Unclear signals on GM trials alarm business and science

By PHILIPPA STEVENSON agricultural editor

Like pioneers in a new land, New Zealanders await this month's Government decision on genetic modification not sure whether the order will be to circle the wagons or ride hopefully forward.

It is two months since the royal commission on genetic modification suggested the country should proceed cautiously with the technology it dubbed the next frontier of civilisation.

Since then industry and science have become increasingly concerned by signals from Government ministers that their voluntary moratorium on field trials could become a more permanent fixture.

Even outwardly hopeful signs have been double edged, as Dr Ian Warrington of the Association of Crown Research Institutes found at last week's science policy consultation in Wellington.

He was heartened that Research, Science and Technology Minister Pete Hodgson told the gathering that New Zealand's future definitely included a significant role for biotechnology.

"The Government is acknowledging, I think, that they are supporting broadly the whole biotechnology push as a way to transform, for example, our biological industries," Dr Warrington said before acknowledging a nagging doubt.

"What isn't clear is where the boundaries will be."

In other words, despite the commission's $6.5 million examination of the issue and its recommendations for tightly guarded progress, no one yet knows whether GM will be part and parcel of a biotechnology-driven future in this country.

The Government is due to make that clear on October 31.

William Rolleston, chairman of Life Sciences Network, an umbrella for biotech interests, dismissed a moratorium as a blunt instrument for dealing with a complex issue.

Because the commission - which suggested additional levels of oversight - had found that existing regulatory authorities acted appropriately and were sufficient to safeguard the interests of the country, a moratorium was not necessary, he said. "All it does is send a message to science that it is not worth doing science here, and to business that it is not worth investing in a knowledge economy in this country. That is what people are alarmed about," Dr Rolleston said.

"It's about retaining the scientific capability in New Zealand, and having people invest in this country. If we all wanted to be peasant farmers working on the land, then a moratorium strategy might be appropriate. But we don't want to be a Third World country, we want to stay in the First World."

The royal commission's report makes apparent that genetic manipulation has been under way here for at least 20 years, becoming increasingly widespread across a range of applications in research and industry.

It detailed the use of GM techniques and products used in Crown Research Institutes, private companies, universities and medical institutions including:

* To identify genes and their functions.

* To investigate pest and disease resistance in animals and plants.

* To investigate livestock fertility.

* To understand, diagnose and treat human disease.

* To investigate control of environmental problems.

* For educational purposes.

The commission could not determine the exact amount spent on GM technology and research because most budgets did not class it separately from broader research and development categories.

However, a survey by Statistics New Zealand - Modern Biotechnology Activity in New Zealand - estimated that enterprises it questioned spent around $405 million in the year to June 1999. The private sector's spending was $276 million and the public sector's $129 million.

Respondents estimated biotech income in the year to be $475 million, of which the private sector made up $326 million.

The Foundation for Research Science and Technology told the commission it estimated that up to $135 million of Government science investment went on research programmes involving GM technologies. It also believed that GM was key in about 9 per cent of the projects in which it invested.

The Health Research Council says it spent about $16.1 million in 2000-2001 on the 30 per cent of the projects it funds which use GM.

AgResearch's yearly spending on GM is around $25 million, Landcare Research about $2.8 million, Crop and Food Research between $1.7 million and $7.3 million and the Dairy Board intends spending about $30 million a year over the next five years.

Otago University has spent more than $1.5 million on GM science in four years while Auckland University outlays about $34 million annually.

Summarising the role GM already played in New Zealand life, the commission said GM products available in New Zealand mainly involved human medicines. Some imported foodstuffs might also contain GM products.

There had been field trials of GM plants and animals, and GM laboratory animals, particularly mice, were often used in research.

The fundamental importance of micro-organisms to research meant that many transformed micro-organisms had also been created and/or used here. Examples of the use of micro-organisms included work by Landcare and Massey University to identify endangered and other native animals. The research involved modifying E. coli bacteria strains with DNA from the species of interest to determine characteristics of the genetic sequences.

"In this way new species of native fish, kiwi, tuatara, skink, squid, peripatus and beetle have been identified," the commission said. "The mitochondrial genome of the kakapo has been nearly completely sequenced and the genetic variation of black and bush robins, sex identification of native birds, investigation of genetic diversity in tuatara, investigations into dispersal and mating systems of possums, and the production of markers for use in conservation of a wide variety of native flora has been accomplished."

The commission's report briefly outlined many other areas in which GM was being used, including in the fight against pests such as wasps and possums, against diseases including leukaemia in cats and Johnes disease in sheep, and on efforts to boost production from cattle and sheep.

The commission reported that, in the plant world, GM could be utilised to make plants pest-, disease- or herbicide-resistant, tolerant of a wide range of environmental conditions or suitable for use in cleaning up pollution, or in the production of pharmaceuticals. It gave the example of the important pasture plant, white clover, which has no known natural genetic resistance to pests such as grass grub and porina moth larvae. Work by AgResearch and others could make clover resistant to its insect attackers.

GM had been widely applied in medicine and New Zealand was no exception, the commission said.

Work in hospitals and universities involving GM included on such diseases as cancer, asthma, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, Huntington's disease and haemophilia.

Dr Warrington said the anti-GM or Green movement now seemed comfortable with laboratory-based experiments but there remained a grey area over field trials - when were they equivalent to a laboratory experiment and when to field-release.

The question appeared to be one of the complexities with which the Government was wrestling, he said.

Meanwhile, he believes too few people had read the commission's report and instead were returning to the positions taken before it made its findings. The debate had returned to "defending philosophies rather than trying to understand and comment on the recommendations".

In Forum tomorrow the GM debate will be continued by Seager Mason of Bio-Gro NZ, and Dr William Rolleston of the Life Sciences Network.

nzherald.co.nz/ge

Report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification

GE lessons from Britain

GE links

GE glossary