They went through multiple years of development and testing before product launch. This timeframe is not surprising. It is a characteristic of seed improvement for food, fiber or feed crops that eight to fifteen years of time lag occurs between the first product concept and its availability to producers. Other presenters to this committee will discuss these traits and their importance in strengthening American agriculture and improving the safety of our food. Since these topics are covered I will, therefore, focus my testimony on the dramatic potential of plant genetic engineering to directly benefit human health.
Vaccines are one of the great success stories of modern medicine.
Ten of millions of lives have been saved by the successful eradication of smallpox from the globe, the nearly complete eradication of polio, and the great reduction in some other infectious diseases. Using the tools of modern molecular biology, at least forty new vaccines are under evaluation. However, the likely success of immunologists in identifying new vaccine candidates has posed a problem for public health officials. With respect to the latter issue, there has been a general call for more oral vaccines and new products that do not need costly refrigeration. In this publication, I document the need to develop vaccines for enteric diseases, recognizing that each year diarrhea kills about two and one-half million children under the age of five.