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Anti-Golden Rice campaign perpetuates blindness and death among millions of children

Former Greenpeace leader Patrick Moore leads demonstrations vs. Greenpeace’s crime against humanity



Global campaign Allow Golden Rice Now! launched in front of the Greenpeace offices at 33 Cecil Street, in Toronto, Ontario. Dr. Patrick Moore leads the demonstration with a banner that reads: 'Greenpeace's Crime Against Humanity--Eight Million Children Dead--AllowGoldenRiceNow.org'
The aim of the campaign is to convince Greenpeace that it should make an exception to its immoral and lethal zero-tolerance position on genetic modification – and allow and support the distribution of Golden Rice, on humanitarian grounds. The World Health Organization estimates that up to 500,000 children become blind each year due to vitamin A deficiency. Half of them die within a year of becoming blind. About 250 million preschool children worldwide suffer from vitamin A deficiency, among the nearly 3 billion people who depend on rice as their staple food. Conventional rice has no beta-carotene, the nutrient that humans need to produce vitamin A. In 1999 Dr. Ingo Potrykus and Dr. Peter Beyer, both science professors who were aware of this humanitarian crisis, invented Golden Rice after a nine-year effort. By inserting genes from corn, they were able to cause rice plants to produce beta-carotene in the rice kernel. It is beta-carotene that makes corn golden and carrots orange. Golden Rice can end the blindness, suffering and death caused by vitamin A deficiency. It would be distributed at no cost to poor farmers around the world, to help end this needless humanitarian crisis. Up to now, however, Greenpeace has blocked these efforts, perpetuating the blindness and death.

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Field trials in Louisiana, the Philippines and Bangladesh have proven that Golden Rice can be grown successfully. Clinical nutritional trials with animals, adult humans, and vitamin A deficient children have proven that Golden Rice will deliver sufficient vitamin A to cure this affliction. Yet Greenpeace continues to support the violent destruction of the field trials. It also trashes the peer-reviewed science that proves Golden Rice is effective and safe. We demand that Greenpeace end these immoral, child-killing activities, stop fundraising on this issue, and declare that they are not opposed to Golden Rice. We believe that its continued actions to block Golden Rice constitute a crime against humanity as defined by the United Nations. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines is coordinating the research and development of Golden Rice. The IRRI is supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Helen Keller International, USAID, and many agricultural research organizations. Golden Rice is controlled by non-profit organizations, and it produces viable Golden Rice seeds, so farmers are not dependent on any particular supplier. "The Allow Golden Rice Now! campaign will carry this protest to Greenpeace offices around the world,"stated Dr. Moore, a cofounder and former leader of Greenpeace, an organization that many say has become increasingly anti-science and anti-people in recent decades. "Eight million children have died unnecessarily since Golden Rice was invented. How many more million can Greenpeace carry on its conscience?" Dr. Moore asked.


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