7sigma

I emailed Adrian Dubock (via the contact email on the website) and his reply was that the philippines will still be included.

My guess is that when they started the philippines and other rice producint countries where on that list (couldn't find for previous years), but from what he said, its a "project of need and goodwill". Take away what you want from this, but I think its a case of the inventors not foreseeing these countries would not be part of that list back in the early 2000s. Syngenta have the rights to the distributions (the original inventors have the actual patents), so it might not be much of an issue to change those terms.

"if the humanitarian use license did include any that could, it forbids exporting golden rice - it's strictly for internal consumption only. The page you linked makes this restriction very clear."

So you're going from the premise that those countries dealt effectively with VAD with supplements with the one that says that Golden rice is bad because they can't export? How does a restriction on export mean that you can't enjoy the benefits of Golden Rice? The point is that poor farmers grow a rice that is a source of vitamin A, without having to grow/buy vegetables or get vitamin supplements. They don't need to export to get the benefits, they just need to eat rice with added Vitamin A. Your argument doesn't make any sense.

edit: missing word

This is pure anti GMO propaganda. "it's covered by a thicket of patents from about 30 companies"

The patents have been waived for humanitarian purposes. Also rice is self polinating so of little interest to seed companies. http://www.goldenrice.org/Content1-Who/who4_IP.php

"the government there quietly dealt with the vitamin A deficiency problem through a more low-tech and effective technique: vitamen supplements"

Really? 250,000–500,000 children in developing countries become blind each year owing to VAD, with the highest prevalence in Southeast Asia and Africa. I guess in your world that qualifies as effective. Even if they did solve it with supplements, wouldn't it be better to solve it already in the food, instead of spending millions a year on supplements? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_A_deficiency

"The criteria for being licensed to grow golden rice is that the country grows less calories of food than it takes to support their population."

Do you have any sources for this or are you just making it up?

"Golden rice is basically useless except as a PR tool to clear the way for more profitable GMOs"

A classic anti GMO talking point with no basis in fact. Just because corporations use genetic engineering doesn't mean it can't be used for altruistic purposes. Have you considered the possibility that people are actually trying to solve a problem that kills tens of thousands and blinds countless more every year? I guess its easier to believe in conspiracy theories.

some of the comments made me chuckle:

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2005 to 2007, but things might have changed since then.

One of the "fond" memories was during our training where the guy basically said that when you compile your function (or app) the first time, you run the command and then get a cup of coffee cause it gonna take at least 20 mins, due to cyclic dependencies in the codebase.

yep, lets not forget 700mb + executables...

Former bloomberg employee here. While the bloomberg service usually runs very well, its built mostley on spaghetti code that has been copy pasta'ed since the 80s and 90s. It might have improved since I worked there, but there were some serious deficiencies in development methodology.

this article provides a good rebuttal to the IARC

http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2015/03/20/march-mad...

tl;dr: the IARC report bases its conclusion on the potential hazard rather than the actual risk. Regulatory agencies like Germany's BfR which review a lot more data have concluded that there is no "carcinogenic or mutagenic properties"

I wonder what studies he's talking about. The ones I'm aware of that show these effects are seralini study, or judy carman's pig study. And anybody with even a basic knowledge of science should be able to tell that they are lousy papers.