High-Dose Vitamin C Therapy Proven Effective
March 18, 2010
Natural News
By: E. Huff
There is a double standard in Western medicine when it comes to assessing the efficacy of vitamins compared to pharmaceutical drugs. While medical science recognizes that dose levels affect how well a drug works, the same principle is not considered valid for vitamins. As a result, 75 years of physician reports and clinical studies about the success of high-dose vitamin C therapy has been largely ignored.
When it comes to the effectiveness of simple vitamins and minerals at curing diseases, many ill-informed doctors still scoff at the idea, citing studies that allegedly verify that vitamins are ineffective. Most studies conducted on vitamins, however, either use really low doses or synthetic forms which negate any positive results.
High-dose vitamin C therapy, the kind that uses upwards of 1,000 times the U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) or Daily Reference Intake (DRI), has been shown in legitimate clinical studies to cure all sorts of illnesses.
Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi first isolated ascorbic acid (vitamin C) back in the late 1800s and, almost immediately, medical professionals realized that high doses of the vitamin were effective in treating a host of diseases.
In 1935, Dr. Jungeblut, then professor of bacteriology at Columbia University, published vitamin C’s effectiveness at preventing and treating polio and inactivating the diphtheria toxin. He later found that the vitamin C ascorbates inactivated tetanus as well.
In the 1940s, Dr. Frederick Klenner, a specialist in chest diseases, successfully cured 41 cases of viral pneumonia using high doses of vitamin C. He published his extensive findings in the February 1948 issue of the Journal of Southern Medicine and Surgery. Dr. Klenner ended up publishing 28 articles in various scientific publications.
Other findings included vitamin C as a cure for kidney stones, cardiovascular disease, hepatitis, AIDS, and even cancer. By administering tens of thousands of milligrams of vitamin C a day, the ability of these diseases to run their course is disabled.
Though the body can only assimilate a certain amount of vitamin C at a time when taken orally, high-dose, time-released oral vitamin C supplementation is a great way of maintaining health and preventing disease. When it comes to combatting serious diseases, intravenous vitamin C therapy is the most effective method because the body is able to more effectively assimilate very high doses of the vitamin this way.
Though generally rejected by most mainstream oncologists, intravenous vitamin C treatments for cancer have proven to be highly effective at eradicating the disease.
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Ingredient in Bananas May Prevent HIV Transmission
March 16, 2010
Topnews.us
By Jacob Ramsey
A new study reveals that a chemical has been found in bananas which may help prevent the transmission of virus causing AIDS.
The scientists from the University of Michigan said that the chemical lectin in bananas has been found as effective as two anti-HIV drugs, when tested in a laboratory. The scientists are now examining how this lectin could help combat AIDS.
Condoms and drugs are still in use to prevent the transmission of virus during sexual intercourse that causes AIDS. Scientists revealed that women living in poor countries require other forms of treatment to prevent the disease.
Lectin may help prevent the disease as it is very useful and is less expensive.
Lectins are sugar-binding proteins which play a vital role in recognition phenomena. This protein helps to identify the virus.
“That’s particularly true in developing countries where women have little control over sexual encounters so development of a long-lasting, self-applied microbicide is very attractive”, revealed study Senior Author Dr. David Marvovitz.
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HIV/AIDS Rises Among Girls and Women
March 12, 2010
Top News
By Jason Ramsey
Women are encouraged to get tested for HIV/AIDS regularly —every six months — and participate in National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NWGHAAD).
NWGHAAD is celebrated with an aim to raise awareness of the rising effect of HIV/AIDS on women and girls.
Launched by the Office on Women’s Health (OWH), on March 10 of every year, organizations across the country extends support discuss and educate women and girls about prevention, the need for regular testing, and the way to lead a normal, healthy life instead of being infected in recognition of NWGHAAD.
The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services claims that a woman in the United States gets tested positive for HIV every 35 minutes and nearly 25% Americans surviving with HIV are women.
Also, less than 15 percent of new HIV infections in the U. S. were among females 13 and older in the mid 1980s, which boosted to about 27 percent by 2006.
The Global Fund is reported to meet in The Hague, Netherlands, on March 24 with a view to examine how it can fulfill its goals eradicating or reducing instances of the three diseases by 2015.
It estimates that between $13-20 billion are needed for the period 2011-2013.
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Research Says HIV Can Hide in Bone Marrow
March 8, 2010
Google News
By Associated Press
The virus that causes AIDS can hide in the bone marrow, avoiding drugs and later awakening to cause illness, according to new research that could point the way toward better treatments for the disease.
Finding that hide-out is a first step, but years of research lie ahead.
Dr. Kathleen Collins of the University of Michigan and her colleagues report in this week’s edition of the journal Nature Medicine that the HIV virus can infect long-lived bone marrow cells that eventually convert into blood cells.
The virus is dormant in the bone marrow cells, she said, but when those progenitor cells develop into blood cells, it can be reactivated and cause renewed infection. The virus kills the new blood cells and then moves on to infect other cells, said.
“If we’re ever going to be able to find a way to get rid of the cells, the first step is to understand” where a latent infection can continue, Collins said.
In recent years, drugs have reduced AIDS deaths sharply, but patients need to keep taking the medicines for life or the infection comes back, she said. That’s an indication that while the drugs battle the active virus, some of the disease remains hidden away to flare up once the therapy is stopped.
One hide-out was found earlier in blood cells called macrophages. Another pool was discovered in memory T-cells, and research began on attacking those.
But those couldn’t account for all the HIV virus still circulating, Collins said, showing there were more locations to check out and leading her to study the blood cell progenitors.
Finding these sources of infection is important because eliminating them would allow AIDS patients to stop taking drugs after their infection was over. That’s critical in countries where the treatment is hard to afford and deliver.
“I don’t know how many people realize that although the drugs have reduced mortality we still have a long way to go,” Collins said in a telephone interview. “That is mainly because we can’t stop the drugs, people have to take it for a lifetime.”
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, Burroughs Wellcome Foundation, University of Michigan, Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship, National Science Foundation and a Bernard Maas Fellowship.
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Bill Gates’ Vaccination Scam Looks to Generate Money, Not Cures
Rense.com
By Thomas C. Mountain
The “richest man in the world,” Microsoft’s Bill Gates, recently announced that he was making a $10 billion donation towards finding vaccines to prevent some of the world’s worst diseases.
Malaria is the number one killer in Africa. From what I’m hearing about $1 billion of Bill Gates donation/tax write-off is for research to find a vaccine to prevent malaria.
The African country of Eritrea, where I live, has reduced malaria mortality by 85 percent in the last seven years. How? By using basic public health methods. By distributing pesticide treated mosquito nets and organizing the pesticide retreatment every three months of mosquito nets. By habitat eradication. And by community medical clinics for immediate treatment.
Malaria is a parasite-based disease noted for its variety and quick development of resistance to medication. Any “vaccine,” if even a billion dollars is able to produce such, would have a limited lifetime and new, patented medications would have to be bought by Africa’s poor every few years.
So “donating” a billion dollars to develop a malaria “vaccine” could turn into tens of billions of dollars in drug sales in Africa alone, and Bill Gates, through his drug company investments, will quietly pocket more African blood money.
All the while a very successful malaria mortality reduction program is operating, effectively, safely and affordably, in Eritrea.
Why isn’t this being publicized internationally? Could it be that such a program is not going to put billions into the pockets of the drug lords of Western finance?
Bill Gates and other assorted financial terrorists through their control of the Western media and “aid” organizations are suppressing implementation of a successful malaria mortality program while investing in a malaria drug addiction for Africa’s people.
These financial terrorists are perfectly willing to see millions die in Africa while they search for their next highly profitable “wonder drug” to cure malaria, all the while deliberately ignoring, worse, engineering a white out/cover up of what could prevent millions of deaths, let alone uncounted suffering.
And HIV/AIDS, Africa’s N0.2 killer? Bill Gates is said to be providing over a billion dollars for research into developing an AIDS vaccine. AIDS, a virus based disease, has already shown to have varieties and to have developed resistance to the medications developed to treat it. Like the flu vaccine, a new AIDS vaccine would most likely have to be developed every few years to combat the latest strain of the AIDS virus; another gold mine of new, patented medications for sale to Africa’s sick.
Eritrea has reduced HIV/AIDS infection rates by 40 percent, according to Physicians for Peace, and is the only country in Africa to reduce HIV/AIDS. How? By using public health education promoting condom use everywhere in the country. Over a billion for a “vaccine” that may never work while an effective program that can reduce HIV/AIDS infection by 40 percent, safely and affordably can be immediately implemented?
Remember, Western billionaires didn’t get that way by being out to really help anyone. Millions die in Africa as the Western drug lords and their financial terrorist stockholders reap their billions in blood money. All the while real heroes in the Eritrean public health service struggle to save people’s lives.
So don’t believe that Bill Gates is up to any good when he donates $10 billion to vaccine research, just the opposite. And don’t forget that as far at the USA is concerned in Africa, no good deed goes unpunished, and, once again, Eritrea is subject to UN Security Council sanctions.
Stay tuned to Online Journal for more news from Africa’s Horn that the so called free press in the west refuses to cover.
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Hopes Rise in Fight Against Aids
February 22, 2010
The Independant
By Steve Connor
Testing everyone at risk of HIV and treating them with anti-retroviral drugs could eradicate the global epidemic within 40 years, according to the scientist at the centre of a radical new approach to fighting Aids.
An aggressive programme of prescribing anti-retroviral treatment (ART) to every person infected with HIV could stop all new infections in five years and eventually wipe out the epidemic, said Brian Williams of the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis.
Dr Williams is part of a growing body of experts who believe that anti-HIV drugs are probably the best hope of preventing and even eliminating the spread of Aids, rather than waiting for the development of an effective vaccine or relying solely on people changing their sexual lifestyle.
The idea will be tested in the coming year, with the start of the first properly controlled clinical trial involving thousands of people living in a part of South Africa with a high incidence of HIV and Aids. Dr Williams said this will be followed by similar trials in the US, where HIV is rampant among some inner-city communities.
“Our immediate best hope is to use ART not only to save lives but also to reduce transmission of HIV. I believe if we used ART drugs we could effectively stop transmission of HIV within five years,” Dr Williams said. “It may be possible to stop HIV transmission and halve Aids-related TB within 10 years and eliminate both infections within 40 years,” he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego, California.
Anti-retroviral drugs dramatically lower the concentration of HIV within a person’s bloodstream, and, in addition to protecting patients against Aids, they significantly lower an individual’s infectiousness – their ability to transmit the virus to another person.
Dr Williams and his supporters believe that if enough infected people are treated, it would lower the rate of infection to such an extent that the epidemic would die out within the lifetime of those undergoing the treatment. Aids could effectively be wiped out by the middle of this century, he said.
“The problem is that we are using the drugs to save lives, but we are not using them to stop transmission,” Dr Williams said. Blocking transmission can only be done with an extensive testing regime followed by rapid treatment with anti-retroviral drugs to everyone found to be HIV positive, he said.
“The concentration of the virus drops 10,000 times [with ART] … This probably translates into a 25-fold reduction in infectiousness. But if you did this it would be enough essentially to stop transmission,” he said.
A study published in 2008 showed that it is theoretically possible to cut new HIV cases by 95 per cent, from a prevalence of 20 per 1,000 to 1 per 1,000, within 10 years of implementing a programme of universal testing and prescription of ART drugs.
“Each person with HIV infects, on average, one person every one or two years. Since people with HIV, and without treatment, live for an average of 10 years after infection, each person with HIV infects about five to 10 people,” Dr Williams said. “Treating people with ART within about one year of becoming infected would reduce transmission by about 10 times. Each person with HIV would infect, on average, less than one other person and the epidemic would die out.”
ART drugs have to be taken on a daily basis for life, and the cost for South Africa alone would be about $4bn (£2.6bn) per year. However, Dr Williams said that the cost of having to treat a growing number of Aids patients, as well as the economic cost of young adults dying off, would be higher than giving out free ART drugs to everyone who needs them.
“The key issue of cost is that if you don’t do anything it costs you a lot of money. In South Africa we spend a lot of money on people who are hospitalised with infections related to HIV,” Dr Williams said. “More importantly, we are killing young adults in the prime of their life just when they should be contributing to society. The cost to society of that is enormous.
“If you factor all of the costs into the equation then, in my opinion, doing this is a cost saving from day one because the cost of the drugs will be more than outweighed by the costs of treating all of these people with other diseases,” he said. “A friend of mine said that the only thing that is more expensive than doing this is not doing this.”
The first full-scale clinical trial is being planned in Hlabisa in Somkhele, about 220km north of Durban. It will be designed to test whether it is possible to ensure that people who are taking ART drugs comply with the strict prescription regime of daily pill taking, as well as discovering whether transmission rates fall below the level needed to sustain the epidemic.
“One quarter of the global cases are in southern Africa and one half of these are in South Africa, so South Africa is extraordinarily badly affected,” Dr Williams said.
“We could stop transmission quickly, but it doesn’t end the problem because people are infected with HIV for life. So we really are in it for the long term. We need to do a lot of operational research before we can consider this seriously as a public-health intervention, but there is a lot of enthusiasm for it,” he added.
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Accounting Fraud and Mismanagment in Federal AIDS Program
February 8, 2010
Washington Post
By Debbie Cenziper
Two Republican congressmen who help oversee billions of dollars for people with AIDS are asking the federal government for an accounting of fraud and mismanagement complaints leveled against AIDS programs nationwide.
Reps. Joe L. Barton (Tex.) and Greg Walden (Ore.) sent a letter Thursday to the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration that raised questions about the agency’s oversight of AIDS programs. The lawmakers cited a recent Washington Post series that found the D.C. Department of Health had awarded more than $25 million, largely in federal funds, to AIDS nonprofit groups that delivered substandard services or failed to account for any work at all.
Some groups submitted employee résumés and consulting contracts with false information, including fake addresses and credentials. Others had a history of financial problems or had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on travel or executive pay.
More than 15,000 people have HIV or AIDS in the District, 3 percent of the population who are older than 12.
“Washington, D.C., has one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the nation and $25 million dedicated to help people living with HIV/AIDS has instead found its way into the pockets of those interested in making a buck,” Barton, the ranking member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said in a statement. “It’s unconscionable.”
The lawmakers’ probe focuses on federal funding provided under the Ryan White Act, which pays for medical care and support services for about 500,000 low-income people each year. The Health Resources and Services Administration, an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services, oversees the funding. The D.C. metropolitan region receives about $45 million annually.
Many of the troubled nonprofit groups identified by The Post had received Ryan White funding from the city, including an organization launched by a man who once ran one of the District’s largest cocaine rings. The group, which was awarded more than $1 million from the fund, had been criticized by city monitors, former clients and other AIDS groups for a lack of services and supplies, missing records and questionable expenses.
In a letter addressed to Mary Wakefield, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration, Barton and Walden requested a list of programs cited by the agency in the past four years for failing to properly oversee Ryan White grants. They also asked for an accounting of complaints about AIDS fraud and documentation detailing how the problems have been addressed. The lawmakers requested a response by mid-February.
Barton said the Energy and Commerce Committee had asked in 2008 for an assessment of whether the grants had been properly monitored by the federal government. The Health Resources and Services Administration said at the time that it was conducting more site visits and enhancing training.
“Something is still very, very wrong, and we intend to find out just what it is,” said Barton, who recently supported the reauthorization of the Ryan White Act, first enacted two decades ago in honor of the Indiana teenager who died of AIDS.
Health Resources and Services Administration official Douglas Morgan said the agency would respond to the congressmen by their deadline. The agency “works with Ryan White grant recipients who have experienced difficulties on several fronts and has bolstered efforts to offer effective assistance in a number of ways,” Morgan said in a statement.
The lawmakers’ inquiry is the latest in a series of measures to shore up the District’s AIDS services. In recent months, Attorney General Peter Nickles launched a citywide investigation of troubled AIDS programs while D.C. Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large) pushed to correct problems cited by federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
In addition to Barton and Walden, Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) have called for an investigation of the city’s AIDS program.
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Unapproved Ozone Generators Seized by FDA
February 1, 2010
FDA
At the request of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Marshals today seized 77 ozone generators, models AOS-1M and AOS-1MD, from Applied Ozone Systems of Auburn, Calif. The seized goods, which are medical devices, are valued at $75,900.
The FDA advises health care professionals and consumers to discontinue use of these devices, which Applied Ozone Systems claims can treat cancer, AIDS, hepatitis, herpes, and a number of other diseases and conditions. The FDA has not determined that the seized products are safe and effective in treating the diseases or conditions, and officials at Applied Ozone Systems never responded to a Dec. 21, 2009 FDA request for a voluntary recall of these ozone generators.
In addition, the agency is concerned that patients who use these AOS ozone devices as directed by the manufacturer may believe that ozone therapy serves as an appropriate treatment and as a result delay or stop conventional or prescribed effective treatment. There is also a risk of infection from potential contamination of the applicator or catheter.
The FDA inspected Applied Ozone Systems in October 2009 after obtaining an inspection warrant when the owner of the company refused to allow agency staff to inspect the facility. The agency’s inspection revealed significant deviations from the FDA’s current good manufacturing practice (GMP) requirements for medical devices, and confirmed that the company has not obtained FDA marketing approval or clearance for these devices. The unapproved status of these devices and the conditions under which they were manufactured cause them to be adulterated and misbranded.
Ozone generators are devices that produce ozone from oxygen. Ozone is present in low levels throughout the earth’s atmosphere and has many industrial and consumer applications. It also is an air pollutant that has harmful effects on the respiratory system.
Ozone administration methods suggested by the manufacturer of the AOS-1M Medical Ozone Generator and the AOS-1MD Ozone Generator include blowing ozonized air into the rectal and vaginal areas.
“The seized devices are potentially harmful to public health,” said Michael Chappell, the FDA’s acting associate commissioner for regulatory affairs. “The agency will take action to protect the public from FDA-regulated products that are in violation of the law.”
Today’s seizure action was jointly conducted by the FDA and the State of California Department of Public Health, Food and Drug Branch as part of ongoing to efforts to ensure that unapproved medical devices that have not been found to be safe and effective do not enter the marketplace.
Health care professionals and consumers may report serious adverse events (side effects) or product quality problems with the use of these products to the FDA’s MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program either online, by regular mail, fax or phone.
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Scientists Crack HIV/AIDS Puzzle for Drugs
February 1, 2010
Reuters
By Kate Kelland
Scientists say they have solved a crucial puzzle about the AIDS virus after 20 years of research and that their findings could lead to better treatments for HIV.
British and U.S. researchers said they had grown a crystal that enabled them to see the structure of an enzyme called integrase, which is found in retroviruses like HIV and is a target for some of the newest HIV medicines.
“Despite initially painstakingly slow progress and very many failed attempts, we did not give up and our effort was finally rewarded,” said Peter Cherepanov of Imperial College London, who conducted the research with scientists from Harvard University.
The Imperial and Harvard scientists said that having the integrase structure means researchers can begin fully to understand how integrase inhibitor drugs work, how they might be improved, and how to stop HIV developing resistance to them.
When the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infects someone, it uses the integrase enzyme to paste a copy of its genetic information into their DNA, Cherepanov explained in the study published in the Nature journal on Sunday.
Some new drugs for HIV — like Isentress from Merck & Co <MRK.N> and elvitegravir, an experimental drug from Gilead Sciences <GILD.O> — work by blocking integrase, but scientists are not clear exactly how they work or how to improve them.
The only way to find out was to obtain high-quality crystals — a project that had defeated scientists for many years.
“When we started out, we knew that the project was very difficult, and that many tricks had already been tried and given up by others long ago,” said Cherepanov.
“Therefore, we went back to square one and started by looking for a better model of HIV integrase which could be more amenable for crystallisation.”
The researchers grew a crystal using a version of integrase borrowed from another retrovirus very similar to its HIV counterpart.
It took more than 40,000 trials for them to come up with one a crystal of sufficiently high quality to allow them to see the three-dimensional structure, they said.
They tested the Merck and Gilead drugs on the crystals, and were able to see for the first time how the medicines bind to, and block, integrase.
Almost 60 million people have been infected with HIV and 25 million people have died of HIV-related causes since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. There is no cure and no vaccine, although drug cocktails can keep patients healthy.
United Nations data for 2008 show that 33.4 million people had HIV and 2 million people died of AIDS. The worst-affected region is sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for 67 percent of all people living with HIV.
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Bill Gates Pushing Vaccines
January 26, 2010
CNET
by Ina Fried
Bill Gates thought that coming up with vaccines would be the hard part and that delivering vaccines would be the easy part.
It turns out they are both hard.
That’s one of the lessons that Gates tells CNET he has learned in his new role as full-time philanthropist. In travels to Africa, he saw firsthand the challenges of delivering vaccines, many of which have to be kept cold to be effective and are needed in places with no refrigeration.
“We were a bit naive about that, particularly getting new vaccines adopted by countries,” Gates said in an interview with CNET’s Ina Fried last week. “It had been so long since they had done it, I just assumed they would look at the numbers, it would be a very straightforward process. Well, the process doesn’t even exist.”
Plus, he said, “The cold chain is more messed up than I expected.”
In the interview, which was done in conjunction with the release of the annual letter (PDF) from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates talked about other surprises he encountered in his travels, including the fact that one of the ways to reduce the spread of AIDS in Africa is to promote adult circumcision–something that he wasn’t sure would be feasible.
“Male circumcision–which I thought wouldn’t be a big effect because I didn’t think adults would be that interested in it–it looks like that’s really going to help slow the disease,” Gates said.
Gates also talked about his recent foray into Twitter and the launch of his Gates Notes Web site.
“The Internet is tailor-made for the kind of activities I’m involved in,” Gates said. “When I take a trip, we have all these photos. And there were things that were fun and exciting, and people want to see that. It’s very easy to put it up there…I think it’s going to be a lot of fun to be sharing on an ongoing basis, and people who are interested in a particular topic can just find that piece and go after that.”
Gates also discussed the classes he is taking online, the response to the earthquake in Haiti, and the need for breakthroughs in clean energy.
Here below is an edited transcript of the conversation:
Q: In one recent interview I heard that Melinda said [of you] that, “Bill’s on fire.” What are some of the things that have really ignited your passion further in this past year?
Gates: Well, the opportunity to go into the field and see both the need and the progress makes this a really fun job. I was in Kenya and South Africa in December and saw the AIDS epidemic, which is still really awful in both of those countries, but I saw a lot of hope. Male circumcision–which I thought wouldn’t be a big effect because I didn’t think adults would be that interested in it–it looks like that’s really going to help slow the disease. So I’m excited that I get to take my belief in science, backing scientists doing great work, and the practical notions of how things get organized, how they get done, and do my best to apply them to the needs of the poorest.
I hear that one way that you approached this year’s [foundation] letter was to look at what it might be like to write that letter in 10 years if there weren’t any innovation. What were some of the things that went through your mind as you started thinking about it that way?
Gates: Well, innovation is often this hidden thing, because we can’t put numbers to it. And yet it’s the thing that defines the way we live, the things we’d like to have for everyone whether it’s health or education. Where does the marketplace fall short and therefore a foundation can have a catalytic effect?
What types of things is innovation critical to solving?
Gates: Well there are great examples from both the United States and from Africa. If we don’t innovate in education, the budget cuts and increasing expense of a really great university education, it’s literally going to mean less people get to go have that education at a time when more people are going to want it, and the country needs more people to get those educations. I call it the $200,000 education, because if you pay the full amount to a private university, that’s what it costs.
So how could you get that to be available to lots more people? How could you avoid that kind of bleak, “years ago things were better”-type outcome? Well the answer is that we’ve got to innovate. We’ve got to put courses out on the Web, we’ve got to put interactive learning out on the Web.
Likewise, for some of these health problems. If we don’t solve them, then the population growth that comes with bad health, we will overwhelm what Africa will be able to do in terms of jobs and education and just feeding people. And so we’ve got to make progress now in order to not just straight-line that population growth which would make Africa far worse than it has been.
The letter talks about some of the incredible traveling you did. One of those trips earlier in the year was to India, I think it was your 12th trip, if I’m not mistaken. One of the projects that you saw was something called “scuba rice,” an effort to make rice that is more flood resistant. How important is it to create more weather-resistant crop?
Gates: Even today people starve or live very poor livelihoods with not enough calories or not enough crops to sell some to get money for school fees because of weather. Weather is a super tough problem, and weather is going to get worse. That is, climate change means that there will be more rain when you don’t want it, coming all at once. There will be periods with no rain, drought. And so taking these crops, about 10 crops that are used to feed most people, and improving the common varieties–and there are a lot of varieties for some of these seeds so they can deal with the drought or flooding–is critical.
And rice, there was this amazing breakthrough where just by putting one gene in you can take it so when the rice gets flooded it will just wait until the flood goes away and then resume growth. So if you put two fields next to each other, the current rice variety and the one with this new gene, then after the flood comes, you’ll see complete die off without the gene, and great rice that’s literally unaffected where you’ve got this new gene. And we’ve been able to transfer that gene into many rice varieties. And so it’ll improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Now the other traits like drought resistance may not be as easy, but they’re equally important and that’s why we need to invest in that science.
