Email this page

PRESS RELEASE from PHYSICIANS AND SCIENTISTS FOR RESPONSIBLE GENETICS

9 October 2001

Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Genetics (PSRG) acknowledge a new six-year study by scientists at Ohio State University that confirms the persistence of genetic traits through several generations.

The study looked at radishes and concluded that the biotech industry should not consider developing transgenic radish varieties. The radish is known to be hardy and in California is a firmly established, successful and damaging weed, one of the most economically damaging weeds in the world.

The Ohio University study (Snow, Uthus and Culley) suggested the result of genes engineered into the radish jumping to its wild relatives may be very hardy, hard to kill weeds. Genetic traits of, say, chemical-resistance - which already form a major percentage of the commercial transgenic crops - can become a permanent feature in weed populations. These may in time jump again to other crops.

Genes do move naturally between crops and their wild relatives. It is part of the evolution process.

Genetic engineering technology, however, is designed to transfer genes horizontally between species that do not normally interbreed, to break down species barriers and overcome defence mechanisms which would normally degrade or inactivate foreign genes. Genetic engineering technology is inherently hazardous precisely because it depends on constructs that will cross species barriers.

PSRG urges the government to extend the moratorium on the release of genetically engineered organisms into the New Zealand environment.

Email this page

back to top