The public see them quite differently. Buying food for your family and getting a prescription from your doctor are not the same, whatever the genetic engineering enthusiasts may say. Someone who is ill, and voluntarily takes something to make them better, chooses to take a risk explained to them, for a clear, hoped-for, personal benefit. None of this applies to genetically engineered food. The Prime Minister was given some very unscientific speculation, for example, that genetic engineering is needed to feed the world's growing population.
Science has a role to play in decisions about food production.
The decision on whether to proceed with genetically engineered food also involves social, economic, ethical and aesthetic considerations - and questions about need, who benefits, who runs the inevitable risk, and questions about the unpredictable and the unknowable. Above all, if it is to represent the public interest, Government must listen to environmentalists, non-establishment scientists and the public, who just do not want it at all. In saying some of this to Tony Blair, I was accused of exaggerating to make a point. But my overwhelming impression was that the Prime Minister and his colleagues, like their predecessors over the last 50 years, were being presented with a cosy consensus, which ignored overwhelming public concerns, and establishment science's record of failure, not success.