Go-ahead for GM implants

By SIMON COLLINS

The Bioethics Council has approved putting human genes into plants and animals, if the benefits in reduced human suffering outweigh costs such as suffering experienced by the animals concerned.

The council, in its first major report, has done an about-turn from a survey it published in January which found that New Zealanders expressed "almost universal rejection" of putting human genes into other organisms.

Now it says: "There was wide acceptance of the use of human genes in other organisms for the relief of human suffering."


The council was recommended by the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification in 2001 to provide guidelines on social, ethical and cultural aspects of biotechnology. Its conclusions are expected to guide Environmental Risk Management Authority decisions.

Former Governor-General Sir Paul Reeves, who chaired the council until recently, said yesterday that he supported the report.

The council is now chaired by former Labour MP Jill White, who also chaired Erma from 2000 to 2002.

Its investigation follows controversy over projects such as AgResearch's plan to put human genes into cows to make them express proteins in their milk, which might cure diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

The report endorses the royal commission's proposals that "wherever possible, non-food animals [should] be used as bioreactors, rather than animals that are a common source of food", and that genes should be made in laboratories or taken from non-human mammals.

In cases where alternatives are not possible, it said human genes should be used in ways that respect "what is special about humans".

"The council opposes, most notably, those modifications that would give non-human organisms the capacity for human language, and associated powers of reason, and those that would cause non-human organisms to look like humans."

Giving animals human diseases could be justified if this helped to develop a treatment for the disease.

The council recommended animal ethics committees check all proposed interventions that might cause suffering to animals later in life.

Dr Martin Kennedy of Health Researchers of New Zealand said the proposals were "generally sensible".


Deidre Bourke of the Animal Rights Legal Advocacy Network said her group accepted the need to weigh animals' suffering against the benefits of relieving human suffering.