Title: Unsound science? Transatlantic regulatory disputes over GM crops

Authors: Les Levidow, Susan Carr

Addresses: Centre for Technology Strategy, Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK. Centre for Technology Strategy, Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK

Abstract: In the risk debate over genetically modified (GM) crops, Europe|s regulatory delays have often been branded as ||political||, i.e. not based on science. Yet the US slogan ||sound science|| tends to conceal value-laden features of safety claims, their weak scientific basis, their normative framing and their socio-political influences. By contrast a ||precautionary approach|| can more readily identify scientific unknowns to be investigated, while acknowledging the agricultural-environmental values which inform risk assessment. These issues underlie transatlantic regulatory disputes over insect-protected Bt maize. In both the USA and Europe, public protest has stimulated risk-assessment research on broader cause-effect pathways, as well as more stringent regulation. For harm to non-target insects, however, new evidence of risk has been disparaged as unsound. It has been criticized on various grounds, which could apply just as well to evidence of safety; thus double standards have served to protect safety claims. And non-target harm is deemed acceptable through unsubstantiated comparisons to agrochemical usage. In these ways, ||sound science|| operates as an ideology, pre-empting debate on the framing of scientific uncertainty. The real choice is not between ||science versus politics||, but rather between ways of linking them.

Keywords: sound science; science-based regulation; environmental protection; precautionary principle; risk; biotechnology; genetically modified (GM) crops; Bt maize/corn.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBT.2000.000131

International Journal of Biotechnology, 2000 Vol.2 No.1/2/3, pp.257-273

Published online: 13 Jul 2003 *

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