Public health, golden rice and irrational fear

Public health (clean water, sanitary sewers) has saved more lives than all biomedical interventions put together. The green revolution enabled human populations to expand beyond what were believed to be Malthusian limits. But the nutritional content of some foods can be improved, further preserving health and lives without the intermediation of heathcare professionals:

"White rice is the staple food in many developing countries, yet it lacks several key micronutrients. As a result, one in three children under the age of five is thought to suffer from vitamin A deficiency (VAD), a condition that causes blindness and weakens the immune system.

"According to the World Health Organization, up to 500,000 children lose their sight each year because of VAD, half of whom die within 12 months of going blind.

"Back in 2000, a solution to this global tragedy appeared to have been found when cell biologists Peter Beyer and Ingo Potrykus published details of their creation: Golden Rice. This genetically modified version of white rice had been adapted to produce an orange pigment called beta-carotene, which the body uses to manufacture vitamin A.

"Yet two decades later, global restrictions on Golden Rice have prevented it from being made available to those whose lives it could save. In a new book, science journalist Ed Regis chronicles the history of Golden Rice and assesses the many obstacles that have been put in its way."

Irrational fear and conspiracy theories are blunting the potential health impact of many interventions (e.g., golden rice, vaccines, mifepristone. Shame.

https://www.iflscience.com/restrictions-on-genetically-modified-golden-rice-may-have-cost-millions-of-lives-54086?fbclid=IwAR2nYasp4_Sivt1DY_m0y6PpRKRc_qIvs-LJUXIqpHHfFofn03npIuEQyXk

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two sides

Image
  Yes, there are two sides to every question. In most cases, there is a correct side and a wrong side. In the case of Kamala Harris, the correct side is that she was born a US citizen. The wrong side is that her parents had to be citizens or permanent residents for her to be a citizen. President Trump pretended to be unsure about this, just as he pretended for five years that Barack Obama is not a citizen. In the case of the Harris noncitizen claim, it is backed by the racist C laremont Institute: "The Claremont Institute masquerades as an intellectual salon of the right, but it is really just a racist fever swamp with deep connections to the conspiratorial alt-right. It even granted a fellowship to Jack Posobiec, who helped promote the notorious Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Claremont’s resident bigots offer deranged fantasies of violently expelling Americans from their home country because of their ethnic backgrounds. Their work deserves the intellectual weight given to that of D...
Read more

Who chooses?

Over at jabberwocking.com , Kevin Drum blames pro-choice writers for failing to make the case for reproductive choice. Well, from everything I've read, a clear majority of Americans believe that Roe should still stand. Seems like the case has been made, and if we lived in a truly representative democracy, a limited national right to abortion would be preserved. But beyond that reality, I think Drum has it exactly backwards. Why does the burden of proof fall on those advocating for personal autonomy? Seems to me the null hypothesis is that women should be allowed to make decisions about their own health, and that the justification for nanny state intrusion into such decisions rests with the minority who assert state coercion. Democrats need to hammer on the right-wing GOP to explain why the government takes temporary custody of pregnant Americans. https://jabberwocking.com/liberals-really-suck-at-defending-abortion/
Read more

Black Earth

 Just finished reading “Black Earth: The Holocaust as history and warning” by Timothy Snyder. It is a detailed account of the Holocaust, as well as an effort to abstract lessons from this history for our time. Like his book “Bloodlands,” Snyder’s “Black Earth” makes for painful reading. As the grandson of a Ukrainian Jew and the son of a Jew, I would have been targeted in the Holocaust had I been in the wrong place. I had read several histories of Europe in World War II that included the Holocaust. I knew the basic story of the Holocaust and Hitler’s anti-Semitic vision. I learned a great deal by reading this book. I won’t belabor the ghoulish atrocities committed by the Nazis and their collaborators. To summarize them here would be to trivialize the enormity of the crimes and invite pointless debate about who did what and who suffered more. You’ll have to read the book to understand Snyder’s historical insights. However, I learned many things that I did not know by reading thi...
Read more