The 342-page report from the President's Council on Bioethics (Washington, DC, USA), “Beyond Therapy, Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness,” provides a steadfastly precautionary analysis of prospects for using biotechnology to enhance personal health and performance. The council, which is chaired by Leon Kass of the University of Chicago and the think tank American Enterprise Institute (Washington, DC, USA), devoted 22 public sessions during the past two years to the development of this report.
Meanwhile, a 170-page report from the Department of Commerce (Washington, DC, USA), “A Survey of the Use of Biotechnology in U.S. Industry,” delivers an unmistakably upbeat message about the economic impact of biotechnology, declaring that no area “holds greater promise or potential than biotechnology,” leading industry observers to anticipate that policy makers would earmark more money to biotechnology in the near future (Nat. Biotechnol. 21, 837–838, 2003). From yet another federal corridor, officials at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA; Washington, DC, USA and Rockville, MD, USA) offered preliminary conclusions that meat and milk derived from cloned animals are safe for consumption and need not be specially labeled (see p. 1415).
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