Work is afoot by British researchers to tackle malaria by genetically modifying mosquitoes so the population of the parasiteโs insect host falls off a cliff. Now, if all goes to plan, a GM banana containing elevated levels of beta-carotene will be growing in Uganda by 2020 โ banishing the scourge of vitamin A deficiency which condemns thousands of Ugandan children to blindness or an early grave each year.
But experience suggests that is a big and dispiriting โifโ. Similar promises were made more than a decade ago for golden rice, another GM creation which also locks vital pro-vitamin A into the grain that is a staple for 3.5 billion people. And yet how much golden rice was grown commercially last year to combat a nutritional deficit which kills up to 700,000 children worldwide every year? The answer is zero.
Much of the blame for his sorry state of affairs must be laid at the door of the anti-GM lobby, which persists in the argument that all genetically altered organisms are a violation of the natural order which will inevitably turn against their human creators.
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