Explosives, Genomics, and the Environment

Abstract

RDX is an explosive that is also a neurotoxin and implicated in adverse health outcomes. Because of its widespread use in military and civilian operations, there is growing concern about potential environmental and health implications. One promising method of bioremediation involves genomic studies of soil microbes. These health concerns and technological issues intersect with social and political dimensions raising questions about public responses to genomic technologies and the degree of environmental accounting expected from the military. In cases of novel technologies entering into contested social spaces, public engagement can be useful to inform broader policy debates. Building on previous work, in this article, we outline the rationale, methods, and results of a public deliberation on these issues. To our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind on the issues of RDX pollution and microbial genomics, and thus provides an important baseline on public sentiment on these issues.

Deliberation on Childhood Vaccination in Canada: Public Input on Ethical Trade-Offs in Vaccination Policy

“…On the third day, participants were encouraged to develop questions that they felt had not been adequately addressed thus far in the deliberation. In line with previous deliberative events (e.g., RDX [O'Doherty et al 2013]), this allowed participants to shape part of the deliberation questions and thus avoided the problem of the researchers missing important issues in the overall framing of the deliberation. Participants selected three additional questions for discussion:…”

Structural Racism in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Moving Forward

“…Beyond research design and participation, community engagement can inform key decisions and policies in particular arenas. For instance, a deliberative democracy approach has been used in the past decade in various genomic contexts, including surrogate consent for dementia research (De Vries et al, 2010), biobanking governance and informed consent practices (O'Doherty, Hawkins, and Burgess 2012;Garrett et al 2015;De Vries et al 2019), RDX pollution and microbial genomics (O'Doherty et al 2013) and health systems and science implementation more generally (Burgess 2014). Although a deliberative democracy approach has challenges (De Vries et al 2011;Kim 2016;Safaei 2015), its strength lies in the prospects of soliciting public perspectives on controversial issues and obtaining real commitment of the authorities to public input (Safaei 2015).…”