Every scientific endeavor is subjected to stringent scrutiny regarding its relevance and safety to the people it is supposed to serve and therefore the controversy surrounding the vitamin enrichment of rice through genetic technology under the project "Golden Rice" is also to be expected. There are two aspects on which one needs to be critical. First whether the new technology is really going to solve the problem of vitamin A deficiency. Then comes the question of safety of the new version of the product. Unless industry is able to satisfy the critics on the above issues, it is unlikely that such new technologies become universally acceptable.
"The problem is that vitamin A rice will not remove vitamin A deficiency (VAD). It will seriously aggravate it. It is a technology that fails in its promise. Since the daily average requirement of vitamin A is 750 micrograms of vitamin A and 1 serving contains 30g of rice according to dry weight basis, vitamin A rice would only provide 9.9 micrograms which is 1.32% of the required allowance. Even taking the 100g figure of daily consumption of rice used in the technology transfer paper would only provide 4.4% of the RDA."
It is debatable whether rice is really a worthy candidate for vitamin enrichment and the fact that huge quantities are needed even to meet even 10% of RDA needs to be kept in mind. Vitamin A is stored in the body for a long time and once a year Vitamin A shots are being administered in many countries to combat its deficiency. Past experience has shown that there are much better delivery media for carrying Vitamin A such as milk, cooking fats, etc and efficient fortification technologies are available to day to ensure uniform dispersion of the nutrient in the carrier. The allegation that golden rice causes some side effects needs to be fully investigated before attempting at commercialization by the industry.
V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com
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