Ronald Bailey

About the author: Ronald Bailey is the science correspondent for Reason, a magazine of politics, culture, and ideas. His books include Ecoscam: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse.

Genetically modifying food crops can increase their nutritional value and resistance to pests. Fears that genetically modified foods will harm human health or the environment are overblown and not supported by scientific evidence. Antibiotechnology activists' true goal is to have such foods not merely tested and labeled but banned, and their real target is not unsafe food but capitalism and globalization. By keeping genetically altered foods away from people who need them, these protesters may condemn millions to starvation or malnutrition-induced disease.

Ten thousand people were killed and 10 to 15 million left homeless when a cyclone slammed into India's eastern coastal state of Orissa in October 1999. In...