The Gijs van Seventer Environmental Health 2014-2015 Seminar Series
Speaker: Sheldon Krimsky Ph.D.
Lenore Stern Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of. Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning, Tufts University; Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine
Please join us on Friday, February 20 from 12:45pm – 1:45pm
Location: Room L-210, BU Medical School Instructional Building
for the seminar: The Science behind GMO Health Assessment
Seventy-five percent of processed foods on supermarket shelves in the US—from soda to soup, crackers to condiments—contain genetically engineered ingredients. Some prominent scientists and policymakers assert with confidence that there is no scientific controversy over the health effects of GMOs—that these GM crops are inherently safe and do not have to be tested. The scientific evidence, however, reveals a different story. The long-term effects of these foods on human health and ecology are still unknown, and public concern has been steadily intensifying. The talk reveals how politics and corporate interests have distorted an honest look at the health and environmental effects of GMO crops and how scientists whose results do not support the “safe seeds” hypothesis have been marginalized and demonized.
Sheldon Krimsky is the Lenore Stern Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences in the Department of Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning in the School of Arts & Sciences and Adjunct Professor in Public Health and Community Medicine in the School of Medicine at Tufts University. In 2012-14 he held the Carol Zicklin Visiting Endowed Professorship in the Honors Academy and Professor of Philosophy at Brooklyn College, CUNY. Professor Krimsky is an adjunct professor in The New School, at Milano during the summer. He received his bachelors and masters degrees in physics from Brooklyn College, CUNY and Purdue University respectively, and a masters and doctorate in philosophy at Boston University. His research has focused on the linkages between science/technology, ethics/values and public policy. He is the author of 14 books and over 200 papers and reviews that have appeared in: JAMA, Nature, Nature Genetics, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Medicine, JAMA Internal Medicine, American Journal of Bioethics, The Lancet, Stanford Law & Policy Review, New England Journal of Medicine, Scientific American, American Journal of Public Health, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Human Gene Therapy, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science; Science, Technology & Human Values, Accountability in Research. His recent books include: Genetic Justice: DNA Databanking, Criminal Investigations and Civil Liberties-Gold Medal Winner of the Independent Publisher Book Award, 2011 (Columbia), Race and the Genetic Revolution (Columbia) Genetic Explanations: Sense and Nonsense (Harvard). Biotechnology in Our Lives (Skyhorse) and The GMO Deception (Skyhorse). His 14th book contracted with Columbia University Press titled Stem Cell Dialogues: Philosophical and Scientific Inquiry is forthcoming in 2015. Professor Krimsky has been elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for “seminal scholarship exploring the normative dimensions and moral implications of science in its social context.”
For more information on this seminar, including suggested readings, and upcoming seminar topics and guest speakers, please visit the Gijs van Seventer Environmental Health Seminar website.
