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Gentechnologie - Introduction There is significantly less resistance against genetic engineering in human medicine. Hundreds of drugs made with the help of genetic engineering and aiding many people increase the acceptance of human genetics – although most of the promises of healing (of cancer, AIDS, etc.) have not yet been and perhaps never will be kept. On the dark side, there are experiments with embryos, experiments with cloning, the request for the authorisation of the germline therapy and many more „innovations“ which can be interpreted as a clear sign for a paradigm shift in human medicine / human genetics: steering away from the healing of illnesses leading to an improvement of the human genetic outfit. So, is there the danger of the Human Design, the (genetically) perfect man? Either way: there are more questions than answers. And there is the aftertaste of genetic engineering promising solutions for problems which do not exist or which cannot be solved with “technical solutions”, like in the case of the struggle against hunger.
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As
long as there are people – consumers, farmers, processors – who
object to the use of genetic engineering in agriculture and food,
their desire for freedom of choice must be respected. And from
a professional point of view, too, genetic engineering must be
questioned: Is the coexistence of production systems with and without
the use of genetic engineering possible? And if yes, how can it
work? What must be thought of the EU Commission’s suggestions
regarding the co-existence and the guidelines on genetic contamination?
Is the draft for the new German Genetic Engineering Law the correct
response to the rather hesitant position of the EU? What must operating
precautionary measures against imminent contamination through the
neighbour’s field look like? And do the legal regulations
regarding e.g. the labelling of genetically modified food suffice
for future assurance of alimentation without genetic engineering? 
In
any case, the euphoric promises of the pressure group of genetic
engineering must be questioned critically, for one thing is for
sure: if the experiment of releasing GMO into the environment
goes awry, the “test subjects” cannot just be retracted
afterwards. Genetically modified plants, animals and micro-organisms
as living systems develop a life of their own, reproduce themselves
and then maybe do not what has been manipulated into them any
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