Educational Media Reviews Online

This film concentrates on the troublesome aspects of genetic manipulation of foods and animals. When recombinant-DNA technology began to appear twenty-five years ago, pundits predicted a world of abundance. The reality has been somewhat different than that predicted by the companies making their profits from the selling of commodities like genetically altered food crops. One of the countries where biotechnology was embraced most enthusiastically, India, now has subsistence farmers struggling to stay alive after a catastrophic cotton harvest by selling their kidneys or even committing suicide. Genetic plant blueprints are bought and sold in the worldwide marketplace and are being made into patents. No one really knows for sure the effect that long-term consumption of genetically modified crops will have on susceptible humans and animals, and little research money is being expended to answer such questions.

The bias of the filmmakers toward a critical assessment of genetically engineered (GE) organisms is plain throughout the film, although some proponents of GE foods in particular are given air time. The basic tenet of the film is hard to argue with: in a democratic society, citizens deserve a robust discussion of the pros and cons of a new technology whose results in the long term are difficult to predict. Highly recommended for upper division high schoolers, undergraduates and the general public.