Genetically Modified ‘Super Banana’ To Be Tested On Americans

Genetically modified ‘super banana’ to be tested on Americans (RT, June 16, 2014):

A vitamin-enhanced ‘super-banana’ developed by scientists is to be tested on humans. The trials are to take place in the US over a six-week period. Researchers aim to start growing the fruit in Uganda by 2020.

The bananas are ‘super’ because they have been genetically enhanced to have increased levels of vitamin A – a deficiency of which can be fatal.

Hundreds of thousands die annually worldwide from vitamin A deficiencies, while many others go blind, the project’s leader told AFP.

“The consequences of vitamin A deficiency are dire with 650,000-700,000 children worldwide dying…each year and at least another 300,000 going blind,” Professor James Dale stated.

“Good science can make a massive difference here by enriching staple crops such as Ugandan bananas with pro-vitamin A and providing poor and subsistence-farming populations with nutritionally rewarding food,” Dale said.

The project was created by Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“We know our science will work,” Dale said. “We made all the constructs, the genes that went into bananas, and put them into bananas here at QUT.”

Dale added that the genetically modified banana flesh is more orange than a usual banana, but otherwise looks the same.

The highland or East African cooking banana is a dietary staple in East Africa, according to the researchers. However, it has low levels of micronutrients, particularly vitamin A and iron.

If the project is given the go-ahead for Uganda after the US trials, micronutrient enriched/modified crops could also be given the green light for Rwanda, Kenya, and Tanzania.

“In West Africa farmers grow plantain bananas and the same technology could easily be transferred to that variety as well,” Dale stated.

 

3 thoughts on “Genetically Modified ‘Super Banana’ To Be Tested On Americans”

  1. This American despises bananas, so they will have to do it without me. By the way, radiation levels have gone up very high in bananas. One would think their coat would protect them, but not so……radiation is very high in them, and it is time to stop eating them, just as it is time to stop eating fish from the Pacific, Beef, Chicken or any type of bird, or pork. All of it is diseased through radioactive stuff in their food, and they are getting sick as a result. They are fed grain and seeds, all grown in the open, and layered with radiation.
    This is a huge problem, and people had better take mind of it.

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  2. Of course, foreign never before existing proteins will be created, and your body will see them or it as a toxin, and thankfully obamacare will allow you to buy drugs to control the symptoms, and it may have the ability to change your DNA to start making something real fun! The body has a table of what things are edible programmed into it, and this stuff is not in it! But then again, it may contain part of a fish DNA and we know that’s going to be real fun for the doc to figure out whats wrong. A molecular DNA scientist is more useful than a doctor now..

    You will as in the case of all GMOs not be allowed to know they did it to what you are buying. In the Philippines, the local farmers see this bad behaviour planting things like thata, and they burn those fields at night. And they come armed in the dark. Thats real FDA!

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  3. To Dad: It is reassuring to know the farmers of the Philippines are so very far ahead of US folly………I have never seen such insanity outside of a history book. During the era of the Black Plague, people ate and drank concoctions that were lethal in themselves in hopes of rendering themselves invulnerable to death. People would eat poison in the belief it would make them less likely to die. That idea has regained some credibility today, but for the most part, it isn’t a good idea. Unfortunately, people continue to consume poisons in desperate hope they could live longer. People would take certain amounts of poison each day with the idea any who sought to kill them would fail.
    Despite all the misery and horror around them, people still fight to live. The drive to live is what has kept man alive for many centuries…….life is really pretty awful at times.
    I have an illness that will fortunately soon take my life. I have many well-meaning friends who have asked me if I have tried this remedy or that………they don’t get it. I hope to die before the pain gets too awful to endure…….that is what death is for…..when the body wears out, it is time to go.
    I know people who cling to life regardless their time is really up. I have done a great deal of work with the sick and dying. I have seen many embrace death with a grace and dignity I hope I can embrace.
    I have seen others who have clung to death with a ferocious drive I hope I never have to experience. They died in total fear, and their lives ought to have given them better peace………….there is no explaining the final hours.

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