A)

Exposure to a virus can cause the target animal to mount an immune response and generate antibodies to that virus instead of getting sick (this is how flu shots work - by exposing a person to low levels of a virus to trigger them into generating antibodies). Antibodies to ranaviruses have already been found in Australian cane toads which means that those individuals have been exposed to a ranavirus here in Australia and they have put up a resistance to it.

• So the first concern is that there are already virus problems here in Australia that have never even been isolated and characterised and the government wants to deliberately introduce another one.
• The virus they want to modify is a ranavirus and they already know that toads are capable of generating antibodies to it. The myxomatosis virus they released is not effective against rabbits in wetter parts of Australia because it turns out that there already was a myxomatosis virus present in the wild and the rabbits had developed an immunity to it; when the 'modified' virus arrived in those areas, it didn't work (Surely the authorities knew that there already was a rabbit virus here before they released another one?)
• The third problem is that ranaviruses are a threat to all cold blooded animals including frogs, fish and reptiles. The last time they 'played with' a ranavirus, they proved it could kill frogs and yet they persist in chasing a ranavirus as the first, last and only choice for this work.

B)

Viruses are very fluid in nature and they change and adapt readily to environmental conditions and stresses. New strains of flu appear all the time - SARS had a new strain shortly after it was discovered and new human and animal virus problems are in the news regularly. Influenza A also has multiple strains (pathogenic and non-pathogenic). Some virus groups also skip over to different taxa when they mutate - Mad Cow disease only attacked cows until a new strain emerged that specifically targets humans called Crutzfeld Jacob new var..

There are two types of viruses: RNA and DNA. The Bohle Iridovirus (an Australian endemic) has been chosen for manipulation and it is a DNA virus. DNA viruses take a bit more nudging to mutate but they still can change. The bottom line is that no matter how much testing the government does on non-target species (and there are an awful lot of them to test - 220+ frog species, 200+ freshwater fish, all the snakes, skinks, geckos, turtles, etc.) before this virus is released, the government can never guarantee that the GM virus won't mutate once it is released into the wild.

C)

During the field trials for two other pathogenic viruses that were engineered/released in Australia, those being myxomatosis (known as Rabbit Viral Haemmorrhagic Disease (RVHD) overseas) and calicivirus (distinguished as RCV or Rabbit Calicivirus overseas because of the number of calicivirus strains overseas that attack specific animals such as reptiles, humans, etc.) the virus being tested 'escaped' into the wild during both field trials. Our Curator has raised the question about improved security during field trials and clean up and contingency plans in case of an escaped pathogen on repeated occasions and has never received an answer other than "but we've learned so much since then". We do not understand how any field trial can be conducted using a volatile, environmental pathogen in the wild in the absence of any containment plans.

D)

The planet is a living organism (GAIA) with circulating water and air systems as well as a lot of people and cargo movement. It would be physically impossible to contain a virus within Australia's borders. It is only a matter of time as to how long it would take for a virus to get from here to somewhere else. And a virus, being able to mutate according to changing environments, is sure to start adapting once it arrives somewhere different. The Australian government doesn't want rabbits here, for example, but that doesn't mean that other countries feel the same way. We have received reports of expensive efforts being made by the US, Spanish and Mexican governments to get rid of calici and/or myxomatosis (RVHD) because they DON'T want these viruses to wipe out their rabbits. For any country to introduce viruses to kill imported animals only leads to a "virus war" with the countries where those animals came from and the countries who welcome the importation of those animals.

Even if viruses were more stable, pathogens which are foreign to the areas they reach are more deadly because the animals have not evolved in conjunction with those diseases. For example, a virus that evolved in the Congo might cause incidental death rates to the animals that evolved with it in the Congo, but the same virus would be capable of massive death rates to the animals in Canada, or Thailand or Europe. Likewise, if the Congo started to import foxes or some other trade animal which is not normally found in the Congo, those imported animals would have no resistance to the local Congo diseases. The virus to be modified against cane toads (Bohle) is an Australian native and endemic virus so one could logically expect that if that GMO reached Europe, Asia or the Americas, toad species there will have no resistance at all to it and casualties would be high. There are endangered species of toads in these areas which already have threats to struggle against - a foreign virus could well wipe them out.

E)

The sort of engineering that is being experimented with is a venture into new ground. We're not going to get involved in the philosophical or religous aspects of 'playing God' with the genetic fabric of life or creating new ways of destroying life. But the idea of introducing genes from one animal into others where they don't belong is a concern to many people. How do these researchers know what will actually happen when an outside gene is introduced to a foreign organism?

F)

Our Founding President/Curator attended the CSIRO workshop on biological cane toad control in February 2004 and the information which was shared at that meeting can only be viewed as proof that the GMO virus will NEVER work. This is why:

• The ranavirus they have chosen to work with is Bohle Iridovirus which is endemic to Australia. This is most likely the virus that cane toads here currently have antibodies to, so all the toads innoculated with antibodies already will be immune to the GMO virus.
• Bohle has a temperature threshold! It is disabled at 34 degrees C and killed off at 42 degrees C. This means that it will be practically useless against toads in the entire Top End of Australia so another control mechanism will need to be found for the northern third of the country.
• It is a desired criterion for biological control methods to be designed to phase themselves out as their target is eliminated which is not at all the case here. Once the GMO virus is out there, it will always be out there (even if there are no more toads) unless it is killed off by high temperatures.
• A native virus is being used as the control mechanism and that virus is going to be weakened (attenuated) to the extent that it is incapable of causing disease -- but the GMO version is going to be released into the same areas that the wild type, original virus already lives. The ecologists at the meeting expressed the view that the attenuated (GMO) virus would not reproduce or spread properly since it was going to be in direct competition with its stronger, original self. Another worry was that the wild type and modified viruses could combine (see next point).
• Another lovely thing that viruses can do besides mutuate is to recombine (this is not the same as recombinant) with other viruses to create entirely new ones. We know that cane toads are already dying here from a suite of problems that still have not been formally identified, so the notion of just dumping a new virus into what is already a disease "bouillabaise" is a really bad idea that can have unpredictable results. There can be no consideration of releasing a new virus into the environment until they have done a full survey of diseases which are already killing frogs and toads around the country.