Push For More Cows With Human Genes Ignores Royal Commissions “Core New Zealand Values”,And Threatens Our Clean-Green Economy.

The push by Agresearch and its international collaborators to use New Zealand as a site for animal experiments ignores the core values Maori and non-Maori New Zealanders hold dear, and threatens to pull the rug from under our ever-increasing agricultural export orders, most based on our clean and natural image.

The application for "development" of unspecified GE-hybrids between cows and other mammals has been filed in a cynical attempt to side-step the serious ethical issues that the government proposes a Bio-Ethics council will look into.

The proposal cites "medical research" as a reason for the experiments but ignores the fact that the last experiment, also supposedly for a "cure to MS", was misleading in that the chemical it aimed to produce is already available, and had already been trialled in a treatment for MS unsuccessfully.
It also ignores the grave animal welfare-issues raised by that experiment when scores of cows were experimented on and then destroyed after their GE foetuses aborted, leaving only four calves alive.

The proposed experiments will also increase worries about the economic damage resulting from media reports that New Zealand is becoming the ‘banana republic of biotechnology’, as suggested in a headline run in the Melbourne Age newspaper during the previous human-cow trials.

“The line between ethical medical research for sick people, and the production of clean, natural produce befitting our international marketing image is being crossed,” said Jon Carapiet, from GE-Free NZ.

"People told the Royal Commission and the government that they will accept medical research in labs, but not in the open environment and not using the very animals that form the backbone of our food-exporting business.”

The proposal adds to fears that instead of looking at organic and sustainable technologies, Agresearch is moving in the wrong direction.
“It is for the government to show leadership about what is and what is not "appropriate" for New Zealand, and to steer away from 'good ideas' that in reality threaten our economic wellbeing. The overseas interests involved in the proposal must be laughing out loud at the stupidity of kiwis to let this happen in New Zealand, of all places”.

These experiments are not the best way to address illnesses in people and they are an affront to the core values the Commission said the nation holds dear.

Maori are deeply offended, and the Hindu community- many of whom live in the Prime Minister's Mt Albert electorate ,and who revere the cow as sacred, will be shocked if it goes ahead.

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