Inquiry reveals illicit GE work

CHRISTCHURCH - Nearly 20 per cent of the 1065 genetic engineering developments reported at 27 universities and crown science companies have been declared illicit because they were not properly authorised.

The national watchdog on genetic engineering, the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma), said yesterday that its investigations had shown widespread unauthorised GE work throughout research institutions.

None of it posed significant environmental risk, said chief executive Dr Bas Walker.

But the authority had also found evidence of similar experiments being done in polytechnics, and was extending its inquiry into those tertiary institutions, he told scientists at an Erma conference in Christchurch.

The row over illicit genetic engineering by some researchers escalated into a slanging match between regulators and scientists after the voluntary disclosures in April by the University of Otago's school of medicine in Christchurch.

Students were genetically engineering E coli bacteria and DNA material from native species.

When the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act took effect in 1998, Erma set up a process so that low-risk GE work could be approved by committees in research institutes.

It said that after the Christchurch experiments were reported, it had found 113 instances of unauthorised genetic research work, and another 196 cases of research not notified to the Environment Ministry in July 1998 when the new organisms law took effect.

But Erma's efforts to bring unauthorised work inside the framework of the act drew criticism from senior scientists. One said up to a third of senior biology classes in the United States used the same techniques that were now heavily regulated in New Zealand, "and for which our scientists are being vilified."

Dr Walker said such criticism was unprofessional, as the law said that low-risk GE work should be regulated.

- NZPA

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