Managing risks or stifling innovation? Risk, hazard and uncertainty

In the UK 1 million people suffer food poisoning, with 20,000 ending up in hospital, at a total cost to the UK of £1.5bn a year. We are not currently putting appropriate time and resources towards addressing the most significant food risks. Science is not absolute. It never ‘proves’ safety, nor uniquely dictates particular decisions. Rather, it provides crucial indications of risks and uncertainties. Risk assessment doesn’t address difficulties assigning probabilities under states of uncertainty, for example with BSE or with endocrine disrupters. Risk managers need to take account of a wide range of factors when deciding on appropriate courses of action including political, social as well as ethical. The precautionary principle says; ‘be careful’ when we’re unable to determine clear risk assessments under various kinds of incertitude. A risk-based approach can obscure how ethical issues fit into decision making, (like animal welfare, social implications environmental impacts, consumer choice). Much risk controversy is really about the politics of technology. Currently we don’t have effective spaces for discussing or deciding “which way to go?” The public are typically sophisticated at weighing up risks and benefits with uncertainty and don’t expect ‘zero risk’. What’s needed is a democratic space for deliberating the implications of plural interests and values.