[Dean's World] Dean: Babies Often Die of Diarrhea

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Posted by Dean:
Babies Often Die of Diarrhea
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1147758107.shtml


   [1]biotech rice researcher My son Jake, when he was just a baby (he's
   going on 9 now, and an Honors Student 3rd grader) developed a bad case
   of diarrhea. He was pooping like crazy, which scared the crap (ha, ha)
   out of my [2]lovely wife and me. His [3]fontanelle was sunken, and he
   looked horribly thin and was not reacting normally to things. But we
   worked with our family physician and got him the fluids he needed, and
   he was okay.

   Now here's the thing: even though we're basically working class
   people, we had good access to doctors and decent health care here in
   wealthy America. He got real bad at one point but we were able to take
   him to a first-class American Emergency Room, with consultation with a
   good family physician, and we got him through it. He's fine now.

   But as it happens, in the third world, babies die every single day of
   this simple malady: Diarrhea. Thousands, tens of thousands, die of it.
   Every single day, babies die of this. It's no damned joke.

   So imagine my reaction when I read this:

     A tiny biosciences company is developing a promising drug to fight
     diarrhea, a scourge among babies in the developing world, but it
     has made an astonishing number of powerful enemies because it grows
     the experimental drug in rice genetically engineered with a human
     gene. ADVERTISEMENT

     Environmental groups, corporate food interests and thousands of
     farmers across the country have succeeded in chasing Ventria
     Bioscience's rice farms out of two states. And critics continue to
     complain that Ventria is recklessly plowing ahead with a mostly
     untested technology that threatens the safety of conventional crops
     grown for food.

     "We just want them to go away," said Bob Papanos of the U.S. Rice
     Producers Association. "This little company could cause major
     problems."

     Ventria, with 16 employees, practices "biopharming," the most
     contentious segment of agricultural biotechnology because its
     adherents essentially operate open-air drug factories by splicing
     human genes into crops to produce proteins that can be turned into
     medicines.

     Ventria's rice produces two human proteins found in mother's milk,
     saliva and tears, which help people hydrate and lessen the severity
     and duration of diarrhea attacks, a top killer of children in
     developing countries.

     But farmers, environmentalists and others fear that such medicinal
     crops will mix with conventional crops, making them unsafe to eat.

     The company says the chance of its genetically engineered rice
     ending up in the food supply is remote because the company grinds
     the rice and extracts the protein before shipping. What's more,
     rice is "self-pollinating," and it's virtually impossible for
     genetically engineered rice to accidentally cross breed with
     conventional crops.

   I am completely on Ventria's side. I hate those who say "don't
   experiment with human genes" this way. This isn't "frankenfood," this
   is life-saving stuff.

   (Thanks [4]Harvey.)

References

   1. file://localhost/files/deanesmay-biotechresearcher.jpg
   2. http://www.qoae.net/
   3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontanel
   4. http://www.bialystocker.net/