Genetically Modified Food Controversies - Public Perception

Public Perception

Social science surveys have documented that individuals are more risk averse about food than institutions, and there is widespread concern within the public about the risks of biotechnology, desire for more information about the risks themselves and the risk/benefit distribution of GM food, and a desire for choice in being exposed to risk. The introduction of so-called "wonder-products" such as DDT and PCBs and their subsequent withdrawal after unforeseen problems were discovered, has undermined public trust in companies that introduce products that are pervasively used, and in the government agencies meant to regulate them. There is also a widespread sense that social and technological change is speeding up and people feel powerless to affect this change; diffuse anxiety driven by this context becomes focused when it is food that is being changed.

In 2006, the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology made public a review of U.S. survey results from 2001-2006. The review showed that Americans' knowledge of genetically modified foods and animals was low through the period. An example of this ignorance (not cited in the Pew review), were protests against Calgene's Flavr Savr transgenic tomato that described the GM tomato as being made with fish genes, confusing it with DNA Plant Technology's Fish tomato experimental transgenic organism, which was never commercialized. The Pew survey also showed that despite continuing concerns about GM foods, American consumers do not support banning new uses of the technology, but rather seek an active role from regulators to ensure that new products are safe.

A 2010 Deloitte survey found that 34% of U.S. consumers were very or extremely concerned about GM food, a 3% reduction from 2008. The same survey found a strong gender difference in opinion: 10% of men were extremely concerned, compared with 16% of women, and 16% of women were unconcerned, compared with 27% of men.

A 2009 review article of European consumer polls concluded that opposition to GMOs in Europe has been gradually decreasing. Approximately half of European consumers accepted gene technology, particularly when benefits for consumers and for the environment could be linked to GMO products. 80% of respondents did not cite the application of GMOs in agriculture as a significant environmental problem. Many consumers seem unafraid of health risks from GMO products and most European consumers did not actively avoid GMO products while shopping. The 2010 "Eurobarometer" survey, which assesses public attitudes about biotech and the life sciences in Europe, found that "cisgenics, GM crops produced by adding only genes from the same species or from plants that are crossable by conventional breeding," evokes a different reaction than transgenic methods, where "genes are taken from other species or bacteria that are taxonomically very different from the gene recipient and transferred into plants."

A 2007 survey by the Food Standards Australia and New Zealand found that in Australia where labeling is mandatory, 27% of Australians looked at the label to see if it contained GM material when purchasing a grocery product for the first time.

Opponents of GM food have been labelled "the Climate Skeptics of the Left" by Keith Kloor of Slate Magazine, who wrote: "The anti-GM bias also reveals a glaring intellectual inconsistency of the eco-concerned media. When it comes to climate science, for example, Grist and Mother Jones are quick to call out the denialism of pundits and politicians. But when it comes to the science of genetic engineering, writers at these same outlets are quick to seize on pseudoscientific claims, based on the flimsiest of evidence, of cancer-causing, endocrine-disrupting, ecosystem-killing GMOs."