GENE TECHNOLOGY AND THE THREAT TO HUMANITY

That this House notes that foods containing products of gene technology are on sale without labelling as such; that in recent experiments scorpion poison genes have been added to cabbages to kill caterpillers, toxin genes added to potatoes to kill beetles, human genes added to pigs to make them grow faster, and to cows to alter their milk and also added to sheep, mice and fish; further notes that 62,000 designer animals with altered genes were born in the United Kingdom in 1991 alone, that animal cloning is widely available as a breeding technique that attempts have been made to clone human embryos for spare parts and that the potential exists to produce designer babies and that human cancer genes have been added to a virus similar to that causing the common cold; regards current measures as out of date; and calls on the Government to adopt a comprehensive Gene Charter regulating all aspects of gene technology, including safety and ethics, and to seek adoption of such a Charter by the international community.