Over the past twenty years, biotechnologies have raised enormous expectations as well
as passionate political controversies, paving the way to a strong polarization in European
society and to an on-going debate on how should these technologies be assessed.
Mainstream approaches have been focusing on risk-assessment procedures. According
to this perspective, new technologies should be assessed in terms of their potential risk
of negatively affecting human health and in terms of the environmental risks, such as
cross-contamination and biodiversity preservation. Yet, the large majority of riskassessment
studies on GMOs mainly focus on animal trials, trying to detect biological
or medical anomalies among the animals fed with GM products. Although many of
these studies have repeatedly claimed that no significant health impact could be detected,
their independence and reliability has been contested not only because they have
been carried out by the same multinational corporations that produce the tested GMOs
but also because the original data have not been released to the academic community for
the studies to be replicated. Moreover, independent studies on GMOs have raised serious
doubts about health safety in a number of different occasions (Le Curieux-Belfond
et al. 2008; Seralini et al. 2009; Seralini, Cellier & Spiroux de Vendomois 2007; Gasnier
et al. 2009; Heinemann & Traavik 2004; Traavik & Heinemann 2007).
Independently of whether GMOs constitute a direct threat to human health and the environment,
risk-assessment approaches have reduced the evaluation of GMOs merely to a
question of how much risk can a society bear for the introduction of these new products
in the face of their claimed benefits but there is much more to GMOs than the risk/
benefit relationship suggests (Ferretti 2009). Many reasons lay behind the emergence
and diffusion of risk-assessment approaches. On the one hand, these approaches support
and strengthen the technological fix attitude that affects post-industrial societies. Problems
that may have a number of different social, economic or political origins are
framed and addressed in terms of a technological solution that allow for a quick, effective
fix that does not call into question these non-technical origins. A clear example
maybe retrieved in the Syngenta website, where the issue of water scarcity and water
supply all over the globe is reduced to a technical question, whose solution is offered
through GM crops with reduced water absorption (www.singenta.com, “Bring plant
potential to life” campaign). On the other hand, these approaches positively resonate
with the tendency to delegate essentially political decisions to expert committees, which
effectively divert responsibility from political actors to techno-scientific networks
(Jasanoff 2003). In turn, this process de facto de-politicizes a number of controversial
issues, which could otherwise threaten political consensus and stability. As a consequence,
the growing momentum of risk-assessment approaches has encouraged a technocratic
twist in science and technology policy, which has been criticized on a number
of political and sociological grounds (Weingart 1999; Funtowicz & Liberatore 2003;
Nowotny 2003; Felt at al. 2007; Levidow 2009; Ferretti & Pavone 2009).
First, it has been argued that risk-assessment approaches take the technology for granted,
addressing public opposition to GMOs as a problem in itself. Instead of considering
public arguments against GMOs as an opportunity to reconsider the technology from a
different perspective, producing a wider and more robust assessment of GMOs’ implications,
the public has been addressed as the problem, calling for solutions that aimed at
reducing this opposition rather than at learning from it (Felt et al. 2007; Levidow 2007).
Second, risk-assessment approaches address GMOs potential impact merely in terms of
their human health-related and environmental risks. However, GMOs have also an
important impact not only on the existing economic, political and social arrangements
but also on the developmental trajectory of the areas selected for implantation. Technology
shapes society and it is shaped continuously by it, in a mutually constitutive
process that has been elsewhere described as co-production (Jasanoff 2005; Ferretti &
Pavone 2009). In this co-production process, science and technology and social order
emerge side by side.
Third, it has been pointed out that these technologies cannot be evaluated in abstract
terms, independently of the juridical, social and economic context in which they will be
implemented. Local institutional rules and practices shape technology innovation and
implementation and cannot be considered equal in each and every corner of the world.
Power relationships, economic interests, lack of transparency, weak rule enforcement
may strongly affect not also the trajectory of implementation of a technology but also
the actual repercussions that GMOs are likely to produce (Goven 2006b).
Last but not least, approaches focusing on risk do not call into question the actual trajectory
that a technological innovation has followed to emerge, and the visions and imaginaries
that came along with it (Mcnaghten et al. 2006; Felt et al. 2007). In other words,
technological products are no neutral objects. They have been produced by specific
actors, in specific contexts, in order to address a specific problem, which has been
framed in such a way that a given technology makes sense as a solution. As a result of
the very process triggering their emergence, technologies are loaded with social and
political values. Technologies materialise certain paradigms, in fact, they “re-construct”
social paradigms (ideas and assumptions about functioning) into physical matter – this
is what could make the utility of a technology. It has to “fit” to the social structures
managing it, and resembles the material support a social setting organises to stabilise
and proceed itself, which will remain completely undetected as long as the focus of
technology assessment concentrates on their risk implications. Yet, a thorough analysis
of the ethical, social and political load of values and principles that each technology
carries in the visions and imaginaries it promotes is a fundamental step towards a social
and political assessment.

Over the past twenty years, biotechnologies have raised enormous expectations as well
as passionate political controversies, paving the way to a strong polarization in European
society and to an on-going debate on how should these technologies be assessed.
Mainstream approaches have been focusing on risk-assessment procedures. According
to this perspective, new technologies should be assessed in terms of their potential risk
of negatively affecting human health and in terms of the environmental risks, such as
cross-contamination and biodiversity preservation. Yet, the large majority of riskassessment
studies on GMOs mainly focus on animal trials, trying to detect biological
or medical anomalies among the animals fed with GM products. Although many of
these studies have repeatedly claimed that no significant health impact could be detected,
their independence and reliability has been contested not only because they have
been carried out by the same multinational corporations that produce the tested GMOs
but also because the original data have not been released to the academic community for
the studies to be replicated. Moreover, independent studies on GMOs have raised serious
doubts about health safety in a number of different occasions (Le Curieux-Belfond
et al. 2008; Seralini et al. 2009; Seralini, Cellier & Spiroux de Vendomois 2007; Gasnier
et al. 2009; Heinemann & Traavik 2004; Traavik & Heinemann 2007).
Independently of whether GMOs constitute a direct threat to human health and the environment,
risk-assessment approaches have reduced the evaluation of GMOs merely to a
question of how much risk can a society bear for the introduction of these new products
in the face of their claimed benefits but there is much more to GMOs than the risk/
benefit relationship suggests (Ferretti 2009). Many reasons lay behind the emergence
and diffusion of risk-assessment approaches. On the one hand, these approaches support
and strengthen the technological fix attitude that affects post-industrial societies. Problems
that may have a number of different social, economic or political origins are
framed and addressed in terms of a technological solution that allow for a quick, effective
fix that does not call into question these non-technical origins. A clear example
maybe retrieved in the Syngenta website, where the issue of water scarcity and water
supply all over the globe is reduced to a technical question, whose solution is offered
through GM crops with reduced water absorption (www.singenta.com, “Bring plant
potential to life” campaign). On the other hand, these approaches positively resonate
with the tendency to delegate essentially political decisions to expert committees, which
effectively divert responsibility from political actors to techno-scientific networks
(Jasanoff 2003). In turn, this process de facto de-politicizes a number of controversial
issues, which could otherwise threaten political consensus and stability. As a consequence,
the growing momentum of risk-assessment approaches has encouraged a technocratic
twist in science and technology policy, which has been criticized on a number
of political and sociological grounds (Weingart 1999; Funtowicz & Liberatore 2003;
Nowotny 2003; Felt at al. 2007; Levidow 2009; Ferretti & Pavone 2009).
First, it has been argued that risk-assessment approaches take the technology for granted,
addressing public opposition to GMOs as a problem in itself. Instead of considering
public arguments against GMOs as an opportunity to reconsider the technology from a
different perspective, producing a wider and more robust assessment of GMOs’ implications,
the public has been addressed as the problem, calling for solutions that aimed at
reducing this opposition rather than at learning from it (Felt et al. 2007; Levidow 2007).
Second, risk-assessment approaches address GMOs potential impact merely in terms of
their human health-related and environmental risks. However, GMOs have also an
important impact not only on the existing economic, political and social arrangements
but also on the developmental trajectory of the areas selected for implantation. Technology
shapes society and it is shaped continuously by it, in a mutually constitutive
process that has been elsewhere described as co-production (Jasanoff 2005; Ferretti &
Pavone 2009). In this co-production process, science and technology and social order
emerge side by side.
Third, it has been pointed out that these technologies cannot be evaluated in abstract
terms, independently of the juridical, social and economic context in which they will be
implemented. Local institutional rules and practices shape technology innovation and
implementation and cannot be considered equal in each and every corner of the world.
Power relationships, economic interests, lack of transparency, weak rule enforcement
may strongly affect not also the trajectory of implementation of a technology but also
the actual repercussions that GMOs are likely to produce (Goven 2006b).
Last but not least, approaches focusing on risk do not call into question the actual trajectory
that a technological innovation has followed to emerge, and the visions and imaginaries
that came along with it (Mcnaghten et al. 2006; Felt et al. 2007). In other words,
technological products are no neutral objects. They have been produced by specific
actors, in specific contexts, in order to address a specific problem, which has been
framed in such a way that a given technology makes sense as a solution. As a result of
the very process triggering their emergence, technologies are loaded with social and
political values. Technologies materialise certain paradigms, in fact, they “re-construct”
social paradigms (ideas and assumptions about functioning) into physical matter – this
is what could make the utility of a technology. It has to “fit” to the social structures
managing it, and resembles the material support a social setting organises to stabilise
and proceed itself, which will remain completely undetected as long as the focus of
technology assessment concentrates on their risk implications. Yet, a thorough analysis
of the ethical, social and political load of values and principles that each technology
carries in the visions and imaginaries it promotes is a fundamental step towards a social
and political assessment.