The biomedical world has an irritating habit of latching onto social science terminology and tossing it around without really understanding what it means. The ‘precautionary principle’ is a good example. This phrase has been around for about 40 years in social scientific and legal studies of regulation.
The concept of the precautionary principle was first developed in relation to public policy on environmental issues but later extended into studies of occupational health and safety and the rollout of innovative technologies more generally.
In the course of the Covid pandemic, it has rolled off a large number of medical tongues but in completely the opposite direction to that established by every other field that makes use of the term.
The precautionary principle has never encouraged the introduction of innovations, programmes or interventions on the basis that they just might do some good.
It is, in fact, a conservative principle that says innovations should not be permitted unless it is established that benefits will be greater than harms. It tells the advocates for innovation that they have to look just as hard for harms as for benefits. If the harms are theoretical, then research must be done to generate evidence about them before the innovation can be considered further.
The best-known example is probably that of genetically modified food crops (GMOs). These first emerged from the lab in the mid-1990s. The basis for GMOs is brilliant science, but the developers had not done sufficient work to establish their impacts on other varieties of the same species, other species, food availability for wildlife, or human health. It was just assumed, with good reason, that genetically modified tomatoes, cotton or maize would be identical to varieties produced by conventional breeding. Many environmental and consumer groups in Europe did not agree. In the absence of evidence that these crops did not present the theoretical risks identified by their critics, they were not allowed onto the market. Their advocates could not show that the risks had been exaggerated or that any harms were outweighed by the benefits.
In many ways, the underlying principle is familiar to clinicians as primum non nocere: the first duty of a doctor is to do no harm. This is incorporated in many regulations surrounding the pharmaceutical and device industries. Safety cannot be assumed but must be demonstrated. Of course, there is an element of proportionality. If a drug is intended to extend the life of terminally ill cancer patients, it may be appropriate to tolerate a higher risk of adverse effects than in an indigestion cure aimed at a mass market.
As might be imagined, the precautionary principle is not popular with would-be innovators, who find that they cannot get their products to market as quickly and cheaply as they would like. The GMO experience eventually led the European Union to clarify its intention that the precautionary principle should provide a pathway to market rather than a barrier. The pharmaceutical industry, in particular, has advocated an ‘innovation principle’, where products would be licensed unless there was substantial evidence of harm. This inverts the precautionary principle in much the same way as some of its medical uses during the pandemic.
Emergency conditions do not justify the abandonment of the precautionary principle. If action is urgent, but benefits and harms are uncertain, then the actions or innovations must be temporary, provisional and closely monitored with a view to withdrawing or halting them if their benefits are not proportionate to their harms. Doing stuff ‘just in case’ or ‘it might help’ is not sufficient.
Pandemic policies would have looked very different if the precautionary principle had been applied correctly, especially to non-pharmaceutical interventions. These should have been examined with the well-established tools of regulation studies in social science and law to consider their legitimacy, proportionality and effectiveness.
Dr. Robert Dingwall, a former Government adviser on the JCVI and NERVTAG during the COVID-19 pandemic, is Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University and a consulting sociologist, researcher, writer and entrepreneur. This article first appeared on Trust the Evidence.
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Strategy Directorate
Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime | Email enquiries@mopac.london.gov.uk | Website: https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/mayors-office-policing-and-crime-mopac | Address City Hall ,The Queens Walk, London SE1 2AA
Dear Mayor’s office for Policing.
1. The Government Ministers are misleading the public, into believing that the number of cases of Covid 19 confirmed each day on TV are the number of patients who have been diagnosed with symptoms of Covid 19 like disease , such as viral pneumonia. Let’s hope it’s a huge Fraud by Gates and only people who were going to die, had testing 28 days before so could be counted as Covid-19 deaths, to perpetuate the Fraud by failing to disclose information causing the public a loss of income and lively hood.
Please alert all those involved in referring to the number of “Cases,” reported to the authorities each day, should be defined as suspected cases, if they meet the criteria as set out in attaches, by the WHO.
If they have not been diagnosed, they must stop claiming they are CASES.
If they are found to test positive in response, after using a PCR test, it can’t be claimed that they are a
1. Case of Covid 19 disease,
2. Suspected Cases ,
3. A probable case of SARS – cob – 2 infection or
4. A confirmed case.
This is Fraud by failing to disclose information. They are not cases by positive response to a test not designed to find infectiousness.
A person is guilty of fraud by failing to disclose information if he: failed to disclose information to another person, when he was under a legal duty to disclose that information, dishonestly intending, by that failure, to make a gain or cause a loss.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/fraud-act-2006
If a person is lead to believe they are infectious due to a positive PCR test and gives up working for 2 weeks to self isolate, not to infect the population, and he has made a loss due to the failure to disclose if he is a case or not by a doctor’s diagnosis, they have suffered from the crime of Fraud by failing to disclose information.
Please alert the secretary of state, the senior police, and the Public Prosecution service.
As there is no follow up, after testing positive, by a qualified doctor, to see what symptoms the person has, to declare they are a one of a number of types of cases, then the person has suffered Fraud by failing to disclose information.
This crime against humanity is taking place thousands of times a day still here and around the world.
By forcing people who have been living with a person who has tested positive, to be tested too, they have breached the
Old news – we’ve known about this phenomenon for months.
Real shame that TY has gone and taken the global censorship pill by murdering the comments section here.
As it has been said countless times; wearing masks wherever is a badge of submission; nothing more and nothing less.
“the more accurate polymerase chain reaction (PCR) lab test”
A year on, and the MSM is still promoting simplistic garbage like this – even when apparently on the side of the angels.