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Block on GM rice ‘has cost millions of lives and led to child blindness’
- deogeo 7y agoIf only we could use GM crops without handing control of the food supply to hostile corporations. It's only the irrational fear of GM that is strong enough to stand up to their lobbying - with the unfortunate side-effect of stopping all GM crops as well. But without that fear, the same misaligned incentives that result in tractor DRM and novel-length EULAs will be written into the DNA of the plants we need to live, while competitive forces will bankrupt those that stick with traditional seeds.
- Merrill 7y agoWith the newer DNA editing tools becoming available more widely, perhaps there can be a "Free and Open Source Genetics" movement that will curtail the power of corporations to control genetic modification.
- maxerickson 7y agoThere's lots of GM crops in use already, they aren't being stopped. It's not just corn and soy either: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/fdcc/?set=Biocon https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/fdcc/?set=Biocon
- coenhyde 7y agoThe Federal Government could purchase the patents for GM crops after they've been developed and proven to be safe. Then make the crop freely available. You'd probably want some kind of purchase agreement where the crop developer gets annual payments based on how much the crop is used over a period of time.
- Causality1 7y agoPersonally I think the idea of applying IP rights to living things is perverse and despicable.
- chadlavi 7y agoThis. I'm all for the science, but don't trust corporations further 'n I can throw them.
- weberc2 7y agoThe alternative is the government, right?
- hannasanarion 7y agoHow is government ownership of food patents worse than corporate ownership of them?
- refurb 7y agoIt’s not worse. But is it better? I can think of several instances where the federal govt gave sweet-fuck-all about human rights or what’s best for society.
- mcv 7y agoIt should be. Governments are supposed to represent the people and be accountable to them. Corporations are far too often only accountable to their shareholders. Reality is often different, of course.
- hannasanarion 7y agoGovernment decisions are made democratically, by the people or officers appointed by them, to do what they believe is best for the people. Corporate decisions are made autocratically, by the owners or their appointed officers, to do what they believe makes the most money. How is the former not categorically better than the latter?
- weberc2 7y agoIn theory they are better, but in practice “what makes them the most money” is often “what is best for the people” and governments and elected officials are often inept or corrupt. This doesn’t apply for every government or corporation on every issue, so we need to be nuanced in who we entrust which issues to. Specifically we want to look at the severity of the issue, the incentives, and the corruption and the competence of the government in question.
- ZhuanXia 7y agoAbsent patent rights, none of that would matter. Patents are grotesque rent seeking and responsible for all these ills.
- davidf18 7y agoPatents are very important for wealth creation. Investors need returns on their investment, otherwise they will not make investments in the research and development necessary to develop the product. Without the limited time monopoly created by patents, investment cannot be recuperated and there will be no funds available for creating and productizing innovation.
- pmoriarty 7y agoI wonder if something like the Kickstarter model could be applied to this sort of research. Novel investment models and the increased accessibility of bioengineering technologies to individuals have the potential to revolutionize the field in the future. Witness the blossoming fields of biohacking and citizen science. The fruits of individual, independent experimentation and development may get out in to the wild, if they haven't already, and no patent is likely to stop them.
- deogeo 7y agoYet golden rice was made mostly through state funding - patents aren't the only way.
- makomk 7y agoOne of the slightly unfortunate things about golden rice (and there are quite a lot of them) is that the state funding it was developed with required them to patent it and sell the patent to the private sector. Though not patenting it would've been of limited help due to the thicket of patents covering the technologies they used.
- rndgermandude 7y ago
- strainer 7y agoThe fear is not inherently irrational either. Its clearly a very powerful field on the confoundingly complicated biological domain, and with more power and complexity comes greater potential for serious error. It can be fair to disagree about the safety and wisdom of various GM applications, but the charge that it is all irrational is really just divisive rhetoric. I don't approve of novel GM in agriculture, I encourage naturalistic development for mass production in the environment and especially the materials we routinely put into our body. Poor nutrition is caused by poor politics, culture and economics over and above all of the existing foods which are already available to solve it. I think GM will best be limited to acute medical challenges and containable research and emergency uses, until we have actually developed a strong command of diseases and natural (evolved) systems. Our agriculture should be as contingent as possible with natural history and existing species in our already very disturbed sphere of ecology.
- deogeo 7y agoThat's true - while I mostly don't buy the 'frankenfood' scare, I worry about the dangers to the ecosystem. For example a GM crop that is fungus/insect resistant, but the resistance is due to a herbicide/pesticide it was engineered to synthesize, that is later found to harm some key species (the way neonicotinoids were found to harm bees). Only recalling it will be much more difficult, especially if the genes spread to other species (such as by horizontal gene transfer). All the while the corporation selling the crop has every incentive to try to hide the ill effects.
- strainer 7y agoI question why doesn't some amoeba just maximize its fitness and so turn into effectively a bioweapon that eats all the mammals on the planet? It has some sort of intelligence that restrains it from wiping out its food source? I do wish for Genetic Science and all relevant fields to take that mystery very seriously and solve it securely before its confident to mass replicate novel species in the huge system. Species which have evolved somehow over ages to not be routinely in massive flux between champion species. The microbial world could liquidate swathes of the phylogenetic tree repeatedly, if all it needs is a chance mutation to create a new alpha species. What stops an experimental GMO containing such an over-competitive mutation, or a precursor to such? There is so much yet not known or controllable in microbiology, it does worry me that the prevailing attitude is so confident with the little that is known and doable. Its alarmist and uncertain, but so is the foresight that significantly increasing ghgs through the whole atmosphere is too dangerous, or filling the sea with more plastic waste than there are fish left in it is not worth the price and risks. Hopefuly culture is on the verge of accepting these concerns have had rational basis. It needn't result in the end of modernity, but in the appreciation and protection of some older things.
- jammygit 7y agoI’ve been reading a sci fi book called the windup girl. The setting is a future where agri-tech companies and bioweapons proliferated until some conflict happened that led to almost all crops on earth being wiped out, and only innovative new produce could survive the engineered diseases, so the agri-tech companies have incredible power since the world depends on them for its survival. I would like to think it’s unlikely to really happen, but I’ve read news in the last 2 years about the USA researching tech that could lead one day to these types of scenarios[1]. There was also agent orange etc in Vietnam, showing a willingness to use such tech even in less serious wars (eg, compared to ones that endanger your cities). [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181009102511.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181009102511.h...
- gimmeThaBeet 7y agoThat's also roughly the backstory of Niander Wallace in Blade Runner 2049. He creates synthetic farming methods to avert a global famine, which then gives him the clout to get the ban on replicants overturned. Windup Girl came out in 2009, perhaps some inspiration was acquired for BR2049...
- C1sc0cat 7y agoDoes raise the question is how Wallace manged not to just get his methods expropriated by the government or other Zaibatsus. Cyber Punk Dystopias are not big on Due Legal process, quite big on extra judicial solutions :-)
- mcv 7y agoThat reminds me of the time Monsanto bought Blackwater. (It's unclear to me whether they actually did, though I do remember it being reported. Online, reports are all over the place, with Monsanto denying it, others claiming it's true, and some sources claiming Monsanto merely hired Blackwater or bought only the intelligence arm of Blackwater under a different name. But it seems likely there's some relationship at least.)
- RandomInteger4 7y agoNaive Question: Wouldn't a multivitamin be a cheaper and safer solution to counter a broad range of vitamin deficiencies? If not, why would growing crops be a cheaper solution? What is the opportunity cost of growing golden rice to feed your vitamin deficient family vs. growing something else to sell on a broader market?
- Chathamization 7y agoVitamin A supplements are a cheap and effective solution, and one that groups like the WHO have focused on[1]. They almost never come up when golden rice is discussed, because discussions of golden rice seem to be more about pushing on particular kind of tech than about discussing the best way to solve the problem. [1] https://data.unicef.org/topic/nutrition/vitamin-a-deficiency/ https://data.unicef.org/topic/nutrition/vitamin-a-deficiency...
- Aloha 7y agoOr just enriching the rice
- aurizon 7y agoThese countries are riddled with corruption at all levels. Any enriching agent would be taken by the person tasked with enrichment and sold, the poor would get nothing and suffer the deficiences. This way the color tells the tale. Greenpeace, Bryce and all his cronies need to be tossed into a pit full of mambas. Audit Greenpeace very throughly, remove their deductions and track the officers and strip all the other lairs of these crooks
- bureaucrat 7y agoYeah, this is the reason why I don’t donate even a cent to charities that ‘claims’ to help Africans and North Koreans. I’d rather give a dollar to the local homeless shelter and watch them burn fuel with it at night, than my cent going straight to corrupt governments and militias.
- jfim 7y ago
- wwarner 7y agoSorry, very inadequate treatment of this story. Golden rice is intellectual property, whose seeds are no longer owned by the farmer who grows them, but by whoever is selling it. Think about it, can the root of the problem be the nutritional value of rice, when no rich country needs to license a foreign company's intellectual property to feed itself?
- nickik 7y agoMost farmers already buy their seeds from somewhere anyway even if their non GMO
- thrower123 7y agoMost of the seeds you buy are hybrids that don't breed true if you reuse the seed. Sometimes, that doesn't matter much - I've saved corn seed and replanted it year after year, and it may not be exactly Silver Queen or Seneca Horizon anymore, but it's still corn. But some things get weird.
- ackshually 7y agoI'm interested to know what weirdness you've run into.
- thrower123 7y agoMostly I've seen odd results trying to replant seed from cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, that variety of thing, when they are hybrid varieties. A lot of times, there's a clear regression back to the base varieties that were hybridized, and it can be quite a striking difference. Also, a number of these cultivars can cross-pollinate, and then you can get some really interesting monstrosities. For instance pumpkins getting crossed up with buttercup squash that come out as dark green and orange tiger-striped things.
- ackshually 7y ago
- wwarner 7y agoThis WUSTL anthropologist doesn't agree. https://source.wustl.edu/2016/06/genetically-modified-golden-rice-falls-short-lifesaving-promises/ https://source.wustl.edu/2016/06/genetically-modified-golden...
- sremani 7y agoThey made similar promises about GMO cotton shit that got lot of Indian farmers killed! Google BT Cotton!
- microcolonel 7y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bt_cotton#Controversies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bt_cotton#Controversies Wasn't that debunked? The claim was that it contributed to suicide, but the farmer suicide rates have, by numbers I've seen, declined over the relevant period, which would not be surprising since cotton productivity has skyrocketed. Now, maybe the numbers are doctored, and I'd believe that about India, but I'd want some proof other than "Google it and trust the first negative story written from WhatsApp rumours.".
- sremani 7y agohttps://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/as-a-genetic-revolution-collapses-vidarbhas-cotton-farmers-dread-coming-season https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/as-a-genetic... I do not consider Bloomberg to be fountain of truth! It has its biases but .. here you go!
- microcolonel 7y agoIsn't the problem there the application of improper, illegal pesticides? The story linked for the 45 deaths from poisoning directly states that the pesticides involved were siezed by the state. Then later in the article: > He, however, pointed out that the failure of this technology is unique to India. None of the 14 other Bt cotton-growing countries have faced the problem because they follow pest management strategies such as short-season crop, pheromone-based monitoring and so on. It seems from even your source: no deaths were the result of either variant of Bt Cotton, and India's failure to maintain the crops is directly linked to shortsighted mismanagement of crops, and possibly unique conditions in India. I'm no great fan of Monsanto, but it doesn't seem like there's a case of killer cotton here, but instead a predictable tragedy of routine human foolishness.
- sremani 7y agoHow many of these Golden Rice pushers are eating it as their regular staple ? Case Closed! These morons develop solution for Africa and Asia because when their silver-bullets blow-up these morons are thousands of miles away from the blow-back and happily move into "mosquito sterilization" or some other fancy shit. Unless you are feeding your SON golden rice for the past decade - do not tell any one including the poor to eat the "fraken"-rice. Precautionary Principle!
- manigandham 7y agoWhen a doctor prescribes you medicine, I'm assuming you don't complain that they themselves don't take the same thing and therefore you wont? I understand the attitude behind your comment but it's not that simple. Not every region or country has the same requirements and it's more important to see whether something works or not.
- aurizon 7y agoYou are such a racist!!
- Thorrez 7y agosremani's comment seemed inflammatory to me, but not racist.
- aurizon 7y agoWell, how does selectively letting third world people suffer deficiencies look to you? That is what they are doing:- harming people from their WASP bastions.
- Thorrez 7y agoWe should all try to interpret people's intentions as the best possible intentions instead of the worst possible intentions. I highly doubt it's sremani's intention is to selectively hurt third world people. I think it's highly likely that sremani instead believes there's some sort of danger in golden rice, and wants to prevent it from contaminating the food supply and the environment. In sremani's view, sremani is saving third world people from that danger. Instead of calling sremani racist, we'll make more progress by instead giving evidence that there's no danger in golden rice and that it will help people.
- tjawirklich 7y agoFor all the promises mentioned around this crop, this was surprising to read in the article: /quote As Stone and Glover point out, it is still unknown if the beta carotene in Golden Rice can even be converted to Vitamin A in the bodies of badly undernourished children. /endquote Given the advertising as a solution to the issue and all the surrounding hullabaloo, the fact that it is still not proven to do what it espouses--is pretty damning.
- Chathamization 7y agoVitamin A deficiency is also effectively combated by low cost supplements (which is why groups like the WHO focus on this as well as dietary solutions)[1]. Though people who talk about golden rice claim that they're very concerned about vitamin A deficiency, it's telling that they never talk about other much more successful efforts that have had great effect in combating this deficiency (this article is no exception). It seems like a lot of people have put reason aside and become enamored with the idea of a technological silver bullet. Also worth pointing out that the problems with making golden rice viable have little to do with anti-GMO activists, and more with the problems in creating a viable product[2]. [1] https://data.unicef.org/topic/nutrition/vitamin-a-deficiency/ https://data.unicef.org/topic/nutrition/vitamin-a-deficiency... [2] https://source.wustl.edu/2016/06/genetically-modified-golden-rice-falls-short-lifesaving-promises/ https://source.wustl.edu/2016/06/genetically-modified-golden...
- makomk 7y agoThe original version of golden rice was even worse - that very definitely didn't have sufficient beta carotine to be effective. Some weird and subtle compatibility issue between the particular gene they used and the way they were trying to get it to be expressed that I'm not sure anyone fully understands. That unfortunately hasn't stopped GMO advocates from accusing opponents of GM foods of causing massive deaths and childhood blindness by blocking the rollout of that first version.
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago(In)effectiveness of rice needs to be proven on it's own merits
- Merrill 7y agoThe patents on golden rice should begin to expire next year. Not only will farmers be able to propagate it without running afoul of IP restrictions, but hobbyist gene hackers will be able to create new varieties.
- leggomylibro 7y agoWhether or not the benefits of "golden rice" are overstated, I'd really like to see a DIY implementation of that experiment. Sometimes I see "CRISPR workshops" which go over the basic theory and walk through performing individual steps like amplifying DNA with PCR and preparing it for transfection, but it's still very difficult to actually get a stable targeted mutation. And having a goal like beta carotene would be a good opportunity to explain how to research the pathway which leads to a certain chemical, and get a plant to express each step along the way. I get that people are suspicious of GMOs, but I'd actually like to see a simple gene lab in every home. It takes time to perform this sort of experiment, and if the work could be spread out among individuals who all have their own interests/tastes/climates/etc, we might see more progress in the practicum. Sadly, synthetic biology is hard, and the equipment would probably take more space than a toaster or a blender. But it's a nice pipe dream.
- marcus_holmes 7y agoI love that idea - AgriHack, a plant hackathon to create a new strain of rice that provides vitamin supplements. The winner has the most vitamins and uses the least water to grow. How close are we to this kind of thing?
- tjpnz 7y agoWhile I happen to agree with the conclusion the headline is utter bullshit. While a block on GM rice may have contributed to the problem it's dangerous (and intellectually dishonest) to suggest that it's a cause. It's also worth pointing out that Golden Rice was available in some of these countries and the locals just didn't want to touch it.
- RaceWon 7y agoTalk is cheap, and so is saving some lives. Are you part of the solution? Please help if you can... [1] Feed My Starving Children [1] https://www.fmsc.org/ https://www.fmsc.org/
- tomq 7y agoOne of the unfortunate things about the GM foods debate is how rarely the details of a particular crop are considered. What method was used to engineer it? What gene was added in or modified? What is the IP approach used by the inventor? What are the results of field trials? For all the strong opinions I’ve seen, nobody mentions these specifics. It’s like deciding someone is guilty or innocent of a crime when all you know is that they’ve been charged.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- projektfu 7y agoDid anyone ask whether the market in any of these countries would accept golden rice? They generally like white rice. I didn't see any reference to a market study in the article.
- blululu 7y agoGolden rice is mostly a publicity stunt. Basic agrarian reforms could easily allow farmers to grow crops that naturally contain vitamin A. This article perpetuates a very expensive misconception about land use, R&D and the basic problems of nutrition.
- aitchnyu 7y agoIf it works, the poorer Indian states have wheat as their staple. What could help those hundreds of millions? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2012_Poverty_distribution_map_in_India_by_its_states_and_union_territories.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2012_Poverty_distrib... https://scroll.in/article/670473/rice-and-wheat-maps-of-india-rajasthan-doesnt-eat-rice-rotis-a-rarity-in-manipur https://scroll.in/article/670473/rice-and-wheat-maps-of-indi...
- shard972 7y agoIt also has reduced the amount of carbon pollution so who is to say one is right and the other is wrong?
- mcintyre1994 7y ago> “In Bangladesh, China, India and elsewhere in Asia, many children subsist on a few bowls of rice a day and almost nothing else. For them, a daily supply of Golden Rice could now bring the gift of life and sight,” states Regis in his book, Golden Rice, which is published this month. This made me think of one of the scariest papers I’ve seen: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0212840 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... > In summary, we have shown that elevated [CO2] has the potential to cause damage to human nutrition and health via leaf vegetables and feed crops, not only grain crops. The greatest threat comes from the more severe drop in N and Zn in polished rice grains, and the lower content of Ca in feed crops and leaf vegetables. In addition, a reduction in the intake of minor minerals such as Mn and S that we currently obtain in sufficient amounts might cause unanticipated health risks. Flow analysis and transcriptomics suggested that lower absorption and/or translocation of elements is a key factor underlying the lower elemental content in rice grains, and the lower expression of related transporter genes under elevated [CO2] might also play a role. > Our results suggest that increasing [CO2] levels might have more serious consequences than previous influential predictions that were based on brown rice [1]. In particular, the drop in N in polished rice would negatively affect the nutritional status of the 153 million individuals of Bangladesh, who depend largely on rice for their protein intake and are already estimated to have an individual daily protein intake below the standard of “hungry” as defined by FAO/WHO (S1 Table). > Our results showed that elevated [CO2] might also impair human nutrition via leaf vegetables and feed crops that we either eat directly or utilize as animal feed, not only via grain crops. As compared to the grain, elemental content declined markedly in the plant body of rice. For example, Mg and Mn content in the plant body decreased 2- and 4-fold, respectively (Fig 1C). These data, and the difference between polished (endosperm) and brown (endosperm plus bran) grains demonstrate that the elemental reduction due to elevated [CO2], is specific to each organ. The impact on leaf vegetables and feed crops should also be noted, because these are important sources of micronutrients despite being consumed in smaller amounts than staple grains. In the analysis of feed crops, which combined our new data including rice straw with data from three previous studies (see Fig 1D, Table 1), elevated [CO2] decreased the content of five major (S, K, P, Ca, and Mg) and three minor (Zn, Fe, and Mn) essential minerals by 8.3% to 21.9%. It is especially noteworthy that the content of Ca was reduced by 12.7%. At present, much of the world’s population is facing a deficiency of Ca [21, 22]. Approximately 25.4 million adults in the United Kingdom and the United States have a high risk of Ca deficiency [21], and 54% of the population of Africa (5.7 hundred million individuals) is at risk of Ca deficiency [22]. Leaf vegetables are an important source of essential minerals; for example, in the United Kingdom and the United States, 10% of Ca and Mg intake comes from leaf vegetables [7]. The main source of Ca is milk, however, with UK adults obtaining half of their Ca intake from milk and dairy products [7]. The elemental content of the livestock's ingested feed correlates with that of the milk that they produce [23, 24]; therefore, the lower elemental content of feed crops grown under elevated [CO2] is likely to reduce the elemental content of milk and dairy products. Ultimately, elevated [CO2] might affect human nutrition and health even in high-income countries, where food supplements for micronutrients including Ca are readily available.
- bkdbkd 7y agoThis is a promo piece for Ed Regis' new book, right? Doesn't matter what the science is, as long as we buy the book in the end. <wit> If you study hunger, you find that the root causes tend to be uncontrollable forces of nature like greed, corruption, and politics. Not that we _can't solve problems like this with frankenrice, but it may be more straightforward to help those who find themselves oppressed into poverty, be slightly less oppressed. </wit>
- safgasCVS 7y agoI don’t understand why you need to engineer vitamins into rice instead of just handing out vitamins separately? And if its that easy to save lives with vitamins the implication is these vitamins have been deliberately withheld to shift this product (which isnt whats happened only that the gist of the article makes no sense when you look at the premise)
- mamon 7y agoBecause handing out vitamins costs money for each dose, and with GM rice you only need some seed (pun intended) investment and then people, even the poorest ones can grow it by themselves - it is two orders of magnitude cheaper. Also: handouts would make those people dependent on their benefactors moods,being able to grow healthy spiecies of rice solves the problem permanently.
- gnud 7y agoGM rice would also make sustenance farmers dependent on handouts, since they're not allowed to keep and re-plant seeds, but compelled to buy new seeds from the rights holders every season.
- makomk 7y agoThe free license for golden rice allows saving and replanting seed - thankfully big biotech wasn't quite that obviously evil in their big positive PR for GMOs act. The caveats are that doesn't cover imports and exports (all consumption must be within the country that grows it), and it only covers subsistence farmers and low-income food-deficit countries according to the FAO. As a general rule, food-deficit countries aren't going to be able to grow enough rice to supply the country because the definition literally requires they can't grow enough calories of food to feed their population. I'm not sure what hapens when a country loses its LIFD status or a farmer has a good year and makes over the threshold to grow it in other countries, but I presume it's not good for anyone except the company owning the patent rights.
- altacc 7y ago
- aritmo 7y agoLooks like another attempt to evangelize GM crops by using this time the "think of the children" argument.
- raxxorrax 7y agoBad article in my opinion. Millions of lives were lost because of malnourishment, not because of golden rice as intellectual property was rejected. From a production perspective the food could easily be provided in any other form, there just isn't enough incentive.
- manmal 7y agoYes. This is blame shifting in its purest form.
- henryaj 7y ago> From a production perspective the food could easily be provided in any other form But it wasn't. The counterfactual isn't "other vitamin-A rich foods being provided", it's "nothing being provided".
- rorykoehler 7y agoReads like it came straight from the PR dept
- dekhn 7y agoPerhaps, but one of the most important things about biology and medicine is that there is often a cheaper, lower tech solution to the problem you are trying to address. Often, chasing tech and trying to deploy it for humanitarian purposes works poorly. Look at how long it takes billionaires to understand that mosquito netting makes more sense than mosquito lasers.
- imsesaok 7y agowhen western people had iodine deficiency because of their diet, they added iodine in salt, not modifying wheat DNA to contain seaweed's DNA so that it contains iodine. this article is a solution in search of a problem.
- mcv 7y agoOf course the real cause of these millions of deaths and cases of child blindness is not so much the block on GM rice, but the extreme poverty in which these people live so that they have no access to better food than rice. The GM rice is a stop-gap measure in the absence of improving actual living conditions. It's sad that it's being blocked, but it's not the true cause.
- aries1980 7y agoThe average price of Vitamin A is $54/kg: https://www.pharmacompass.com/price/vitamin-a https://www.pharmacompass.com/price/vitamin-a . The RDA for kids is around 0.5 mg, 20,000 kids could be supplemented a day with $54. 100g of GR1 rice is needed to feed one kid, So 2000 kg rice need would provide the same amount of beta-carotine/Vitamin A. Just for Vitamin A point-of-view, I fail to see how is it financially reasonable to choose GR1 over lab-quality Vitamin A for $54 per kg.
- visarga 7y agoBut does it assimilate as well?
- aries1980 7y agoYou mean whether it is biologically available? I guess, the synthesis has been out there since the 1940s, and other procedures has been found in the 1970s: https://community.dur.ac.uk/i.r.baxendale/papers/Tet2016.72.1645.pdf https://community.dur.ac.uk/i.r.baxendale/papers/Tet2016.72.... Because these procedures are still in use, my hunch is that they are in use in vain.