Every obstacle put in the way of GE research

In the year 2000, so many worrying stories were circulating in New Zealand about the dangers of genetic engineering that a royal commission was set up. The commissioners considered more than 10,000 submissions.

The public was worried about the safety of GE food and its impact on human health – the dreaded prospect of GE products finding their way into the country, the unpredictability of gene mutations, gene instability, horizontal gene transfer, the cumulative effects of GE products, environmental impacts, GE plants becoming invasive weeds and damaging our native ecosystems, GE pollen contaminating other plants, and so on.

A handful of GE experts assured the commissioners that genetic modification was safe and that plenty of safety measures and research protocols were already in place. Few of the GE experts thought further limitations were needed. But the opinions of the experts counted for little among the clamorous opinions of the bewildered, poorly informed but passionate public.

Current GE legislation is based largely on the findings of the commission – the most comprehensive, restrictive, antiquated and labyrinthine laws in the world, with every obstacle put in the way of GE research here. Scientists’ work is strictly controlled by authorities, and researchers face criminal penalties if their plants produce flowers or seeds.

The picture is very different elsewhere. Over the past 30 years, hundreds of millions of Americans have consumed tons of genetically engineered food and drink. Many North American cereals, cooking oils, margarine, candy and chocolate are GE. Americans inhale GE aromas of bacon, cloves, cherry, plum and leather.

Many more GE products are in the pipeline – GE potatoes, mushrooms and apples. There will be GE pharmaceuticals as well as drought- and frost-proof plants.

Last year, the European Union and the US Academy of Sciences evaluated more than 1500 GE research papers. Both reports confirm that GE food is as safe as normal food, that no genes flowed from GE to other crops or to wild plants, and that GE had done no harm to the environment, including honeybees.

Despite Americans being the most litigious people on Earth, no justifiable complaints have been registered over the past 30 years and no sickness reported from GE products.

Genetic engineering doesn’t raise eyebrows in North America, but the very thought of it still triggers near apoplexy in New Zealand, where genetic engineers are almost labelled as satanists.

GE-Free NZ, Greenpeace, NZ greenies, Soil and Health and Organic NZ maintain a wellorganised and ceaseless barrage of alarming, frightening, out-of-date, and misleading propaganda about the disastrous threats GE poses to our health and the environment.

The public can’t avoid this allpervasive propaganda. Things are made worse in the digitised landscape where Google and Facebook make no distinction between experts and laymen.

Our restrictive GE laws are the equivalent of walking with a flag in front of a car that is travelling at 5km/h.