by Jeremy Rifkin

About the author: Jeremy Rifkin is president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C., and a frequent critic of genetic engineering. His books include The Biotech Century (Tarcher/Putnam, 1998) and The Age of Access (Tarcher/Putnam, 2001).

It’s been more than a decade since I appeared before the RAC [the US National Institutes of Health’s Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee] in 1988. At that time, RAC was considering approving the first gene therapy experiment. I warned this committee that proposed somatic gene therapy experimental protocols, using viral vectors, posed serious potential health risks to patients. I also argued that the pre-clinical research was far too scanty and inconclusive to warrant human gene therapy trials. Finally, I warned the RAC that the commercial ties of researchers involved in these trials raised the...