US to grow rice containing human genes
Posted by meb at March 8th, 2007
Genetically-modified rice containing human genes is about to be grown in the US for commercial production.
The laboratory-created rice which produces some of the proteins found in breast milk and saliva would be used for children’s medicines to help fight diarrhea, dehydration and other illnesses. The US government gave preliminary approval for Ventria Bioscience to grow over three-thousand acres of the GM rice in Kansas. The California-based company argues that the rice will provide an “affordable system” of “helping millions of children worldwide”. The proteins stimulate growth, aid digestion and the absorption of nutrients and help the immune system. But critics fear the GM rice could mutate if its seeds were blown into fields where natural rice is being grown and so become a permanent part of the food chain.
source: Daily Telegraph
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