Babies as guinea pigs: biotech company turns Peruvian hospitals into laboratories.

• Author: Ribeiro, Silvia
• Position: Biodevastation - Ventria Biosciences

The biotech company Ventria Biosciences sponsored tests on babies and children hospitalized at two pediatric institutes in Peru of two new experimental drugs derived from transgenic rice that was genetically engineered with synthetic human genes to produce artificial human milk proteins.

The experiments, results of which were revealed this May in the US, were carried out at the Institute for Child Health and the Nutrition Research Institute, both in Lima, Peru. The Peruvian public found out about the experiments when they were denounced by the Peruvian Human Rights Association and the Network for a GMO-Free Latin America.

Ventria is a biotech company that specializes in so-called "pharming," which refers to planting genetically modified crops that are cultivated to produce pharmaceutical agents or chemicals. Such plant varieties are even more controversial than the GM (genetically modified) crops designed for agricultural use. This is because the "pharm" crops could contaminate food crops via the movement of pollen or accidental mixing of crop residue, with significant health risks, particularly if they enter the human food chain.

So far, no drug produced by transgenic crops has been approved for human use in the US or anywhere else in the world. Ventria began planting GM pharma crops in California, but was forced to move them to Missouri and then to North Carolina in response to resistance by farm groups and consumer and environmental organizations.

Because of the long and uncertain approval process for new drugs, especially those of this type, the company apparently decided to carry out their experiments on children in the third world, where regulations are more lax and where it seems easier to find institutions that lack adequate funding (or ethics).

In a recent public relations move to make over its image, Ventria now calls these products "medical foods," most likely in order to evade the stricter regulations for drug approvals. The company is carrying out experimental production of two recombinant human proteins, Lactoferrin and Lysozyme, which are present in their natural forms in mother's milk, saliva, semen and other human bodily fluids. The recombinant versions are produced in genetically engineered rice, which contains the synthesized human gene sequences responsible for their production. Two of these, extracted from the modified rice, were tested on Peruvian children.

Ventria experimented with 140 children from the age of 5...