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Redesigning Life: The Worldwide Challenge to Genetic Engineering

Redesigning Life: The Worldwide Challenge to Genetic Engineering

by Brian Tokar (Editor)

  • Used

    Paperback 2001

    $3.25
Synopsis

Today we appear to be on the threshold of the Age of Biotechnology. Genetic engineering, animal cloning and new reproductive technologies are being promoted as the keys to a brighter future. Genetic engineers promise a more productive agriculture, wondrous medical miracles and solutions to our most pressing environmental problems. But growing numbers of farmers, scientists and concerned citizens disagree. There is growing evidence that genetically engineered foods are hazardous to our health and the environment. Farmers all over the world encounter an increasingly monopolized seed and agrichemical industry. Animal cloning and human genetic engineering raise troubling ethical questions. And genes from plants, animals and humans have become objects to bought, sold and patented by private interests. A growing worldwide resistance to genetic engineering and other new biotechnologies has brought these issues to the forefront of public controversy in many countries. This book offers the first comprehensive examination of the hidden hazards of the new genetic technologies, and the emergence of worldwide resistance. Twenty-six internationally respected critics offer their analysis of the issues, their social and ethical implications, and what people are doing in response. Redesigning Life? is essential reading for everyone who seeks to understand the full story that lies behind today's headlines.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 384
 Publisher: Zed Books Ltd
Published: 01 Feb 2001
ISBN 10: 1856498352
ISBN 13: 9781856498357

Media Reviews
'The hazards of genetic engineering are among the most critical threats facing us. Knowledge is power. This book gives us power.' Frances Moore Lappe, author, Diet for A Small Planet 'Biotechnology is truly revolutionary. But it is far from a precise science and the alliance of government, industry and universities to profit from genetic engineering has resulted in extravagant claims of benefits that are highly speculative. This book provides a welcome perspective that is missing from all the biotechnology hype. For anyone concerned about the real implications and potential hazards of gene manipulation, it is an excellent starting point.' David Suzuki 'This book explains why and how genetic engineering is adversely affecting our food, health, environment and human rights. It also shows what people are doing to counter the technology and the industry. It must be read by the public everywhere and by policymakers, especially in developing countries.' Martin Khor, director of the Third World Network 'In this wide-ranging collection, scientists and activists discuss the pressing issues growing out of the wanton commercialization of the life sciences. The authors illustrate the dangers inherent in the unfettered manipulation of plant, animal and human biology for health and societal wellbeing. They also document the growing worldwide resistance to attempts to engineer life in all its forms. An excellent guide to the brave new world of genetic engineering.' Ruth Hubbard, Professor Emerita of Biology at Harvard University and Board Member of the Council for Responsible Genetics 'The biotechnology industry has taken us beyond natural evolution into the unknown terrain of a never-to-be-natural-again world. We know nothing of the long-term biological, ecological, economic, public health and animal welfare impacts of this new technology. This book, with its excellent and wide-ranging coverage of this complex subject, will help us awaken to the costs and potentially harmful, even catastrophic, consequences.' Michael W. Fox, The Humane Society of the United States, Washington, DC 'We are involved in a global war called genetic engineering. Most of us are totally unprepared to fight this war. Reading Redesigning Life is mandatory if you want you and your offspring to enjoy life as we have known it.' Howard F. Lyman, president of EarthSave International 'A cutting edge critique of today's headlong rush toward genetic engineering and the ways in which a few corporate gene giants are dominating global food supplies and pirating the planet's biodiversity, the human genome and the keys to life itself.' Hazel Henderson, author of Beyond Globalization
Author Bio
Brian Tokar has been an activist since the 1970s in the peace, anti-nuclear, environmental and green politics movements, and is currently a faculty member at Goddard College and the Institute for Social Ecology in Vermont. He is the author of The Green Alternative: Creating an Ecological Future (1987, revised 1992) and Earth for Sale: Reclaiming Ecology in the Age of Corporate Greenwash (1997), and was the recipient of a 1999 Project Censored award for his investigative history of the Monsanto company (The Ecologist, Sept./Oct. 1998). He serves on the national boards of the Native Forest Network and the Edmonds Institute, and sat on the National Committee of the Greens/Green Party USA for several years. Brian graduated from MIT in 1976 with degrees in biology and physics and received his Masters degree in biophysics from Harvard University in 1981. He is a founder member of the Northeast Resistance Against Genetic Engineering.