By opposing Golden Rice, Greenpeace defies its own values – and harms children

[roseBudd]

35. Just admit you don't give a shit about the morbidity and mortality due to VAD

http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech-info/topics/goldenrice/dasmag.html

One of the most vigorous critics of genetic engineering critics is Ingo Potrykus, plant biologist and professor emeritus of the ETH, who has developed the so-called vitamin A rice in a greenhouse outside Zurich that would resist a hand grenade attack. This genetically engineered crop is to solve one of the biggest nutrition problems in developing countries, namely iron and vitamin A deficiency which causes every year the death of one to two million children and blindness in hundreds of thousands of cases. Together with his partner Peter Beyer (University of Freiburg), Potrykus engineered a rice crop with substances that the body synthesises to vitamin A. Experts believe the 'Golden Rice' to be a wonder cure able to fight more diseases and sufferings than any other drug in the history of mankind, so Charles Arntzen of Cornell University. For this reason Potrykus developed the new rice applying strictly non-commercial criteria for free use by small farmers in Third World countries. The scientist's relations with industry are limited to agreements granting companies, in exchange for the free release of the Golden Rice in developing countries, the commercial rights of use in the industrial world (there is very little in it for Potrykus). It took over two years to fully settle the patent rights but in mid-January the rice was handed over to the public as a gift in a symbolic ceremony in Manila. Currently over 20 research institutes worldwide are testing how to cross the rice with local varieties. Regardless of the potentially beneficial effects of the Golden Rice genetic engineering opponents are preparing to make a stand against it, headed by the 'protest multi' Greenpeace. With no proof whatsoever being supplied, it is claimed that the rice is either worthless, harmful or superfluous, demanding the global food problem to be solved by a redistribution of all foodstuffs available.

Obviously there cannot be what must not be - which is that companies and scientists for once make a more sustainable contribution to development in the Third World than the protest lobby which sits on its high horse of morality and criticises and judges while now as in the past millions of children die from vitamin A deficiency.

Potrykus received hate mail and was threatened in case the rice would be released. He implied to the 'New York Times' that he was sometimes worried about his safety. In a long essay published in the 'Frankfurter Allgemeine', the former ETH professor criticised the 'hidden motives' of his opponents who spread the absurd rumour that this genetically engineered rice causes hair loss and impotence: 'These critics do anything to prevent the distribution of the Golden Rice to farmers striving for self-sufficiency. Such a thing might be acceptable in rich countries where people can have a carefree life also without genetic engineering. But it is intolerable in countries where it is a matter of life or death (...)' In the United States Potrykus, who appears in public with a modesty close to shyness, is feted as a visionary and the great hope of an unjustly maligned technology. The 'Time Magazine' put him on the cover of its US edition but did not do so in Europe for fear of the militant opposition genetic engineering encounters in our latitudes. The 'New Yorker', the 'New York Times' and the 'Financial Times' praised Potrykus's rice as an invention that points the way to the future. Meanwhile also US TV stations have contacted the German scientist who has received numerous offers to continue his career at an elite university stateside. In Zurich the plant biologist's merits, who himself suffered from malnutrition in Germany after the war, are underrated with a restraint that is typical of the city of Zwingli. Since his retirement Potrykus has no longer his own office at the ETH. At least he was allowed to keep the front door key, and his successor enables him to continue his work at a small scale for some time....

One of the main arguments of genetic engineering opponents targets patenting. They say that with patents biotech companies use 'life' belonging to all humans to enrich themselves in an arrogant manner.

- I am not happy with the patenting situation either, but there is no point in dreaming of a patent-free utopia. And it is barely understandable why no patents should be granted in biotechnology when all other forms of intellectual property are patentable. If we want to fight hunger effectively we must face reality and strive for - and not against - a fair use of patents. It is a fact that we were only able to develop our rice just because there are patents. Many of the technologies we resorted to were only publicly accessible because inventors had their rights protected by patents and without this form of protection a large number of the technologies we used would have been kept secret. Therefore we should focus on the question how to apply the knowledge we have to the benefit of the poor.