Dr. Alan Moghissi
of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies (and former chairman of the ACSH
Board of Directors) and colleagues cogently reviewed the evolution of agricultural
development. This evolution depended on first, the availability of plants with
desirable traits, second, the availability of cross breeding plants to increase
agricultural production, and finally huge advances in molecular biology, which
allowed the application of genetic engineering to agricultural processes.
Moghissi and
co-authors use the development of Golden Rice, which has been genetically
engineered to provide beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A, as a clear
example of the progress of agricultural technology. The authors dissect the
claims espoused by those opposing the testing and application of GE technology,
as exemplified by opposition to Golden Rice, and find that these are without
merit.
The WHO estimates
that about 250,000 to 500,000 vitamin A deficient children go blind each year
and half of those children die within 12 months of going blind. However, the
anti-biotech crowd continues to fight against the introduction of this
revolutionary genetically engineered product.
As ACSH’s Dr. Ruth
Kava has said in the past, “The stance against
golden rice by anti-GMO activists is simply reprehensible. There is no good
reason to fight the introduction of this GMO product — or any other — into the
world’s food supply. In my opinion, these activists are responsible for untold
misery and death by instigating fear-driven destruction of test plots of this
potentially life-saving product. Hopefully this addition to the literature will
help to sway those opposing this life-saving technology.”
For more
information about the use of GE (aka GM) technology in agriculture, see ACSH’s
publication, Food and You, available here. For a 2013 opinion piece on this subject
by ACSH’s Dr. Gil Ross, see here.
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