Pete Shanks

Pete Shanks, MA, attended Oxford University, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and moved to California in the mid-1970s. He has been active in a range of local and international political movements, while mostly making his living in the publishing industry, especially on the production side; he enjoys the craft of bookmaking. Appalled by the eugenic possibilities of biotechnology, he has consulted with the Center for Genetics and Society since its earliest days. He is the author of Human Genetic Engineering: A Guide for Activists, Skeptics, and the Very Perplexed (Nation Books) and a regular contributor to Biopolitical Times.

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Publications

"Proceed with caution" traffic sign, against a blue sky.
By Pete Shanks, Deccan Chronicle | 10.02.2016

News broke this week that the first “three-parent” baby had been born. But the untested and controversial nature of the...

Image of a person with gloves holding a petri dish.
By Pete Shanks, Deccan Chronicle | 05.22.2016

On May 10, about 130 scientists, entrepreneurs and others held an invitation-only event at Harvard. Organisers told invitees not to...

By Pete Shanks, Huffington Post | 12.10.2014

Money and deals are flowing into companies that promise to edit genes. Human, animal, plant, all kinds of DNA may...

In the News

Stem cell injection
By Pete Shanks, Capitol Weekly | 10.26.2020

At a time of budget crisis, Proposition 14 commits California to spending $5 billion (plus interest) that we don’t have...

scientist looking at a computer monitor
By Pete Shanks, The Progressive | 08.14.2019

In mid-July, a bipartisan trio of U.S. Senators—Democrats Dianne Feinstein of California and Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Republican...

Padlock attached to a DNA strand on a blue background.
By Karen Gullo, Electronic Frontier Foundation [cites CGS and Pete Shanks] | 03.29.2019

Analyzing and indefinitely keeping the DNA profiles of thousands of Californians arrested for felonies, but never charged with a crime...

Biopolitical Times

Image courtesy National Human Genome Research Institute

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is supposed to encourage effective medical...

GATTACA was released in 1997, but — remarkably — is even more relevant now than it was then, as the...