Danger risks versus uncertainty risks

I’m going to delay the post about the beginning of the GM controversy for a bit – I have something a bit more exciting to talk about (plus I’m finding it really hard to find out when it actually started, so I will come back to it when I find this information). Talking about the concept of ‘risk’ in class got me thinking about the risks involved with GMO.

There seems to be two classes of risks – dangerous and uncertainty. Dangerous risk is exactly as the name suggests – there is a risk of something dangerous occurring. Uncertainty risk is where we are uncertain about the exact details of something, or we are unsure of what will happen in the future.

I think GM has both types of risks.

Obviously, there is danger risk in that the food may be harmful to humans or the environment if not properly tested/controlled. There is also the danger of not letting GM food production go ahead and ending up with a food crisis somewhere along the line.

There are also uncertainty risks – there has been little or no long term effect studies conducted to determine the danger risk, there is some uncertainty as to exactly what will happen each time a new gene is inserted into a different organism.

I’m sure you can think of many other danger or uncertainty risks associated with GMO, but the main point I want to make is that this technology involved both types of risks, and for the controversy to come to a close all of these risks need to be addressed.