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Biotechnology: Corporate Power Versus the Public Interest
by Steven P. McGiffen, ISBN: 0745319742
General description: This book Steven P. McGiffen ISBN: 0745319742, that was published in March 2005, takes the reader behind the headlines to examine the new laws on genetic-based technologies, who's making them, and why. Steven P. McGiffen offers a lucid analysis of the real implications of biotechnology legislation in the US and the EU, and contrasts it with approaches to agricultural and medical biotech in the rest of the world. He argues that the EU and America are removing decision-making power from the people and their elected representatives. Biotechnology regulation is a local manifestation of a global process of transferring power: from the people to corporations, from poor countries to rich ones, from the public to the private. He shows that biotechnology demands effective and democratic international decision-making procedures -- and that we are very far from achieving them. Ideal for the general reader, this is an indispensable guide for activists and anyone who wants to know more about how to control biotech regulation and how to resist handing control of our future to corporations.
Before leaving to pursue a career as an independent writer and consultant, Steven P. McGiffen was until recently an adviser on environmental, public health and food safety policy to the United Left Group in the European Parliament and to the Socialist Party of the Netherlands. Amongst his responsibilities was the preparation of the Group's response to the package of biotech-related legislation which came before the Parliament between 2001 and 2003. He is editor of Spectre, a radical left website, and is currently working on a second, updated edition of his 2001 Pluto publication The European Union: A Critical Guide. |
