Bio-Engineered Rice Uses Human Genes

gliph writes "Yahoo news has a piece about a small biogenetics firm that is using genetically engineered rice containing human genes to help fight diarrhea. From the article: 'Ventria's rice produces two human proteins found in mother's milk, saliva and tears, which help people hydrate and lessen the severity and duration of diarrhea attacks, a top killer of children in developing countries.'"

Comments

Re:Ethics vs survival

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

When clean water is not always at hand, diseases such as dysentery are easy to catch. Although this rice is no cure, it can help prevent the loss of fluids associated with this disease and help save lives.

It's not like they're going to ship the rice for the local farmers to grow - from tfa:

The company says the chance of its genetically engineered rice ending up in the food supply is remote because the company grinds the rice and extracts the protein before shipping.

And its not like they're going to give it away for free:

Ventria owns product and enabling technology rights from its internal development effort and by license, assignment, or exclusive option agreements as follows:

        * 5 issued United States patents relating to protein expression and products
        * 4 foreign patents relating to protein expression and products
        * Over 10 filings relating to ExpressTec
        * Over 10 filings for the products, their formulations,

So, we've got a new method of manufacturing proteins by extracting them from GM rice. US rice farmers are worried that it will affect trade with anti-GM nations. Environmentalists are worried about it for the usual GM worries (cross pollination with wild rices, unknown future side affects, species jumping, etc).

I think the way to cure dysentry is like many other posters have said, to fix infrastructure.