Government "cherry picking" of Royal Commission on GM set to backfire

The government is attempting to cherry-pick recommendations from the Royal Commission on GE to suit vested interests in industry, sidelining the recommendations made to protect the public.

Recent arguments in Parliament over the use of animal bioreactors which the Commission said should not be 'food animals' like sheep and cows, suggests the government is bowing to pressure from companies including Fonterra to hijack 'inconvenient' recommendations.

There are concerning signals that the new Bio Ethics Council is also being pressured into burying the issues of using cows as bioreactors in their workplan.

" The government is being deceitful in its claims to be following the Royal Commission. As well as the issue of bioreactors there are other examples of inappropriate 'cherry-picking': they have avoided the 'inconvenience' of establishing a parliamentary commissioner on Biotechnology; they have failed to enable the labellling of GM-free foods, and by claiming to manage co-existence are indeed NOT preserving the opportunity for GE-Free production," says Jon Carapiet from Ge Free NZ in food and environment.

Repeated claims by ministers that we are not " GE-Free now" is a deception that needs to be challenged. ALL fruit, vegetables and cereals grown in NZ are GE free.

" We challenge the ministers to list what food and environmental products are NOT GE-Free. The nonsense that a visiting tourist may excrete cholera vaccine made from GE organisms is not a " commercial release" that will threaten our export markets."

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