5 March 2002 18:00 GMT

by Bill O'Neill, BioMedNet News

Biological weapons, global warming, GM technology, BSE and vCJD, and nuclear power are the top five science-related concerns of people in the UK, according to a survey of public attitudes to science due to be released tomorrow.

Nearly three out of four people are worried about bioweapons (74% of respondents) and climate change (70%), reveals the survey commissioned by the Royal Society to launch its first National Forum for Science, a day-long meeting to discuss how to take the public's concerns about science more seriously.

"The two big issues, biological weapons and global warming, have received a lot of media attention and are genuinely frightening issues," noted Paul Nurse, joint director-general of Cancer Research UK, Nobel laureate, and chair of the Royal Society's Science in Society initiative.

"It also probably worries the public when politicians like the US President do not take the scientific evidence over global warming seriously," he added.

More than one in two people fear the genetic modification of food and animals (60%), the incidence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy and its human derivative, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (55%), and the use of nuclear power (53%), found the survey. The results were collated over the telephone in mid-February from 1,001 adults older than 16 across Britain and weighted to the national population profile.

Other issues of concern are medical research on animals (46%), xenotransplantation (46%), health problems associated with mobile phones (43%), gene therapy (40%), the MMR triple childhood vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (37%), and stem cell research (28%).

"Genetic modification, BSE/CJD and nuclear power are all ones which have shaken public confidence in the scientific advice coming out of government," noted Nurse. "Surprisingly, the MMR vaccine did not seem to be of such major concern," he added.

The survey also tried to gauge the public's attitude to the funding, selection, and reporting of research.

Most people say that commercial pressures dominate the funding of scientific research (55%) and that the public should have more influence in the type of research done (53%).

"Because of the high publicity given to commercially funded research especially when new venture capital is being raised, the public probably underestimates how much scientific research is actually carried out in the UK by independent university scientists," suggests Nurse.

"Clearly there is a need for scientists to explain more clearly to the public how science is funded and regulated, and for a greater dialogue between scientists and the public," he noted.

On the reporting of science, 47% of respondents felt the media did not present issues responsibly against 39% who felt it did. Nurse suggests that newspaper editors should keep their science correspondents more involved when stories move up the political agenda.

Alongside Nurse on the forum's panel tomorrow to launch the question "Do we trust today's scientists?" will be novelist Fay Weldon, environmental campaigner Charles Secrett, and the government's chief scientist, David King.

Send us your comments for publication.

Sign up for BioMedNet News weekly email alerts.

Printer ready version
E-mail article to a friend

 

See also:
Pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and the media
[Feature]
Clive Cookson
Drug Discovery Today, 2001, 6:21:1089-1091

The ethics of vaccine usage in society: lessons from the past
[Review]
Hervé Bazin
Endeavour, 2001, 25:3:104-108

Ecology and social responsibility: the re-embodiment of science
[Science and Society]
G.A. Bradshaw and Marc Bekoff
Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2001, 16:8:460-465

US gene therapy in crisis
[Genetics and Society]
Doris Teichler Zallen
Trends in Genetics, 2000, 16:6:272-275

Progress in HIV vaccine development
[Review]
Margaret I. Johnston and Jorge Flores
Current Opinion in Pharmacology, 2001, 1:5:504-510

Cancer vaccines
[Review]
P. Moingeon
Vaccine, 2001, 19:11-12:1305 - 1326
 

Printer ready version
E-mail article to a friend