At some point catastrophe beckons. Our second report deals with a problem that kills one million young children in the third world every year and leaves many millions permanently blind. For a variety of reasons, babies can be prematurely weaned off breast milk. It's not a problem in the West, a variety of other foods and milk are available. But in the backwoods of the Far East, the usual option is rice gruel.
Rice however contains no vitamin A and such babies rapidly become deficient.
This golden rice has been given to the International Rice Institute in the Philippines for distribution to help ameliorate this serious problem and ensure a better life for parents and children. There are some Western critics who oppose any solution to world problems involving technological progress. They denigrate this remarkable achievement. These luddite individuals found in some Aid organisations instead attempt to impose their primitivist western views on those countries where blindness and child death are common. This new form of Western cultural domination or neo-colonialism, because such it is, should be repelled by all those of good will.