Values in science and risk assessment

Wandall, Birgitte

doi:10.1016/j.toxlet.2004.05.010

Cited by 49 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…According to various researchers, public and market confidence may be restored by clarifying and accommodating different values and ideals held in decision-making, enhancing public accountability, democratizing expertise, and by creating a shared responsibility for decision-making (Healy, 1999;Levidow and Marris, 2001;Wynne, 2001;Jensen and Sandøe, 2002;Mayer and Stirling, 2002;Jasanoff, 2003;Jensen et al, 2003;Frewer et al, 2004;Wandall, 2004;Deblonde and du Jardin, 2005;Genus and Coles, 2005;Winickoff et al, 2005;Irwin, 2006;Jensen, 2006;Power and McCarty, 2006). Although gaining trust may be harder than losing it, in the regulatory process of decision-making about GM agro-food products, this objective can be achieved by (1) making scientific risk assessments more transparent by denoting explicitly the factual and normative premises on which they are based, (2) allowing the contribution of diverse publics through the organization of participatory exercises, and by (3) implementing an integral sustainability evaluation that integrates societal concerns.…”

Section: Restoring Public and Market Confidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Ethics in the Societal Debate on Genetically Modified Organisms: A (Re)Quest for Sense and Sensibility

Devos

Maeseele

Reheul

et al. 2007

J Agric Environ Ethics

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ABSTRACT. Via a historical reconstruction, this paper primarily demonstrates how the societal debate on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) gradually extended in terms of actors involved and concerns reflected. It is argued that the implementation of recombinant DNA technology out of the laboratory and into civil society entailed a ''complex of concerns.'' In this complex, distinctions between environmental, agricultural, socio-economic, and ethical issues proved to be blurred. This fueled the confusion between the wider debate on genetic modification and the risk assessment of transgenic crops in the European Union. In this paper, the lasting skeptical and/or ambivalent attitude of Europeans towards agro-food biotechnology is interpreted as signaling an ongoing social request -and even a quest -for an evaluation of biotechnology with Sense and Sensibility. In this (re)quest, a broader-than-scientific dimension is sought for that allows addressing the GMO debate in a more ''sensible'' way, whilst making ''sense'' of the different stances taken in it. Here, the restyling of the European regulatory frame on transgenic agro-food products and of science communication models are discussed and taken to be indicative of the (re)quest to move from a merely scientific evaluation and risk-based policy towards a socially more robust evaluation that takes the ''non-scientific'' concerns at stake in the GMO debate seriously.

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Section: Restoring Public and Market Confidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Ethics in the Societal Debate on Genetically Modified Organisms: A (Re)Quest for Sense and Sensibility

Devos

Maeseele

Reheul

et al. 2007

J Agric Environ Ethics

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“…Through the adoption of the PP in Directive 2001/18, it is recognized that risk assessments are limited by a degree of scientific uncertainty, ignorance, indeterminacy, ambiguity and inconclusiveness, and that decisions must be made acknowledging that these shortcomings may not be resolved (Carr, 2002;CEC, 2000;Hoffmann-Riem and Wynne, 2002;Krayer von Krauss et al, 2004;Sanvido et al, 2005;Wandall, 2004). This is also the tenor of the EC guidance note for the environmental risk assessment (2002/623) that supplements Annex II of Directive 2001/18: it recommends "describing uncertainties, clarifying the assumptions, extrapolations and predictions made, explaining the differing points of view, and discussing the known limits".…”

Section: Explicit Adoption Of the Precautionary Principle (Pp) In Thementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, in practice, values appear to be inherent to risk assessment, since there is a permanent interplay between risk assessment and risk management (de Sadeleer, 2006;Jensen and Sandøe, 2002;Levidow et al, 2005;Nielsen and Faber, 2002;Wandall, 2004;Wynne, 2001). This implicitly integrates an ethical perspective to the scientific view on risk assessment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this way, the regulatory frame -that is the product of processes in democratic political systems -functions as a moral guide in risk assessment. Values also enter into risk assessment through a number of scientific methodological choices that are made to describe the world and map its consequences (Jensen and Sandøe, 2002;Murphy et al, 2006;Nielsen and Faber, 2002;Wandall, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The interplay between societal concerns and the regulatory frame on GM crops in the European Union

Devos

Reheul

Waele

et al. 2006

Environ. Biosafety Res.

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Recapitulating how genetic modification technology and its agro-food products aroused strong societal opposition in the European Union, this paper demonstrates how this opposition contributed to shape the European regulatory frame on GM crops. More specifically, it describes how this opposition contributed to a de facto moratorium on the commercialization of new GM crop events in the end of the nineties. From this period onwards, the regulatory frame has been continuously revised in order to slow down further erosion of public and market confidence. Various scientific and technical reforms were made to meet societal concerns relating to the safety of GM crops. In this context, the precautionary principle, environmental post-market monitoring and traceability were adopted as ways to cope with scientific uncertainties. Labeling, traceability, co-existence and public information were installed in an attempt to meet the general public request for more information about GM agro-food products, and the specific demand to respect the consumers' and farmers' freedom of choice. Despite these efforts, today, the explicit role of public participation and/or ethical consultation during authorization procedures is at best minimal. Moreover, no legal room was created to progress to an integral sustainability evaluation during market procedures. It remains to be seen whether the recent policy shift towards greater transparency about value judgments, plural viewpoints and scientific uncertainties will be one step forward in integrating ethical concerns more explicitly in risk analysis. As such, the regulatory frame stands open for further interpretation, reflecting in various degrees a continued interplay with societal concerns relating to GM agro-food products. In this regard, both societal concerns and diversely interpreted regulatory criteria can be inferred as signaling a request -and even a quest -to render more explicit the broader-than-scientific dimension of the actual risk analysis.

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“…Moreover, philosophers of science deny the view that risk assessment and, more generally science, is value free. It is argued that the nature of risk assessment, with its inherent uncertainties, makes values even more influential in risk assessment than in pure science (Wandall, 2004).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%