A recently established technique termed pharming uses genetically modified plants and animals for the production of biopharmaceuticals. The present interdisciplinary study comprises an extended overview of the state of the art of pharming, as well as in depth analyses of the environmental risks and other ethical and legal issues of pharming. Public attitudes to pharming are investigated on the basis of an original survey in 15 countries worldwide. The study concludes with specific recommendations addressed towards science, industry and politics.

The world seems ever smaller and ever quicker: environmental, public health, industrial and cultural processes operate ever more on a global, rather than a local scale. Does this process, sometimes known as globalisation, draw us closer together, or drive us further apart, from a moral point of view? In recent years, bioethics has addressed many of the issues that arise in the context of globalisation: solidarity, conflict, and autonomy; human rights, liberty and toleration; the political and economic context of health care and inequalities in health; environmental and public health...