Health-care consultant Carlson (The End of Medicine) and writer Stimeling (coauthor of The Body Electric) offer an assessment of biotechnology's promise and peril, with emphasis on the peril. Insisting that not enough attention is paid to biotechnology's potential dangers, the authors voice concerns about profit-driven, class-restrictive medicine where "the diseased are just another market," and propose some provocative solutions for a flawed medical system. But readers may find it difficult to take seriously their science-fiction-style doomsday scenarios, like the idea that cloning will lead to a future where "the wealthy may quietly contract for shadow clones, headless bodies... grown in sterile bubbles to serve as organ trees, a ready supply of transplantables for family and friends." (May)
