242 The False Promise of Gene tically Engineered Foods
Resistance to antibiotics
Some GE foods include genes resistant to antibiotics as a result of genetic
engineering. Some scientists believe when people eat foods containing these
genes, antibiotic resistance in bacteria will be created in the stomach. Then, if
that person needs to take antibiotic medicine to solve a health problem, the
medicine may no longer work.
Golden rice in Asia
Around the world, millions of people suffer from blindness caused by a lack of
Vitamin A in their diets. As a solution to this problem, a new kind of GE rice
containing Vitamin A was developed and named Golden Rice. The company
that makes Golden Rice plans to sell it to farmers all over Asia where rice is the
main food, and where blindness from a lack of Vitamin A is a serious problem.
The company hopes farmers will grow Golden Rice instead of traditional
varieties of rice.
However, Golden Rice will not prevent people from
going blind. The blindness Golden Rice is
trying to cure is not caused only by a lack
of Vitamin A. It is caused by the lack of
a sufficient variety of healthy foods
that naturally contain Vitamin A.
Even if a person eats Golden Rice,
the Vitamin A will not nourish them
unless there are enough nutrients from
other foods eaten at the same time.
A healthy diet includes
vegetables and fruits as well.
Instead of trying technical solutions like GE rice to prevent blindness and
other problems of widespread hunger, it would be better to improve food security.
Because the inventors of Golden Rice did not challenge the real problems of
poverty and malnutrition, they will not prevent people from going blind.
A better way to end problems from poor nutrition
Golden Rice is an example of trying to solve a social problem — blindness due
to poverty and malnutrition — with a technical solution: genetically engineered
crops. But there is another solution.
There are large amounts of Vitamin A in fresh fruits, dark green leafy
vegetables, and other foods. (See a general health book such as Where There Is
No Doctor for information on good nutrition.) Green vegetables used to grow
wild in rice paddies and farmer’s fields until the increased use of herbicides
killed them.
A Community Guide to Environmental Health 2012