Worldwide, the biggest micronutrient deficiency is iron. It affects 1.4 billion women, 24% of the world population. The deficiency is specially severe in developing countries where the major staple food is rice.

Being able to contribute to the lessening of such deficiencies has been one of the major selling points for GM, as reflected in innumerable headlines:

Genetic engineering to battle iron ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/ sci/tech/newsid_286000/286057.stm

Genetically engineered rice is iron-fortified
http://members.tripod.com/hemochromatose/onderwerpen/geneticrice.html

Genetically Enhanced Rice to Help Fight Malnutrition ...
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/282/16/1508

The crop that pumps iron
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/gm/gm.jsp?id=21764000

The real promise of plant genetic engineering
http://www.txtwriter.com/Onscience/Articles/rice.html

Genetically Modified Rice Could Save Hundreds of Millions of Lives
http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=9&q=http://www.overpopulation.com/811&e=7207

However, isolated-nutrient-enriched crops often bring more questions than answers, and the story below about iron-enriched rice is no exception:

* those who need extra iron also need a balance of other nutrients to make use of the iron

* while some benefit from extra iron, others can suffer harm from it, and some cancers have been linked to excess iron

* the 'solution' of iron-enriched rice ignores the question of why the iron deficient populations have become so - is it because they have ceased to grow traditional leafy green vegetables in favour of monoculture cash crops? is it because of the micronutrient deficiency so common among Green Revolution crops? or is the soil badly deficient in iron, and if so what measures can be taken to replenish it?

However, if we assume for a moment that isolated-nutrient-enriched food crops are A Good Thing, this story provides yet more evidence that they can be produced without GM - and hence without all its accompanying uncertainties - and, as the article says, "without fanfare".

The fanfares have, of course been at their very loudest for so-called "golden rice" - a genetically engineered rice that is Vitamin A enriched and iron enriched.

In the case of Vitamin A, according to a BBC report, a scientist from the biotech company Syngenta which owns the rice, "All the genes are present in rice. One could make a non-GM vitamin-A rice simply by studying those genes in a more focused way."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3122923.stm

In other words, the real driving force behind genetically engineered nutrient-enrichment is a hunger for a poster child for GM.
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'Mom killers' and convents
Iron-enriched rice
By Juan L. Mercado
PDI, Philippines
Oct. 26, 2004
http://news.inq7.net/opinion/index.php?index=2&story_id=16063&col=110

"Get thee to a nunnery. Go!" - Hamlet

WITHOUT fanfare, 300 Catholic nuns in 11 convents worked with international researchers, led by a Filipino scientist, in experiments lasting over four years to produce a new rice variety that could curb the region's "serial mom killer": iron-deficiency anemia.

After screening over 1,600 varieties, scientists developed IR681440, the Asian Development Bank Review notes. It has "approximately four to five times more iron...than most varieties currently consumed in the Philippines."

"The new experimental rice variety (is) high in both iron and zinc," adds Chemical Weekly. "Both are normally deficient in a rice rich diet."

About 6 out of every 10 pregnant women in Asia, and 40 percent of schoolchildren, are iron-deficient. This reduces their immunity to disease, savaging their physical and mental capacities.

"In the Philippines, more than 35 percent of women, aged between 15 and 49, are iron deficient," the United Nations Children Fund states. "More than 500 women die during pregnancy and childbirth each year."

Commercial varieties already meet immediate needs. But most are short of iron, zinc and other essential micronutrients. They leave vast numbers worldwide vulnerable.

For years, ways to curb this "serial mom-killer" eluded scientists. Iron tablets proved costly and required complex import systems. What if rice, "extensively eaten by the poor across Asia, was naturally bred and selected for high iron content?" mused ADB health specialist Lisa Studdert.

The search for micronutrient-rich rice brought together, in the mid-1990s, scientists from the International Rice Research Institute, University of the Philippines, International Food Policy Research Institute, Cornell and Adelaide Universities.

Without notice, an iron-packed strain emerged in the late 1990s from an experiment for something else: rice able to thrive in degraded soils and cold.

"By chance, a variety designed to tolerate low temperatures inherited richness in iron and zinc from one of its parents," IRRI's Dr. Glenn B. Gregorio explained. "It had good flavor, texture and cooking qualities - and was high-yielding."
But two typhoons flattened Los Banos fields where the first seeds were being multiplied for trials. And would IR68144's high concentrations of iron and zinc stay after the grain had been processed, cooked and digested? For that, a large human consumption trial was essential.

Quietly, 27 Catholic nuns stepped forward to test the new variety. "The sisters, who were 25 to 35 years old, were particularly suitable for this experiment, because of their disciplined lifestyles and modest diets," said Gregorio who served as research coordinator. For six months after their consent, their convent became a laboratory. Every grain was tracked. Cooking and blood tests were monitored.

Preliminary tests showed that the serum ferritin levels in the blood of those who ate IR68144 leaped two or three times higher. The positive results led to 300 nuns in 11 convents participating in the second phase. The trial concluded in September 2003. Sisters who consumed high-iron rice "ingested about 20 percent more iron than those who consumed regular rice," the ADB noted. "On average, they increased their body iron by 10 percent."

"Those consuming control rice actually lost 6 percent of their body iron," it added. "The greatest increases in body iron were in the women who consumed the most iron from bio-fortified rice."

The conclusions validate parallel Cornell and Los Banos tests that minerals in IR68144 remained after processing and eating."Both experiments were positive for absorption of the micronutrient elements."

So where does this experiment go from here, after the nuns bow out, just as quietly as when they began? Its implications ripple far beyond Los Banos fields and Manila convents. In India, severe iron deficiency causes the deaths of 50,000 pregnant women. In Afghanistan, 65 percent of children under five are anemic.

"The next step is to conduct trials in a community setting and look at the effect on children's iron status," ADB health specialist Lisa Studdert writes. "A study is planned for Bangladesh in 2004-2005."

IR68144 seeds were developed "using traditional science," IRRI's director general, Dr. Ronald P. Cantrell, said. "No biotechnology was involved."

Seed grown in Los Banos are being shipped to research organizations in various countries for adaptability testing. The painstaking process of crossbreeding then begins. Crossbreeding could breed into the new plant pest and disease resistance and hardiness for local conditions.
The Danish International Development Agency, US Agency for International Development, and Australian Center for International Agricultural Research funded part of this project.

If there are no hitches, IR68144, or its offspring, could be released to farmers here and abroad in two or three years. The new rice offers the prospect of decisively bringing to heel iron-deficiency anemia in the world's poorest regions.

"Despite the weight of scientific supervision, the effectiveness of the trial depended on the tireless help of the sisters themelves," IRRI notes. The "gloomy Dane's" counsel of repairing to the cloisters may yet beat this "serial mom killer."