Brockie: Every obstacle put in the way of GE research in NZ

Thursday, 16 November 2017

OPINION

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 over 10,000 submissions.

The public were 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 last 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, in two huge reports, the European Union and the US Academy of Sciences evaluated over 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 last 30 years and no sickness reported from GE products – just hundreds of millions of uncomplaining, well-fed and artificially scented citizens.

Genetic engineering doesn't raise many 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 – and a host of like-minded scaremongers – maintain a well-organised and ceaseless barrage of alarming, frightening, out-of-date, and misleading propaganda about the disastrous threats GE poses to our health, the environment and the Life Force.

The public can't avoid this all-pervasive 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 travelling at 5kmh.