The laureates, including DNA co-discoverer James Watson, singled out Golden Rice as a genetically modified crop with huge potential to improve health and save lives in the developing world.
About a third of living Nobel laureates — 108 at last count — have
signed an open letter on Thursday which attacks Greenpeace for
campaigning against genetically modified crops, especially one called
Golden Rice.
Addressed to the global environmental group, the United Nations and
governments, the letter says Greenpeace has “misrepresented the risks,
benefits and impacts” of genetically altered food plants.
“There has never been a single confirmed case of a negative health
outcome for humans or animals from their consumption,” wrote the top
scientists.
The group included 41 Nobel medicine laureates among them James Watson,
honoured in 1962 for co-discovering the basic structure of DNA.
The letter called on Greenpeace to “cease and desist” in its efforts to
block GM crops, and on governments to embrace “seeds improved through
biotechnology.
“Opposition based on emotion and dogma contradicted by data must be stopped.”
The Nobel winners singled out Golden Rice as a genetically modified crop
with huge potential to improve health and save lives in the developing
world.
A patented strain developed in the 1990s, Golden Rice contains an
artificially inserted gene which boosts the level of vitamin A-rich
beta-carotene.
Read: The story of golden rice
The World Health Organisation estimates that a quarter of a billion
people in developing nations suffer from vitamin A deficiency, causing
up to two million preventable deaths per year and half-a-million cases
of childhood blindness.
Golden Rice’s developers say a single serving provides about 60 percent
of daily vitamin A requirements. It is currently distributed
royalty-free to indigent farmers on a humanitarian basis.
Greenpeace however hit back at the Nobel laureates.
“Accusations that anyone is blocking genetically engineered ‘Golden’
rice are false,” Wilhelmina Pelegrina of Greenpeace Southeast Asia wrote
in a statement.
Corporations are using the strain “to pave the way for global approval
of other more profitable genetically engineered crops”, she said.
Greenpeace’s longstanding position is to oppose all patents on plants or
animals, or their genes, and that “life is not an industrial
commodity”.
Previously, the environmental NGO has said Golden Rice was
“environmentally irresponsible, poses risks to human health, and could
compromise food, nutrition and financial security”.
The NGO also maintains that genetically modified organisms should be
held back “since there is not an adequate scientific understanding of
their impact on the environment and human health”.
Source : The Hindu
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