Let Them Eat Precaution: How Politics is Undermining the Genetic Revolution in Agriculture

This book brings together experts from a variety of perspectives on bioengineered food, which holds the promise of radically reducing hunger in the third world but which is mired in political controversy.

Praise for Let Them Eat Precaution

"Let Them Eat Precaution does a superb job of educating the reading public on the basic issues of genetically modified foods. The distinguished authors provide a devastating point-by-point refutation of the anti-GMO activists false claims, providing a reasoned, scientifically grounded perspective on this critical issue. As the Marie Antoinette title implies, though the affluent may be leading the charge against GMO foods, it is the poor who are most likely to suffer the effects of activists that falsely claim to speak for the world s poor." Thomas DeGregori, professor of economics, University of Houston, and author of Origins of the Organic Agriculture Debate "A well-funded global antibiotech activist campaign, abetted by European Union regulators more interested in political pandering than good science, threatens to starve millions of the world s poorest people by denying them access to environmentally safer and higher yielding biotech crops. The distinguished experts assembled in Let Them Eat Precaution make it abundantly clear that humanity s health and well-being depend on innovation, not a technological freeze in the name of the "precautionary principle," which demands perfect safety from all new technologies. The contributors carefully document not only the policy challenges facing agricultural biotechnology but the real benefits from a massive reduction in pesticide use to a slew of new pharmaceuticals and vitamin-enriched foods that may never come to fruition if antiscience advocacy groups prevail in this battle of ideas." Ronald Bailey, author of Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution and science correspondent for Reason magazine "This fine volume fills a very useful role in the ongoing debate over the use of biotechnology in foods and pharmaceuticals. Let Them Eat Precaution covers every aspect of the issue, catalogs what is known about GM crops, and helps us understand the ideological basis for opposition to the use of this life-saving technology. The antibiotechnology campaigns are denying food to starving millions a high price to pay for ideology." Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Mo.