BSE: RISK, SCIENCE AND GOVERNANCE by Patrick van Zwanenburg, Erik Millstone ( 9780198525813 )

Item Details

Title:

BSE: RISK, SCIENCE AND GOVERNANCE

By:

Format:

Hardback

List price:	£99.00
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ISBN 10:

0198525818

ISBN 13:

9780198525813

Publisher:

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Pub. date:

5 May, 2005

Pages:

312

Description:

This new book provides a riveting account of how BSE changed from an obscure disease in a handful of dairy cows into the worst failure of UK public policy since the Suez Crisis of 1956. BSE has subsequently spread to 30 other countries. The authors not only explain what happened, they also develop a compelling account of why it happened and of what changes need to be made if similar risk policy failures are to be avoided in the future. This book will become a keytext in debates about the future of public policy-making about technological risks.

Synopsis:

This book provides a lucid and compelling analysis of the BSE crisis and how policy-making processes were managed, and of how and why they culminated in catastrophic failure. It is the first comprehensive scholarly analysis of the relationship between science and politics in BSE policy-making. The book re-assesses the conclusions of the Phillips enquiry into the UK government's handling of the BSE epidemic as well as extending and supplementing the analysis. The book evaluates emerging public health policy changes in the light of the experience with the BSE crisis. The ways in which risks, from challenges such as BSE, GM crops, mobile phone masts and global warming, used to be assessed and managed are no longer adequate or acceptable. Traditional arrangements are no longer seen as having either scientific or democratic legitimacy. Governments, scientific advisors, and many stakeholder groups recognise that a new approach to risk policy-making is needed. New structures and processes should be able to provide greater scientific and democratic legitimacy.While BSE policy-making in the UK is a central focus of BSE: risk, science and governance comparisons with policy-making at the European Commission and other European countries are also provided. The authors develop an analysis of how and why BSE policy-making failed and then derive a general set of lessons about how science-based risk policy-making should be understood and re-organised. Those lessons are applicable across the entire field of risk policy-making and can apply in all jurisdictions. The book is directed at those involved in science policy, risk and public health as well as public officials, scientists and policy makers responsible for dealing with issues of risk, public health and policy making. The book will provide a unique analysis based on very real issues of interest across Europe. The authors are well-respected researchers who have published widely on this subject and have recently completed a multi-country study of how BSE has been handled.

Illustrations:

5 line drawings

Publication:

Imprint:

Oxford University Press

Prizes:

Winner of Commended in the Medical Journalist's Association Book Awards 2006.

Returns:

Non-returnable

Some other items by this author:

OBESITY POLICY OPTIONS (PB)

THE ATLAS OF FOOD