Human rights panel explores global issues
By: Vincenza Previte
Issue date: 3/18/10 Section: News
|
The speakers were Peter Raven, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden; Mark Manary, professor of pediatrics at Washington University; Paul Anderson, executive director of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center; and Maureen Mazurek, head of human rights at Monsanto Company.
Raven, who was named a "hero of the planet" by Time magazine, is member of the advisory board of the College of Arts and Sciences at WU.
"In order to set the world, we must educate and engage children to nature," Raven said.
At the lecture, Raven talked about biodiversity, issues regarding insufficient agricultural production and how these problems, combined with today's growing population, led to malnutrition and starvation.
Raven said one billion out of the estimated seven billion people in the world today are malnourished and 100 million people are on the verge of starvation. In the next several decades, the world's population is expected to grow by two and a half billion more people.
Increased agricultural approach, integrated pesticide management and modern genetic technologies were the solutions to malnourishment presented at the panel.
Manary, who has traveled several times to Malawi, Africa, has tried to lessen starvation among African children and has provided them with a new therapeutic diet based on peanut butter.
Manary traveled to Malawi in 1994 and implemented his diet on children who where in critical health conditions at hospitals due to malnourishment. He also provided his diet to sick children at homes and found these had a greater positive response.
"Children don't deserve to die just because they don't have anything to eat," Manary said.
After a six-week period, children stopped receiving the therapeutic food, yet 96 percent of the children who received the diet remained nourished until after a year.
Be the first to comment on this story