The Golden Lie of Golden Rice

Preventing Vitamin A deficiency and blindness in Third World circumstances has become a compassionate hook for dependence on transnational corporate domination of agriculture. Yet “golden rice” after 24 years is just an unproven concept without field trials, in reality a Trojan horse for public acceptance of future GMO (genetically modified organisms) penetration of agricultural markets.

For more than a decade, advocates for GMO (genetically modified organisms) foods have proclaimed “golden rice” as a success demonstrating the potential of such engineering products to relieve world hunger. A recent article reviews the numerous lies and attacks on opponents that defenders of “golden rice” depend on: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/09/false-promises-smears-and-golden-rice-is-this-the-solution-for-disease-poverty-and-malnutrition/.

The author, Colin Todhunter, is not a scientist, rather an informed observer; he reports that Vitamin A deficiency has been successfully addressed by non-GMO means in the Philippines, and cites several professional reviews.

He arrives at this conclusion: “Researchers continue to have problems developing beta carotene-enriched strains that yield as well as non-GMO strains already being grown by farmers [and] that it is still unknown if the beta carotene in Golden Rice can even be converted to vitamin A in the bodies of badly undernourished children.”