You can eliminate, for example, a Brazil nut gene if you know that it will create an allergenic effect.

What I'm suggesting to you is that this could be a renaissance. We may be on the cusp of a future which could provide a tremendous leap forward for humanity.

It may be that everything the life science companies are telling us will turn out to be right, and there's no problem here whatsoever. That defies logic.

If your corn has a herbicide-tolerant gene, it means you can spray your herbicides and kill the weeds; you won't kill your corn because it's producing a gene that makes it tolerant of the herbicide.

When we seed millions of acres of land with these plants, what happens to foraging birds, to insects, to microbes, to the other animals, when they come in contact and digest plants that are producing materials ranging from plastics to vaccines to pharmaceutical products?

The position I took at the time was that we hadn't really examined any of the potential environmental consequences of introducing genetically modified organisms.

The 10 largest antitrust law firms in the United States have gone into the federal courts charging Monsanto with creating a global conspiracy in violation of the antitrust laws, to control the global market in seeds.

One thing I've learned over these last 30 or 40 years is that people make history. There's no fait accompli to any of this.

You can eliminate, for example, a Brazil nut gene if you know that it will create an allergenic effect.

We were making the first step out of the age of chemistry and physics, and into the age of biology.

The public should know that the liability issues here have yet to be resolved, or even raised. If you're a farmer and you're growing a genetically engineering food crop, those genes are going to flow to the other farm.

I wanted to make sure that this be the first scientific and technology revolution in history in which the public thoroughly discussed all the potential benefits and all the potential harms, in advance of the technology coming online and running its course.

The industry's not stupid. The industry knows that if those foods are labeled "genetically engineered," the public will shy away and won't take them.

I know quite a few farmers all over the United States who have tried this and have said the opposite, that they have to use more herbicides, not less. The same holds true with BT.

The interesting thing is, while we die of diseases of affluence from eating all these fatty meats, our poor brethren in the developing world die of diseases of poverty, because the land is not used now to grow food grain for their families.

The American public is not aware that there might be potential allergenic and toxic reactions. With regular food, at least people know which foods they have an allergy to.

We now have an opportunity, though, to do something we didn't do in the industrial age, and that is to get a leg up on this, to bring the public in quickly, to have an informed debate.

Many of the mainstream agricultural scientists, especially at the agricultural schools, but at all of our major universities, are tied into all sorts of contractual relationships and consulting relationships with the life science companies.

In this country, the health concerns and the environmental concerns are as deep as in Europe. All the surveys show that. But here, we didn't have the cultural dimension. This is a fast-food culture.

We are entering a new phase in human history - one in which fewer and fewer workers will be needed to produce the goods and services for the global population.

What's different here is that we have now technologies that allow these life science companies to bypass classical breeding. That's what makes it both powerful and exciting.

Back in 1983, the United States government approved the release of the first genetically modified organism. In this case, it was a bacteria that prevents frost on food crops.

The antitrust litigation currently in the federal courts in the U.S. against Monsanto will be the test case in the life sciences, just as the Microsoft case was the test case in the information sciences.

Here we are 17 years later. Those agencies never did come through.

What the public needs to understand is that these new technologies, especially in recombinant DNA technology, allow scientists to bypass biological boundaries altogether.

Many of the genetically modified foods will be safe, I'm sure. Will most of them be safe? Nobody knows.

Europe will not accept genetically modified foods. It doesn't make any difference in the final analysis what Brussels does, what Washington does, or what the World Trade Organization does.

They're now turning those seeds into intellectual property, so they have a virtual lock on the seeds upon which we all depend for our food and survival.

Back in the mid-1980s, congressional hearings were held after we brought this litigation, and held up the first experiment. At that time, I went in front of Congress, along with the major agencies involved with this.

The insurance companies aren't covering that. Should Monsanto be liable for these losses? Should the state government? Who's going to cover the losses? The fact is, here's an industry with no long-term liability in place.

The electronic media introduced this idea to the larger audience very, very quickly. We spent years and years and years meeting with activists all over Europe to lay the groundwork for a political response, as we did here.

We are already producing enough food to feed the world. We already have technology in place that allows us to produce more than we can find a market for.

So my attorneys brought litigation in the U.S. federal courts. The judge ruled in our favor.

A refuge is supposed to prevent what? The genes from flowing out of sight? This refuge idea won't stop insects from moving across boundaries. That's absurd.

The industry's not stupid. The industry knows that if those foods are labeled 'genetically engineered', the public will shy away and won't take them.

If your corn has a herbicide tolerant gene it means you can pray your herbicides and kill the weeds you wont kill your corn.

Turning points in human consciousness occur when new energy regimes converge with new communications revolutions, creating new economic eras.

If you look around Brazil you see pregnant women everywhere. Here you don't see that as much. There the only thing they do is babies, babies, babies! Especially the poor families.

Brazil - they're so good it's like they are running round the pitch playing with themselves.

No, I worked a lot for European television, doing documentaries in Brazil.

In '82 Brazil showed that you can't win the World Cup without a solid defense.

Also, there are now new laws in Brazil which create incentives for Argentine and Latin American films to be premiered and distributed in Brazil and vice versa.

Four years ago maybe we thought we were inferior to Brazil, subconsciously we didn't see ourselves beating them. Now we believe in ourselves, we can be on the pitch with any team in the world and think we can win.

You can eliminate, for example, a Brazil nut gene if you know that it will create an allergenic effect.

I based in Brazil, Sao Paulo, but I come very often to the states, and I travel all over the world.

Because of my Portuguese heritage, I have an interest in all of the instrumentation that comes from Portugal and Brazil as well.

So when I was very young, I longed for Brazil.

So the books have a greater appeal to a British audience, but that hasn't stopped them making best-seller lists in places like Brazil, Japan and at least a dozen other countries.

Banks' beer. There's nothing like it! To Brazil. And to Barbados justice.