Consumers’ Different Attitudes towards Genetically Modified Food in the United States and China

Abstract

Genetically modified food is a hot topic in the global. Consumers’ attitudes have been studied for more than one decade in the United States, Europe, China and other countries. This paper provides an overview on the consumers’ attitudes towards genetically modified food in the United States and China with the available data. The results show that consumers’ attitudes towards genetically modified food are different in these two countries because of some reasons, such as perception risk, cultural tradition, government policy and so on. However, there are some common issues which consumers in the United States and China are all concerned with, such as, health risk, environmental risk, especially genetically modified food labeling. Thus, genetically modified food not only involves science and technology issues, but also ethical issues. Precautional principle and non-maleficence principle are two important moral rules for researchers and relevant firms in the production period of genetically modified food. In short, if consumers do not decide and control the production of genetically modified food, at least genetically modified food should be labeled. Because consumers have rights to know what they eat and to choose food freely in the market.