Halloween protest against 'Frankenscience'

This has not been a good year for life-scientists. Anti-GM (genetically modified) activists dressed as genetically engineered monsters took part in Halloween celebrations in New York and Washington D.C. to protest against what they call 'Frankenscience'.

The Campaign for Responsible Transplantation were out in force on the streets of New York's Greenwich Village during the famous night-time Halloween Parade. They had created a four metre tall puppet of a mad scientist who wore a dollar sign tie clip and clutched a model of a pig-human hybrid. A number of 'hybrid attendants' wearing pig snouts danced around with signs warning of the dangers of xenotransplantation. The director of the campaign said that Halloween costumes seemed appropriate because 'it's a very ghoulish technology'.

In Washington D.C., Friends of the Earth marched to a local branch of Safeways, wearing Frankenstein masks and accompanied by a 'Gene Beast' who the campaigners hope will bring attention to the genetically modified strawberries that contain a gene for an antifreeze protein taken from the arctic flounder.