Civilization and madness: The great BSE scare of 1996

Public Understanding of Science

Volumn 6, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 221-232

  Jasanoff, Sheila ^a  

^a Department of Obstetrics Gynecology   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0000694941     PISSN: 09636625     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1088/0963-6625/6/3/002     Document Type: Article

References (37)

1. See, for example, Jasanoff, S., 1986, Risk Management and Political Culture (New York: Russell Sage Foundation); Vogel, D., 1986, National Styles of Regulation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).
2. See, for example, Jasanoff, S., 1986, Risk Management and Political Culture (New York: Russell Sage Foundation); Vogel, D., 1986, National Styles of Regulation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).
3. Gill, R. W., et al., 1996, A new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the UK. Lancet, 347, 921-948.
4. Lanchester, J., 1996, A new kind of contagion. New Yorker, 2 December, 78.
5. Brookes, P., 1996, The burgers of Calais. The Times, 22 March.
6. Lanchester, J., 1996, A new kind of contagion. New Yorker, 2 December, 79.
7. Rhodes, R., 1997, Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague (New York: Simon and Schuster).
8. Sacks, O., 1997, Eat, drink and be wary. New Yorker, 14 April, 85.
9. Lanchester, J., 1996, A new kind of contagion. New Yorker, 2 December, 81.
10. See, for example, Mad, bad and dangerous. Economist, 25 May 1996.
11. What the Cabinet will be eating. Independent, 22 March 1996, p.5.
12. See, for example, Scarfe, G., 1996, What have we been fed? Sunday Times, News Review, 24 March 1996, p.5.
13. Davies, S., and Todd, S., 1996, The need for an independent food agency. Consumer Policy Review, 6, 82-86. See also BSE: what have we learned? Health Which?, June 1996, pp.89-91.
14. Davies, S., and Todd, S., 1996, The need for an independent food agency. Consumer Policy Review, 6, 82-86. See also BSE: what have we learned? Health Which?, June 1996, pp.89-91.
15. The Conservative government did eventually propose institutional reform, but with the party's defeat in the May 1997 election, it turned out to be too little and too late. Butler, D., 1997, UK seeks to appease food safety critics. Nature, 385, 474.
16. Lanchester, J., 1996, A new kind of contagion. New Yorker, 2 December, 80.
17. Butler, D., 1996, Slow release of data adds to BSE confusion. Nature, 380, 370.
18. Anderson, R. M., et al., 1996, Transmission dynamics and epidemiology of BSE in British cattle. Nature, 382, 779.
19. Statement by Professor Sir Richard Southwood for presentation to the European Parliament, Investigative Committee on BSE, Strasbourg, 9 December 1996 (personal communication from author).
20. Department of Health, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, 1989, Report of the Working Party on Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (London: HMSO) (hereafter Southwood Committee Report).
21. Southwood Committee Report, p.22.
22. The term is derived from Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage Publications). Beck sees risk production as the site where the contradictions of modernity are most saliently expressed. In the effort to control uncertainty and conquer scarcity, modernization has created, in Beck's view, new focal points for a politics of insecurity, centred now on modern societies' apparent inability to predict, control, or equitably distribute the risks of progress. Parallel themes can be seen in the work of British sociologists such as Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash. See Giddens, A., 1990, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press); Giddens, A., 1991, Modernity and Self-Identity in the Late Modern Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Beck, U., Giddens, A., and Lash S., 1994 Reflexive Modernity (London: Polity).
23. The term is derived from Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage Publications). Beck sees risk production as the site where the contradictions of modernity are most saliently expressed. In the effort to control uncertainty and conquer scarcity, modernization has created, in Beck's view, new focal points for a politics of insecurity, centred now on modern societies' apparent inability to predict, control, or equitably distribute the risks of progress. Parallel themes can be seen in the work of British sociologists such as Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash. See Giddens, A., 1990, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press); Giddens, A., 1991, Modernity and Self-Identity in the Late Modern Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Beck, U., Giddens, A., and Lash S., 1994 Reflexive Modernity (London: Polity).
24. The term is derived from Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage Publications). Beck sees risk production as the site where the contradictions of modernity are most saliently expressed. In the effort to control uncertainty and conquer scarcity, modernization has created, in Beck's view, new focal points for a politics of insecurity, centred now on modern societies' apparent inability to predict, control, or equitably distribute the risks of progress. Parallel themes can be seen in the work of British sociologists such as Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash. See Giddens, A., 1990, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press); Giddens, A., 1991, Modernity and Self-Identity in the Late Modern Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Beck, U., Giddens, A., and Lash S., 1994 Reflexive Modernity (London: Polity).
25. The term is derived from Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage Publications). Beck sees risk production as the site where the contradictions of modernity are most saliently expressed. In the effort to control uncertainty and conquer scarcity, modernization has created, in Beck's view, new focal points for a politics of insecurity, centred now on modern societies' apparent inability to predict, control, or equitably distribute the risks of progress. Parallel themes can be seen in the work of British sociologists such as Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash. See Giddens, A., 1990, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press); Giddens, A., 1991, Modernity and Self-Identity in the Late Modern Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Beck, U., Giddens, A., and Lash S., 1994 Reflexive Modernity (London: Polity).
26. Ulrich Beck made this point within a week of the outbreak of the BSE crisis at a conference sponsored in London by the Institute of Public Policy Research. See Beck, U., 1996, When experiments go wrong, Independent, 26 March, 15.
27. Hutton, W., 1996, The State We're In (London: Vintage).
28. Hutton, W., 1996, The State We're In (London: Vintage), pp.285-286.
29. Brickman, R., Jasanoff, S., and Ilgen, T., 1985, Controlling Chemicals: The Politics of Regulation in Europe and the United States (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press); Jasanoff, S., 1991, Acceptable evidence in a pluralistic society. Acceptable Evidence: Science and Values in Risk Management, edited by Deborah G. Mayo and Rachelle D. Hollander (New York: Oxford University Press), pp.27-47.
30. Brickman, R., Jasanoff, S., and Ilgen, T., 1985, Controlling Chemicals: The Politics of Regulation in Europe and the United States (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press); Jasanoff, S., 1991, Acceptable evidence in a pluralistic society. Acceptable Evidence: Science and Values in Risk Management, edited by Deborah G. Mayo and Rachelle D. Hollander (New York: Oxford University Press), pp.27-47.
31. Wynne, B., and Mayer, S., 1993, How science fails the environment. New Scientist, 5 June, 33-35.
32. For examples, see Irwin, A., and Wynne, B., 1996, Misunderstanding Science? The Public Reconstruction of Science and Technology (Cambridge University Press).
33. Butler, D., 1997, BSE surveillance and safety measures still found wanting. Nature, 386, 101.
34. Breyer, S., 1993, Breaking the Vicious Circle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
35. Breyer, S., 1993, Breaking the Vicious Circle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), p.61.
36. Trilling, L., 1970, The Liberal Imagination (Harmondsworth: Penguin).
37. A recent advisory report of the National Research Council to several U.S. risk management agencies suggests that technical analysis and political deliberation should not be kept in separate compartments, as in earlier models of risk management, but should take place concurrently throughout the decision-making process. See National Research Council, 1996, Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society (Washington, DC: National Academy Press).