Written for general readers, teachers, journalists, and policymakers, this volume explores four controversial topics in science and technology, with commentaries from experts in such fields as sociology, religion, law, ethics, and politics:

* Antibiotics and Resistance: the science, the policy debates, and perspectives from a microbiologist, a veterinarian, and an M.D.

* Genetically Modified Maize and Gene Flow: the science of genetic modification, protecting genetic diversity, agricultural biotech vesus the environment, corporate patents versus farmers' rights

* Hormone Replacement Theory and Menopause: overview of the Women's Health Initiative, history of hormone replacement therapy, the medicalization of menopause, hormone replacement therapy and clinical trials

* Smallpox: historical and medical overview of smallpox, government policies for public health, the Emergency Health Powers Act, public resistance vs. cooperation.

Daniel Lee Kleinman is associate professor of rural sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Impure Cultures: University Biology and the World of Commerce. Abby J. Kinchy is research assistant in rural sociology at UW-Madison. Jo Handelsman is the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and codirector of the Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute at UW-Madison.