STRANGE SCIENCE: A U.S. CORPORATION ENGINEERS RICE WITH HUMAN GENES

WORLD WATCH MAGAZINE —MAY/ JUNE 2004

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Washington, D.C.—A California-based biotechnology company has been growing experimental fields of rice engineered with human genes to produce two proteins found naturally in human breast milk. According to the May/June issue of World Watch magazine, these test plots present significant risks to the environment, to people, and to the California rice industry.*

In “Silent Winter,” Claire Hope Cummings describes how state and federal regulators are failing to address the unprecedented agricultural, legal, environmental, economic, and ethical questions posed by newly created organisms. Ventria Bioscience, which plans to use its transgenic rice in poultry feed as an alternative to antibiotics and as a supplement in infant formula, has been free to plant experimental crops without taking sufficient precautions against exposing wildlife or other rice fields to these novel and untested transgenes. Under current law, the company can hide flaws in its products and the location of open-air test plots under the cloak of “confidential business information.”