www.allowgoldenricenow.org

At 10 AM on October 2 the global campaign Allow Golden Rice Now! will be launched in front of the Greenpeace office at 33 Cecil Street. Dr. Patrick Moore will lead the demonstration with a banner that reads:

'Greenpeace's Crime Against Humanity' ' Eight Million Children Dead' 'AllowGoldenRiceNow.org'

Details of the campaign and the demonstration will be released at an information session to be held tonight, October 1, at 7 PM at the Pauper's Pub at 539 Bloor Street West.

The aim of the campaign is to convince Greenpeace that they should make an exception to their zero-tolerance position on genetic modification in the case of Golden Rice, on humanitarian grounds. The World Health Organization estimates that up to 500,000 children become blind each year due to vitamin A deficiency, half of whom die within a year of becoming blind. About 250 million preschool children suffer from vitamin A deficiency among the nearly 3 billion people who depend on rice as their staple food.

Conventional rice has no beta-carotene, the nutrient that humans need to produce vitamin A. In 1999 Dr. Ingo Potrykus and Dr. Peter Beyer, both science professors who were aware of this humanitarian crisis, invented Golden Rice after a nine-year effort. By inserting genes from corn they were able to cause rice plants to produce beta-carotene in the rice kernel. It is beta-carotene that makes corn golden and carrots orange. Golden Rice can end the blindness, suffering and death caused by vitamin A deficiency.

Field trials in Louisiana, the Philippines, and Bangladesh have proven that Golden Rice can be grown successfully. Clinical nutritional trials with animals, adult humans, and vitamin A deficient children have proven that Golden Rice will deliver sufficient vitamin A to cure this affliction. Yet Greenpeace continues to support the violent destruction of the field trials and trashes the peer-reviewed science that proves Golden Rice is effective and safe. We demand that they end these activities, stop fundraising on this issue, and declare that they are not opposed to Golden Rice. We believe that their continued actions to block Golden Rice constitute a crime against humanity as defined by the United Nations.

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines is coordinating the research and development of Golden Rice. The IRRI is supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Helen Keller International, USAID, and many agricultural research organizations. Golden Rice is controlled by non-profit organizations, and it produces viable Golden Rice seeds, so farmers are not dependent on any particular supplier.

"The Allow Golden Rice Now! campaign will carry this protest to Greenpeace offices around the world," stated Dr. Moore. "Eight million children have died unnecessarily since Golden Rice was invented.  How many more million can Greenpeace carry on its conscience?"

Allow Golden Rice Now!
www.allowgoldenricenow.org

Contact:
Patrick Moore    778-995-4122               
Michael Moore   250-888-7762
info@allowgoldenricenow.org