A controversial modified rice - which will have protein often found in breast milk - has got clearance of American regulators and is expected to planed in Kansas State. This is among the first food crops containing genes that produce human protein to gain approval of the United States Department of Agriculture, Nature reported yesterday.

But many other pharmaceutical genetically-modified crops are already grown indoors or in inedible plants such as tobacco. The rice strains, made by Ventria Bioscience in Sacramento, California, produce lysozyme, lactoferrin and human serum albumin, commonly found in breast milk, in their seeds, it said.

Lysozyme and lactoferrin are proteins with anti-bacterial, viral and fungal properties, the report said. Ventria says they aim to use the rice to create drinks that can combat diarrhoea, and dietary supplements to help reverse anaemia. Diarrhoea, which often stems from gastro- intestinal infection, is a major killer of children worldwide.
Many further regulatory hurdles involving other agencies would need to be passed before products made from this rice could be sold to consumers, Nature said.

The crop, which has been tested in Peru, was given preliminary approval in March, and the USDA then opened the proposal up for public comment, it said, adding of the more than 20,000 comments they received, only 29 were positive, although many of the negative comments consisted of form letters.

In the end, the USDA thought the fears of many that the rice would escape into the environment or the food supply were not warranted, thanks to the many cautious procedures proposed by Ventria - including the fact that they plan to plant the test field more than 480 kilometre away from any commercial rice farms, Nature said.
The permit, the report said, states that any seeds eaten by animals or birds would pose them no significant risk. It adds that the chance that a tornado or other extreme weather event might disperse the seed widely is low, but requires an emergency management plan to deal with this.

A 2005 report by the USDA's Office of the Inspector General, Nature recalls, criticised the agency's approval of GM crops as being too lax, but the agency says that it has improved the approval process since then and that it has always been more vigilant about crops that produce pharmaceuticals.

PTI