The Genetic Modification of Rice

[phasma]

Some supermarkets here in the UK refuse to sell anything GMO - or with GMO in it.

"Iceland" is one of them.

For the stuff you get in supermarkets choose with your feet. It all comes down to money . . .

[lee51]

The first GM food crop containing human genes is set to be approved for commercial production.

Tuesday, January25, 2011 by narmer

The first GM food crop containing human genes is set to be approved for commercial production.

The laboratory-created rice produces some of the human proteins found in breast milk and saliva. Its U.S. developers say they could be used to treat children with diarrhoea, a major killer in the Third World.

The rice is a major step in so-called Frankenstein Foods, the first mingling of human-origin genes and those from plants. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture has already signalled it plans to allow commercial cultivation.
 
The rice’s producers, California-based Ventria Bioscience, have been given preliminary approval to grow it on more than 3,000 acres in Kansas. The company plans to harvest the proteins and use them in drinks, desserts, yoghurts and muesli bars.

The news provoked horror among GM critics and consumer groups on both sides of the Atlantic. GeneWatch UK, which monitors new GM foods, described it as "very disturbing". Researcher Becky Price warned: "There are huge, huge health risks and people should rightly be concerned about this."

Friends of the Earth campaigner Clare Oxborrow said: "Using food crops and fields as glorified drug factories is a very worrying development.

"If these pharmaceutical crops end up on consumers’ plates, the consequences for our health could be devastating.

"The biotech industry has already failed to prevent experimental GM rice contaminating the food chain.
"The Government must urge the U.S. to ban the production of drugs in food crops. It must also introduce tough measures to prevent illegal GM crops contaminating our food and ensure that biotech companies are liable for any damage their products cause."

In the U.S., the Union of Concerned Scientists, a policy advocacy group, warned: "It is unwise to produce drugs in plants outdoors.

"There would be little control over the doses people might get exposed to, and some might be allergic to the proteins."

The American Consumers Union and the Washingtonbased Centre for Food Safety also oppose Ventria’s plans.

As well as the contamination fears there are serious ethical concerns about such a fundamental interference with the building blocks of life.

Yet there is no legal means for Britain and Europe to ban such products on ethical grounds.

More here....
http://narmer.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/the-first-gm-food-crop-containing-human-genes-is-set-to-be-approved-for-commercial-production/

My comment:  Get ready to buy your own non-hybrid seeds and grow your own garden.

[larsonstdoc]

  How wonderful--human genes in rice.

[dre4dwolf]

Im about to throw up, thats disgusting.... its like cloning someone and eating them.

[Valerius]

Cheer up. Green on Tuesday.

[TheCaliKid]

One step closer to Soylent Green...

[freedom_commonsense]

Soylent Green is people!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sp-VFBbjpE

[Freeski]

God help us all.

[TheCaliKid]

The article is from 2007.....almost 4 years ago....but still...

[donnay]

This may be old news, but I am glad some people are re-posting it!

http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=173777.0

[Monkeypox]

That's just creepy - and dangerous.

We really have NO IDEA what the long-term effects of all this mixing and matching of genes will be.  For all we know a deadly virus might be created.

[TheCaliKid]

Whud up Pox?

I saw you on a CNN comments section a few months back and nearly fell out of my chair. What are the chances, eh?

[Monkeypox]

Whud up Pox?

I saw you on a CNN comments section a few months back and nearly fell out of my chair. What are the chances, eh?

Yeah, I'm there once in a while.

I haunt the Yahoo!  comments section - but under another name.  Same Avatar though.   

[TheCaliKid]

Yeah, I'm there once in a while.

I haunt the Yahoo!  comments section - but under another name.  Same Avatar though.   

It was crazy because it on the part at the bottom of the page where just the first few comments show up, and there you were!

But you had the old avatar.

[Monkeypox]

It was crazy because it on the part at the bottom of the page where just the first few comments show up, and there you were!

But you had the old avatar.

Yeah CNN has the old avatar.  I don't go on CNN comments too much.

[TahoeBlue]

The rice’s producers, California-based Ventria Bioscience, have been given preliminary approval to grow it on more than 3,000 acres in Kansas

I know this experimentaion (with rice) is not allowed in California.  ( California Rice growers Assoc. )

So it's interesting they shopped around the country to get approval in Kansas.

http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-3-13/52763.html
California Growers Wary of Genetically Modified Rice
By Matt Gnaizda
Epoch Times Los Angeles Staff Mar 13, 2007

A group of 200 California rice farmers are concerned that genetically modified rice could contaminate their crops. The concern is not for human health, but rather for business.

http://westernfarmpress.com/california-rice-seed-tests-clean-gm-traits-0
A comprehensive test of California's rice seed for the 2007 crop year yielded no detection of genetically modified (GM) traits associated with the Liberty Link gene that appeared in southern-grown U.S. rice in August 2006.

http://www.calrice.org/Industry+Info/Rice+Certification+Committee/California+Rice+Certification+Act.htm

[Satyagraha]

Good site; referenced in a post above... FYI:

Welcome to GeneWatch UK
http://www.genewatch.org/

GeneWatch UK is a not-for-profit group that monitors developments in genetic technologies from a public interest, human rights, environmental protection and animal welfare perspective. GeneWatch believes people should have a voice in whether or how these technologies are used and campaigns for safeguards for people, animals and the environment. We work on all aspects of genetic technologies - from GM crops and foods to genetic testing of humans.

[stymo1]

I am just as as shocked by why do we even screw with this stuff? I mean I am for advances in tech, but this is off the scales wrong.

[donnay]

I am just as as shocked by why do we even screw with this stuff? I mean I am for advances in tech, but this is off the scales wrong.

Sure it's wrong but do you think the people behind this evilness, care if you consume this genetically modified rice?  --short answer: NO!

Beside they are probably using us as guinea pigs to see how quick this kills major organs, or causes some sort of debilitating diseases.  

The advances of medical technology have never been for us--it has always been for globalists, and we have been used as guinea pigs all along the way.

[shipgeek]

They should serve the human gene rice to the Obamas for dinner!

[stymo1]

I am talking about the huge amount of hubris displayed by even the thought of mixing animal with plant, or mineral or whatever. Why do they need to mess with that?

[TahoeBlue]

Do the people in Kansas Know WTF is going on here?

http://www.kansasbioauthority.org/projects_funded/Detail.aspx?id=16
February 17, 2009

Ventria Bioscience, Junction City
Another Kansas expansion success story is Junction City-based Ventria Bioscience, which is expanding its operations and commercial production capacity in the state. With KBA assistance, the project is expected to enable Ventria to add 19 full-time and 7 part-time jobs initially in Junction City, and ultimately many more thereafter.


Ventria’s mission is to provide affordable human health and therapeutics products on a global scale. The company’s core technology: a rice-based protein production system called ExpressTec, which manufactures proteins using rice as a factory.

The rice is grown predominantly in Kansas; processed at the company’s Junction City facility; and marketed to the world.


http://www.kansasbioauthority.org/about_the_kba/

About the KBA
The Kansas Bioscience Authority (KBA) was created by the Kansas Economic Growth Act of 2004 with the sole purpose of advancing Kansas’ leadership in bioscience.

The KBA is the state’s largest-ever commitment to expanding Kansas’ research capabilities, promoting innovation, and encouraging company formation that will create high-paying jobs for generations to come. The $581 million initiative is designed to:

Build world-class research capacity;
Foster the formation and growth of bioscience startups;
Support expansion of the state’s bioscience clusters; and
Facilitate industrial expansion and attraction.
The KBA is leveraging its funds to attract additional federal and private-sector support that could boost the total investment in bioscience in the state to more than $5 billion.

Governance
An independent entity of the state, the KBA is governed by an 11-person board of directors comprised of local and national leaders in industry and academia

http://www.kansasbioauthority.org/about_the_kba/Leadership.aspx
...
KBA board appointments are made by the governor, the Senate president and minority leader, the House speaker and minority leader, and the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation. The two nonvoting directors are appointed by the Kansas Board of Regents.

[decepticon]

[donnay]

I am talking about the huge amount of hubris displayed by even the thought of mixing animal with plant, or mineral or whatever. Why do they need to mess with that?

Because they have God Complexes!  [my humble opinion]  I can see the psychopath David Rockefeller gleefully funding this sort of technology!

"What good is money if it can't inspire terror in your fellow man?"

[stymo1]

Do the people in Kansas Know WTF is going on here?

Most likely not.

[TahoeBlue]

Most likely not.

The "desision makers" know. And these are the same people who know they could not get a Nuke plant built - but they can have bio.tech.co
with completely unknown effects.

a little history:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_1131.cfm
Kansas trying to lure California biotech rice firm
Kansas City Star, July 18, 2006

WICHITA, Kan. - A biotechnology firm that abandoned plans to grow biotech rice in California and Missouri amid protests by farmers and others in those states is now being courted by Kansas.

Ventria Bioscience, a small Sacramento, Calif.-based firm, expects to decide in about a month whether it will relocate its processing plant and rice acreage to Kansas, said Ventria president Scott Deeter.

Biopharming is the practice of growing food crops genetically engineered with human genes to produce drugs. Ventria's rice is used to make an experimental U.S. drug to treat diarrhea.

"We are in the process of expanding our production - and Kansas is on the short list for that expansion," Deeter said. "We haven't made a decision yet, but we are coming very close."

The other state on its short list is North Carolina, where the firm already grows 335 acres of its genetically modified rice, he said.

Leading efforts to lure Ventria here is Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Adrian Polansky and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. Polansky first learned of the biotech opportunity after meeting Deeter six months ago at an international biotechnology meeting in Chicago.
...
Some scientists aren't so sure, and fear the technology could threaten the safety of conventional food crops by inadvertently mixing with them. While it may be an advantage to grow pharmaceutical rice in a state like Kansas with no commercial rice production,

it's still a "bad idea" to produce pharmaceutical compounds in food, said Jane Rissler, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"This is not agricultural production - this is drug production," Rissler said. "This is pharmaceutical production and pharmaceutical production in food plants should be discouraged."

Ventria hopes to eventually grow 30,000 acres of rice in the state, possibly in five to six years, Polansky said. It would guarantee Kansas growers a profit of between $150 and $200 per acre above their current best economic crop. That would be $6 million a year of added income to Kansas farmers, Polansky said.

"It is an opportunity to grow a different crop that is a little more profitable than what we have been growing," said Steve Baccus, an Ottawa County farmer and president of the Kansas Farm Bureau. "We don't grow rice, but agronomically they tell us there is no reason we can't grow it here. It has just never been done."

Ventria would bring its research and processing facility to the state, creating significant paying jobs, Polansky said.

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/may/19/genetically_modified_rice_okd_despite_warnings/

May 19, 2007

Topeka — Ventria Bioscience has been given permission to grow genetically modified rice near Junction City despite national opposition led by a rural advocate from Douglas County.

Dan Nagengast, executive director of the Kansas Rural Center, said the state's violent weather increased the chance that genetically engineered plants could be swept away to contaminate other crops. "Why grow these crops in wide-open nature, when other companies have found it possible to use genetic engineering techniques to produce biotech drugs in confined settings where food contamination is not an issue?" Nagengast asked.

But state and federal officials maintain that the process is safe.

Kansas Agriculture Secretary Adrian Polansky said Friday he has visited Ventria Bioscience operations in North Carolina and was pleased with the company's performance there.

"I'm certainly in agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Their assessment is correct," he said.

On Thursday, the federal Agriculture Department gave Sacramento, Calif.-based Ventria permission to plant up to 3,200 acres of the rice, engineered to contain human proteins.

...
addition to the Kansas Rural Center, the Center for Food Safety and the Farmer to Farmer Campaign on Genetic Engineering objected to the Ventria deal. "About two weeks ago, I was huddled with other travelers in a rest stop on Interstate 70 as tornadoes were reported on the ground in the very area where Ventria proposes to expand their production between Junction City and Topeka," Nagengast said.

... This just represents an unconscionable food safety complication in a food-producing region," he said.

[TahoeBlue]

http://www.gmofoodforthought.com/2005/07/

New Type of Rice to Help Third World Countries

Farmers in North Carolina are growing a new type of rice that could be used to help young children in Third World countries (Biotech Company Planting Genetically Engineered Rice in North Carolina, Winston-Salem Journal, 7/16/05).

With approval of two permits from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Ventria Bioscience, a biotechnology company based in Sacramento, California, planted 75 acres of rice in North Carolina in June 2005 that has been genetically engineered to produce proteins found in human milk, saliva, and tears.

The company explained that the proteins it will extract from the rice could eventually be used in a variety of foods such as granola bars, sports drinks, or even formula used to rehydrate infants in Third World countries in order to help them avoid death from diarrhea.

The rice has been planted on private land near the state-owned Tidewater Research Station, an agricultural research station in Plymouth, North Carolina. Researchers also use a nursery at the research station, less than a mile from the test site, to grow seed stock for new varieties of rice.

Environmentalists and food vendors, however, claim the rice poses a threat to other crops and to the human food chain. At least two scientists, according to published reports, wrote to the U.S. Department of Agriculture stating there is a remote possibility that pollen or disease from Ventria’s rice could contaminate rice grown in nearby areas and distributed to rice growers nationwide.

...

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/FrankenRice070805.cfm
...
Company officials say they will use equipment that is used only to grow and harvest Ventria's rice. After harvest, they will drain the field and burn
the remnants to destroy plant matter.

And they say that adequate buffers are in place to protect other crops from any crop migration. Nandi pointed to a field of cotton 200 feet away, across a dirt road and a ditch.   "Not a single plant of rice will grow there. Not a single plant," he said. "It (the rice plot) is a completely unique ecological niche."

Like much of the cotton grown in Eastern North Carolina, the cotton across the road has been genetically modified for resistance to the herbicide
Roundup so that farmers can overspray young plants and make fewer applications overall. "This (cotton) is 100 percent GMO," Nandi said. "What's the problem with rice?"

Scott Deeter, Ventria's president, says that human proteins for use in rehydration formulas such as Pedialyte could help prevent the deaths of 1.9
million children that the World Health Organization estimates are killed by diarrhea each year.
...

Because no rice is grown commercially in North Carolina, researchers will know exactly where it came from if it shows up outside the test plots,
Heiniger said.

[Overcast]

I am talking about the huge amount of hubris displayed by even the thought of mixing animal with plant, or mineral or whatever. Why do they need to mess with that?

To make more things like... killer bees.

[shipgeek]

This rice with human genes in it is total insanity.
and they want us to eat that??

They are evil aren't they?

I will try to avoid it at any cost just the same as I try avoiding any GMO food.
Is there any way we can make sure there is really not any GMO in food?

[Overcast]

heirloom seeds from known trusted sources and hermetically sealed greenhouses. It seems to me the way that the capable will survive this.

But what happens the second they are re-introduced into a tainted environment? They might be ok sealed in a greenhouse, but at what cost? And if even a single spore gets into that controlled area... it's all over.

[shipgeek]

heirloom seeds from known trusted sources and hermetically sealed greenhouses. It seems to me the way that the capable will survive this.

If the GMO is already in the soil how will the heirloom seed produce a 100% non-GMO plant?

[TahoeBlue]

If the GMO is already in the soil how will the heirloom seed produce a 100% non-GMO plant?

Yes one of the interesting problems is not seed, but the POLLEN.

As we will now be surrounded by GMO Pollen which may/does effect other seeding plants and may be toxic to Bees and think of the resulting GMO HONEY...

[serenesam]

Haven't GMOs been fed since the 1950s and if so, where are all the dead bodies? Why do people still live well into their 90s?

[MonkeyPuppet]

Haven't GMOs been fed since the 1950s and if so, where are all the dead bodies? Why do people still live well into their 90s?

At the moment, it's not about killing people... yet.  For now, it's about using the population as guinea pigs and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI

[EvadingGrid]

Haven't GMOs been fed since the 1950s and if so, where are all the dead bodies? Why do people still live well into their 90s?

Watson and Crick did not discover DNA until 1962, let alone anyone start engineering with it until around 1980's

[attietewd]

Haven't GMOs been fed since the 1950s and if so, where are all the dead bodies? Why do people still live well into their 90s?

Above is a perfect example of a troll (serenesam) who would support such ghoulish macabre practices and feign being knowledgeable, while coyly spreading disinfo and leaving out truth. They yawn off things that should make the average normal person exhibit the gag reflex.

Watson and Crick did not discover DNA until 1962, let alone anyone start engineering with it until around 1980's

Thank you EvadingGrid for exposing a LIE and revealing the TRUTH.

[amazon]

BUMP

[serenesam]

Above is a perfect example of a troll (serenesam) who would support such ghoulish macabre practices

= assumption. Isn't that the problem with conspiracy theorists?

and feign being knowledgeable, while coyly spreading disinfo and leaving out truth.

What if I am simply just ignorant?

By the way, it was actually a typo, instead of a "5" I meant an 8 so 1980s - I was in a rush.

[Jacob Law]

Some supermarkets here in the UK refuse to sell anything GMO - or with GMO in it.

"Iceland" is one of them.

For the stuff you get in supermarkets choose with your feet. It all comes down to money . . .

Yes and many are now taking High Fructose corn out of their product.

[serenesam]

Believe me, I am on your side. 

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=105979