Opposition
Critics of genetically engineered crops have raised various concerns. One of these is that golden rice originally did not have sufficient vitamin A. This problem was solved by the development of new strains of rice. However, there are still doubts about the speed at which vitamin A degrades once the plant is harvested, and how much would remain after cooking. A 2009 study of boiled golden rice fed to volunteers concluded that golden rice is effectively converted into vitamin A in humans and a 2012 study of golden rice that fed 68 children ages 6 to 8, and concluded that the golden rice was as good as vitamin A supplements and better than the natural beta-carotene in spinach.
Greenpeace opposes the release of any genetically modified organisms into the environment, and is concerned that golden rice is a Pandora's Box that will open the door to more widespread use of GMOs.
Vandana Shiva, an Indian anti-GMO activist, argued the problem was not that the crop had any particular deficiencies, but that there were potential problems with poverty and loss of biodiversity in food crops. These problems are aggravated by the corporate control of agriculture based on genetically modified foods. By focusing on a narrow problem (vitamin A deficiency), Shiva argued, the golden rice proponents were obscuring the larger issue of a lack of broad availability of diverse and nutritionally adequate sources of food. Other groups have argued a varied diet containing foods rich in beta carotene such as sweet potato, leafy green vegetables and fruit would provide children with sufficient vitamin A. However Professor West (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) has argued that foodstuffs containing Vitamin A are either unavailable, or only available at certain seasons, or that they are too expensive for most poor families in underdeveloped countries.
Because of lacking real-world studies and uncertainty about how many people will use golden rice, WHO malnutrition expert Francesco Branca concludes "giving out supplements, fortifying existing foods with vitamin A, and teaching people to grow carrots or certain leafy vegetables are, for now, more promising ways to fight the problem".
Read more about this topic: Golden Rice
Famous quotes containing the word opposition:
“Except for poverty, incompatibility, opposition of parents, absence of love on one side and of desire to marry on both, nothing stands in the way of our happy union.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)
“When feminism does not explicitly oppose racism, and when antiracism does not incorporate opposition to patriarchy, race and gender politics often end up being antagonistic to each other and both interests lose.”
—Kimberly Crenshaw (b. 1959)
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)