Public Perceptions of Biotechnology PDF

1105_1111_200700071_McHughen.qxd:BIOT_2006 30.08.2007 13:13 Uhr Seite 1105 Biotechnol. J. 2007, 2, 1105–1111 DOI 10.1002/biot.200700071 www.biotechnology-journal.com Review Public perceptions o...

1105_1111_200700071_McHughen.qxd:BIOT_2006 Biotechnol. J. 2007, 2, 1105–1111 Review Public perceptions of biotechnology Alan McHughen University of California, Riverside, CA, USA The very term ‘Biotechnology’ elicits a range and hostility. This is especially true among non-scientists, food biotechnology. These emotions indicate just ogy is and the need for accurate, dispassionate al public debate on the actual, as opposed to the biotechnology. This review considers first the biotechnology, and then explores some of the popular in both Europe and North America. I then consider and the role of the popular media in instilling appropriate efforts to provide ‘balance’ in pinges on public scientific illiteracy. Getting example of the contrasting approach to agricultural North America, in considering divergent approaches I then question who benefits from agricultural society at large – and the environment – also such a technologically complex issue, ordinary cannot be expected to learn the intricacies of port or reject biotechnology products. The only trust in someone to provide honest advice. But to provide informed and accessible, but objective, Keywords: Agricultural biotechnology · Misperceptions 1 Introduction In the generation prior to biotechnology, food, health and diet appeared fairly straightforward and simple, but today these are much more technical and complex. Earlier, all food was assumed ‘natural’, with calories coming from food constituents starch, protein and especially fat. A poor diet, typically indicated in western countries by obe- sity, was corrected by reducing caloric intake, particular- ly fats and encouraging exercise. Today, life is not so simple. Food, we know now, con- sist of proteins, starch and carbohydrates (carbs), oils and fats. In addition, we’ve learned about cholesterol, lipopro- Correspondence: Dr. Alan McHughen, Botany and Plant ment, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA E-mail: [email protected] time’ for consumers in a hurry to get back to the rapidly expanding, but sedentary, TV and internet universe. 1105 13:13 Uhr Seite 1106 Biotechnol. J. 2007, 2, 1105–1111 The results, expressed as a percentage of respondents an- swering correctly, were unimpressive: – 48% Are GM foods in US supermarkets? – 40% Do ordinary tomatoes contain genes? – 42% Would a tomato with a fish gene taste “fishy”? – 45% If you ate a GM fruit, might it alter your genes? – 30% Can animal genes be inserted into a plant? Clearly, even before asking about biotechnological ap- proaches to food production, consumers need to learn something about basic biology and agriculture. The sta- tus of ordinary consumer’s knowledge of food and agri- culture is frightening to those of us involved in public ed- ucation. It indicates a serious need for greatly expanded educational services when most people do not recognize DNA as a natural component of ordinary tomatoes. Per- haps worse, respondents are not even aware of the degree of their own ignorance. These few questions, although a small and not random sample, all provide for binary an- swers (Yes or No). If people who didn’t know the answer simply guessed, the proportion should have come out to 50% correct. Optimistically, any reasonable proportion of knowledgeable respondents knowing the true correct an- swer would pull the mean well into the 50 – 60% range. Unfortunately, the data indicate the results were not skewed upward but actually down, indicating that re- spondents were not simply guessing, but actively thought they knew the correct answer. The problem is, what they ‘knew’ to be correct was actually wrong! Therefore, the public educator trying to teach ordinary consumers about food and food production is not starting from a level field of ignorance, they start well behind ignorance, and must unlearn the incorrect information consumers have come to believe is true but isn’t. Americans are not alone in their deep ignorance of food and agriculture, so before blaming the appalling re- sult on the US educational system, consider the similar re- sults from the European survey on public attitudes, called the Eurobarometer {INRA (EUROPE) – ECOSA, 2000 }. Across the European Union, when asked if ordinary toma- toes contained genes, one-third of respondents said ‘No’, and another third said “Don’t know”. The question asking if eating a GM fruit might alter one’s own genes resulted in one third saying “Don’t know”, and one quarter said “Yes’. One other Eurobarometer question was very similar to that of the FPI survey. Respondents were asked if they agreed with the statement “It is impossible to transfer an- imal genes to plants”. Almost half said “Don’t know” and a quarter each said “Yes’ and “No”. Clearly, citizens on both sides of the Atlantic cannot make informed deci- sions and choices about biotechnology when they lack even the underlying knowledge necessary for making ra- tional comparisons. With this dismal level of basic knowledge among non- scientists setting the stage, the next issue is how to help Co. KGaA, Weinheim Seite 1107 www.biotechnology-journal.com ‘sacred’, and the thought of creating a new organism with human genetic material is ethically unacceptable. The irony, of course, is that the majority of GM crops – the ones attracting the most concern – are indeed grown with re- duced environmental pesticidal load, and the most com- mon and popular supported GM medical application is in- sulin, produced from bacteria into which a human gene had been inserted. of organiza- 3.2 Terminator confusion The ETC group coined “Terminator” for the patent award- ed to USDA and Delta and Pine Land on a mechanism to produce sterile seeds. What the patented mechanism does – at least in theory – is ensure seeds produced on the transgenic plant expressing the ‘terminator’ genes can- not germinate. In practice, it does not work well enough to justify commercialization (too ‘leaky’, producing too many fertile, viable seeds), and, with public opinion dead set against it, Monsanto shelved plans to develop it for their commercialized GM crops. There are two major con- cerns driving public opposition: (1) Farmers, contrary to ancient practice, would not be able to keep a portion of the harvested seed of one season to use in planting the next crop. Instead, farmers of crops with the terminator gene would be forced to buy new seeds each year. Ac- cording to opponents, this would impose an unfair hard- ship, particularly on resource-poor farmers, and deprive them of an ancient right. (2) There is the fear that the ter- minator gene would escape from the farm, infect nearby crops and native plants, and render those recipient plants sterile also. Both of these scenarios incite great emotion- al fear in the public mind; as well they should, if they were truly founded on fact. In the first case, terminator tech- nology would indeed require farmers to acquire fresh seed every year. But this is true of current hybrid technology, adopted and accepted by farmers for half a century. Even many farmers in developing countries grow hybrid corn and do buy seed each year. In this respect, terminator is not forcing unwary farmers into buying fresh seed each year, as they are already familiar with the practice, and can choose whether they wish to grow hybrids or not. Ter- minator technology will not deprive farmers of anything they enjoy now. But it would give them an option to choose a new technology that may be beneficial for them, just as many farmers choose hybrids and buy fresh seed year after year. Apart from this, agronomists recommend that farmers buy fresh seed as often as possible, even with those crops and cultivars where seed may be saved for subsequent replanting. Fresh pedigreed seed is cleaner and of higher quality than saved seed, so the upfront fi- nancial outlay is usually compensated by better quality and higher yields at harvest time, translating into better financial returns for the farmer. The second issue can be readily dismissed. The great fear of having life on Earth eradicated by a rampant steril- 1107 13:13 Uhr Seite 1108 Biotechnol. J. 2007, 2, 1105–1111 buy organic food because they believe organic is safer, and to them, their faith that something is true makes it factual, in spite of a lack of evidence to support the belief. The journalist does not challenge the organic consumers with the scientific evidence undermining their beliefs, ei- ther directly to the young couple or to us, the viewers, who may come away with the impression that both sides are equally credible and legitimate. To those with expertise or who apply critical analysis, the interview is ludicrously lopsided, but to the ordinary consumer, it may seem like both sides gave compelling arguments. The journalists, in their own defense, will claim they are merely providing both sides of the story, as is their professional obligation. But this is easily countered: When the same journalists in- terview an astrophysicist on the latest estimates of the age of the universe, they do not also interview a biblical literalist to challenge the scientist and present the ‘other side’. Similarly, when talking to a genetic engineer about advances in medical applications of rDNA, they usually tap a technical competitor to offer alternative approaches, and rarely interview the anti-biotech activists invariably interviewed in agbiotech stories. In these situations, the media is complicit in misleading the populace by pre- senting the inexpert as an expert. Popular opinions on GM crops and foods vary widely. A UK television story presented a relatively positive view- point of a GM crop – a GM safflower modified to produce pharmaceutical grade insulin (BBC-2, 2007 ). The web- page includes a blog service, allowing viewers to respond to the story. Of the 46 coherent (a small number were not) responses to date, the range of opinions (clearly not a sci- entifically valid study, as these are self-selected respon- dents) is reasonably representative of my own anecdotal experience. Seventeen responses (34%) were negative, arguing agricultural biotech is primarily driven by corpo- rate greed; 9 (18%) were negative, saying we do not have enough confidence in managing the risks to food or envi- ronmental safety, 4 (8%) were opposed to humans “mess- ing” with nature, 16 (32%) were more positive, saying let’s take a closer look and allow it if the benefits outweigh the risks. Interestingly, those worried about agbiotech being dominated by big multinational corporations rarely offer to support public institutions in their development of ag- biotech crops for the public good. Public institutions such as USDA and many agricultural universities have been actively pursuing agbiotech crop breeding programs since the early 1980s, at the very beginning of the tech- nology, and were instrumental in forging the enabling technologies. Unfortunately, critics of the big companies perhaps unwittingly condemn small companies and pub- lic institutions at the same time, effectively throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Also noteworthy is that those critical of big company involvement in biotech are curiously silent concerning big company involvement in non-biotech seed, food and Co. KGaA, Weinheim 13:13 Uhr Seite 1109 www.biotechnology-journal.com neutral third party, in which farmers growing GM crops place a pin in the map to mark the location. The neutral third party then notifies interested farmers nearby that a GM crop is being grown, and the interested farmer can take whatever measures appropriate to minimize con- tamination. Critics of this system argue that the plan, be- ing voluntary, is entirely dependent upon the good will of the GM farmer to place the pin in the map. This is a legit- imate concern, but it was the goodwill of regular farmers who voluntarily came to the table with organic farmers in the first place, even though the vote of the ballot initiative gave them the public mandate to ignore their organic neighbors altogether. If and when this coexistence meas- ure is implemented, many jurisdictions will be watching closely to see how well it operates. 5.2 Coexistence in European Union The EU decided the tolerance for commingling, admix- tures or other forms of GM ‘contamination’ are to be lim-. ited to 0.9%, and any exceeding that threshold should be so labeled. In 2003, the European Commission published guidelines for policies to ensure the coexistence of GM, conventional and organic crops (2003/556/EC). In contrast to the California coexistence proposal, the EU co- existence policy imposes the burden of costs on the par- ty introducing an innovation, saying “those farmers bring- ing in the innovation into a region should be the ones tak- ing measures and changing practices if needed to ensure coexistence.” (Gómez-Barbero and Rodríguez-Cerezo, 2007 ). In theory, this policy will allow farmers to choose their crops in peaceful coexistence with those who choose others. But the pragmatic question is how many farmers will accept the seemingly unlimited liabili- ty. The policy also fails to define ‘innovation’, so farmers (and crop breeders) may unnecessarily eschew all manner of new innovations in agriculture, fearing that such inno- vative products as seedless fruit, broccoflower, dwarf wheat or other non-GM developments may run into simi- lar liability issues. 6 Who benefits? One of the common complaints about biotech crops is that they are designed to benefit primarily, if not exclu- sively, the big companies who developed them. To many people suspicious of private enterprise, this seems to make sense, because the GM crops on the market are al- most all modified for input traits like herbicide tolerance or insect resistance, and little or nothing to offer end con- sumers. Various studies have shown, however, that while private companies are in business to compete and report a profit, GM crops do generate benefits to ordinary peo- ple, from the farmers who grow them to the consumers who (ultimately) eat them. For example, GM insect-re- 1109 13:13 Uhr Seite 1110 Biotechnol. J. 2007, 2, 1105–1111 7 Whom do you trust? Ultimately, it comes down to a question of trust. Ordinary consumers do not have the time or inclination to learn the various intricacies or technicalities of molecular genetics and of agriculture generally. They may be interested, even anxious, about agriculture and food safety and security, but most ordinary consumers would rather find someone they trust to champion the public interest and provide ad- vice on esoteric scientific issues. In the USA, public trust is usually afforded to govern- ment agencies to investigate environmental and health hazards, to set and enforce appropriate regulations, and to advise the public in an accessible manner on these is- sues. Biotechnology is not new in this regard, everything from automobiles to barbeques warrants appropriate ex- perts working in the public interest to assure safety, and typically these experts are employed by government agencies. But where do we find such experts? Industry certain- ly employs scientists with appropriate expertise. But in- dustry scientists are usually prohibited from public out- reach – that’s the job of the sales force. And when they do engage in public education, their presentation must con- form to the company line. In addition, activists are sure to point out that industry people cannot be trusted, as their loyalty is to the shareholders, not the public. Similarly, government employs many capable scientists and their loyalty should be to the taxpayers. But, again, activists quickly criticize and challenge the loyalty of government scientists, as public service experts exchange jobs with industry on a regular basis, the “revolving door policy with big industry”, thus undermining their allegiance and credibility. The other major source of scientists with ap- propriate expertise is academia, as both public and pri- vate universities engage in broad research into the issues. But here again, the credibility and loyalty of even public academics is challenged by some activists who point out that many academic research programs are funded by in- dustry, and question whether the academic scientist can be truly objective if their research program is tied to the industry in question. Fortunately, most people do place trust in legitimate experts. Usually, the most trusted sources for scien- tific/medical information are academic scientists. Family physicians are a powerful and influential source of infor- mation, but typically that is restricted to the patient’s own health concerns. And physicians typically are not the most knowledgeable when it comes to agriculture and food issues, and in any case are usually too busy to learn and disseminate such information. Academic scientists working on agriculture and food are knowledgeable and credible sources of meaningful information for ordinary consumers. Unfortunately, typical academic scientists suffer two major deficiencies: One, most academic scien- tists have honed their communication skills to interact Co. KGaA, Weinheim 30.08.2007 13:13 Uhr Seite 1111 www.biotechnology-journal.com Alan McHughen is a public sector edu- cator, scientist and consumer advo- cate. After earning his doctorate at Ox- ford University, Dr. McHughen worked at Yale University and the University of Saskatchewan before joining the Uni- versity of California, Riverside. A molec- ular geneticist with an interest in crop improvement and environmental sus- tainability, he helped develop US and Canadian regulations covering geneti- cally engineered crops and foods. He served on recent US National Academy of Sciences panels investigating the environmental effects of transgenic plants, and a second investigating the health effects of ge- netically modified foods. He is now Past President and Treasurer of and the International Society for Biosafety Research (ISBR). His award win- ning book, ‘Pandora’s Picnic Basket; The Potential and Hazards of Ge- netically Modified Foods’ (Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-850674- 0), uses understandable, consumer-friendly language to explode the myths and explore the genuine risks of genetic modification (GM) technology. to voice CBS-TV News, Are Organic Foods Really Any Safer? Thalia Assuras Reports Some Scientists Believe Organic Foods Are No Healthier. 2007, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/07/eveningnews/ main2660788.shtml. BBC2, The return of GM crops. 2007, http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ newsnight/2007/04/the_return_of_gm_crops.html. Organization for Economic cooperation and Development (OECD), Recombinant DNA safety considerations: safety considerations for industrial, agricultural and environmental applications of organisms derived by recombinant DNA techniques, 1986, http://www.oecd. org/dataoecd/45/54/1943773.pdf National Research Council, Introduction of Recombinant DNA-engi- neered organisms into the environment: Key issues. White paper p. 24. National Academies Press, Washington D.C. 1987. National Research Council, 2002. Environmental effects of trans- genic plants. National Academies Press, Washington DC. National Research Council, Safety of genetically engineered foods. National Academies Press, Washington D.C. 2004. Official Journal of the European Union, 2003, http://europa.eu. int/eur-lex/pri/en/oj/dat/2003/l_189/l_18920030729en00360047.pdf Zika, E., Papatryfon, I., Wolf, O., Gómez-Barbero, M. et al., Conse- quences, opportunities and challenges of modern biotechnology for Europe, 2007, http://bio4eu.jrc.es/documents/Bio4EUsynthesisre- portEUR22728EN.pdf. See also, Gómez-Barbero, M., Rodríguez- Cerezo, E., GM crops in EU agriculture. Case study for the BIO4EU project (Draft). European Commission, 2007. Dalmacio, S. C., Lugod, T., Serrano, R. E.M., Munkvold, G. P., Re- duced incidence of bacterial rot on transgenic insect-resistant maize in the Philippines. Plant Dis. 2007, 91:346–351. James, C., Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops, 2006 ISAAA report 35. ISAAA, Ithaca, NY 2007, http://www.isaaa.org/re- sources/publications/briefs/35/highlights/default.html. Aquino, H. L., Lang, J. Brookes, G., Barfoot, P., GM Crops: The First Ten Years - Global So- cio-Economic and Environmental Impacts. ISAAA Brief 36. ISAAA, Ithaca, NY 2006, http://www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/ briefs/36/default.html. USDA-Foreign Agriculture Service, France, Biotechnology Positive 2006 Results & New Regulatory Framework Improve 2007 Prospects. GAIN report FR7013, 2007, http://www.fas.usda.gov/gainfiles/ 200703/146280665.pdf. National Science Foundation (NSF), Science and Engineering indi- cators, 2006. http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind06/c7/c7s3.htm# C. et al., Europeans c7s3l4. See also: IPSOS-MORI, 2006 Public Trust In Doctors Is Still High, http://www.ipsos-mori.com/polls/2006/rcp.shtml and Canadi- ic_opinion/ar- an Biotechnology Secretariat, Canada-U.S. Survey on Biotechnolo- gy, Ottawa 2005. 1111

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