For Immediate Release: December 1, 1999 Contact: Amy Ridenour
202/543-4110 x110 or [email protected] Protesters disrupting the
WTO meeting in Seattle are in part protesting programs that
could be of great benefit to poor people in developing
countries, says the National Center for Public Policy Research.
One of the issues cited by protesters as a cause for violence is
that of biotechnology, or genetically-modified food. Although
there is no evidence that such food is unsafe, European groups
and many American environmentalists oppose it on the grounds
that genetically-modifying food tinkers with nature. If the
activists have their way, however, over the next two decades
thousands if not millions of people in the developing world
could starve to death or suffer serious and often permanent
disability due to malnutrition. These are people who could be
helped or saved through biotechnology. One of the benefits of
biotechnology is that it can substantially increase agricultural
productivity in the developing world