Millions of taxpayer dollars wasted on cloned 'Frankencow' that produces GM milk nobody will ever drink

Saturday, November 10, 2012 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: Frankencow, GM milk, taxpayer dollars

(NaturalNews) It might look like normal milk, but the milky white substance produced by "Daisy," the infamous cloned cow developed by New Zealand-based AgResearch using $50 million taken directly from taxpayers, is actually genetically-modified (GM), imitation milk geared towards people with milk allergies. But because nobody will likely ever be willing to drink the putrid, genetic mess, the admittedly failed project is doomed to go down in history as one of the biggest misuses of taxpayer dollars in New Zealand's history.

In case you are unfamiliar with the situation, AgResearch has been awarded tens of millions of dollars from the public coffers over the years to develop various cloned and GM animals. Many of the company's projects have failed miserably thus far, including a 13-year animal cloning research project that had to be abandoned after it was discovered that most of the modified animals died or went through incredible pain and suffering at the hands of their genetic manipulators.

Today, AgResearch has been investing a significant amount of other people's money into Daisy, a cloned cow that produces fake milk artificially low in beta-lactoglobulin (BLG), and artificially high in the allergen casein. The original goal of the project was to formulate a novel variety of milk that people with certain milk allergies could safely drink, but that we pointed out would actually make milk allergies worse.

Virtually nobody would willingly drink cloned, GM milk if properly labeled

But now that it is clear the Daisy project was a complete failure -- a 2011 European Commission poll found that public support for cloned food products is about 18 percent at best -- many are questioning the New Zealand government's reckless decision to pump tens of millions of taxpayer dollars into AgResearch projects, all of which are completely unnecessary and only further obstruct the natural order.

According to Stuff.co.nz, the Sustainability Council of New Zealand has already dubbed the Daisy project "a bridge to nowhere," adding that AgResearch has "consumed $50 million of taxpayer funds on projects that after 13 years, had yet to deliver a single commercial product." Strikingly similar to the legacy of failed green energy companies sponsored by the Obama administration using taxpayer dollars, AgResearch's genetic escapades have done absolutely nothing to promote the public good.

"Trying to use low-allergen milk to win the public over is quite mischievous," said Steffan Browning, a GM spokesman and Green Party list MP, about AgResearch's manipulative tactics to try to gain public support for their failed and potentially dangerous products. "I went to their [biotech industry] conference in Rotorua and they were doing workshops around how you get trust into communities that are resistant to genetic engineering. I found that quite disturbing."

Sources for this article include:

http://www.stuff.co.nz