Mutant Rice Escapes Again

Ryall, M. E. (2 January 2008).
Mutant GMO LL601 rice escapes once again.

Liberty Link rice LL601 has once again reared its ugly head. After last year’s contamination of the US commercial long-grain rice supplies, one would think that Bayer Crop Science of Monheim, Germany, would have learned that once GMO pollen has escaped, it can’t be called back. See Butterflies and Gardens, October 2006, front page bottom article, to learn more.

LL601 rice has been modified with bacterial DNA that makes rice plants resistant to an herbicide manufactured by Aventis. It was actually Aventis who sold their Crop Science business to Bayer the German giant pharmaceutical company that sells aspirin, Aleve, and Alka-Seltzer. Adventis Crop Science was caught up in a GMO corn contamination scandal a few years back. Remember StarLink? Read the Food Safety article “StarLink Bt gene found in the food chain” on Happy Tonics Web site.

Bayer had no intentions of bringing Liberty Link rice to market because of opposition to GMO crops in Europe and strict importation laws in Japan and other countries.

The 8,000 American rice growers don’t even want to grow GMO rice. Why? Plain and simple, they can’t sell it. Rice growers in the US were recently told not to plant Cheniere, a popular rice seed because Liberty Link genes had tainted it. And yet in December 2006, Bruce Knight, a United States Department of Agriculture offical said, “The good news is that the only foundation seed to test positive for Liberty Link was of a single variety - 2003 Cheniere.” Further tests showed Liberty Link had also contaminated Clearfield 131 (CL131). The German chemical giant BASF Corporation produces the CL313 seed variety.

In November 2006, the US Department of Agriculture went ahead and approved the growing of LL601 rice over much protest by anti-GMO activists. The agency along with the EPA, and the Food and Drug Administration say, “Contamination is nothing to worry about.” These are the very folks who are regulating our food sources for food safety issues. If there is cause for concern about the ongoing contamination of rice from Liberty Link LL601, what are they thinking in approving pharma rice and allowing it to be brought to market?

The latest GMO development is that Ventria’s pharma rice has been approved. The 3,000+ acres that are to be planted with the pharma rice are located in Kansas. The crop’s proteins will be extracted and turned into a worldwide marketable product that can stop diarrhea. Diarrhea is one of the deadly diseases of early childhood in third world countries. Is anyone looking at the fact that this plant based product crosses the species barrier? “The proteins are bacteria-fighting compounds found in human breast milk and saliva” (Ryall, 2007 Spring, p.1). See Butterflies and Gardens, Spring 2007, p. 2, to learn more.