Roy Heather: Medicines (Specified Biotechnical Procedures)  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Roy Heather: Medicines (Specified Biotechnical Procedures)  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:20706] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 I stand to speak on the third reading of this bill. ACT New Zealand is opposing this legislation for several reasons. The first of these is that the bill itself is about extending the moratorium until 31 December 2006. Without this bill the existing additional controls on xenotransplantation will end at the end of June 2005 with the expiry of Part 7A of the Medicines Act. After this date the scientific and ethical oversight will return to the controls utilised for clinical trials of medicines contained in section 30 of the Medicines Act. So that is why we have this legislation before us today. 
We are opposed to the extension of this moratorium for the sole reason that it is a matter of political expediency in this election year. We believe that the Government does not want to have the issues around xenotransplantation in particular debated at this time. It would rather kick for touch and extend the moratorium for another 18 months when in fact what we should have—and I agree with Dr Boyd when he gave his advice to the Health Committee—is the wider debate. Rather than delaying that debate we should have it now. He is quite right when he says that it should not be only the people set to benefit who should participate it should be a very wide debate and it should encompass everybody’s views. But we would contend that that debate should happen now rather than delaying it completely. There is no guarantee that the moratorium will not be extended even further than December 2006 and I ask the politicians who do support this: are we ever going to have this debate at all? It should be held right now. 
The bill was raced through the select committee process and other speakers have said that the chair of the select committee said that this was an uncontroversial bill. It is only uncontroversial because all the bill is actually about is extending the moratorium. The issues that are covered here of course are extremely controversial and that is why we see such heated debate about this topic. Again ACT says—and we are joined in this by the National Party—let us have the real debate. Let us have proper consultation from scientists from experts in the field and from the wider community so that the real issues are discussed and we do get that proper rigorous debate that the issues warrant. 
Professor Bob Elliott’s treatment for diabetes and his research have been widely discussed at all points in this debate—the second reading the Committee stage that we had yesterday and in fact again today. There are many things that Professor Elliott in taking his research and treatment offshore has raised. Amongst this the very broad view and I think the most important one relates to the type of environment we have here in New Zealand for science and for research. The Government has repeatedly and persistently declared its belief that biotechnology is a main aspect of what it likes to call the knowledge economy. One hears terms such as “bright future” and the like. I contend that what we have here is the opposite. Where is the basis behind this knowledge economy when our scientists—our best and our brightest—have in fact been forced offshore to do their research? Particularly with Professor Elliott’s treatment for diabetes people are now going to have to go offshore to have their transplants. Professor Elliott’s xenotransplants that have been developed by his company Diatranz would appear to fit the bill. 
I think that in a decade of careful experimentation this prominent medical researcher has developed a very interesting method of dealing with diabetes and one that diabetics in this country are now going to be denied. The method I think is worth touching on very briefly. It is a method of trickling insulin from cells cultured from the pancreas cells of piglets. These are contained within a retrievable tea bag. The interesting thing about this tea bag if one likes is that it floats in the diabetic’s peritoneal liquid in the cavity of the stomach. The cells are coated to prevent immune reactions and the patient’s immune systems are not interfered with at all. We have heard repeatedly from various speakers through the entirety of this debate that we have to worry about immune responses. In this particular area of research and treatment that is not an issue at all. 
The whole debate has raised for me—and I have worked in the area of research myself—concerns about research. I think many people just do not understand what research is all about. We have volunteers who have sought information themselves and who have consented voluntarily to the treatments and to the research that they have undertaken and they are well aware of the consequences of their actions. They know that there are risks associated with the treatment risks associated with research and in fact there are risks associated with life. They take this on board and they make a voluntary conscious decision to participate or to not participate. 
There are many people who decide that the research process is not for them so they agree not to participate. There are others who weigh up the pros and the cons and undertake the research. Many of these volunteers whom we have heard about during the debate have decided that it is the thing for them and have had very good results and in many cases life-saving results. We should not forget this. It is very easy for those of us who do not know much about diabetes and the other terrible diseases that have benefited through the times of history from research processes just to sit here but it is as much a debate about progress as about anything else. 
We have focused heavily in this debate as one speaker did say on Professor Elliott his research and his company Diatranz. But we should note that there are many other companies involved and many other researchers and scientists who also have experienced similar things. They too have been driven offshore to progress their research. The obvious question when we focus on this particular area of xenotransplantation is: is pig insulin safe for humans? The answer is a very obvious one too. The answer is in the decades of injecting millions of diabetics with pig insulin. Now are we about to take that insulin away from people who since the 1950s have had a very valuable lifesaving improvement in their quality of life? I would contend that no we certainly are not. 
The experts in the field as we have heard were not able to be called to the select committee and that is certainly what I would have liked to see. Professor Roger Morris of the New Zealand Veterinary School is a world expert on transfer of animal viruses to humans and I talked about him yesterday. He is a main adviser to the United Kingdom on foot-and-mouth disease and to the Hong Kong Government on duck and hen infections jumping into humans. This is what he has to say about the use of pig cells in New Zealanders. “It’s riskier going to the zoo than to have one of these pancreatic cell transplants.” he declared. He followed that comment with: “I don’t believe it’s risky going to the zoo.” and I would have to say that I agree with him. 
I would like to touch briefly on research in this country. This bill is about delaying science. It is about delaying progress and it is about delaying the ability of New Zealand’s scientists to participate in research. That is one of the main reasons for ACT objecting to this bill and opposing it. I also touched briefly in other stages of the bill—in the Committee stage in particular—on retroviruses. A lot of talk has gone on about this and I described the technique with Professor Elliott’s research. 
The retroviruses are a worry. That is why in this country we have very rigorous regulatory regimes surrounding research projects. They are right and they are proper and we should have some faith in the process. We do not screen our tourists or our immigrants for retroviruses yet we worry inordinately about retroviruses in research where we have very tough regulatory regimes in place. I contend that we should trust our experts a little more. If we have the proper processes and regulatory regimes in place then we should be able to rely on the scientists to fulfil the requirements of those properly.