Anti-GMO Students Bruise a Superbanana Research on the vitamin-fortified fruit could help malnourished Africans, but well-fed collegians at Iowa State University want no part. By Julie Kelly
http://www.wsj.com/articles/anti-gmo-students-bruise-a-superbanana-1457998345
Student activists at Iowa State University are up in arms after researchers offered to pay them almost a thousand bucks to eat some genetically modified banana. The bananas, created by an Australian scientist, contain high levels of beta carotene, which converts to vitamin A when eaten.
Vitamin A deficiency, which can cause blindness, stunting and even death, is a devastating problem throughout the developing world. In Uganda roughly 40% of children under age 5 are vitamin-A deficient, according to a 2011 health survey.
The hope is that fortified superbananas could help prevent such malnutrition. To test their efficacy, Iowa State students were offered $900 to eat the bananas for four days during three trial periods, then have their blood tested to measure vitamin absorption. The research is led by ISU professor Wendy White, an expert on vitamin A-enriched crops.
But some of the healthy, well-fed college students in America’s heartland were outraged. In February they delivered a petition with more than 57,000 signatures to the university to oppose the so-called human feeding trials. The petition was also delivered to the Seattle headquarters of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is investing more than $2 billion to improve agriculture in the developing world, including through the banana project.
“While we can all support the rights of Ugandans to have access to safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food, Ugandans have expressed increasing concern that genetically-modifying bananas are not meant to serve that purpose,” a group of students wrote in the Ames Tribune. “Instead, many suspect the GM bananas to be an attempt to corporately capture the domestic seed market.”
They sound like they’re trying to save an organic garden in Berkeley. “Those students are acting out of ignorance,” Jerome Kubiriba, the head of the National Banana Research Program in Uganda, tells me. “It’s one thing to read about malnutrition; it’s another to have a child who is constantly falling sick yet, due to limited resources, the child cannot get immediate and constant medical care. If they knew the truth about the need for vitamin A and other nutrients for children in Uganda and Africa, they’d get a change of heart.” CONTINUE AT SITE
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