But one of the things the committee heard, which is of great concern, is not only are substances that might be used in the factory or on the farm or on the roads to kill weeds excessively regulated and hard to get permission to use but there's a whole other class of things that this bill deals with that were, actually, not up for reform and discussion, and that is what this bill calls "new organisms". Now, at the time the bill was passed, genetic modification and genetic engineering were seen as an enormous bogeyman. There were books written about it, there were documentaries done about it, and people thought that a genetically engineered sweetcorn was going to start marching from the fields into town and do all kinds of damage. Of course it never happened; it was a load of nonsense. 