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Surprising Science — January 19, 2015

Survey Results Suggest Americans Can’t Tell Difference Between GMOs and DNA

A recent survey conducted by the Oklahoma State University Department of Agricultural Economics found that the percentage of Americans who support labels on foods containing GMOs also support labels on food containing DNA.

Robert Montenegro

A recent survey conducted by the Oklahoma State University Department of Agricultural Economics found that the percentage of Americans who support labels on foods containing GMOs also support labels on food containing DNA… which is to say, nearly all food. A stupefied Robbie Gonzalez explains at io9:

“The results smack of satire, but they’re real… The results indicate that most Americans do not understand the difference between DNA and a genetically modified food. The former is genetic material essential to life as we know it. The latter is an edible organism, the genetic material of which has been altered for some purpose. One is a building block, the other is the result of a process that alters those building blocks to some end. Given that a label warning of a food’s DNA content would be, for all intents and purposes, as meaningless as a label warning of, say, its water content, the survey results reflect an unsettling degree of scientific ignorance in the American population.”

Check out his piece (linked again below) and let us know what you think.

Read more at io9

Photo credit: Jezper / Shutterstock

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