Paris

Public scepticism in Europe towards biotechnology has increased in Europe over the past three years. But at the same time, public confidence in all sources of information about biotechnology — including both environmentalist and academic groups — has fallen, according to an opinion survey published last week.

The poll, taken last year as part of the regular Eurobarometer exercise funded by the European Commission, surveyed 16,000 people in the 15 member states of the European Union. It assessed their attitudes towards new developments such as information technology, telecommunications, space exploration and new materials.

While the approval levels of these categories have stayed stable since the previous poll three years ago, biotechnology suffered a significant drop: 41 per cent of those polled said that biotechnology would improve the quality of life in the next 20 years, compared with 47 per cent in 1997. Only nuclear technology ranked lower on the confidence scale, with 26 per cent support.

Some researchers, however, were surprised that the drop in confidence was not greater. “Considering the scale of the debate on GMOs, we were expecting Europeans to show even more distrust now than three years ago,” says Daniel Boy, director of research at the Centre d'étude de la vie politique française, one of the groups in the study.

Opinions vary widely on the applications of biotechnology. Most of those polled favoured genetic screening for inherited diseases, the use of GM organisms to clean up pollution, and of genetic engineering to develop medicines and vaccines. But the production of GM foods, cloning human cells or tissue to treat patients, and cloning animals for medical applications received much less support.

One of the most marked changes since 1997, according to the poll, is the drop in public trust in professional organizations. Only 17 per cent see international institutions as reliable sources of information, and just 15 per cent view national public authorities as dependable.

Eurobarometer also found that respondents feel inadequately informed about biotechnology — 81 per cent feel uninformed on these issues.