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Within a very few years, much of what we eat may well have been genetically engineered, without proper consideration of the issues of public health, consumer choice and ecological stability. This volume argues that the dangers of this huge experiment could be catastrophic, and at the very least have been underestimated or ignored by the industries exploiting the new technologies. The authors have unearthed government and industry documents which show these new methods to be far from fail-safe or risk-free. Comprehensively supported with facts and references, they question the ethics of genetic engineering, and its implications for health and the natural environment.
The book provides a full account of the science and technologies involved in producing `transgenic' plants. It also explains the scale and speed of what is going on, and argues for full public accountability and control of the new developments - before it is too late to go back to the methods enshrined in millions of years of evolution. This book is timely because of the growing urgency to establish systematic measures to regulate global developments in and application of genetic engineering, as well as to ease tension between corporate economic interests and public ethical and environmental aspirations. Although this book tells a one-sided and sometimes alarmist story, it provides convincing evidence that governments around the world must, urgently, create and enforce regulatory measures to control irresponsible corporate investment in gentic engineering of food.