Manufacturing Consent for Biotechnology.
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Manufacturing Consent for Biotechnology.
The government is taking clear action to manufacture consent for deregulation & for research investment. But keeps forgetting the lessons of the 2000 Royal Commission on Genetic Modification.
LONG READ (25 mins).
The commercial/media sector - which includes experts affiliated with commercialised and publicly funded science research institutes - call for ‘modernising’ ‘overhauling’ the ‘archaic’ and ‘old and tired’ and ‘anti-science’ HSNO Act. Strangely, the authors never draw attention to serial failures to adopt the findings from a Royal Commission.
Deregulation has been the aim of central government and the corporate and commercial-in-focus science research sector for quite some time.
The Productivity Commission appears strangely unaware of the purpose of their role. And now the New Zealand government wants all of the delights of extensively documenting the DNA from the flora and fauna in our national parks. What happens when this information shifts to the digital sphere?
The institutions that could ensure biotechnology and information that might be used for biotechnology would be stewarded appropriately, do not exist.
The government cannot plead ignorance, in 2000 the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification thoughtfully outlined grounded, logical and science-based recommendations. The findings provided a decision-making framework of seven core values which could guide all future work.
But such nuances remain out of scope. Set aside. Jettisoned.
Because, well… it costs money and takes time to steward technology thoughtfully.
This doesn’t prevent uncomfortable truths being brought to the surface, for, as the McGuiness Institute noted in 2013
the framework that the commissioners designed to secure effective public policy decisions in the future has not been implemented.
It appears that officials and Ministers would far rather make money from releasing and developing technology and from potentially profitable partnerships, than in making sure they act to protect Aotearoa New Zealand.
In the meantime, without any discussion of the failure to accord with the recommendations of the Royal Commission, our top scientists actively talk about how ‘old and tired’ our biotech laws are. But they don’t at the same time, engage in any independent review of the literature that might contradict their calls. Nor do they engage in reviews of government investment to date, so as to assess current ROI.
We know that a hell of a lot of money has been invested in biotechnology, for some reason
‘New Zealand is ranked fourth worldwide for innovation potential in biotechnology’.
I’ve written about how our biotech legislation remains fit for purpose. I’m a trustee of the PSGR, and we’ve recently released a report looking at why New Zealand’s biotech legislation is not quite as dusty as is made out, and why we need to remain careful.
GEFree New Zealand and the Sustainability Council have been working tirelessly in this area. They’ve worked long and hard to draw attention to the risks of gene drive technology and the history of genetic modification of animals.
But the money and investment for biotech promotion, development and release far outpace any effort put into stewardship.
The power, the pressure and the influence are steadfastly asymmetrical.
This is not only a problem for New Zealand - it is a global issue, with development and release of biotech, basically, out of control.
BIOTECH GETS ALL THE GLAMOUR - & FEDFARMERS GETS CONFUSED
When you look across our legacy media, you won’t find any discussion of the complex stewardship issues that groups like GEFree NZ and the Sustainability Council seek to bring to the surface (you’re likely to find their press releases only make it as far as Scoop).
Instead, you will find many people, including Sir Peter Gluckman, loudly and clearly, calling for deregulation. Gluckman lamented that field trials for uncertain GM ryegrass couldn’t happen here. But why can’t someone with Gluckman’s expertise and gravitas openly research less risky opportunities that might support stock health? How does this product compare to seaweed in the diet, or to mixed pasture systems?
(We all know there’s no IP, no licensing opportunities in seaweed and mixed pasture agriculture.)
Last week BioTech NZ’s Life Science Summit was held. It was run by the Tech Alliance a digital and bioscience lobby group. BioTechNZ’s aim is for a healthy, clean, prosperous New Zealand, boosted by biotechnology. BioTechNZ’s key opinion leaders aren’t too focussed on ethics and stewardship.
The New Zealand farm association Federated Farmers have had pressure on them for decades to be become a biotech pal. Their old president, blood producer Dr William Rolleston, was the founding chairman of the Biotechnology Industry Organisation and of the Life Sciences Network. Rolleston’s company South Pacific Sera has received an injection of $35 million from the New Zealand government to apparently lead the project. It is unclear whether there are other investors. It is unclear how the investment is working and how success will be reported. It is clear Rolleston is intent on entering the mRNA vaccine market.
Rolleston also chairs Genomics Aotearoa, an alliance between ESR and the Universities of Otago, Auckland and Massey, AgResearch, Landcare Research and Plant and Food. Thus, New Zealand’s only institution focussed on environment, the ESR, the institution which, in another world would be the one likely to track contamination from novel entities (i.e. synthetic chemicals, heavy metals and biotech products) and draw attention to risk, has an arrangement with the semi-privatised research institutions.
Ooooof. New Zealand can be quite small, when you’ve got a job to do.
I’m exceptionally aware of how New Zealand media has favoured biotech while downplaying contradictory information. In the 6 weeks before the Federated Farmers election which would see Rolleston elected president, I attempted to get a letter published in a national farming paper, discussing his conflict of interest and his unsuitability of a role for Federated Farmers. As Rolleston has stated:
South Pacific Sera (SPS) 30 years ago which is a biotechnology company producing animal derived biologics for the pharmaceutical, diagnostics and medical research industries including the laboratory production of recombinant human proteins using genetically modified cells for cancer, diabetes and auto-immune disease research.
Federated Farmers is an advocacy group for New Zealand farmers. It’s an institution which must focus on the long-term interests of New Zealand farmers.
A president whose life is dedicated to advancing biotechnology was hardly the perfect fit, in GE free New Zealand. Yet none of the national agricultural papers would publish my letter. Finally, the exact week of the election, a local ag paper published it in print, with a comment from Rolleston himself. It did not go online. There was no way New Zealand farmers would be given time to mull this COI over.
The question arises… was I the only one whose letter to the editor was being artfully deflected at this time?
A good way to understand how many articles are currently published demanding ‘law change’ for biotechnology, is to look at the Productivity Commissioner site, which for some strange reason, aggregates pro-biotech deregulation articles.
Conversely, those groups that seek to bring attention to risks, to discuss off-target harm, horizontal gene transfer, and the risk that comes from launching these technologies at scale, might get a sentence or two, perhaps once or twice a year, in the legacy media. That’s balance in 2023.
MANUFACTURING CONSENT
It is not only media and commercial guys downplaying risk. New Zealand’s government has failed to put in place appropriate stewardship frameworks suggested by a Royal Commission, and then to commensurately invest in the infrastructure and expertise that can and would, uphold them.
In this ‘principles and values gap’ the government has then undertaken what can best be described as campaigns for manufacturing consent.
Consent for increased research funding in biotechnology, a highly uncertain field, with no demonstrated and consistent ROI after 30+ years.
Consent for deregulation.
Whether through the Royal Society Te Apārangi; the Department of Conservation (DoC0 and Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ); or via the Productivity Commissioner - it’s pretty clear the manufacture of consent is underway.
Then extensive campaign undertaken in 2019 by the Royal Society Te Apārangi lauded the benefits of biotechnologies but consistently downplayed and failed to draw attention to risks and uncertainties. Unfortunately, the scientists with real expertise who assisted the Royal Societies 2019 deregulation push tended to be associated with organisations who would benefit from the patents and IP that might result from the development of these technologies in deregulated environments. Scientists and expert groups that might have challenged or contradicted their claims, were not invited in.
https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/assets/Uploads/Gene-Editing-FINAL-COMPILATION-compressed.pdf
Our government funded science research centres, the corporate sector and media have been working in tandem for some years to deregulate biotechnology and increase public support for more funding for biotech research.
Two of the major avenues that have been engaged to legitimate this, is via the LTIB consultations to ‘help biodiversity thrive’ and get tech into our national parks; and via the, as we might say, legitimating authority of the Productivity Commissioner.
In the meantime, years of work by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, that directly relates to our dearth of monitoring of environmental pollutants and suggests a course to do strategic, evidence based scientific work, has been left out in the cold.
ENROBED IN AN INNOVATION CULTURE
It is no secret that New Zealand’s science system is, like Cadbury’s chocolate enrobed strawberry cream, enrobed in an innovation mindset. In this world, applied science is King. Basic stewardship science, which includes monitoring, research to understand risk, reviews of the international literature, the state of evidence, remains out in the cold.
Partnerships with private firms bring in income, and applied science research returns patents and licensing agreements. And keep in mind, it is not ‘us’ that receive the income from these technologies. It is the institutions that develop the technology, and the institutions and their investment partners that profit. Our publicly funded research institutions then get added, supplementary income, which means they can then do more research, and apply for more patents, and secure more licensing agreements (see here and here).
From our universities to our Crown Research Institutes, that is the priority of our science system. State underfunding inevitably drives the institutions to secure financial income independently.
This is why biotechnology fits beautifully into innovation systems, but complex, interdisciplinary research drawing attention to the overlapping non-patentable factors that impact, plant, stock, human, freshwater and soil health sits out in the cold.
2021-2023 LONG TERM INSIGHTS BRIEFING
Long-Term Insights Briefings (LTIB) are a technique of demonstrating a rationale to support policy development. However, the ‘gathering intelligence’ component, does not provide for broader deliberation on risk and off-target harms of whatever the Ministry or agency seeks to achieve. Rather, it seems that the department gathers ‘evidence’ to support policy.
There’s no suggestion of broader, nuanced intelligence gathering across expert communities, and through painstaking reviews of the international scientific literature, that might get to the bottom of some of the big challenges of our time.
We can see the modus operandi of officials in a recent LTIB two-year consultation. In this campaign, it’s quite clear the government is far more interested in securing consent for gathering data about DNA than gathering data about pollution.
BIOTECHNOLOGY TO HELP BIODIVERSITY THRIVE
This is why the governments major LTIB consultation to help ‘biodiversity thrive’ was not a complex multidisciplinary science-based coming together of expert communities to understand the drivers of ecosystems decline.
When scientists look upstream to explore overlapping drivers of harm, scrutiny inevitably falls on novel-entities, the man-made technologies that end up polluting and disrupting ecosystems – which harm ‘biodiversity’. These ‘helping biodiversity thrive’ consultations were theatrical representations of protecting the environment. There was not a mention of pollution, of systems stress, of damage to aquatic/regional food chains. The LTIB is demonstrably, all about getting the tech into Crown lands and then developing more tech and more expertise around tech.
https://www.doc.govt.nz/globalassets/documents/about-doc/long-term-insights-briefings/2023/ltib2023-doc-linz.pdf
To all appearances, this is a process by which the government manufactures consent for a predetermined policy plan.
In October 2021 Te Papa Atawhai Department of Conservation (DOC) and Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (Toitū Te Whenua) underwent a Long-Term Insights Briefing consultation to ask a question:
How can innovation in the way we use information and emerging technology help biodiversity thrive?
How do we understand environmental risk in the first place? How do we assess how we prioritise research and science for the environment - to protect biodiversity?
This consultation completely ignored the findings of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE).
The PCE has outlined 5 criteria to judge the pertinence of an issue so as to prioritise where we go and what we do. This could be undertaken through an assessment of whether a problem was likely to be:
• irreversible
• cumulative – building up over time
• large in scale or pervasive
• increasing or even accelerating in scale and/or distribution
• likely to tip a natural system over a threshold into another state
I’ve talked to Professor Jack Heinemann about the scale issue in depth. His recent paper is outstanding. If you’re interested in scalability and risk it’s essential reading.
The inconvenient issue that Heinemann (and colleagues) address, is that even small changes might have a major impact at scale, and that there are still off-target and unknown effects, remains outside calls to review.
New gene editing techniques are claimed to be so ... well… just so safe and certain.
A SHAM CONSULTATION
The DoC and LINZ sham consultation failed to consider the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment recommendations that might ensure the policy would be the best policy to protect biodiversity, and went straight to tech.
They instead activated ‘helping biodiversity thrive’ as the feel-good (greenwashed) strapline.
I call it a sham consultation because the scope of the 2021 LTIB looked strategically designed to shepherd conversation that would justify investment in digital and biotechnology research. The questions were narrow in form. The consultation process acted effectively as a legitimacy device.
The DoC/LINZ 2021 consultation exclusively focussed on emerging technologies, that are patentable and licensable. That is what innovation research is focussed on producing.
The literature review did not look at the combinatory pressures on ecosystems, and look more broadly at, for example, the latest monitoring and biomarker technologies that could monitor pollution. Somehow these forms of knowledges and technological advancements were out of scope, and simply not looked at in their ‘review’.
Despite this, the Summary of Submissions document from the 2021 consultation revealed that respondents had little enthusiasm for biotechnology.
‘There was a strong message that there are risks associated with biotechnology. This includes the irreversibility or ‘genie out of the bottle’ nature of gene editing technologies such as CRISPR and gene drives’
All too often, innovation research fails to build consultation scopes which demand a complex systems approach to environmental and human health threats.
In the world that DoC and LINZ imagine, $30-100 million and 5-10 years could be spent on surveillance technologies, and biotechnology and gene editing, but there would still be pervasive ignorance about the drivers of harm. We would simply learn that we had less fish, less birds… but what was driving that?
Because if we don’t look at system drivers we won’t know what stops ‘biodiversity thriving’. And pollutant mixtures can’t be tracked by satellite. There’s no discussion on the monitoring of industrial, agricultural and urban waste streams to identify what mixes are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic. New Zealand doesn’t do that.
The ignorance results in other policies being entirely uninformed of potential risk. New Zealand failed to seek advice from endocrinologists with expertise in low dose toxicology to review risk the millions of litres of water contaminated with fluoride that will now be released into New Zealand rivers. So there is no one looking at vertebrate risk of harm to thyroid function, which potentially impairs intelligence, and predator prey relationships of fish and eels.
That sort of work is desperately needed, using data driven technologies. But it was completely out of scope of this ‘helping biodiversity thrive’ sweet-talk.
There was no exploration of both the depletion of resources that might disrupt food chains and impact the health of biological communities. There was no exploration of the pollutants that disrupt health – from the microbes inhabiting the benthic communities in freshwater microbiomes, through to invertebrates and vertebrates who both live in freshwater and land.
No. We go straight to the monitoring of the vertebrate at the end of the food chain, rather than use science to inform us of the environmental conditions.
Following this first innovation-centric consultation, one year later, in November 2022, the government used the social license secured from the first innovation consultation to ‘refine the topic’. Apparently the first LTIB consultation meant they could then arrive at the topic of this briefing. The 2022 LTIB altered the question slightly to nudge responders even more towards their desired aims:
How can we help biodiversity thrive through the innovative use of information and emerging technologies?
Unsurprisingly, the
‘key areas of interest identified as critical to supporting efforts to protect biodiversity included:
· Biotechnologies, with gene editing as a subsection of this group.
· Data, including satellites and remote sensing technologies as valuable tools for collecting data, with artificial intelligence (AI) as a powerful way to analyse this data.’
So apparently, even though respondents had little desire for investment in biotechnology in 2021, by 2022, this was forgotten about.
Remember, there is no enthusiasm for pollutant monitoring, nor all the exciting advances in AI that might ensure we can understand mixtures and threats to the environment. But biotech, well, that’s all the go! Because we then get access to genetic information and can develop our own AI from data research.
The feedback from the LTIB second consultation, released March 2023, was much less frank than the first consultation. It briefly mentioned data researchers must consider privacy, sovereignty, security and management. It lightly touched on issues about gene technology, skimming over respondents’ concerns. It noted
‘the importance of having the right foundations in place such as regulation, data and digital infrastructure and ethical frameworks.
The 2022 consultations resulted in the policy-informing Long-term Insights Briefing, also released March 2023. This white paper thoroughly dove into all the exciting DNA sampling that can be undertaken for eDNA analysis. It waxed lyrical about all the information that can be gleaned from the deployment of drones, and the use of satellites and all the data opportunities.
It explored three areas of technological innovation that could be explored or scaled-up to ‘improve biodiversity outcomes’:
1. Remote sensing, including the use of satellites and drones, can efficiently collect more – and more accurate – environmental data. These could enable large-scale monitoring and access to places that are currently very difficult to reach.
2. Data-driven technologies, including AI, machine learning and modelling, can process and analyse vast quantities of data quickly and accurately, including remote sensing and genetic data. AI can also be used to analyse multiple types of data for nowcasting and forecasting.
3. Genetic technologies allow for new ways to collect environmental data and provide innovative tools for addressing pressures on biodiversity. Genetic technologies expand what is possible for biodiversity monitoring, protection and decision-making, and are becoming increasingly affordable.
As they consider, for example, that
‘eDNA data collected to monitor native fish could be used to assess the suitability of water for swimming and drinking’.
They still don’t know what might be causing DNA damage – because looking at pollution is not a consideration.
THREE QUESTIONS
· What is biopiracy?
· What is missing here - in the LTIB remote sensing, data driven, genetic technology ‘chat’?
· Who owns the patents?
Wikipedia helps here:
Biopiracy (also known as scientific colonialism) is defined as the unauthorized appropriation of knowledge and genetic resources of farming and indigenous communities by individuals or institutions seeking exclusive monopoly control through patents or intellectual property.
Questions arise about ownership (and theft) of living systems and the patenting of drugs and biological weapons. For example, it is no secret that there is a close relationship between the detection of potentially harmful micro-organisms and the development of vaccines which might be positioned as the antidote should micro-organisms be demonstrated to harm at scale. Secret, unconstrained, gain of function research is a massive ethical problem that neither governments, nor media wish to address.
What is missing here - ignored and kept out of sight - is the fact that the precautionary principle is an important decision-making principle. It’s embedded in the overarching legislation, the HSNO Act 1996 s.7. However, the LTIB’s sole mention of this principle, is casually referred to, as if it were merely the opinion of submitters instead of a critical tool for safe stewardship (page 47).
Some submitters also told us that decision-making, particularly in relation to biotechnology, should be based on the precautionary principle. In contrast, other submitters advocated for more agility in the uptake of some biotechnologies. Finding the right balance here will not be straightforward
(If you would like a deeper dive into the precautionary principle, work by Dale Scott and Catherine Iorns goes where DoC and LINZ fear to tread).
What is missing here – is any discussion about the ethics/bioethics, stewardship and ownership of that knowledge regarding DNA and what happens once this information is stored digitally. It’s quite evident from the mRNA gene therapies deployed in COVID-19 that there an extraordinary amount of work has been undertaken invitro and insilico (digitally) with DNA.
The March 2023 LTIB, in its 50 pages of text, contained no discussion of bioethics relating to DNA and biotechnology, and one sentence on ethics (page 32) relating to data and the ‘trust and agreement of the public’:
There are a range of ethical and legal considerations with the use of data-driven technologies. Work is underway globally and domestically in this area, with the Government Chief Data Steward (Stats NZ) leading work within government on data ethics. Aotearoa New Zealand is also a part of several global organisations that have designed worldwide standards and principles (for example, OECD and Global Partnership on AI).
Ethics in the LTIB is to be managed by the chief data steward – rather than being an issue requiring broad consultation. What is missing in New Zealand is a language of ethics and bioethics that is complex and nuanced and can consider long-term risk.
You would think no work had been undertaken relating to ethics and the stewardship of biotechnologies (or as the 2023 LTIB calls it, genetic technologies) in New Zealand.
No discussion about how we think about these technologies, or what values could be used to inform decision-making.
2000 ROYAL COMMISSION ON GENETIC MODIFICATION
Somehow the 2023 LTIB has forgotten about the 2000 Royal Commission on Genetic Modification made a series of important findings and recommendations that remain relevant in 2023. The 2000 Royal Commission found that
1. A shared framework of seven core values lie at the heart of the genetic modification debate: our cultural heritage, sustainability, being part of a global family, the well-being of all, freedom of choice, and participation.
2. These seven values underpinned the forty nine recommendations that were then made.
The Commission found that that genetic modification technology should be used only in ways that are carefully managed. Integral was this was a focus on
‘managing the risks and preserving the opportunities’.
The Royal Commission recognised that contamination, through crosspollination, horizontal gene transfer and seed dispersal would be impossible to reverse. Contamination was very much a risk that was best limited, so as to protect the environment.
3. So as to steward biotechnology into the future the Commission recommended the establishment of:
a. Toi te Taiao : a Bioethics Council
b. A Parliamentary Commissioner on Biotechnology
c. A biotechnology strategy for New Zealand
The Bioethics Council would
· act as an advisory body on ethical, social and cultural matters in the use of biotechnology in New Zealand
· assess and provide guidelines on biotechnological issues involving significant social, ethical and cultural dimensions
· provide an open and transparent consultation process to enable public participation in the Council’s activities.
The Parliamentary Commissioner on Biotechnology would
· audit the bodies charged with making decisions about and guiding biotechnology and its applications in New Zealand
· monitor and respond to emerging developments in biotechnology in terms of their implications in the New Zealand context
· fulfil a widespread educational and consulting role with the public.
The biotechnology strategy would:
‘Need to take into account scientific, environmental, economic, cultural, consumer preference and other factors, and the interplay between them. The aim of the strategy would be to ensure that New Zealand kept abreast of developments in biotechnology, and that these were used to national advantage while preserving essential social, cultural and environmental values.’
As you can see, the final report contained 400 pages of thoughtful, guiding information that would serve future generations.
WERE THE ROYAL COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS INCONVENIENT?
In April 2008 Wendy McGuiness and colleagues released two reports
In 2013 a further report was released
An Overview of Genetic Modification in New Zealand 1973-2013. The first forty years.
The reports found that the Bioethics Council had been partially implemented, an office of a Parliamentary Commissioner on Biotechnology was not implemented, and that the biotechnology strategy was implemented, but required further work.
The Royal Commission envisaged that the key Ministry developing the biotechnology strategy
‘would consult with bodies such as the Bioethics Council and the Parliamentary Commissioner on Biotechnology and seek submissions from key stakeholder groups and the public at large in undertaking this responsibility.’
But as McGuiness and colleagues noted in 2008
‘it is not clear to what extent cultural, ethical and spiritual dimensions, and cross-agency policy areas, are currently being taken into account’
in the Biotechnology Strategy.
By 2009 the Bioethics Council had been disestablished.
Of the 49 Recommendations, McGuiness and colleagues found:
· Only 20 (41%) of all recommendations have been fully implemented. The highest number of fully implemented recommendations was in the area of ‘Research’.
· Of the 29 (59%) partially or not implemented, three specific groups of recommendations were least implemented: ‘Crops and Other Field Uses’, ‘Te Tiriti o Waitangi’ and ‘Major Conclusion: Preserving Opportunities’.
What is of significant concern is that those recommendations that have not been fully implemented are not only highly complex but are in many ways central to the problem the Commissioners were contracted to solve.
In the 2013 research paper, the McGuiness Institute stated that:
We found that many initiatives put in place after the Royal Commission have since been disestablished or not progressed. Since 2001, New Zealand has significantly reduced its ability to collect strategic information to make informed decisions on GM. For example, New Zealand has disestablished the Bioethics Council (2009); discontinued Futurewatch, a work programme of the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology (MoRST) (2011); discontinued the Bioscience Survey, a survey undertaken by Statistics NZ (2013); and have not reviewed or updated the Biotechnology Strategy, published in 2003 and due to expire this year.’
Surprisingly, the 2021 authors who shaped the consultations for the ‘helping biodiversity thrive' Long Term Insights Briefing, never thought to cite either the Royal Commission into Genetic Modification or the McGuiness papers, which might have informed their consultation.
The final question I ask is, who will own the patents, who will own the IP?
We can see in past papers, there is no discussion of the process of ownership of the edited organism. But what we also see in the LTIB is no discussion on IP and patents, or licensing agreements derived from the genetic technologies, the processes or whatever other patentable knowledge might come out of these data capture processes.
They’re silent on this.
THE PRODUCTIVITY COMMISSIONER - BIASED?
The Productivity Commissioner has an important role, to provide advice to the Government on improving productivity in a way that is directed to supporting the overall well-being of New Zealanders.
My discussion here is informed by an analysis of content held on the Productivity Commissioner’s website, and a OIA requests detailed below.
Yet how can we hope for an independent Productivity Commissioner when we can clearly see that the commissioner has acted to over-emphasise findings that accord with the governments firmly pro-industry deregulatory stance on biotechnology and gene edited organisms? From the 2022 work by the Productivity Commissioner, we see a narrow focus, and a failure to consult more broadly on the subject of genetic modification.
Background: In 2019 the government requested that the Productivity Commissioner to focus on the economic contribution of frontier firms. From this we can see that the government constrained the scope, i.e. the terms of reference by emphasising the importance of innovation. The Productivity Commission then published an April 2020 Issues Paper.
Biotech was mentioned twice in the 60 page Issues Paper. Following the consultation, a final report was published April 2021. The Government’s response to this report appeared broad and considered, and the related press release reflected this.
However, the Government appeared to take one paragraph of the Productivity Commissioner’s final report (page 9) as the authority on whether the HSNO Act required review. On page 13 the report stated:
R10.4 The Government should undertake a full review of the regulation of genetic modification (GM), to ensure it is fit for purpose and supports domestic innovation.
The media took this and ran with it.
Yet biotechnology and gene editing played a minor role in the background to, and consequent consultation to the report. It was not the subject of the report.
In April 2022 RNZ reported that it was ‘time for a full regulatory review of genetically modified organisms and technologies (GM), according to a ground-breaking report by the Productivity Commission.’
The final report titled ‘New Zealand firms: Reaching for the frontier’ was hailed by the lobby group Biotech NZ as the best thing since sliced bread.
Then in the May 2022 The Detail podcast, then Commissioner, Ganesh Nana discussed at length, genetic engineering, including gene editing, and the need to review the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (HSNO) Act.
Why would the Productivity Commissioner strangely ignore the bulk of information which New Zealand firms and individuals supplied, thereby misrepresenting the actual information that was supplied by the groups and individuals that contributed to this consultation?
It’s evident from the Commissioner’s Reaching the Frontier draft report that the commissioner was intent on encouraging discussion on genetic engineering laws.
However, this was not a key issue identified by firms in the Productivity Commission’s enquiry, New Zealand firms: Reaching for the frontier.
There were 80 responses to the draft report. While the draft report highlighted the need to review the regulatory restrictions on genetic modification, not a single agricultural firm submitted that review was required.
The only 2 submissions that agreed, were a lobby group for medicines development, New Zealanders for Health Research (NZHR) and a consultant whose
‘principal focus has been providing strategy consulting to research and professional organisations and advising on research funding.’
The majority of Nana’s interview with The Detail focussed on agriculture, and while they didn’t clarify this for listeners, New Zealand’s legislation around genetic modification, or genetic engineering demands transparency if the development is occurring in contained environments, such as laboratories. The interview clearly identified that deregulation was a cornerstone of any changes to the HSNO Act.
The Detail’s perspective was firmly agricultural, that GE was needed for drought tolerance, climate change, and to increase nutrition, discounting the fact that these issues are complex, and that countries with much deeper budgets and weaker regulations have not been able to address them meaningfully.
As part of the enquiry, the Productivity Commissioner held case studies, and that in the discussions the stakeholders stated that ... If we look back to the submissions, gene editing was not raised. Did the Productivity Commission bring this up, create the language around this to be able to put this in his report? Who were the stakeholders – where the agricultural stakeholders food exporters or medical technologies developers?
Was the Productivity Commissioner manufacturing consent through this process, when the submissions hadn’t hooked sufficient suitable quotes to be able to promote deregulation of the HSNO Act?
WHAT THE PRODUCTIVITY COMMISSIONER IGNORED
Did the Productivity Commissioner look at the level of regulation in small advanced economies (SAEs) that New Zealand would so desperately like to be tracking against, and note that most are like New Zealand, requiring declaration to the regulator, while having restrictions on outdoors releases. No.
Did the Productivity Commissioner take time to reflect on the workforce challenges commented on by submitters? Or consider lower inequality in these countries, healthier food environments in these SAEs, the restrictions on junk food marketing, healthy cooked lunches for school children, and stronger focus on nutrition and health, to promote a healthy workforce? No. (But he could have, workforce health is related to productivity and therefore… performance).
Did the Productivity Commissioner identify whether HSNO Act legislation was for example, outdated compared to European legislation? No.
Despite this, the Productivity Commissioner claimed that the regulatory framework of GM tools ‘does not reflect technological advances since that time’:
We know the Productivity Commissioner did not consider other issues, such as the risk from lowered barriers to technology where we don’t know what is released into the environment (and can’t track it), and the impact of consequential increases in production of that technology at scale. Such issues might have pointed to the fact that precautionary legislation is best suited to the values identified by the Royal Commission.
Biotechnology in agriculture is aligned to identifying a species that can be patented, or driving precision fermentation that would replace cultural and indigenous foodways. Does that align with our values? There’s a reason Europe is reluctant to pivot, and instead focusses on cleaning up agriculture by reducing the use of pollutant chemicals and encouraging organic and agroecological practices, it’s because traditional, unprocessed, multi-fibre diets keep people healthier than modern diets.
The Productivity Commissioner has shown little interest in the findings of the 2000 Royal Commission, and the emphasis on preserving opportunities.
The Productivity Commissioner did not broadly consult with the organic sector, a growing sector with far less adverse polluting externalities than conventional industrial agriculture. Organics might not consider the Act needs review.
It is outdoor releases that are prohibited, and for good reason. Scientists and researchers continue to find off target and unintended effects following the release of gene edited organisms.
In the submissions to the Productivity Commissioner, our agricultural industries were concerned with workforce skills training, logistics and research that reflected industry needs, for example, New Zealand Apples and Pears stated
‘There is a sense that research priorities are being driven by science imperatives, rather than by working with industry to identify and deliver on research that will support export growth and international competitiveness.’
Apples and Pears drew attention to a critical problem in our research environment, research is so tightly funded, with basic research difficult to secure, and funding short term.
Interviews such as Nana’s are misleading, taking the Productivity Commissioners valuable time and limited resources away from the complex structural issues that support skills training, logistics, and better science to understand input-output dynamics for resilient crops and resilient animals in low margin environments.
At worst, the Productivity Commissioner is engaging in the time-honoured bureaucrat trope of manufacturing consent.
Perhaps deregulatory pressure has come from offshore Big Ag outfits driving precision fermentation for synthetic (alternative) proteins. Both the inputs (feedstock) into this stuff may come from products of biotechnology, and then the emissions – pollution and waste product, may be contaminated with microbes and other organisms which have been edited, i.e. are not naturally found in the environment.
Precision fermentation should be a regulatory nightmare, because the potential for harm is significant. We’re talking about replacing complex fats and proteins with a synthetic product. What happens to the chemicals added to prevent bacterial breakouts, will they increase risk for health harm? Of issue too, is that, unlike agriculture where ownership sits across families and organisations, precision fermentation tank farms can, and will, quickly scale up and be owned by a narrow group of interests. In the current political climate, it is inevitable that offshore investments would drive production.
Nana’s claim for drought tolerance is unwarranted. Drought tolerant traits frequently involve hundreds of genes, drought tolerant species may be more hardy, but less digestible. No farmer wants an undigestible volunteer species that outcompetes with healthy pastoral mixtures.
Nana’s claim in The Detail for high nutrition lacks basis (and strangely, the Productivity Commission isn’t interested in New Zealand’s chronic disease profile which must impact workforce health). A simple meal with carrots and vegetables contained the nutrients that the controversial golden rice, with lower beta-carotene content, was claimed to fill.
The conversation failed to draw attention to who might own the IP – and receive the royalties. In other markets such as Mexico and the USA, farmers with hybrid and old varieties were challenged once the genetically engineered product cross-bred with their public access varieties. Over this time the gene pool of soy and corn varieties shrunk significantly, while the cost of biotech seeds have increased.
The fewer varieties we have for cross-breeding in future, the less resilient we are.
What homework had Nana done before this interview? Of the $25 million invested in drought tolerant ryegrass, what is the situation? Is the product palatable, of equivalent nutrition? Has the he met with pastoral groups to understand whether they would like a drought tolerant ryegrass or whether they are finding that mixed pasture plantings increase soil carbon, nutrient profile and drought tolerance in their pasture grass?
In the OIA requests and answers below, you can see how narrowly the Productivity Commissioner consulted. Perhaps he fell into a well laid trap.
It seems the Productivity Commissioner has failed the public in this consultation and The Detail interview.
The occupation of our export industries concern skills training and logistics. Government funding has long targeted genetics but ignored and avoided the gritty and interdisciplinary long-term work of basic science to help us with big complex questions.
The promise of biotechnology royalties and IP has long hijacked research on soil health, nutrition and disease resilience.
Where is that $35 million injection to start a national monitoring program such as the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has recommended, to test for synthetic chemical mixtures in our water and soil?
Where is that $35 million for agroecology and chemical free weeding, to support farmers to move away from herbicidal regimes that drive herbicide resistance in crop species, and support the development of for super-cool robotics technologies?
Where is that $35 million for development of water treatment infrastructure, so that treatment plants are able to filter and degrade endocrine disrupting synthetic chemicals before releasing ‘treated’ waste back into rivers?
All of these dual purpose initiatives would support our agricultural export industries and protect food and water supplies.
But such ‘investment’ is impossible to imagine. It’s out of scope.
I did ask the Productivity Commissioner for some answers…
OIA REQUEST NO.1
Official Information Act Request June 2022.
1) All reports and documents held by the Productivity Commission detailing public sector investment in synthetic biology/biotechnology/gene editing/genetic modification and/or the returns on investment by individual New Zealand Crown Research Institutions.
2) All reports and documents held by the Productivity Commission detailing investment and/or return on investment to the public sector from synthetic biology/biotechnology/gene editing/genetic modification.
3) All reports and documents analysing and assessing environmental risk to New Zealand environment and agriculture from synthetic biology/biotechnology/gene editing/genetic modification. This risk could occur:
a) As a consequence of altered regulation;
b) Over the longer term (i.e., it involves long term stewardship considerations)
c) Following release into the environment;
d) Through genetic alteration of native flora or fauna (this includes laboratory based effects including unintended insertion of foreign dna; and includes through unintended events such as via pollination);
e) As an adverse impact to domestic and export industries (including via offshore detection; and non-tariff barriers) following contamination from released organisms in New Zealand food export product to organic and non-organic product.
The Productivity Commissioner returned with:
The Productivity Commission has no documents detailing, analysing or assessing returns or environment (or other) risks relating to genetic modification (GM). To date, we have not done any work on this topic, instead we have looked at reports that have been written by others about the current GM regulations and their benefits and costs considering the current state of knowledge about GM. Our conclusions from our investigations are available in section 10.4 of our final report on "Frontier Firms: Reaching for the Frontier" .
OIA REQUEST NO.2
I was interested in how the Productivity Commissioner had consulted, and made an OIA request on May 11, 2022. The Productivity Commissioner responded June 7, 2022. Comments inline.
Dear New Zealand Productivity Commission,
Re: The case study information cited in the report: New Zealand firms: reaching for the frontier.
Please supply the following information on the case study group/s where modern biotech/gene technology including gene editing and Crispr were discussed.
1) Did any case study groups discuss biotech/gene technology/gene editing other than the 'four industry case studies' as per the 2021/02 Lewis et al Working Paper? If so please list the names of the case study groups.
Productivity Commission response: No.
2) Please supply all specific questions (prepared and 'off the cuff') supplied to participants in all the case study rounds where modern biotech/gene technology was discussed
Productivity Commission response: See attached document “Engagement Questions – Horticulture – Plant and Food. Also see attached pdf with additional questions from New Zealand Productivity Commission to MPI and GM food labelling.
3) Please confirm how many participants were in the case study groups where modern biotech/gene technology was discussed.
Productivity Commission response: The engagement meeting with the most extensive discussion of GM regulation was with Zac Hanley from Plant and Food. Mr Hanley was the only participant in the zoom meeting apart from two Productivity Commission staff – see attached notes from the meeting. Other meetings with single outside participants that touched on GM were with Malcolm Bailey, Simon Tucker and Peter McBride. Please note: the attached notes have some information redacted where it relates to the commercial approaches of two Plant and Food clients. The release of this information would unreasonably prejudice their commercial positions, so it has been removed.
4) Where case studies discussed modern biotech/gene technology, please confirm which groups from regenerative / organic / healthy or premium value added food sector / and Māori food producing operators were invited into the consultation and who also participated in the consultation.
Productivity Commission response: The Productivity Commission met with Professor Caroline Saunders of Lincoln University and discussed premiums on value added foods. It met with New Zealand Apples and Pears and with the Sustainability Council of New Zealand.
5) In the Four industry case studies Working paper 2021/02 -
a. Please disclose the institutions/companies employed the individuals identified as the 'stakeholders' on p.35 that led to this statement: Stakeholders expressed concern that restricted access to GM tools is inhibiting the industry’s ability to prepare for biosecurity threats. They said the current regulatory regime is also acting as a barrier to innovation and the ability to seize significant opportunities, as well as protect existing markets.
Productivity Commission response: The organisations were Plant & Food, Fonterra, DCANZ, and Trinity Lands, and Ministry for the Environment.
b. Please confirm whether any stakeholders involved in the 2021/02 working paper (either in informing the questions, or as participants) included any persons who were also involved in consulting, advising or providing information to the Royal Society Te Apārangi concerning gene editing.
Productivity Commission response: We do not hold this information.
c. Please identify if biotechnology, genetic modification, gene editing and regulation were asked in the in-depth interviews with 17 experienced iwi and Māori business people that led to this paper: He Manukura. Insights from Māori frontier firms.
Productivity Commission response: No specific questions on these topics. These topics were not the focusin this part of our inquiry. However, we did recommend in our final report(see Rec 10.4) that a review of GMO regulations should consider the recommendations of the Waitangi Tribunal report WAI262, in particular,those relating to GM legislation.
These questions are important because we can see that of the 80 submitters to this inquiry, only 2 mentioned biotech/gene technology and these were connected to the development and IP 'end' of production, and connected to medical research. None of the major agricultural industries, nor Māori organisations, submitted formally to alter regulations relating to gene technology, and gene editing and the issues relating to outdoors release and the protection of indigenous varieties from contamination was not discussed in the He Manukura. Insights from Māori frontier firms report. Neither the specific dairy paper [1] nor the Landfall paper discussed the issue of gene editing either.
[1] The dairy sector in New Zealand: extending the boundaries
[2] Frontier firms: An international small advanced economy perspective
Final note by the Productivity Commission:
Please note that the Productivity Commission published a draft report
and invited submissions on it. One submission came from the Sustainability
Council of New Zealand and another from NZ Apple and Pears (see our
website), and we subsequently met with two people from the Council (Simon
Terry and Stephanie Howard). We took account of this feedback in our final
report.