10,000 people were killed and 10 to 15 million people were left homeless when a cyclone hit India's eastern coastal state of Orissa in 1999. CARE and the Catholic Relief Services responded by distributing to thousands of hungry storm victims a high-nutrition mixture of corn and soy meal provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Naturally, this effort led to angry protests.

"We call on the government of India and the state government of Orissa to immediately withdraw the corn-soya blend from distribution," said Vandana Shiva, director of the New Delhi-based Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology. "The U.S. has been using the Orissa victims as guinea pigs for GM [genetically modified] products which have been rejected by consumers in the North, especially Europe." A test of the corn and soy varieties revealed that they had been genetically modified.

Per Pinstrup-Andersen, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, angrily responded that "the U.S. doesn't need to use Indians as guinea pigs, since millions of Americans have been eating genetically modified food for years now with no ill effects."

Shiva's organization also opposes "golden rice," a genetically modified strain of rice that may be able to prevent blindness in up to 3 million poor children a year and alleviate vitamin A deficiency in 250 million people in the developing world.

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