Can someone explain to me how gmo companies can make fraudulent claims that eating golden rice will cure blindness in many developing countries and not be attacked or shut down by the fda?

Expert response from Michiel van Lookeren Campagne

Former Head of Biology Research, Syngenta

Friday, 08/05/2015 13:53

As the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) explains, “Worldwide, 125 million children — particularly those in developing countries — suffer from vitamin A deficiency (VAD), causing blindness (up to 500,000 per year according to the World Health Organization) and death. An additional one million people die annually due to vitamin A deficiency and malnutrition. In many of these same countries, rice is the food staple and may provide 80% or more of daily calories. Polished, white rice — the most consumed form of rice — contains no beta-carotene or other forms of provitamin A, and is also a very poor source of other micronutrients (e.g. iron and zinc). Therefore, the latest varieties of Golden Rice are expected to be a new tool — in addition to existing strategies — in helping to overcome VAD among the poor.”

Golden Rice does not cure blindness, but it can help prevent vitamin A deficiency which can cause blindness and death. You can read more about Golden Rice on Syngenta’s website, and below is an excerpt:

“Golden Rice was invented by Professor I. Potrykus, previously of the Institute for Plant Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, and by Dr P. Beyer of the University of Freiburg, Germany. It is a gift to resource poor farmers and consumers in developing countries by these inventors.

"Syngenta, the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) and both of Syngenta's legacy companies (Novartis and Zeneca) provided financial support and other resources to the inventors to support the development of Golden Rice for a period of time.

"IRRI is now the lead developer of Golden Rice and is directly involved in breeding, capacity building, and safety research. IRRI has been working together, and continues to do so, with leading agriculture and nutrition research organizations such as the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), and Helen Keller International (HKI) to evaluate Golden Rice as a potential new way to reduce vitamin A deficiency. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the US Agency for International Development, and national governments are the current donors for the project.

"Beta-carotene (pro-vitamin A) is the orange pigment occurring in carrots and other highly colored vegetables that is converted in our bodies to vitamin A. Vitamin A deficiency is most prevalent in diets that are primarily cereal-based with little consumption of meat or fruit or vegetables.

"The target is to provide nutritionally-enhanced rice that can reduce the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency, and thereby the mortality and occurrence of blindness in women and children in Asia due to this deficiency.”

Please also feel free to view the following resources:

• http://www.goldenrice.org/

• http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2012/07/31/ajcn.111.030775.abstract
  • August 2012. Researchers from USDA (Boston and Houston), Chinese institutions in Hunan, Beijing, and Hangzhou, and NIH (Bethesda), have determined that the β-carotene in Golden Rice is as effective as pure β-carotene in oil and better than that in spinach at providing vitamin A to children. A bowl of ∼100 to 150 g cooked Golden Rice (50 g dry weight) can provide ∼60% of the Chinese Recommended Nutrient Intake of vitamin A for 6-8-year-old children. The paper, with data based on a registered clinical trial, has been published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
• http://www.goldenrice.org/PDFs/GR_effective_vitA_source-Tang-AJCN2009.pdf
  • Golden Rice has got what it takes
    Back in 2009, researchers were able to demonstrate that Golden Rice was an effective source of vitamin A. This investigation was done with a group of healthy adult volunteers in the USA. The study showed that the β-carotene contained in Golden Rice was highly available and easily taken up into the bloodstream by the human digestive system. While foodstuffs of plant origin are the major contributors of β-carotene in the diet, these are often absent from the diet, for customary and economic reasons. And moreover, conversion of the provitamin A carotenoids contained in them is generally inefficient. Conversion factors for provitamin A carotenoids from various fruits is in the range of 13:1 for sweet potato, 15:1 for carrots, and between 10:1 and 28:1 for green leafy vegetables. With a conversion factor of 4:1 Golden Rice displays a comparatively very favourable conversion ratio. This study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2009.