AgResearch takes special cover for GM sabotage

By SIMON COLLINS

AgResearch has taken special insurance cover to protect itself against "terrorism and sabotage" because of its work on genetically modified animals.

The Hamilton Crown research institute has been caught up in a worldwide move by the insurance industry to stop insuring against terrorism after the attack on New York's World Trade Centre last September.

Company secretary Jim Ivens said that after its general insurer stopped covering the risk of terrorism on November 1, the institute took out a special policy with one of two insurance companies still willing to cover terrorism and sabotage, American International Group.

"It's not just GE, it's any sabotage or terrorism," he said.

The institute has withdrawn its latest application to conduct research on cattle using genes from mammals including humans, sheep, goats, cattle and mice.

But science general manager Dr Paul Atkinson said yesterday that a new application would be submitted by the end of next week that would be "substantially the same" but with some definitions clarified to avoid "side-issues".

The Environmental Risk Management Authority had been due to hear more than 300 submissions on the application at a hearing starting on May 7.

This may now be postponed for up to three months because of the new application.

Two other Crown research institutes that conduct genetic research, HortResearch and Crop and Food, said they had not been affected so far by the new insurance policy.

"People don't get too upset when it's plants, but when it's animals it changes the whole dimension of people's outlook," said HortResearch chief financial officer Graeme Brown.

Crop and Food communications manager Howard Bezar said his institute's existing insurer had agreed in principle to pay for a political attack which destroyed potatoes that were part of a genetic research programme at the institute's Canterbury premises in January.

"Our view is that it was covered and we are in negotiations with the insurer on the detail," he said.

He said the potatoes were insured because they were in a glasshouse, but it was possible that field crops would not be covered. The institute had not yet seen a need to have special insurance for crops.

Insurance Council chief executive Chris Ryan said the insurance industry met Finance Minister Michael Cullen and Treasury officials in December to point out the implications of most companies' withdrawing insurance cover for sabotage and terrorism.

"It covers eco-terrorism, cyber-terrorism," he said. "It potentially could cover acts of unrest."

He said Dr Cullen "noted our concerns but was not prepared to take any action".

Mr Ryan said some governments had set up state-backed insurance pools to insure against sabotage and terrorism.

After September 11, US President George Bush suggested that the insurance industry should cover damage of up to US$50 billion ($113 billion), with the Government accepting costs beyond that.

"The Australians have a taskforce working on it. The only real concern is that New Zealand doesn't have a working party on it," Mr Ryan said.

A spokeswoman for Dr Cullen said he had asked officials to look into the issue.

Jon Carapiet of GE Free New Zealand said AgResearch's original application to conduct genetic research on cattle was so wide that, if granted, it would give the institute almost unlimited powers to do genetic research.

"It was a list of various genetic materials. It was any combination of any of them at any time in the next 20 years," he said.

But Dr Atkinson said the mammalian genes that would be used in the research were "all low-risk genes that already exist in the environment".

"Do we want to use all the genes? No," he said.

"But we want to have the flexibility of changing the experimental protocol that we have to use in order to get something that works."

The research aims to breed cows whose milk will contain proteins that can be extracted to help treat multiple sclerosis and other diseases.

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