Denying Healthy Food to Others

For John, BLUF:  To what extend should our fears cause others to not benefit from the advances of science?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Here is an article about how efforts against GMO (Genetically Modified organism) Food are endangering large numbers of people across the globe.  The author of this Scientific American article, by David Ropeik, "Golden Rice Opponents Should Be Held Accountable for Health Problems Linked to Vitamin A Deficiency".

By 2002, Golden Rice was technically ready to go.  Animal testing had found no health risks.  Syngenta, which had figured out how to insert the Vitamin A–producing gene from carrots into rice, had handed all financial interests over to a non-profit organization, so there would be no resistance to the life-saving technology from GMO opponents who resist genetic modification because big biotech companies profit from it.  Except for the regulatory approval process, Golden Rice was ready to start saving millions of lives and preventing tens of millions of cases of blindness in people around the world who suffer from Vitamin A deficiency.

Yes, there it is, in black and white.  Mr Ropeik is saying the tree huggers are taking actions that are allowing millions of humans and suffer and die.  A study he cites claims that "the delayed application of Golden Rice in India alone has cost 1,424,000 life years since 2002."  Yes, life years is a strange metric, but it includes not only the dead, but also those who suffer from blindness and so on.  This is just India.

So, the question is, should those actively opposing GMO be sued for the death and disease they are causing to exist across the planet?  Sort of like we sue oil companies that spill oil into the environment, thus damaging our environment.  What responsibility does Nation of Change bear in this area?

Mr Ropeik seems to be a person who is interested in our perception of risk.  This is an interesting area of study.  My example of trying to understand what A is trying to convey to B is the question of what the President perceives when the National Intelligence Officer for Warning says there is a 50% chance that Iraq will invade Kuwait, which he did, two weeks before the actual invasion.  In that case if was President George H W Bush and Mr Charlie Allen.♠

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  The Wikiepedia article on Mr Charlie Allen makes he look like a difficult and weird person.  My association with Mr Allen, when he was part of a Joint Staff internal seminar on Warning of War was that he was an articulate and professional and friendly participant.  And, when all of the Intel Community seemed to be saying there would be no war, Mr Allen was on the mark and was on the mark two weeks before the invasion of Kuwait, as he had promised he could and would.