[escepticos] A Grinpis se le va a atragantar el arroz dorado

[calvoreb@...>]

Estimados colisteros:

Ultimamente se me ve poco por aquí, ando peleando mas bien en otras listas,
defendiendo la ciencia de las acechanzas de los malignos, grinpiseros en
este caso. Vease lo que se dice más adelante de la lista "transgénicos"


Os recirculo un voluminoso mensaje distribuido por Elena, de la fundación
ANTAMA, en BIOTEC, una lista de REDIRIS sobre biotecnología alimentaria,
hablando del tema del arroz dorado. Creo que esta vez Greenpeace se ha
pasado muchísimo con el tema.

He intentado discutir el "estudio" de Grinpis con el propio autor, Emiliano
Ezcurra en una lista en la que estamos los dos, y lo único que le he sacado
es que me llame "descolocado", que no se que significa en argentino.
Sobre las confusiones interesadas entre la "dosis recomendada" y  la dosis
que va a evitar que un niño  quede ciego, no tiene nada que decir. En
cuanto al informe original de Greenpeace, "está en su página", pero debo
ser especialmente torpe porque nunca consigo ver esos "informes
científicos", solamente resúmenes vagos y tramposos. Ya me ha pasado lo
mismo otras veces.






MENSAJE QUE SE RECIRCULA
------------------------------------

No sé si ha llegado hasta vosotros la noticia de que a Greenpeace el asunto
del Arroz Dorado no le hace mucha gracia. Por ello, han echado todo "el
arroz" en el asador para iniciar una campaña internacional contra este
proyecto de investigación.

Os envío un breve resumen de lo publicado por Greenpeace y la respuesta del
doctor Ingo Potrykus que apareció ayer en Agrodigital.

En teoría, el informe completo de Greenpeace se encuentra en
www.greenpeace.org en las páginas de Argentina, pero yo no he sido capaz de
tener acceso al textoíntegro.

Si alguno de los miembros de Biotec quiere hacer alguna puntualización de
forma directa, aunque virtual, a uno de los co-autores del estudio,
Emiliano Ezcurra, puede hacerlo suscribiéndose de forma provisional al foro
de discursión "Alimentos transgénicos", ya que este miembro de Greenpeace
es uno de sus participantes más activos. Abajo os envío algunas breves
instrucciones sobre cómo podéis hacerlo.

Un saludo:

Elena


Opinion piece about Golden Rice by Benedikt Haerlin
International Co-ordinator Greenpeace Genetic Engineering Campaign

Manila/Amsterdam, 9 February 2001: Genetically engineered rice (Golden
rice) containing provitamin A will not solve the problem of malnutrition in
developing countries, according to Greenpeace.

The Genetic Engineering (GE) industry claims vitamin A rice could save
thousands of children from blindness and millions of malnourished people
from vitamin A deficiency (VAD) related diseases.

However, a simple calculation based on the product developers' own figures
show an adult would have to eat at least 12 times the normal intake of 300
grams to get the daily recommended amount of provitamin A (1).

Syngenta, one of the world's leading GE companies and pesticide producers
that owns many patents on the Golden Rice, claims one month of a delay in
marketing Golden Rice would cause 50,000 children to go blind.(2)

Greenpeace calculations show that an adult would have to eat at least 3.7
kilograms of dry weight rice, which results in about nine kilograms of
cooked rice, to satisfy their daily need of vitamin A from Golden Rice.

This means a normal daily intake of 300 grams of rice would, at best,
provide 8 percent of the vitamin A needed daily. A breast feeding woman
would have to eat at least 6.3 kilograms in dry weight, converting to
nearly 18 kilograms of cooked rice per day. (3)

"It is clear from these calculations that the GE industry is making false
promises about Golden Rice. It is nonsense to think anyone would or could
eat this much rice, and there is still no proof that it can provide any
significant vitamin benefits anyway," said Greenpeace Campaigner Von
Hernandez in the Philippines, where the first grains of the GE rice had
been delivered to the International Rice Research Institute last month for
breeding into local rice varieties.

"This whole project is actually based on what can only be characterised as
intentional deception. We recalculated their figures again and again, we
just could not believe serious scientists and companies would do this."

A main sponsors of Golden Rice, the Rockefeller Foundation, has told
Greenpeace that the GE industry has "gone too far" in its promotion of the
product. While upholding its principal support for the project, Rockefeller
Foundation President Gordon Conway said to Greenpeace in a letter: ". the
public relations uses of Golden Rice have gone too far. The industry's
advertisements and the media in general seem to forget that it is a
research product that needs considerable further development before it will
be available to farmers and consumers."(4).

"The European markets have resoundingly rejected GE products, consumers
worldwide don't want them in their food, and the industry is desperate for
alternative markets. Golden Rice has been presented as a quick fix for a
global problem. It isn't, and the cash-driven propaganda about the product
is swamping attempts to enforce existing effective solutions, and carry out
further work on other sustainable, reliable methods to address the
problem," added Hernandez.

GE rice does not address the underlying causes of vitamin A deficiency
(VAD), which is mainly poverty and lack of access to a more diverse diet.
For the short-term, measures such as supplementation (such as pills) and
food fortification are cheap and effective.

Promoting the use and the access to food naturally rich in provitamin A,
such as red palm oil, will also help addressing the VAD related sufferings.
The only long-term solution is to work on the root causes of poverty and to
ensure access to a diverse and healthy diet. (5)

References: (1) United Nations' World Health Organisation/Food and
Agriculture Organisation and the US National Academy of Science
recommendations on daily vitamin A intake. (2) Dr Adrian C Dubock, of
Zeneca Plant Science (now Syngenta): "The levels of expression of
pro-vitamin A that the inventors were aiming at, and have achieved, are
sufficient to provide the minimum level of pro-vitamin A to prevent the
development of irreversible blindness affecting 500,000 children annually,
and to significantly alleviate Vitamin A deficiency affecting 124,000,000
children in 26 countries." "One month delay = 50,000 blind children month."
at a conference on "Sustainable Agriculture in the New Millennium" in
Brussels, May 28-31, 2000. (3) Greenpeace briefing paper "Vitamin A:
Natural Sources vs Golden Rice" and "The false promise of GE rice" are
available at http://www.greenpeace.org/~geneng/ (4) Letter to Greenpeace UK
, January 22nd, 2001 http://www.greenpeace.org/~geneng/ (5) Nutritionists
have pointed out that numerous problems converge to cause vitamin A
deficiency. In a recent letter to the New York Times, DR Marion Nestle
noted that "conversion of beta carotene to vitamin A, and transport in the
body to the tissues that use vitamin A, require diets adequate in fat and
protein. People whose diets lack these nutrients or who have intestinal
diarrhea diseases - common in developing countries - can not obtain Vitamin
A from Golden Rice."





20/02/01

El creador del Golden Rice invita a Greenpeace a que le indique los
problemas concretos de este arroz advierte contra posibles ataques contra
los campos

 El profesor Potrykus, creador del arroz Golden Rice, genéticamente
modificado para contener más vitamina A, ha remitido a Greenpeace una
segunda contestación en relación con las acciones de la organización
activista  sobre esta cuestión

En la respuesta del profesor Potrykus, titulada; "Golden Rice es el Dilema
de Greenpeace" (el comunicado de Greenpeace se titulaba "Golden Rice es el
oro de los tontos")  el Profesor comenta que acaba de llegar de La India
donde el proyecto de incorporar la característica Golden Rice cuenta con un
gran apoyo por parte del Primer Ministro, y reitera a la organización
Greenpeace su oferta de mantener un dialogo sobre la cuestión.

 Dado que Greenpeace repite una y otra vez que liberar el arroz al medio
ambiente es demasiado peligroso, el profesor Potrykus invita a que se le
muestre algún caso concreto realista de ese peligro. En tres años de
discusión con ecólogos dice no haber encontrado ni un solo escenario que
pudiera justificar el prohibir las pruebas de campo del arroz.

 La única diferencia del Golden Rice reside en la composición del
endospermo (que tiene mas vitamina A que al arroz normal), y es francamente
difícil poder imaginarse que, incluso aun en el caso hipotético de que se
diseminase esta característica al medio ambiente de forma masiva (se supone
que a malas hierbas emparentadas con el arroz), se pudiera producir algún
efecto negativo sobre el medio ambiente.

 Potrykus critica la información suministrada por Greenpeace respecto a la
cantidad de vitaminas que aporta el Golden Rice en relación con las
cantidades óptimas. Greenpeace argumenta que un adulto debería comer una
gran cantidad de arroz para satisfacer sus necesidades de vitamina A con
Golden Rice (ver el comunicado de Greenpeace en el vínculo
http://www.greenpeace.org/~geneng/highlights/food/goldenrice.htm),
añadiendo que la "información" de Greenpeace (el entrecomillado figura en
el original) no menciona el hecho de que una cosa son los valores óptimos y
otros muy distintos los que ya se pueden considerar suficientes para
obtener un efecto beneficioso apreciable, tales como reducir la mortalidad
o los casos de ceguera provocados por el déficit de vitamina A en los
países más pobres.

 El profesor invita a Greenpeace a que le especifiquen de forma concreta en
que área ven problemas potenciales en el Golden Rice para poner especial
cuidado en ellas, esperando respuestas precisas y no vaguedades como "Es
demasiado peligroso  liberar  OGMs al medio ambiente" sin más.

 El Golden Rice puede ser usado como un complemento para luchar contra el
déficit de vitamina A. Este complemento es necesario porque utilizando los
métodos y recursos actuales hay 500.000 niños ciegos al año en el tercer
mundo, a los que se les puede aportar una gran ayuda con esta técnica.

 Por último Potrykus advierte a Greenpeace que si planea destruir los
campos de ensayo y desarrollo del Golden Riceo, será acusada de contribuir
a un crimen contra la Humanidad, y tendrá que responder de sus actos ante
un tribunal internacional


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Golden Rice and the Greenpeace Dilemma"

Second Response to Greenpeace from Prof. Ingo Potrykus

From: Ingo Potrykus

Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 18:40:28 +0100
Subject: Greenpeace and Golden Rice

I am just back from India, where Golden Rice has strong support up to the
Prime Minister. We have prepared the organizational structure for transfer
and things are moving fast now.

Coming back, I realized that I have again to write something in response to
the Greenpeace actions. Here it is:

Ingo

Golden Rice and the Greenpeace Dilemma
By Ingo Potrykus

My offer to Greenpeace for a dialogue over Golden Rice was honest and a
response to the reaction of Benedikt Haerlin (campaign leader of Greenpeace
International), who accepted a moral obligation in this discussion. His
reaction was the only way out of the problem that Greenpeace would
otherwise have lost credibility in front of the press, which insisted in a
clear answer on this matter. And Benedikt Haerlin was clever enough to
realize this.

I respect his statement and I am looking forward to further discussions
with him. The "hysteric" reactions of other Greenpeace activists to this
step of normalization show that not everybody there realizes that if
Greenpeace is continuing with its unqualified attacks against the
responsible assessment of Golden Rice, Greenpeace will soon have a
credibility problem far more severe than that coming up in context with the
Brent Spar case. At least part of the media have realized that there is not
much substantiation behind the routine arguments as far as Golden Rice is
concerned.

As Greenpeace activists come again and again with the argument that release
into the environment is too dangerous, I invite them to construct a
realistic, concrete case. I have not found, in three years of discussions
with numerous environmentalists, a scenario which could justify banning the
field testing of Golden Rice. As the pathway is already in rice (and in
every green plant), and the difference is only in its activity in the
endosperm, it is very hard to construct any selective advantage for Golden
Rice in any environment, and, therefore, any environmental hazard. The same
holds true for all the other standard arguments, and I refer to "The Golden
Rice Tale", available on the internet, and published in March in the
journal "In-Vitro".

It was very educating to see how selective Greenpeace was when citing from
my statement -- leaving everything out which did not fit into their view,
and emphazising selectively what they could use against me. Where is the
difference to the PR campaigns Greenpeace likes to complain about? The
"information" from Greenpeace was so distorted that I received compaints
that I was ignoring the fact that daily allowance values did not mean much
and that far lower provitamin values could already be expected to have
beneficial effects (the point I was making in my response!).

This shows how Greenpeace has been able to transmit a completely wrong
message by citing me. Here follows a citation from one of the responses to
my "wrong" view:

"As I would assume you know, there is vast difference in the amount of
vitamin A needed to reduce mortality, vs that needed to prevent blindness,
vs that needed to prevent night-blindness and other like symptoms, vs that
which satisfies actual metabolic needs, vs that which is equal to the
recommended allowance, vs that which migt be considered for optimal intake,
vs that which might trigger toxicity symptoms. The vastness of those
quantitative differences is further exaggerated in individuals wose
metabolic need for this essential nutrient has been modified by an extended
period of depriviation. Clearly in individuals whose diet is almost devoid
of vitamin A dietary intake at levels representing only a small fraction of
the "recommended allowance" offers the potential to have a significant
impact on both morbidity and mortality."

When I stated that I acknowleged that Greenpeace had identified a weak
point in our strategy, I referred to the fact that only experimental data
gained from nutrition studies with Golden Rice varieties could clarify how
much provitamin A we would need to offer per gram of rice. This data will
be available only after 1-2 years from now. With this data in hand, the
optimal lines can then be determined for the final breeding adjustment.

I invite Greenpeace activists to specify in which area they see potential
problems so that we can take care of these concerns in the process of the
needs assessment and the extended safety assessments. But I expect concrete
proposals, not blunt statements like "it is too dangerous to release
transgenic plants into the environment". Please take the trouble to think
about the case of Golden Rice.

To those who feel that they must prevent Golden Rice under all
circumstances (for whatever political, ethical, religious reason) I would
like to repeat: Golden Rice will be used to complement traditional
interventions to fight vitamin A-deficiency. We need complementation
because of the 500,000 blind children per year we have on the background of
traditional interventions.

If you plan to destroy test fields to prevent responsible testing and
development of Golden Rice for humanitarian purposes, you will be accused
of contributing to a crime against humanity. Your actions will be carefully
registered and you will, hopefully, have the opportunity to defend your
illegal and immoral actions in front of an international court.

Prof. Dr. Ingo Potrykus
Im Stigler 54
CH-4312 Magden
Switzerland







Miguel Calvo
Tecnologia de los Alimentos
Facultad de Veterinaria. Universidad de Zaragoza
Miguel Servet 177
50013 Zaragoza
Spain