Article ID: CBB001022055

Low Dose Intoxication and a Crisis of Regulatory Models. Chemical Mutagens in the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), 1963--1973 (2010)

unapi

Schwerin, Alexander von (Author)


Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Volume: 33
Pages: 401--418


Publication Date: 2010
Edition Details: Introduction to a special issue, “Zur Geschichte des Regulierungswissens”
Language: English

Low Dose Intoxication and a Crisis of Regulatory Models. Chemical Mutagens in the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), 1963--1973. Regulation and the prevention of danger are among the main characteristics of the modern state. However, the idea and the conceptualization of what danger is have changed over time. The genealogy of these changes shows that the history of social change and the history of knowledge are well connected. The 1970s marked the start of a social transformation of Western industrialized societies. This article proposes that this transformation was connected with basic epistemic reconfigurations and that the genealogy of risk played a significant role. This thesis is explored through the example of DFG advisory politics. Beginning in the 1960s, the DFG expert commissions that had been established to make policy and regulation recommendations began to focus more and more on the health effects of environmental pollution. The Commission for Questions of Mutagenicity played a particularly interesting role because its recommendations resulted in the foundation of a research institution run by the DFG, the Central Laboratory for Mutagenicity Testing (CML). The challenges faced by the CML in mutagenic research and testing effected a crisis of the expert-based advisory politics of the Mutagenicity Commission and a fundamental shift in the way scientific (regulatory) knowledge was perceived and valued politically. The pattern of this crisis calls to mind the constellation of the risk society, but as will be shown, the (re)balancing of science and politics/society presented here is more adequately understood within the framework of political epistemology.

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Article Bächi, Beat; Reinhardt, Carsten (2010) Einleitung: Zur Geschichte des Regulierungswissens. Grenzen der Erkenntnis und Möglichkeiten des Handelns. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (p. 347). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001022055/

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Authors & Contributors
Allen, Barbara L.
Mitchell, Mary X.
Walter, Hans-Henning
Vogel, Sarah A.
Thackray, John S.
Steen, Kathryn
Concepts
Environmental pollution
Science and industry
Legislative and administrative regulations
Chemistry
Environmental health; environmental medicine
Science and politics
Time Periods
20th century, late
20th century, early
20th century
19th century
Places
Germany
United States
Japan
Louisiana (U.S.)
France
Canada
Institutions
Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft
Du Pont Company
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