Don't eat U.S. Rice - GM!

[coffeeseven]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=440302&in_page_id=1770&ico=Homepage&icl=TabModule&icc=NEWS&ct=5


uman genes in your food?
By SEAN POULTER - More by this author ? Last updated at 22:25pm on 5th March 2007


The first GM food crop containing human genes is set to be approved for commercial production.

The laboratory-created rice produces some of the human proteins found in breast milk and saliva.

Its U.S. developers say they could be used to treat children with diarrhoea, a major killer in the Third World.

The rice is a major step in so-called Frankenstein Foods, the first mingling of human-origin genes and those from plants. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture has already signalled it plans to allow commercial cultivation.

The rice's producers, California-based Ventria Bioscience, have been given preliminary approval to grow it on more than 3,000 acres in Kansas. The company plans to harvest the proteins and use them in drinks, desserts, yoghurts and muesli bars.

The news provoked horror among GM critics and consumer groups on both sides of the Atlantic.

GeneWatch UK, which monitors new GM foods, described it as "very disturbing". Researcher Becky Price warned: "There are huge, huge health risks and people should rightly be concerned about this."

Friends of the Earth campaigner Clare Oxborrow said: "Using food crops and fields as glorified drug factories is a very worrying development.

"If these pharmaceutical crops end up on consumers' plates, the consequences for our health could be devastating.

"The biotech industry has already failed to prevent experimental GM rice contaminating the food chain.

"The Government must urge the U.S. to ban the production of drugs in food crops. It must also introduce tough measures to prevent illegal GM crops contaminating our food and ensure that biotech companies are liable for any damage their products cause."

In the U.S., the Union of Concerned Scientists, a policy advocacy group, warned: "It is unwise to produce drugs in plants outdoors.

"There would be little control over the doses people might get exposed to, and some might be allergic to the proteins."

The American Consumers Union and the Washingtonbased Centre for Food Safety also oppose Ventria's plans.

As well as the contamination fears there are serious ethical concerns about such a fundamental interference with the building blocks of life.

Yet there is no legal means for Britain and Europe to ban such products on ethical grounds.

Imports would have to be accepted once they had gone through a scientific safety assessment.

The development is what may people feared when, ten years ago, food scientists showed what was possible by inserting copies of fish genes from the flounder into tomatoes, to help them withstand frost.

Ventria has produced three varieties of the rice, each with a different human-origin gene that makes the plants produce one of three human proteins.

Two - lactoferrin and lysozyme - are bacteria-fighting compounds found in breast milk and saliva. The genes, cultivated and copied in a laboratory to produce a synthetic version, are carried into embryonic rice plants inside bacteria.

Until now, plants with human-origin genes have been restricted to small test plots.

Ventria originally planned to grow the rice in southern Missouri but the brewer Anheuser-Busch, a huge buyer of rice, threatened to boycott the state amid concern over contamination and consumer reaction.

Now the USDA, saying the rice poses "virtually no risk". has given preliminary approval for it to be grown in Kansas, which has no commercial rice farms.

Ventria will also use dedicated equipment, storage and processing facilities supposed to prevent seeds from mixing with other crops.

The company says food products using the rice proteins could help save many of the two million children a year who die from diarrhoea and the resulting dehydration and complications. A recent study in Peru, sponsored by Ventria, showed that children with severe diarrhoea recovered a day and a half faster if the salty fluids they were prescribed included the proteins.

The rice could also be a huge money-spinner in the Western world, with parents being told it will help their children get over unpleasant stomach bugs more quickly.

Ventria chief executive Scott Deeter said last night: "We have a product here that can help children get better faster."

He said any concerns about safety and contamination were "based on perception, not reality" given all the precautions the company was taking.

Mr Deeter said production in plants was far cheaper than other methods, which should help make the therapy affordable in the developing world.

He said: "Plants are phenomenal factories. Our raw materials are the sun, soil and water."

[YixilTesiphon]

This is a problem why? I'm all for GM food. I won't force it on you, however.

[penguins4me]

Yup, just another aspect of that "efficiency" thing which was mentioned in the "stomach graveyard" thread.

[error]

Oh, but it's SCARY!

Of course, the REAL REASON it's scary is it might actually make a dent in the world hunger problem.

[eques]

*huge, drawn-out sigh*

The whole "genetically modified" thing was brought up in another thread a number of months ago.

I made the point that there are no such things as "human genes," any more than there are such things as "fish genes" or "tomato genes" from the standpoint of what a "gene" means.  There are genes that are found in humans, fish, and tomatoes, but those genes aren't uniquely human, fishy, or tomato-y.

Furthermore, the phrase "genetically modified" is silly, too.  Everything you see around you is "genetically modified," most especially the food you eat.  If it's been cultivated, domesticated, or otherwise used as food by humans, there are various selection pressures upon those organisms--usually to produce higher yields and/or higher fertility rates than would be found had said species never been cultivated/domesticated.

The fact that genes are being transplanted from one organism to another is merely a more advanced way of inducing selection pressure upon an organism.

So... that said, if you want to knee-jerk, that's fine.  But I gotta tell ya, there are better things to freak out about than "genetically modified" foods.

[mvpel]

The news provoked horror among GM critics and consumer groups on both sides of the Atlantic.

But they can barely muster a yawn as 2 million brown people waste away and die of diarrheal diseases for want of this product.  Goes right along with "let's ban DDT because it might hurt some birdies, which are so much prettier than little brown babies dying of malaria."

From 2000 to 2003, according to the WHO, pneumonia and acute diarrhea were responsible for 21 percent and 16 percent, respectively, of the deaths of children under 5 in Africa.

Or maybe they just care so deeply for those poor little brown babies that they'll go to any length, including letting them poop themselves to death, in order to protect them.  Destroy the village to save it, and all that, right?

Makes me want to vomit. 

[coffeeseven]

I am not the last word on anything. For me though I think I'll stay away from the Soylent Green and buy my rice from the nice Vietnamese people down the road. Or am I supposed to suddenly trust the FDA on this one?

[Insurgent]

Never trust the FDA; never trust any government agency, for that matter. (As if I had to tell anyone that!)

I've been distrustful of GM foods for a while now; again one more reason to support local economies and local growers.

[eques]

It's not about trusting the FDA.  It's about informing yourself no matter what the FDA says.

And I'm not the last word, either.  I'd love to be refuted if there was a refutation to be had.  So far, I haven't seen one.

[mvpel]

I've been distrustful of GM foods for a while now; again one more reason to support local economies and local growers.

That's all very nice and peachy when there's no lives at stake.

It costs roughly $1,000 to produce 1 gram (0.035 ounce) of protein from animal cells, making many vaccines prohibitively costly for even the wealthiest countries, and completely out of reach for destitute countries.

Producing the same amount from gene-altered plants would cost less than $20--and that means pharmaceutical companies will be able to put a higher priority on finding cures for rare and "orphan" diseases across the globe.

But there are lives at stake.

But then again, maybe that's the point.

In his last book, Mr. [H.G.] Wells speaks of the meaningless, aimless lives which cram this world of ours, hordes of people who are born, who live, yet who have done absolutely nothing to advance the race one iota. Their lives are hopeless repetitions. All that they have said has been said before; all that they have done has been done better before. Such human weeds clog up the path, drain up the energies and the resources of this little earth. We must clear the way for a better world; we must cultivate our garden."

"Cultivate," by plowing under the hapless and destitute subjects of corrupt and brutal kleptocracies with the dull harrow of pandemic disease.

Did I mention:

[eques]

In his last book, Mr. [H.G.] Wells speaks of the meaningless, aimless lives which cram this world of ours, hordes of people who are born, who live, yet who have done absolutely nothing to advance the race one iota. Their lives are hopeless repetitions. All that they have said has been said before; all that they have done has been done better before. Such human weeds clog up the path, drain up the energies and the resources of this little earth. We must clear the way for a better world; we must cultivate our garden."

Elitism at its "finest."

[lordmetroid]

A Gene is just like any other gene... Makes protein and which in turn catalyzes reactions.
Getting foreign genes in plants aren't hard. Plants naturally ingests foreign genes. There are natural trees that contain genes of hemoglobine naturally, happens naturally. We can't do anything that nature can't already do.

If it enhances my food, I am all for it!
The biochemist/molecular biologist have spoken his opinion.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Shit?..........did that grain of rice just look at me?

[mvpel]

[Rochelle]

I've been distrustful of GM foods for a while now; again one more reason to support local economies and local growers.

Quote from the article: "The rice's producers, California-based Ventria Bioscience, have been given preliminary approval to grow it on more than 3,000 acres in Kansas."

So, if you're from Kansas (like I am) and still live there, they ARE local growers! Yay for finally finding something to do with the vast amounts of space in Kansas!