We've welcomed the benefits of genetically engineered drugs. There have been those occasions when scientists were shockingly wrong. Noted scientists assured us that DDT and nuclear power were safe and wonderful. In fact, advocates for those technologies used much the same language as today's advocates for agricultural biotechnology. The sheer volume of new scientific discovery can sometimes be troubling to the public, especially when a new discovery contradicts another one announced just days before.
Scientists do disagree.
One expert with many degrees and honors appears on the PBS News Hour to praise a new drug. She is followed by an equally qualified scientist who says the drug will prove disastrous. Both scientists, it turns out, have been funded by pharmaceutical firms and, not surprisingly, have positions consistent with the financial interests of their sponsors. While the scientific and agricultural communities have been talking about genetically engineered food for 15 years, most of the products have entered the marketplace very recently. Consumers were surprised to learn that this year as much as half of the nation's corn, soybean and cotton crops will be planted with genetically altered seeds.