[Note: Emily Anthes and Dan Fagin are friends of mine, and Anthes and I share the same book editor. That would disqualify me as a reviewer, so please consider this merely a notice of books you might find interesting–not a review.]
GloFish, transgenic goats that secrete drugs in their milk, and an FDA that doesn't seem quite sure what it should do about a new Noah's Ark of exotic, genetically engineered animals are all characters in the new book by Emily Anthes entitled Frankenstein's Cat: Cuddling up to Biotech's Brave New Beasts.
Anthes catalogues the wide variety of beasts that might soon become commonplace if the government, animal activists, and the public can somehow decide what should be allowed and what shouldn't. Using monkeys and apes to supply organs for humans is taboo, Anthes writes, but what about pigs? Genetically engineered pigs can be sources of donor organs from which chemical "pig" identifiers have been removed so that they can be tolerated by the human body. Should this be pursued? Countless lives could be saved by "engineering animals purely so we can later dismantle them," she writes. "That's instrumental in the extreme." On the other hand, she points out, we routinely dismantle pigs by the millions to harvest bacon. "By and large, we accept the use of animals as objects and tools," according to polls. And yet…
She also explores efforts to preserve endangered species by cloning them, visiting an Audubon research center in Louisiana where researchers dream of taking skin samples from rare animals and using them to churn out new animals in the lab. She discusses insect cyborgs developed by the Defense Department. And she digs into the tough issues related to our collective feeling about animals. Polls show that many people think animals are much like humans–and some of those people are meat-eaters. What do we make of that? And how will those attitudes shape the continuing development of biotech's new beasts? "There are no easy answers to the ethical dilemmas that biotechnology can pose," she writes.
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The New Jersey shore seems, based on my occasional visits, to be polluted mainly with shacks that sell clams, fries, and zeppole, with amusement rides, and with Skee-ball arcades, most of them strung along the shore's famous boardwalks. But much more than that is polluting this beautiful string of beaches and seaside towns, as Dan Fagin points out in Toms River: A story of science and salvation. Fagin, a long-time environmental writer and now director of the science-writing program at New York University, does a mighty exhumation of the data on Toms River, one of those seaside towns that was used by chemical companies for years as a dumping ground for toxic chemicals and wastewater.
Fagin begins with a history of Toms River, tracing the roots of its chemical industry to a British dye shop, among other things, and digging in with the arrival of a major chemical plant in the town in 1952. Within two years, the company was already having trouble disposing of its toxic waste. And things would get much, much worse.
Fagin's book is also a history of environmental medicine–what has been learned about the damage that toxic waste can do and what can be done to treat that damage. He skillfully tracks multiple story lines up to the present–the story of the industry, the town, the health consequences of the toxic wastes, and litigation and the activism, and the medical research. It's an interesting–and important–tale.
-Paul Raeburn
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