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Until the 1st of December New Zealanders have a real chance to have a say in the health and future of New Zealand. December one is the last day the Royal Commission on Genetic Engineering will accept your view as to how this country should deal with sciences greatest threat to life since nuclear weapons were tested and deployed fifty years ago. To stay silent and inactive in the face of danger is to not fulfill one's obligation to life. The Royal Commission is currently seeking submissions from any interested person on what New Zealand's genetic engineering policy should be. This may be the last chance you get to have a say about the directions of bioscience without having to take to the streets to be heard. Its not simply a matter of whether or not you want genetically engineered organisms released into your environment and your food. The private capital usurpation of the once noble aims of science and the hitching of it to the global economic express is what really creates the conditions for catastrophe not unlike the earth being struck by a massive meteor. This is the most important issue since we became Nuclear Free - and lead the world doing it. New Zealand can also be GE Free, but already we are not leaders. Australia is poised to allow GE-Free States and Italy is leading Europe in its banning of GE organisms use in agriclture. It only takes about 5 minutes to make a submission and avoid a future demeaning and dangerous submission to interests indifferent to your life and any life - even their own it seems. The simplest way to make a submission is to copy to your clipboard the points made below, add your own personal touch if you want (not essential) and paste into the online form provided by the PlaNet hosted website www.context.co.nz/submissions .......start copy below.................... I oppose the use of GE bioscience outside the strictly regulated and controlled conditions of government approved labs and I oppose the use of GE bioscience in food production for public consumption and I oppose the patenting of genes by private companies and I oppose any punitive measures taken against a country or state or city or community that acts to prevent trade in GE organisms and/or food and/or gene mapping of any sort and my reasons for opposition are: * It is indisputable that GE organisms or parts of organisms cannot ever be contained if allowed outside labs into the environment. * It is indisputable that no science or technology can or ever will be able to predict fully the effects of GE and GM on life and the ecology of this planet. * The motivation for GE and GM science and technology has been degraded to commerce, thus undermining the public will and public good as reasons for funding, supporting and conducting science. The risks associated with commercial applications of science and technology un-controlled by public bodies far outweigh the public benefits. * The limited use that GE has been put to has in every case resulted in less benefits and more negative side-effects than was predicted by those who applied the science. Even at this early stage, GE and GM technologies when applied in a commercial context have been abject failures as promoters of public good and even as commercial operations. For these principled reasons I recommend that the Royal Commission into GE in New Zealand propose in its report to Government that New Zealand ban the experimentation, development and use of GE and GM science and technology except in controlled lab conditions under strict supervision. ..........stop copy here............ Latest News Gardeners bearing flax baskets on Monday urged the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification to recommend New Zealand ban gene experiments before it is too late. Northland gardener Kay Baxter, a founding member of Koanga Gardens, near Kaiwaka, said genetic engineering (GE) could contaminate some of the more than 400 ``heirloom'' seeds she had spent 10 years propagating. ``For many of us, the advent of GE feels like the final straw,'' she said. ``We don't trust industry not to be naive and uncaring in their use of genetic engineering.'' The plea to ban GE came during Auckland's first visit by the four-member commission after three weeks of hearings in Wellington. The Government has asked the commission to investigate where New Zealand should stand on gene technology and must deliver its report by the middle of next year. The Northland Conservation Board also spoke against GE, with board member and Tai Tokerau kaumatua Hally Toia saying genetic engineering was ``the domain of one being only and that's God''. But most of the day was taken up by a marathon grilling of long-time anti-GE scientist Peter Wills of Auckland University, representing an array of anti-GE groups including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Green Party. An associate professor in physics, Dr Wills was cross-examined for more than three hours by lawyer Mark Christensen, representing the pro-GE Life Sciences Network. Dr Wills said the outbreak of human mad cow disease, or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, in Britain was an example of what could happen when humans tampered with the natural order of things. ``It's a concern of mine and many other scientists -- the possibility of creating something of that sort as a result of GE.'' Dr Wills said science could not be separated from other human values and cultural beliefs but those were being lost in the debate on genetic engineering. At the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification today, the first of a number of scientific experts critical of genetic engineering advised that New Zealand establish a GE-Free Environment and GEfree food supply. Representing Greenpeace and a number of other groups, Dr Peter Wills, Associate Professor of Physics at Auckland University, warned that the processes of genetic engineering involve ³very high inherent uncertainty². He stated that ³the release of genetically engineered organisms into the environment has the potential to be even more destructive than the consequences of other human interference in biological processes.² Reasonable caution, Wills testified, demands that genetically engineered organisms should not be released into the environment. ³Dr Willsı evidence introduces a raft of scientific, ethical and cultural concerns that have not been given adequate attention by regulatory bodies to date. In particular evidence presented today has shown the necessity of looking beyond the short term to the fundamental ecological consequences of crossing species boundaries.² Said Annette Cotter, Genetic Engineering Campaigner, Greenpeace. In His testimony Dr Wills emphasised that the interconnectedness of ecological systems must be the context within which the consequences of releasing genetically engineered organisms are examined. The history of ecological evolution is ³full of surprises². Dr Wills warned that ³genetic engineering, by its very character, attempts, and where successful, manages to circumvent systems of boundary management between species.² While urging that Genetically engineered organisms should not be released into the environment Dr Wills believes that fully contained use of genetic engineering processes for laboratory and research techniques are valuable and should continue. This however must be conducted under proper legislative and ethical controls. Peter Wills is a theoretical biologist with a PhD in Biochemistry. He has been awarded a prestigious Humboldt Fellowship three times, and has held two visiting scientist positions in the US. He has been writing and speaking on genetic engineering issues both nationally and internationally for many years. Under cross-examination by Mr Christensen, Dr Wills denied his stand on GE was simply part of a wider political ideology. ``With GE we have a completely new situation and we have to re-think what our moral stand will be. I'm not saying it's an absolute no-no, but let's think the ethical issues through carefully before we go launching into this holus-bolus.'' Peter Wills always appeared to be completely in control of the issues as compared to the seemingly `junior' council of Mr Christensen. If the assigning of junior counsel to the case was meant to be a ploy to undermine the importance of Dr Wills, the ploy was an abject failure. Peter Wills represented the case against testing and releasing GE and GM organisms or parts of organisms in the environment, and represented that case brilliantly. The commission will hold two public meetings in Auckland, in Manukau and Ellerslie on Wednesday, before heading back to Wellington. PTV will be reporting on the week next Monday 20 Nov on Triangle TV in Auckland and Channel 7 in Nelson. .
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