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Empty your rice bowl
Leading biologists are calling on governments, at local and central levels, to look into the approval process of a US-backed study that saw children in Hunan Province used as guinea pigs to test the effects of eating genetically-modified (GM) rice. This is in response to growing public concern over the weekend about the legitimacy of the test and the safety of the children involved.

China denies Greenpeace GM rice test claims
Government officials in Central China's Hunan Province on Saturday denied claims that children in the area were being used as guinea pigs in US-backed research on the effects of consuming genetically-modified (GM) rice.

US study feeds kids GM rice
A US-BACKED study which used Chinese children as guinea pigs to try out a new type of genetically modified rice has been condemned by an environmental rights group.
The study was carried out in healthy schoolchildren between six and eight years old in Hengyang City in central China's Hunan Province.
(Source: eastday.com)

About the research paper:

Name: β-Carotene in Golden Rice is as good as β-carotene in oil at providing vitamin A to children

Authors: Guangwen Tang, Yuming Hu, Shi-an Yin, Yin Wang, Gerard E Dallal, Michael A Grusak, and Robert M Russell

Journal: August edition of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

Conclusions: The β-carotene in GR is as effective as pure β-carotene in oil and better than that in spinach at providing vitamin A to children. A bowl of ∼100 to 150 g cooked GR (50 g dry weight) can provide ∼60% of the Chinese Recommended Nutrient Intake of vitamin A for 6–8-y-old children. This trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00680212.

Background Knowledge

Golden rice
The so-called “golden” rice intended for Asia was genetically modified to produce almost 20 times the beta-carotene of previous varieties.
(Source: britannica.com)

Genetically modified foods
Genetically modified foods are genetically modified organism in agriculture. Genetically modified organism (GMO), genetically modified organism: genetically modified barley organism whose genome has been engineered in the laboratory in order to favor the expression of desired physiological traits or the production of desired biological products.
(Source: britannica.com)

Attitudes towards GM foods from different countries

View Points

Official voices:

A spokesman for Hengyang, Hunan Province, where the study was allegedly conducted
Initial findings indicated that there had been no such research project. There was instead a study on the transformation of carotene in vegetables to vitamin A in children's bodies. The food given to the children did not involve GM rice or other GM food, and parents were notified of the experiment in advance.

Hunan CDC officials
The food for the experiment was all locally purchased and all results were submitted to the China CDC immediately after the experiment concluded. The CDC study had not involved any American institute.

Authors' voices:

Tang Guangwen, the first author of the research paper
The project had been approved by ethical review committees in both countries with all the parents of children involved in the project notified in advance.

Hu Yuming, the second author of the research paper
The experiments described in the research paper are not the same with what I did. I know nothing about the paper.

A company's voice:

Syngenda, an international company involved in Golden Rice project
The company declared on Saturday that they had never involved Chinese children as test objects and the program was a non-profit humanitarian aid, according to Sina.com.

Chinese Media Digest
	The Global Times (Chinese edition) suggested that there must be vested interest groups behind the incident by quoting Zheng Fengtian, deputy director of the School of Agricultural Economics & Rural Development, Renmin University of China. The article urges the prohibition of other US research institutes from testing transgenic technology on China's kids and suggests the local discipline watchdog stop looking on in silence.
	The Beijing News said that the reason why there are contradictory statements over the same issue could only be attributed to two causes, either the relevant organization deliberately withhold the truth or the watchdogs never knew that there has ever been such a test.
	The Wuhan-based Changjiang Daily commented that disordered information can easily cause public and social unease, especially over important social problems. The truth of where the genetically modified rice goes and what happened in the test in Hunan should be published. The university's response that admitted the test on Hunan children was incomplete but their attitude is worth deep consideration, the paper added.