Fantasy golden rice

October 2019

A major setback in the development of 'golden rice' intended to relieve vitamin A deficiency in people in developing areas has always been that the GM rice just doesn't produce enough of the desired 'pro-vitamin A' carotenoids. 

Despite some two decades of failing to develop a viable 'golden rice', the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and US Agency for International Development (USAID) continue to fund the project. 

Their latest trials involved golden rice event 'GR2E' grown in the Philippines. Analyses of this rice for carotenoids plus a lot of extrapolation, generalisation, guestimates, and calculation led to the conclusion (stated in the Abstract) that "Mean provitamin A concentrations in milled rice of GR2E can contribute up to 89-113% and 57-99% of estimated average requirement for vitamin A for preschool children in Bangladesh and the Philippines respectively". 

A well-known GM promoter ecstatically announced this to be "checkmate" for golden rice's critics, and tweeted the conclusion (more or less as stated in the Abstract). 

Golden rice fast becoming colourless

August 2019

A major focus for the biofortification of food now being warmly embraced by governments in developing countries is beta-carotene, or 'pro-vitamin A' [1].

Beta-carotene is a precursor of vitamin A, an essential micronutrient whose deficiency can seriously damage vision, the immune-system, and the embryo. The assumption that putting beta-carotene into rice, a staple food which doesn't naturally produce any vitamin A precursors, will benefit the health of the poor sounds good, until you look at the devil in the detail.

Let's think omnigenics

April 2019

You don't have to look too far to realise that the one, consistent, feature of all the products of GM technology is that they have failed to deliver on their promises.

In 1994, we were informed of an imminent series of world-changing GM crops destined to emerge in five-year leaps. Monsanto Vice President, Robert Fraley, listed 60 plant species which had already been genetically transformed. The first wave of GM crops would be pest-free, weed-free, and virus-proof by 2000. After this we would have GM improved foods on our tables by 2005, followed by pharmaceuticals from the fields by 2010, and finally GM-grown speciality chemicals.

The only limit to what was possible was the imagination of the genetic engineers, but the basis for this five-year leaping GM programme was never questioned, nor explained.

Now, over two decades later, how many of these leaps have actually been leapt?

Golden Rice: a new definition of precision

October 2018

Two years ago, a group of Nobel laureates published a letter in support of "Precision Agriculture (GMOs)", or more specifically, Golden Rice to combat vitamin A deficiency (VAD) in Africa and Asia.

This begs the question, what's so precise about GMOs, or more specifically Golden Rice?

Golden Rice: a curious sort of safety evaluation

October 2018

Project 'GM Golden Rice' was embarked on over 20 years ago to "reduce or eliminate much of the death and disease caused by vitamin A deficiency (VAD), which has the greatest impact on the poorest people in Africa and Southeast Asia".

Despite all these years of development, Golden Rice has still not been tested to see if it can alleviate VAD. Nowhere has it received the appropriate regulatory authorisation or institutional review board clearances, nor authorisation for unconfined environmental release. In short, GM vitamin A-enriched rice hasn't reached the starting line.

Curiously, however, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) now developing Golden Rice has asked the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Food Safety Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), and Health Canada for an opinion on the GM rice.

Since Golden Rice is clearly not intended for cultivation or consumption in any of these areas, why start by seek confirmation of its acceptability there?

Novel golden substances

October 2018

Forcing rice to produce GM carotene (vitamin A precursor), a substance with no role in the grains of the plant, has long posed safety questions.

The genes to generate carotene are put into 'Golden Rice' to create a bio-fortified staple food for areas in Africa and Asia where vitamin A deficiency ('VAD') is all too common.

Because of the unpredictable nature of GM plants, and because rice grains aren't adapted to manufacture or store carotene, and because vitamin A-related substances are highly biologically active (see Note), Golden Rice could contain novel harmful elements, especially to the young.

The curious case of the useless rice

April 2017

Much has been made of the philanthropic nature of GM 'golden' rice. The idea is that, as a public research project, locally-adapted varieties of the vitamin A enhanced rice will be made available free of charge to subsistence farmers in developing countries as part of a co-ordinated humanitarian effort. In this way, the yellow-coloured self-supplementing rice will be grown sustainably by those who need it most, and the widespread ill-health and blindness caused by vitamin A deficiency (VAD) will be consigned to history.

Yellow rice - not nice

October 2016

Golden rice. Photo Creative Commons

Here's an interesting bit of information from Ted Greiner, a former Professor of Nutrition, who worked in several countries to introduce "Ultra Rice", a conventional fortified rice-based product (see below).

In Greiner's experience,

"rice-consuming populations were extremely picky about their rice and unwilling to accept even the tiniest changes in its appearance, taste or smell".

There's a good reason for this.

The real golden rice story

August 2016

Photo Creative Commons

Like a bad penny, Golden Rice just keeps on turning up in the media [1].

GM zealots continue to blame environmentalists for the failure of the vitamin-A enhanced GM rice to reach the fields and for the loss of "hundreds of thousands of lives a year" due to vitamin-A deficiency (VAD).

GM carotene-enhanced bananas

March 2015

In August 2014, a touch of déjà vu led GM-free Scotland to comment that "the safety and efficacy questions (of golden GM bananas) are going to be by-passed in favour of ignoring scientific ethics and hyping the product, as it seems to be the case with golden rice" [1].

The excuse for copying a gene from one banana into another is that, apparently, "Residents of Uganda and nearby countries don't favour the type of sweet banana that naturally carries the extra beta-carotene. So researchers put the gene into a less-sweet type of banana that East Africans often use in cooking".

Like golden rice, golden bananas are designed to provide beta-carotene which the body converts to vitamin A. Like golden rice, the GM bananas are planned to target poor, malnourished populations. Like golden rice, the GM bananas have not been safety tested on animals, will not go through clinical trials, and are going to be fed to a small number of well-nourished healthy individuals (this time female American university students) to measure how much vitamin A is produced.

Unlike golden rice, the US researchers are trying to avoid the ethics scandal which broke over the surreptitious feeding of experimental GM rice to Chinese children.

Enslaved seeds

October 2014

Different varieties of rice seed. CC photo by IRRI photos on Flickr

There is a huge natural genetic diversity in all seeds, which has evolved over millions of years.Only this complex whole has the ability and the reserves to change in harmony with its ever-changing environment.
This is a resource we can't afford to waste, destroy, or compromise.
Without it, we will starve.

Realising our dependence on seed quality, and the profits that can attach to dependency, business has been grabbing control of seeds: wild seeds, commercial seeds, national and global seed markets, and the farmers who use them.

Laws have long been in place in the developed world to ensure that large-scale supplies of seed are of good quality.

However, this system hasn't worked to maintain diversity or farmer choice: it has promoted consolidation of the seed market, dependence on agri-chemicals, and high seed prices.

Golden rice going bananas

August 2014

Golden Rice. CC photo by IRRI photos on Flickr

Academics seem to be going bananas over the crimes against humanity perpetrated by all those green NGOs and individuals who keep voicing their concerns about GM food.

Last year, some eminent international scientists got together to write a letter to a top science magazine. Their aim was to broadcast the role of the green movement in delaying the development of 'golden rice'. They claim this wondrous, philanthropic rice has been genetically transformed to produce vitamin-A to save the poor in countries where many suffer from malnourishment.

This year, a group of academics at the University of California prepared a report for their university's bi-monthly publication. Their aim was to expose the presence of 'powerful forces that hide behind environmentalism' and which are blocking the development of golden rice.

The refrain has, of course, been eagerly picked up by others in the pro-GM lobby [1].

The Minister for GM hype

November 2013



CC photo by CIAT on Flickr

Conservative MP, Zac Goldsmith, has dubbed Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, the UK's “Minister for GM Hype”. 

Goldsmith describes Paterson's recent well-broadcast comments on the 'wicked' campaigners who voiced concerns about GM 'golden rice' [1] as “staggering”, and his suggestion that anyone has died because of their actions as “grotesque”.  Indeed, Goldsmith backs up his remarks with a concise summary of all the main issues surrounding the vitamin A producing rice, and concludes that

 

“Without the success story, GM relies on hype”. 

The Golden Rice blame game

November 2013

Golden Rice. CC photo by IRRI Photos on Flickr

The recent report calling on governments to 'Wake-up Before It Is Too Late' [1] must have been the last thing our pro-GM Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, wanted to hear.

Paterson has been staging a campaign to steer UK agri-research down a GM route for the past year [2]. This latest, very major and authoritative, UN report didn't single out GM but condemned all such technical quick-fixes, coming down firmly in favour of small-scale, local food and wealth creation as the only real answer to world hunger.

In what has all the hallmarks of a damage-limitation exercise, Paterson seems to have revived the oldest GM trick in the book: golden rice. A well-timed open letter from “eminent international scientists” appeared in a top science magazine blaming fear-mongering for a supposed delay in rolling out golden rice. Orchestrated or not, the letter set the scene for Paterson to be 'interviewed' on the subject by a top national newspaper. The result was disproportionately wide publicity for comments on GM we've all heard before (see[3]).

A strange tale of Golden Rice

January 2013

Golden rice. Photo by IRRI Images on Flickr

In 2012, a paper was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition which concluded that GM Golden Rice is as effective as supplements in providing vitamin A to children, and more effective than spinach.

The study was a collaboration between the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Zhejiang Academy of Medical Sciences. It involved a feeding trial carried out on Chinese children aged 6 to 8 years old.

Approval for the study was given by the US National Institute of Health (NIH) in 2002, but only came to the attention of Greenpeace six years later. In response to complaints by Greenpeace at the time, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture asserted that the GM rice had not been imported, and that the trial had been stopped.

The dark side of golden rice

July 2012

Golden rice and white rice. Photo By International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) [CC-BY-2.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Every so often, a little bit of new science shines a spotlight on the danger of trying a simplistic, GM quick-fix to address a complex problem.

Golden rice first hit the headline decades go. The carrot-tinted rice is genetically transformed to generate beta-carotene, which our bodies convert to vitamin A. It's aimed at supplementing the diet of vitamin-A deficient populations in developing countries whose staple diet is rice and little else.

Vitamin-A is critical to human vision, bone and skin health, metabolism and immune function. It's involved in the direct activation of several hundred genes. In the mammalian embryo (including human), this global effect on genes renders the vitamin essential for development, growth and tissue differentiation. Chronic deficiency of vitamin-A can be catastrophic.

But, the golden rice has still not made it out there. And, perhaps this is just as well, because beta-carotene has, it seems, a dark side.

Roundup causes birth defects

October 2010

Reports from South America of congenital malformations in babies of women exposed during pregnancy to the herbicides sprayed on nearby fields, have at last received the serious attention they deserve.

The main herbicide in question is 'glyphosate', the active ingredient of 'Roundup' which most GM crops, especially soya, have been engineered to withstand.

Golden distraction

In 2009, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) predicted that the first approval for a commercial release of GM 'Golden Rice' would be in the Philippines, possibly as early as 2012.

This is the final proof that Golden Rice is, and has always been, nothing more than a PR exercise to brand GM as a saviour of the Third World, and make it a Trojan Horse to get GM into the global food chain. If this conclusion seems far-fetched, have a look at the history.

Back in the days when the biotech industry was first planning to flood the world with GM food and already realised there would be opposition, its PR gurus advised it that, to engineer acceptance, it must “create positive perceptions”. Good advice, because positive perceptions distract attention from the safety issues.

Conveniently, an idea first floated in 1984 seemed to be coming to fruition 15 years later, just in time to assume the necessary positive role. The concept was a crop designed to help more than a million children who suffer blindness or death each year due to vitamin A deficiency (VAD). And so, with much fanfare, Golden Rice, genetically transformed to generate carotenoid precursors of vitamin A, was presented to the public in 2000.

To help things along, the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board was set up to provide “strategic guidance” to the project and “up-to-date and accurate information on the science, product development, and progress in regulatory approval of Golden Rice to all interested audiences”. The Board takes the position that the crop could “substantially complement (existing efforts to tackle the problem) in the future and make them more sustainable, especially in remote rural areas”. The magic rice has been supported by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the EU Biotechnology Programme, and the wealthy Rockefeller and bill & Melinda Gates Foundations.

However, ten years on, despite the philanthropic incentives plus many years of scientific and PR endeavour, not to mention some $100 million of public money, the Golden Rice 'saviour' hasn't become a reality.

According to Golden Rice's developers and backers, the reasons for this have been the “degenerately immoral” “bunch of cranks” whose “exaggerated criticism” and “fear-mongering” have led to a burdensome and unrealistic regulatory climate. (Dr. Adrian Dubock)

Is this true, or is it crude name-calling to deflect attention away from awkward questions about the safety of the rice?

A review of the science, or more accurately the curious absence of science, in the published literature over the decade during which Golden rice has been under development might offer a clue to the answer.

The initial 'successful' genetic transformation resulted in a rice plant which generated beta-carotene (pro-vitamin A), but not by the metabolic route anticipated. The scientists seem to have shrugged and decided that the rice would do just fine even if they weren't sure why.

The first field trials found beta-carotene production was inexplicably 3-5 times higher than under laboratory conditions (another shrug).

Foodwatch Germany describes how a sample of this first generation Golden Rice was sent to a specialist laboratory for mouse feeding studies. The tests apparently never took place because the researchers discovered the rice contained less than 1% of the expected level of carotenoids.

Greenpeace's early challenge that Golden Rice didn't produce enough pro-vitamin A to benefit its consumers (an average 2-year-old would have to eat 3 kilos of the rice a day to reach the recommended intake) revealed a number of holes in the project. For example, the Humanitarian Board countered by shifting its position from a claim that Golden Rice is needed because “smallholders grow their own rice and little else”, to a claim that it was unrealistic of Greenpeace to assume children had to get all their vitamin A from rice. The rice's creators also illogically suggested that only half the recommended intake needed to prevent malnutrition may prevent malnutrition.

The problem of insufficient generation of carotenoids isn't the only fly in the GM ointment. Beta-carotene is a large molecule with a wide potential for breaking down to derivative substances, especially in the presence of sunlight and enzymes active in the rice grain; in short, it inevitably degenerates during storage. However last April, 2008, US researchers announced some good news for the Golden Rice project. Their “soon-to-be-published” studies of human volunteers indicated that the previously assumed 12 molecules of beta-carotene needed to create a single molecule of vitamin A was wrong. The conversion ratio was only 3 or 4 beta-carotenes per vitamin A. Either our previous knowledge of carotene metabolism was wanting, or possibly the US study was wishful thinking, because 14 months later it still has not been published.

If you've been counting, that's six demonstrations that our knowledge of the real-life biochemical pathways involving in beta-carotene and vitamin A is defective in important areas.

Unwilling to let go of the baby which wasn't as golden as hoped, Syngenta took over development of the rice. The DNA was re-engineered with new versions of the genes, and so Golden Rice Mark II, with 23 times the carotenoid levels of Mark I, was created.

Syngenta also took steps to 'create positive perceptions' and by-pass the influences of the degenerately-immoral cranks (and regulators?) of the developed world by 'donating' its new GM rice to research institutions across China, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Vietnam (all places where rice is a staple, and sometimes the only, food, and where GM regulatory control is weak). The Company also worked out a deal so that farmers in developing countries earning less than $10,000 a year could get it free.

So far, so good. But as Golden Rice was being pushed altruistically towards Third World fields, what happened to the the tests for safety?

Field trials asked for by the Chinese regulators were stalled because the Rockefeller Foundation viewed them as “a foolish use of our funds”.

The Golden Rice Humanitarian Board claims that repeatedly breeding a GM plant with a local strain of rice will result in a crop “with the only difference that it is now capable of producing and accumulating beta-carotene (pro-vitamin A).” This is an unproven assumption. It's also scientifically unlikely that an artificial active gene producing a biologically active substance will fail to alter other aspects of whatever plant genome or physiology it is in.

Evidence for safety presented by the Humanitarian Board focuses on beta-carotene only, and moreover on beta-carotene from plant sources other than Golden Rice. This is disingenuous, because beta-carotene belongs to a family of some 600 related substances, at least 60 of which can be precursors to 'retinoids'. Only three retinoids have been closely studied, but all of such substances are likely to cause birth defects. Moreover, some carotenoid derivatives are known to be cumulative in blood and in fat. It's not fanciful to see the danger that unpredictable novel derivatives could emerge from a plant forced to over-produce a novel beta-carotene in grain where the substance isn't naturally present. Such questions are clearly very serious, not only because rice is so often the only food for the poor in developing countries, but because rice out-crosses very readily with weedy relatives. This means that if, or when, a toxic consequences emerges in Golden Rice, it will continue forever within a weedy reservoir in all the developing countries being targeted by the biotech industry.

In March 2009, the Golden Rice Project stated that the rice had gone through “many tests” , specifying nine. There are no animal feeding studies mentioned, but two items are relevant:

• “8. Tests for beta-carotene bioavailability and bioconversion to retinol ... with deuterium-labelled Golden Rice fed to adults in USA and a small group of children in China have been conducted. The former were highly successful and the latter are being evaluated at present.”
• “9. Feeding trials with human adults in China were carried out to measure the effect of fate in the diet, on bioconversion and bioavailability.”

Note. The other seven tests listed by the Golden Rice Project relate to:  

• a biochemical explanation of the golden colour of the rice grains
• the fact that 10 out of 2000 GM events were selected for further development
• gene expression profiling
• allergenic potential
• artificial digestibility
• the smallness of the quantity of carbon used by the plant for GM purposes
• and taste trials.

None of these are tests for safety.

Press reports indicate that the Chinese trials which “have been conducted” on children were, in fact, abandoned when Greenpeace alerted the Chinese authorities of the GM nature of the rice being trialled. The US Clinical Trials website indicates that trials have been run there since 2004, but no data from these “highly successful” studies have been published.

More seriously, these clinical trials seem to be well and truly jumping the safety gun: there have been no data published for levels of GM pro-vitamin A, nor for animal feeding studies, nor for carotenoid-degradation in the rice during storage and cooking, nor for uniformity and stability of the crops, nor for any environmental studies. Add to this that second generation Golden Rice appears not to be one specific GM trait, but a collection of experimental transgenic events without basic molecular characterisation nor data on their biological properties. Regarding the 'tests' described above, there is no indication which of these various GM events (each with its own carotenoid production) was actually given to the human guinea-pigs (including children). If the Golden Rice is to be commercialised in the Philippines by 2012, not even a fraction of the safety-testing needed has been scheduled.

The biotech industry attitude to safety is that as “Golden Rice contains the food colours found everywhere in coloured natural foods and the environment .... There is no possible way the trials (on humans) could do any harm to the participants.” Given the scope for novel retinoids described above, and the danger these could present to future generations, such claims might appear more “degenerately immoral” than those of the “cranks” who keep sounding warnings.

Information for the public from the Humanitarian Board, which pledges to apply the highest safety standards, is that “Golden Rice will be cooked just like any other rice, from using plain water to highly refined sauces and spices, and it will always taste good.” To back this up it gives yummy (and completely irrelevant) recipes for Paella a la Valencia, Jambalaya, Thai Fried Rice and Pilaf Rice with Whole Spices, all of which we can make with yummy Golden Rice. The safety, or even the presence of artificial pro-vitamin A, just doesn't figure. Another distraction or what?

To go back to the Philippine GM effort described above as the 'proof' that Golden Rice is pure PR.

The Philippine project is based on the first generation of Golden Rice, the version discarded because it has too little pro-vitamin A to be any help to those with deficiencies. This begs the question why are the Philippine crop developers using it at all? In fact, the Humanitarian Board has dismissed criticism of its first Golden Rice by writing it off as nothing more than an initial 'proof of concept', suggesting the Philippine project is at a very early stage indeed, and should be many more than three years away from being a golden reality. On the other hand, perhaps the scientists know more about Golden Rice than they're telling: if there's very little of the novel substance present, there's less likelihood of toxic consequences and using the 'proof of concept' instead of the real thing might be a safer option. It's worth noting that the other (truly) useful qualities the Philippine Golden Rice will have, such as disease resistance and yield, are being incorporated by conventional breeding. We are left with a GM crop which will have qualities very acceptable to the farmers growing it and will have the added PR value of pretending to supply vitamin A.

COMMENT

Two other fundamental questions have not been broached above. 

One is the efficacy of adding a single nutrient to a staple food. The problem arises because all nutrients interact during digestion, absorption, transport around the body, and utilisation and storage within the cells. When nutrient levels are low, these interactions can become more important, with one nutrient enhancing the use of another. In other words, for health, people need a fresh and varied diet containing a wide range of trace nutrients. What are the chances that efforts to provide more important resources for sustainable cultivation of nutrient-rich vegetables will be side-lined by Golden Rice?

Second, the Humanitarian Board tactfully describe their rice as a “complement” to existing initiatives to combat VAD. However, what are the chances the existing distribution of supplements will be side-lined by Golden Rice?

Ask your immorally-degenerate conscience very seriously: should you be promoting the highly successful status quo which distributes vitamin A supplements to specific needy children and works to provide the resources for self-sufficiency in nutrient-rich plants? Or, should you promote the abandonment of current endeavours in favour of mass-medication using a thoroughly untested, secrecy-enshrouded GM crop which might not contain enough carotenoids once it reaches them to save their children, and might at the same time produce an entire generation crippled with birth-defects?

SOURCES

Melody M. Aguiba, Fortified with vitamin A: RP may be first to okay 'golden' rice, Manila Bulletin, 15.02.09, http://www.bic.searca.org/

Leaked document on Communications Programmes for Europabio, January 1997, Reclaim The Streets

Ye et al, Engineering the Provitamin A (β-carotene) Biosynthetic Pathway into (Caroneoid-Free) Rice Endosperm, Science 287:5451 14.01.00

The Golden Rice Humanitarian Board, http://www.goldenrice.org/ April 2009

Christopher Then, The campaign for genetically modified rice is at the crossroads: A critical look at Golden Rice after nearly 10 years of development, www.scouting-biotechnology.net, http://www.foodwatch.de/ January 2009

Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof. Joe Cummins, The Golden Rice Scandal Unfolds, Science in Society, Issue 42, Summer 2009 and Press Release 18.03.09

Dr Mae-Wan Ho, Golden Rice and Hazards of GMOs, Lecture, 5th European Conference on 0GMO-Free Regions, Lucerne, 27.04.09

Adrian Dubock, Eco Soundings: Golden Rice bord dubs Gm-0free campaigners 'cranks', Humanitarian Board reply to GM-free Cymru, http://www.guardian.co.uk/ Guardian Environment Blog, April 2009

A critical look at Golden Rice, Food Watch Germany, 07.01.09

Naomie Bisserbe, A new genetically modified rice strain is breeding controversy, http://www.businessworld.in/ 22.08.08

Sean Poulter, British scientists condemn using children in GM food trials as unacceptable, Daily Mail 17.02.09

Vitamin A Equivalence of Plant Carotenoids in Children, trial proposal by Tufts University, http://clinicaltrials.gov/ February 2009

Martin Enserink, Tough Lessons From Golden Rice, Science 320:5875 25.04.08

Graham and Welch, Micronutrient interactions in Humans: Setting goals for plant breeders and agronomists, in Plant nutrition 2001

Holum, Organic and Biological Chemistry, John Wiley and Sons, 1969.