Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Eat uncooked flour dissolved in a little water.
Eating cooked rice also helps stopping diarrhea. Normal rice, non genetic modifications whatsoever.
These simple old tricks come all the way from my grandmother, and i've used them often enough to know that they work (either that or it's the placebo effect in action).
So why exactly do we need frankein-rice for?
And when you do an insulin shot, is that
also injecting yourself with a part of a
human? Many drugs are made in e.g. e.coli
where a human or modified human gene is
expressed to make a protein, then purified
and sold. This new approach is just
packaging the relevant drug/protein in a
capsule which happens to be a rice grain.
No ethics problems here.
Not really: we share many genes with other animals that we eat.
U.S company avoids human trial testing in states, instead using children in Peru.
FTA
>"Earlier this month, a Peruvian scientist sponsored by Ventria presented data at the Pediatric Academics Societies meeting in San Francisco. It showed children hospitalized in Peru with serious diarrhea attacks recovered quicker -- 3.67 days versus 5.21 days -- if the dehydration solution they were fed contained the powder."
--- I've completed diagnosis of your problem and can classify it as a YOYO...You're On Your Own
Ethics - Schmetics! ;)
You obviously never had a little child with severe diarrhea. Which is sometimes accompanied by a lot of vomiting. So everything you feed to your child goes out. If not in first few minutes upwards than in next few minutes downwards.
Eating human? Please. There are many genes that are common to many speices. So, 'eating genes' that are present in pig/cow/horse/chicken... and human... Well, you cannibal!
The Sig, the sig
So far I've only seen posts in the line of "what for?" "it's not needed" and complaints about the ethical aspect. It's very easy to complain about the ethical side of things when you have your business well settled, but in developing countries, mere survival may be more important than that.
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.
So, what are these ethical issues you were referring to again?
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
You know what helps people hydrate? Water. Clean water and food can prevent diarrhea. All that money going into genetically engineered crops. Why not fix the socio-political problems of these regions so the infrastructures -> people can become healthy?
Oh yeah... no profit in that. Hell's gonna be standing room only.
Seriously.
Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
It's easy for you to bitch and moan and fear-monger about the ethics of human DNA in some rice, from your computer chair in your air-conditioned first-world home or office. Meanwhile there are people - real, live people - people with thoughts, and feelings, and whose well-being you'd place at first-priority, whose well-being would be your tantamount concern, whose well-being would trump these silly goddamn over-analytical beardo quack ideas and "what ifs" -- that is, if you weren't such a fucking unthinking monster -- and these people are shitting themselves to death. And even though you and I both laughed as kids when we played Oregon Trail and learned what "dysentary" meant, one of us has managed to grow up, and figures it'd be best if we could put a stop to this horrible pain and suffering in the real world. Meanwhile, the other one is playing Armchair Philosopher, talking about lines being crossed and the ethics of eliminating suffering , without knowing the first thing about what he's talking about. Jesus Christ.
Have you heard about a little invention from the very late 1700s called "vaccinations"? Is this "ethical" in your eyes? Was it "ethical" for Louis Pasteur to inject human beings with (residual amounts of) COW DNA? Or should we have put a stop to this and let smallpox continue to ravage the globe? What about blood transfusions? That's OMG human DNA as well. Or, wait, are you one of those fucking quacker-flappers, like that lady who made an entire campaign out of "HIV does not cause AIDS", then gave AIDS to her daughter (by not taking any preventative measures during pregnancy)?
Look. I'm trying not to be too much of a -1 Flamebait -1 Troll -1 Confrontational Asshole, but what is your deal? If someone you loved (assuming you are actually capable of feeling empathy, or anything beyond Moral Sense [c.f. Twain, "The Mysterious Stranger"]) was locked in a room, in a hotel you did not own, which was currently on fire, would you worry about the ethics of breaking the door down? Would you tap the fireman on the back as he was about to take an axe to the door, and oh-so-wisely, intellectually bleat^H^H^H^H^H state that it was a violation of ethics to be destroying property that wasn't yours? Would you then put on your Humble Pious Face, with your head solemnly cast down, and proclaim your grief for the impending loss of your wife / child / mother / father? Or does this garbage only spew forth from your mouth when it's other people's children whose lives are at risk?
So much idiotic diarrhea dribbling out of your mouth - I'm sure this isn't the only completely moronic thing you've managed to come up with in your blessedly short existance. Maybe you could use a DNA injection. I know I'd gladly sodomize you. I mean "innoculate" you - I get those two words confused =)!
MODS: -1, Whatever me all you want. I prefer not to intellectualize idiocy (such as the Parent post), so if you're going to mod me down for calling bullshit when I see it, mod me down, for calling bullshit, when, I, see... it. </Shatner>
But no qualms about human breast milk? They even feed that to babies.
It's not hard to understand. It used to be dangerous to eat pork. The expedient solution was to incorporate a ban into religion. Problem solved. It's no longer dangerous to eat pork (at least not more so than other meat) so that aspect of the religion is no longer necessary. Continuing to not eat pork because of said religion is thus a pointless thing to do.
I have a big issue with genetically engineered grains. All grains are wind pollinated. Pollen can travel quite far before fertilizing the female of a compatible plant species. Organic corn growers are already having big issues with this. You can't have heritage grains and pure strains when people are mucking around with wind pollenated plants.
I don't know how far they have tested this, but medicine and science has had several disasters with medications given to one generation and the disastrous results showing up in subsequent generations. Why can't we stick with things that humans evolved on and eliminate the crud like high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, genetically modified foods, olean, etc? Our bodies don't know what we're eating anymore.
---- I'm out of your mind!
Meanwhile there are people - real, live people - people with thoughts, and feelings, and whose well-being you'd place at first-priority, whose well-being would be your tantamount concern, whose well-being would trump these silly goddamn over-analytical beardo quack ideas and "what ifs"
These people are not going to be helped with bioengineered rice. The problems in the third world are political chaos, war, lack of family planning, lack of education, religious fundamentalism, and others. Poverty, disease, high mortality, child labor, homelessness, and migration are symptoms of that. You can't fix the problems by treating the symptoms, and even if the first world made it its top priority to help the third world, it couldn't being to alleviate the suffering. The only way this is ever going to get fixed is to address the root problems.
Every dollar you invest in attempts at quick fixes like bioengineered rice is a dollar you aren't spending on fixing the fundamental problems. It's actually worse than that: if you give these people crutches like bioengineered rice, they're even less likely to do what's necessary to modernize their infrastructure, and you make them dependent on high-tech products and imports.
It's well-meaning idiots like you that focus on the short term and keep meddling in those societies (creating corruption and dependency in the process) that are responsible for a large part of the suffering in the third world. Europe and the US developed into modern societies with long life expectancies without such meddling, and these nations can and will as well if we give them access to world markets and let them compete and develop freely.
The United Nations? Surely you jest. They are the least likely to get into a region and fix the infrastructure let alone have any effect on the socio-political structures in place. If anything they will exaggerate the problem.
This leaves most of the real work to private organizations, the ones who have been doing the bulk of the charitable work in Africa and similar areas. Since most of them do not get government money they need solutions that work and work in conditions less than ideal. This is where enigneered food stuffs come into play.
Claiming water is the best way to hydrate people is like claiming a drowning man is going to be wet. Its a big "DUH" yet completely misses the point. This paticular rice is a solution where the obvious solution isn't practical or available at the time. Dry goods are many times easier to transport and store. What has to be done until the infrastructure is in place is to prevent as many complications as possible. Rice is a great medium. A little of it goes a long way.
The problem with saving many people of the world today is ignorance. While we like to pretend the leaders of these 3rd world countries are ignorant the bulk of the ignorance is here at home in the western world. The very same people who would harp about religious ignorance are the very same ones who fly off the handle at any foods that are engineered. They have little information, rely on innuendo and partial truths, and then use hyperbole and fear to make their point seem valid. Trouble is their ignorance kills people in the countries that can use the help.
Look, we can think good thoughts all we want. We can forever look for a better solution. Unfortunately most of these people don't have the time to wait and good thoughts don't keep them fed and healthy.
Whats next? Claiming that irradiated food is bad? How about the scare tactics that surrounded homoginizing? (sp?)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It's weird to see how 'ethics' is used as a cheap and easy excuse for not doing the right thing; how can it not be right to save the lives of children?
But of course, this is not about save the lives of poor children - it is just yet another way to earn money from the poor. If we really wanted to put an end to unnecessary suffering, it would be far more relevant to try ending poverty; it is after all not as if we in the western world couldn't it if we really wanted to.
However, there is a more sinister side to the debate about genetically modified plants: gene pollution. It works like this: you grow your modified plant, the bees (or wind) comes and takes pollen away, and some of it pollinates wild plants - or the neighbor farmer's unmodified crop.
In the first case wild plant species now carry the modification, and it may or may not pop up later in circumstances that are very unfortunate. In the second case the farmer's crop is suddenly 'illegal', because it now contains patented genes that he has not paid any ryalties for using.
Now that's the REAL ethical challenge when it comes to genetic modification.
All DNA is fundamentally the same. This just happens to be a base sequence that causes the creation of proteins usually produced by the human body rather than traditional rat, cow, slug, corn, or eveen rice proteins. Can someone explain _why_ this is going to cause the end of the world? Are people aware that it's standard practice to replace, for example, e coli base sequences with human ones so that the bacteria produce human proteins?
I'm appalled at the level of unscientific FUD that is out there. If slashdotters don't think scientifically, what will the general public do? Ban DHMO (http://www.dhmo.org/)?
Well, I can't speak for either of the the groups you mention, but I'm a very strict vegetarian, largely on ethical grounds (among several other reasons).
My objection to this would be two-fold: I don't wish to ingest stuff made from animal, and I don't wish to ingest GMOs in general.
I have no problem for selective breeding within a species; fine, select for traits that are already present. That makes sense, and that's a very natural process already.
But mixing genes from animals into plants scares the hell outta me -- in no small way because we realy don't know what the long-term consequences would be. Plus the issues of bio-diversity and the like (think Monsanto and patented corn).
Look at what happened with mad cow -- sheep protein had no business being fed to cows which are herbivores, who knows what the hell happens when we mix it into plants. We're seeing evidence that the growth hormones we feed cows is affecting puberty rates among children, and all sorts of scary, unintended consequences.
Personally speaking, I would be very unwilling to eat this rice, or any GMO produce in general, and most especially when animal genes have been spliced in. The whole thing skeeves me out like you wouldn't believe!!
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Because if you fuck up inserting genes to plants you have a dead/malformed plant. If you fuck up inserting genes to humans you have a dead/malformed human.
That, and it's much cheaper to make a single genetically modified plant seed and let nature worry about making more, than to genetically alter all (or any significant amount) of humans. The consequences of fuck-ups are also a lot less severe - imagine if you converted half the population of the planet before realizing that the side effects of these changes include death in 6 months.
Finally, plants are much simpler organisms than humans, and therefore easier to modify.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Of course it matters. Claiming otherwise is moronic.
Because if I just remove 'religious' and insert ethical/societal/cultural/whatever in there, we can say that not eating/killing/raping/oppressing/owning people is just a silly social convention and there's no need to adhere them, because, after all, they're just silly superstitions. So you should just go do anything willy nilly, because to do otherwise is just superstition.
Having "chosen to elevate some holy teaching or other over the advantages of... " anything -- wow, someone has some guiding principles. The US has chosen to elevate their constitution over the advantages of tyranny, opression, and barbarism. Every single civil society has decided to elevate some abstractions above other consequences, and have typically codified it in their own laws and equivalent to a constitution. Many of them specifically include protections for religious freedoms.
Well, sometimes it's not always someones choice to be subjected to these things.
There have been cases where international aid to African nations came with genetically modified plants, and a requirement that the recipients can't keep any seed for next years crop. And that if they did, they'd be violating EU import bans on GMOs. So the potential recipients could either starve now, or look out for their future chances of being self-sufficient and having an export market. Some friggin' choice. Die now, or die later.
McDondald's was sued because years after they announced they were cooking their fries in 100% pure vegetable oil, it became public they considered beef tallow to be a 'spice'. People who weren't eating animal products (either by religious need or personal choice) were appalled to filed out they'd been surrepititously fed animal products, and were correspondingly quite pissed.
Maybe you think we should get rid of that whole ban of feeding sheep to cows, because after all, that whole mad cow thing is just getting in the way of our profit margin -- we want to sell you a product as cheaply as possible. Making sure it's not harmful is just too expensive and inconvenient.
These things have a nasty habit of just ending up in places by default, as some idiot just foists it off on everyone, and figures everyone should suck it up.
Why don't you go feed peanut butter or shellfish to someone with the corresponding allergy, and kick some kittens and knock over some old people on the way. Cause you've demonstrated about the same level of sensitivity.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You what's really sad? If Condoleeza was a Democrat, your comment would have been modded "-5 Troll"
Life is not for the lazy.