Using ‘general trust in institutions' and ‘concepts of nature' as examples, the article analyzes the influence of cultural factors on sense-making of food biotechnology and the resulting public attitudes in the USA and Germany. According to the hypotheses investigated, different levels of...

Trust is important for the perception of many types of risk, including those relating to genetically modified (GM) food. Who the public trusts in any given circumstance, however, is not well understood. In this study of public trust regarding GM food, an exploratory factor analysis with Promax...

The December 2003 discovery of a BSE infected cow in the USA revealed a vulnerability in the safety of the U.S. Food Supply. This study reports on a nationwide risk perception survey conducted in early January 2004. Survey results showed that U.S. consumers for the most part took the discovery...