China to further investigate GM rice case

BEIJING - China's Ministry of Health (MOH) has urged the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) to further investigate a case involving genetically modified (GM) rice and publish the results in a timely manner, a spokesman for the MOH said.

China has issued clear regulations on human biological medical research, and has always followed international conventions in line with the country's own situation, spokesman Deng Haihua said in response to a question on a human trial of GM rice at a press conference on Tuesday.

The World Health Organization and the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences have formulated an international standard of ethics related to human biological medical research, Deng said.

"The ministry also issued a regulation on human biological medical research in 2007 in order to further strengthen research management," Deng added.

According to the China CDC on Monday, a Chinese researcher involved in the controversial testing of GM rice has been suspended from his work and been placed under investigation.

China CDC is investigating whether dozens of children in Central China's Hunan province were used as test subjects in a US-China joint research project in 2008 that included Golden Rice, a GM food.

Greenpeace broke the news on the controversial test in late August, saying the joint research involved feeding Golden Rice, which is genetically modified to be rich in beta carotene, to 24 children aged between six and eight years old in Hunan.

It cited a paper published in the August edition of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.