Genetically modified Golden Rice was once seen as the answer to vitamin A deficiency in Asia and Africa, where rice is the staple food.  But a recent court ruling in the Philippines, the very country where rice breeders first came up with the idea of Golden Rice, has brought more than 30 years of crop development to an abrupt halt.

As reported in Science magazine, a Philippine Court of Appeals in April 2024 revoked a 2021 permit that allowed the commercial planting of a Golden Rice variety tailored for local conditions. The ruling resulted from a lawsuit by Greenpeace and other groups, who for many years have opposed the introduction of all GMO (genetically modified organism) crops as unsafe for humans and the environment.

Millions of poor children in Asia and Africa go blind or even die each year from weakened immune systems caused by a lack of vitamin A, which is produced in the human body through the action of a naturally occurring compound, beta-carotene.

So the discovery by Swiss plant geneticist Ingo Potrykus and German biologist Peter Beyer in the 1990s that splicing two genes – beta-carotene from daffodils, the other from a bacterium – into rice could greatly increase its beta-carotene content caused considerable excitement among nutritionists. Subsequent research, in which the daffodil gene was replaced by one from maize, boosted the beta-carotene level even further.

The original discovery should have been heralded as a massive breakthrough. But widespread hostility erupted once the achievement was publicized. Potrykus was accused of creating a “Frankenfood,” evocative of the monster created by the fictional mad scientist Frankenstein, and subjected to bomb threats. Trial plots of Golden Rice were destroyed by rampaging activists.

Nevertheless, in 2018, four countries – Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S. – finally approved Golden Rice. The U.S. FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has granted the biofortified food its prestigious “GRAS (generally recognized as safe)” status. This success paved the way for the nonprofit IRRI (International Rice Research Institute) in the Philippines to initiate large-scale trials of Golden Rice varieties in that country and Bangladesh.

Greenpeace contends that currently planted Golden Rice in the Philippines will have to be destroyed, although a consulting attorney says there is nothing in the Court of Appeals decision to support that claim. And while Bangladesh is close to growing Golden Rice for consumption, the request to actually start planting has been under review since 2017.

The Philippines court justified its ruling by citing the supposed lack of scientific consensus on the safety of Golden Rice; the consulting attorney pointed out that “both camps presented opposing evidence.” In fact, the judges leaned heavily on the so-called precautionary principle – a concept developed by 20th-century environmental activists.

The origins of the precautionary principle can be traced to the application in the early 1970s of the German principle of “Vorsorge” or foresight, based on the belief that environmental damage can be avoided by careful forward planning. The “Vorsorgeprinzip” became the foundation for German environmental law and policies in areas such as acid rain, pollution and global warming. The principle reflects the old adage that “it’s better to be safe than sorry,” and can be regarded as a restatement of the ancient Hippocratic oath in medicine, “First, do no harm.”

Formally, the precautionary principle can be stated as:

When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.

But in spite of its noble intentions, the precautionary principle in practice is based far more on political considerations than on science. A notable example is the bans on GMO crops by more than half the countries in the European Union. The bans stem from the widespread, fear-based belief that eating genetically altered foods is unsafe, despite the lack of any scientific evidence that GMOs have ever caused harm to a human.

In the U.S., approved GMO crops include corn, which is the basic ingredient in many cereals, corn tortillas, corn starch and corn syrup, as well as feed for livestock and farmed fish; soybeans; canola; sugar beets; yellow squash and zucchini; bruise-free potatoes; nonbrowning apples; papaya; and alfalfa.

One of the biggest issues with the precautionary principle is that it essentially advocates risk avoidance. But risk avoidance carries its own risks.

We accept the risk, for example, of being killed or badly injured while traveling on the roads because the risk is outweighed by the convenience of getting to our destination quickly, or by our desire to have fresh food available at the supermarket. Applying the precautionary principle would mean, in addition to the safety measures already in place, reducing all speed limits to 16 km per hour (10 mph) or less – a clearly impractical solution that would take us back to horse-and-buggy days.

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