Reblogged:Bloody Hands vs. Golden Rice

[Gus Van Horn blog]

The Philippines recently granted regulatory approval for production and sale of golden rice, named for the color lent to its grains by the beta-carotene they contain, thanks to genetic engineering.

Reason Magazine, which rightly calls Greenpeace evil for opposing the move reports the following eye-opening consequences of anti-GMO opposition to just this product:

Image by The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), via Wikimedia Commons, license.

Regulatory approval of the grain in the Philippines is a big step toward improving the health of some of the poorest people on the planet. As AgDaily notes, "a one-cup portion of cooked Golden Rice contains enough beta-carotene to meet 30 to 50 percent of the estimated average requirement of vitamin A for children aged 6 months to 5 years, the group most at risk of vitamin A insufficiency in the Philippines. At present, only 2 out of 10 Filipino households meet the estimated average requirement for vitamin A intake in their daily diet."

Vitamin A deficiency causes blindness in between 250,000 and 500,000 children each year, half of whom die within 12 months, according to the World Health Organization. A study by German researchers in 2014 estimated that activist opposition to the deployment of Golden Rice has resulted in the loss of 1.4 million life-years in just India alone. Since 2005, an estimated 14 million children worldwide have died of Vitamin A deficiency and an estimated 3.5 million to 7 million are permanently blind. bold added]

This is sickening, and while I have profound philosophical problems with Libertarianism, I must thank Reason for calling a spade a spade here. There is much more that could be said, but this is a good start.

-- CAV

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