The Many Faces of Gaia’s Response-ability

What is the value of bio-objects? In a series of texts (primarily published in the Croatian Medical Journal) new entities, identified and/or produced by new technology, have been analytically defined as bio-objects. Bio-objects derive from innovative knowledge, they are generated through a “bio-objectification” process, and continuously negotiated in the intersection of science, politics, and society (1,2). Identification and construction of bio-objects are conducted in a variety of practices and discourses inside and outside of scientific laboratories, and configured in science, policy, and media. Information-over-loaded knowledge landscapes (KL) are in turn characterized by open-source distribution, and are both depoliticizing and (re-)politicizing the content and function of bio-objects (3,4). In this article, the focus is on the value of bio-objects, and includes an inquiry into the history of the changeable value of bio-objects as a scientific and economic project in Europe.

This article follows the introduction of COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) diagnostic tests in France. It shows how, at the intersection of science, medicine, politics, and policy-making, the test, trace, and isolate (TTI) strategy played out during the first months of the pandemic against a backcloth of multiple shortages. In so doing, the authors move beyond trite explanations (such as ‘French public health’s backwardness’) to highlight how successive policy inflections affected the national response to the pandemic. The piece analyses the shifting French political discourse surrounding (scarce) COVID-19 tests while exploring ad-hoc regulations and guidelines as well as the intense ‘bricolage’ that they triggered in the field of clinical medicine. The authors contend that the limitations of the testing infrastructure in France during the first half of 2020 shaped the decision to resort to lockdown. The research article sheds light on two coexisting registers of professional uses of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays—a ‘public health use’ and a ‘clinical use’—and highlights the changing political and social relevance of these two registers, with scarcity as a major determinant of these changes. One of the striking aspects of the introduction of COVID-19 tests in France therefore lies in the enduring gap between the dynamics of the epidemic and the dynamics of testing. In this respect, the French situation is neither extreme nor unique, which makes this case study a relevant basis for the international comparison of testing practices in different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Michael Riordan; Lillian Hoddeson; Adrienne W. Kolb. <i>Tunnel Visions: The Rise and Fall of the Superconducting Super Collider</i>. xiii + 448 pp., illus., maps, bibl., index. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2015. $40 (cloth).

This article examines a set of public controversies surrounding the role of nuclear power and the threat of radioactive contamination in a post-Fukushima Japan. The empirical case study focuses on the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Japan's most influential ministry and, more importantly, the former regulator of nuclear energy before the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Through participant observation of METI's public conferences, as well as interviews with state and non-state actors, I examine how particular visions of nuclear power continue to affect the basis of expert authority through which state actors handle post-Fukushima controversies and their subsequent uncertainties. In its post-Fukushima representations, METI frames nuclear power as an apolitical necessity for the well-being of the Japanese nation-state and the common humanity. It does so by mobilizing categories of uncertainty around specific political scenes, such as global warming. For METI, the potential uncertainties linked with the abandonment of nuclear power have the power to trigger political turmoil of a higher scale than those linked with Fukushima's radioactive contamination. A form of double depoliticization takes place, in which the issue of Fukushima's radioactive contamination gets depoliticized through perceived priorities that are paradoxically depicted as 'post-political' - that is, in an urgent need for immediate action and not open to in-depth deliberation. I refer to this process as establishing 'post-political uncertainties'. This kind of depoliticization raises ethical questions surrounding meaningful public participation in decisions that happen at the intersection of politics and science and technology study.

About the Contributors

Background: The face mask has been used to protect against airborne diseases throughout history. We conducted a historical review of the literature on the origin of the face mask, the scientific evidence of its benefits, and its implications for domestic and international politics. Material and Methods: We performed a comprehensive search for peer- and nonpeer- reviewed literature published between 1905 and 2020. Results: Face mask wearing in hospital settings to prevent disease transmission from health care workers to their patients originates with the first use of the mask in surgery in 1897 by German surgeon Johann von Mikulicz. During the first half of the 20th century, various scientific investigators focused on determining the most effective type of medical mask. The role of the face mask in the general population as a preventive intervention during public health emergencies is supported by historical reports spanning from the European Bubonic Plague in 1619, to the Great Manchurian Plague of 1910-1911, the influenza pandemic of 1918, and the current coronavirus disease in 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Although the face mask has helped against airborne disease transmission, its benefits during pandemics have been filtered through the prism of political leanings and geopolitical interests. Conclusions: Our review suggests that while face mask alone cannot stop pandemics, in conjunction with other nonpharmacologic interventions it can be useful in mitigating them. When cooperation rather than division becomes the norm in the global response to pandemics, the face mask can then unite rather than divide us.