On 11 May 2014, the independent administrative body National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences (NIAS), located in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture, held a meeting to explain about the GM crops it will be cultivating this year (See BJ April 2014). The special feature this year is the �gGM rice for treatment of pollen allergy.�h It appears that, along with Golden Rice, the aim is to market GM rice as being �ghealthy�h to overcome current consumer reluctance to buy GM rice. This GM rice, however, uses a pyriminobac herbicide resistant gene as marker gene and the vector plasmid uses a streptomycin antibiotic resistant gene. In addition to safety issues there is also the possibility of the diffusion of antibiotic resistance microbes.