IRANIAN ACADEMICIANS ON BIOETHICS AND GENETICALLY MODIFFIED ORGANISM (GMO)

IRANIAN ACADEMICIANS ON BIOETHICS AND GENETICALLY MODIFFIED ORGANISM (GMO)

in this report the results of a survey on awareness and attitudes of Iranian academicians on bioethics and genetically modified organism are presented. After preparing a questionnaire and having a pilot survey a two hundred - member community among Iranian academicians was selected and asked fill in questionnaire. One handred of the community were expert in different branches of biotechnology and the other one hundred members were non-biotechnology expert. The results obtained from data up to now showed that only 15% of Iranian Biotechnologists had a good knowledge on bioethics while 50% had a medium level of knowledge on the subject , while these figures for the non – Biotechnologists were 6% and 39% respectively. 22% of the biotechnologists had high level of knowledge on GMOs while the knowledge level non-biotechnologists on GMOs was nil. 78% pf Biotechnologists and 82% of non-biotechnologists agreed that biothical critical criteria were necessary in biotechnology research . for considering the bioethical criteria in application of biotechnology the figure for biotechnology increased to90% but for non-biotechnologists the figure was almost unchanged . in the case when applying bioethical criteria would contradict with national interests, 46% of the Biotechnologists and 48% of the non-biotechnologists still agreed on applying bioethical crithical criteria in biotechnology research and applications. 50% of the biotechnologists and 34% of the non-biotechnologists agreed on using foods obtained from GMOs. In the following the complete results of the survey is presented.