Golden Rice, Part 3: A thoroughly studied, safe and nutritionally enhanced GMO crop approved by Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US, but vilified by Greenpeace and ‘environmental’ activists

Adrian Dubock | May 28, 2019

Golden Rice differs from white rice only in that it contains β-carotene, that is, provitamin A, which the human body converts to vitamin A. Golden Rice contains no vitamin A itself. So the question about safety relates principally to β-carotene, which is anyway ubiquitous in a balanced human diet and the environment.

At the levels found in food, β-carotene is a safe source of vitamin A, and classed as ‘generally recognized as safe’ (GRAS), by the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA). At these physiological doses, consumption of β-carotene over several years has no adverse health effects. The human body only converts to vitamin A, in the form of circulating retinol, the amount of β-carotene necessary, with the rest being excreted or stored unchanged in body tissues (e.g. fat, liver, etc.). It is impossible to induce vitamin A toxicity by consuming β-carotene (pers. comm. Dr. R Russell)..........To Read More.....

This article is part three of a four-part series on golden rice based on a book chapter Golden Rice: To Combat Vitamin A Deficiency for Public Health. Golden Rice, Part 1: The story of a GMO crop that could benefit billions of children a year, Part 2: Will nutritionally enhanced rice work and help solve malnutrition in developing countries?; Part 4: Do biofortified crops make economic sense?