From transcript below:
GREG HOY: Former CSIRO agronomist Dr Maarten Stapper says his protests direct to Dr Jim Peacock were silenced.
MAARTEN STAPPER: First I was told that I was not allowed to talk in public about it because I was not a geneticist. I didn’t know anything about it. And if I would talk about it I would be fired. But I asked the question all the time, give me your study of multi-generation animal feeding study and I believe that it is safe if I see a four generation animal feeding study. But they never showed me that. And they never instigated a trial like that because they know that it gives negatives. And they don’t want to see that. They said okay you will be made redundant because we don’t want you. Those issues that generate money, like patents for genes and GMOs and making new varieties, that all gives money back to the CSIRO.
Mixed reaction to GM crop ban
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 28/11/2007
Reporter: Greg Hoy
The decision by the New South Wales and Victorian governments to lift their bans on the planting of genetically modified crops has angered conservation groups and prompted threats of legal action from some sectors of the farming community.
Transcript
KERRY O’BRIEN: In the immediate aftermath of the federal election and in a carefully staged announcement, the New South Wales and Victorian Governments yesterday released reports justifying their decision to break ranks with South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and Northern Territory to lift a ban on genetically modified canola crops.
The governments emphasised economic benefits they say will flow from the acceptance of GM technology.
Opponents are angry that both governments appeared to rely almost entirely on the advice of GM supporters and in so doing either played down or dismissed strong environmental and public health concerns.
But the decision was a big win for the leading promoter of genetic engineering in Australian agriculture, John Howard’s chief scientist, Dr Jim Peacock, in the face of intense environmental protest.
Greg Hoy reports.
GREG HOY: Despite opposition ranging from environmentalists to food companies, Victoria and New South Wales have decided to lift their moratorium on genetically modified canola crops, a decision sold as being on the best scientific advice.
GUS NOSSAL, VICTORIAN MORATORIUM REVIEW PANEL: You know who you can trust. I mean, up in Canberra we’ve got Jim Peacock as the probably the leading agricultural bio-technologist in the country.
GREG HOY: The sudden decision to lift bans on genetically modified canola was applauded by Australia’s chief scientist, Dr Jim Peacock, best known as the man the Howard government deferred to in defusing the electorally explosive decision on the Tasmanian pulp mill – giving the green light despite strong environmental concerns.
William James Peacock was inaugural winner of former Prime Minister John Howard’s science prize for genetic engineering at CSIRO’s large division of plant industry. Though Dr Peacock would not be interviewed, his supporter and replacement as head of that department, Dr Jeremy Burden was nominated instead.
JEREMY BURDON, CHIEF, CSIRO PLANT INDUSTRY: One of the icons of CSIRO, he has been a major leader in plant science on the global world stage for virtually his entire career.
GREG HOY: Dr Peacock has long been and remains the national champion of both Australia’s pioneering push into genetically modified crops or GMOs and CSIRO’s ambition to create and patent genetically engineered grains and oil seeds.
JIM PEACOCK, CHIEF SCIENTIST: If Australia rejects the technology, I don’t see us remaining able to compete in the global scale of agribusiness.
GREG HOY: A view that profoundly influenced advisors to the New South Wales and Victorian Governments who have decided in favour of moratoriums on GM canola.
JUDY CARMEN, EPIDERMOLOGIST, FLINDERS UNIVERSITY: Well, Jim Peacock has shown to my knowledge no concern whatsoever about safety aspects of GM crops. One of the problems is that the tests which are done are essentially almost always done via the GM crop companies that hope to make a lot of money out of those crops.
JEREMY BURDON: Jim was always very interested in and concerned to make sure that any science that we did was safe.
RYOKO SHIMIZU: But we are very much concerned about the safety aspect of GM canola.
GREG HOY: The state governments emphasise that Canada and the US have allowed GM canola. Not mentioned was that China and the EU have rejected the technology on safety concerns. Recently a delegation representing 80 Japanese consumer groups toured Australia to lobby against the lifting of bans on GM food crops here.
Japan imports 450,000 tons of Australian canola each year.
RYOKO SHIMIZU: So if Australian farmers will start growing GM canola, it would be a very big problem for us.
GREG HOY: But as Australia’s chief scientist, the Howard government last year chose Dr Jim Peacock, who believes just four companies will eventually control global sales of agricultural seeds. Working closely with bio-ag multi-nationals Bayer and Monsanto, Dr Peacock has founded the gene shears company Graingene Initiative, HRZ wheat consortium and a CSIRO partnered and patented GM cotton strain, genetically engineered to resist insects, regarded as his greatest triumph.
JEREMY BURDON: Insects were such a problem in cotton, it was typically the case a cotton crop would be sprayed up to 15 times a year with pesticide. Nowadays, last year, the typical crop was sprayed once.
JUDY CARMEN: This comes into the human food supply in the form of cottonseed oil. But it is interesting because in both that case and also in canola, the bit that you and I eat which is actually the oil aspect of that crop has not been safety assessed at all.
JEREMY BURDON: Where we have been involved in the genetic modification, we obviously take that sort of thing seriously, and in fact in this division we have had some work which was being done on peas.
GREG HOY: Indeed, in late 2005 after ten years of research, Dr Peacock’s department halted its work on peas genetically modified to resist insects after health problems emerged in mice subjected to independent feeding trials over just four weeks, as opposed to over four generations as critics had called for.
JUDY CARMEN: The animals had very strong allergic reactions to the pea and what was worse was that those animals then all of a sudden became allergic to other things as well.
GREG HOY: The CSIRO says this shows it’s being cautious on GM. Others say geneticists are poorly regulated by pro-GM authorities in Australia. Adelaide epidemiologist, Dr Judy Carmen points to a recent Russian study on pregnant rats fed with GM soy such as may be being consumed in Australia, she says, due to lax food safety regulations.
JUDY CARMEN: Those rats had a very high death rate. Over half the pups die. And it was about five to six times higher than the pups where the mothers were fed non-GM soy. And then when she took the pups and she let them get to sexual maturity, there was almost total sterility in those animals.
MAARTEN STAPPER, FORMER CSIRO AGRONOMIST: They destroyed lots of cover of the soil.
GREG HOY: Former CSIRO agronomist Dr Maarten Stapper says his protests direct to Dr Jim Peacock were silenced.
MAARTEN STAPPER: First I was told that I was not allowed to talk in public about it because I was not a geneticist. I didn’t know anything about it. And if I would talk about it I would be fired. But I asked the question all the time, give me your study of multi-generation animal feeding study and I believe that it is safe if I see a four generation animal feeding study. But they never showed me that. And they never instigated a trial like that because they know that it gives negatives. And they don’t want to see that. They said okay you will be made redundant because we don’t want you. Those issues that generate money, like patents for genes and GMOs and making new varieties, that all gives money back to the CSIRO.
GREG HOY: It’s not just such scientists who are wary of GM food crops. Both Coles supermarkets and Australia’s largest food manufacturer Goodman Fielder have voiced their opposition, though imported genetically modified canola products and others are already appearing on our supermarket shelves with no clear labelling requirement. We are assured that will change. But Australia has had its share of agricultural science disasters. So what chance authorities might regret releasing the GM genie from its bottle.
GUS NOSSAL: The conjectural hazard can be up there in the sky.
GREG HOY: But it was agricultural science that gave us the cane toad.
GUS NOSSAL: That is, look, and the mistakes will be made. Sure. You know, it is not a perfect world. I didn’t invent the world. I didn’t make it perfect, you know. But I can be as sure as I can be of any other thing – the health and environmental aspects of GM canola have been thoroughly examined by the regulator, by CSIRO, by many other interest groups.
JUDY CARMEN: They don’t require any human feeding studies at all. They don’t require any animal studies at all either before they say they can assess it as being safe to eat.
Today, Dr Jim Peacock remains heavily involved at the helm of CSIRO in support of its chief executive, Dr Jeff Garrett, brought in from South Africa to commercialise the CSIRO.
MAX WHITTEN, FORMER CSIRO CHIEF EPIDEMIOLOGIST: The priority has been more around research that creates intellectual property and patents, plant variety rights and so on. So a management style, a management structure which is, I don’t believe is conducive to good science.
GREG HOY: Since the federal election, Dr Garrett’s position is believed to be in grave jeopardy. The same cannot be said of his chief supporter, the chief scientist. Labor governments have begun to support his campaign for GM in Australia. Federal Labor agreed to support his verdict on the environmental safety of the Tasmanian pulp mill.
JIM PEACOCK: We feel there is there is a very strong prospect that the mill will operate with an environmentally neutral footprint.
GREG HOY: But opponents suggest such claims evoke a strong sense of deja vu.
KERRY O’BRIEN: Greg Hoy with that report.