Spinning the Polls
Posted by Pete Shanks December 8, 2006
Biopolitical Times
Americans remain skeptical, at best, of biotechnology, especially when applied to animals. That's the lesson of the newly released 2006 Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology poll.
But it's not the point that the Mellman Group, which has been conducting these surveys for Pew since 2001, tries to make in the introduction. That bravely suggests that:
In particular, we still don’t like animal cloning, even if we know about it, and still don’t want to eat the meat of cloned animals. Over 60% of us are uncomfortable with animal cloning (61% of those who are familiar with the topic, 68% of those who have somehow managed to block it out), and barely 20% are comfortable. That's consistent with other polls, some of which are collected at PollingReport.com.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is reported to be preparing approval of cloned meat later this month. Which may be part of the reason why trust in the FDA has declined over the last five years from 41% to 29%, according to the Pew report. At that, the FDA is still doing better than food manufacturers (trusted by 14%), biotechnology companies (11%) or the news media (9%).
The 2003 Pew survey rather dramatically demonstrated that Americans are less and less comfortable with the idea of modifying organisms as they get closer to us: animals are a much bigger concern than plants, and humans, well, forget about it. And that study presented people with what the researchers presumably thought were attractive suggestions -- grass that didn’t have to be mowed as often, beef with less fat, cheaper fish. The simple summary: Plants, maybe; animals, unlikely; humans, definitely not.
That seems to be a consistent message; this talk of opinion being "fluid" sounds like spin.
More data should be available soon: The sixth annual Virginia Commonwealth University poll on public attitudes to life sciences is due within a couple of weeks.
But it's not the point that the Mellman Group, which has been conducting these surveys for Pew since 2001, tries to make in the introduction. That bravely suggests that:
Americans' attitudes towards genetic modification remain fluid, and the opportunity to shape public opinion is ripe.Really? And in what direction do they hope to shape it? The whole tone of the report is supportive of biotechnology. But when the topic is animal -- or human -- modification, the report's own results show that proponents have an difficult task ahead.
In particular, we still don’t like animal cloning, even if we know about it, and still don’t want to eat the meat of cloned animals. Over 60% of us are uncomfortable with animal cloning (61% of those who are familiar with the topic, 68% of those who have somehow managed to block it out), and barely 20% are comfortable. That's consistent with other polls, some of which are collected at PollingReport.com.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is reported to be preparing approval of cloned meat later this month. Which may be part of the reason why trust in the FDA has declined over the last five years from 41% to 29%, according to the Pew report. At that, the FDA is still doing better than food manufacturers (trusted by 14%), biotechnology companies (11%) or the news media (9%).
The 2003 Pew survey rather dramatically demonstrated that Americans are less and less comfortable with the idea of modifying organisms as they get closer to us: animals are a much bigger concern than plants, and humans, well, forget about it. And that study presented people with what the researchers presumably thought were attractive suggestions -- grass that didn’t have to be mowed as often, beef with less fat, cheaper fish. The simple summary: Plants, maybe; animals, unlikely; humans, definitely not.
That seems to be a consistent message; this talk of opinion being "fluid" sounds like spin.
More data should be available soon: The sixth annual Virginia Commonwealth University poll on public attitudes to life sciences is due within a couple of weeks.