8-Misc: EC study reveals an informed public

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TITLE:  EC study reveals an informed public
SOURCE: Nature Biotech. 19: 15-16
        edited  and sent by Agnet, Canada
DATE:   January 2000

------------------ archive: http://www.gene.ch/genet.html ------------------


EC study reveals an informed public

Sabine Lou‘t, a freelance writer working in London, UK., writes that a UK 
European Commission-funded study of Public Perceptions of Agricultural 
Biotechnology in Europe (PABE) will be published this month and finds that 
the public's reaction to GMOs has been influenced by the misassumption - on 
the parts of not only regulatory authorities, scientists, and industry, but 
also non-governmental organizations (NGOs) - that the public needs to be 
educated, rather than consulted.

The story says that the PABE study was commissioned by the 4th Framework 
Fisheries, Agriculture and Agro-Industrial Research programme as an 
exercise in "better understanding of the public." Between June 1998 and 
June 2000, 14 focus groups comprising about 6 people in France, Germany, 
Italy, Spain, and UK were presented with a series of questions and 
statements and their responses and discussion recorded. Those questions and 
statements were compiled after interviewing the major players - biotech 
companies, agro-food firms, large food distributors, ministries, regulatory 
bodies, scientists, farming trade unions, and environmental and consumer 
NGOs - and surveying literature produced by them and, as such, represented 
a list of assumptions these groups have about public attitudes to GMOs.

Analysis of responses shows the public wants to know why GMOs are needed, 
who will benefit from their use and under what circumstances, who decided 
they should be developed and how, and who will be accountable in the case 
of unforeseen harm. The story says that contrary to popular belief, the 
study suggests the public is neither for nor against GMOs, and challenges 
the view that there is "objective" scientifically assessed risk and 
"subjective" public perception. Nor do the findings support the views that 
people think the term "genetic" scary, are obsessed with the idea that GMOs 
are unnatural, or tend to reject agricultural but accept medical 
application of GM technology.

These results contradict those of the European Commission's Eurobarometer 
on public perception of biotechnology. In 1999, for instance, Eurobarometer 
found that the public agreed with such statements as "GM food threatens the 
natural order of things," and are generally more in favour of GM technology 
for medical applications than for agricultural applications (Nat. 
Biotechnol. 18, 935, 2000). However, with PABE and Eurobarometer being 
qualitative and quantitative studies, respectively, the two are not really 
comparable. Brian Wynne, professor of Science Studies at the Centre for 
Study of Environmental Change at Lancaster University, who is involved in 
the UK side of the PABE study, was quoted as saying, "Studies such as PABE 
help put this kind of large scale survey [like Eurobarometer] into 
perspective."

Mark Cantley, from the European CommissionResearch Directorate, was quoted 
as saying that "qualitative studies based on focus groups have value for 
formulating better questions for quantitative studies such as 
Eurobarometer."

Indeed, the PABE results show that the assumptions about public perceptions 
made by the establishment are wrong, and suggests that the public has been 
responding to the way it has been addressed by authorities, as opposed to 
misunderstanding the issues or behaving irrationally toward GMOs. The focus 
group discussions revealed that the public actually understands risk, has a 
fair grasp of the issues at stake, and asks pertinent questions about the 
scientific basis of risk assessment, through lay knowledge of complex 
topics such as the interaction of GMOs with ecosystems. They acknowledge 
that it is impossible to anticipate all risks, especially in the long term, 
and are prepared to accept some level of risk as long as stakeholders 
publicly acknowledge uncertainties.

 

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