By opposing Golden Rice, Greenpeace defies its own values – and harms children

[roseBudd]

2. No, have you seen Slum Dog Millionaire?

Are you aware that there are not roads everywhere that VAD, Vitamin A deficiency is endemic.

The WHO currently spends millions on twice yearly vitamin A supplements for children, but are unable to reach all, as evident by the death toll.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24417-golden-rice-creator-wants-to-live-to-see-it-save-lives.html

Why couldn't children just be given vitamin A capsules, or other foods that contain it?
The capsules are already being given through programmes of the World Health Organization and charities such as Hellen Keller International. They've been running the programmes for 15 years, but they cost tens of millions of dollars a year. The problem is that besides the expense, you need the infrastructure to distribute the capsules. We're aiming for people who can't be reached this way, poor farmers in remote places.

As for the possibility of eating foods that supply vitamin A, such as liver, leafy green vegetables and eggs, the people we're targeting are too poor to buy them. Some kitchen garden projects provide them, but despite these interventions we still have 6000 children dying every day. These are not enough. Our aim is to complement, not replace these programmes.

There's a project in Uganda and Mozambique to combat vitamin A deficiency by supplying sweet potatoes conventionally bred to contain extra beta-carotene. Over two years it doubled vitamin A intake in women and children compared with those who ate conventional sweet potatoes. Could this be done with rice?
Sweet potatoes naturally contain beta-carotene, so you can use traditional breeding to improve the content. Rice contains no beta-carotene, so it's impossible to introduce it without genetic engineering. Because the sweet potato project does not involve genetic modification, Greenpeace doesn't complain about it despite the aim being identical to ours. But the experience with sweet potatoes shows that what we're trying to achieve with rice is realistic. As soon as people get the potatoes, it improves their vitamin A status.


Last year, didn't you finally obtain the proof you needed to show that Golden Rice provides enough vitamin A?
It was a long experiment by a group at Tufts University with colleagues from China. The outcome was fantastic. It was basically as good as it could be, with every 2.3 grams of beta-carotene eaten in the rice producing 1 gram of vitamin A in the bloodstream, close to the theoretical maximum. This is four times better than the conversion from spinach, in which the children had to eat 7 to 8 grams to make each gram of vitamin A in blood...

The UK environment minister Owen Paterson has now weighed into this debate by describing opposition to Golden Rice as wicked. Is this a moral tipping point that will potentially win emotional support for Golden Rice?
Unfortunately, there's an enormous majority against genetic modification in Europe, so the brave UK minister will have lots of enemies. But he deserves support from wherever possible. I'm optimistic we've maybe reached a tipping point in Britain, and that's something. But I'm not confident the "wicked" accusation will change the attitudes of Greenpeace supporters in Europe. Even Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore now supports Golden Rice and has accused Greenpeace of crimes against humanity for opposing it, but no one cares.