Reception: 6:30 pm. Program: 7:00 pm
The Frankenfood Myth, $32 (20% off ).
Location: The Independent Institute Conference Center, Oakland, CA.
For millennia, farmers all over the world have bred crops for their resistance to disease, productivity, and nutritional value. Over the past century, scientists have used increasingly more sophisticated methods for modifying crops at the genetic level. But only since the 1970s have advances in gene-splicing and other aspects of biotechnology upped the ante with the promise of dramatically improved agricultural products. Today, few topics have the power to inspire as much international furor and misinformation as the development and distribution of genetically altered foods. Is public resistance far out of synch with the potential risks? Please join us as Henry Miller, co-author of the new book The Frankenfood Myth, and Bruce Ames, U.C. Berkeley professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, address this critical 21st century issue.
The authors show how foolish policiespremised on junk science, media sensationalism and the mixed motives of bureaucrats and corporationsare choking off a wonder-technology.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Misguided public policies have seriously restricted research on, and application of, genetic engineering in agriculture. Miller and Conkos call for policies based on realistic risk-benefit considerations needs to be heard loudly by those responsible for the present fiasco.
PAUL D. BOYER, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, UCLA
The heated debate over so-called Frankenfoods is not only about the pros and cons of genetically manipulating crops to improve their nutritional value and resistance to disease; it also concerns intellectual honesty.
BARRONS