Others perhaps could not. Most people in the UK assume that the government made mistakes and did not protect consumer interests, in being secretive and in not acting with sufficient vigor in response to early warning signals. Equally, many people assume that industry put profit ahead of consumer safety. Labeling and consumer choice. The tomato paste was labeled as GM, whereas the soya and corn products, because they containd a mix of GM and conventional sources, did not carry clear labels.
Consumers distrust secrecy.
In contrast, the GM tomato paste did have a consumer benefit, namely, lower price. Mixing up of environmental and health risks. This is a difference between a small, densely populated country and a large country with plenty of wilderness, such as the United States. The work of Arpad Puztai and the credibility of scientists. In August 1998, Arpad Puztai, a scientist from the Rowett Research Institute, a highly respected government laboratory in Aberdeen, Scotland, claimed on television that he had shown that a particular form of GM potatoes damaged the health of rats.