Bill Gates Foundation Helped Pay for GMO Trial That Used Children As Guinea Pigs

by Heidi Stevenson

18 October 2009

Golden rice is a genetically-modified (GM) food intended to reduce vitamin A deficiencies in nutrition-deprived children. Directly contrary to the Nuremburg Code, it has been tested on children under age 10 in both China and the United States. The Bill Gates Foundation has heavily financed the development and testing of this rice, in conjunction with the Rockefeller Foundation and biotech firm, Syngenta, which owns the rights to profit from the rice.

The Nuremberg Code contends that children under age 10 are incapable of providing consent for such trials and that animal trials must be performed before use on humans. Yet, children have been the first line of Golden Rice experimentation, bypassing even animal trials and ignoring adults.

Scientists Protest

Scientists from around the world have condemned the practice. In a letter to the team who conducted the experiements, they stated,

We are writing to express our shock and unequivocal denunciation of the experiments being conducted by your colleagues which involve the feeding of genetically modified Golden Rice to human subjects.

The letter further states that there was "woefully inadequate pre-clinical evaluation". They argue that there is a growing body of evidence documentating that GM foods can cause genetic mutations that "can result in health damaging effects when GM food products are fed to animals".

The scientists express particular concern at trials in children without prior animal testing, and they warn that an excess of vitamin A's precursor can be toxic and cause birth defects.

One of the scientists who signed the protest letter is professor emeritus of medicinal chemistry at Sunderland University, Malcolm Hooper. He says,

This type of experimentation is frightening—children as lab rats—it is not on.

Another signatory, Professor David Schubert of the Salk Institute of Biological Studies in San Diego, stated,

It is completely immoral to feed this rice to children without proper safety testing...It's like putting a new drug on the market with no toxicology or safety trials.

One of the signers is Dr. Stanley WB Ewen, who was a participant in a 1999 Scottish trial that documented toxic effects from genetically modified potatoes.

...the Rebuttal

Of course, the Golden Rice Organisation's project manager, Dr. Adrian Dubock, disagreed that the rules of the Nuremberg Code had been broken, claiming that independent ethics panels approved the testing. He said that parents hadn't been given financial rewards to allow their children's participation. However, he fails to note that these were very poor people—ones who would likely have seen the free food as an enormous benefit, not to mention the free school bags, pencils, and paper given to the children. To prosperous people, these seem like a pittance, but to the poor, they can be a boon.

Dubock went on to say, "The Golden Rice contains the food colors found everywhere in colored natural foods and the environment...There is no possible way the trials could do any harm to the participants." Let's take a look at that statement. He implies that what's being tested is simply the color of the rice, and goes from that to baldly claim that there's no possible way harm could result. This sort of logic is just a step away from 2 + 2 = 5.

That wasn't the end of it, though. Dubock went further, stating, "As humans are the designed beneficiaries of Golden Rice, animal testing could not answer the questions posed." How that squares with the Nuremberg requirements or with the fact that drugs, intended for use on humans, are first tested on animals goes unexplained.

If the Golden Rice project manager's ethical basis is so weak, what's the likelihood that the panels who approved the testing had any legitimate basis to rule that testing on children first is ethical? Especially when the panel was arranged by the group that wanted to do the testing?

Bill Gates Pushes GMO

At the World Food Prize event this week in Iowa, Bill Gates gave the keynote speech. In it, he stated that environmentalism is hurting the people in Africa by. He claims that an "ideological wedge" of the movement is trying to prevent advances that, he believes, can feed the hungry. At the same time, he claims that the small farmer will lead the way to the "next green revolution". How he can reconcile the harm done to small farmers by GM seeds is unexplained. Farmers are forced to purchase seeds from the manufacturer for each crop, making them beholden to and dependent upon Agribusiness—often keeping them in serfdom, with no way out. These products have, thus far, produced lower yields and often failed crops, leaving the farmers with no recourse to resume their livelihoods.

Click here to see it the Gates speech. [22:45 minutes]

Gates says, "They [the environmentalists] have tried to restrict the spread of biotechnology into sub-Saharan Africa without regard to how much hunger and poverty might be reduced by it, or what the farmers themselves might want." In this classic example of double-speak, he doesn't allow the truth: that GM crops have not produced the marvels claimed, and that small farmers end up holding a bag full of unfilled promises. He refers to "corporate partners" without also noting how they profit from GMOs. These partners have included both Monsanto and Syngenta.

He said, "And of course, these new technologies must be subject to rigorous scientific review to insure they're safe and effective." This statement was made months after the reckless testing of Golden Rice on children without prior testing on adults or animals. Listening to him, you'd think that there are no risks in genetically modified foods and that it's immoral not to support it. He compares the small African farmer with the largely Agribusiness American farms, and implies that the farms of big business are superior—never taking into account the dangers of monoculture, the stripping of soils, the creation of massive pollution, the production of nutrient-poor foods, or any of a host of other harms.

During the speech, Gates announced a grant of $120 million for, among other things, getting information to African farmers by radio and cell phones, and help African women farm sustainably. Yet, if his views are followed, then the methods to be used are high technology and complete dependence on the whims of Agribusiness. Doesn't the reference to using radio and cell phones make this clear? Is this where the poorest of the poor should spend money? Should they be spending money on GM seeds and be forced to return to the manufacturers, rather than following good husbandry methods and saving seeds from their crops? Shouldn't their knowledge from generations be honored?

The Gates Foundation partners with the most ruthless corporations. Is there really any possibility that the purpose is anything other than the creation of new markets for those company's products?