Sir

Your Editorial “Going public” (Nature 431, 883; 2004doi:10.1038/431883a) says “British scientists have seen the public swayed by misleading media coverage of genetically modified (GM) food and vaccines”. What evidence do you have for suggesting that there was more media bias one way or the other?

The evidence in the scientific literature suggests that public attitudes to GM foods in a number of European countries were formed independently of the scale and nature of media coverage (see S. Mayer and A. Stirling EMBO Rep. 5, 1021–1024; 2004, and C. Marris, B. Wynne, P. Simmons and S. Weldon Public Perceptions of Biotechnologies in Europe at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/ieppp/pabe/docs.htm).

This message will be as unwelcome to some on the anti-GM side (who fall into the trap of judging their success by the amount of coverage they get) as to pro-GM scientists and companies, who would rather think that their products were rejected because of unfair media coverage than simply because the public did not want them. Of course, the group to whom this conclusion is least palatable is journalists, who like to think their readers believe every word they write.

However, this ability to make decisions independently of media coverage supports your contention that scientists should trust the public to make a sensible contribution to discussions on research priorities.