Green Party critics claim an Agresearch bid to explain its application for regulatory approval of GE animals "shows sad downsides to GE research such as deformed foetuses and calves".
"It admits a less than 9 percent live birth rate, aborted deformed foetuses, deformed calves, gangrenous udders and `animals suffering from respiratory conditions'," Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said.
A spokesman for the party said it was considering seeking to have the provisions of the Animal Welfare Act extended to cover the first half of gestation, when experimental work on animal embryos is carried out.
State-owned Agresearch is asking for a wide-ranging expansion of its transgenic livestock programme, as it carries out research to underpin a national network of farms producing genetically engineered milks containing specialised proteins, and other products which can be used for pharmaceuticals or functional foods.
Agresearch general manager of applied biotechnologies Jimmy Suttie today released a statement he said corrected public perceptions of the government science company's controversial application to the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma).
On criticism that Agresearch trials with GE cows since 2000 have had only a 9 percent live birth rate, with calves born deformed, suffering from respiratory conditions and septic conditions, or gangrenous udders, Dr Suttie said "initial animal development is inefficient".
But once mature, GE cows performed reproductively similarly to conventional cows.
Some development work might require "early stage foetal recovery work"- aborting foetuses and harvesting cells - but that would be covered by animal ethics committees.
Dr Suttie said ethics committees would not allow any procedure harmful to animals.
Separately, Government animal ethics advisors have been trying for several years to have welfare law changed to cover animals in the first half of gestation.
The National Animal Ethics Advisory Committee (Naeac) - a committee advising Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton - has previously said it wants the Animal Welfare Act 1999 to cover embryos.
A previous effort, after Agresearch was granted a licence in 2002 to clone livestock commercially, resulted in an opinion that the welfare of animals created by commercial cloning was fully covered by the general provisions of the Act.
But the Act does not cover an embryo for the first half of its term in the womb.
The ethics committee has said an extension of the Act to cover embryos is logical: Any treatment in the first half of gestation would be a "manipulation" requiring ethical approval if it interfered with the normal physiological, behavioural or anatomical integrity of the animal, before or after birth, or its offspring.
In 2000, Erma warned there was a "jurisdictional gap" in the Animal Welfare Act, which denied legal protection of welfare to an animal foetus less than half-way through gestation.
The welfare of young animal embryos first arose when Agresearch scientists were given permission to test in sheep an engineered gene producing a protein that limits muscle growth and development.
The Green Party also disputed Agresearch's view that genetic engineering could enhance New Zealand's "clean, green" image.
"The fact is it wants to turn New Zealand into a giant GE laboratory to boost its own corporate plans at the expense of our long-term image, and without taking into account the huge risk of something going wrong," Ms Fitzsimons said.
Public submissions on the Agresearch application close on October 31.