Name: CHAN, Sin Fong
Subject: Cervical cancer vaccine versus GM crops
Visit Time: 23/05/2007 12:55 PM
Remark:
On 17/4/2007 Kerry O’Brien interviewed Dr Ian Frazer, during which Dr Ian Frazer said, “Yes, realistically, even if the vaccine were used worldwide tomorrow, it would be another 50 years before the cervical cancer figures fell to the point where you could say the vaccine had worked.”
On 22/5/2007, The Age reported that “Leading immunologist and Gardasil creator Ian Frazer says a cervical cancer vaccine is safe, despite five Victorian schoolgirls falling ill after they were immunised.” In the same report, the health department spokesman said that “... the overriding thing here is we've got a vaccine that is a cancer-preventing vaccine. I mean, that's got to be a good thing."
It is interesting to note that cervical cancer vaccine is so readily embraced by the community, here and overseas, and yet GM crops receive great opposition. Before the word GM becomes commonly used, botanists and zoologists have been cross-fertilising plants and cross-breeding animals in search of better and stronger species.
Borrowing the words in a negative way from Dr Ian Frazer and rephrasing in my own way, “Yes, realistically, even if the GM crops were consumed worldwide tomorrow, it would be another 50 years before the human deformity figures increased to the point where you could say the GM had not worked.”, or positively from the health spokesman, “... the overriding thing here is we’ve got a crop that is drought and pest resident crop, (and may even solve the world hunger problem.) I mean, that’s got to be a good thing.”
Statistically, around 300,000 women worldwide die from cervical cancer annually and 227 Australians in 2002. Almost 800 million people worldwide go hungry ever day.
