Public opinion 'not a good GM guide'

A United States bioethicist told the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification in Wellington yesterday that public opinion should not be the basis of society's ethical decisions.

Gary Comstock, Iowa State University bioethics programme co-ordinator, had been asked by Greenpeace cross-examiner Duncan Currie whether people should have the right, if they wished, to be able to avoid genetically modified products.

"One hundred and fifty years ago, people said women shouldn't hold property or vote. This was a view held even by women.



"They were wrong. The fact that people have an opinion is totally irrelevant to ethics."

Earlier, Professor Comstock had told the hearing that developed countries had an obligation to help less developed states.

Widespread anti-GM sentiments could, by shutting down research establishments in the countries that could afford the technology, indirectly deprive the needy.

He also said that although ethnic minority concerns about the technology should be heeded, the question became "more difficult" if such concerns disadvantaged people "in other parts of the globe."

In other submissions, Federated Farmers said it was important that New Zealand farmers had choice in order to meet market demands.

Farmers had the right to determine what technologies they used.

The Government's role was to set the legislative framework, "not to intervene by seeking to anticipate market demands."

Putting his own example, Australian Cotton Industry Council chairman Peter Corish said he was able, by using GM products available at present, to reduce the use of pesticide and the exposure of his family, his staff and the environment to that pesticide, to reduce labour costs and to grow cotton on organic principles.

Federated Farmers vice-president Thomas Lambie, an organic dairy farmer, said organic production could co-exist with conventional and GM production.

An earlier submission by Agcarm, the Association for Agricultural, Chemical and Animal Remedies Manufacturers, argued strongly for the protection of research data.

Gaining approval to introduce a modified organism, it said, required the production to authorities of a "package" of data, relating to a wide range of subject, from allergenicity and toxicity research to risk assessments and containments.

Such data packages could cost well in excess of $100 million to generate and were of considerable commercial value.

- NZPA

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