Genetic Risk Regulation Society and Ethics. Dr. Donald Bruce, Director, the Society, Religion and Technology Project, Church of Scotland, John Knox House, 45 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1SR; Professor John Eldridge, Department of Sociology, Glasgow University, 61 South Park Avenue, Glasgow G12; and Professor Joyce Tait, Visiting Professor, Centre for Technology Strategy, Open University, Milton Keynes
The emergency of genetic engineering as a practical technology in agriculture and medicine poses many complex questions regarding risk, regulation, societal structures and ethics. These are apt to be treated in isolation in their separate disciplines. This paper attempts to consider the interrelation of these issues, arising in part out of an expert working group study of the Society, Religion and Technology Project of the Church of Scotland.
As new technologies emerge, two parallel responses are typically seen. One is the evolution of a statutory regulatory framework, set up to respond to known hazards and perceived risks of the technology. The other is the growing cultural perception of the technology by ordinary people, the media, politicians, etc. It has become a commonplace that the two often do not correlate well. The paper first explores how the development of the UK regulatory framework regarding the risks of genetic engineering and the release of modified organisms throws new light on this problem. It examines the tension which has been exhibited as genetic engineering has developed, between precautionary and reactive approaches to risk management. With most older technologies, a reactive approach to has been the norm, responding to the discovery of specific problems to health, safety, and the environment. In recent years, a more proactive methodology has been developed for biotechnology within Europe, enshrined in the "precautionary principle" in environmental ethics.
The paper then discusses how the contemporary societal factors and the ongoing debate around the idea of a risk society form the context of this regulatory evolution. In the light of industry pressures to relax some existing precautions, it critiques the perception that the reactive approach is seen to be "scientific," the precautionary "irrational." It assesses the ethical and value considerations out of which our current judgement of risk arises, and the effect of different approaches to ethics. It highlights the way in which "in principle" ethical objections to issues in genetic engineering can become marginalised, along with other heterodox views, while received wisdom is often accepted without recognising equally intrinsic elements of ethical approval for the technology.
Finally, the relation of the regulatory process to public risk
perception is considered. While industry seeks to relax a process
it sees as unnecessarily restrictive, the public expresses considerable
ethical and safety misgivings. The public remains largely remote
from the regulatory, patenting and ethical assessment structures
which are meant to be acting on its behalf. It has little knowledge
or influence, but possesses the ultimate power of consumer choice
over the genetic products it may be offered, a reality feared
by both the bioindustry and the EC. The paper criticises how public
ethical concerns are being addressed and calls for a more responsive
framework, if conflict resolution is not to be reduced to the
public voting with its feet, as with the BSE situation, or to
the recent trend to militant ecological intervention.