should always hear both sides, and this article does exactly this with an update.

About the bashing of ‘Golden’ rice Greenpeace says:

Accusations that anyone is blocking genetically engineered ‘Golden’ rice are false. ‘Golden’ rice has failed as a solution and isn’t currently available for sale, even after more than 20 years of research. As admitted by the International Rice Research Institute, it has not been proven to actually address Vitamin A Deficiency. So to be clear, we are talking about something that doesn’t even exist.

It has only failed because people who should have no say are freaking out about it. It isn't available for sale because people who should have no say are freaking out about it. To be clear, we are talking about something that very much exists. It did take some 24 years to go from concept to result, however, because research like this hard work. It has only "not been proven" in the sense of it has not yet been rolled out in large numbers to subsistence farmers who's children are at risk of blindness due to malnutrition.

And about alternatives;

The only guaranteed solution to fix malnutrition is a diverse healthy diet. Providing people with real food based on ecological agriculture not only addresses malnutrition, but is also a scaleable solution to adapt to climate change.

Right. Don't give subsistence farmers the opportunity to grow healthier food for themselves. Don't let them live the lives they know. Force them to live the lives of other people, rich [by comparison] people. Just make these extremely poor people stop being extremely poor, or just give them all the good food they need. The solution is guaranteed to work, but nobody has figured out how to make the solution even happen. No solution that doesn't actually exist can be considered to be scaleable.

One should always hear both sides, and this article does exactly this with an update.

About the bashing of ‘Golden’ rice Greenpeace says:

Accusations that anyone is blocking genetically engineered ‘Golden’ rice are false. ‘Golden’ rice has failed as a solution and isn’t currently available for sale, even after more than 20 years of research. As admitted by the International Rice Research Institute, it has not been proven to actually address Vitamin A Deficiency. So to be clear, we are talking about something that doesn’t even exist.

It has only failed because people who should have no say are freaking out about it. It isn't available for sale because people who should have no say are freaking out about it. To be clear, we are talking about something that very much exists. It did take some 24 years to go from concept to result, however, because research like this hard work. It has only "not been proven" in the sense of it has not yet been rolled out in large numbers to subsistence farmers who's children are at risk of blindness due to malnutrition.

And about alternatives;

The only guaranteed solution to fix malnutrition is a diverse healthy diet. Providing people with real food based on ecological agriculture not only addresses malnutrition, but is also a scaleable solution to adapt to climate change.

Right. Don't give subsistence farmers the opportunity to grow healthier food for themselves. Don't let them live the lives they know. Force them to live the lives of other people, rich [by comparison] people. Just make these extremely poor people stop being extremely poor, or just give them all the good food they need. The solution is guaranteed to work, but nobody has figured out how to make the solution even happen. No solution that doesn't actually exist can be considered to be scaleable.

I am atheist and while I am pro-nuclear power, pro-vaccine,and believe in global warming I am very much against GMO foods. I against them though because if the transfer of power they represent, not about the food itself. No study has ever shown GMO corn is any less or more healthy than natural corn. GMO foods shift power from the people and the farmer to the chemical company.

Unfortunately, you're conflating a few things that don't necessarily belong together.

Genetic modification to make plants herbicide resistant is only one form of genetic modification. And I can't disagree -- the way that Monsanto has gone after farmers, and pretty much "owns" agriculture is disgusting.

At the same time, there are a lot of other genetic modifications in food that have nothing to do with selling chemicals. You can't tell me that you're also against Golden Rice? They have a whole lot of studies which show that their rice is more healthy than the regular kind in areas that a) consume a lot of rice, and b) where there are various micronutrient deficiencies, such as Vitamin A (the deficiency of which can be a cause of blindness in children. More than 2 million people a year die from Vitamin A deficiency).

There is a lot of good that GMOs can do for this world, particularly in parts of the world with various dietary nutrient deficiencies. GMO doesn't necessarily imply "engineered to be herbicide resistant". As another poster said, your problem seems to be more with business practices and abuse of the legal system (and, I'd add, a political system hat allows these transgressions to occur) surrounding certain types of GMOs. But why lump in those that can actually help people in vulnerable populations lead healthy, productive lives?

Yaz

You are aware that the "carrots help you see in the dark" thing was a lie the Brits told to try to cover the fact that they had radar? As far as I'm aware there's zero evidence whatsoever that carrots or any nutrient in them does a damned thing for your eyes.

Carrots don't help you see in the dark, but they can prevent you going blind

http://www.blindness.org/index...
http://www.goldenrice.org/Cont...

That's why I masturbate using carrots. Don't want to go blind!

You are aware that the "carrots help you see in the dark" thing was a lie the Brits told to try to cover the fact that they had radar? As far as I'm aware there's zero evidence whatsoever that carrots or any nutrient in them does a damned thing for your eyes.

Carrots don't help you see in the dark, but they can prevent you going blind

http://www.blindness.org/index...
http://www.goldenrice.org/Cont...

I'll assume you're talking about GMOs as food. Golden rice, which has been mentioned several times in the comments, was developed out of humanitarian concern and, as far as I can tell, is not encumbered by patents. Misguided and ignorant activists are prepared to let malnourished children go blind rather than allow them a staple crop providing vitamin A.

Helpless ward of the state? Because I don't want people starving to death? You could make the small logical conclusion that I am at least connected to the internet and writing in English, so I'm obviously not in a 3rd world refugee camp. In fact, I live in the U.S. and work for a publicly traded corporation as a 'consultant'. I live quite comfortably.

Or did you think I was writing in a public library, after collecting my welfare check and food stamps, I decided to go on slashdot and get in an unimportant argument with some random internet troll? The truth is, I'm just bored at the moment and waiting for clients to get back to me. Maybe I'll convince you to gain some sympathy for people less fortunate, but I doubt it.

I'm not a fan of Monsanto's corporate practices but I don't dismiss the science of genetic modification blindly. Golden rice is being offered with a free license http://goldenrice.org/Content1-Who/who4_IP.php and your solution "let's just grow carrots instead of rice" is ignorant. Simply look at a rice paddy and imagine people wading through water searching around for a root plant. http://tcktcktck.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/7350698472_846b2b3cfb_b.jpg
The other problem is culture. Rice is a staple food that people are not going to give up.

  It sounds like you have a personal vendetta against poor people, an extreme bias against GM, and a lack of understanding in farming & culture.

Monsanto cannot sue for golden rice either, as there are free licences available, see access for those who need it

You only care about people in your own country?
You sound like a *lovely* person.

http://www.goldenrice.org/Content4-Info/info.php

"In developing countries 500,000 people, mainly children, become blind every year, 50% of whom die within a year of becoming blind. Nearly nine million children die of malnutrion every year. Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) severely affects their immune system, hence it is involved in many of these children's deaths in the guise of multiple diseases."

"The major micronutrient deficiencies in the world are iron, zinc, and vitamin A. VAD is prevalent among the poor who depend mainly on rice for their daily energy uptake, because rice grains do not contain any Î-carotene (provitamin A), which our body could in turn convert into vitamin A. Dependence on rice as the predominant food source, therefore, necessarily leads to VAD, which has the most severe effects on children and pregnant women. For the 400 million rice-consuming poor the medical consequences are severe: impaired vision, all the way to irreversible blindness, impaired epithelial integrity, exposing the affected individuals to infections, reduced immune response, impaired haematopoiesis (blood cell formation) and impaired skeletal growth, among other debilitating afflictions. Rice containing provitamin A could substantially alleviate the problem."

I agree on all accounts.

There is a marketing problem here though. Nobody buys GMO products over unmondified ones because the "GMO" label is a selling point. So to fund the research into making better GMO foods, they need a business reason that is good enough to counter the negative on the marketing side. If for instance they (in a perfectly safe and health conscious fashion) added disease resistance that upped yields by 2% and growth acceleration that increased weight by 2%, this is a 4.04% win, that could fund other research.... unless voodoo scare marketing makes GMO labeled products sell for 10% less.

So, if we value this science: http://www.goldenrice.org/

How should we fund it?
            Monsanto is doing it for free (for pure profit motives) (until labeling and paranoia kill it)
            Making people less paranoid takes generations
            Deceiving them is wrong (and in the end makes them more paranoid).

Monsanto did not invent GMO : scientists in the 60's, 70's started inserting pieces of genes into E. coli, a basic step in manipulating DNA. At the same time, there were intense debates how to handle this and what the consequences might be. Monsato, a private company took this much further and personally I don't agree with their approach.

Funny is, there is a big difference between a plant that has a resistance gene to a herbicide and the golden rice project that could prevent hundreds of thousands of kids from going blind every year.

In the first case, if the inserted gene escapes, it will make other, regular plants resistant to the herbicide - clearly bad.
In the second case, the only problem that could arise is that some weeds would start producing beta-carotene.

So there is difference between GMO and GMO.

You can't really blame them for whining though. The biotech firms are still trying to commercialize things like Terminator Technology seeds. No, they don't grow miniature governators, they grow crops that produce sterile seeds - breaking the fundamental rule of agriculture (never eat your seedcorn), and placing control firmly in the hands of the company that controls the technology, Monsanto.

As the GPP points out, western agriculture is essentially addicted to Roundup. Monsanto already directly forbids reserving Roundup Ready® seed for the next crop, but this technology would give that real teeth.

Golden Rice is a great example of how technology should be used - seeing a problem, and trying to fix it. The technology has been donated in full to a charity overseeing it's development for the target niche. But the only problems that some people see is that their profit margins are too low, which is sad.

Me? I'm just listening to my gut - that mysterious place where common sense springs from - and my gut tells me that genetically altered things are not good eats.

Since you are typing on a computer with Internet access, I assume you live in an area where you are free to eat whatever you want. Unfortunately, not everyone has that luxury. There are places in the world where the best meal a family can hope for is a spoon full of rice that Sally Struthers provided. Granted, it's something to eat, but it has little nutritional value other than the carbohydrates. Now let's say you can genetically modify this rice to contain vitamins (such as "Golden rice") and even human breast-milk protein. Now, this bit of rice can be a nutritionally complete meal that could possibly be grown in these local areas to feed starving populations.

Unfortunately, in the meantime, groups like Greenpeace have convinced the governments of starving nations to reject GM foods and allow their populations to starve. Yes, that is correct. Greenpeace would rather let men, women and children starve to death than have them eat GM foods. And people wonder why I think that Greenpeace is more concerned with their own political agendas than the welfare of the people they claim to be trying to help.

Golden Rice is a prime example of how we can use GM foods to solve world hunger.

2) But you are wrong about GMO not being capable of SOLVING world Hunger. How can that be you say, if the world has enough food? Go to this web site: http://www.goldenrice.org/ and learn about the GOOD things that american genetic engineers have done to use GMO to help solve world hunger.

The people you deem as "anti-science leftists" (many of whom are extremely conservative or libertarian) are often very pro-science. They take a stand against what may very well be considered unjustifiable use of scientific knowledge. We're talking about taking a stand against genetically modified crops, animal testing, and so forth.