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Our Editor-in-Chief's letter to the Editor of The Times.

 

6 Feb 2015, The Times, Letters to the Editor

GM technology
.

Sir, I cannot quite agree with your assertion that GM technology is utterly safe (leader, Feb 4). It would be unsafe, for example, if it were used to put a gene for the production of a poison into a crop plant. In contrast, as with the insertion of genes into rice to make pro vitamin A (golden rice), it is utterly safe and of great potential good for the estimated half million children who go blind every year because of lack of vitamin A. Thus the debate must shift to the nature of the genes themselves and the benefits they may confer and away from the technological process by which they are incorporated into plants.

 

RICHARD STRANGE

Editor-in-chief, Food Security