Greenpeace activists board the oiltanker Crude Dio in the Bosphorus Straight entrance, into the Black Sea, as part of their campaign against climate change
Open field trials of genetically engineered (GE) rice containing
human genes are being carried out in the heart of the California's
traditional rice growing region, according to Greenpeace. The
experiment is being carried out to produce pharmaceuticals.
Activists from the international environmental group marked out the
field with giant syringes to highlight the risk of growing
drug-producing GE crops outdoors. No special effort to protect the
environment and the food chain had been made.
The nature of all of the compounds produced by these GE rice
plants in Sutter County has been kept secret from the public but
Greenpeace has identified two of the proteins produced in them as
human lactoferrin and human lysozyme, commonly found in human
breast milk, bile and tears.
"There is just no excuse to allow drug producing crops to be
grown out in the fields where they can contaminate the environment
and food chain by spreading their genes to wild relative and to
conventional crops growing near by. These pharmaceuticals can be
produced in other ways. This rice and all the other GE pharm crops
out there should be banned and permits for future open field trials
must be revoked," said Kimberly Wilson, Genetic Engineering
Campaigner for Greenpeace USA.
According to the information submitted by the company Applied
Phytologics Incorporated (API) to the US Department of Agriculture
(USDA), eight of the nine compounds produced in its field trial
come from humans, in other words from rice engineered with human
genes. The USDA imposes virtually no safety requirements specific
to pharmaceutical crops. Despite Greenpeace's demand both the
company and the California Department of Food and Agriculture
failed to act upon the risk.
While the industry is already conducting open-air trials (1) of
pharmaceutical rice, wheat, corn and barley, few regulations to
protect public health and the environment are in place. The
conventional rice at risk of GE contamination in California is
exported mainly to Japan and Turkey. According to information
available to Greenpeace, field trials with drug producing GE crops
have been also taken place at least in Canada and France. Twenty
companies world-wide are known to produce pharmaceutical through GE
crops.
The incident also cast further doubt on US export markets. Only
last year a genetically engineered variety of corn not approved for
human consumption, StarLink, contaminated over 300 supermarket
products, resulting in mass food recalls both in the US and in its
trading partners.
Notes: (1) Field trials of crop plants producing pharmaceuticals, industrial enzymes, and other non-food proteins, conducted from 1992 through the present. Source: United States Department of Agriculture. Field test releases in the United States. http://www.nbiap.vt.edu/cfdocs/fieldtests1.cfm