Martin Teitel, interviewed by Casey Walker

About the author: Martin Teitel is executive director of the Council for Responsible Genetics, which works to increase public participation in decisions about genetic engineering and biotechnology. He also edits Genewatch, an activist journal on biotechnology. His books include Genetically Engineered Food: Changing the Nature of Nature (with Kimberly A. Wilson). Casey Walker is editor of Wild Duck Review, a magazine that includes essays, memoirs, interviews, and other features providing "wild" thought on contemporary issues.

The modern worship of technology and progress combine with an outpouring of corporate greed to place the biotechnology revolution on shaky ethical ground. Bioethicists often fail to mention its chief danger, which is the changing of other living things and even human beings into mere commodities. Biotechnology can result in invading people's bodies without consent, as when...