Unsound science? Transatlantic regulatory disputes over GM crops

Abstract

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.