Animal vaccine to be field-tested in N.Z. this year

Press, 29 January 1986, Page 21

Animal vaccine to be field-tested in N.Z. this year

PA Wellington An animal vaccine genetically engineered in the United States and not yet allowed to be used there will be field-tested in New Zealand this year. Safety and efficacy of the virus will be tested among calves and sheep at the Ministry of Agriculture Wallaceville Animal Research Centre near Wellington. Scientists from Oregon State University college of veterinary medicine have built the virus using DNA technology. They have crossed the vaccinia virus — used in humans as an inoculation against smallpox — with what they describe as the relatively harmless sindbus pathogen, a disease-causing agent which has been Isolated in mosquitos and birds. An Oregon veterinary scientist, Dr Ed Wedmen, came to Palmerston North three weeks ago to begin a testing programme with scientists at Massey University’s veterinary faculty, under Ministry of Agriculture supervision.

The scientists hope the artificial vaccine will immunise animals against footrot, bovine virus diarrhoea and liver fluke

From Oregon, Dr Alvin W. Smith said: “You guys seem to be a helluva lot more progressive than our folks here. You seem to be able to mobilise your thinking. "We’re terribly split in this country, in that we have half a dozen Federal agencies that can never get their heads together to approve field test of the vaccine in the United States.” Dr Wedmen said: “I don’t want to say we couldn’t do the tests in the United States. I think we could have got to where we are now in New Zealand.

“I don’t want anybody to say: ‘They couldn’t do it in the United States, so they came here as if New Zealanders are guinea Pigs’-

“It is not true, and it is not fair to my colleagues.” Officials in the United States were “just getting around to saying: ‘Hey, who is responsible for this?’

“We could have done the same things in the United States with a little effort, but our agencies are just sorting out responsibilities on genetic engineering. The people I

have met here in the Ministry of Agriculture have more foresight than our people.” He acknowledged the prospect of public apprehension in New Zealand about the vaccine field tests: "Some people will say: ‘You’re immediately starting a new bacterium’. “Theoretically that is correct. On the other hand, every day there are viruses and germs that have mutants and survive treatment and have a slightly different genetical make-up. “So without being flippant, we have got to appreciate the dangers and exercise control and have the Ministry of Agriculture looking over our shoulders.

"We’re going to put safeguards on the tests to make sure we are not creating another disease for New Zealand livestock. About the last thing I would want to do is spend a year in New Zealand and go back having introduced a new disease to the livestock. I’m not going to do that.” Oregon State University and American animal drug companies are funding the project. Any commercial application is still about five years away.