Kedgley Sue: Medicines (Specified Biotechnical Procedures)  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Kedgley Sue: Medicines (Specified Biotechnical Procedures)  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party too is very very pleased to be supporting the Medicines (Specified Biotechnical Procedures) Amendment Bill. This bill as the previous speaker pointed out is really a minor technical bill that extends the date of a moratorium. One of the complaints we often hear from the National Party is about rushed legislation coming before the House. Here we have an example of where the Government has said that because it has not completed the legislation it needs more time to get it right. One would think that everyone in this House would support the idea of getting something as complex as regulations and legislation surrounding xenotransplantation right. 
I do not believe that Katherine Rich deep in her heart truly believes that xenotransplantation is some great miracle that is almost devoid of risk which is what she has been arguing. I think her party has told her to say that but that she does not for a moment believe it. I think she knows like all the rest of us that xenotransplantation actually involves huge risks. 
The member from ACT quoted various people. I want to read a couple of quotations. The first is from a virologist from Cambridge University who said that if we go ahead with xenotransplantation it will be a step in the dark because so much uncertainty surrounds it. The second is from a virologist from the University of Texas. He said that it is well established that most new emerging human infectious diseases have their origin in other species and that a direct method of establishing new infectious human disease would be to implant infected tissue from a non-human species into humans and allow viruses direct access to human tissue. He said that seldom if ever have we had as much knowledge to prevent a future epidemic and that what is lacking is the wisdom to act upon that knowledge. 
That I suggest to the National Party is what is needed here. What we need is not great excited shrill calls about the potential of xenotransplantation but some wisdom to understand the risks inherent in it. Whatever we say however lightly those members try to dismiss the risks the truth is that there is the possibility that new infectious organisms not currently known will emerge and infect human beings. 
I might add that if that were the case it would actually threaten the people who receive the pig organs as well as potentially all the rest of humanity. A  
New Scientist 
 editorial stated that nothing could be worse than if in trying to save our lives we inadvertently engineered a plague. So let us not try to dismiss the risks. 
Even the Ministry of Health says that basically the porcine endogenous retrovirus is present in the DNA contained in the nucleus of all pig cells and those emerging viruses would pose a particular problem because they would be difficult to identify. 
Surely we should learn from the past. What was the bovine spongiform encephalopathy Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease crisis if it was not basically the transfer of a disease crossing the species from animals into humans? Surely something like that would give us cause to think that next time for something like this we should get it right. 
We know that both humans and pigs carry viruses within their genes. It is possible that they could combine those viruses to create entirely new organisms. We know that all organs donated—like an organ transplant—are liable to rejection. Even with a human-to-human organ transplant the body’s defence mechanisms attempt to destroy the foreign organ. But in the case of xenotransplantation far more violent responses occur. They are called hyperacute rejections. That is an incredibly strong reaction that destroys the new organ within minutes. 
Even if scientists manage to avert an inherent rejection by introducing human genes into pigs the pig organ will still face other rejection processes that scientists believe will be stronger than those faced by human organs. Even if the pig organ survived there is strong evidence to suggest that it would fail to function adequately within the human body. So let us not present this as if it were the magic bullet when indeed it is an extremely risky area. Another issue we need to consider is that rearing pigs under germ-free conditions which is what is envisaged is extremely expensive and time consuming not to mention the cost of monitoring the pigs for the presence of bacteria and viruses. That would involve huge sums of money. 
Given that our health system is already stretched scientists are pointing out and particularly people with an interest in diabetes that even if xenotransplantation were proved to be possible it would take away potentially huge amounts of funds that could be used for the care of patients suffering illnesses that could not be treated by the technology. So even if it were possible it would be enormously expensive and it would also involve turning pigs into spare-part factories and plundering their organs. Genetically mutated pigs would be raised in artificial conditions and those extraordinarily intelligent animals—I see that some members are laughing. The truth is that pigs are intelligent and they would face an unnatural and distressing existence. Do we not need to consider them as well or do we humans have the right to use animals manipulate them in whichever way we would wish no matter how much suffering we may cause them? 
The truth of the matter is that if we are genuine about trying to reduce the epidemic of diabetes in our midst which is really what most people when they talk about xenotransplantation are thinking about we have two things that we should be doing immediately. One has been touched on by the previous speaker which is getting human organs human organ donations—and we have such an appalling record in New Zealand for human organ donations. We have one of the lowest rates of human organ donations in the world. Why are we not trying to do something about that? 
Secondly why are we not trying to do something to prevent the underlying causes of diabetes? Yes we know that more than 120000 New Zealanders suffer from diabetes and we know that lack of exercise and diet are the key causes of type 2 diabetes—particularly fat and foods with a high level of sugar. 
If the National Party and the ACT party were really genuine in their passionate desire to treat diabetes they would be taking strong steps to try to reduce the amount of high-sugar high-fat foods and drinks that our children are eating and drinking in New Zealand. They would be joining in an initiative to take out of our schools all those high-fat pies and those vending machines selling sugary fizzy drinks. We know that they cause diabetes. It would be an incredibly simple step to get them out of our schools to try to do something to work with the food industry to stop them from targeting all that food laden with fat and sugar at our children. That is the single most effective thing we could be doing to reduce diabetes but no we avoid those simple steps and go on about some incredibly risky and expensive technology such as xenotransplantation as though somehow that is the panacea. 
The panacea is right in front of us—that is human organs and improving our diet and exercise. There is no need for xenotransplantation if we were to take those simple cost-effective steps. If the National Party is serious let us see it make some progress on that and not risk humanity by rushing into a science with such enormous risks.