Dissertation Research: Fats of the Land: The Consequences of Designating Substances as Risky

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This Science and Society Studies of Policy Science, Engineering, and Technology Program Dissertation Improvement Grant focuses on the question of how designating substances as risky can have discernible social, economic, political, and biophysical consequences? The proposed research will analyze relationships among trans fats, saturated fats, and human adipose tissue in order to address the following questions: 1. How can designating a substance as risky generate other risks? 2. How can designating a substance as risky alter the world biophysically or materially? 3. How can designating a substance as risky affect the means available for managing other risks? The proposed research aims to determine if and how the designation of a substance as risky can have discernible consequences. These consequences are hypothesized to include the generation of other risks; the precipitation of biophysical changes to the material world; and the alteration of opportunities for managing other risks. The researcher will approach risk categories as outcomes of struggle among various kinds of actors. Particular attention will be paid to the relationships among state decision-making, public advocacy, and corporate activity in order to understand how the designation of pervasive dietary substances as risky can impact product formulation, agricultural breeding, legislation, and judicial activity. The project is unique in both its scrutiny of food-borne lifestyle risks and in its recognition that riskiness can denote a situation of opportunity for actors with varying interests. The researcher hypothesizes that the federal designation of trans fatty acids as risky has precipitated efforts to reduce their prevalence in some foods and has been used as evidence in suits against food producers for claims related to obesity. He hypothesizes these suits may have precipitated the passage of legislation limiting future obesity litigation, and that the prevalence of trans fats in the American food system could itself be a consequence of an earlier designation of saturated fats as risky. Substances and phenomena are designated as risky in order to solve problems or mitigate undesirable outcomes. But the proposed research may indicated that familiar approaches to designating insidious and widespread dietary substances as epidemiologically risky could be improved if the secondary effects of risk designations were factored into policymaking decisions. If the hypotheses articulated in this dissertation prove valid, policymakers, public advocates and scientists would be obliged to consider the effects of designating specific nutrients as risky, and to evaluate the wisdom of the methods they choose to manage those risks. Because the designation of other kinds of risks may also have unintended consequences, the proposed research could impact policymaking in areas as diverse as drugs, urban planning, terrorism, and war, where designating one phenomenon as risky may also generate other risks.