Is GM food safe or not? Scientists and the public don't see aye to aye.

I'm not apologizing for the pun in the title, but it does require this explanation: 2 related surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center found that, while an overwhelming majority of scientists consider food containing genetically modified ingredients to be generally safe to eat, more than half of the general adult American population considers it generally unsafe.  The gap between the scientists and the public, the Chicago Tribune, points out, is 51 percentage points! Let's take a closer look at these 2 surveys and what they reveal about American attitudes toward GM foods and towards science in general.

WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE SURVEYS?  WHEN?

The survey of the general public included 2,002 U.S. adults.  The other survey included 3,478 U.S. scientists who belonged to the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  The surveys were conducted by telephone in August, 2014; results were announced in late January 2015.  Besides GM foods, the two surveys covered other issues (pesticides, childhood vaccines, fracking, and more), but this article is reporting only on GM food questions and those dealing with general attitudes toward science and scientists.

HOW DID SCIENTISTS RESPOND TO THE QUESTION ABOUT GM SAFETY?

A whopping 88% said that they believe genetically modified foods are safe; 11% said they believe GM foods are unsafe.  

HOW DID THE PUBLIC FEEL ABOUT GM SAFETY?

The survey of U.S. adults found that 37% consider genetically modified foods to be safe, compared to 57% of who considered them unsafe.

The breakdown in terms of gender and ethnicity looked like this:

Gender: men: 47% said safe; women: 28% said safe

Ethnicity: whites: 28% said safe; 53% said unsafe

                  Blacks: 24% said safe; 68% said unsafe

                  Hispanics: 32% said safe; 65% said unsafe

Note from Pew Research: "Those saying 'don't know' are not shown.  Whites and Blacks include only non-Hispanics.  Hispanics are of any race."

DO SCIENTISTS HAVE A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING OF THE HEALTH EFFECTS OF GENERITCALLY MODIFIED CROPS?

The responses to the above question shocked me.  More than two-thirds of adults (67%) said that, based upon what they'd heard or read, scientists were not clear about the effects of GM crops. Only 28% reported that they believed scientists did have a clear understanding of the effects of GM ingredients in crops.  Women and older Americans gave the scientists more credit for understanding the matter than did Non-Hispanic Whites and Blacks.

DO CONSUMERS ACTUALLY LOOK FOR THOSE GM LABELS?

Only 25% of respondents said that they always looked for the GM label when shopping for food.

Another 25% said "sometimes," 17% said "not too often," 31% said "never look," and 2% said "don't know/no food shopping."

ON THE SAFETY OF GMOS, HOW DID THE FOOD SCIENTISTS THAT SHELF LIFE ADVICE SURVEYED COMPARE TO THE SCIENTISTS THAT PEW SURVEYED?

In a survey of food scientists that Shelf Life Advice conducted, responses to the question of GM food safety were close to those that Pew reported.  Shelf Life Advice asked the following question and got these answers:

Do you believe that GMOs [genetically modified organisms] in food are a health risk?

Yes:  6%        No:  81%     Don't know: 9%       Don't choose to answer:  3%

HOW DO AMERICANS FEEL ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF SCIENCE?

According to the Pew survey results, Americans seem to feel that scientists do more to help than to hinder their lives:

• 79% said that science has made life easier for people; 15 % said it has made life more difficult.
• 62% said science has had a positive effect on food; 34% said a negative effect.

Note: The above responses were more positive than the public's opinions about scientists and GM food.

WHAT CONCLUSIONS CAN SCIENTISTS AND THE PUBLIC DRAW ABOUT THESE RESULTS?

The results suggest that a large number of Americans do not believe what scientists tell them about scientific matters.  At a mid-February conference of the AAAS, there were "a significant number of discussions about how the public thinks about science issues and how scientists communicate about their work. The Pew Research Center presented new findings at the conference about the ways scientists engage with the public and media."  Sounds like scientists are looking for newer, better ways to communicate with the public in order to have their conclusions trusted. 

Recently, the Chicago Tribune quoted the World Resources Institute as saying, "genetic modifications using genes from diverse species pose a greater risk of producing unexpected effects than conventional crossbreeding."  The organization went on to say that this this "justifies mandatory safety studies."  However, the institute concluded the following: "There is no evidence that GM crops have actually harmed human health...food safety does not justify rejecting genetic modification outright." 

Why don't Americans believe this conclusion? The newspaper article says the following: "The anti-GM movement seems to be fueled by a combination of anti-corporate suspicion, small-farm nostalgia, and anxiety about unfamiliar technologies." The Chicago Tribune article also points out that, to feed a growing world population, GM technology will be needed because it makes seeds "more resistant to pests, drought, or disease and therefore leads to "greater yields with less water or in poorer soil."  In other words, GM technology could help the world stave off large-scale hunger and even, in some areas, starvation.

Here's the underlying question:  Where new technologies are concerned, should we be satisfied when no evidence of harm has been found, or should we hold off subjecting people to a technology until there's proof that it's safe (a much higher bar)?  If we wait, we slow down change and opportunity for improvement. Can we afford to do that?

WHERE ELSE ON SHELF LIFE ADVICE IS THERE INFORMATION ABOUT GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD?

For more Shelf Life Advice content about GMOs and the labeling issue related to them, go to "Is Genetically Engineered Food Safe?  Should 'GE' Be on Food Labels?" 

To read about the issue of genetically modified salmon, click here. 

For additional articles on this topic, type "GMO" into the search box on the site's home page.

To read the Shelf Life Advice 3-part survey of food scientists, go to these links:

"Raw chicken, Leftovers, Deli Meats, and More--What Surveyed Scientists Said" 

"Is It Safe? Is It Nutrition? More Survey Answers from Scientists"

"Organic Food, GMOs, the Safety of American Food, the Value of Use-By Dates, and More--Scientists Tell Us What They Think"

Source(s):

pewinternet.org "How Different Groups Think about Scientific Issues"

http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/02/12/how-different-groups-think-about-scientific-issues/

foodbusinessnews.net "Pew survey: 57 percent of US adults think GM foods unsafe"

http://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/news_home/Consumer_Trends/2015/01/Pew_survey_57_of_USadults_thin.aspx?ID=%7BAD0C4043-299E-47E4-A09D-F3CC7051CD6D%7D 

Chicago Tribune "Feast or famine: Science that is hard to swallow," February 10, 2015.

aaas.confex.com "Scientists Engaging with Reporters, the Public, and Social Media: Survey Findings"

https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2015/webprogram/Session10635.html