-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: March 6, 2007 6:41:53 PM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: No Dessert, Johnny, Until You've Eaten Your Genes
USDA Backs Production of Rice With Human Genes
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post, March 2, 2007; A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/01/
AR2007030101495_pf.html
The Agriculture Department has given a preliminary green light for
the first commercial production of a food crop engineered to
contain human genes, reigniting fears that biomedically potent
substances in high-tech plants could escape and turn up in other
foods.
The plan, confirmed yesterday by the California biotechnology
company leading the effort, calls for large-scale cultivation in
Kansas of rice that produces human immune system proteins in its
seeds.
The proteins are to be extracted for use as an anti-diarrhea
medicine and might be added to health foods such as yogurt and
granola bars. <?!?! Consumers need anti-diarrhea additives now?>
"We can really help children with diarrhea get better faster. That
is the idea," said Scott E. Deeter, president and chief executive
of Sacramento-based Ventria Bioscience, emphasizing that a host of
protections should keep the engineered plants and their seeds from
escaping into surrounding fields.
But critics are assailing the effort, saying gene-altered plants
inevitably migrate out of their home plots. In this case, they
said, that could result in pharmacologically active proteins
showing up in the food of unsuspecting consumers.
Although the proteins are not inherently dangerous, there would be
little control over the doses people might get exposed to, and some
might be allergic to the proteins, said Jane Rissler of the Union
of Concerned Scientists, a science policy advocacy group.
"This is not a product that everyone would want to consume,"
Rissler said, adding that other companies grow such plants indoors
or in vats. "It is unwise to produce drugs in plants outdoors."
Consumer advocacy groups, including Consumers Union and the
Washington-based Center for Food Safety, have also opposed
Ventria's plans. "We definitely have big concerns," said Joseph
Mendelson, the center's legal director.
Ventria has developed three varieties of rice, each endowed with a
different human gene that makes the plants produce one of three
human proteins. Two of them -- lactoferrin and lysozyme -- are
bacteria-fighting compounds found in breast milk and saliva.
A recent company-sponsored study done in Peru concluded that
children with severe diarrhea recovered a day and a half faster if
the salty fluids they were prescribed were spiked with the proteins.
Deeter said production in plants is far cheaper than other methods,
which should help make the therapy affordable in the developing
world, where severe diarrhea kills 2 million children each year.
"Plants are phenomenal factories," Deeter said. "Our raw materials
are the sun, soil and water."
The company is also talking to the Food and Drug Administration
about putting the proteins into health foods. Its third variety of
rice makes serum albumin, a blood protein used in medical therapies.
Until now, plants with human genes have been restricted to small
test plots. In October, Ventria sought permission to grow its rice
commercially on as many as 3,200 acres in Geary County, Kan.,
starting with 450 acres this spring.
A previous plan to grow the rice in southern Missouri was dropped
when beermaker Anheuser-Busch -- the nation's largest rice buyer,
which has expressed concern about the safety and consumer
acceptance of gene-altered rice -- threatened to stop buying rice
from the state if the deal went through.
Because no other rice is grown in Kansas and because rice can only
grow in flooded areas, the risk of escape or cross-fertilization
with other rice plants is nil there, Deeter said. The company will
mill virtually all the seeds on site -- using dedicated equipment
-- to minimize the risk of seeds getting mistakenly released or sold.
On Wednesday, the Agriculture Department published its draft
environmental assessment, which concluded that the project posed no
undue risks. The public can comment until March 30.
Also on Wednesday, the agency revealed that a type of rice seed in
Arkansas had become contaminated with a different variety of
genetically engineered rice, LL62, that was never released for
marketing.
That error was discovered in the course of an ongoing investigation
into the widespread contamination of U.S. rice by yet another gene-
altered variety, LL601, which has seriously disrupted rice exports.
Those problems, along with the previous discovery of unapproved,
gene-altered StarLink corn in food and the accidental release of
crops that had been engineered to make a vaccine for pig diarrhea,
undermine the USDA's credibility, critics said.
"USDA's record is not good," Rissler said, pointing to several
recent court judgments against the department and a December 2005
inspector general report that savaged the department for its poor
oversight of biotechnology. "We don't think they can enforce even
the inadequate system that is in place."
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