A comparative study of the risk perceptions and risk communications of stakeholders within five european countries after the issue of the roadmap

Remerciements à l'Association pour l'Étude de l'Épidémiologie des Maladies Animales, éditeur de la revue "Épidémiologie et santé animale" qui nous donné l'autorisation de publier le texte intégral de cet article.International audienceScience-based control measures (such as the ban of the inclusion of meat and bone meal in feed and the removal of potentially BSE infected animal tissues, the so called specified risk materials, from the feed/food chains) by the EU and elsewhere resulted in the continuous decline of the BSE epidemic in recent years. The pressure to lift certain control measures led the European Commission to issue a TSE Roadmap allowing an open discussion on the potential for regulation relaxation. To investigate the risk perceptions of stakeholders and how to improve the communication in dealing with the TSE roadmap a qualitative social research has been carried out. Forty-six in-depth, semi-structured face-to-face interviews with risk managers and stakeholders were obtained in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. The main results obtained may be summarized as follows. TSE is not longer a hot topic: the interviewees shared the view that the TSE risk is clearly on decline and the overall BSE (and TSE) risk perception is low. Moreover all examined stakeholders appreciated the TSE Roadmap as a new communication strategy; however they provided several suggestions to improve the communication in the field of TSE

Risk communication: the European Commission TSE Roadmap Model for policy relaxation

International audienceThe Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) crisis forced the European Commission to impose strict regulations, the most significant and overarching of which was Regulation (EC) No 999/2001. These regulations were responsible for the abatement of the BSE epidemic in Europe in the years that followed. The Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) Roadmap was published by the European Commission several years later, on 15 July 2005. This roadmap proposed the relaxation of BSE measures in the short, medium and long term. It was seen as a proactive way to prepare for the implementation of new regulations and, in terms of risk communication, was a very interesting approach. This paper presents the 'roadmap model' as an effective tool for risk communication. It proposes several recommendations to help decision-makers in the difficult task of risk communication and establishes some conditions for generating public trust

Public risk perception of relaxation of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (tse) measures in Europe

The authors thank the members of the "NeuroPrion Risk Control Group" for various comments and helpful hints. They also thank all of the interviewees who contributed information and enabled this study. Last but not least, the authors are grateful for many invaluable comments provided by three reviewers of a previous version of this article.International audienceThe so-called "TSE roadmap" was published by the European Commission on July 15, 2005. The transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) roadmap suggests relaxation of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle and other animal transmissible spongiform encephalopathies measures in the short, medium, and long term. According to the TSE roadmap, "Any relaxation of BSE measures following the scientific assessment should be initiated by an open discussion with all stakeholders and supported by a strong communication strategy" (European Commission 2005, 5). Bearing this in mind, a social scientific project as designed to (1) involve different stakeholder groups, governmental risk managers, and their scientific advisors and (2) obtain their perception of the TSE roadmap and of its implications for precautionary consumer protection in five European Union (EU) Member States. This study describes the risk perception and risk management of TSE in Europe as exemplified by the TSE roadmap. The following query guided the international comparative study: How is TSE risk perceived by four interviewed stakeholder groups in five studied countries? The risk perceptions of TSE of risk managers from the ministries in charge in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, as well as their scientific advisors and stakeholder groups, were determined. The stakeholder groups were from three different areas involved with TSE, including farmers, consumers, and the meat/food industry. The issue to be addressed is roadmapping an adequate instrument for stakeholder involvement and for risk decision making

The QCD transition temperature: results with physical masses in the continuum limit II.

We extend our previous study [Phys. Lett. B643 (2006) 46] of the cross-over temperatures (T_c) of QCD. We improve our zero temperature analysis by using physical quark masses and finer lattices. In addition to the kaon decay constant used for scale setting we determine four quantities (masses of the \Omega baryon, K^*(892) and \phi(1020) mesons and the pion decay constant) which are found to agree with experiment. This implies that --independently of which of these quantities is used to set the overall scale-- the same results are obtained within a few percent. At finite temperature we use finer lattices down to a <= 0.1 fm (N_t=12 and N_t=16 at one point). Our new results confirm completely our previous findings. We compare the results with those of the 'hotQCD' collaboration.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, 3 table

Klinische Leitlinien: ein mehrdeutiger Begriff mit potenziell unerwarteten juristischen Konsequenzen

Clinical Practice Guidelines: An Ambiguous Term With Potentially Unexpected Legal Consequences The term "Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG)" is not applied consistently in Switzerland. The FMH published a definition in 1999. However, documents not corresponding to the definition are sometimes also called CPG, while those corresponding to it are sometimes titled with other terms, such as "(klinische) Richtlinien", "Empfehlungen" or "Stellungnahmen". This heterogeneity in terminology could lead to clinical uncertainty and potentially unintended (or at least unpredicted) legal consequences. Ill-defined CPG could lead to inappropriate use of these documents in criminal, civil and public law procedures. On the other hand, an agreement on a unified use of the CPG terms would help to improve their quality and legal certainty