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Book Review: Altered Genes, Twisted Truth

Food Safety, Genetic Engineering
Altered Genes, Twisted Truth

Altered Genes, Twisted Truth tells the fascinating and frequently astounding story of how the massive enterprise to reconfigure the genetic core of the world’s food supply was born, how it has routinely advanced through illicit means, and how it is recklessly subjecting our health and the health of the environment to unacceptable risks. It reveals that the venture is not based on sound science, as its proponents claim, but on the evasion of the standards of science; and it shows how for more than three decades, a host of eminent biologists and esteemed institutions have systematically contorted the truth in order to conceal the unique risks of gene-altered foods – and get them onto our dinner plates.

The book also exposes how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) became a key accomplice, in furtherance of its explicit agenda “to foster” biotechnology. Based on documents pried from the FDA’s files through a lawsuit that I initiated, it describes how the agency’s politically appointed administrators disregarded the extensive warnings of their own scientists about the unusual risks of these novel products and ushered them onto supermarket shelves in violation of the mandates of federal food safety law. It further shows how they concealed their crime by covering up their experts’ warnings and persistently lying about the facts, creating the illusion that genetically engineered (GE) foods have undergone rigorous scientific review when, in reality, the standard procedures of science have been circumvented. Consequently, for fifteen years, America’s families have been regularly ingesting a group of novel products that are not only being sold illegally, but were determined to be unduly hazardous by the FDA’s scientific staff.

By the time you’ve finished reading this story, it will be clear that the degradation of science it documents has not only been unsavory but unprecedented – and that in no other instance have so many scientists so seriously subverted the standards they were trained to uphold, misled so many people, and imposed such magnitude of risk on both human and environmental health.

Read more and buy the book here

More praise for Altered Genes, Twisted Truth:

“A fascinating book: highly informative, eminently readable, and most enjoyable. It’s a real page-turner and an eye-opener.” — Richard C. Jennings, Ph.D, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, UK

“This incisive and insightful book is truly outstanding. It dispels the cloud of disinformation spread by the biotech industry and allied scientists that has duped people into believing GE foods are adequately tested and safe to eat. It’s a must-read – and a pleasure to read.” — David Schubert, Ph.D, molecular biologist and Head of Cellular Neurobiology, Salk Institute for Biological Studies

“Lucid, illuminating, and alarming. As a former New York City prosecutor, I was shocked to discover how the FDA illegally exempted GE foods from the rigorous testing mandated by federal statute. And as the mother of three young kids, I was outraged to learn how America’s children are being callously exposed to experimental foods that were deemed abnormally risky by the FDA’s own experts.” — Tara-Cook Littman, J.D.

“Steven Druker’s meticulously documented, well-crafted, and spellbinding narrative should serve as a clarion call to all of us.” — Stephen Naylor, Ph.D., CEO and Chairman of MaiHealth Inc., Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, and Pharmacology, Mayo Clinic (1991-2001)

“A great book. The evidence is comprehensive and irrefutable, the reasoning is clear and compelling. No one has documented other cases of irresponsible behavior by government regulators and the scientific establishment nearly as well as Druker documents this one.” — John Ikerd, Ph.D, Professor Emeritus of Genetics, Western University, London, Ontario

“A beautiful job. The examiniation of genetic engineering from the standpoint of software engineering is especially insightful, exposing how the former is more like a ‘hackathon’ than a careful, systematic methodology for revising complex information sustems.” — Thomas J. McCabe, developer of the cyclomatic complexity software metric, a key analytic tool in computer programming employed throughout the world

“Druker’s brilliant expose catches the promoters of GE food red-handed: falsifying data, corrupting regulators, lying to Congress. He thoroughly demonstrates how distortions and deceptions have been piled one on top of another, year after year, producing a global industry that teeters on a foundation of fraud and denial. This book is sure to send shockwaves around the world.” — Jeffrey M. Smith, international bestselling author of Seeds of Deception & Genetic Roulette

“Steven Druker is a hero. He deserves at least a Nobel Prize.” — Jane Goodall, Ph.D., D.B.E., and U.N. Messenger of Peace (from the Foreword)