Daily Telegraph NZ: Government Genetic Engineering announcement met with public backlash

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins announced their intention to lift the country’s nearly 30-year ban on genetic engineering outside the laboratory yesterday.

The decision, heralded by the government as a step towards advancing health, productivity, and “climate resilience,” has been met with a wave of criticism and anger across social media.

Matt Ridley: The European Union Rejected Genome Edited Crops

The European Court of Justice has just delivered a scientifically absurd ruling, in defiance of advice from its advocate general, but egged on by Jean-Claude Juncker’s allies. It will ensure that more pesticides are used in Britain, our farmers will be less competitive and researchers will leave for North America. Thanks a bunch, your honours.

By saying that genome-edited crops must be treated to expensive and uncertain regulation, it has pandered to the views of a handful of misguided extremists, who no longer have popular support in this country.

Matt Ridley: Genetics is good for you

Fifteen years after the first sequencing of the human genome, the genetic engineering of human beings is getting closer. Will that mean designer babies and the rich winning life’s lotteries from the start? And will we ever stop this slither down the slippery slope to playing God? My answers are: no, and I hope not. 

Despite dire predictions, almost nothing but good has come from genetic technology so far, and we’ve proved that we don’t slip down such slopes: we tread carefully.  The current excitement is over gene editing. A precise way of doing this, called CRISPR-cas9, is all the rage among the white-coated pipette-users.