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Symposia and Forums

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Pharmaceutical Rice in Missouri

A Forum Organized by Friends of the Earth and Hosted by MU's Biotechnology and Society Program

Time: Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Place: MU Campus, Hulston Hall, Room 6

Description

An expert panel of 4 speakers will provide a critical perspective on "biopharming," or genetically engineering plants for drug production, with a focus on the plans of Ventria Bioscience to grow pharmaceutical rice in southeast Missouri. Followed by Q & A. Moderated by Philip G. Peters, Jr., professor of law and director of MU's Biotechnology and Society Program.

Topics include the potential for pharm traits to enter the food supply, the possible economic, health and environmental impacts of biopharming, federal regulation, and the economic development potential of this technology for rural America. Speakers listed below.

Speakers

Dr. Jane Rissler Senior staff scientist for the Food and Environment Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). In 2004, Jane co-authored A Growing Concern: Protecting the Food Supply in an Era of Pharmaceutical and Industrial Crops, and Gone to Seed: Transgenic Contaminants in the Traditional Seed Supply.
Bill Wenzel Director of the National Farmily Farm Coalition's Farmer to Farmer Campaign on Genetic Engineering. Bill has broad knowledge of biotechnology from the farmer's perspective - particularly, liability and market concerns arising from biotech traits passing to conventional and organic crops.
Bill Freese Research analyst with Friends of the Earth's Safer Food, Safer Farms Campaign. Bill has written widely about all aspects of biopharming, including Manufacturing Drugs and Chemicals in Crops (2002), Pharmaceutical Rice in California (2004) and Pharmaceutical Rice in Missouri (2005).
Greg Yielding Arkansas Rice Growers Association (invited). Greg is executive director of the Arkansas Rice Growers Association, which recently passed a resolution in support of legislative efforts to restrict pharmaceutical rice in Arkansas.
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