Technological power holds a perennial fascination for leaders of every persuasion.
The supposed ability to alter the genes of whole populations is the ultimate dream of power. In this mad dream, leaders will no longer have to put up with the deficiencies of employees or citizens, who might fall sick, fail in their appointed tasks or exercise their free will. Instead you can aspire to create an army of long lived invincible supermen who will keep their nose to the grindstone, obey without question like the unsullied army of Daenerys Targaryen whilst no longer needing to burden the health system.
Governments are keeping faith with this dream. They believe. The biotech failures and catastrophes of the pandemic have taught them no lessons. So, with a firm will to power, governments all over the world including ours are deregulating biotechnology experimentation in the hope that some wannabe Frankenstein or Rasputin will fulfil their wildest dreams.
The truth of biotechnology is rather different from the dream
If you are wondering whether to trust government assurances of safety if the NZ Gene Technology Bill gets the go ahead, you might take a look at the history of biolab security. A paper accepted for publication by the Cambridge Press journal Epidemiology & Infection last week entitled “Epidemiological indicators of accidental laboratory-origin outbreaks” has identified and listed 70 historical cases of laboratory-associated leaks that led to disease outbreaks affecting the wider public. The paper examines 7 of these in great detail analysing the data and evidence trail:
- 1955 Polio vaccine incident in USA
- 1977 H1N1 influenza outbreak in China and the Soviet Union
- 1979 Anthrax release in the Soviet Union
- 1995 Equine Encephalitis epidemics in Venezuela and Colombia
- 2003-4 Sars-Cov-1 escapes from Singapore, Taiwan and China
- 2007 Foot and Mouth virus outbreak in the UK
- 2019 Brucella outbreak in China
Thematic analysis of the lines of evidence revealed seven key insights:
- Unusual strain characteristics,
- Peculiar clinical manifestations or affected demographics,
- Unusual geographical features,
- Atypical epidemiological patterns,
- Delayed government action and communication to the public,
- Misinformation and disinformation spread to the public,
- Biosafety concerns and/or incidents predating the event.
The paper concludes that the Covid-19 virus outbreak shares a majority of the characteristics present in earlier lab leak incidents. This points to the inevitable occurrence of accidental escapes of novel GE pathogens from biolaboratories in the future which will continue to cause disease outbreaks in the community, posing significant risks to the general public, animal populations, and the environment.
GE virus escapes in Spain
The latest reported lab escape incident occurred during November 2025 in Spain. The highly pathogenic African swine fever virus (ASFV) escaped from a lab that was injecting a genetically modified virus into a wild boar to test the efficacy of a vaccine (sound familiar?). The outbreak is affecting pork production in the Catalonia region where the experiment was being conducted. The first dead boar was found within 150 metres of the lab and the carcass tested positive for a genetically modified strain not found in the wild.
Perhaps not surprisingly in the rapidly expanding and wildly adventurous biotech world, there are a total of five labs in the small Catalonia region alone conducting exotic biotechnology experiments on ASFV. Let that sink in for a moment—five labs. You cannot separate the risks of Covid and the Covid vaccines from the dangers of biotechnology experimentation.
The Catalonia labs operate under a BSL-3 safety protocol, the second strictest classification, but still the GE virus leaked out into the environment. The paper published last week points to a worrying conclusion—such leaks are not highly unusual, they appear to be routine. As we know “to err is human”. Mistakes, even in the highest biosecurity environments, are inevitable.
If the Gene Technology Bill passes, the brakes will come off and risky experiments will be permitted and then proliferate in laboratories located in densely populated urban areas of NZ, raising the level of risk to the public. The escape in Catalonia is also instructive as to what can and probably almost inevitably will happen here in NZ to affect our main export markets which rely heavily on animal health. As we know from the pandemic years, what seemed like a clever idea at the time soon turns out to be a monumental disaster. As we all worry over the daily violence in the Middle East and Ukraine, we should not forget that the 30 million Covid excess deaths around the globe documented by One World in Data which dwarf recent war casualty figures. The more so because, as we have reported, the long term health outcomes are still surfacing.
Approval of self-replicating vaccines
It is in this context that we have to regard the recent EU and UK approval of a self-replicating mRNA Covid vaccine known as Kostaive for people over 18 years with deep distrust and suspicion. The current generation of Covid vaccines have essentially failed to be either effective or safe. The so-called replicon Kostaive vaccine adds another novel technology on top of the mRNA process. This involves the ability to encode viral replicase that actually repurposes the cells of vaccine recipients to host a continuous process of vaccine production. In effect, the vaccine is empowered to mimic the self-replicating, self-spreading properties of a virus. This process is fraught with risk. Not the least of these is the possibility of person to person vaccine transfer which we first discussed in our October 2024 article “Self-Replicating Vaccines and the Cloud of Unknowing“
During the clinical trials for Kostaive reported in 2024 in Nature Communications under the title “Safety, immunogenicity and efficacy of the self-amplifying mRNA ARCT-154 COVID-19 vaccine: pooled phase 1, 2, 3a and 3b randomized, controlled trials“, 90% of injected participants experienced adverse events, with 75% reporting systemic reactions and 15% requiring medical attention after the first dose. The potential to generate auto-immune conditions has also been widely discussed. Do you think this is acceptable? Apparently it is to medical bureaucrats. In the absence of long term trial results, following approval of Kostaive, the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has announced it will be monitoring adverse effects through its Yellow Card system which like our CARM system so evidently failed during the Covid pandemic.
Governments need to gain a realistic perspective on the risks of biotechnology experimentation.
It is the reckless pursuit of biotechnology applications and government approvals, even after trial results have raised red flags, that is the current modus operandi of biotech and pharmaceutical research companies. They need the government funds and speculative investment that follows approvals in order to survive and turn a profit. Concern for public health and safety has taken a back seat. This is the prospect that awaits the NZ public if the Gene Technology Bill goes ahead.
It is not too far of a stretch to suggest that billions of years of evolutionary history is being put at risk. No one really understands what it is about our human genetics that sets us apart from animals. Why can we exercise free will yet animals are firmly in the grip of natural instinctive behaviours. Humans share about 60% of their DNA with a banana, 90% with a dog and 98% with a chimpanzee. This reflects shared ancestry and co-evolutionary processes, but the network of human cells has a unique capability—the capacity for self-referral reflection, the hallmark of higher consciousness. How the DNA and cellular functions of humans are structured to achieve this is not understood. Wholesale gene editing automated by AI, novel vaccines capable of taking control of little understood internal cellular processes, and mobile genetic sequences that can reproduce are dangerous forays into the highly networked worlds of physiology, brain chemistry and human society that underpin our physical and mental health and civilisation as we know it. The power to interfere with evolution is not a blessing, it is a curse.
