Is NZ steering itself back into the Dark Ages with its negative policy on genetic modification?
Thanks to the pressure of the Green movement 20 or so years ago, releasing a genetically modified organism in New Zealand without approval is illegal.
In New Zealand you cannot import, develop, field test or release a genetically modified organism without approval from the Environmental Protection Authority (previously known at the Environmental Risk Management Authority).
Yet because of great strides in fundamental research, biology is becoming ever more programmable, as The Economist reported last week.
Two recent scientific advances show just how powerful the possibilities could be.
For NZ, with its dependence on primary production for the bulk of its export income, to miss the bus on another green revolution would be a calamity.
But wait there’s more.
The Economist says tweaking the genes of people who suffer from fatal incurable diseases, meanwhile, has had remarkable results. A series of genetic therapies has arrived, or is arriving, in clinics to treat blood cancers, spinal muscular atrophy, haemophilia and sickle-cell disease.
Genetic therapies offer the hope of curing devastating diseases. They also allow for one-time treatments that can be transported to any part of the Earth, bringing years, decades or a lifetime of benefits to the seriously and incurably ill.
Imagine a cure for aids or sickle-cell disease, that could be taken to the continent of Africa or across the Middle East. The accompanying benefits would be similar to the eradication of smallpox.
The Economist recounts how in 2018, when he was 13, Ethan Ralston’s eyesight started to get blurry. The diagnosis was devastating. He had been born with Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (lhon), a rare genetic disorder that eats away at the cells of the optic nerve until it causes blindness.
Given that America and Europe between them see just 800 cases of lhon a year, young Ethan Ralston was very unlucky. In another way, though, he could be counted fortunate.
GenSight, a French biotech company, had for years been working on a gene therapy for lhon. The condition is caused by a mutation in a gene called nd4, which causes the body’s cells to make a faulty protein.
The therapy, called Lumevoq, sought to resolve the problem by adding the canonical version of nd4 to cells in the retina and optic nerve.
By 2018 Lumevoq was in clinical trials and shortly after his diagnosis, Ethan Ralston was treated with it. Today his eyesight has almost returned to normal. He can work on a computer, drive a car, go bowling with his friends.
Such stories are becoming increasingly common.
The ability to provide someone with a single treatment that will alleviate terrible condition for a decade or more—perhaps even or life—is an intervention without any obvious parallel, says The Economist.
But is that enough to persuade the opponents of genetic modification to relax their stance?
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
Two recent scientific advances show just how powerful the possibilities could be.
“The genetic modification of plants is allowing the mechanism of photosynthesis to be tinkered with, as research published in Science on August 18th sets out. This could lead to dramatic improvements in the productivity of plants, and eventually to a second green revolution.
“The genetic modification of crops promises cheaper, more nutritious and more climate-resilient food for a hungry planet”.
For NZ, with its dependence on primary production for the bulk of its export income, to miss the bus on another green revolution would be a calamity.
But wait there’s more.
The Economist says tweaking the genes of people who suffer from fatal incurable diseases, meanwhile, has had remarkable results. A series of genetic therapies has arrived, or is arriving, in clinics to treat blood cancers, spinal muscular atrophy, haemophilia and sickle-cell disease.
“The task now is to spread these gains far and wide”.
Genetic therapies offer the hope of curing devastating diseases. They also allow for one-time treatments that can be transported to any part of the Earth, bringing years, decades or a lifetime of benefits to the seriously and incurably ill.
Imagine a cure for aids or sickle-cell disease, that could be taken to the continent of Africa or across the Middle East. The accompanying benefits would be similar to the eradication of smallpox.
The Economist recounts how in 2018, when he was 13, Ethan Ralston’s eyesight started to get blurry. The diagnosis was devastating. He had been born with Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (lhon), a rare genetic disorder that eats away at the cells of the optic nerve until it causes blindness.
Given that America and Europe between them see just 800 cases of lhon a year, young Ethan Ralston was very unlucky. In another way, though, he could be counted fortunate.
GenSight, a French biotech company, had for years been working on a gene therapy for lhon. The condition is caused by a mutation in a gene called nd4, which causes the body’s cells to make a faulty protein.
The therapy, called Lumevoq, sought to resolve the problem by adding the canonical version of nd4 to cells in the retina and optic nerve.
By 2018 Lumevoq was in clinical trials and shortly after his diagnosis, Ethan Ralston was treated with it. Today his eyesight has almost returned to normal. He can work on a computer, drive a car, go bowling with his friends.
Such stories are becoming increasingly common.
The ability to provide someone with a single treatment that will alleviate terrible condition for a decade or more—perhaps even or life—is an intervention without any obvious parallel, says The Economist.
But is that enough to persuade the opponents of genetic modification to relax their stance?
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
3 comments:
I would prefer to see New Zealand control its population so that altering plants is unnecessary.If you have a pot of red paint and a pot of yellow paint, mixing a bit of this and a bit of that for a particular tint of orange requires great care. Going too far requires a huge expenditure of paint in order to start again. We have seen what Agri giants like Monsanto have and continue to do around the world. Make no mistake, they are in the business to make money as their prime objective, not to feed the world.
I do hope so. What with an increasing population and climate change, we absolutely need to look to do things differently and assist/or combat mother nature as the case may be. As for our own health defects, that also is a no-brainer but, as with all such activities, great care and oversight does need to prevail.
We are currently living through the largest use of gene therapy medical treatment (in the words of the Moderna CEO, not mine) in human history. There were huge promises made about how safe and effective mRNA biotech was, and how anyone fortunate enough to receive these injections would not catch, spread, get sick or die from covid 19. The world was so determined this was the way to go that many countries mandated the use of these products. Despite all the promises, many of the recipients caught and transmitted covid, many got very sick, some died. And yet the true believers (in an almost religious sense) still proclaim their thanks for these products, and how much worse they would have been without them. But would they really?
NZ is in the fortunate position of having not gone down the GE route in agriculture, only in medicine. We are in the fortunate position to be able to maintain a GE-free farming market if we chose to. It seems likely that many consumers of our products who believed in the power of science and mRNA jabs but got sick anyway, will start to question the value of other biotechnology. There has never been a better time to maintain a GE-free status for NZ food production for marketing purposes.
Every article about GE food features great promises with terms such as 'could', 'might', 'potentially' provide great benefits. But in a world where already more countries have banned GE foods than allow them to be grown, and strong market signals against GE foods, what possible benefit is to be gained by growing something the market is not asking for? The only people who will truly benefit from GE foods are the biotech companies.
There are strong parrallels here. The mRNA vaccines made a huge amount of money for biotech companies and investors, but it is debateable if any of those injected with it really benefited at all. GE foods where grown have made huge sums of money for biotech companies, but not much value for farmers and food consumers. We need to look closely at who is pushing these ideas, and what vested interests they may have. Because deliberately introducing GE food to NZ will position our agricultural production at the bottom of the international commodity value chain, and that is not a good thing for NZ.
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