Dr. Ingo Potrykus’ amazing work with genetically modified rice has been mentioned on this site before (see Genetically Modified Rice Could Save Hundreds of Millions of Lives and Monsanto to Give Genetically Modified Rice Away). Working in Sweden, Potrykus genetically modified a strain of rice so that it produces beta carotene in its seeds.
Beta carotene is an excellent source of vitamin A, and vitamin A deficiency is an enormous health problem in the developing world. Up to 124 million children do not receive enough vitamin A in their diets, contributing to an estimated 1 million deaths and 300,000 cases of childhood blindness every year.
The New York Times recently ran a profile of Dr. Potrykus on the trials and travails he’s had bringing the GM rice to poor people. You’d think this would be a win-win situation. He worked out arrangements with the companies who hold the patents on the genes and techniques he used to allow him to give his vitamin A-enriched rice to any farmer with an annual income less than $10,000 which covers most small farmers in the developing world. The rice is self-pollinating so once they farmers have the rice and are growing it, they won’t be forced at some later date to buy new seeds. And, of course, it could save millions of lives.
But pressure is so great against so-called “Frankenfoods,” especially in Europe, that Potrykus housed his rice plants in a grenade-proof greenhouse. That was probably wise since throughout Europe and the United States anti-biotechnology activists are destroying experimental crops right and left.
The activists see Potrykus’ rice as a publicity stunt by the biotech companies to gain widespread acceptance of genetically modified plants and animals, and so would sentence millions of children in the developing world to death and blindness to prevent scientists such as Potrykus from gaining the world’s appreciation — not to mention better understanding of the value of genetic engineering.
In Sweden, for example, anti-biotech forces are trying to pass a law that would make it illegal for corporations in that nation to export genetically modified organisms. That law, if passed, would make it illegal for the GM rice to be given to poor farmers in the developing world.
Leave it to extremists in the environmental movement to once again argue that people in the developing world must pay with their lives for the irrational anti-science views of a minority of First Worlders.
Golden rice in a grenade-proof greenhouse. Jon Christensen, The New York Times, November 21, 2000.