RE: [CH] Taco shells a follow up
Mary & Riley (uGuys@ChileGarden.com)
Sun, 19 Nov 2000 12:11:34 -0800
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > http://news.excite.com/news/r/001116/17/science-biotech-glickman-dc
>
> Indeed...it is frightening that a bunch of biotech "luddites"
> can hold a hungry world hostage to their paranoid delusions and
> anti-business agenda...
>
> --
> Rich McCormack (Poway, CA) macknet@pacbell.net
It is--I just read that one of the companies that was working on inserting a
gene to produce vitamin A in rice went out of business due, in part, to this
bias. Since there's not much money to be made with this (Vit A in rice)
they were donating the work. What are the lives of a few more million kids
(per year) though?
It is a shame that this corn muddle happened--a bureaucratic screwup with a
product that is quite possibly perfectly safe for (human) consumption at
best and at worst _may_ cause some low-grade discomfort--I mean it's used as
animal feed now. "StarLink was approved by U.S. regulators in 1998 only for
animal feed after scientists were unable to determine if the gene-spliced
corn might cause rashes, diarrhea, respiratory problems or other allergic
reactions in humans."
This screw up does point to weaknesses in the regulatory process that will
almost certainly be properly addressed. The problem is the extent to which
the uninformed turn this into a red herring.
Riley