Families of golden rice kids to receive compensation

The government of Hengyang in Central China's Hunan province, will give 80,000 yuan ($12,800) compensation to each of the 25 families whose children consumed genetically modified rice as part of a science project in 2008, the Oriental Morning Post reported on Dec 6.

In late August, Greenpeace accused the project, led by Tang Guangwen of Tufts University in Boston in the United States, of feeding schoolchildren in Hengyang golden rice.

Yin Shi'an, a researcher at the institute of nutrition and food safety at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, was found to have taken part in the project and was suspended from his post.

According to the Oriental Morning Post, 88 children in a primary school in Hengyang took part in the experiment. Twenty five of the students were each fed with 60 grams of golden rice for a meal, in a study on beta-carotene and vitamin A.

Officials at the local government said Tang brought golden rice into China, and together with Yin and a researcher from Zhejiang Academy of Medical Sciences, Tang put the golden rice in the students' meals without telling anyone else.