Leading scientists call foul in the use of kids aged 6 to 10 as subjects in genetically modified foods trials, claiming a severe breach of medical ethics, specifically the Nuremberg code.
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“We are writing to express our shock and unequivocal denunciation of the experiments being conducted by your colleagues which involve the feeding of genetically modified Golden Rice to human subjects.”
A formal letter of protest calling for an immediate end to the GM food experiments was sent by 22 scientists to the Tufts University School of Medicine, relating the unethical nature of the trials to a breach of the medical ethics code.
The Nuremberg code states that children under the age of 10 are not legally capable of giving consent to participation in experiments.
“It is completely immoral to feed this rice to children without proper safety testing…It’s like putting a new drug on the market with no toxicology or safety trials.” – Prof David Schubert, Salk Institute of Biological Studies
Children in the US and China were fed “Golden Rice” (modified to have enhanced levels of beta carotene), which has not been through animal trials for safety testing.
The project manager of the Golden Rice Organization claims no breach of etiquette, saying the experiment was reviewed by an ethical review panel. He also admitted to what seems like kid-bribery to me: “Children were rewarded with school bags and pencils and paper as a thank you for participating.”
The protest letter goes on to state the concerns of the scientists:
“It is a genetically modified product which has not been shown to be distinctive, uniform and stable over time. It has never been through a regulatory / approvals process anywhere in the world. There is now a large body of evidence that shows that GM crop/food production is highly prone to inadvertent and unpredictable pleiotropic effects, which can result in health damaging effects when GM food products are fed to animals.”
“Our greatest concern is that this rice, which is engineered to overproduce beta carotene, has never been tested in animals, and there is an extensive medical literature showing that retinoids that can be derived from beta carotene are both toxic and cause birth defects.”
The experiment was funded and administered by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Image: Keith Bacongco at Flickr under CC license
what if they grow a third arm or a second head?
LOL, see Kids are good for something afterall!
RT
http://www.privacy-center.pro.tc
I think the most shocking thing about this is that it was funded by the NIH! Way to protect our children, there. Almost as bad as the FDA and BPA!
I hope every person on the “ethical review panel”, and each of the scientists involved in allowing these children to be their “lab rats” also had HUGE helpings of this Golden Rice to eat for themselves. That way they suffer the same consequences these poor children may have to suffer in the future.
i disagree with any gm full stop, testing on kids is wildly out of order, especially as no other animal tests were done, (and i also protest animals being used too)
i always think that those who invent it, should be willing to be the test subjects, they and their families!!
the pharmas are now taking drug tests offshore to china and india as well as sth american countries, they will simply do the same with GM foods too, even easier to mislay, mislead delete and hide side effects!
I agree – the product should have been animal tested first, absolutely – but what is getting lost in all this is the potential benefit of the rice to those who need it: http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/health/2009/march/Some-Scientists-Say-Genetically-Modified-Golden-Rice-Experiment-is-Unethical.html
first starting from what shar said.
shar said on March 1st, 2009 at 1:31 am
:shar said on March 1st, 2009 at 1:31 am
“what if they grow a third arm or a second head?”
that would require reconstruction of the human’s own genetic code
second to davis Yes We are why because with out us the human race would have died a long long time ago
third i admit i have no clue what the bpa is but the fda only problem stems from letting low quality foods from other nations into the United states
forth chris shove the bs back up ur ass the kids are fine
next amicus curiae Humans Are Animals get that straight and think what would have happened if we tested cholate on a dog before humans ate it the world would suck balls
sixh at least someone else was thinking about the good behind this test
pesonaly i say its good why because any living thing in the world is organic two the food can be designed to contain a varius aray of vitemins and minerals. by the way the human body needs those to funtion right, and yes yopu can find them in a variety of foods but not in all of them this allows us to put them all in one and still have it taste good. amazing humanity at it’s finest
@James-
What the hell?
So what was the results of the tests. They know more about this stuff than any of us do, I am sure they wouldnt do it unless there wasn’t much of a risk to the children.
I run an environmental education program in South Lake Tahoe which focuses on Conscious Consumerism.
After first learning about gmo’s in 2001, I integrated lessons connected with them (gmo foods, fuel, clothing, building materials, etc) and have taught about the inherent dangers of them. Additionally, with the problems they are creating within soil structure on a microbial level, they are an absolute threat to the future of food supplies globally.
The threat to children as “guinea pigs” for these corporations far exceeds rice. Children who grew up on Monsanto’s rBGH milk (recently stopped due to a victory by Millions Against Monsanto) are equally endangered. …the outcome of their ingestion likely not present itself for years.
With well over a billion acres (of gmo crops) human, insect and plant species are all threatened.
With corporations like Monsanto, Cargill Dow, ADM etc. at the helm and greenwash products like Natureworks (Cargill Dow), soy foam insulations, corn based ethanol and other products derived from gmo sources taking off as “green products”… taking on these corporations at governmental level is the only way to stop these criminals.
Lack of thorough research and scientific oversight is what has created this gargantuan mess. Oversight by presidential administrations has been going on for decades.
The question is, is it already too late?
Nikki Florio
Tahoe Regional Environmental Education
Do any of you realize that we and our children have all been test subjects for GM foods, without our consent, or any renumeration, since the early 90’s? That is the real travesty. Please see the movie ‘The Future of Food’ by Lily Films to find out the real story so we can all take back at least some part of our rights again! I now avoid soy, corn and canola because of this and there are more products on the market every day. None of them are labeled so that you don’t even know you are eating them-they are in at least 70% of all processed foods.
this was a good experiment, modifying the rice to have more beta carotene…… but it just so happens that carrots are a great source for beta carotene, no wonder we were always told to eat our carrots as kids– or at least i was.