May 10, 2000 / St. Louis Post-Dispatch / Deirdre Shesgreen
A U.S. Senate spending committee has, according to this story, approved $30
million in new funding for biotechnology research projects that tackle
issues such as malnutrition and hunger in developing countries - a move
hailed by promoters of genetically engineered foods.
The story says that the money was the biggest chunk in pet projects that
lawmakers from Missouri and Illinois squeezed into federal budget bills now
making their way through Congress. It was secured by Sen. Christopher "Kit"
Bond, R-Mo., a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The committee
approved the money Tuesday - a key step in the budget process. The biotech
money was included in legislation that funds foreign operations. The story
adds that the legislation must still pass the full Senate and House and be
signed by the president. An aide to Bond said the senator fought for the
funding in part to address criticism that too little biotech research helps
the developing world. At Bond's request, $9 million of the $30 million in
biotech funds were earmarked for specific projects. If the bill wins final
approval, researchers at the International Rice Research Institute in the
Philippines will get $5 million to develop a strain of genetically altered
rice. The so-called "golden rice" contains genes that researchers hope will
help combat Vitamin A deficiencies, the world's leading cause of blindness.
In a letter to Bond, Ronald Cantrell, head of the rice institute, was cited
as saying the money would likely cut the development time for the rice to
three years, down from a five-to-eight year estimate, adding, "For too long,
the developing world has been bypassed by the latest technological
breakthroughs in the developed world, [but] your funding would allow us for
the first time to reverse this trend."
The University of Missouri-St. Louis would get $1 million for its
International Laboratory for Tropical Agriculture Biotechnology, where
researchers are looking for ways to fight diseases that threaten rice,
tomatoes, cassava and other crops. And the new Donald Danforth Plant Science
Center in St. Louis County would receive $1 million to teach Thai
researchers how to protect plantains and other tropical plants from
diseases.
Dr. Clive James, board chairman of a non-profit group that transfers
biotechnology to poor countries to alleviate poverty and malnutrition was
quoted as saying, "You have 24,000 people a day dying from chronic
malnutrition. I don't want to say that biotech is the silver bullet, but it
is a central component in a food security strategy."
The Senate appropriations committee also approved an agriculture spending
bill on Tuesday that includes funding for other biotech research. Sen. Dick
Durbin, D-Ill., worked to get $2.8 million to fund animal and plant biotech
projects at the Biotechnology Research and Development Corporation in
Peoria, Ill. The agriculture bill includes $600,000 for University of
Missouri researchers to study genetic improvements of soybeans. And the
committee approved $1.3 million for a biotechnology partnership between MU
and the University of Illinois. In all, MU would get $14 million from the
agriculture spending bill, including $500,000 for researchers who are trying
to combat a bug that attacks soybean crops and $2 million for a joint
agroforestry research project with the University of Arkansas.
(posted without permission)
