The human body shop

by Andrew Kimbrell

The exploits of the new engineers and profiteers of life read more like science fiction than science fact. But fact they are, and frighteningly so. The human body and the other organisms of the earth are rapidly becoming the raw material for a new industrial age - a manufacturing revolution based on the manipulation and marketing of life. The escalating price placed on our most intimate possessions - our blood, organs, cells, and genes - along with the increasing ability of biotechnologies to alter the human body, has created a boom market for the human body shop. Using controversial case studies, Andrew Kimbrell exposes an industry based on the cloning of life forms, fetal tissue transplants, genetic engineering, and a host of startling new discoveries and techniques.^ With recombinant DNA technology it is now possible to transplant, snip, insert, recombine, rearrange, edit, program, and produce genetic and other living material just as our ancestors were able to heat, burn, melt, and