Gene team drops blood tests

Dr Spencer Wells, pictured working in Africa, said it would be a shame if Maori did not take part in the Genographic Project.

Genetic researchers from a giant international DNA project are trying to placate Maori fears about their work, dropping plans to take blood samples and dispatching representatives from Australia and the United States to meet Maori critics.

The US-based Genographic Project, sponsored by National Geographic, IBM and a family of American philanthropists, aims to spend the next five years mapping the migratory journeys of prehistoric humans by sampling the DNA of 100,000 indigenous volunteers.

But it has been lashed as "scientific imperialism" by aboriginal activists.

The project's Australia/Pacific chief scientist, Robert John Mitchell, is worried that Maori may not participate in the project if their fears cannot be allayed.

He has developed a method of sampling DNA with saliva rather than blood, which he hopes will help persuade indigenous people that the project is not invasive or an attempt to patent their DNA or sell it to pharmaceutical companies.

"All of the feedback I've got is that if I go with blood [testing] the hostility will be so high it would be prohibitive," said Dr Mitchell, who is lobbying the Genographic Project's chief scientists in Washington DC to adopt saliva sampling internationally.

All volunteers will retain ownership of their samples, Dr Mitchell said. They would be tested only for genetic markers relating to ancestry. The research would help to explain the "great adventure" of how humans populated the world, and increase understanding of indigenous issues.

Project founder Spencer Wells said it would be a "shame not to have people like the Maori, or sub-groups of the Maori. I would love to have them involved. But if they decide for whatever reason that they're not interested ... they can choose not to participate."

Saliva testing was an acceptable last resort, but blood tests would be preferred because they would provide more genetic material, he said.

Maori experts in biotechnology, including Aroha Mead of Victoria University and Paul Reynolds of Auckland University, doubt Genographic will be able to meet ethical standards or obtain the informed, collective consent of indigenous people.

Representatives from National Geographic visited New Zealand last month for meetings at the University of Auckland and the Ministry of Maori Affairs in Wellington.

Dr Reynolds, who attended the Auckland meeting, said he and many other Maori still fear that the project will undermine traditional beliefs about New Zealand's original settlement by Pacific seafarers.

"This is arrogant science," Dr Reynolds said. "It relates directly to the minimisation and the disintegration of indigenous people's rights.

"They are making the assumption that science is the only truth, but there are a whole lot of knowledges.

"Our stories have been around for centuries."

Dr Mead said there was considerable potential for racist backlash from this research.

Another critic who met National Geographic representatives Kim McKay and Sarah Laskin in Auckland, academic Mere Kepa of Auckland University, said she was suspicious of the organisation's motives in sponsoring last month's Maori International Film Festival in Wairoa.

But Ms Laskin said the festival sponsorship was part of a long-standing National Geographic commitment to indigenous film, and had no connection with the project.