Live from the Biggest Science Conference in the World: First GMOs, Now Pharming?

If you’ve ever wondered: Are there drugs in my Wheaties? I can assure you there are not—at least not unless your very shady trainer is trying to get you to win the Tour de France. But if the talk today at AAAS (“Drugs in Our Corn Flakes? Our Health and the Economic Risks of ‘Pharma’ and Industrial Crops”) is at all a marker of things to come with the marriage of pharmaceuticals and agriculture, that breakfast of champions might require a prescription. The idea of pharmaceuticals made out of plants is not a new one, it’s about as new as, well, the idea that we could genetically engineer our plants to provide more of those things that we want—bug repellents, big ears, and higher oil content. All these things have been done and so far they have caused no physical harm to anyone (let us note here that the results ...