Henry I. Miller and Gregory Conko

The medicines and foods that have been created with the help of modern biotechnology—also known as genetic engineering—benefit millions of people worldwide, claim Henry

I. Miller and Gregory Conko in the following viewpoint. Modern gene-splicing techniques, the authors maintain, have resulted in life-saving medicines and improvements in agriculture. Unfortunately, they argue, unfounded accusations that genetically engineered products threaten children’s health discourage the use of products that could actually save children’s lives. Miller is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a Stanford university think tank, and Conko is director of food safety policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a public policy organization dedicated to free enterprise and limited government. As you read, consider the following questions:

1. According to the authors, why do scare campaigns focus...