1.New analysis needed for GM 'food risk', says scientist
2.Typologies of incertitude as tools for policy analysis and policy making - ABSTRACT

GM WATCH COMMENT: For a highly readable report (albeit published in 1999) that makes a number of points relevant to the issue discussed below of risk and uncertainty, see: 'The politics of GM food: Risk, science & public trust', ESRC Global Environmental Change Programme: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/gec/gecko/gm-brief.htm

It's amusing, incidentally, that the contrasting voice in the first article below is that of a lobbyist from a front group funded by the likes of Monsanto, Exxon, Philip Morris and Dow Chemicals. For the real "Francis Smith" and the highly misleading nature of Smith's arguments, see: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6688

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1.New analysis needed for GM 'food risk', says scientist
By Anthony Fletcher
Food Navigator, 12/09/2006 http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/ng.asp?n=70503&m=1FNE912&c=kkdjilldcjhbfqc

A new approach to resolving GM trade conflict, one that drops the use of the word 'risk', is needed, according to new research.

The findings of the five-year study, which was carried out at the University of Sussex and will be presented at a conference in Brighton today, suggest there are serious limits to using the idea of 'risk' to describe the potential problems associated with new developments in science and technology.

"Its all too easy to make the mistake of using quantitative risk assessment techniques to try to understand unknowns that are really uncertainties, when it is impossible for us to work out the probability that something will happen," said Dr Adrian Ely, a research fellow at the University of Sussex'SPRU.

This has often been the complaint about European assessments of GM food. Many US scientists have challenged GM food regulation as having little theoretical basis and pandering to the fears and prejudices of its citizens.

At the IFT conference on global acceptance and sustainability of GM food this summer, Francis Smith from the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington DC gave an interesting American perspective of EU regulations governing GM food. She said that, fundamentally, there is an underlying fear of new technology in Europe, largely absent in the US.

Americans, she said, tended to look at the benefits. In comparison to Europeans, US consumers tended to express less fear and less distrust.

The EU, and its food safety body EFSA, therefore behaves differently. Its precautionary principle, which rules that regulators should err on the side of caution, assumes that a prevention strategy is always appropriate.

"There is little theoretical basis for this approach," argued Smith. "We're talking about regulations addressing perceptions and fears."

This is not the point that the University of Sussex study is making. Its point is that potential risk should be viewed as distinct from issues such as uncertainly and ambiguity. But its implications could alter the manner in which food safety bodies approach GM regulations.

In order to understand this point better, Ely plans to highlight a typology developed by professor Andy Stirling during his speech in Brighton. A typology, said Ely, is simply a way of understanding that things belong to different categories, and that we should distinguish between them.

Ely said that by considering the issues associated with risk, uncertainty, ambiguity and ignorance separately, Stirling has been able to make sense of events in a way that could be useful to policymakers internationally.

"When people talk about risks, they are usually talking about aspects of risk, uncertainty, ambiguity and ignorance," he said. "I use this typology to understand the government's decisions around GM crops and foods."

Ely argues that most policy problems - for example, climate change, GM crops or nanotechnology - involve a situation in which we don't have a full understanding of the science in question.

"There are so many complicated questions at play," said Ely. "Using a tool such as this helps us to break them down into manageable parts.

"The USA and Europe have assessed the risks from GM crops in different ways. This has led to divergent policies internationally, with bitter trade disputes as a result. This research can help us to understand the sources of the trade conflict and to move towards ways of resolving them."

Adrian Ely is Research Fellow at SPRU Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Sussex. He is presenting his paper 'Typologies of incertitude as tools for policy analysis and policy making' today at SPRU's 40th Anniversary Conference.
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2.Typologies of incertitude as tools for policy analysis and policy making
Adrian Ely This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
SPRU, University of Sussex http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/spru/events/ocs/viewabstract.php?id=268

ARTICLE ABSTRACT

Accelerating technological change creates unique challenges for governments aiming to maximise the economic benefits from innovation and to minimise any associated negative effects on human health or the environment. Scholars of science and technology policy have over the last forty years come to appreciate that incomplete scientific knowledge characterises the prevailing state under which these challenges must be addressed. A significant amount of research effort has been dedicated to better understanding how this state of incomplete knowledge, or "incertitude" can be managed in order to maximise benefits and minimise harm to society. One of the most prominent approaches in this regard has been the description of different types of incertitude and the appropriate responses to them.

Typologies of incertitude have proliferated in number and form since economists made the distinction between risk and uncertainty in the early 20th century. Drawing on disciplinary traditions of philosophy, sociology and political science, scholars have put forward diverse typologies that, while each possessing their own merits, have in many cases proved to be conceptually and terminologically inconsistent. While not denigrating these efforts, the current paper aims to test their utility both as analytical devices and as practical tools in policy making. In order to do so, it focuses on one particular typology of incertitude, first articulated by Stirling (1999), which draws on previous typologies to provide an overarching framework that divides the overarching notion of incertitude into the variants of risk, uncertainty, ambiguity and ignorance.

The paper draws on a recently completed doctoral project to evaluate the analytical power of Stirling’s typology using the empirical case of agricultural biotechnology. It also draws on ongoing work at SPRU in the area of food safety policy that employs elements of the same typology and investigates the extent to which the distinct notions of risk, uncertainty, ambiguity and ignorance might be incorporated into European regulatory frameworks. The paper links theoretical advances in science and technology policy studies with current efforts for their practical application and provides an insight into the degree to which theory might inform practice now and into the future. END ARTICLE ABSTRACT

About the Author

Adrian Ely
SPRU, University of Sussex

Adrian Ely was educated in the natural sciences (Cambridge), biotechnology (Sussex) and science and technology policy (Sussex). He recently completed an interdisciplinary DPhil on the use of science in the governance of agricultural biotechnology, comparing regulatory appraisals of GM crops in the USA and the EU. He continues at SPRU as a research fellow investigating European food safety regulation. His previous work has looked at biosafety policy in sub-Saharan Africa and he retains an interest in studying the contribution that S&T policies can make to food security and environmental sustainability in developing countries.