The Filipino government has finally approved the planting of genetically modified rice that contains vitamin A. "Golden rice," as the stuff is called, probably won't make a splash in the United States, but in the Third World, it will be a godsend. Between a quarter-million and a half-million children go blind each year from vitamin A deficiency, the United Nations says, and half of them die within 12 months. Some studies put the figure even higher. As many as 300 million of the people at high risk for vitamin A deficiency live in countries where the staple food is rice. For them, golden rice will provide a quick, easy and cheap fix: eating just two ounces a day will provide 60 percent of the recommended daily dose of Vitamin A.
But that hasn't stopped Greenpeace and other luddite-left activists from fighting a scorched-earth war to stop golden rice. For more than a dozen years - or, if you prefer to keep score in the lives of children, 8 million dead - they've kept golden rice off the market by calling it Frankenfood and insisting that it will wreck the environment and spread dependence on Western capitalism. More here
