Bolger attacks GM sheep killing

New Zealand scientists are on the verge of losing a significant scientific resource through the slaughter and incineration of the nation's biggest flock of genetically engineered sheep, says former Prime Minister Jim Bolger.

Mr Bolger, who chairs the Bioscience Policy Institute, a biotechnology "think tank", said yesterday there had been an apparent failure to consider the strategic value of an approval to create a flock of GM sheep in New Zealand.

Failed Scottish biotechnology company PPL Therapeutics had on June 22 last year 2482 transgenic sheep, plus 581 unconfirmed transgenic, out of a total flock of 4186 animals on its 170ha Whakamaru research farm, 37km southwest of Tokoroa.

Mr Bolger said more than 3500 transgenic sheep had been bred when PPL collapsed.

"Most of those sheep have now been put down and only a small number of two-tooth ewes and lambs remain," he said.


PPL, which created Dolly the cloned sheep in 1997, has been slaughtering the sheep. Animals with human genes have been incinerated and "normal" sheep have been buried on site.

The company said nine months ago it was pulling the plug for at least three years on New Zealand's first transgenic livestock field trial, but would try to retain the flock's genetics. But last September, PPL's board put the company up for sale.

The transgenic sheep have been modified with copies of human genes from a Danish woman to produce the human protein alpha-1-antitrypsin, a project for which PPL received Environmental Risk Management Authority approval in 1998.

The company has said this protein, refined from GM milk, could be used to research treatments for conditions such as cystic fibrosis and acute respiratory problems, although a vocal critic of the PPL project, New Zealand scientist Robert Mann, told regulators that preliminary trials overseas had proved very little.

"In hindsight, the problem with this decision [to slaughter the sheep] is that it does not acknowledge the strategic value of having a multi-generation flock of sheep which has been genetically modified and which will therefore be able to provide valuable information on the impact of modification of large animals," said Mr Bolger.

"Unfortunately the absence of a control group and lack of funding for retention of the sheep means there is no compelling reason not to let the remainder be disposed of."

A trustee of the institute, Genesis Research chief executive Jim Watson, who is also president of the national science academy, the Royal Society, said the institute regretted the opportunities which had been lost through the decision to terminate the research.

"The sheep flock was an opportunity to study, over a long term, the effect of genetic transformation on large animals - and in particular an animal which has huge strategic importance for New Zealand," Dr Watson said.

- NZPA