Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust's (GWT) press release on their badger vaccination project has caused a bit of stir. You can read their report here (pdf) and the response of the British Veterinary Association here.
There are some interesting issues here when it comes to the communication of science. Over the last 20 years one of the oft repeated findings by sociologists is that the public have lost faith in scientists and science. In agriculture the easy example is the BSE crisis and the way that was handled by John Gummer and MAFF. Here he is trying to force feed his daughter a beefburger:
Of course, its not just the "public" that have grown sceptical of science. The outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 2001 is another agricultural example, but this time it was farmers that became distrusting of government scientists.
In studies of risk communication, sociologists have argued that the media plays an important role in amplifying risks to the public, encouraging their distrust of science and shaping behaviour which others might call irrational. In the contexts in which people live, these behaviours make perfect sense though. A classic example of this is what happened around the MMR vaccine, and perhaps many of the other classic tabloid stories about miracle cancer cures that Ben Goldacre's Bad Science column in the Guardian likes to document.
The problem with the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF, as it is known) is that as a theory its quite difficult to prove. It makes perfect sense, but trying to definitively disentangle what makes people behave the way they do and separate out the relative strengths of different factors such as the media is rather difficult. But it seems obvious that poor reporting, over-stating certainty, or not basing conclusions on the data will just feed people's prejudices. So much so that recently some scientists proposed that they should be able to vet any media story for accuracy before it is released - see here.
Unfortunately, in the case of the GWTs press release it seems that some of its conclusions don't correspond particularly well to the evidence they are actually presenting. The BBC reported that GWT were "delighted" with the results whilst the GWT claimed that their trial "provides proof that there is an affordable and viable alternative to the proposed [badger] cull". The report though is just about the financial aspects of how they deployed vaccination. The GWT claim that £54/ha for vaccination is "affordable": perhaps it would be more affordable if they had more farms involved and were able to generate some economy of scale. But affordability is also a bit like beauty: in the eye of the beholder. And without comparable costs, and an analysis of the benefits too, then the report is simply an exercise in accounting: but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
On seeing the report, the British Veterinary Association subsequently accused the GWT of over egging the pudding. They argued: “To conclude from this report that the badger vaccine is a viable alternative to culling in eradicating TB is unrealistic at best and spin at worst". To be fair to GWT, the report clearly points out that their project was not looking at the effectiveness of the badger vaccination: but that makes any positive or negative comparison with other forms of badger control a bit meangingless. In fact Defra's own Badger Vaccination Deployment Project never set out to test effectiveness even when it had 6 areas in it.
Stories like GWTs may be a bit like SARF, but rather than creating controversies they just deepen the divides between opposing sides. This polarisation helps convince people that there is a 'them' and an 'us'; there are heroes and villains, sides to take. These 'framing' battles may be central to political controversy, but they are unlikely to be the best way to organise debate about bovine TB. Perhaps, in the absence of evidence of the effectiveness of vaccination it might have been better not to have commented on that side of things. But as was pointed out to me, the evidence on the effectiveness of the government's proposed cull is not there either.
There is of course some evidence on what BCG vaccination does to badgers' TB status in this paper (£). Perhaps the most interesting thing about that paper is how different tests for TB in badgers provided different results. The best result is a 74% reduction in positive tests for TB in badgers, but some of the other tests are as low 20% and the reduction not statistically significant. Which result is right? The variation isn't adequately explained in the paper. Is the best result always the right result?
Maybe its not too surprising to see pro-vaccinators citing the 74% figure. Maybe its right? Who knows? And that's partly the point: that when it comes to knowing disease, there's a lot of uncertainty around. This applies to cattle TB as much as badger TB. So, if we see those in charge play fast and loose with uncertainty, should we be surprised that others do too? And should we be surprised that amongst all this uncertainty, people reach for what they think or feels right?
There are some interesting issues here when it comes to the communication of science. Over the last 20 years one of the oft repeated findings by sociologists is that the public have lost faith in scientists and science. In agriculture the easy example is the BSE crisis and the way that was handled by John Gummer and MAFF. Here he is trying to force feed his daughter a beefburger:
Of course, its not just the "public" that have grown sceptical of science. The outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 2001 is another agricultural example, but this time it was farmers that became distrusting of government scientists.
In studies of risk communication, sociologists have argued that the media plays an important role in amplifying risks to the public, encouraging their distrust of science and shaping behaviour which others might call irrational. In the contexts in which people live, these behaviours make perfect sense though. A classic example of this is what happened around the MMR vaccine, and perhaps many of the other classic tabloid stories about miracle cancer cures that Ben Goldacre's Bad Science column in the Guardian likes to document.
The problem with the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF, as it is known) is that as a theory its quite difficult to prove. It makes perfect sense, but trying to definitively disentangle what makes people behave the way they do and separate out the relative strengths of different factors such as the media is rather difficult. But it seems obvious that poor reporting, over-stating certainty, or not basing conclusions on the data will just feed people's prejudices. So much so that recently some scientists proposed that they should be able to vet any media story for accuracy before it is released - see here.
Unfortunately, in the case of the GWTs press release it seems that some of its conclusions don't correspond particularly well to the evidence they are actually presenting. The BBC reported that GWT were "delighted" with the results whilst the GWT claimed that their trial "provides proof that there is an affordable and viable alternative to the proposed [badger] cull". The report though is just about the financial aspects of how they deployed vaccination. The GWT claim that £54/ha for vaccination is "affordable": perhaps it would be more affordable if they had more farms involved and were able to generate some economy of scale. But affordability is also a bit like beauty: in the eye of the beholder. And without comparable costs, and an analysis of the benefits too, then the report is simply an exercise in accounting: but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
On seeing the report, the British Veterinary Association subsequently accused the GWT of over egging the pudding. They argued: “To conclude from this report that the badger vaccine is a viable alternative to culling in eradicating TB is unrealistic at best and spin at worst". To be fair to GWT, the report clearly points out that their project was not looking at the effectiveness of the badger vaccination: but that makes any positive or negative comparison with other forms of badger control a bit meangingless. In fact Defra's own Badger Vaccination Deployment Project never set out to test effectiveness even when it had 6 areas in it.
Stories like GWTs may be a bit like SARF, but rather than creating controversies they just deepen the divides between opposing sides. This polarisation helps convince people that there is a 'them' and an 'us'; there are heroes and villains, sides to take. These 'framing' battles may be central to political controversy, but they are unlikely to be the best way to organise debate about bovine TB. Perhaps, in the absence of evidence of the effectiveness of vaccination it might have been better not to have commented on that side of things. But as was pointed out to me, the evidence on the effectiveness of the government's proposed cull is not there either.
@GarethEnticott @alistairdriver nor is there on proposed cull methodology.
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There is of course some evidence on what BCG vaccination does to badgers' TB status in this paper (£). Perhaps the most interesting thing about that paper is how different tests for TB in badgers provided different results. The best result is a 74% reduction in positive tests for TB in badgers, but some of the other tests are as low 20% and the reduction not statistically significant. Which result is right? The variation isn't adequately explained in the paper. Is the best result always the right result?
Maybe its not too surprising to see pro-vaccinators citing the 74% figure. Maybe its right? Who knows? And that's partly the point: that when it comes to knowing disease, there's a lot of uncertainty around. This applies to cattle TB as much as badger TB. So, if we see those in charge play fast and loose with uncertainty, should we be surprised that others do too? And should we be surprised that amongst all this uncertainty, people reach for what they think or feels right?
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