"Are genetically modified foods bad for my health?". Consumer evaluation and preferred information source

We investigate the impact of competing information on consumer valuation of food products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs). We provide three main results. First, we show that introducing mandatory labels to identify whether or not a food product contains GMOs, significantly reduces consumer valuation. Second, adding to the label additional information on GMOs significantly affects valuation. Third, no matter the type of information previously received, consumers are more willing to look for additional information provided by General Practitioners (GPs), the information source they trust most. Overall, these results indicate that the crucial issue for regulating GMOs is not the presence of the label per se, but the availability of the necessary information to make good use of the label content in order to assess potential health risks deriving from genetically modified foods. In particular, our findings suggest that this can be achieved by properly informing (and convincing) GPs and other health professionals that risks for human health are minimal.