01.01.70

Author and founding director of FDA’s Biotechnology Office.

Say what you will about Greenpeace, the organization has always had a flair for publicity. From its early days of dodging harpoons and Japanese whalers in outboard motor boats, it has used media savvy and an aptitude for political theater to become a $360 million-plus per year behemoth with offices in more than 40 countries.

But what few members of the public know is that Greenpeace isn’t just about saving whales and other appealing sea creatures. Its PR machine is now spearheading an effort to deny millions of children in the poorest nations the essential nutrients they need to stave off blindness and death.

The targets are new plant varieties collectively called “golden rice.” Rice is a food staple for hundreds of millions, especially in Asia. Although it is an excellent source of calories, it lacks certain micronutrients necessary for a complete diet. In the 1980s and ’90s, German scientists Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer developed the “Golden Rice” varieties that are biofortified, or enriched, by genes that produce beta-carotene, the precursor of vitamin A.

Source: Oregon Natural Resources Report

by bhavik

As the FDA gets ready to vote on an application to bring the first genetically modified (GM) food animal — a salmon — to market, Healthland pauses to consider the social contribution of genetically modified crops throughout history.

Genetic modification occurs when scientists isolate a gene from one plant or animal and successfully introduce that gene to another plant or animal, thus changing its genetic code and function.

From vitamin-enriched rice, thanks to an assist from a carrot gene, to pest-proof corn that boasts a bacterium’s genetic material, GM crops are a part of our everyday lives.

The first genetically modified crop to come to market, the tomato was created and first grown in California. The Flavr Svr stayed fresh longer than conventional tomatoes, improving upon the fruit’s notoriously short shelf-life. Most of the changes benefited taste, rather than environment or health. Because they lasted, farmers were able to allow the tomatoes to ripen on the vine, rather than picking when green to avoid rot on the trip to supermarkets. This produced a better tasting and more well-textured tomato. This sweet corn was given a gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, which acts as an insecticide. The obvious environmental benefit is that farmers do not need to spray the crop with chemical insecticides, which are associated with a host of health concerns, like cancer and developmental disabilities in children....

Read more...

HB: It's by no means a silver bullet that is going to solve the mineral and vitamin problem. The long run solution is that peoples' incomes go up to the point where they can afford to pay for the diets we all enjoy. Biofortification is something we can do along the way to increase the vitamin uptake. What I like about it is every dollar invested has a very high return. I wouldn’t exactly call it a temporary measure - it’s something which could continue again and again over a long period of time. For example, why wouldn’t people want to eat orange maize? It’s high in vitamin A. HB: First of all, when HarvestPlus started in 2003 we decided that we wanted to invest all of our resources in conventional breeding. Simply because we didn’t want to encounter all the hurdles and the criticisms and the  difficulties of the genetically-modified varieties. We consider all of the fear about GM crops unfortunate, but that wasn’t our battle, our battle was to try and improve nutrition and our research showed that we could make improvements in certain crops through conventional breeding. The critics of Golden Rice have done a good job of tainting it. Then when people hear about biofortified crops and HarvestPlus, there’s a presumption that we’re developing transgenic crops. The buzz that goes around HarvestPlus is that it's transgenic but it's actually not. We need to get the word out. I'm actually part of the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board and I think it’s a great idea. I’ve watched all the barriers come up in front of it and slow things down considerably, which is quite unfortunate, but it will be released in the Philippines in 2013, and we look forward to that happening. HB:

Read more...