Transcript Slide 1

The Shifting Sands of Uncertainty:
Risk Construction and BSE/vCJD –
Making The Case for a Socio-Linguistic
Paradigm in Risk Analysis
Research Paradigms of Risk Assessment
and Uncertainty in Policy Research,
UCSD, May 14th -15th, 2010
By
Dr. Beth Kewell and Professor Matthias Beck,
The York Management School,
The University of York,
United Kingdom.
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The socio-linguistic foundations of risk analysis:
A research agenda
The ‘linguistic framing’ of BSE / vCJD science
Synergistic narrative junctures: The Southwood
series and the 2001 vCJD symposia
Modality and ‘uncertainty sandwiching’
Key findings from ‘Shifting Sands’
Recent work: The Bristol Inquiry and epistemic
modality; scientific narratives and Regenerative
Medicine
Conceptual and policy relevance
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Contemporary risk historiographies and theoretical treatise
tend to account, in different ways, for the heteroglossic
epistemological heritage of the field; offering biographies of
the ‘rational action’ methodology, or ‘risk society’ standpoint,
for example; or the contributions made by various branches of
the mathematical and natural sciences (Rosa 1998: 15-24;
Lupton 1999; Jaeger et al. 2001; McDaniels and Mitchell 2003;
Zinn 2008).
Dentith (2001, emphasis altered), writing in The Literary
Encyclopaedia refers to ‘heteroglossia’ as a: “Term [that]
alludes to the multiplicity of languages within the apparent
unity of any national language. However, it should not be
confused with a simple celebration of linguistic diversity, for
the term alludes not only to the co-existence of “languages”
within a language, but their co-existence in a state of tension
and competition”.
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This succinct definition could describe the world of risk analysis:
a field unified by the portmanteau of ‘normal risk science’ (aka
the “standard scientific model of investigation” – Rosa 1998:16)
and yet it hosts ontologically diverse language games within
which we talk about risk / make sense of / define / frame /
construct our meaning in very different ways…
Risk? What is it? Answer: knowledge of opportunity or hazard
produced within dialogic language game encounters, predicated
on reputationally augmented information, held between social
actants who are institutionally embedded within Bourdieusian
habitus and field relations (Bourdieu 2004).
Significantly, what they choose to discuss will involve real
problems and prospects (either socially constructed via discursive
means – literally talked into existence – or in response to a
physical reality… for instance concerns about an impending
Tsunami or earthquake or nuclear incident or ash clouds or mad
cows…)
The Linguistic –Reflexive Approach To Understanding Risk
Composition:
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Begins either explicitly or implicitly with a Bourdieusian frame of
reference (for instance: Bourdieu 2004),
Knowledge and information are viewed primarily as
reputationally founded (Bromley 1993);
Sees texts as mirroring the social and cognitive contexts in
which they were produced (i.e. no text is ‘unauthored’) (from the
classic discourse literature: Potter 1996, Wood and Kroger 2000,
Wetherell et al. 2001, Locke 2004, Fairclough 2003, Wooffitt
2005).
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The next working assumption is that social actants (e.g.
scientists or risk analysts) contribute to language games which
produce texts about risk.
Language games are dialogically driven (Deetz 1996 – based on
Wittgenstein 1953); their primary motors are competitive and
associated with distinction seeking behaviours - for example the
identification of a stock market busting algorithm; new scientific
discovery or solution to a risk based problem (Bourdieu 2004).
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It is within the texts produced by language game
actants that the ontological assumptions (associated
with definitional activities and antagonisms see: Rosa
1998:15-23), epistemic practices and pedagogy of
particularly risk stakeholders becomes evident.
Significantly: Rosa (1998:18-19, 20 & 22, emphasis
altered) asserts that both the “positivistic paradigm”
“social constructivism and cultural theory” conflate
ontology and epistemology (if in different ways): one
“fuse[s] the ontology of risk with the epistemology of risk
identification and risk estimation”, whilst the other “Fail[s]
to make a clear distinction between the process and
process of socially constructed knowledge”.
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The narrativisation, portrayal, framing, grammatical
and semiotic representation of risk and uncertainty
are indicative of a given language game’s ‘zeitgeist’
at a particular moment in its history…
This zeitgeist may reflect particular tastes, anxieties,
trends, fads, fashions of the moment or
isomorphically replicate time honoured practices and
institutions (Abrahamson 1991) .
The construal of risk and uncertainty in textual form
may show how the field sees the relationship between
ontology and epistemology (and pedagogy) at the
point of publication or communication– are they
myopically merging them as Rosa (1998) suggests?
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New variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD):
A late 20th century pathology with 21st
century repercussions:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156
/is_20041212/ai_n12592838/
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Our paper (Kewell and Beck 2008) examines:
◦ The changing treatment of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
(BSE) as a zoonosis risk – as emboldened in two science-policy
narrative borne of contrasting language games – the ‘Southwood
series’ (c. 1989-1994); and the proceedings of a scientific
symposium, abridged within a special issue of the Journal of the
Foundation for Science and Technology (FST Journal) published in
2001 in the aftermath of the Phillips Inquiry (Phillips 2001, also:
Phillips 2000).
◦ Our key observations are that these narratives construct BSE/vCJD
risks according to contextual language game precepts, which in
this case were highly politicised – one seeking to deamplify
uncertainty; whilst the other (later) conversation overtly sought to
illuminate uncertainties.
◦ Grammar, and the use of epistemic modality, were constituent
utilities in the making of representations of risk and uncertainty
(Mushin 2001, Fairclough 2003)
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BSE and vCJD: a short biography:
◦ A genetic match was discovered between the two diseases in 1996
(Scott et al. 1999, Gill 2001, Trevitt and Sing 2003).
◦ 168 vCJD deaths occurred between 1995 and April 2010 in the
United Kingdom, from an estimate 172 diagnosed cases.
See: - The National Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance Unit
(NCJDSU) : http://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/figures.htm
◦ The gestation period of the two diseases is consistent at between
5-10 years.
◦ The aetiology of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies
(TSEs), incurs severe neurological degeneration, ataxia and
terminal illness involving loss of limb and brain function (Wells et
al. 1987, Wilesmith et al. 1988).
◦ The disease attacks central nervous tissue and typically alters the
molecular structure of brain stem cells so that they take on a
spongiform appearance (Trevitt and Singh 2003).
◦ vCJD has tended to affect younger people with valine homozygous
genetic susceptibility to a gene prion mutation called PrPSc
(Caughey 2000, Gill 2001:9, Dormont 2001, Anderson 2001,
Ironside et al. 2006).
◦ This view has been revised recently, however, in light of
vulnerability within the “methionine homozygous population
subgroup” (Ironside et al. 2006: 1186). More significantly perhaps,
vCJD may have an undetected presence amongst groups of older
people (Gill 2001).
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The discovery of BSE c. 1986 and the ‘low zoonosis
risk’ thesis (see for instance: Winter 1996, Powell and
Leiss 1998, Seguin 2000, Millstone and van
Zwanenberg 2001, Abell 2002).
The scale of the infection – spread by the
consumption of 750, 000 suspected bovine carcases
prior to 1989 (Anderson 2001) – lead to intensive
epidemiological investigations thereafter.
Wells et al (1987) marks the beginning of the
construction of BSE/vCJD as a problematisation of
risk and uncertainty and as a challenge to
comparative science (i.e. the veterinary sciences and
medicine).
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Methods:
◦ An intertextual approach, which focused upon an examination of
discourse organisation between different texts (Locke 2004 citing
Gee 1996 also Fairclough 2003), including, in this instance, the
‘Southwood Series’ and excerpts from the proceedings of a
scientific meeting organised by Foundation for Science and
Technology (FTS) after the Phillips Inquiry (Phillips Inquiry 2000).
◦ The initial research objective was to examine intertextuality
between documents in the ‘Southwood Series’ - The Southwood
Report 1989, The Tyrell Report 1989, The SEAC Report for 1992,
and The SEAC Report for 1994.
◦ A simple method of coding, denoted by U for uncertainty and C for
certainty, was applied to all documents to help illuminate an
intertextual pattern of uncertainty handling (Fairclough 2003). A
statement of certainty or uncertainty was defined as a collection of
words underpinned either by an uncertainty related modality or
series of modalities; and by taken for granted assumptions
(Fairclough 2003) that existed either to establish, repeat,
reinforce, explain or compound a certainty or uncertainty.
◦ Finding the FST Journal (via a search for up to date
epidemiology research) identified a second ‘story’ /
language game for intertextual research
◦ Extracts of this research are illustrated in the paper/ this
presentation. Linguistic markers of certainty appear with
double underlining, whilst markers of hesitancy appear
with a dotted line beneath, and markers of uncertainty
appear in the text using bold and single underlining.
◦ In acknowledging the limitations of the research, it is
recognised that our choice of texts is restricted to
vignettes taken from a much broader heteroglossia of
BSE/vCJD science and policy debate. Our background as
social scientists also means that we have had to broach
the subject of study from a position of methodological
relativism (Potter 1996, Fairclough 2003).
Extract 1: Southwood Report, 1989:
“We have concluded (C1) that Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) is one of the
transmissible Encephalopathies caused by (C2) an unconventional infectious agent with a
prolonged incubation period” (Department of Health and Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food 1989: 22).
Extract 2: SEAC 1994:
“The transmission of scrapie-like agents is generally (C1) more difficult between species
than within species, and is most difficult (C2) of all by the oral route” (Department of
Health 1994).
In the representation as a question or hypothesis, note the way certainty markers are
used to help underpin postulation in Extract 3:
Extract 3: Tyrell Report 1989:
“Direct comparison of the neuropathological lesions with those found (C1) in the other
spongiform encephalopathies, particularly scrapie, provides support for (C2) the
hypothesis that these diseases are produced by similar, and perhaps even identical
(C3), agents. Detection of pathological abnormalities in peripheral tissues in BSE could
(C4) provide leads to new diagnostic methods” (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and
Food and Department of Health 1989: 12).
Extract 10: Southwood Report 1989:
A certainty is stated:
“There are a number of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies affecting animals and
man which are caused by unconventional infections agents” (C1) (Department of Health
and Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food 1989: 5).
A major uncertainty then is presented in relation to a second certainty:
“The agents responsible have not been completely characterised (U1), although their
composition appears to be very similar, with a peptide as a major component (C2)
(Department of Health and Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food 1989: 5).
A controversial grey area is described in the next sentence using a third marker of
certainty, shown in parallel to a second and third uncertainty (U2 þ U3):
There are (C3) three conflicting interpretations (U2) of existing knowledge, the agent
being termed either (U3) a prion, a virino, or a filamentous virus . . . (Department of
Health and Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food 1989: 5).
In this example, and Extract 11 illustrated next, certainty is open to varying degrees of
interpretation. The phrases ‘completely confident’ and ‘must point’ relay a sense of
urgency in efforts to overcome imperfect knowledge of the disease. Note, moreover,
the use, in Extract 12, of ‘appears that’ at the end of an otherwise certain statement:
Extract 11: Southwood Report 1989:
“ The Working Party wishes to emphasise the need to be completely
confident (C1) that the agent has been destroyed and must point
(C2) to the difficulties of demonstrating this (U1) in view of the
nature of the agent (U2) and the time taken (U3) for the symptoms
to manifest themselves . . .(Department of Health and Ministry of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Food 1989: 17).
Extract 12: SEAC 1992:
“Further studies of milk by oral exposure have been planned (C1) and
are soon to commence (C2). Of all these tissues, only brain has so
far proven positive (C3). Other tissues from cattle including semen,
spleen, buffy coat, placenta, bone marrow and skeletal muscle have
all produced no disease (C4). Thus it appears that (C5) detectable
infectivity in clinical cases of BSE is found (C6) in the CNS but not in
the peripheral tissues assayed (Department of Health 1992).
Extract 15: Professor Dominic Dormont:
“On the majority view (C1) that the agent consists only of protein, the
infectious PrP is(C2) distinguished by an abnormal tertiary structure
(C1). That could arise by one of two pathways. Either the protein is
produced in its normal form and then converted, within the cell,
into the abnormal structure or the PrP misfolded as it is produced.
What really happens remains an open question (U1)” (Dormont
2001: 11–12).
He then addresses the broader uncertainties this has raised. Note the
use of negative inference and uninhibited language in Extract 16:
“It is puzzling that that (sic.) nobody has yet succeeded (U1) in
reconstituting infectious material after denaturing natural abnormal
PrP, and that it has not been possible (U2) to propagate infectivity
from recombinant protein. That has led some people to suggest
(U3) that the prion thesis might be wrong (U4) (Dormont 2001: 12).
Extract 16: Professor Roy Anderson:
“The agent can (C1) move around the body from gut to brain for example, by
various routes (C2), but little is understood (U1) about the detail. Studies
of scrapie in mice have shown (C3) the presence of the infectious agent
both in the spleen (part of the immune system) and the brain, but over
time, the concentration in the brain increases exponentially culminating in
clinical symptoms and mortality. That is the basis for believing that (C4), in
cattle with BSE, animals in the late stage of incubation are likely (C5) to be
more infectious to humans than in the early stage due to (C6) very high
concentrations of the abnormal prion” (Anderson 2001: 13).
Anderson then reveals that:
“Along with knowledge of the life expectancy of the cattle host, the BSE
incubation period in cattle tells us one very important thing (C1)—the
cases of overt disease that we see (C2) in cattle are the tip of an iceberg
(U1). The average incubation period of BSE in dairy cattle is (C3)
approximately 5 years. The average life expectancy of a dairy animal is
(C4) between two and two and a half years. If (U1) the incubation period of
disease is five years and the life two years, the implication is that a great
many diseased animals have entered the food chain without clinical
disease being recognised (Anderson 2001: 13–14).
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Conclusions:
◦ The representation of risk and uncertainty in the early
part of the Southwood series was partly influenced by
pressures leaning toward the deamplification of
concerns about hazard (Bufton 2001, Millstone and van
Zwanenberg 2001, Abell 2002, Frewer and Salter 2002,
Cummings 2005).
◦ Grey areas, grammatical counterbalancing, and
‘uncertainty sandwiches’ represent demonstrative
epistemic devices for expressing position (Mushin 2001)
– they also ‘rule in’ and rule out’ possibility, plausibility
and particular ways of thinking and acting (Hall 1997 in
Wetherell et al. 2001).
◦ Both narratives examined here represent hegemonies of
risk – one seeking to deamplify, the other to embolden…
The Bristol Inquiry (and Epistemic Modality):
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A study of expert witness testimony among
paediatric cardiothoracic surgeons and cardiologists
(a quartet of leading experts in their fields).
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The paper examines the relationship between
reputation, story, epistemic modality and risk /
uncertainty construal within the context of a
broader legal narrative about a harrowing iatrogenic
incident…
REMEDIE (EU FP7) – Regenerative Medicine and ‘Risk
Narratology
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Paper for SRA Europe, about the use of narrative in
scientific reporting on RM innovations, involves
looking at epistemic modality and its placement
within ‘rational action stories’…
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Encourages recognition that risk and uncertainty are
not purely decipherable via the ‘standard science
model’ upon which policy makers often rely– as
illustrated in Risk Analysis: An International Journal!
Highlights the extent to which representations of risk
are grammatically framed and hegemonic – ruling in
and out particular ways of viewing hazard,
uncertainty and the unknown…..
Offers a rejoinder to Rosa’s (1998: 22) claim that
constructivist research all too often “purees” object,
method, theory and outcome – linguistic and
discursive forms are an antidote to this problem.
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