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Risk Communication
During the second half of the year, many media picked
up on the controversy surrounding the imminent re-
approval of glyphosate, an active substance in plant
protection products. How did the department respond
to this special situation?
We communicated the methods we used to reach our
assessment findings in a transparent way and explained
the assessment in a comprehensible manner for consum-
ers – in a FAQ on our website, for example. There were
several reports in the media that were simply incorrect
and that led to uncertainty, such as false information on
the supposed detection of glyphosate in breast milk. We
provided information by phone to many mothers and ad-
vised them to continue breastfeeding. The simple com-
parisons in our communication were positively received:
when the news spread regarding glyphosate residues
in beer, for example, we explained that someone would
have to drink 1,000 litres of beer a day to achieve a lev-
el that might possibly be unsafe – quite apart from the
health risk posed by alcohol in the first place. Even in the
case of a substance that is hazardous per se, the deci-
sive factor is the level of exposure to this substance and
the amount ingested. Properly conducted scientific stud-
ies and factual communication of findings are essential
if we are to avoid uncertainty.
How important is dealing with the fears of the popula-
tion in your work?
Let me answer this with an example: if you ask the popu-
lation whether residues of plant protection products are
allowed in food, two in three people will say “no”. This
means we repeatedly have to explain that residues of
plant protection products are permitted in food products,
but that they have to be at such a low level that there is no
risk whatsoever that they are harmful to health. Or when
it comes to red wine, consumers should worry less about
remains of plant protection products and more about the
alcohol in the wine. We have long since known from risk
perception research that the fear of chemical substances
is far greater than the fear of biological substances – or,
to put it simply, things we're familiar with.
Who decides which issues are researched by the Risk
Perception Research Unit?
On the one hand, we focus on topics that already attract
a great deal of attention, such as residues of plant pro-
tection products or antimicrobial resistance. At the same
time, we also deal with issues that are not so much in the
public eye but that are nevertheless of major relevance;
one current example of this is veganism. In focus group
interviews, we ask people who have adopted a vegan life-
style why they decided in favour of this diet and whether
they take care to supplement certain vitamins etc. This
kind of analysis is extremely exciting. It's important to us
that we not only look at the “hard” natural science facts
but also study data collected by the social scientists, as
this helps us to identify what interests and motivates the
population and why it does so. The resulting insights then
form the basis for our choice of communication measures.
When was the new “Crisis Prevention and Coordina-
tion” unit called into being, and why was it necessary
to create it?
The new unit was set up in April 2015 and is not least a
consequence of the EHEC crisis. For us to do our work
effectively, all the threads have to come together in a sin-
gle organisational unit in the event of a crisis. The unit
is not only tasked with coordinating activities during a
crisis, however, but has the job of promoting prevention
and collecting relevant knowledge. One key role is liais-
ing with our stakeholder contacts. We hold talks at regular
intervals not just with industry associations but also with
consumer associations, NGOs and other organisations
with the aim of avoiding crises before they occur wher-
ever possible.
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Our mission is to explain natural science
to someone so that he or she understands it.