Agri-food biotechnologies: public concerns, risk and regulation

1
Agri-food biotechnologies public concerns, risk
and regulation

• George Gaskell
• 11 March 2003
• University of Bath

2
Contrasting technological fortunes

• Mobile phones selling like hot cakes!
• health risks widely discussed, emerging
  environmental risks.
• Biotechnology de facto moratorium on GM crops
  notwithstanding 2001/18/EC
• Fog of claims and counter claims on health and
  environmental risks.

3
Setting the scene

• The development of rDNA technology
• The Flavrsavr tomato
• Survey shows Europeans are ambivalent
• Monsanto and GM soya
• The watershed years1996-1999
• Crisis of confidence in GM foods, corporate
  science and governance.
• Europe likely to be taken to the World Trade
  Organisation

4
A sea of controversies

• Declining confidence in experts BSE, dioxin,
  foot and mouth disease and contaminated blood.
• Globalisation, the WTO and the risk society
• Complexities of policy making in Europe
• The commercialisation of science
• Agriculture, the CAP and the future of rural
  communities
• And Monsantos dismal risk management strategy,
  whipping up the stormy seas.

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Contrasting representations of risk

• For experts GM crops and foods are an innovation
  progress writ large
• Public anxieties due to
• misperception of risks
• Technophobia based on risk aversion
• BSE and other food scares
• Ergo risk communication by trusted experts and
  now public consultation.

6
Risk in the social sciences

• Origins in gambling, economics, finance and
  engineering
• 1960s Behavioural decision theory - Edwards
• 1970s Risk perception, biases and heuristics
  Slovic, Tversky and Kahneman
• 1980s The cultural matrix of risk - Douglas

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Risk and policy

• Evidence based policy making the rational
  society
• Codex Alimentarius the establishment of
  international standards for risk assessment
• Predicated on a generalised communication medium
  a currency of risk
• But is this possible?
• Yes, say those advocating sound science

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Sound science, uncertainty and risk

• Natural science the paradigm emerging consensus
  on the concept (representation) of risk
• Relevant and irrelevant dangers
• Relevant familiar to science, objectified as
  risks
• Relevant risks further objectified in terms of
  the familiar metric of probability
• Irrelevant subjective and immeasurable
• New dangers substantial equivalence anchoring
• Uncertainty only legitimate expertise is
  scientific
• Sound science as judge (rules of evidence) and
  jury (verdict)
• Sed quis judicabet ipsos judices? Scientific
  peers!

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In practice, values cannot be ignored.

• Safety in a rational society
• Value per fatality VPFs, but
• Adventure centres 5m
• Gas main explosions 100m
• Railways 100m
• Roads 0.1m
• Values enter the equation politics, reputations,
  interest groups, public responses

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What do we know about public conceptions of risks?

• Prospect theory
• Over-estimate likelihood of low probability
  events.
• Sensitivity to dangers- losses
• The availability heuristic
• Estimates of probability based on ease of recall
• The affective heuristic - Slovic
• Media amplification
• News value of unusual and spectacular accidents

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Prospect TheoryWeighing up gains and losses

• a

Utility
Value
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Mapping Risk Perception

• Starr risk acceptability as revealed preference
• Voluntary and involuntary risks
• Qualitative dimensions of risk

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Qualitative dimensions of risk
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Risk and Values

• Probabilist and contextualist conceptions of risk
• Cultural Theory Mary Douglas
• Risks are defined within the cultural matrix
• Competing worldviews (cultures) in modern
  societies

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Ways of sense making

• Paradigmatic sound science, the way scientific
  journals operate abstract and universal,
  warranted by empirical evidence.
• Narrative everyday thinking concrete and
  particular explanations in terms of actions and
  intentions. A good (believable) is the criterion
  of truth
• Scientists and politicians are as adept as the
  public in the telling of good stories.

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Risks and benefits in everyday conversation a
qualitative analysis

• Risks qua the scientific definition seldom
  articulated in focus group discussions
• Opposition articulated in terms of
• Uncertainty about longer term consequences
• Lack of trust in key actors
• Absence of perceived benefits and plausible
  alternatives to GM applications a strong current
  of opinion

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How the public thinks about new hazards such as
agri-biotechs

• Mainly in the narrative mode
• A focus on the challenging object rather than
  probabilities (Thompson)
• Those that can be imagined or visualised are more
  relevant.
• The mere act of imagining a negative outcome
  makes it possible
• Credible stories and good images are warrants of
  truth.

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Agri-food biotechnology problems and critiques

• Variety of problems identified by different
  groups
• Blue traditional and conservative rejection a
  Faustian pact with the devil, a non-contingent
  veto.
• Green at the limits of science, unknown and
  unknowable consequences Frankenstein revisited,
  a no vote until proved safe.
• Democratic denial of choice an affront to rights
• Pragmatic cant imagine the benefits, why is it
  needed?

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The European public segmented by risk and benefit
perceptions
(Source Eurobarometer 52.1)
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The social construction of dangers

• In different cultures/milieus different
  representations of dangers
• Representations an emergent property of
  communication.
• As are definitions of benefits and costs
• The toblerone model of representations (Bauer and
  Gaskell, 1999)
• Fancy a real dog, hot dog?

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Back to evidence based policy making

• Risk definition, assessment and management
  viewed as separate activities division of
  labour between scientists and political managers
• Establishes a representation of risk and related
  policy by fiat imposed top-down.
• Does this single currency of risk carry
  legitimacy?

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Well, yes and no

• Legitimate in context of a familiar and proximal
  hazards, broad agreement on the currency health
  and medicines
• But as a common currency across different
  categories of hazard, I doubt it because it runs
  counter to narrative thinking.
• Equally, in politics some risks are more symbolic
  than others
• For distal hazards people tend not to think in
  terms of probabilities. More likely to treat
  benefits as lexicographic or to act on trust.
• With new challenges the currency fails because
  there is no consensus on the danger.

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Internationalising risk regulation

• For new challenges, representations of the scope
  of the problem, benefits and costs are likely to
  be disputed.
• Benefits and risks are not seen as independent
• Since we cannot live in a risk free world, opens
  the opportunity for groups to have different
  problem definitions, risk sensitivity and risk
  acceptability.
• In this sense one can see why it is hard enough
  to establish evidenced based policy making in one
  country, let alone international standards.
• Alan Randall (Codex) on international
  regulations
• Sound science a good basis but not sufficient in
  and of itself. Other legitimate factors need to
  be taken into account

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Hirschman responses to institutional challenges

• Exit (leave), loyalty (accept) and voice
  (complain)
• Exit is not an option for new for many new
  technologies.
• Voice is limited by structural constraints.
• The democratic deficit is, in part, a product of
  scientism sound science is the only truth
• But choices about science and technology, about
  what future we want are social choices
• Hard science should be on tap in such choices but
  not on top.

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Back to mobile phones

• Why are the major telecoms companies in the UK,
  France and Germany in such financial trouble?
• Massive investments in 3G systems with as yet no
  payback.
• Like GM foods the 3G technology is not seen as
  beneficial.