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humanized rice



Reply to Greg Massa,
Rice with genes for human lysozyme and lactofferin has been field tested
in California and from Greg's letter there seems to be pressure to
approve the product. Rice is somewhat inbred but known to pollinate
weedy relatives. I am enclosing below some references to papers on the
production of the humanized rice and the URL of its producer. I also
included a paper showing that lactofferin can kill.The human proteins in
rice will also have diiferent patterns of modifications such as
glycosylation that alter allergenicity However, there is an indication
that chicken feed may be the primary target of the rice.
Humanized rice is a pharm crop that will likely eliminate organic and
conventional rice production in California.
The humanized rice reminds one of the old movie on Soylent Green with
Carlton Heston playing a detective who uncovers a slimy bureaucratic
plot to turn people into food. California's new governor is likely
preparing to star in a a sequel with humanized rice!
Sincerely, Joe Cummins
Brooke D. Humphrey, Ning Huang and Kirk C. Klasing (2002). "Rice
expressing lactofferin
and lysozyme has antibiotic-like properties when fed to chicks." Journal
of Nutrition 132: 1214-1218

Jianmin Huang, Somen Nandi, et al. (2002). "Expression of natural
antimicrobial human lysozyme in rice grains." Molecular Breeding
10(1-2): 83-94


Jianmin Huang, Liying Wu, et al. (2001). "Expression of functional
recombinant human lysozyme in transgenic rice cell Transgenic Research
11: 229–239,

the company http://www.ventriabio.com/products/emergingproducts.asp
death from lactofferin: Virchows Arch. 2002 Nov;441(5):494-9. Tsokos M,
Paulsen F.
Expression of pulmonary lactoferrin in sudden-onset and slow-onset
asthma with fatal outcome.


Hello. I'm going to attend a meeting on Friday where the introduction (in
2004) of Ventria Bioscience's genetically modified rice to California will
be discussed. This rice contains human genes for proteins found in breast
milk. The synthesized proteins will then be put into baby formula.

I'm pretty well versed in what will happen to our rice markets if this
introduction takes place, but I'm not up to speed on the safety of these
recombinant proteins (lactoferrin and lysozyme). Anybody have any
information on this, or on the company itself?

Thanks,
Greg Massa

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