Transgenic organisms have become the unfortunate media targets of the 90's, generating articles in the popular press and resistance to their appearance in the European marketplace. A rational discussion of the risks of transgenic plants (or animals or bacteria, etc.) has become clouded by emotion and misinformation. What I hope to do here is to try to balance legitimate concerns and questions with scientific knowledge (or lack of) so that we can objectively determine the risks of transgenic plants now and in the future.