How Poor Communication Can Cause Harm

In January 2024, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released  a report  about the consumption of GMOs in food for young children. The guidance’s purpose is to help physicians navigate recommendations about GMOs to concerned parents. While the intent here is good (many people are confused about the relationship between GMOs and human health), AAP not only missed an opportunity to clear the air about the purported risks of GMOs for human health but the organization also created a series of confusing recommendations that carry risk of harm to befuddled pediatricians and parents. 

Let’s first quickly review what was in the guidelines. Overall, the AAP agrees that there is no evidence of GMOs being harmful to human health. But they muddy the waters by raising concerns about glyphosate (better known as “Roundup”), a pesticide that is used on most genetically modified crops. Some GMO crops are genetically modified to be resistant to glyphosate. They purport that the chemical has “unknown” risks to human health and even point to the notion that it might be a carcinogen. The notion that glyphosate could be a carcinogen comes from an International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a subset of the World Health Organization, classification of the substance as a probable carcinogen. 

What the AAP failed to note, however, is that every other agency that has looked at the data on glyphosate has concluded it is not a human carcinogen at the doses people are likely to absorb. And any harm that comes from glyphosate–and there is no evidence there are harms– would probably come only at much higher doses than anyone would ever consume in their food. The concern is really about farmers who are handling the substance at very high quantities. There is essentially no reason to believe that at the low doses consumed in food, glyphosate will cause cancer. This is where the notion of  “the dose makes the poison” comes in. Nearly everything around us, even water, has the capacity to cause harm to human health at extreme doses. We know that if you ingest an entire bottle of tylenol, you will become quite sick and perhaps even die. But this doesn’t stop people from taking tylenol at the doses tested and deemed medically safe and effective. So in your everyday life, you are already applying this principle of “the dose makes the poison” all the time, especially when you take a prescribed dose of many medications. 

What’s even more disconcerting about the AAP guidelines, however, is the way in which these recommendations are communicated, especially with the general public. The news release from the AAP about the recommendations, which is usually what’s used by journalists to cover this information, is very confusing. On the one hand, they say that GMOs show no signs of being harmful to human health. At the same time, they say that glyphosate, which is in most GMO foods at very low concentrations may cause cancer. So which is it? Are GMOs safe or not? In addition, after proclaiming that there’s really no evidence of GMO harm to human health, they also recommend things like “Families who desire to completely avoid GMO products can do so by purchasing organic products or those labeled as non-GMO based on third-party testing” and “Schools and hospitals dedicated to the care of children may consider avoiding serving GMO foods to minimize glyphosate exposure when alternatives are available and affordable.” This is incredibly mixed messaging. Why would the organization be talking about ways to avoid GMOs if they’re generally safe? You might think that confusing messaging is frustrating but perhaps not dangerous. However, this is not entirely true. The report does make mention of the fact that organic foods might not be an affordable option for many families. By raising alarm bells about GMO products being harmful (when they really are not), the AAP could inadvertently lead to both panic and purchasing foods that families cannot really afford. This of course has downstream effects on the health and well-being of children in those families. There may be less money to spend on things like needed healthcare in these cases, all because of a report that’s basically a red herring. 

Health communicators need to understand that confusing, fear-mongering messaging has the potential to cause harm. We need to be organized and unified in the way we communicate and attend to the vast research we do have on the psychology of risk perception and risk communication. In the absence of these considerations, we risk causing inadvertent harm, in some cases to some of the most vulnerable members of our population.