List members may be interested in the following release which appeared on another list.
LS  
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 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

   Thursday 1 May 2003

   NEW SURVEY FINDS SCIENTISTS CRITICAL OF THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE IN
SCIENCE AND MEDICINE


   Imagine medicine without vaccines, penicillin, antibiotics, aspirin,
X-rays, heart surgery, or the contraceptive Pill. Imagine scientific theory
without Newton, Galileo, quantum mechanics, or the human genome project.
Imagine transport without aeroplanes, railways, cars or bicycles; power
without gas, electricity, or nuclear energy; agriculture without pesticides,
hybrid crops or the plough. Imagine man had never been to the moon.

   This is how scientists imagine history, had past developments been
subject to the constraints of the 'precautionary principle' - the assumption
that experimentation should only proceed where there is a guarantee that the
outcome will not be harmful.

   In the run-up to its conference 'PANIC ATTACK: INTERROGATING OUR
OBSESSION WITH RISK', taking place at London's Royal Institution on Friday 9
May, the online publication spiked [www.spiked-online.com] asked 40 members
of the international scientific community to list what significant
discoveries and achievements would have been limited or prevented, if
science at the time had been governed by the precautionary principle that
dominates science today.


   Between them, respondents came up with an A-Z of historic achievements
that would have been thwarted by the precautionary principle:

 - The AEROPLANE; AIR CONDITIONING; ALL DRUGS WITH SIDE EFFECTS; ALTERNATING
ELECTRIC POWER; the discovery of AMERICA; ANHYDROUS AMMONIA FERTILISER;
ANTIBIOTICS; ASPIRIN; the AUTOMOBILE

 - The BICYCLE; BIOTECHNOLOGY; BLOOD TRANSFUSION; CAT SCANS; CHLORINE; the
CONTRACEPTIVE PILL; CULTIVATION OF RICE AND MAIZE

 - DIGITALIS; the discovery of DNA; ELECTRIC LIGHTBULBS; ELECTROCONVULSIVE
THERAPY

 - FIRE; GAS POWER; GM CROPS; the GREEN REVOLUTION; work by GALILEO AND
NEWTON

 - HIGH-VOLTAGE POWER GRIDS; HOES; HYBRID CROPS; the HUMAN GENOME PROJECT;
the INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE; the INTERNET; IN VITRO FERTILISATION; IRON;
the JET ENGINE; KNIVES

 - The MEASLES VACCINE; MOLECULAR BIOLOGY; NEURAL LESIONS; NMR IMAGING;
NUCLEAR FISSION; NUCLEAR POWER; NUCLEAR PHYSICS

 - OIL; OPEN-HEART SURGERY; ORGAN TRANSPLANTS

 - PASTEURISATION; PENICILLIN; the PERIODIC TABLE; PESTICIDES; PLANT
DOMESTICATION; PLOUGHS; the POLIO VACCINE

 - QUANTUM MECHANICS; the RABIES VACCINE; RADAR; RAILWAYS; RADIATION; RADIO;
RADIOISOTOPE THERMAL GENERATORS; REFRIGERATION; ROCKET POWER

 - The SMALLPOX VACCINE; SPACE EXPLORATION; STEAM POWER; STEM CELL BIOLOGY;
the breaking of the SOUND BARRIER

 - The TELEPHONE; WATER SUPPLY AND DISTRIBUTION; the WHEEL

 - X-RAYS


   Respondents to the survey included:

 - SALLIE BALIUNAS (astrophysicist, and enviro-sci host at Tech Central
Station)

 - PROFESSOR JIM BRIDGES (chair of the European Commission's toxicity
committee)

 - CARL DJERASSI (emeritus professor of chemistry at Stanford University,
and father of the modern contraceptive Pill)

 - DIRAN MAKINDE (professor of veterinary physiology at the University of
Venda for Science and Technology, South Africa)

 - ROBERT NILSSON (professor of toxicology at the University of Stockholm)

 - DR ÁRPÁD PUSZTAI (former chief scientist at the Rowett Research
Institute)

 - MATT RIDLEY (author of 'Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Experience and What
Makes Us Human' and 'Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters')

 - GREGORY STOCK (director of medicine, technology and society at UCLA, and
author of 'Redesigning Humans: Choosing Our Children's Genes')

 - LEE SILVER (professor of molecular biology at Princeton University, and
author of 'Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering and Cloning Will Transform
the American Family')

 - LEWIS WOLPERT (professor of biology as applied to medicine at University
College London, and author of 'The Unnatural Nature of Science')



   NOTES FOR EDITORS


   Organisers of the 'PANIC ATTACK' conference are available for comment or
interview.


   The full version of the spiked-survey of scientists is available online,
at:

   http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/00000006DD7A.htm


   'PANIC ATTACK: INTERROGATING OUR OBSESSION WITH RISK' is being organised
by spiked in association with the Royal Institution of Great Britain and
TechCentralStation Europe. It will take place on:

   Friday 9 May 2003

   at:

   The Royal Institution
   21 Albemarle Street
   London W1S 4BS


   Full details of the conference are available online, at:

   http://www.spiked-online.com/PanicAttack


   For further details, or to arrange to speak to conference organisers,
contact:
 
   SANDY STARR at spiked
   Tel: +44 (0) 20 7269 9234
   Fax: +44 (0) 20 7269 9235
   Email: [log in to unmask]

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