Respostas públicas, sucesso e fracasso no gerenciamento de riscos

• Main Author: Monica Steffen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal do Paraná 2002-01-01
• Series: Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente
• Subjects: public reactions to risk; HIV-contamintlion of blood transfusion recipients; variations in risk management
• Online Access: http://ojs.c3sl.ufpr.br/ojs2/index.php/made/article/viewFile/22115/14479
• ISSN: 1518-952X; 2176-9109

During the eighties, a medicai accident led to political scandals in several industrialised countries. In others however the same problem went nearly unnoticed. The massive HIV-contamination of haemophiliacs and blood transfusion recipients provides an interesting example of risk management on an international scale, with an extremely wide range of public and political reactions to health risks. Why do public responses to risk vary? In order to answer this question, three arguments will be developed here. First, the potential of public mobilisation is particularly high in fields laden with symbolic values, such as medicine, blood and other vital fluids. Second, the difficulties in decision-making and in the implementation of risk reducing strategies can be traced back to institutional factors. Third, assessment of success and failure in risk management has to distinguish between the technical level and the political level of problem solving. The arguments developed here result to a large extent from an international policy comparison concerning the HIV-risk in the blood transfusion sector. The First part presents approaches and concepts from social sciences towards understanding the variations in public responses to risk alarm. The second part focuses on particular elements from the blood transfusion example and shows their general significance for risk management.