Diabetics give Fitzsimons food for thought

By SIMON COLLINS

Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons is rethinking her opposition to transplanting pig cells into diabetes sufferers, after hearing testimony yesterday from four diabetics and the Auckland research company Diatranz.

Three diabetics who received pig cell implants from Diatranz in 1994 testified before Parliament's finance and expenditure committee to prove they had not suffered any side-effects.

Peter Thompson, aged 24, is now the senior instructor and national manager for the World Kickboxing Association in Auckland.

He told the committee that he tried for three years to join the police force, but was rejected because he is a diabetic. He says he now needs fewer insulin injections than he did before the transplant.

With Mr Thompson at the hearing were Nikki Raffills and Michael Helyer, also recipients of implants.

Justin Walker, 29, has not been able to get a pig cell implant because the process has since been banned by the Ministry of Health - a ban which would be extended for two years if Parliament approves a bill which the committee is considering.

Mr Walker told MPs he was prepared to go to Mexico, where Diatranz has moved its trials, or elsewhere to get a transplant.

"I'm willing to take that risk."

Diatranz medical director Professor Bob Elliott said recent research proved that it was technically impossible for a retrovirus in pigs to be transferred to humans through cell transplants.

He said Diatranz agreed to stop its trials in NZ when the ministry first raised the possibility of a retrovirus crossing into humans in 1996.

"Six years later we can see this is a fantasy. Pig retroviruses can't exist in human serum because it is marked with a blood group that makes it immediately incompatible with human beings," he said.

"I didn't say porcine retroviruses couldn't cross from pigs to lower mammals. I only said they cannot cross to higher primates or to man."

Ms Fitzsimons said after the hearing that the only reason she would object to transplanting pig cells into humans, with patient consent, was if there was a real risk of infecting other human beings with pig viruses.

"I think there was a lot of new information there [in the hearing] compared with what I've seen before. I'm finding some of the evidence quite persuasive," she said.

"What I want to do now is put that to people who claim there is an overriding public health risk. I am still open-minded about the Diatranz thing."

However, Labour MP Di Yates, who introduced a private member's bill three years ago to stop animal implants in humans, said Canada had banned it and the United States allowed it only for people who were past childbearing age.

"I'm just wary that New Zealand is not a guinea pig," she said.

"People who suffer from diabetes will try anything. I don't think it's fair to ask them. It's always heart-rending stuff, but we have to think of the wider risks for New Zealand."