2015年7月6日

当墨西哥风味快餐店今年早期宣布出于安全原因将不再供应由转基因作物制作的食物时，顾客非常欣喜。但这里面有一个大问题：虽然越来越多的美国人开始警惕转基因食物，科学团体则正相反。现在科学家对转基因食物的食用安全性几乎没有异议。美国食品药品管理局，世界卫生组织以及美国医疗协会都认为转基因适于人们消费。

然而科学家与美国大众间的分歧越来越大。去年秋天近百分之60的美国人相信转基因作物“通常不安全”，而在2000年，这一数字只有百分之50。

俄克拉荷马国立大学农业经济学家杰森·勒斯克说这里面其实有许多原因。杰森·勒斯克从二十世纪九十年代后期转基因作物进入市场以来一直从事人们反对转基因作物的研究。勒斯克认为这种分歧就像之前科学团体与普通大众之间关于气候变化的分歧一样，但在生物技术方面更难改变人们的想法。

我与勒斯克进行了交流，了解人们为什么这么惧怕转基因作物，为什么他认为人们其实不应该惧怕，如何才能让人们不再惧怕。出于篇幅和条理原因本文对采访做了一些编辑。

问：我们直奔主题。关于转基因作物的争论—无论是正面还是反面—是什么时候开始的。

答：已经有许多年了。90年代后期第一代生物科技作物进入市场之后引起人们关注，当然有些群体表示反对，但总体上反对人士不是明显多数。

说实话其实是那些天然食物和有机产品销售商让转基因食物受到所有人关注。我不想说他们煽动起人们的恐惧，但有这种成分，至少一定程度上这有助于销售他们的产品。有些广告，这些广告指出他们的产品不含转基因作物，这引起消费者的警觉。

问：你本人一直在跟踪消费者的想法，对吗？

答：到现在为止我已经进行了两年的月民意调查,跟踪人们对不同食物问题的关切。对生物技术和转基因食物的担忧是我们跟踪对象之一。到目前为止，至少是对最近这两年，我掌握人们认知和担忧变化的月数据。

问：这些数据告诉我们什么？

答：总体上人们的感觉有好有坏，但不像大多数人想的那样明显。我们问人们最近几周他们是否听说过转基因食物，然后我们又问现在你对转基因食物有什么担忧。回应有所变化。有时非常负面，尤其是新闻里有对转基因食物的负面消息时，但总体上人们的观点变化不大。我是说人们当然对转基因食物的态度没有变好，但人们所持的负面印象一直很稳定。

问：人们究竟对转基因食物担心什么？

答：大多数人并不了解转基因食物。一般人不会花许多时间考虑它。但是如果人们看到转基因标签，他们可能会产生反感。转基因食品看上去有些不自然，人们心理上倾向于喜欢天然食物，不喜欢食物有什么形式的革新。这在心理方面让人们反感转基因食物。

所以本质上人们并不是先天强烈反对转基因食物，人们之所以这样就像他们对一些添加物或不寻常的东西有负面反应一样。

问：所以人们并不是专门反对转基因食物

答：不是这样，我是说他们是在反对转基因食物，但是属于广泛反对生物工程技术的一部分，反对人们不了解的东西。

我认为许多方面这有点类似于在食物标签上标识“本食物含X”,X可以是人们从来没听说过或不了解的任何东西，因此上听起来有些奇怪。

我们确实做了这样的测试，我们在苹果上贴上这样的标识“本苹果由乙烯熟化”，这本来是非常常用且安全的方法。但是人们对这些苹果的反感就像对转基因食物的反感一样，因为人们不知道乙烯是什么。

人们并不去区分这些。他们只是不熟悉，害怕食物中不熟悉的东西。

问：你对给转基因食物贴标识怎么看？

答：如果存在明显的健康和安全隐患，我认为毋庸置疑是必须的。比如说对花生就是这样，因为许多人对花生过敏。营养标识也一样，因为我们知道你消耗的卡路里量和其他营养成分与你的健康直接有关。

这是法规方面理由来标识食物。

但是科学团体大体上有共识，转基因作物与传统作物安全方面没有什么差别，给转基因食物贴标识会有什么好处并不明确。

这是我反对的。如果转基因作物没有健康风险，为什么要强迫标识？

自愿标识是另一回事。市场上有各种各样自愿标识。每个人关注点不同，有人愿意付出更多费用。自愿标识非转基因产品有健康的市场，我不认为这有什么问题。这不是说人们不会滥用信任。我曾看到食盐上面标识有非转基因食品，食盐不可能是转基因，因为食盐是矿物，不含脱氧核糖核酸（DNA）。

对赞同和反对转基因食品标识的争论我都理解。我本人倾向于反对标识。因为我认为进行标识可能花费昂贵。

问：好，现在让我们谈谈将来。你会不会认为现在是反转基因的高峰期？

答：事实上我不知道。这很难预测，比人们想象的要难的多。

假定出现了大的食品安全恐慌，即使与转基因作物有一点点关系，那也会很快左右人们的意见。现在看起来这种情况不会发生，我当然不认为以后会发生，但不是完全不可能。

也有可能走向另一面，如果有人引入了一种引起公众兴趣但不会令他们恐慌的生物工程作物，人们会转而接受这种易亲近的转基因作物，不再像以前那样认为转基因作物怪异。

新的极地苹果就是一个很好的例子，极地苹果不会发生褐变，特别是如果不是由孟山都那种大的农业巨头生产。

人们可能刚刚意识到他们吃的大多数奶酪是由转基因酶制作而成。糖尿病患者使用的胰岛素是由转基因细菌或酵母制作。

问：所以你认为人们不太相信由大企业生产的转基因作物？

答：当然。人们最大担忧之一就是这些大型农化企业从中获利。比如它们会从销售更多的种子或除草剂中获利。

人们不知道有些转基因作物是由非营利组织和大学生产，这些作物可以降低化学品或化肥的使用。有些转基因作物不再需要杀虫剂和除草剂。

问：你能想到其他一些克服消费者恐惧的技术吗？

答：牛奶巴氏杀菌就是一个很好的例子。早期人们对巴氏杀菌非常陌生，没人知道如何理解巴氏杀菌。现今巴氏杀菌被广泛接受，人们认为巴氏杀菌改善牛奶安全。

另一个例子是微波炉。今天家家户户都用微波炉，但回到二十世纪七十年代，没有人敢使用微波炉。人们需要一段时间来接受。

但是像辐射杀菌这种非常安全的技术手段人们似乎一直抱有怀疑。

问：那人们为什么容易接受有些技术，但不接受另一些技术？

答：有关人们对危险的反应，有一个理论认为他们对危险程度的认知取决于他们的熟悉程度。一般来说越是不熟悉的东西，人们会认为越危险。另一方面是可控程度。如果我们认为我们有很强的控制力，我们会倾向于认为不危险。

把这两者放在一起，如果我们对一件事物既不能控制也不熟悉，那我们会认为该事物极其危险，即使一点危险也没有。

这似乎是需要给转基因作物贴标识的一个理由。那样的话人们可能认为自己可以选择，如果他们不喜欢，他们可以不买，这样他们可能会不再认为转基因食物危险。

不管怎样，这是非常主观的。如果人们对危险程度有客观认识，那人们应该非常害怕汽车，每年丧身汽车的人远远多于其他原因。但人们似乎不认为汽车危险。

问：所以你不会打赌未来人们会接受转基因食物？

答：我不知道将来会发生什么，但是我可以告诉你我希望什么.

我希望人们更加乐观一点，对生物科技持更加正面态度一点。明年我会出一本书，叫“非天然美味”，描写食品世界各种革新。我对食品世界的发展非常激动。

总体上我希望关于转基因作物的讨论可以上升的一个高度。事实上人们对转基因作物的大多数担忧，特别是关于使用杀虫剂和除草剂方面，都会消失。新的技术将不需要这些这些。

我不是说我们应该不管喜欢不喜欢什么都接受。在食物里不能引入新的过敏源，这很重要。因为生物工程可以做出很多，许多东西我们不会容许，也不应该容许。

我感到满意的是这就像关于气候变化的讨论。早期各家媒体都有不同观点。但随着科学团体形成共识，人们关于科学说法有了更多的一致意见。

原文链接：

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/06/why-people-are-so-scared-of-gmos-according-to-someone-who-has-studied-the-fear-since-the-start/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5615ef157966

原文：

Why we’re so scared of GMOs, according to someone who has studied them since the start

When Chipotle announced earlier this year that it would no longer serve food made with genetically modified organisms because of safety concerns, customers rejoiced. But there was one big problem: Just as more Americans grow wary of GMOs, the scientific community is moving in the opposite direction. There is now near unanimity among scientists that GMOs are safe to eat. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association have all said that GMOs are fine for consumption.

Yet the divergence between scientists and the American public has only grown bigger. As of last fall, nearly 60 percent of Americans believed that GMOs were "generally unsafe." Back in 2000, the population was pretty much evenly split.

There are many reasons for this, says Jayson Lusk, an agricultural economist at Oklahoma State University, who has been studying people's aversion to GMOs ever since they were introduced in the late 1990s. Lusk likens the split to the disagreement that once existed between the scientific community and general public about climate change but warns that it can be hard to change people's minds about biotechnology.

I spoke with Lusk to learn why people are so scared of GMOs, why he believes they shouldn't be, and what it will take to allay that fear. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Let's get right to the heart of this. When did all this GMO talk— both positive and negative — start?

The topic was pretty under the radar for many years. There was some interest when the first biotech crops hit the market in the late '90s, and there were groups, of course, that opposed them, but by and large it wasn’t a significant majority of people.

What brought it to everyone's attention was, quite frankly, the sellers of many natural foods and organic products. I don’t want to say that they were stoking people’s fears, but they kind of were, at least to the extent that that helps sales of their own products. So there was some of that advertising, and the advertising that pitched products as not containing GMOs, which raised consumer awareness.

And you have tracked consumer sentiment yourself, right?

I have conducted a monthly survey for two years now, which tracks awareness and concern for different food issues. And yeah, one of the concerns we track is biotechnology and GMOs. So for at least two years, I have had a kind of monthly finger on the pulse of knowledge and fear.

What has it shown?

The general sense is that there are ups and downs in how people feel, but they aren’t as noticeable or significant as most people think. We ask people whether they have heard about GMOs in recent weeks, and then we ask, you know, how concerned are you about GMOs right now. The responses vary a bit. Sometimes the views are more negative, especially if there is some form of negative news about GMOs out there, but generally it hasn’t changed all that much. I mean, people certainly aren't feeling better about GMOs, but their aversion has been steady.

What exactly is it about GMOs that people are so scared of?

Most people don’t have a lot of knowledge about GMOs. The average person hasn’t spent much time thinking about it. Nonetheless, if they were to see a label about them, they would likely be averse to them. It’s something that seems a little unnatural, and there’s a psychological tendency to desire naturalness in food and avoid some forms of novelty in food. That plays into a psychological bias that we have against them.

So it’s not necessarily that people have a strong, innate aversion to GMOs, per se, so much as that they have a negative reaction to something that seems like an additive or unusual.

So people aren’t necessarily averse to GMOs specifically?

Not really. I mean, they are, but it's part of a more general aversion to biotechnology, to things people don't understand.

In a lot of ways, I think it’s akin to anything that appears on a label that says “may contain X,” where X is literally anything people haven’t heard of or don’t understand, and because of that, sounds somewhat strange.

We actually tested this with a label on apples that said “this apple is ripened using ethylene,” which is a very commonly used and safe process. But people were as averse to those apples as they were to GMOs, simply because they didn’t know what ethylene was.

People aren’t really differentiating a whole lot in between these things. They are just unfamiliar, scary sounding things about food.

How do you feel about GMO labeling?

If there’s some demonstrable health or safety risk, I think it’s without question a must. That’s true for, say, peanuts, because so many people are allergic. It’s also true of nutritional labels, because we know that the number of calories and other nutrients you consume has a direct relationship to your health.

Those are legitimate reasons to label foods.

But since the scientific community is more or less in agreement that GMO crops are no more harmful than traditional crops, it is less clear what is the purpose of benefits of a label.

My aversion is that one. If there isn’t a health risk associated with GMO crops, then why force a mandatory label?

Now, voluntary labels are another thing. There are all sorts of voluntary labels out there. There are many things that people care about individually and are willing to pay more for. There’s a pretty healthy market for voluntary non-GMO products, and I don’t see anything wrong with that. That’s not to say that I don’t see abuses of people’s trust. I have seen salt labeled as non-GMO, when salt, by definition, cannot be genetically modified, since it’s a mineral and doesn’t contain DNA.

At the end of the day, I guess I see the value in both arguments. But I tend to side with the anti-labeling side, because I think the costs are likely larger.

Okay, let's talk about the future now. Would you say that we have hit the peak of GMO aversion?

You know, I actually have no idea. These things are really hard to predict, much harder than most people realize.

Let’s suppose you had some really large food safety scare, which touched GMO crops even tangentially. That would sway opinions incredibly quickly. Now that doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen, and I certainly don’t think it will, but it’s not out of the question.

The other way it could go, however, is that someone introduces a biotech crop that captures the public’s imagination but doesn’t scare them. That way, people warm up to a GMO crop that is more approachable, and in doing so become desensitized to the bizarreness or strangeness about GMO crops that they once felt.

A perfect example is this new arctic apple, which doesn’t brown, especially if it isn’t made by some big agricultural behemoth, like Monsanto.

But people might also just realize that most of the cheese they eat is made with enzymes that are genetically engineered. Diabetics, after all, use insulin that is made from a genetically engineered bacteria or yeast.

So you think people are less likely to believe in GMO crops if they’re made by big companies?

Definitely. One of the biggest concerns people have is that we have these big agrochemical companies benefiting from this technology. It’s benefiting them, for instance, by allowing them to sell more seeds or herbicides.

What people don't know is that some of those crops are now being produced by nonprofits and at universities, and those crops would actually reduce the need for any chemical inputs or fertilizer inputs. Some of them get rid of the need for pesticides and herbicides altogether.

Can you think of other forms of technology that have overcome consumer fears?

A perfect example is pasteurization in milk. At very least, it was very strange to people, and no one knew what to think about it. But today it’s widely accepted and viewed as improving the safety of milk.

Another one is microwaves. Everyone has them in their home today, but back in the 1970s it was close to zero. It took a bit for them to catch on, for people to warm up to them.

But then there are things like food irradiation that are perfectly safe but people seem to be permanently skeptical of.

Why do people warm to certain things but not others?

One of the theories about why how people respond to risks is that their perceived level of riskiness depends on how familiar something is to them. In general, things that are more unfamiliar will be perceived as riskier. The other thing is control. When we believe we have more control over something, we tend to view it as being less risky.

So if you put those two things together, things that we have little control of and are unfamiliar will seem extremely risky to people, even if they shouldn’t.

What’s interesting is that that actually might point to a reason to label GMO products. That way people might feel as though they have more control, that they can avoid them if they choose to, and therefore view them as being less risky.

Anyway, it’s a pretty subjective thing. If people were objective about risk, they would be much more worried about cars, which kill more people every year than most anything else. But they’re not.

So you're not willing to bet on whether people will eventually come around on GMOs?

I don’t know what will actually happen, but I can tell you what I hope will happen.

I hope people will be a bit more optimistic, a bit more positive in their view of biotechnology. I have a book coming out next year called "Unnaturally Delicious," that looks at all different sorts of innovations in the food world. I’m very excited about advancements in the space.

In general, I’d like to elevate the conversation about GMOs beyond the current one. The truth is that many of the concerns people have with GMOs, especially those tied to the use of pesticides and herbicides, will wither away. The technology that we have coming down the pipeline won’t require their use.

I’m not saying we should adopt everything willy-nilly. It’s very important that we not introduce new allergens into the food system. Because biotechnology allows for so many things, there will inevitably be many things we simply can’t approve, and shouldn’t.

What I find comforting about the discussion is that it seems to be somewhat analogous to the discussion on climate change. Early on, many of the media outlets had positions all over the place. But as a scientific consensus has formed, there has been much more agreement about what the science says.