cannibal rice?

Ventria Biosciences, formerly Applied Phytologics, is proposing to grow up to 3200 acres of genetically engineered rice in Kansas this year. The rice is engineered with human genes to produce two different human proteins: lactoferrin and lysozyme. The US Department of Agriculture is accepting comments on the application until the end of this week. It's the largest ever proposed field trial of a food crop engineered to produce drugs -- otherwise known as a pharma crop.

Below the Federal Register notice from the USDA, as well as a link to the Union of Concerned Scientists web alert about the whole thing.

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/pdf/E7-3484.pdf

http://ucsaction.org/campaign/3_07_07pharma_rice

Ventria claims that the proteins will be used in the developing world to treat children with diarrhea. On paper, a noble cause. They also have tried to obtain "Generally Recognized as Safe" or GRAS status for their proteins from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Apparently they were pondering putting the proteins into "medical food" products. The FDA denied their GRAS petition. This is a significant conclusion by an agency that has a reputation for cursory, shoddy reviews of company GMO test data. So the proteins aren't safe enough for the FDA, but the company is going to feed the products to kids in the developing world. Sounds fair to me. (I am leaving out for now the story of how they tested the drugs on young children in Peru before doing animal testing in the US.)

The history of the company is an interesting one. Unfortunate that it is so little chronicled in the usual techno-utopian reporting about the pharma rice. When Ventria first started scaling up their field trials and got noticed by the rice growing industry, they were driven out of California by the reaction of farmers who thought that the threat of contamination of California rice by human genes was too great. So Ventria moved to Missouri. Anheuser-Busch got wind that Ventria was going to produce cannibal rice in regions where they sourced rice for their world-famous brews and used their political muscle to get that idea nixed. Rice producer opinion probably contributed to their expulsion from Missouri: "We just want them to go away," said Bob Papanos of the US Rice Producers Assocation...

Then Ventria moved to North Carolina, where little rice is grown and so contamination was not too big of an issue. Unfortunately the fields they found were close to a USDA facility involved in breeding and maintenance of heritage rice varieties. Unfortunate for the scientists at the USDA facility actually. You see the USDA plays the role of promoter of genetic engineering. They are supposed to facilitate the development of the technology. So they shut down the rice breeding operations at the agricultural field station to make their decision to allow the field trial in North Carolina less overtly problematic. Really.

Also interesting is the evolution over time of what exactly these proteins would be used for. Initially, when Ventria was known as Applied Phytologics, the rice was going to be used in infant formula, or in other baby food products. The proteins would be added to make the products more like mother’s milk – lactoferrin and lysozyme are actually two antibacterial proteins found in breast milk, as well as human tears. That didn’t fly – probably either with the FDA or with consumers.

So then Ventria tried the "treating diarrhea in the third world" idea as the raison-d'etre for the engineered rice. But clearly investors know that there’s not much money to be made from people who earn less than $1 a day. So Ventria also floated the product idea of "medical foods" with the FDA and with the venture capitalists that have been keeping this company afloat for the last decade. Ventria proposed to market its proteins in performance (sports) drinks, granola bars, yoghurt, and similar products for consumers who actually have money to spend. FDA just popped that balloon when they denied GRAS status for the proteins. So at least in terms of the global public and media message, "saving kids in the developing world" is the one they are sticking with for now.