1.GE Inquiry Threatens Public Confidence in Regulators
2.Demonstrators disrupt hearing

EXTRACTS: "The appearance is that any application, no matter how misconceived, how pointless and no matter what level of opposition, will be approved." (item 2)

"Trials to test insect resistance to GE Bt brassica are a waste of both time and money. The research around the world for Bt brassica already shows that insects build up resistance, the consumer doesn't want it, farmers won't grow it and certainly can't sell it." (item 2)
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1.GE Inquiry Threatens Public Confidence in Regulators
Press release, GE FREE NZ (extracts)

The ERMA hearing being held in Christchurch to consider a ten-year field-trial of Genetically Modified vegetables, has already prompted public protest.

In a legal submission for Greenpeace, Duncan Currie put forward that real risks were being underestimated and signifiant wider implications wrongly ignored.

The ERMA Authority has approved all GE field test applications to date.

Concerns were also raised that the independent reviewer only evaluated the final report and never saw submitter's evidence.

Expert witness Julie Newman from the Network of Concerned farmers in Australia, talked about the problems of lack of liability and the cost to farmers who have lost markets from GE contamination. There is also the serious concern that extreme weather conditions can spread GE in the environment and contaminate non-GE seed stocks.

Expert witness Dr. Judy Carmen epidemiologist and biochemist expressed concern over the lack of safety data on food containing high levels of Bt toxin. She highlighted the example of a trial of GE peas that went for ten years before it was discovered to be toxic to humans.

The peas had to be destroyed, wasting millions of taxpayers dollars.

She stressed that toxicity trials on the Bt plants must be conducted prior to further experimentation.

"Submissions were initially declared invalid and many concerns were disregarded and considered outside of the parameters of the field trial," said Susie Lees of GE Aware Nelson (GEAN).

"Spending ten years on these trials when Bt has been linked to deleterious health impacts is irresponsible and puts us all at risk."

GE Free (NZ) called on the ERMA Authority to decline the application until long term comprehensive health and environmental testing on Bt toxicity is carried out in containment, and the data peer reviewed and published.

ENDS
Claire Bleakley 027 348 6731
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2.Demonstrators disrupt hearing
By PAUL GORMAN
The Press, 12 April 2007
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/4022938a6530.html

[image caption - STREET PROTEST: protesters display placards outside a hearing in Christchurch on an application to research genetically-engineered plants.]

Canterbury scientists behind a scheme to attack caterpillars with genetically engineered (GE) brassicas found themselves under fire yesterday.

Crown research institute Crop and Food Research has been developing GE broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and forage kale that will kill caterpillars.

Now it wants to bring the brassicas out of the glasshouse and into the garden.

Crop and Food's application to complete a 10-year field trial at Lincoln to help eliminate the wriggly pests is the subject of a three-day Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) hearing, which began in Christchurch yesterday.

The hearing was disrupted by anti-GE protesters who blew whistles and made speeches in the meeting room. Police helped security guards, and one person was charged with trespass.

Protest spokesman Garry Edmonson said they opposed the discussion of genetic modification in New Zealand.

"GMOs will never be accepted in Aotearoa. This whole process should never have taken place. The moratorium should never have been lifted."

Erma received 959 submissions on the application 941 against, 17 in support and one abstaining.

Despite that, Erma's initial evaluation report says there will be minimal risk of adverse environmental effects and little chance of any adverse effects on human health and safety, on Maori and on the Treaty of Waitangi, given the controls proposed over the destruction of the plants.

Erma's analysis also believes the trial is likely to benefit society.

Crop and Food says it has conducted 34 similar field tests since 1988.

Crop and Food project leader Dr Mary Christey has been developing brassicas during the past five years, which contain the natural pesticide already used by organic growers, Bacillus thuringiensis , known as Bt.

Bt kills caterpillars that are dining out on the plants, mainly caterpillars of the cabbage white butterfly, the diamondback moth and the soybean looper.

The application is to trial the GE brassicas in a secured, contained field of up to 0.4ha.

Greenpeace, one of several groups opposing the trials, is questioning Erma's objectivity in proposing the application be approved.

Greenpeace lawyer Duncan Currie said Erma had incorrectly applied the 1996 Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (HSNO) Act at several levels.

Erma had misapplied the act in assessing uncertainty and risk, had failed to assess the "opportunity cost" in the sense of lost funding to other, non-GE, research, and had incorrectly scoped risks, costs and benefits, he said. The authority had never turned down a GE field trial application, and Currie called on the Government to decline this one.

"The appearance is that any application, no matter how misconceived, how pointless and no matter what level of opposition, will be approved."

Potential environmental risks included contamination of non-GE crops, the development of insect resistance to the Bt toxin, effects on non-target insects, such as butterflies, and the escape of the genes.

"Trials to test insect resistance to GE Bt brassica are a waste of both time and money. The research around the world for Bt brassica already shows that insects build up resistance, the consumer doesn't want it, farmers won't grow it and certainly can't sell it."

Christey said anybody who grew cabbages appreciated the damage caterpillars could cause.

"Under laboratory conditions, caterpillars feeding on cabbage which has been genetically modified so it produces Bt all die within 48 hours, and the plant is virtually undamaged."

The plants would be destroyed before flowering or secured for analysis in the lab.

She declined to say where the trial plot would be and what security measures would be taken if approval was granted.

The hearing continues today.