Interview With Professor Potrykus, Inventor of Golden Rice

crabel writes "According to WHO, 127 millions of pre-school children worldwide suffer from vitamin A deficiency, causing some 500,000 cases of irreversible blindness every year. This deficiency is responsible for 600,000 deaths among children under the age of 5. Golden Rice might be a solution to this problem. The only problem? It's GMO. In an interview inventor Potrykus, now close to 80 years old, answers questions about the current state of approval, which might happen in the next couple of months."

Comments

"The only problem? It's GMO."

[Anonymous Coward]

It being a GMO isn't a problem, unless you're a Luddite.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[Garridan]

Yup. The problem with GMO is that Monsanto uses it so they can soak crops with RoundUp. Say no to RoundUp, not GMO.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[hawkinspeter]

The seeds being owned by a company is a problem, though. It's like open vs closed source but applied to food.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[DrXym]

Owned for 20 years, or 12 million alive and 10 million sighted children if you prefer. Then anybody can do what they like with the patent. It also doesn't stop some rival from producing a crop with equivalent properties expressed through some other means.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[hawkinspeter]

That's a false dichotomy - there's more than one way to skin a cat. How about we encourage them to grow more sweet potatoes (which naturally have a high vitamin A content) rather than forcing them to grow cash crops to export in a futile attempt to pay back their international debts?

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[DrXym]

They haven't "patented life" they have patented one way of countless of increasing the vitamin & iron content of a staple food. If countries don't want to pay a corp which has put millions, possibly billions into developing this crop with the reasonable expectation of profit then they should develop their own alternative or provide their population with education and supplements that they don't go blind or die.

India obviously has the odd loose billion given they've just built a nuclear sub.

Or just pay the going rate and wait for the patent to expire.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[Pi1grim]

Apparently you haven't read the study itself. Which was conducted on mice genetically predisposed to cancer and that during the process control groups were changed so that results would better fit the theory of cancer-inducing GMO. Articles are being removed, because the study was a conducted with so many violations it's result cannot be trusted and since independent attempts to reproduce the results of the study, conducted thoroughly have not come to the same conclusions. But, please, go ahead and don't let facts get in your way of fear-mongering.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[rycamor]

No kidding. The anti-Luddites are just as bad as the Luddites when it comes to this stuff. There is a whole spectrum of food available without needing to rely on someone's patented experiment.

With sweet potato, it's not just vitamin A. they have about the highest concentration and spectrum of vitamins you will find in any common crop. And it's freaking easy to grow. The problem is not lack of technology, but lack of simple knowledge and willingness to apply it.

Another crop that is ridiculously easy to grow in temperate and tropical zones is the moringa tree, which produces copious edible leaves and seed pods, with a near-miraculous nutritional profile. Unfortunately, try to get poor Africans to grow it and eat it and they will often turn up their noses in disgust, calling it "poor people food". Sweet potato often receives the same low-brow snobbery in the USA, actually.

The problem of nutrition is always more cultural than anything else. Look at the USA itself, where abundant nutritious food is available, yet the average American gets most of his calories from high-fructose corn syrup (delivered to your gullet in many sneaky ways). And when you add up HFCS and highly-processed grains, that probably accounts for a good 85% of the calories eaten in this country.

So yes, "golden rice" might solve a problem, in the sense that it would fool culturally-bound people who are unwilling to forego rice as their staple food. But it's hardly the only way. And I do remain highly suspicious of the long-term risk/benefit scenario with GMOs.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[hawkinspeter]

I'm sorry, I don't follow what you mean by "domestic consumption" and how that refutes anything.

Vitamin A deficiency is a worldwide problem with the worst affected area being Africa and the least affected areas being North America, Europe and Russia.

The big advantage of having high vitamin A in rice is that a lot of cultures have rice as their main staple, so in theory it's a quick way of increasing worldwide vitamin A consumption. The downside is the GMO/ownership issues.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[Joce640k]

Yes, but we're talking about Golden Rice here, which is nothing to do with RoundUp.

Golden Rice has exactly three extra genes in it. The modification made was openly published. Many widely eaten foods already contain the exact same genes The only reason it was added to rice is because that's what these people grow/eat on a daily basis.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[DrXym]

Domestic consumption as in the rice would be predominantly eaten in the country that grew it to alleviate vitamin A and other mineral deficiencies. Note that this rice is targeted for the Philippines and from TFA mention was made of cassava and sweet potatoes for other countries. So it doesn't follow it would be "forcing them to grow cash crops to export" since it's unlikely that was ever the intention.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[hawkinspeter]

I was mainly thinking about Africa, rather than the Philippines, but the same situation exists there as well.

It's not the rice that is forcing them to grow cash crops, but it's their external debt that forces them to grow cash crops for export which then leads to local consumers being unable to afford the crops that are grown within their own country.

Ownership of the seeds from a crop is vitally important to people who are trying to feed themselves as they may not be able to purchase the seeds for the next season if they have a bad season. If they switch away from traditional crops (that they can keep the seed from) to GMO crops, they'd better have kept enough seed for switching back again if they fall on hard times.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Another crop that is ridiculously easy to grow in temperate and tropical zones is the moringa tree, which produces copious edible leaves and seed pods, with a near-miraculous nutritional profile. Unfortunately, try to get poor Africans to grow it and eat it and they will often turn up their noses in disgust, calling it "poor people food". Sweet potato often receives the same low-brow snobbery in the USA, actually.

Hah. Golden rice could actually bump into the same problem. For some peculiar reasons, in many parts of the world, white rice - pretty much like white-anything (bread, flour, people...you name it) is subconsciously considered "purer" and anything else has a poverty stigma attached to it. Don't ask me why, it just happens. Trying to convince Asians to eat something ricey AND brown or yellow or orange may prove difficult. Don't know about Africans but you find this kind of food idiocy pretty much anywhere, so I guess there's a solid chance that golden rice will actually be a tough sale (*especially* since it's been *designed* as "food for poor people who couldn't afford better diet otherwise").

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no licensing issues with Golden Rice. All patent holders have long ago agreed to free use for humanitarian purposes.
"Open vs closed source" is a problem in general, but not for Golden Rice.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[N1AK]

So yes, "golden rice" might solve a problem, in the sense that it would fool culturally-bound people who are unwilling to forego rice as their staple food. But it's hardly the only way. And I do remain highly suspicious of the long-term risk/benefit scenario with GMOs.

It would solve the problem of insufficient vitamin A and virtually instantly; I really can't see how that point is debatable, even by people who think it is a bad idea for other reasons.

There are dozens of possible solutions, virtually all of which have been available for decades now. They aren't being applied. Moving people to 'golden rice' is a trivial change comparative to trying to change the diet of hundreds of millions of people, the crops of millions of farmers and the supply chain for millions of tonnes of food.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[idji]

I remember an Ethiopian turning his nose up in disgust at having to eat leeks, "That is a poor person's food".

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[bluefoxlucid]

No civilization has ever survived primarily on potato.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[wisnoskij]

It has nothing to do with debt.
It is simple capitalism.

The first world will/can pay more for food it throws out than the third world can pay for food to save their starving children.
You can make more money advertising to Americans to convince them to buy 50% more than they could every possibly eat, then you can make feeding the starving population of Africa. So the food gets exported to America, or Britain, or Canada.

That is simply global capitalism. Africa can produce their own necessities, but they cannot pay as much for them as you or I could, so they do not get to use them.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever actually eaten a sweet potato? They're disgusting. I'll just stick with the blindness, thanks.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[Culture20]

Do sweet potatoes grow in boggy fields? Golden rice can grow in current rice fields.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[barlevg]

GMO is hardly an obscure acronym. And a Google search gives the correct answer on the first non-sponsored hit. While I agree that slashdotters tend to play it fast and loose when it comes to using obscure acronyms, this is not one of those cases.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[khallow]

The problem of nutrition is always more cultural than anything else. Look at the USA itself, where abundant nutritious food is available, yet the average American gets most of his calories from high-fructose corn syrup

That's not cultural, it's economic. Lots of subsidies made that happen.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[njnnja]

Actually it's not a slam dunk. The concentration of vitamin A in golden rice is not high enough in and of itself to solve vitamin A deficiency. From Wikipedia:

The research that led to golden rice was conducted with the goal of helping children who suffer from vitamin A deficiency (VAD). In 2005, 190 million children and 19 million pregnant women, in 122 countries, were estimated to be affected by VAD.[18] VAD is responsible for 1–2 million deaths, 500,000 cases of irreversible blindness and millions of cases of xerophthalmia annually.[19] Children and pregnant women are at highest risk. Vitamin A is supplemented orally and by injection in areas where the diet is deficient in vitamin A. As of 1999, there were 43 countries that had vitamin A supplementation programs for children under 5; in 10 of these countries, two high dose supplements are available per year, which, according to UNICEF, could effectively eliminate VAD.[20] However, UNICEF and a number of NGOs involved in supplementation note more frequent low-dose supplementation should be a goal where feasible.[21] Because many children in countries where there is a dietary deficiency in vitamin A rely on rice as a staple food, the genetic modification to make rice produce the vitamin A precursor beta-carotene is seen as a simple and less expensive alternative to vitamin supplements or an increase in the consumption of green vegetables or animal products. It can be considered as the genetically engineered equivalent of fluoridated water or iodized salt in that it helps to prevent disease, with the exception that fluoride is not an essential nutrient for survival.[22] Initial analyses of the potential nutritional benefits of golden rice suggested consumption of golden rice would not eliminate the problems of vitamin A deficiency, but should be seen as a complement to other methods of vitamin A supplementation.[23][24] Since then, improved strains of golden rice have been developed containing sufficient provitamin A to provide the entire dietary requirement of this nutrient to people who eat about 75g of golden rice per day.[4]

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[hawkinspeter]

I love sweet potatoes. I tend to use them as a mashed potato replacement or roasted along with other vegetables. I've been known to microwave them whole as a kind of jacket potato. They're really good as a base for dips or soup as well.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[wisnoskij]

There is no selling anything outside of debt ridden countries, every capitalistic country is ridden with debt. And it has been said that the debt is an integral part of capitalism, and that one cannot exist without the other.

But, that is beside the point. It is not the debtors who control what is being grown, it is the undebt ridden multinational corporations who grow food for export in Africa, and none of their decisions are based on how much debt Africa has, just if they will make more money exporting excess food to America, or feeding the starving poor of Africa.

The debt was/is used, however, to force Africa, among others, to open up their boarders to multinational corporations, and to sell off valuable resources.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[Mr. Slippery]

The only reason it was added to rice is because that's what these people grow/eat on a daily basis.

Actually many of the people with vitamin A deficiency live in Africa, in areas not known as rice country.

The actual problem is an economic system that leads to people growing rice almost exclusively: "Beyond that though, poorly-fed people are unlikely to be able to absorb beta-carotene even when they eat golden rice. To use it, they need a diverse diet, including green leafy vegetables. But the sorts of vegetables people used to be able to find have declined in number as the green revolution of the 60s and 70s emphasised monocultures of new varieties. Household consumption of vegetables in India has fallen by 12% in two decades." -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3122923.stm

Golden rice only contributes to the problem (economic and ecological) of monoculture. Growing carrots, sweet potatoes,mangoes, papaya, or other vitamin-A rich crops is a much more sensible answer -- unless one is devoted to the current exploitative system.

The purpose of "golden rice" is not to solve malnutrition, that could be done far more cheaply and easily with carrots, etc. Its purpose is to provide good PR for the biotech industry: "Why, yes, our GM crops are largely untested for safety, and most of the studies on safety that do exist are ones we've done ourselves (trust us!); and yes, they present a novel ecological hazard of genome pollution; and yes, they have led to increased pesticides use; and yes, they give more control of agriculture to corporate interests -- but look! We found a very expensive and impractical way to prevent some cases of vitamin A deficiency! Love us! Worship us! Big Science!"

It's not science, it's scientism in the advancement of corporatism.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[BrokenHalo]

We know, but there are so many people out there that think either "GMO = HCFS" or "GMO = Unhealthy" or, my favorite, "GMO = Monsanto" as if they were the only company that uses GMO techniques.

As a biotech graduate, I get very tired of the hysterical drivel we hear about GMOs (OK, for those who are too damn lazy to Google it: genetically modified organisms). It's as if the last thing we want is an informed debate.

But the same people still expect to reap the benefit of GMOs, from new drugs for treatment of disease to the sweeteners in their diet Coke.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[jsrjsr]

Last sentence of your quote from Wikipedia:

"Since then, improved strains of golden rice have been developed containing sufficient provitamin A to provide the entire dietary requirement of this nutrient to people who eat about 75g of golden rice per day.[4]"

Average rice consumption per capita per day is higher than that it the Philippines according to a number of sources.

So it is "high enough in and of itself to solve vitamin A deficiency."

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[TWiTfan]

There is a whole spectrum of food available without needing to rely on someone's patented experiment.

Yes, a whole spectrum of natural, non-GMO food that has never in the history of the planet supported a population of 7 billion+ before. But if you're volunteering to be one of the humans to commit mass suicide so that the rest of us can return to the natural, organic ways of yesteryear when the earth's population was much smaller and more rural--then please, don't let me stand in your way. We appreciate your sacrifice.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[rycamor]

Don't be ridiculous. Crops like sweet potato can produce more calories per acre than rice could ever hope to. The problem is cultural.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[rycamor]

AFAIK most of those boggy fields have been carefully engineered to be that way. Ironically, according to Masanobu Fukuoka rice yields can be higher without flooded fields.

There is an incredible amount of momentum behind both bad farming practices and bad eating practices. The modern world tries correct this momentum by adding technological backfixes rather than address the problems themselves.

Re:"The only problem? It's GMO."

[ChromeAeonium]

Growing carrots, sweet potatoes,mangoes, papaya, or other vitamin-A rich crops is a much more sensible answer -- unless one is devoted to the current exploitative system.

Thank God the poorest people in the world can afford that and the refrigeration and transport necessary to facility that. Stupid poor people for not thinking of hoping down to the local Walmart sooner.

Golden rice only contributes to the problem (economic and ecological) of monoculture.

Bullshit. You think people want to live off rice their whole lives? They aren't going to get this and decide they want nothing else; this is to help until a more varied diet can be available to everyone. Of course Golden Rice isn't the ideal solution, but good luck changing the socioeconomic problems of global poverty before more people die.

Its purpose is to provide good PR for the biotech industry:

So the good that biotech can do is simply dismissed as PR. Nice spin. I suppose vaccinations are just good PR for big pharma and serve no other purpose.

our GM crops are largely untested for safety, and most of the studies on safety that do exist are ones we've done ourselves (trust us!)

Wrong wrong wrong wrong.

they have led to increased pesticides use

In the same sense that switching from a weekly line of coke to a weekly class of wine is an increase in drug use. Now look at the overall environmental impact of switching form less harmful herbicides and tillage to no-till systems using glyphosate and glufosinate...but of course a holistic point of view wouldn't fit the technology bad narrative.

It's not science, it's scientism in the advancement of corporatism.

Everything's a conspiracy when you're wrong.

GMO is not a problem

[kruach aum]

Ignorance and fear are the problem.

Re:GMO is not a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignorance and fear are the problem.

GMO could be a problem depending on how it is done and how it is deployed. Ignorance and fear prevent any meaningful discussion of the matter. Calling for more research into the risks and then trampling experimental crop fields doesn't help either.

Re:GMO is not a problem

[Joce640k]

One sided proprietary research (just like with pharmaceuticals) and lack of any kind of research is the problem.

Wars in the Middle East don't pay for themselves, you know...

Re:GMO is not a problem

[kruach aum]

What you describe is a problem of ignorance, not a potential problem specific to GMO. Everything could be a problem depending on how it is executed. Wells can bring water to thousands. Shitting in wells can also bring cholera to thousands. Neither has anything to do with wells, and everything to do with knowledge.

Re:GMO is not a problem

[kf6auf]

It's not entirely the fault of the populace that they are ignorant. Have you tried finding out in what way GMO foods at your local supermarket have been modified?

Heck, if the agriculture companies had started using genetic engineering to make crops healthier, they would have been far more likely to be accepted. But they started by making crops more watery (and thus less nutritious), making it so farmers can blanket entire US states with herbicides without affecting the desired crops, and introducing pesticides that AFAIK are just assumed to be safe. So a broad brush was used, and because of the agriculture companies it was the bad brush instead of the good one.

Re:GMO is not a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignorance and fear are the problem.

GMO could be a problem depending on how it is done and how it is deployed. Ignorance and fear prevent any meaningful discussion of the matter. Calling for more research into the risks and then trampling experimental crop fields doesn't help either.

Monsanto Marketeers would call that "anti-advertising".

Most of the ignorance and fear you speak of stems directly from the mistrust in the very companies controlling GMOs, who go so far as to prevent any such labeling on any food to merely identify it as containing their own product. Perhaps if certain companies were a bit more open and honest instead of wanting to secure profits in any way possible, the ignorance and fear could be quelled.

Re:GMO is not a problem

[Joce640k]

It's not entirely the fault of the populace that they are ignorant. Have you tried finding out in what way GMO foods at your local supermarket have been modified?

In the case of Golden Rice the modification have been widely published.

Even Wikipedia has them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice

Re:GMO is not a problem

[N1AK]

I find it interesting that you think changing agricultural practice and diet across a gigantic swathe of the globe is 'simple'.

If Norman Borlaug had tried to introduce more efficient crops instead of developing dwarf wheat he would not have saved hundreds of millions of lives and been awarded one of the most appropriate nobel peace prizes for his work.

Golden rice is licensed freely to small farmers and they are free to re-use seed so there's no typical lock-in risk.

We know the modifications that have been made to the rice. We know the nutritional and organic content of the rice produced. There's no credible reason to believe that golden rice will have negative health consequences; but we know for damn sure that people are dying and going blind now.

Re:GMO is not a problem

[drinkypoo]

Wells can bring water to thousands. Shitting in wells can also bring cholera to thousands. Neither has anything to do with wells, and everything to do with knowledge.

Great. But fracking can fuck your well. And that's what we're doing now. CNG is around $2.35 a gallon-equivalent, why do you think that is? How do you think we came to this pass? What do you think the results will be?

Re:GMO is not a problem

[Attila Dimedici]

The thing is that the people calling for GMO labeling want food made using this Golden Rice labeled in the same way that food made from Monsanto Round Up resistant corn is labeled. That makes the label NOT useful, because it lumps food made with crops containing well understood properties (beta-carotene) with food made with crops containing less well understood properties (the component that makes the crop resistant to Round Up).

Idiots are against Golden Rice

[rossz]

Idiots who shop at Whole Foods would rather a child go blind due to vitamin deficiency rather than allow an evil GMO food to be used. Their suggestion of "they should eat more vegetables" ignores the simple fact that they need the special rice because they don't have access to the fucking vegetables.

Tons of food have been destroyed in Africa because of this ignorance. It's better that people starve rather than risk ingesting a GMO food. What. The. Fuck?

Re:Idiots are against Golden Rice

[phantomfive]

Their suggestion of "they should eat more vegetables"

When I read this, I thought you were joking, thinking, "no one could be as stupid as suggesting that." Then sure enough, right after, I read this comment. I guess they are that stupid!

Re:Idiots are against Golden Rice

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Wow, you have extrapolated from a trolling AC to stereotyping people who are doubtful about GMOs. For all you know rossz posted that just to make his own over-the-top post post look more plausible.

Re:Idiots are against Golden Rice

[m00sh]

Idiots who shop at Whole Foods would rather a child go blind due to vitamin deficiency rather than allow an evil GMO food to be used. Their suggestion of "they should eat more vegetables" ignores the simple fact that they need the special rice because they don't have access to the fucking vegetables.

Tons of food have been destroyed in Africa because of this ignorance. It's better that people starve rather than risk ingesting a GMO food. What. The. Fuck?

Would rather die from cardio-vascular disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer then?

We tinkered around with our food system and 2/3 of the population is over-weight and 1/3 is obese. We suffer from heart disease, diabetes and related problems in epidemic proportions.

Maybe the solution isn't genetically modifying rice but something simpler as finding the right vegetables to grow alongside the rice that supplies the missing vitamin.

Plus, vitamin A in excess is toxic and causes liver damage. Maybe we fix childhood blindness but instead give teenage cirrhosis.

Just because we can genetically modify plants doesn't mean we should go around looking for problems to solve with it, especially that can have large possibly unknown consequences.

Re:Idiots are against Golden Rice

[phantomfive]

I didn't extrapolate, although I can see how you might have misread my post that way.

In general, I have a low opinion of those who irrationally hate oppose golden rice, for reasons mentioned above. People are worried about some hypothetical, speculative harm caused by these GMOs, and are willing to let people die for no other reason than their own fears. This particular rice has been studied a lot, has provable benefit compared to some speculative risk, and people who oppose it generally do so for irrational reasons.

Re:Idiots are against Golden Rice

[phantomfive]

In fact, you might say that "golden rice" is a kind of shibboleth, a test to determine whether anti-GMO people are able to reason about topics well, or whether they are completely irrational in their fears. Greenpeace falls into the irrational category here.

The benefits of the rice are so obvious that you have to be somewhat blind to completely oppose its use in Africa.

Re:Idiots are against Golden Rice

[Anonymous Coward]

We tinkered around with our food system and 2/3 of the population is over-weight and 1/3 is obese. We suffer from heart disease, diabetes and related problems in epidemic proportions.

Heart disease, diabetes and related problems are usually related to overweight. Golden Rice is about malnutrition.

Maybe the solution isn't genetically modifying rice but something simpler as finding the right vegetables to grow alongside the rice that supplies the missing vitamin.

That's what Greenpeace et al. recommends. Doesn't work. People need their land for rice.

Plus, vitamin A in excess is toxic and causes liver damage. Maybe we fix childhood blindness but instead give teenage cirrhosis.

Golden Rice doesn't contain vitamin A. It is enriched with -carotene, a precursor of vitamin A. Overconsumption is not a problem. (If you eat really *alot* your skin becomes orange, but this wellknown condition is benign)

Just because we can genetically modify plants doesn't mean we should go around looking for problems to solve with it, especially that can have large possibly unknown consequences.

Agree. It's better to put our trust in arbitrary fears and let a couple of million children go blind.

Re:Idiots are against Golden Rice

[Dave Emami]

Would rather die from cardio-vascular disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer then?

Yes, I would rather live longer and die from those things than to die earlier from malnutrition or related problems.

We tinkered around with our food system and 2/3 of the population is over-weight and 1/3 is obese.

I'm sure having readily-available food has caused average weight to rise, but I'm skeptical about how much of a factor that is compared to reduction in exercise. Until quite recently (in the evolutionary and historical scheme of things), humans have had to burn a lot of calories just to stay alive -- food, shelter, and protection all required heavy exercise to acquire, produce, and/or maintain. Even after the advent of agriculture, the vast majority of the population spent their time doing manual labor to grow food, and the rest of the population tended to do manual labor that was just as intensive. Staying alive required you to plow a field, or chop wood, or haul stones, etc. Today, most of us here on Slashdot (and a lot of other people around us) gain our food, shelter, and protection by making little motions with our fingers, talking, and every so often moving a short distance within a building. We don't have to exercise to survive (in the day-to-day sense). Exercise is something we have to deliberately seek out.

Shorter version: I think the problem is more our lack of caloric output than our excessive caloric input.

We suffer from heart disease, diabetes and related problems in epidemic proportions.

Until human beings cease to be mortal, by definition something will be killing us in vast numbers. And unless those causes of death are evenly spread out, some things will always be glaring problems compared to everything else. All we can do is change what those things are, and hopefully make them happen later in life.

Re:Idiots are against Golden Rice

[sFurbo]

Plus, vitamin A in excess is toxic and causes liver damage. Maybe we fix childhood blindness but instead give teenage cirrhosis.

Given that it was originally was (and potentially still is) a problem that it did not contain enough vitamin A, I don't think vitamin A toxicity is a potential problem. Furthermore, testing whether this is a problem and what can be done if it is is what we have research for, not what we have blind, Luddite panic for.

Just because we can genetically modify plants doesn't mean we should go around looking for problems to solve with it, especially that can have large possibly unknown consequences.

Yes, god forbid that we try to solve problems with technology. Where would THAT leave us? Especially with technology that can have unspecified "large possibly unknown consequences". I prefer my solutions without any potential problems. I haven't found any such solutions yet, but I am confident that I will strike gold any day now.

Re:Idiots are against Golden Rice

[the plant doctor]

The simplest solution seems to be to grow some carrots or other vitamin A rich food alongside rice. But, maybe you're right and they need every inch of their land to grow rice and can't spare any for other vegetables.

Have you actually set foot in a rice paddy here in Asia? I'm guessing not. Rice is extremely unique in its ability to grow under monsoonal conditions. I'm not aware that carrots are fond of 5cm of standing water throughout the growing season.

Beyond that, as the grandparent noted, these people use all the land to grow rice. It's not that there aren't good solutions (from a Western developed country standpoint), it's that this one FITS the problem at hand.

I can't imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

600k more children living... I bet they're some place that is already suffering a child shortage right? Great, so you fix their death by problem 1 and lead them right into death by problems 2 through 100.

Re:I can't imagine

[Namarrgon]

Bet you didn't know that when you reduce child mortality rates, population growth rates actually go down, not up.

Re:The obvious solution

[joostje]

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

Re:The problem with golden rice is lack of fat

[joostje]

rice contains more fat (0.66 gr/100gr) than carrots, so the golden rice should be at least as effective as carrots then. And yes, meat would be good too, but very expensive.

Re:The problem with GMO is licensing

[Chrisq]

GMO per se are at least sometime OK, sometime probably not. For instance I don't think glyphosate (aka RoundUp (tm)) resistance is a good idea, as it will inevitably lead to glyphosate overuse and will make its way into our food with undocumented side effects. However in this case adding beta-carotene to rice is probably a good idea.

The problem is licensing. It costs more money to plant golden rice. License holders have given out free licenses to subsistence farmers, and seed reuse is OK. However I think this is a foot in the door. Make no mistake, golden rice is not a humanitarian endeavour, it is 100% commercial.

I think that this is one of the few good use of GMOs. I'd rather not have food that is engineered to produce compounds toxic to pests, no matter how often I am assured that its OK. And I share your concern about resistance to pesticides. However improving the nutritional value, like golden rice, or making plants drought resistant, able to tolerate salt so they can be grown in estuary areas, etc. seems fine to me,

Professor Potrykus

[tinkerton]

Damn you've got a cool name!

GMO won't fix this

[dutchwhizzman]

You can artificially put vitamin A in (expensive, copyrighted) rice, but you won't fix the poverty that is the cause of all this. Once these people will (maybe, if they can afford it) have access to rice with vitamin A in it, the next deficiency will kill the "new" survivors. Fix their poverty, not their lack of vitamin A in their food. They will take care of the vitamin A without having to resort to GMO rice. Spending money on this sort of food modification won't pay for anyone but the copyright holders. It's not even about the "risks" of GMO, it's about the futility of trying to solve poverty with it.

Re:GMO won't fix this

[Chris Mattern]

"Fix poverty". Which immediately leads to the question, *how* do you fix poverty? Don't you fix poverty by giving the poor more opportunity to grow and make what they need?

Re:GMO won't fix this

[the plant doctor]

So in your world, blindness and other consequences of nutritional deficiency is in no way a driver of poverty?

Poverty and well-being are inextricably linked. It's a vicious cycle. If you can start breaking into it at any point it's helpful. Golden Rice is just one entry point into this cycle.

Re:GMO won't fix this

[the plant doctor]

"Fix poverty". Which immediately leads to the question, *how* do you fix poverty? Don't you fix poverty by giving the poor more opportunity to grow and make what they need?

It's well established that human health and poverty are closely linked. Fixing human health is one of the steps to fixing poverty. Healthy people are more capable of working than those that are ill.

Re:GMO won't fix this

[Attila Dimedici]

Or, you can put Vitamin A in cheap, patented rice, which is what this story is about. Perhaps you should educate yourself. The non-profit organization that holds the patent for Golden Rice has a track record of developing solutions for third world malnutrition. They have been around since the 1960s and are well respected for the work they have already done to reduce malnutrition around the world. The GMO rice being discussed is available for the same price point as the rice which its target market (poor, malnourished farmers in the Philippines and other Asian countries) currently pay for the rice they grow.

Re:The obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting anon to avoid removing mods

Syngenta != Monstano;
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology != Monsanto;
University of Freiburg != Monsanto;

In this case, even Monsanto (Potrykus has spearheaded an effort to have golden rice distributed for free to subsistence farmers. Free licenses for developing countries were granted quickly due to the positive publicity that golden rice received, particularly in Time magazine in July 2000. Golden rice was said to be the first recombinant DNA tech crop that was unarguably beneficial. Monsanto Company was one of the first companies to grant free licences.

The cutoff between humanitarian and commercial use was set at US$10,000. Therefore, as long as a farmer or subsequent user of golden rice genetics does not make more than $10,000 per year, no royalties need to be paid. In addition, farmers are permitted to keep and replant seed. [ Courtesy of Wikipedia]) != Monsanto;

STFU with your (and every other persons) rant about Monsanto in this thread. Not everyone is the devil incarnate Monsanto, not even Monsanto all the time.

Re:The obvious solution

[Joce640k]

It's a cool thing, but some of us aren't playing games when it comes to our health.

Why would GMO affect your health? Do you have any idea what percentage of 'natural' plants are nasty, poisonous, cancer-inducing, etc.?

eg. Potatoes. When they turn green in sunlight it's because they're making a deadly poison to protect themselves. It can cause illness, birth defects and even death. There's no way a potato would get FDA approval if it was introduced in our diets today.

Tomatoes have it, too. You know potatoes and tomatoes are members of the nightshade family, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanine

I hope you're totally paranoid about potatoes and ask to inspect them before cooking if you're in a restaurant. Peeling away the green skin doesn't remove it (the green is only chlorophyll, not the Solanine) and it's not affected by heat. You do, ask, right?

Oh, wait...people have been eating them for more than 100 years so it doesn't count.

And you haven't read the reports either.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the Monstato paper on how it was safe used the same strain of rat. Indeed, that strain of rat is ALWAYS used *precisely because* they're sensitive to the consequences. Means quicker response with fewer rats used.

Moreover, the number of rats used in the french trial was higher and the trial lasted longer than the Monstato trial "proving" it was safe.

You DO know that cancer takes time to become visible, right?

Articles are being removed because Monstato will remove any and all funding for a journal carrying something that damages the GMO jihad. And other biotech and agribusiness companies are doing the same.

There's trillions to be made here.

Re:And never pushed: not profitable.

[somersault]

Nobody's trying to make money from people's hunger. That would be evil! These guys are trying to make money from people's blindness. Big difference.

Tongue out of cheek.. everyone is "making money from people's hunger", or lack of clothing, or lack of computers, etc. Stop trying to make it sound wrong. Researchers need to eat too.

Re:And never pushed: not profitable.

[somersault]

We were only able to develop Golden Rice because the technology was patented. Thus it was publicly accessible for research. Without patents, the technology would have been secret.

They were granted free use of those patents because of the humanitarian usage. And I expect they'll do the same with the final patent on Golden Rice itself. This guy is looking to help the world, not make money. Read the interview, it's quite interesting.

Re:And never pushed: not profitable.

[Charliemopps]

Actually no, they've licensed it for free. As long as your not growing it on a commercial scale you can use it for free. Basically they saw this as a PR opportunity so they helped develop and license it on their own dime.

Re:Evolution did not happen through monoculture

[the plant doctor]

Having done my PhD on late blight, P. infestans and your "Mexican" Phythophthora are the same species. Not sure just what you're trying to say here? BTW, you misspelled Phytophthora, twice.

How did that work out?

[raymorris]

How did it work out when the Irish tried that? The key word is "survived". The Irish died relying on the potato.

Re:And never pushed: not profitable.

[cayenne8]

Personally I have no problem with GM food and think this golden rice is a wonderful idea.

I think, at least in the 1st world countries, the US in particular....if they would just allow/mandate the labeling of GMO vs natural foods it would solve a lot of the uproar. Why not give the consumer this information?

I mean, hell, we have other labeling laws, we have to label seafood with country of origin (I like this one a lot), pretty soon, they're going to have one tracking beef.

Why not GMO? If the producers have no fear of GMO foods, what wrong with letting the consumer choose better what they want to consume?

Re:And never pushed: not profitable.

[morgauxo]

"If they really wanted to do the right thing then instead of this "humanitarian usage" clause for farmers making less than $10K they would have just given the patents over into the public domain."

Why?

I'm sure the 'under $10k limit should cover poor people in third world countries just fine. Where else do you find blindness from vitamin A deficiency?

Re:And never pushed: not profitable.

[dbIII]

The company who owned the patents in question has probably just done this as a one off with the aim of winning support for genetically modified food.

So? I don't see that as a bad aim. Each should be on their own merits instead of getting a frankenstein label. The GM fear is driving us towards vunerable monocultures so is probably worse than whatever the anti-GM people want to prevent. Anti-GM killed such promising things as growing long lasting vaccines that can be administered orally in bananas. No needles, not even refridgeration required, and it was killed off not long before human trails were due to start. If a GM company want to fight luddites with some PR from free food I don't see anything wrong with that. We let coca-cola get PR so why not these guys with far more noble aims?

Re:And never pushed: not profitable.

[macraig]

There's an ethical difference between "making money" in exchange for true equal value and concentrating wealth in your direction by giving people only perceived value. Which one are you doing?

Re:And never pushed: not profitable.

[ShanghaiBill]

So why hasn't anyone done it yet? Or am I just, er, blind?

You are either blind or oblivious. Plenty of products in my local Wal-Mart grocery store say "No GMO" on the packaging. Plenty more say "Organic" which at least in the USA legally implies "Non-GMO".

Re:And never pushed: not profitable.

[bws111]

Be sure to leave plenty of space on the label so we can mandate all the other things that every loony with an agenda thinks should be mandated. Warning: Tref! Warning: Non-organic! Warning: Hydroponically grown! Warning: Picked by Mexicans! Warning: Not fair-trade certified!