Publication: Zeenews.com
Date: Friday, March 23, 2007

TOKYO -- Something as simple as eating a bowl of rice could bring relief to millions of Japanese hay fever sufferers each year -- if that rice is ever allowed to hit the market.

The rice, now under development in Japan, is genetically modified, but GM technology is still viewed with deep suspicion by many consumers here, where no GMO crops are commercially grown despite increasing a growth in global acreage.

Still, some industry officials say a biotech crop with health-enhancing characteristics may offer one of the best chances for acceptance of GMO crops in a country that boasts one of the world`s longest average life spans.

"Those are the kind of products that may find greater acceptance, at least in the context of the Japanese consumers," said Randy A. Hautea, director at the South East Asia Center of the pro-biotech International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications.

Hay fever, which by some estimates afflicts one in five Japanese, has ballooned into a major health problem.

"Japan has a high premium on things like improving the quality of life," said Hautea, who is based in the Philippines.

Japanese researchers have successfully cultivated a genetically modified rice that contains some of the allergy-related proteins found in Japanese cedar pollen, the most common cause of hay fever in Japan.

Eating the rice helps the body`s immune system develop a tolerance to the allergy-causing pollen, much in the same way as allergy shots, experts say.

Experiments on mice have shown that those fed with the rice sneezed much less often than mice that had also been showered with pollen but had not eaten the rice.

Japanese researchers have been working on the project since about 2000, and the next major step would be to test the effectiveness of eating the transgenic rice on humans.

But Japan`s Agriculture Ministry, which is supervising the project, says it does not have a timetable for beginning testing on humans, much less one for when the rice might reach consumers.

Nevertheless, the developers hope to bring a product to market at some point, said Shinichi Ui of the ministry`s Innovative Technology Division.

Ui said the project had reached a sensitive phase in many ways, including defining whether the crop should be described as "food" or "medicine," in which case the farm ministry must work closely with the Health Ministry.

"This is all new to us, and there are no precedents that might give us some idea of how things will develop from here," he said.

No country has yet produced GMO rice on a commercial basis, although China appeared close to taking that step in 2005.