Russians don’t trust modern biomedical innovations

Moscow: Most Russians do not trust modern biomedical technologies and consider them useless or even unethical, according to a poll. Russians are cautious about modern technologies, including biomedicine achievements in biomedicine, suggests a poll conducted by researchers at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Russia.  Researchers polled 1,671 Russians over 16 years of age in 137 settlements across the country. Those polled neither completely reject, nor accept novelties and consider the interference in human’s life deprecated, according to Yury Voynilov and Valentina Polyakova, researchers at HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK). “The most cautious attitude has been demonstrated by respondents to biotechnologies implying the intervention into the human life and activities by means of stem cells, gene engineering, or implantable devices. These ideas have gained between 22 and 31 per cent of popularity,” experts said.