Soil & Health
Association of New Zealand Inc (est 1941) Healthy
Soil - Healthy Food - Healthy People |
New Zealand's leading source of information on Organics & Sustainable Living
Organic Growing - August 200610-08-2006ORGANIC GROWING NEWS Newsletter No 231, August 2006On Sunday 27 August we will hear from consultant medical herbalist Sara Hamer Sara grew up in New Zealand and moved to the UK in 1987 where she became aware of the fantastic potential of herbal medicine. She qualified from the four-year course at the College of Phytotherapy in 1996 and set up a practice in South East London. She taught for several years at the training clinics for herbal medicine, which are part of the degree programmes for herbal medicine at Middlesex University and the University of East London. Sara has written a number of articles for UK publications on aspects of medical herbalism and has appeared on television and radio in the UK. In 2002 she was part of the European Herbal Practitioners Association and Skills for Health working group developing National Vocational Standards for Herbal Medicine. Sara returned to New Zealand in late 2004 and is now re-establishing herself in the greater Wellington area as a consultant practitioner and as a tutor, offering community education courses in introductory herbal medicine and human biology. She is a member of the New Zealand Association of Medical Herbalists and the College of Practitioners of Phytotherapy (UK) and is involved in providing professional development training for New Zealand herbalists. Sara will tell us about her work as a medical herbalist, with a particular focus on treating our winter ailments. The meeting starts at 1.30pm at Thompson House, 4 Kent Street, Levin. A $2 gate charge includes afternoon tea, and there will be a sales table with produce and plants. The meeting is open to the public. GE UPDATE WITH CLAIRE BLEAKLEY Over 20 people attended our July meeting to hear Claire Bleakley, president of GE Free (NZ) in Food and Environment (“GE Free NZ”), give an update on the current situation with GE in New Zealand. GE Free NZ keeps a watching brief on GE developments, writes submissions and attends hearings, educates and supports producers and the public, and networks with other GE-free groups. It provides information and resources to members and the public via its website (www.gefree.org.nz) and quarterly newsletters. GE Free NZ is represented on the consumer forum of Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) and the working group of the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA). Claire explained that there are three regulatory agencies responsible for GE in New Zealand. ERMA is a quasi judicial authority that administers the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (HSNO) Act. ERMA receives applications and submissions under the HSNO Act, including applications for the field trial and release of GE crops and animals, after which it consults with relevant parties and sets control standards for approved applications. It relies on policy advice from the Ministry for the Environment, and uses the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries to monitor and inspect the controls it imposes. There appears to be a legal grey area in the HSNO Act in which no-one is actually designated as being responsible for the enforcement of controls: this burden arguably falls on District Councils under the Resource Management Act. FSANZ is a trans-Tasman agency established to protect the health and safety of the public by ensuring the safety of the food supply. Its roles include: to provide risk assessment advice on imported food, to provide information to consumers to enable consumer choice, and to undertake dietary exposure modelling and scientific risk assessments. Its guidelines are to be impartial, open and accountable, to use the best available science for decision-making, and to seek to respect and be responsive to the issues raised. FSANZ receives applications for the use of GE ingredients, of which 34 have so far been approved. The New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) reports to the Minister of Health. Its role is to enforce FSANZ protocols, to monitor and inspect local food supplies, to raise awareness around food safety, to ensure that food labelling requirements are met and to withdraw any unsafe foods. NZFSA consults with consumers via a consumers’ forum every six months. In the year 2000, it was commonly believed within the industry that a full-scale commercial GE release in New Zealand was inevitable by 2006. That this has not happened is due in large part to organisations such as GE Free NZ. There have never even been any commercial field trials of plants in NZ, although there have been some adventitious releases (such as the Starlink corn involved in the Corngate scandal) and also possibly some illegal experimentation. There have however been several GE field trials involving animals. In 1992 a private company, PPL Ltd, gained approval to trial a flock of East Friesian ewes that had been implanted with in-vitro fertilised embryos. The embryos had been genetically engineered to express the human anti-alpha Trypsin gene (hAAT), which it was hoped would lead to treatments for human lung complaints such as emphysema. East Friesians are top milk producers and are usually very fecund, with a 150% lambing rate. The GE trial flock had a lambing rate of only 5%, and the lambs were extremely prone to disease and unexplained death. Clinical trials of the milk were conducted in Scotland, firstly on mice and then on humans. The results indicated that the hAAT isolate in the milk caused lung distress and severe wheezing. The entire flock of 3000 sheep was put down and incinerated, which meant that no further tests could be done to establish what had gone wrong. PPL went bankrupt and sold its intellectual property to the Dutch firm Pharming NV. AgResearch has especially active in seeking to conduct GE field trials with animals. In 1998 it applied for a “contained” field trial involving 60 cows on 500 acres. The application related to three gene constructs, including one for a human gene. At first, the two non-human gene construct trials were approved and the human one turned down. Later however, the human gene construct trial was also approved with a minimum of notice and publicity. Claire successfully opposed this approval in court, but not before the trials had begun and the calves had been born. Out of sixty cows, only a handful calved successfully. In 2002 AgResearch applied for a generic approval under s67A of the HASNO Act. If approved, this would mean that any proposed trial could go ahead without further notification, as long as it fell within the parameters of the original application. AgResearch is expected to apply later this year to trial GE embryos it has imported from Pharming, the same company which bought the intellectual property of PPL Ltd after the first unsuccessful GE trials in 1992. What can we do, as individuals and collectively, to help keep New Zealand GE Free? It is important that ordinary people remain active in the debate. We should not feel that we are “unqualified” to express an opinion, or feel intimidated by the scientists and experts on both sides. Claire suggests the following courses of action:
Here is a sample of recent news from GM Watch, www.gmwatch.org FSANZ food regulator criticised over new GM corn By Anna Salleh, ABC Science Online, August 4 2006 http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1705835.htm Australia and New Zealand's food regulator is failing to apply its own safety standards, or those of international guidelines, in assessing a new-generation GM corn for human consumption, critics say. But Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) defends its so-far favourable assessment of the high-lysine corn, which it says is intended for animal feed and is unlikely to enter the human food chain. The Centre for Integrated Research on Biosafety (INBI) at the University of Canterbury has twice formally notified FSANZ of its concerns about the GM corn, LY038, which has been engineered to contain a bacterial gene that allows the accumulation of high levels of lysine. "Among the types of potential hazards that this food poses are the creation of compounds that are known to be associated with important diseases like diabetes, Alzheimer's, heart disease and cancer," says centre director Associate Professor Jack Heinemann. Heinemann says while the compounds, advanced glycoxidation end-products (AGEs), are also produced when cooking conventional foods, he is concerned about potential levels in LY038 corn. He says corn is normally extremely low in the compounds that combine to create AGEs. But he says higher-than-normal levels of lysine in the LY038 and high sugar levels, combining under heat, have the potential to raise AGE levels. "[LY038] has the potential to produce 100 times more [AGEs] than normal corn," says Heinemann. In March this year FSANZ recommended LY038 be approved as safe for human consumption in a report to its board. "Food derived from corn line LY038 is as safe and wholesome as food derived from other corn varieties," the report says. But the necessary tests to prove the corn is safe for humans have not been done, says Heinemann, a geneticist and former US National Institutes of Health scientist. He says LY038 is the first of a new-generation of GM foods being specifically designed to be nutritionally different from their conventional counterpart. And FSANZ's decision could set a precedent on how such foods are assessed. Heinemann says FSANZ only considered safety tests that looked at raw and not cooked corn. But the international standards-setting body Codex Alimentarius recommends heating, cooking and processing conditions be applied to GM material in an assessment of their safety for human food, says Heinemann. He also says FSANZ only considered 21-day animal studies and not longer ones, which might have picked up diseases like cancer. Heinemann says FSANZ should also look into human feeding studies. Lastly, Heinemann criticises FSANZ's decision to compare the composition of the corn to another GM corn rather than its non-GM parent variety, as recommended by its own advice, and by Codex. FSANZ says testing was adequate. "We are satisfied that we have all the scientific information necessary to make a sound decision on the safety and nutritional adequacy of high lysine corn LY308," it says. "We have considered the potential for production of AGEs, but have no concerns." FSANZ says Codex only asks regulators to consider testing heated or processed GM foods. But as the raw corn has much lower levels of lysine compared to other foods regularly consumed, FSANZ did not consider the tests necessary. It also says the GM corn used for comparison was a "better comparator than the non-GM parental line". FSANZ says it assessed the corn as if it was any other GM food. "The safety assessment conducted on LY038 is as rigorous and thorough as for any GM food product, and assumes that if approved, corn from line LY038 could be routinely entering the food supply and not present just as an occasional inadvertent ingredient," states FSANZ's report. FSANZ also says the corn is "unlikely" to end up in human food and is only being assessed as a precaution in case of an accidental mix-up. One such mix-up occurred in 2000, when Starlink GM corn, also intended for animal feed, became mixed in the US food chain. Because it was not registered for human consumption the contamination affected exports and cost the manufacturer a $100 million in lost sales. Canada approved the use of LY038 in the human food supply last month. The FSANZ board is due to consider the corn in late September. MOON PLANTING GUIDE FOR SEPTEMBER First quarter 1st, and again on 30th Full moon 8th Last quarter 14th New moon 22nd Here’s hoping the weather is calm and warm to encourage the sowing and planting of lots of veges for the new season.
UPCOMING MEETINGS
A1 SHELTER BELT TRIMMERS for all your shelter belt and hedge trimming. Height reduction and decrowning now available. Competitive prices, prompt service. Phone Marty (06) 362 6737 MAWHENUA FARM - organic since 1986. Beef, hogget & lamb processed & packaged under MAF licence. Craft & knitting wools available. For price list and inquiries contact Warren and Trish Gilbert, RD 7, Dannevirke (06) 374 8281. AGRISSENTIAL NATURALLY BETTER FERTILISERS BIOGRO certified Rok Solid and Organic 100, available from IMAGO ORGANIC ORCHARD For information phone Ann (06) 368 3858 CACKLEBERRY ORGANICS Organic chickens, pieces and pies. Organic chicken manure/sawdust mix. For inquiries contact Jeff & Christina Paulin on (06) 368 8961 or at cackleberryorganics@clear.net.nz THE ART OF LIFE Experienced organic and biodynamic gardeners. We are available for any work you may have from now until October 2006. Phone Rochelle - AH (06) 364 5555 - Mob 021 113 8730 World’s first fully certified organic SKINCARE, BODYCARE AND COSMETIC PRODUCTS 100% free of synthetic chemicals Discount and free shipping available Order on-line www.organic4you.net.nz or phone Louise (06) 364 2190 |
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Soil & Health
Association of New Zealand Inc (est 1941) Healthy
Soil - Healthy Food - Healthy People |
