Abstract
Genetic engineering suggests new avenues for constructing useful products, but it also poses hazards to the health of the environment and the public. Delineating those hazards is complicated, difficult, and important at every level of risk assessment and risk management decision-making. Risk assessment and risk management may be further complicated by the need to discover more detailed information than is usually available. Genetically Engineered Organisms: Assessing Environmental and Human Health Effects gives credence to good science and to the notion that we do not have to argue about the ecological and human health effects of genetic engineering. Instead, it supports the position that we can undertake the painstaking science necessary to identify and understand those effects. Written by researchers who have done cutting edge research in disciplines such as botany, entomology, plant pathology, and other agricultural and environmental sciences, this book elaborates critical research on pollen movement, spread of transgenes in natural communities, fitness effects, resistance development, and unpredicted impacts on target and non-target organisms. These topics are explored in contexts ranging from Bt corn events and viral resistant oats to transgenic salmon and altered malarial vectors. Many chapters address theoretical and informational gaps that research presents to questions of biosafety, and some offer historical insights into factors that may affect risk assessment and risk management decision-making at the community, national, and international levels.