ABSTRACT
Genetically improved foods will lower food costs. Genetically manipulated vaccines will undoubtedly save lives, yet fear of new techniques by ‘green’ Luddites may hamper further breakthroughs.
Louise Gale of Greenpeace protested at a recent biotech conference in Brussels that biotechnology risked genetic distortion reaching the environment with ‘irreversible consequences’. She was joined by three other green groups, which united in demanding a moratorium on genetic manipulation. They all defended their demands with reference to the Treaty of Rome’s precautionary principle, which essentially argues that regulators should look before they allow others to leap. They argued that decades of testing are required to prove that there are no risks from genetic manipulation.
