Carcinogenic Risk Assessment in the United States and Great Britain: The Case of Aldrin/Dieldrin

Abstract

& b u l l e t ; ABSTRACTThe question is posed: why were two pesticides, Aldrin and Dieldrin, judged to be carcinogenic in the US but not in Britain when the same evidence was available to the public authorities in both countries? No single cause is identified; rather, a variety of mutually reinforcing factors account for the decisions by the two public authorities: the uncertainty of the scientific evidence; the application of different standards of carcinogenicity associated with different social and scientific commitments; the government agencies with primary responsibility for the decisions; the way in which pesticides are regulated; and several cultural and economic considerations. The case study illustrates the analytical inadequacy of the fact-value distinction, and the tendency of decision-makers to justify their decisions by recourse to science. It also supports the view that the traditional relationship between science and public policy is being redefined in complex, technical areas of decision-making like risk assessment.The nature and scale of the hazards associated with new technologies have required governments to make difficult decisions about the form of control they should exercise over new products and processes. Although governments have received advice from a large and growing body of scientists, this has not always simplified the decision-making process nor rendered it more rational and objective. In this paper, we try to explain why two governments reached contradictory conclusions to the same problem on the basis of the same scientific evidence. More specifically, we will try to explain why two chemical pesticides, Aldrin and Dieldrin

É veneno ou é remédio? Agrotóxicos, saúde e ambiente

“…Com a crescente mobilização em torno dos riscos de origem tecnológica e o aumento dos casos relacionados ao assunto que alcançaram a esfera judicial, o Estado foi impelido a ampliar o seu papel institucional mediante o desenvolvimento da legislação no campo da saú-de, da segurança e do meio ambiente, tendo como conseqüência o crescimento das agências públicas encarregadas do problema (Covello & Mumpower, 1985). As indústrias, em alguns casos, obrigadas a arcar com os cus-tos de indenizações pelos danos causados, passaram a montar equipes e instalar laboratórios capazes de fornecer dados científicos para se contraporem aos seus críticos no governo e nos movimentos sociais, assim como às regulamentações mais restritivas de proteção da saúde e do meio ambiente (Gillespie, Eva & Johnston, 1979;Epstein, 1990).…”

Taste and Power: The Flavouring Industry and Flavour Additive Regulation

“…STS scholars and other regulatory analysts have often responded to this kind of analysis, as is our intention in this paper, by 'deconstructing' regulatory science-by identifying indeterminate or empirically under-determined aspects of knowledge claims, making explicit the key choices, assumptions and inferences that have been invoked, and then seeking to explain the selection of those subjective commitments by reference to wider contextual values, interests and cultural norms (Gillespie et al, 1979;Jasanoff, 1987;Latin, 1988;Wynne, 1992).…”

Uncertain Safety : Allocating Responsibilities for Safety

“…It happens quite regularly that authorities in different countries arrive at opposite policy measures based on the same internationally accepted scientific data. In the early 1970s, for example, Aldrin and Dieldrin, two pesticides, were listed in the us as carcinogenic, and for this reason they were prohibited by the Environmental Protection Agency (epa), while for a long time it was possible to use these pesticides freely in the United Kingdom (Gillespie et al 1982). Similar differences can be observed in drug registration (Bodewitz, Buurma and De Vries 1987;Abraham and Davis 2007) and in the way in which in the us and in Europe the admission of gmos is addressed (Whiteside 2006: Ch.…”