Europeans' suspicions about GM foods have been shown to be more deep-rooted than commonly perceived and they do not coincide with the recent eruption of the "Frankenstein foods" controversy, a new study has found.
Surveys conducted in 1996 and 1997, details of which are published in the latest issue of Science magazine, show Europeans felt threatened by genetic engineering; uneasy about scientists tampering with nature and distrustful of those who regulated the technology - long before the GM food controversy.
Yet, despite having an inferior textbook knowledge of the science involved, the average American was much more supportive of GM foods and US regulatory authorities, although less happy with genetic testing and animal-to-human transplants.
The results of a survey of 1,000 people from each of the 15 EU countries as well as Norway and Switzerland in 1996, were compared with the results from a US survey a year later.
Dr George Gaskell from the London School of Economics, who led the research, said: "In comparison with the US public, the European public are more anxious, less trusting of the regulatory procedures, less likely to be reassured by arguments about health and safety, more inclined to view agricultural biotech as a threat to the environment and to the moral order, and more likely to associate GM foods with menacing images of adulteration, infection and monsters."
There were many reasons for such marked difference, he said. One was probably recent food scares in Europe, notably those surrounding BSE-infected beef. These had "sensitised large sections of the European public to potential dangers inherent in industrial farming practices and the lack of effective regulatory oversight".
Europeans also tended to view farmland as an important environmental resource, whereas this was not the case in the US, where farms were not considered an amenity.
Media coverage may have played a part in colouring opinion, but not in the way most people thought. Between 1984 and 1996, European newspapers carried more stories about food biotechnology than the Washington Post. European coverage was generally more positive, even when the European public's aversion towards GM foods was growing.
It seemed likely that Europeans were responding suspiciously to the increased quantity of headlines about a controversial topic, rather than being swayed by the stories themselves.
