Barry Soper: This week's announcement is a relief for the scientific community

Twenty years ago, the naysayers were telling us the world was about to mutate, we'd see all sorts of weird things appearing on our supermarket shelves and on our streets and in our streams, like two headed fish - at least it would have doubled the chance of catching one!

But while the rest of the world turned their back on this country, leaving it to wallow in its mantra of 100 percent New Zealand Pure, which the former Aussie Prime Minister Scott Morrison claims to have penned when he was working for image makers in Wellington, they got on with the science of genetics.

Guy Hatchard: Business as Usual is a Miscarriage of Justice

Another among hundreds of novel biotech vaccines currently under development for a range of diseases has gained approval from the US FDA. 

Abrysvo is Pfizer’s vaccine for the prevention of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants through active immunisation of pregnant women at 32-36 weeks of gestational age.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 27/6/23

Govt seemed satisfied with Budget funding for universities just a few weeks ago – but today it has announced a rescue package

We are waiting patiently for the statement from Education Minister Jan Tinetti about another dollop of funding – or a rescue package – for our financially struggling universities.

News of a $128 million rescue package has been reported by RNZ and had been portended in many media reports over the past day or so.

Point of Order: If GM opponents aren’t swayed by the potential of genetic science to help feed the world, might the health benefits do the trick?

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).

Matt Ridley: Genetic modification of plants is safe and good for the planet

The exhaustive and cautious new report from the American National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine leaves no room for doubt that genetically engineered crops are as safe or safer, and are certainly better for the environment, than conventionally bred crops.

The European Union was wrong to reject them 25 years ago and is wrong to continue rejecting this beneficial technology. The European Commission conceded in 2010 that GM crops are not per se more risky than, for example, conventional plant-breeding technologies, but still makes it all but impossible to grow them.

Matt Ridley: GM crops - the scientific argument's over

The European Parliament votes tomorrow on whether to let countries decide their own policies on growing genetically modified crops. The vote would allow countries such as Britain to press ahead because of hard evidence that such crops are good for the environment, good for consumers and good for farmers; and let countries such as Austria continue to ban the things despite such evidence. It’s an alliance of the rational with the superstitious against the bureaucratic.