How many genetically modified foods do we eat

People who are more personally concerned about the issue of GM foods are especially worried that such foods will lead to health and environmental problems for society. In contrast, majorities of those who are less engaged with this issue say environmental and health problems stemming from GM foods are not too or not at all likely. These expectations of risks for society from GM foods are in keeping with the wide differences among these groups in their views of the health risks associated with eating GM foods.

Men and women have somewhat different expectations for GM foods. Men are more optimistic, while women are more pessimistic about the likely impact of GM foods on society. These modest differences in expectations by gender are in keeping with other studies.

There are modest generational differences in expected effects from GM foods. Adults ages 65 and older are less pessimistic than their younger counterparts about the likely effects of GM foods for society; more adults ages 65 and older say harm to the environment or to public health from GM foods is not at all or not too likely to occur.

But younger adults, especially those ages 18 to 29, are more likely to think that GMOs will result in more affordably priced foods. Those with high science knowledge are more optimistic in their expectations that GM foods will bring benefits to society. Education, which is closely linked with levels of science knowledge, shows a similar pattern.

Postgraduate degree-holders are more inclined to say GM foods are very likely to increase the global food supply and to lead to more affordably priced food than those with less education.

Public views of scientists and their understanding about the health risks and benefits of GM foods are mixed and, often, skeptical. Most Americans perceive considerable disagreement among scientific experts about whether or not GM foods are safe to eat. While most people trust scientists more than they trust each of several other groups to give full and accurate information about the health effects of GM foods, only a minority of the public says they have a lot of trust in scientists to do this.

At the same time, most Americans say that scientists should have a major role in policy decisions about GM foods, but so, too, should small farm owners and the general public. Fewer Americans say that food industry leaders should play a major role at the policy-making table.

But views of scientists connected with GM foods are often similar among those who with deep personal concern about the issue of GM foods and those with less concern.

Differences are more pronounced between these groups when it comes to views of industry influence on scientific research findings and trust in food industry leaders to give full and accurate information about the health effects of GM foods. In other respects, people with deeper concern about this issue vary only modestly from other Americans in their views of scientists and the scientific research on GM foods.

A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine concluded there was no persuasive evidence that genetically engineered crops have caused health or environmental problems. For example, those who view GM foods as worse for health are especially inclined to say that there is little agreement among scientists about the safety of GM foods.

Past Pew Research Center studies have found a similar pattern when it comes to perceptions of scientific consensus and beliefs about climate change as well as beliefs about evolution. Across all levels of concern about this issue, few see broad consensus among scientists that GM foods are safe to eat.

Similarly, people who have heard or read a lot about GM foods are far more likely than those who have heard or read nothing about this issue to see consensus among scientists that GM foods are safe. About one-third of Americans say scientists understand the risks and benefits of eating GM foods not too well or not at all well. Those who perceive broad scientific consensus on the safety of GM foods are more likely to think scientists understand this topic.

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This is what most people mean when they refer to genetically modified organisms GMOs — genes being artificially inserted into a different plant to improve yield, tolerance to heat or drought, to produce better drugs or even to add a vitamin. Under conventional breeding, such changes might take decades. Added genes provide a shortcut. Cisgenic simply means the gene inserted or moved, or duplicated comes from the same or a very closely related species.

Inserting genes from unrelated species transgenic is substantially more challenging — this is the only technique in our spectrum of GM technology that can produce an organism that could not occur naturally.

Yet the case for it might still be compelling. Since the s several crops have been engineered with a gene from the soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis. While unlikely — many fail safe approaches are designed to prevent this — it is of course possible.

All of these methods continue to be used. Snow is known for her research on "gene flow," the movement of genes via pollen and seeds from one population of plants to another, and she and some other environmental scientists worry that genetically engineered crops are being developed too quickly and released on millions of acres of farmland before they've been adequately tested for their possible long-term ecological impact.

Advocates of genetically engineered crops argue that the plants offer an environmentally friendly alternative to pesticides, which tend to pollute surface and groundwater and harm wildlife.

The use of Bt varieties has dramatically reduced the amount of pesticide applied to cotton crops. But the effects of genetic engineering on pesticide use with more widely grown crops are less clear-cut. What might be the effect of these engineered plants on so-called nontarget organisms, the creatures that visit them? Concerns that crops with built-in insecticides might damage wildlife were inflamed in by the report of a study suggesting that Bt corn pollen harmed monarch butterfly caterpillars.

Monarch caterpillars don't feed on corn pollen, but they do feed on the leaves of milkweed plants, which often grow in and around cornfields. Entomologists at Cornell University showed that in the laboratory Bt corn pollen dusted onto milkweed leaves stunted or killed some of the monarch caterpillars that ate the leaves. For some environmental activists this was confirmation that genetically engineered crops were dangerous to wildlife.

But follow-up studies in the field, reported last fall, indicate that pollen densities from Bt corn rarely reach damaging levels on milkweed, even when monarchs are feeding on plants within a cornfield. Perhaps a bigger concern has to do with insect evolution. Crops that continuously make Bt may hasten the evolution of insects impervious to the pesticide.

Such a breed of insect, by becoming resistant to Bt, would rob many farmers of one of their safest, most environmentally friendly tools for fighting the pests. To delay the evolution of resistant insects, U. Farmers must plant a moat or "refuge" of conventional crops near their engineered crops. The idea is to prevent two resistant bugs from mating.

The few insects that emerge from Bt fields resistant to the insecticide would mate with their nonresistant neighbors living on conventional crops nearby; the result could be offspring susceptible to Bt. The theory is that if growers follow requirements, it will take longer for insects to develop resistance. It was difficult initially to convince farmers who had struggled to keep European corn borers off their crops to let the insects live and eat part of their acreage to combat resistance.

But a survey by major agricultural biotech companies found that almost 90 percent of U. Many ecologists believe that the most damaging environmental impact of biotech crops may be gene flow. Could transgenes that confer resistance to insects, disease, or harsh growing conditions give weeds a competitive advantage, allowing them to grow rampantly? Still, Snow says, "even a very low probability event could occur when you're talking about thousands of acres planted with food crops.

While no known superweeds have yet emerged, Snow thinks it may just be a matter of time. Given the risks, many ecologists believe that industry should step up the extent and rigor of its testing and governments should strengthen their regulatory regimes to more fully address environmental effects.

But right now only one percent of USDA biotech research money goes to risk assessment. Genetic engineering can help address the urgent problems of food shortage and hunger, say Prakash and many other scientists. It can increase crop yields, offer crop varieties that resist pests and disease, and provide ways to grow crops on land that would otherwise not support farming because of drought conditions, depleted soils, or soils plagued by excess salt or high levels of aluminum and iron.

The farmers just plant the seeds, and the seeds bring new features in the plants. Some critics of genetic engineering argue that the solution to hunger and malnutrition lies in redistributing existing food supplies. Others believe that the ownership by big multinational companies of key biotechnology methods and genetic information is crippling public-sector efforts to use this technology to address the needs of subsistence farmers.

The large companies that dominate the industry, critics also note, are not devoting significant resources to developing seed technology for subsistence farmers because the investment offers minimal returns.

And by patenting key methods and materials, these companies are stifling the free exchange of seeds and techniques vital to public agricultural research programs, which are already under severe financial constraints. All of this bodes ill, say critics, for farmers in the developing world. Prakash agrees that there's enough food in the world. People say that this technology is just earning profit for big companies. This is true to some extent, but the knowledge that companies have developed in the production of profitable crops can easily be transferred and applied to help developing nations.

The debate over the use of biotechnology in developing countries recently went from simmer to boil about rice, which is eaten by three billion people and grown on hundreds of millions of small farms. It has very little iron, and virtually no vitamin A. According to the World Health Organization, between million and million children in the world suffer from vitamin A deficiency, some , go blind every year because of that deficiency, and half of those children die within a year of losing their sight.

Skeptics consider golden rice little more than a public relations ploy by the biotechnology industry, which they say exaggerated its benefits. Golden rice does not contain much beta-carotene, and whether it will improve vitamin A levels remains to be seen. Potrykus and Beyer are now developing new versions of the rice that may be more effective in delivering beta-carotene for the body to convert to vitamin A.