Badgering-the-Government-over-the-proposed-culling

Badger Cubs

Good Morning,

Its all very well me telling you how disgusted I am at the proposed Badger cull in England, my sentiments are not being heard by those ignorant and ill advised decision makers!

Do you have a call to action plan or is it a simple matter of creating more public awareness?

I am of the opinion that we are fighting on two fronts at the same time here namely;
1. The great unwashed ignoramus
2. The blood-thirsty barbarians


The decision makers, our Government, are push-over's when it comes to listening to advice, sadly its the wrong advice they are taking on board, influenced perhaps by the cheapest option proposed by the Farmers lobby, that of - shooting Badgers!
They are also influenced by votes and that is their Achilles heel. Public opinion is already miffed by the austerity cuts imposed upon them, so too is the general consensus of a cull being a little unsavoury.

I am no expert in political matters, but I am an environmentalist and care deeply for the welfare of animals. If Inoculation works then it should be pursued at whatever cost. The analogy for negotiation and peace talks to end or prevent hostility with the enemy, saving lives should be our priority!

We have persecuted animals for far too long, lets not give the barbarians aka "badger-baiter's" a licence to kill. Killing is seen as the cheapest way to eradicate a problem and "sporty", it is simply wrong and irresponsible, an unnecessary act of cruelty and superiority over another blameless animal.

These are our native badgers, they are not some alien species that threaten our way of life, they are a protected species and have a right to be protected. Tuberculosis is a curable bacterial infection.

They live in our country quietly going about their business while giving joy to anyone who encounters them, they have a right to exist. If any badgers have been unfortunate enough to catch bovine TB from cattle, they deserve to be vaccinated just like you and I. Let’s not forget, this is bovine TB, it’s the cattle that are spreading the disease, not the badgers.

I'm sure many will share my horror at the ineptitude of these politicians. Let's join together and badger them!

Regards
Chris Wilson


For more information please visit: http://www.savethebadger.com

Vitamin A deficiency has killed 8 million kids in the last 12 years. Help is finally on the way!

Finally, after a 12-year delay caused by opponents of genetically modified foods, so-called “golden rice” with vitamin A will be grown in the Philippines.

Over those 12 years, about 8 million children worldwide died from vitamin A deficiency.
Are anti-GM advocates not partly responsible?

Golden rice is the most prominent example in the global controversy over GM foods, which pits a technology with some risks but incredible potential against the resistance of feel-good campaigning.

Three billion people depend on rice as their staple food, with 10 percent at risk for vitamin A deficiency, which, according to the World Health Organization, causes 250,000 to 500,000 children to go blind each year. Of these, half die within a year. A study from the British medical journal the Lancet estimates that, in total, vitamin A deficiency kills 668,000 children under the age of 5 each year.

Yet, despite the cost in human lives, anti-GM campaigners—from Greenpeace to Naomi Klein—have derided efforts to use golden rice to avoid vitamin A deficiency. In India, Vandana Shiva, an environmental activist and adviser to the government, called golden rice “a hoax” that is “creating hunger and malnutrition, not solving it.”

Golden rice (right) compared to white rice (left)

 

Golden rice is a variety of Oryza sativa rice produced through genetic engineering to biosynthesize beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, in the edible parts of rice. The research was conducted with the goal of producing a fortified food to be grown and consumed in areas with a shortage of dietary vitamin A which is estimated to kill 670,000 children under 5 each year.

Golden rice differs from its parental strain by the addition of three beta-carotene biosynthesis genes. The scientific details of the rice were first published in Science in 2000, the product of an eight-year project by Ingo Potrykus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg. At the time of publication, golden rice was considered a significant breakthrough in biotechnology, as the researchers had engineered an entire biosynthetic pathway.

In 2005, a new variety called Golden Rice 2, which produces up to 23 times more beta-carotene than the original golden rice, was announced. Although golden rice was developed as a humanitarian tool, it has met with significant opposition from environmental and anti-globalization activists.

Most ironic is the self-fulfilling critique that many activists now use. Greenpeace calls golden rice a “failure,” because it “has been in development for almost 20 years and has still not made any impact on the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency.” But, as Ingo Potrykus, the scientist who developed golden rice, has made clear, that failure is due almost entirely to relentless opposition to GM foods—often by rich, well-meaning Westerners far removed from the risks of actual vitamin A deficiency.

Too much in advance of today's needs?

Not soon enough in my opinion!
Its kind of sad really, all those people that have now died from a lack of vitamin A because of the ignorance of the so called 'do-gooders' aka environmental and anti-globalization activists.

Exercise caution by all means by conducting tests to prove or disprove the health and safety of the consumers, protect neighbouring crops from accidental cross pollination if indeed that's the concern, but to be ignorant of the possibilities that will help save millions of lives is a step backwards not forwards.

Thankfully common sense has prevailed.