Word: rifkin
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Humane Society, eleven other animal-welfare groups and the Foundation on Economic Trends (which consists largely of Jeremy Rifkin, an implacable foe of genetic engineering) have petitioned the Patent Office to rescind its new policy. Such a reversal is unlikely. The agency's role is to encourage innovation, not to determine its ethical implications. That is the business of the Biomedical Ethics Board, which was established by Congress in 1985 but has not yet met. The board's deliberations are long overdue, says John Fletcher, chief of the bioethical program at the National Institutes of Health: "Our society is starved...
Criticism came quickly. Jeremy Rifkin, a well-known foe of the biotech industry, declared that his Foundation on Economic Trends will file suit against the White House this week over the new rules...
Perhaps the best insight into Rifkin's complex mind and motivations appears in his 1983 work Algeny, a book that presents a creationist-like view of Darwin and makes it clear that Rifkin disapproves of tampering with the genes of any of God's creatures--from viruses to man. In Algeny, Biologist Stephen Jay Gould charged in a 1985 review, Rifkin "uses every debater's trick in the book to mischaracterize and trivialize his opposition, and to place his own dubious claims in a rosy light." The book, Gould concludes, is "a cleverly constructed tract of anti-intellectual propaganda masquerading...
...Rifkin remains unfazed by unrelenting criticism from the scientific community. In fact, he has used his considerable powers of persuasion to enlist a few prominent researchers in his crusade. In 1983, for example, he talked two Nobel laureates and other scientists into signing a declaration urging Congress to ban any genetic engineering of human sperm and egg cells, despite the fact that such a ban would halt research aimed at eliminating genetic diseases like sickle- cell anemia and Down's syndrome...
...even Rifkin's critics concede that some good can come from his tactics. Says Biologics Executive Mike Bartkoski, still smarting over the ban on his company's vaccine: "We've been trying to get name recognition. Now, suddenly, because of Jeremy Rifkin, everyone knows of Biologics...