The Deadly Opposition to Genetically Modified Food

Plant biotechnologist Dr. Swapan Datta inspects a genetically modified "golden rice" plant at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines in 2003. After a long delay, the rice, rich in Vitamin A, will finally be grown in that country.

Photo by David Greedy/Getty Images.

Finally, after a 12-year delay caused by opponents of genetically modified foods, so-called ?golden rice? with vitamin A will be grown in the Philippines. Over those 12 years, about 8 million children worldwide died from vitamin A deficiency. Are anti-GM advocates not partly responsible?

Golden rice is the most prominent example in the global controversy over GM foods, which pits a technology with some risks but incredible potential against the resistance of feel-good campaigning. Three billion people depend on rice as their staple food, with 10 percent at risk for vitamin A deficiency, which, according to the World Health Organization, causes 250,000 to 500,000 children to go blind each year. Of these, half die within a year. A study from the British medical journal the Lancet estimates that, in total, vitamin A deficiency kills 668,000 children under the age of 5 each year.

Yet, despite the cost in human lives, anti-GM campaigners?from Greenpeace to Naomi Klein?have derided efforts to use golden rice to avoid vitamin A deficiency. In India, Vandana Shiva, an environmental activist and adviser to the government, called golden rice ?a hoax? that is ?creating hunger and malnutrition, not solving it.?

The New York Times Magazine reported in 2001 that one would need to ?eat 15 pounds of cooked golden rice a day? to get enough vitamin A. What was an exaggeration then is demonstrably wrong now. Two recent studies in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition show that just 50 grams (roughly two ounces) of golden rice can provide 60 percent of the recommended daily intake of vitamin A. They show that golden rice is even better than spinach in providing vitamin A to children.

Opponents maintain that there are better ways to deal with vitamin A deficiency. In its latest statement, Greenpeace says that golden rice is ?neither needed nor necessary,? and calls instead for supplementation and fortification, which are described as ?cost-effective.?

To be sure, handing out vitamin pills or adding vitamin A to staple products can make a difference. But it is not a sustainable solution to vitamin A deficiency. And, while it is cost-effective, recent published estimates indicate that golden rice is much more so.

Supplementation programs costs $4,300 for every life they save in India, whereas fortification programs cost about $2,700 for each life saved. Both are great deals. But golden rice would cost just $100 for every life saved from vitamin A deficiency.

Similarly, it is argued that golden rice will not be adopted, because most Asians eschew brown rice. But brown rice is substantially different in taste and spoils easily in hot climates. Moreover, many Asian dishes are already colored yellow with saffron, annatto, achiote, and turmeric. The people, not Greenpeace, should decide whether they will adopt vitamin A-rich rice for themselves and their children.

Most ironic is the self-fulfilling critique that many activists now use. Greenpeace calls golden rice a ?failure,? because it ?has been in development for almost 20 years and has still not made any impact on the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency.? But, as Ingo Potrykus, the scientist who developed golden rice, has made clear, that failure is due almost entirely to relentless opposition to GM foods?often by rich, well-meaning Westerners far removed from the risks of actual vitamin A deficiency.

Regulation of goods and services for public health clearly is a good idea; but it must always be balanced against potential costs?in this case, the cost of not providing more vitamin A to 8 million children during the past 12 years.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=7eb16102c4f505dee3699678f81586d5

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