While appearing to take concerns seriously, the promotion of cisgenics and intragenics by New Zealand science companies risks further public alienation. The debate on the safety and appropriateness of using genetically engineered/modified (GE) plants and animals for food or animal feed is frequently manipulated through semantics. Language and not substance has been used to overstate hazards and also to obscure the search for them.

Whangarei residents are putting up their hands to say central government control of genetically modified organisms is not good enough. [...[ The survey found Whangarei residents are strongly against people producing GMOs and strongly support local councils having a role in regulation. They also want GMO users to be legally responsible for any environmental or economic harm.

A food safety regulator says it will not launch an investigation into claims some genetically modified maize is unsafe. [...] Lydia Buchtmann of Food Standards Australia New Zealand says, [...] was done by an academic who is a known anti-GM campaigner and who published two other studies that were found to be seriously flawed.

Whangarei and Kaipara district councils have begun moves to tighten controls on the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Both last week adopted recommendations from the Inter-council Working Party on GMO Risk Evaluation and Management Options, which commissioned a Colmar Brunton poll that showed most Northlanders were concerned about the risks associated with genetically modified plants and animals.

MAF Biosecurity is considering whether to prosecute the Plant & Food Research Institute after genetically modified plants were found growing outside a containment glasshouse at Lincoln. The two suspect Arabidopsis thaliana plants belong to a small, widespread weed species commonly used in plant science as a research tool and teaching aid.

Auckland and Northland people want tougher controls on any genetically modified plants or animals in their region, according to a Colmar Brunton poll. District councils from the Far North to Waitakere have concerns that the law as it stands does not make users liable for any damage that might be caused by GE organisms. Believing that to be a risk to their ratepayers, the councils commissioned the survey to gauge public support for local control.

MAF Biosecurity New Zealand is investigating a possible breach of containment, reported by Plant & Food Research, around a containment glasshouse located on the Plant & Food Research campus at Lincoln. The investigation involves Arabidopsis plants, which have tested positive for GM constructs, being found immediately outside the glasshouse. Other Arabidopsis plants found within a few metres of the glasshouse have also been tested and the results were negative.

The Commerce Commission has warned poultry producer Inghams Enterprises over its claims its chickens contained no genetically modified (GM) ingredients. The commission has completed investigating allegations that Ingham’s GM-free advertising claims, made in consumer and trade magazines and on television between January 2008 and June 2009, were false or misleading under the Fair Trading Act.

AgResearch plans to alter the make-up of cows, sheep and goats to produce a medicinal super-milk by mixing human and animal DNA. The Crown research institute is pushing ahead with the plans, despite being embroiled in a court battle with GE-Free New Zealand over similar proposals that the lobby group says show ”callous disregard” for the environment and economy.

[Monsanto’s high-lysine LY038 corn] authorised as safe for New Zealanders to eat has been withdrawn from commercial development in Europe because of safety concerns there. [It] was approved as safe for human consumption in New Zealand in December 2007 [...] despite concerns from Canterbury University’s Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety (INBI) that it might cause cancer, diabetes or Alzheimer’s disease if it accidentally entered the human food chain.