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Would You Like Drugs in Your Rice?
Digitus1337 writes "Wired has the scoop on a new type of rice that was just approved for production by a narrow vote. 'Ventria believes growing drugs that produce proteins like lactoferrin and lysozyme in rice could be a cheaper way to develop drugs than building and maintaining expensive manufacturing plants... Opponents say growing the crops in open fields endangers organic and conventional crops, as well as human health...'" Update: 03/30 23:15 GMT by T : That should probably read "growing rice that produces proteins like lactoferrin and lysozyme."
of cross pollenization should be important in determining what plants and drugs should be used. While protein enhancements spreading to other plants or fields could be beneficial, other drugs such as the human growth hormone would have a definite risk.
I hope they test the hell out of these types of "medicine" and their effects on their surroundings. What if a large amount of the chemicals they make adversely effects another species in the area? I'm all for production of GM foods that help, but not those that hurt as well just to save a few pennies.
So we're just going to feed antibiotics to the general population even though most of them don't need it?
Aren't we already encountering problems with drug resistance because doctors are over-prescribing antibiotics, and patients don't follow the dosing instructions?
Or are these not antibiotics? I'm confused.
The story sounds humorous, but it also raises serious issues. Is it really a good idea to start growing lactoferrin-enriched rice in the open?
Anyone who has bought bulk rice is familiar with the fact that harvested rice is contaminated with bits of debris and wild rice. Speaking in a practical sense, it is clearly inevitable that this GM rice will get mixed in with the food supply.
Even eating organic rice will not save you, since small amounts of rice seeds will surely drift on the winds and contaminate all crops. Do we really want to risk our young daughters eating abnormal quantities of lactoferrin and risking a higher rate of gigantomastia and breast cancer?
Ever tried to put 50 acres under a roof? How about 1,000 acres? Then ther are all those other minor details that are required for sustaining life under a roof, sun light, temperature and humidity control, water, minerals and ferilizers.
There's a fair bit more to large-scale hot-house or hydroponic farming than you have had to deal with when you grew a little pot in your closet.
I have absolutely not problem with genetic engineering ... granted that the following conditions are met.
1. the product is clearly labeled
2. it is NOT grown in open airspace.
The reason why the latter one is important is because the second anyone releases a genetically modified crop into open air (even in a contained farm) birds and other creatures will eat the seeds (or the wind will blow the seeds) and slowly but surely this crop will leave the controlled vicinity. When this occurs, you will have not only begun to make the natural genetic code of said crop a fading tradition, but there are also possible health risks that could potentially be involved. Plus has anyone other then me noticed that organically grown food just tates better (Yes I even did a formal blind taste test experiement once with raw oranges.)
This is also bad news for organic farmers because it cost a lot of money ( thousands annually IIRC) to get that certificed organic label placed on products.
Just take a look at the mess canada is now in as well as the western part of the usa with organic (or lack there of ) cannola plants. Its near impossible now to grow actual organic cannola.
here for more info
This is some scary news. Also consider this, once the naturally genetic code is gone... there is no getting it back.
yep, Monsanto are the SCO of the pharmaceutical industry, and manage to be even more evil.
SCO "only" demand massive payments for something they don't own. Monsanto destroy what you already have, then demand massive payments.
First, you ask: Maybe I'm really naive, but why can't they grow this sort of crop indoors?
Then you say: I know that it would probably cost a lot more
Ding! That's it in one. After all, if one company is growing it the expensive way, and another one (in another country if necessary) is doing it the cheap one... guess who wins? Especially in the current environment of trying to get drug prices as low as possible... Yup, its the cheap one. Go figure. So as long as growing it the cheap way is possible, that's the way that commercial entities will do it.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
With all this genetically modified food being pushed forward for the betterment of mankind, has anyone ever questioned what would happen to the immune system if we are so hellbent on preventing disease from food sources. Everyone is so cleanliness obsessed that they disinfect everything, but as a child, your immune system has to be built up to defend itself against diseases, with these GM foods being created to basically prevent disease, does that not weaken our immune system, and wouldnt this make us more susceptible to diseases such as the common cold? Fair enough these chemicals are good at for us, and are needed in prevention of certain diseases, but to actually battle the disease and win, our immune system must be up to the task.
The biggest concern I have with GE/GM is that too many people think that genetic material can be contained and controlled. Pollen carries genetic material and can easily be blown around the world (let alone over the road into the neighbours crops). Furthermore, viable pollen has been found that is hundreds of years old. So folks, do we really want to let these kinds of things out of the lab?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Rice paddies are usually very large, and they require a LOT of water and sun.
The sun part would do okay in a greenhouse, but the water would be difficult. And, building a structure that is large enough, without any type of support that would impede mechanical planting/harvesting would make this hugely expensive.
Option 1- buy some land, plant rice. Harvest.
Option 2 - but some land, build a huge building that has a crud-load of fresh water in it, maintain the building, and harvest.
Option 1 of course is cheaper.
I drive over rice paddies all the time, and the way they handle it now is pretty simple. They divert a river to flood out a few gazillion acres. They plant the rice, and the only other things I see happen are the occasional crop dusters and the harvesting. This seems to be a fairly low-maintenance crop. And I think that is one of the great benefits of rice- other than the water, it is very cheap to grow.
An even better explanation of the costs of rice farming can be found. But when the 'typical' farm is 700 acres, that would be a lot to cover. The Pentagon only has 34 acres of floor space. The Mall of America is only 92 acres total (stores/entertainment, etc)
700 Acres per farm is a LOT. Constructing a building that large would not be very cost-effective.
No reason to lie.
There is an equal risk that the patent holders will attempt to extort payments from the farmers who's seed stocks have become contaminated with thier "intellectual property".
Monsanto has already done this. I'm sure that this will not be the last lawsuit of this type, and I'm also sure that the biotech companies are calculating this type of enforcement as an essential part of their income.
Read, L
and in colder climates they're(greenhouses) used for growing vegetables, for commercial sale.
can't imagine it being too expensive for growing rice for medical purposes while making profit.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
So who cares if our rice is genetically altered.
I care because I don't like the idea of a coporation being able to say they now own that rice and be able to dictate what I can and cannot do with it. If the rice genes somehow manage to somehow alter the outcome of sperm or cell would that company then have legal rights over any child created from that sperm and cell.
This is more of a legal/ patent issue. But the fact is that formal science in the field of nutrition and muchless chemistry or even bioengineering the way you and I understand it has only been around for about 100 years. You can argue chemistry has been around since the middle ages, but thats a streach. Again once the origional code is gone. it is gone. To my knowledge no one has started an organization to "backup nature" so to speak.
Even eating organic rice will not save you, since small amounts of rice seeds will surely drift on the winds and contaminate all crops. Do we really want to risk our young daughters eating abnormal quantities of lactoferrin and risking a higher rate of gigantomastia and breast cancer?
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Just a couple of questions of the kind that often get overlooked
Since when was rice eaten raw?
Since when did cooked (i.e., denatured) proteins retain the hormonal/enzyme activities of the native protein?
There's a whole lot of wild imagination going into the stories of these so-called risks.
-wb-
I don't have any problem at all with genetically modified foods. We've been genetically modifying food crops for thousands of years; we've just gotten better at it lately.
But these aren't genetically modified foods--they are food crops modified to produce drugs. Granted, they seem like fairly benign substances, but I don't understand why they need to use food crops. Surely there are plants that could be used for drug manufacture that are not normally cultivated for human consumption, obviating concerns that pharmaceutical crop seeds will get mistakenly mixed in with food crop seeds, or that pharmaceutical crops with cross-pollinate food crops.
Since when did cooked (i.e., denatured) proteins retain the hormonal/enzyme activities of the native protein?
I used to think that too, since most proteins do seem to be denatured by cooking (or even by digestion, which is why diabetics can't just take an insulin pill). But it seems some proteins are remarkably heat-stable. Like those nasty prion proteins. Cooking your cattle brains before eating them doesn't seem to protect against BSE.
My girlfriend is just finishing up work on a documentary that deals with this sort of issue in depth:
The Future of Food (site is sparse now, but once they are done working on the film, will have additional video clips and information).
And while I'm not impartial, I think it's a good film that covers the topics quite fairly. The sum of it is that we're not really in control of what's happening with our food supply. As a result of working on this film we now eat organic whenever possible.
GMO has potential, but the science seems to be used to only help the bottom lines of the seed/pesticide companies, and not worry about the consequences. And even in this case, where the rice is being grown with "helpful" drugs, there are risks that are ignored (cross pollination, etc). The quote from the film that got me the most is:
"This is one of the greatest experiments that humanity has ever entered into" -- Ignacio Chapella
But there is very little regulation, and everyone seems to be falling over themselves to get into the biz without any vision of the big picture. If this goes bad, it doesn't mean the drop of the stock market and fiber/datacenters going offline, it means the midwest will become a wasteland.
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My life is dedicated hosting
Making seeds that will not germinate unless you have their proprietary chemical
Actually this is considered a safety measure to prevent intermixing of GM and non-GM vareties.
Cross-pollination will destroy heirloom and open-pollinated varieties
That is true of ANY hybridized or selected varieities, not just GM.
Are we all so mesmerized by technology that we can't see the politics?
It seems to me that you are so mesmerized by the politics you can't appreciate the real value of the technology.
One of the things that we've seen happening in Canada is that a huge corporation (ie: Monsanto) will sell its genetically modified seed to farmers and charge them an annual licensing fee. The problem arises when some of the seed blows onto neighbouring farmers' fields and starts to merge with their crops. In turn, Monsanto takes legal action against the farmers.
Here's a link to a good, comprehensive story.
Basically, the issue at hand is that even before considering the ethical implications of lacing crops with drugs, we should be thinking about the leverage such enhancements will give to corporate heavyweights like Monsanto in their ongoing struggle to preserve "their" intellectual property.
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...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
I see this problem at two levels, the specific issue, and a larger systemic problem...
The first and obvious one, being that the production of crops which have been bioengineered to produce biologically active chemicals and drugs needs to be strickly managed. They must be kept away from other plants, and for that matter, need to be kept away from bateria which can take genetic material and communicate it to wild species (cross species genetic communication is not commonly considered and is a real issue when dealing with novel or unprecedented genetic application.)
Thalidamide looked like a great idea until deformed babies began to happen. Having a genetically altered crop, speading a gene into wild plant species that might have a significant impact on human health and reproduction, or simply further threaten the viability of endangered environments, is a potential disaster just waiting to happen. We need to place care, and responsiblity ahead of the bottom line, or we might just greedy ourselves to death.
The second, is an administration that has ramrodded through the various dept. of government, the agenda "Rubberstamp Anything Big Business Wants". Just today, the EPA was forced to push through new business practices which may cause a 700% increase in mercury in the fish we eat over the next 10 years. This is in an environment where the mercury levels are already high enough to warm pregnant women "That eating top tier ocean caught fish more than once a week poses a significant risk for birth defect".
I'm a firm believer in capitalism, I believe we need to support business, and create a strong and sustainable economy. However, that strength must not come at the cost of social disaster. Our government has become a machine designed to force all resistance including sanity, aside to promote the wishes of large multinational powers. Time and time again the track record is clear. The public is at risk, every single time our welfare come to a head against some D.C. connected industry's profit margin. It's vital that we not try to reduce this to a Republican/Democratic, Conservative/Liberal issue. These are issues involving the fact that our elected officials are too easily bought and sold for the price of funding future election campaigns. We need to change the system, and waiting for the people who benefit from that system, to change it, is clearly pointless. The people need to stand up and mandate a change from the ground up. The quality and longevity of our lives demands it.
Genda
First your questions:
Rice is eaten raw when it is used in the form of ground up rice flour and not cooked.
As for cooked proteins, does the word 'prion' ring a bell? It not a law of nature that proteins loose their shape or their function just because they are heated.
The problem with GM is not so much the danger of accidentally misusing the products, but the very real danger of genetic pollution, which can happen in many more ways than most people imagine. Just to mention a couple:
1. Bacteria and other microorganisms routinely swap genetic material or even incorporate genetic materials from cells of other species, plants included. This is why the multiresistent bugs are not just an isolated problem - it has been found that the resistance to antibiotics can wander between different species.
2. Many of our most important crop plants have near relatives in the wild. Imagine eg. that we have a genetically modified oat field, which produces some dangerous substance. Wild oat is a common weed in oat fields, so we will very soon have a wild plant which produces a dangerous substance. Wild oat spreads very easily - the seeds are light and blow around in the wind - so soon this trait gets into oat meant for human consumption. Even worse - we don't even need a scenario where a wild species acts as intermediary - many crops are wind pollinated, and their pollen can travel for huge distances, perhaps all around the globe.
Only a ruthless, boneheaded and ignorant idiot would let genetically modified crops loose on the world at present, when we don't know nearly enough about the consequences. Unfortunately this is the kind of people that are in power.
There's a whole lot of wild imagination going into the stories of these so-called risks.
So you know all the factors right? Or the decision-makers do, right?
History has shown us again and AGAIN that we are NOT able to foresee and predictably understand the consequences of our actions. Therefore, precaution is highly recommended, if you care about our earth, your fellow human beings and your own health. I suspect you do not, or you wouldn't dismiss this out-of-hand. It's time to open up your heart and start..
By using GM crops in the wild, you are taking away my choice to eat organic and natural foods. Hey, these companies have even the nerve to sue farmers that had their own crops contaminated by GM crops! It's time we put our foot down and say: NO! Messing around with nature for profit to the few, while potentially having big long-time consequences for us all, is totally unacceptable.