Unpromising Future for GM 'Golden Rice'
EXCERPT: "IRRI scientists also admitted that many uncertainties related to the "Golden Rice" still need to be addressed before this crop could be released. These include environmental risks as well as health and nutritional questions. IRRI also confirmed that the currently available "Golden Rice" only produces very low levels of beta-carotene, the source of vitamin A. They also agreed with Greenpeace that the best solution to vitamin A deficiency is a diverse diet."
GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
20 March 2001, for immediate release
Genetically engineered 'Golden Rice' not to be released into the environment within the next five years, admits International Rice Research Institute
London/Manila, 20th March 2001 - The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has confirmed to Greenpeace that it has no plans to release genetically modified (GM) so-called "Golden Rice" into the environment. Field trials are unlikely to take place within the next five years.
IRRI scientists told Greenpeace that various genetic elements in the "Golden Rice" need to be changed or removed, in particular its gene construct and an antibiotic resistance gene (1-2). IRRI received the first grains of the GM rice variety for breeding purposes earlier this year.
IRRI scientists also admitted that many uncertainties related to the "Golden Rice" still need to be addressed before this crop could be released. These include environmental risks as well as health and nutritional questions. IRRI also confirmed that the currently available "Golden Rice" only produces very low levels of beta-carotene, the source of vitamin A. They also agreed with Greenpeace that the best solution to vitamin A deficiency is a diverse diet.
Greenpeace welcomes the fact that the world's leading public rice research institute is more honest in its assessment of the benefits of "Golden Rice" than other advocates for the GM industry.
"There are cheap and proven solutions and technologies available to fight against vitamin A deficiency," said Von Hernandez, Greenpeace Southeast Asia Campaign Director, "The main problem is lack of political will to see these solutions through and the inadequacy of resources to enforce them. The GM industry's propaganda that keeps pushing 'Golden Rice' as the solution for vitamin A deficiency is irresponsible. It is using the misery of mothers and children who suffer from this deficiency for its own commercial gain."
When asked by Greenpeace, IRRI scientists admitted that there might even be naturally occurring rice varieties that contain beta-carotene or other vitamin A precursors. However, very few studies have been conducted so far on whether such natural pro-vitamin rich rice varieties exist.
ENDS
For more information:
In the UK:
Charlie Kronick, Greenpeace GM campaigner, 020 7865 8228
In the Philippines:
Von Hernandez, Greenpeace GM campaigner, Mob: +63 917 5263050;
Greenpeace Press Release/2
Notes for Editors
(1) "Gene construct" refers to genetic material or genes incorporated into a genetically modified organism. The IRRI scientists believe that another type of gene construct needs to be used to increase/promote the level of beta-carotene production in the "Golden Rice".
(2) Antibiotic resistance genes are used as a marker to check if the genetic modification has been successful. 'Golden Rice' currently still contains a hygromycin antibiotic resistance gene. There is broad agreement that these marker genes should be phased out because of potential health risks.
(3) IRRI has recently initiated a project to search for rice varieties with naturally high vitamin A content.
(4) Greenpeace briefing paper "Vitamin A: Natural Sources vs Golden Rice" and "The false promise of GE rice" are available at http://www.greenpeace.org/~geneng/
More information on http://www.greenpeace.org.uk
This letter about Golden Rice hype from MARION NESTLE, PhD, MPH Professor and Chair, Department of Nutrition and Food Studies, New York University was published in one of the World's most respected nutritional journals.
Genetically Engineered "Golden" Rice is Unlikely to Overcome Vitamin A Deficiency Letter to the Editor Journal of the American Dietetic Association Volume 101 (March):289-290, 2001
The suggestion that "golden" rice, bioengineered to contain ß-carotene, could have "a real impact on the health of children living in Southeast Asia" deserves critical scrutiny from nutrition professionals. This rice, although not yet available commercially, has become the "poster child" of the food biotechnology industry's extensive public relations campaign to convince the public that the benefits of genetically engineered agricultural products outweigh any safety, environmental, or social risks they might pose. National magazines promote golden rice as a means to prevent the more than one million annual deaths and cases of blindness that occur among children in developing countries as a result of vitamin A deficiency. The creation of golden rice appears to confirm the belief that biotechnology is the key to solving world food and nutrition problems.
Consideration of basic principles of nutrition suggests that rice containing ß-carotene is unlikely to alleviate vitamin A deficiency. To begin with, the bioavailability of ß-carotene is quite low-10% or less by some estimates. To be active, ß-carotene--a pro-vitamin--must be split by an enzyme in the intestinal mucosa or liver into two molecules of vitamin A. Like vitamin A, the pro-vitamin is fat-soluble and requires dietary fat for absorption. Thus, digestion, absorption, and transport of ß-carotene require a functional digestive tract, adequate protein and fat stores, and adequate energy, protein, and fat in the diet. Many children exhibiting symptoms of vitamin A deficiency, however, suffer from generalized protein-energy malnutrition and intestinal infections that interfere with the absorption of ß-carotene or its conversion to vitamin A. In numerous countries where vitamin A deficiency is endemic, food sources of ß-carotene are plentiful but are believed inappropriate for young children, are not cooked sufficiently to be digestible, or are not accompanied by enough dietary fat to permit absorption.8 In addition to doubts about cost and acceptability,2 biological, cultural, and dietary factors act as barriers to the use of ß-carotene, which explains why injections or supplements of pre-formed vitamin A are preferred as interventions. The extent to which the ß-carotene in golden rice can compensate for these barriers is limited.
Vitamin A deficiency is undeniably the single most important cause of blindness among children in developing countries and a substantial contributor to illness and death from infectious diseases. Mortality rates are higher among children with even mild vitamin A deficiency, but fall by as much as 54% when vitamin A-not ß-carotene--is supplemented or injected.8 Because such intervention methods are expensive and difficult to accomplish in the field, and because so many children exhibit signs of generalized protein-energy malnutrition, food-based approaches to improving vitamin A status seem especially desirable. The addition of a one or two nutrients to an existing food does not constitute a food-based approach.
Furthermore, the use of ß-carotene as a single-nutrient supplement itself raises questions. Although fruits and vegetables containing ß-carotene are demonstrably protective against disease, the results of clinical trials of ß-carotene supplements as a means to prevent cancer or cardiovascular disease have proved disappointing. , Some laboratory studies support the idea that ß-carotene produces biological effects that might protect against cancer, but others suggest that it might be co-carcinogenic. Still others argue that ß-carotene is a prooxidant that may be harmful or beneficial, depending on circumstances. What all this means is that the short- and long-term effects of supplementation of ß-carotene as a single nutrient-distinct from the foods that contain it-are as yet uncertain.
The complexity of the physiological, nutritional, and cultural factors that affect vitamin A status suggest that no single-nutrient added to food can be effective as a remedy for dietary deficiencies. Instead, a combination of supplementation, fortification, and dietary approaches is likely to be needed, along with a substantial commitment to improve socioeconomic status. Food biotechnology may yet lead to products that improve nutrition and health, but at the moment its benefits remain theoretical.
MARION NESTLE, PhD, MPH
Professor and Chair
Department of Nutrition and Food Studies
New York University
New York, NY 10012-1172
marion.nestle@nyu.edu
References
NEWS RELEASE
February 26, 2001
Reference:
RAFAEL MARIANO,
Head of the Secretariat,
International Alliance Against Agro-Chem TNC's
KMP Chairperson
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and the International Alliance Against Agro-Chem TNC's, on Monday, assailed the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) on the recent arrival and planned field testing in the country of a genetically engineered (GE) rice or the so-called "golden rice."
Rafael Mariano, KMP chairperson and Head of the Secretariat of the International Alliance Against Agro-Chem TNC's, said that the "so-called 'golden rice' variety is a genetically modified crop produced by agro-chemical transnational corporation Syngenta AG which aims to squeeze gigantic profit from poor farmers in Asia, particularly in the Philippines."
Mariano also said "the peasantry's experience during the green revolution of the Marcos regime, where numerous rice varieties flood the countryside, shows that the use of "high yielding varieties" (HYV's) did not boost local rice production. Instead, rampant use of HYV's destroyed the natural fertility of the soil and the extinction of local rice varieties."
"IRRI must be closed," Mariano stressed, "it subvert Philippine agriculture because it's researches serves agro-chem TNC's interest for profit. It only intensified the agricultural sector's dependence in buying genetically engineered crops."
The KMP also lambasted IRRI's claim that "golden rice" is the solution to Vitamin A deficiency of farmers and the people.
"Golden rice is absolutely not a solution to vitamin A deficiency because vitamin A is not a problem. The Philippines have rich sources of vitamin A such as fresh vegetables, fish and mineral resources. The biggest problem farmers are facing until now is landlessness," Mariano added.
Mariano also challenged Secretary Leonardo Montemayor of the Department of Agriculture to immediately act on the entry of "golden rice".
"This is a test case to Secretary Montemayor. He must now prove his recent pronouncements that he is against the use and field testing of genetically engineered crops by immediately acting on this matter," Mariano ended.
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP)
Peasant Movement of the Philippines
New York Times Magazine
March 4, 2001
The Great Yellow Hype
By MICHAEL POLLAN
Unless I'm missing something, the aim of the biotechnology industry's audacious new advertising campaign is to impale people like me -- well-off first worlders dubious about genetically engineered food -- on the horns of a moral dilemma. Have you seen these ads? Over a speedy montage of verdant rice paddies, smiling Asian kids and kindly third-world doctors, a caring voice describes something called golden rice and its promise to "help prevent blindness and infection in millions of children" suffering from vitamin-A deficiency. This new rice has been engineered, using a daffodil gene, to produce beta-carotene, a nutrient the body can convert into vitamin A. Watching the pitch, you can almost feel the moral ground shifting under your feet. For the unspoken challenge here is that if we don't get over our queasiness about eating genetically modified food, kids in the third world will go blind.
It appears that biotechnology, which heretofore had little more to offer the world than plants that could shake off a shower of herbicide, has finally found a "killer app" that can silence its critics and win over journalists. It's working, too: Time magazine put golden rice on its cover, declaring, "This rice could save a million kids a year." Even Greenpeace has acknowledged that "golden rice is a moral challenge to our position."
Yet the more one learns about biotechnology's Great Yellow Hope, the more uncertain seems its promise -- and the industry's command of the moral high ground. Indeed, it remains to be seen whether golden rice will ever offer as much to malnourished children as it does to beleaguered biotech companies. Its real achievement may be to win an argument rather than solve a public-health problem. Which means we may be witnessing the advent of the world's first purely rhetorical technology.
If that sounds harsh, consider this: an 11-year-old would have to eat 15 pounds of cooked golden rice a day -- quite a bowlful -- to satisfy his minimum daily requirement of vitamin A. Even if that were possible (or if scientists boosted beta-carotene levels), it probably wouldn't do a malnourished child much good, since the body can only convert beta-carotene into vitamin A when fat and protein are present in the diet. Fat and protein in the diet are, of course, precisely what a malnourished child lacks.
Further, there's no guarantee people will eat yellowish rice. Brown rice, after all, is already rich in nutrients, yet most Asians prefer white rice, which is not. Rice has long had a complicated set of meanings in Asian culture. Confucius, for example, extolled the pure whiteness of rice as the ideal backdrop for green vegetables. That works fine so long as you've still got the vegetables. But once rice became a monoculture cash crop, it crowded the green vegetables out of people's fields and out of their diet.
Proponents of golden rice acknowledge that persuading people to eat it may require an educational campaign. This begs a rather obvious question. Why not simply a campaign to persuade them to eat brown rice? Or how about teaching people how to grow green vegetables on the margins of their rice fields, and maybe even give them the seeds to do so? Or what about handing out vitamin-A supplements to children so severely malnourished their bodies can't metabolize beta-carotene?
As it happens, these ridiculously obvious, unglamorous, low-tech schemes are being tried today, and according to the aid groups behind them, all they need to work are political will and money.
Money?
More than $100 million dollars has been spent developing golden rice, and another $50 million has been budgeted for advertisements touting the technology's future benefits. A spokesman for Syngenta, the company that plans to give golden rice seeds to poor farmers, has said that every month of delay will mean another 50,000 blind children. Yet how many cases of blindness could be averted right now if the industry were to divert its river of advertising dollars to a few of these programs?
Which brings us to some uncomfortable questions about the industry's motives. In January, Gordon Conway, the president of the Rockefeller Foundation - which financed the original research on golden rice -- wrote, "The public-relations uses of golden rice have gone too far." While genetically engineered rice has a role to play in combating malnutrition, Conway noted, "We do not consider golden rice the solution to the vitamin-A deficiency problem."
So to what, then, is golden rice the solution? The answer seems plain: To the public-relations problem of an industry that has so far offered consumers precious few reasons to buy what it's selling -- and more than a few to avoid it. Appealing to our self-interest won't work, so why not try pricking our conscience? (Do I hear an echo? Eat your peas -- there are children starving in Africa.)
Ordinarily, evaluating a P.R. strategy in terms of morality rather than efficacy would seem to be missing the point. But morality is precisely the basis on which we've been asked us to think about golden rice. So let us try. Granted, it would be immoral for finicky Americans to thwart a technology that could rescue malnourished children. But wouldn't it also be immoral for an industry to use those children's suffering in order to rescue itself? The first case is hypothetical at best. The second is right there on our television screens, for everyone to see.
Michael Pollan is a contributing writer for the magazine. His new book, "The
Botany of Desire," will be published in May.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
The Independent (London)
February 23, 2001,
Friday,
by James Bruges
Sir: Greenpeace are right to be sceptical about golden rice (letter, 17 February). Last month I visited Social Change and Development, a non- governmental organisation (NGO) in Tamil Nadu, south India. They work with more than 300 villages and have eradicated problems of night blindness in children, brought on by vitamin A deficiency, and anaemia with women, both of which had been endemic in the area.
These health problems had become an issue because of the simplified diet associated with the Agrochemical (Green) Revolution. They were problems well known to traditional "health science", known in Tamil Nadu as siddha. For vitamin A the NGO trains villagers to grow and eat papaya, pumpkins, carrots and other yellow vegetables. For iron deficiency, which causes anaemia, they use aloes, a hedging plant. All of these grow easily and cost virtually nothing.
The NGO had not heard of "golden rice", genetically modified to include vitamin A, but said that it represented a step in the wrong direction. A specialist rice would reduce crop diversity and make villagers dependent on purchasing seed. Anyway siddha treats nutrition on a wider basis than single- issue vitamins.
JAMES BRUGES
Bristol
FAO report, July 2000: "Agriculture: Towards 2015/30"
By 2030 the world's population is expected to top eight billion. Can the world produce enough food to meet global demands? The answer is yes, according to a recent report from FAO's Global Perspective Studies Unit. The report, "Agriculture: Towards 2015/30", forecasts global trends in food, nutrition and agriculture over the next 30 years.
Despite discussing the 'potential' of the technology the report does not include any contribution from GMOs in the quantitative analysis from which its prognosis is derived.
The significance of this newspaper article is that it comes from the main paper in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA - the home town of Monsanto.
Bioengineered rice loses glow as vitamin A source
By Tina Hesman , Saint Louis Post-Dispatch
Sunday, March 4, 2001, 7:36 a.m.
www.postnet.com (search: rice)
* Golden Rice is years from market and, as a practical food source for the poor, may not meet nutritional goals.
When Swiss researchers announced last year that they had engineered rice grains to combat vitamin A deficiency, world health officials, biotech advocates and others hailed the development as a major advance in solving nutritional problems in the developing world.
Many in the biotechnology industry touted the rice - called Golden Rice for its color - as a savior for the beleaguered industry: a symbol of genetic engineering's promise.
But the rice may not be all it's puffed up to be.
The product, designed to make beta-carotene, is at least five years from market.
Moreover, some critics say that the amount of rice a person would have to eat to get the nutritional benefits promised is more than humanly practical.
Their estimates equate to a child having to eat 27 to 54 bowls of rice a day to get the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A. However, scientists involved in the project insist they can achieve some nutritional benefits with the equivalent of just two to four bowls a day.
Now, both sides in the debate over Golden Rice are playing a numbers game, with no clear winner yet.
But it's obvious from another set of numbers who's losing.
Consider these statistics provided by Gurdev S. Khush, the principal plant breeder at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines:
Many of the people at highest risk of developing a vitamin A deficiency live in Southeast Asia, where rice is a dietary staple. Normal rice grains don't contain vitamin A, or any of the chemicals, such as beta-carotene, that can be converted to vitamin A.
So when researchers led by Ingo Potrykus at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich came up with a way to get rice to produce beta-carotene in the edible parts, the innovation seemed like a potential nutritional boon for the developing world.
Companies that owned licenses on the technology used to create the yellow rice quickly offered up duty-free rights for humanitarian uses. Monsanto Co. of Creve Coeur was one of the first agriculture biotechnology companies to get on board.
"This was an admirable project and a beautiful piece of science," said Gerard Barry, the head of rice genomics for Monsanto.
Five other companies also gave up their technology licenses to allow humanitarian development of the rice.
Biotechnology industry representatives quickly seized on the companies' generosity and held Golden Rice up as a model for the way genetically modified crops could help feed the world. It was a badly needed positive message for an industry under fire, said Adrian Dubock, an executive at European biotech giant Syngenta Ltd.
"The biotech industry has come under exceedingly virulent attack," he said. "There was not a day that went by last year that there was not a huge wad of rubbish being published on the front page of the tabloid newspapers."
Amid the controversy about genetically engineered food, Golden Rice was a brilliant flash, something slick U.S. marketing firms could sell to a skeptical public in television and print ads, Dubock said.
But not everyone bought the soft-focus television images of mothers frolicking with their children while a smooth announcer discussed the potential benefits of Golden Rice and biotechnology.
"This whole project is actually based on what can only be characterized as intentional deception," said Greenpeace campaigner Von Hernandez in a prepared statement. "We recalculated their figures again and again. We just could not believe serious scientists and companies would do this."
Golden Rice won't be ready for widespread use in developing countries for another five or six years, rice breeder Khush said.
Researchers at the International Rice Research Institute have just planted Golden Rice seeds and are waiting for the plants to grow and flower, a process that will take about three months, Khush said.
Then, about two years of breeding experiments will be required. Environmental safety studies, nutritional studies and seed propagation will take two to three years more.
"We can't just start crossing and growing plants in the field without serious analysis to confirm that everything is fine," said Paola Lucca, one of the developers of the rice.
Activistare questioning the nutritional value of the rice as well.
By the most conservative estimates of nutritionists, a 4-year-old would have to eat nearly 4 pounds of Golden Rice, which would fill about 9 cups, to meet the entire recommended daily allowance of vitamin A. And that's 4 pounds of uncooked rice.
Cooked, the rice would fill more than 27 bowls - well beyond the amount of rice any child could be expected to eat in a day.
A new report by the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institutes of Medicine, which is associated with the National Academies of Science, indicates that the situation could be even worse.
Previous nutritional calculations were based upon data that indicated that the body needs 6 micrograms of beta-carotene to produce 1 microgram of vitamin A. More recent studies suggest that it takes 12 micrograms or more of beta-carotene from food to make 1 microgram of vitamin A in the body.
Based on the new estimate, a 4-year-old would have to eat 54 bowls of Golden Rice to get all the vitamin A in the recommended daily allowance.
Supporters of the technology say it's ridiculous to expect Golden Rice to supply all of a child's vitamin A needs. Having any vitamin A in the diet is much better than none, they say.
The inventors of Golden Rice never intended it to be more than a dietary supplement, Lucca said. The developers aimed for a daily allowance of 100 micrograms of vitamin A, a level that should prevent night blindness, she said. A child could get that much vitamin A by eating two to four bowls of Golden Rice each day.
But the nutrition board says that a 4-year-old needs at least 150 micrograms of vitamin A every day to prevent night blindness. That would require three to six bowls of Golden Rice.
But at that level of vitamin A in the diet, 50 percent of children would still suffer night blindness. The board said that in order to achieve complete alleviation of night blindness, children need at least 210 micrograms of vitamin A per day - four to eight bowls.
But the truth is, no one really knows exactly how much Golden Rice a 4-year-old would have to eat to keep from going blind, said Allison Yates, director of the Food and Nutrition Board.
That's because no one knows how much beta-carotene Golden Rice will yield to the body, Yates said. And a number of variables, including the fat content in a child's diet and whether the child has an infection, could influence how much beta-carotene the child could absorb.
"One would assume there's been lots of studies on this, but there's really just a handful," she said.
How Golden Rice adds up
The calculations used in this story for the amount of Golden Rice a 4-year-old would have to eat are based on some assumptions:
Therefore:
Moreover:
Source: F. Jack Francis, University of Massachusetts; Paola Lucca, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology; Post-Dispatch research
...
REFERENCES:
From: "Robert Vint" rjvint@globalnet.co.uk
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 18:43:56 -0000