Focus on the Americas

EXCERPTS: Unease over genetically modified food continues to rise among Canadians with three out of five saying such foods provide more risks than benefits, according to a recently released federal government poll.

"Canadians are not yet at a point where they feel comfortable with genetically modified food. In fact, comfort levels have continually declined," said a summary of the results prepared for senior federal officials.
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Majority uneasy about GM food
Canadians cool to altered crops
Poll shows most favour labelling
PETER CALAMAI, SCIENCE REPORTER
Toronto Star, 11 October, 2004.

OTTAWA - Unease over genetically modified food continues to rise among Canadians with three out of five saying such foods provide more risks than benefits, according to a recently released federal government poll.

This concern translated into a majority (53 per cent) of adult Canadians telling pollsters working for Ottawa that they were uncomfortable buying foods with genetically modified ingredients. Only 31 per cent gave the same answer in the first such survey five years ago.

Three in four Canadians indicated support for mandatory labelling if foodstuffs contain any GM ingredients, a move the federal government has consistently rejected as unnecessary.

The food industry estimates that between two-thirds and three-quarters of processed foods already contain GM ingredients or come from plants than have been genetically engineered.

"Canadians are not yet at a point where they feel comfortable with genetically modified food. In fact, comfort levels have continually declined," said a summary of the results prepared for senior federal officials.

Carried out in March by Decima Research, the telephone survey also found that the proportion of Canadians "very willing" to hand over their genetic information to researchers had plunged to 37 per cent from 56 per cent a year previous.

This growing concern over privacy eventually may "affect views about how health research is done and how people's personal genetic information is used in that research," said Decima's summary, quietly posted on the website of the Canadian Biotechnology Secretariat.

The summary provided only selected results from the telephone survey of 778 Canadians and 781 Americans done between March 19 and 30. A sample of this size reflects general public opinion within 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The margin of error is greater when comparing results between Canada and the U.S.