Miracle or menace? : biotechnology and the third world / by Robert Walgate.

  • Walgate, Robert
Date:
[1990]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: Miracle or menace? : biotechnology and the third world / by Robert Walgate. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    86 Miracle or menaceì essential for normal growth and development, particularly of the brain of the unborn child, as recent research has shown. Iron deficiency is also widespread among reproductive women and young children. Biotechnology might help by developing crops with improved take-up of micronutrients, or production of vitamins. Work is in progress on a rice with more vitamin A. DISEASE VECTORS The control of disease vectors — the insects, snails and other organisms that carry disease from one human host to another — will also be improved by an integrated approach using all the tools of modem biology together with public education. Improvements can range from simple filling in puddles and turning over cans to prevent the growth of mosquito larvae, to the selection, possible engineering and release of bacteria, viruses, insects and other organisms that will prey on disease vectors. New, less toxic, and more effective chemical insecticides and control strategies may also be developed, using detailed understanding of specific insect metabolism and behaviour. Chemical substitutes mimicking the odour of the breath of oxen can attract tsetse flies to insecticidal traps from kilometres away [ii]. FIELD TRIALS After funding, the greatest hurdle may be clinical trials of new drugs and vaccines, since they require large, carefully followed populations and experienced field study teams, and sometimes must Light micrograph of Schistosoma mansoi, the cause of schistosomiasis in adult intestinal blood. ¡Science Photo Library
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