China sacks officials over Golden Rice controversy

NATURE NEWS ^ | 10 December 2012 | Jane Qiu

[neverdem]

Chinese families did not give consent for children to consume genetically modif[i]ed rice in the part US-funded study.

China has sacked three officials for breaching Chinese laws and ethical regulations during a trial in which children were fed genetically modified rice.

The trial’s legitimacy was questioned in August by the environmental group Greenpeace. A three-month investigation, led by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), culminated in the decision on 6 December to sack two members of the CDC’s own staff — Yin Shi’an, the principal investigator of the Chinese arm of the project, in Beijing, and Hu Yuming at the CDC's regional office in Hunan province, where the study took place — as well as Wang Yin, head of science and technology at the Zhejiang Academy of Medical Sciences.

The genetically modified rice strain at the centre of the controversy is engineered to produce β-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, with the aim of fighting vitamin A deficiency in developing countries. It has been dubbed Golden Rice because of its bright yellow colour.

The trial was designed to test how efficiently the β-carotene is converted to the vitamin once ingested. The US study team was led by Guangwen Tang, a nutrition scientist at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, and was part-funded by the US National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and the US Department of Agriculture.

According to a paper published online by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition on 1 August, each group of two dozen or so children aged six to eight ate meals containing Golden Rice, spinach or β-carotene capsules for lunch every week day during the three-week trial1.

But none of the children, their parents or school teachers was aware that Golden Rice was involved, according to a 45-minute investigative...

[neverdem]

This is rich. The Chicoms are always such paragons of virtue. /s They're undermining their own health. Vitamin A deficiency causes blindness.

[Slump Tester]

Someone forget to payoff their party chairman?

[depressed in 06]

China has sacked three officials for breaching Chinese laws and ethical regulations ...

R.I.P.

[Mrs. Don-o]

You are absolutely right. Lack of Vitamin A is a major cause of huge incidence of and child blindness in poor countries, and the very best way to combat it is with beta-carotene containing staple foods like rice.

I am disgusted at these Chinese Communist #@$$#@$#$%#%#%s

[AdmSmith]

It is crazy that they sacked these people. Genetically modified food is not dangerous.