European support for GMOs continues to plummet

Tuesday, November 16, 2010 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: GMOs, Europe, health news

(NaturalNews) Europeans are growing weary of all the pro-GMO (genetically-modified organism) propaganda being spewed by multinational biotechnology companies like Monsanto, and polls now show that strong support for GMOs has reached a low of roughly five percent. In other words, somewhere in the vicinity of 95 percent of Europeans now view GMOs with skepticism, while the majority perceive them as outright unsafe and lacking any supposed benefits.

The Eurobarometer survey used to determine the current popularity of GMOs has seen a downward trend in the popularity of GMOs since at least the mid-1990s. Even in Spain, the most pro-GMO country in Europe, support for GMOs has dropped by 20 percent in the last five years.

The study found that 70 percent of Europeans believe GMOs are fundamentally unnatural, while nearly 60 percent believe they are a threat to the health of themselves and their families. Fifty-eight percent believe GMOs are not safe for future generations.

"The survey provides EU (European Union) decision-makers with an unequivocal answer: the majority of Europeans are opposed to the development of GM food in Europe," explained Marco Contiero from Greenpeace, concerning the study. "This clearly shows that public opposition to GM food is based on knowledge and choice, not on ignorance as the biotech industry has claimed for years."

In a recent U.S. poll conducted by The Economist, 62 percent of respondents indicated their belief that biotechnology, and GMOs in particular, are not compatible with sustainable agriculture (https://www.naturalnews.com/030370_GMO_biotec...). However in the U.S., GMO products are not transparently labeled like they are in Europe, so many Americans are still unaware of how pervasive GMOs actually are in the food supply.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news...

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/...