Genetically Modified Plants- Consumers must make a Stand
By Cheah Hooi Giam

The Guardian newspaper in England some months back reported that a 'large quantity' of rice imported from United States into the EU was contaminated with GM(genetically modified) rice. This GM rice known as LLRICE 601 has not been approved for human consumption anywhere in the world. It was planted in the US between 1998 and 2001 on an experimental basis. This GM rice is 'designed' to be resistant to the herbicide Liberty(a glucosinate), hence the name Liberty link Rice 601.
According to The Guardian newspaper, The US government says
that "it does not know how or the extent of this rice contamination nor has any way of finding out".More worrisome, The US government also claims it doesn't know where else this GM rice will turn up!

Which begs the question:
1)Given that Malaysia is a rice importer nation, has
LLRICE601 contaminated our rice silos?
2) If indeed LLRICE 601 had been imported into Malaysia, what will it do to our health and the biodiversity of our Malaysian Rice species?
The issue of this GM Rice aside, it is very likely that there will be more GM plants making their way, legally or illegally into Malaysia. Malaysia is a rich resource of natural plant species and the threat of GM plants contaminating our natural heritage is very real. However, we must understand that GM plants may well have some use but we do need to control their release into our natural environment.

Our Malaysian government has no cogent legislation to deal with the introduction of these 'frankenstein' plants into our country. For the sake of our human health and that of our diverse plant kingdom, consumers must lobby the government to legislate in order to control the release of GM plants into our environment.

Footnotes:Genetically Modified or GM organisms have no way of occuring in Nature.For instance,the GM Rice quoted above has been bred by inserting a bacterial gene into its genetic makeup. This particular bacteria is resistant to the herbicide Liberty Link, therefore making the resultant rice also artificially resistant to the herbicide.The rice plant can then withstand the spraying of high doses of the herbicide.

Generally, GM species have two or more genes from unrelated species 'splayed together'at the genetic level to give rise to a new 'mutant' species(for want of a better description). Because both species are unrelated, they cannot occur naturally.

To comment on this article, email:

cheah_optometrist@yahoo.com.