Search

This article explores and discusses understandings of citizen science with members of Japanese citizen radiation measuring organizations who began measuring radioactive contamination in food, soil, air, and human bodies after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. Building on in-depth interviews with organization members and extensive multi-site fieldwork (2018, 2020), the article takes shimin kagaku (citizen science in Japanese) to examine articulations of citizenship and science, while discussing citizen radiation measuring organization activities. Adopting Tsing’s notion of nonscalability, it draws attention to the manifold articulations of citizenship and science, unearthing frictions embedded in Japanese science–society relations. In this way, this article outlines the diversity of notions of citizenship and science, and of citizen participatory practices in science. By bringing nonscalability to bear on an analysis of different articulations of shimin kagaku, this article encourages scientists and public authorities to engage with citizen participatory practices reflexively and responsibly by considering local articulations and knowledges. ispartof: Public Understanding Of Science vol:31 issue:4 pages:507-523 status: published

The implementation of next-generation sequencing (NGS) in diagnostic practice has stimulated ongoing debates on how to construct and perform ‘good’ genomic care. Our multi-sited qualitative fieldwork at two large European centers for human genetics revealed tangible ambivalence in beliefs, norms, and actions in the enactment of NGS practices across sites stemming from differing expectations, interests, demands and tensions. First, ambivalence was present around the boundaries of clinical diagnostic genetic care. The overlap between research and clinical work and diagnostics and screening led to ambivalence around ‘best’ practices and norms concerning whom to offer NGS testing and how far to take testing. Secondly, the clinical value of NGS results, especially VUS and unsolicited findings, were ambivalently valued, resulting in an inconsistent approach towards these types of findings. Thirdly, ambivalence was recognized in applying guidelines in the reality of clinical practice. In practice, such norms were often not a question of either /or but were found to be more ambivalent and context depended. The ambivalence we encountered was often not made explicit or acknowledged, failing to benefit from its possibility to encourage reflexivity and change. We propose to facilitate a more clearly outspoken ethical choreography (Thompson 2014.), where ethics and science are developed iteratively whilst welcoming different perspectives and different disciplines. Pulling experiences and practices of ambivalence into the light can help to understand the points of tensions in the values and internal logic of care practices within the clinics and facilitate a more informed, transparent, and conscious direction for genetic care.

Vaccine uptake is essential to managing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and vaccine hesitancy is a persistent concern. At the same time, both decision-makers and the general population have high hopes for COVID-19 vaccination. Drawing from qualitative interview data collected in October 2020 as part of the pan-European SolPan study, this study explores early and anticipatory expectations, hopes and fears regarding COVID-19 vaccination across seven European countries. We find that stances towards COVID-19 vaccines were shaped by personal lived experiences, but participants also aligned personal and communal interests in their considerations. Trust, particularly in expert institutions, was an important prerequisite for vaccine acceptance, but participants also expressed doubts about the rapid vaccine development process. Our findings emphasise the need to move beyond the study of factors driving vaccine hesitancy, and instead to focus on how people personally perceive vaccination in their particular social and political context. ispartof: Social Science & Medicine - Qualitative Research in Health vol:2 pages:100035- ispartof: location:England status: Published online

PURPOSE: Findings from genomic sequencing can have important implications for patients and family members. Yet, when a patient does not consent to the disclosure of genetic information to relatives, it is unclear how health-care professionals (HCPs) should balance their responsibilities toward patients and their family members and whether breaches in confidentiality are warranted. METHODS: We conducted a systematic review of normative documents to understand how HCPs should discuss and facilitate family disclosure, and what should be done in cases where the patient does not consent to disclosure. RESULTS: We analyzed 35 documents from advisory committees at the national, European, and international level. We identified discrepancies regarding the recommended role of HCPs in disclosure. While almost all normative documents supported the disclosure of genetic information without patient consent in limited conditions, the conditions for disclosure were often not well defined. Documents provided varying degrees of information regarding what actions HCPs must take in such situations. CONCLUSION: Our findings present concerns regarding the ability of these normative documents to guide HCPs' decision making around the disclosure of genetic information to family members. Clearer guidance outlining the responsibilities and acceptability of disclosure is necessary to facilitate disclosure of genetic information to family members. ispartof: Genetics In Medicine vol:23 issue:11 ispartof: location:United States status: Published online

This study explores the different manifestations and navigations of uncertainty in the practice of diagnostic next-generation sequencing (NGS) testing. Drawing upon multi-sited fieldwork conducted at a large Centre for Human Genetics in Belgium, we analyse how uncertainty takes shape and is managed in the different steps of the diagnostic process: starting from the testing offer, to the analysis in the lab, the multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTs) and ending with the consultation with the patient. Building on interviews with genetic healthcare professionals and their patients and observations in consultations and MDTs, our empirical work underlines the duality of uncertainty as both burdensome and productive. Building on the existing literature on uncertainty in medicine and NGS, our analysis shows the ontological politics at play in the everyday uncertainty work in this CHG. We show how the, at times, contrasting ways of dealing with uncertainty lead to friction but also result in constructive negotiation and collaboration between actors, making use of multiple types of evidence and expertise. By not only minimising but also sustaining or inviting uncertainty, genetic healthcare professionals are able to advance the practices around NGS in a way that matches their multidisciplinary understandings, considerations and more normative stances.

Genetic discrimination can be defined as the differential, negative, treatment or unfair profiling of an individual based on presumed or actual genetic characteristics or on omics data. In the face of rapidly developing omics and data-driven technologies, coordinated actions need to be undertaken by stakeholders to document and address adverse consequences of technical advances and the genetic revolution. This article aims to inform the community about an international organization developed to address genetic discrimination, the Genetic Discrimination Observatory (GDO), and developments that have occurred since its international launch in late 2020. These developments indicate that genetic discrimination can take many forms and happen in multiple contexts in today’s rapidly evolving scientific and social environment. The need for an international organisation such as the GDO to inform the community and respond to these developments becomes crucial in this context.

Findings from genomic sequencing can have important implications for patients and relatives. For this reason, most professional guidelines support that patients have an ethical duty to inform relatives and, when disclosure does not occur, most guidelines allow health-care professionals (HCPs) to breach confidentiality. Translating the ethical duties to respect the patient's confidentiality and prevent harm in at-risk relatives into legislation is a complex issue due to the both personal and familial nature of genetic information. In many countries there is no specific guideline or law addressing family communication of genetic information and thus it is unclear what duties patients and HCPs have towards at-risk relatives. Using Belgium as an example for countries in which this is the case, we examined the existing Belgian legislation in relation to three central topics: (1) patients' duties to family members, (2) respect for patient confidentiality and privacy, and (3) HCPs' duties to family members. We then investigated international legal frameworks and compared it with the Belgian context to see to what degree international precedent could aid in the interpretation of Belgian law. Based on our review of the legislation, we make recommendations for the interpretation of current law and examine whether there is sufficient legal precedent to answer the questions central to family communication of genetic information. Although we focus on the specific Belgian legislation, the discussions are relevant for many other countries that have similar legislative approaches. ispartof: European Journal Of Human Genetics vol:30 issue:7 ispartof: location:England status: Published online

As digital health technologies (DHT) have been embraced as a 'panacea' for health care systems, they have evolved from a buzzword into a high priority objective for health policy across the globe. In the realm of quality and safety standards for medical devices, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been a frontrunner in adapting its regulatory framework to DHT. However, despite the utmost relevance of quality and safety standards and their role for sustaining the innovation pathway of DHT, their actual making has not yet been subjected to in-depth social-science scrutiny. Drawing on the conceptual repertoires of Science and Technology Studies (STS), this article investigates how digital health evolved from a buzzword into an 'object of government', or gained material meaning and transformed into a regulatable object, by charting the standard-making process of FDA's medical digital health policy between 2008 and 2018. From this, we reflect on the mutually sustaining dynamics between technological and organizational innovation, as the FDA's attempts to standardize medical DHT not only shaped the lifestyle/medical boundary for DHT. It also led to significant reconfigurations within the FDA itself, while fostering a broader shift toward the uptake of alternative forms of evidence in regulatory science. ispartof: Biosocieties vol:17 issue:3 pages:1-28 ispartof: location:England status: Published online

This article addresses the challenges solidarity poses for the development of Precision Medicine (PM). Solidarity is invoked in calls for a new ‘social contract’ for PM, seeking to promote particip...

This study illustrates how citizen-driven radiation monitoring has emerged in post-Fukushima Japan, where citizens generate their own radiation data and measurement devices to provide public with actionable data about their environments. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in and around Fukushima Prefecture, it highlights the multifaceted character of these bottom-up, citizen-led efforts, contrasting these initiatives with the emergence of “citizen participatory” science policy discourses in Japan. Recognizing the contested nature of citizenship in Japan and in the nuclear arena, the article considers how terms and definitions shape the participation of citizens and other stakeholders (local communities, public authorities, regulators, and professional scientists) in science and technology in culturally and historically specific ways. It builds on these observations to open up new spaces of expertise, which engage all stakeholders through social-scientific intervention. Research for this project received support through a Bilateral Joint Research Agreement between the Research Fund - Flanders (FWO) and the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) (VS05517N). Fieldwork reported in this study was realized in the framework of a PhD at SCK CEN and KU Leuven. The second author’s work is funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 MSCA-IF-2018 research funding scheme (grant number 836989).

Global governance can be informed by a deliberative assembly composed of lay citizens

Although Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) has increased our ability to test and diagnose, its results are often not clear-cut and require a complex interpretation and negotiation process by both he...

Mobile applications for digital contact tracing have been developed and introduced around the world in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Proposed as a tool to support 'traditional' forms of contact-tracing carried out to monitor contagion, these apps have triggered an intense debate with respect to their legal and ethical permissibility, social desirability and general feasibility. Based on a large-scale study including qualitative data from 349 interviews conducted in nine European countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, German-speaking Switzerland, the United Kingdom), this paper shows that the binary framing often found in surveys and polls, which contrasts privacy concerns with the usefulness of these interventions for public health, does not capture the depth, breadth, and nuances of people's positions towards COVID-19 contact-tracing apps. The paper provides a detailed account of how people arrive at certain normative positions by analysing the argumentative patterns, tropes and (moral) repertoires underpinning people's perspectives on digital contact-tracing. Specifically, we identified a spectrum comprising five normative positions towards the use of COVID-19 contact-tracing apps: opposition, scepticism of feasibility, pondered deliberation, resignation, and support. We describe these stances and analyse the diversity of assumptions and values that underlie the normative orientations of our interviewees. We conclude by arguing that policy attempts to develop and implement these and other digital responses to the pandemic should move beyond the reiteration of binary framings, and instead cater to the variety of values, concerns and expectations that citizens voice in discussions about these types of public health interventions. ispartof: Critical Public Health vol:32 issue:1 pages:5-18 ispartof: location:England status: Published online

Genetic discrimination (GD) is the differential or unfair profiling of an individual based on genetic data. This article summarizes the actions of the Genetic Discrimination Observatory (GDO) in addressing GD, and recent developments in GD since late 2020. It shows GD can take many forms in today’s rapidly evolving society.

Studies in the sociology of genetics have shown how living with a predisposition to a genetic disorder often comes with significant psycho-social burdens and struggles. One of these struggles is the fear of genetic discrimination. Despite genetic non-discrimination regulations, research shows people still worry about being subjected to genetic discrimination. This article adds to this existing body of literature by showing why people still worry about genetic discrimination and how they cope with these worries. Our findings derive from an analysis of semi-structured, in-depth interviews with individuals at risk for Huntington's disease (HD) in Belgium. Concerns of genetic discrimination are grounded in the participants' family backgrounds. Our participants, having witnessed numerous events in which symptomatic relatives suffered discrimination and stigmatisation, expressed heightened fears of facing genetic discrimination. Further, this article provides insight into the strategies participants use to cope with these fears. Two ways of normalising life were identified-while some persist in keeping their genetic risk a secret, other participants explicitly choose to be transparent about their genetic risk, desiring a level of openness. However, while they want to 'break' with their family background, participants who choose to be open are still held back by their worries about genetic discrimination by organisational actors. 'Normalising genetics' appears to be particularly challenging considering the remaining stereotypes and stigma surrounding genetic diseases.

ispartof: Lancet Oncology vol:21 issue:7 pages:891-892 status: Published online

Insurance markets have always relied on large amounts of data to assess risks and price their products. New data-driven technologies, including wearable health trackers, smartphone sensors, predictive modelling and Big Data analytics, are challenging these established practices. In tracking insurance clients’ behaviour, these innovations promise the reduction of insurance costs and more accurate pricing through the personalisation of premiums and products. Building on insights from the sociology of markets and Science and Technology Studies (STS), this article investigates the role of economic experimentation in the making of data-driven personalisation markets in insurance. We document a case study of a car insurance experiment, launched by a Belgian direct insurance company in 2016 to set up an experiment of tracking driving style behavioural data of over 5000 participants over a one-year period. Based on interviews and document analysis, we outline how this in vivo experiment was set-up, which interventions and manipulations were imposed to make the experiment successful, and how the study was evaluated by the actors. Using JL Austin’s distinction between happy and unhappy statements, we argue how the experiment, despite its failure not to provide the desired evidence (on the link between driving style behaviour and accident losses), could be considered a ‘happy’ event. We conclude by highlighting the role of economic experiments ‘in the wild’ for the making of future markets of data-driven personalisation. ispartof: Big Data & Society vol:7 issue:1 pages:1-14 status: published

The emergence of a global industry of digital health platforms operated by Big Tech corporations, and its growing entanglements with academic and pharmaceutical research networks, raise pressing questions on the capacity of current data governance models, regulatory and legal frameworks to safeguard the sustainability of the health research ecosystem. In this article, we direct our attention towards the challenges faced by the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in regulating the potentially disruptive engagement of Big Tech platforms in health research. The GDPR upholds a rather flexible regime for scientific research through a number of derogations to otherwise stricter data protection requirements, while providing a very broad interpretation of the notion of ‘scientific research’. Precisely the breadth of these exemptions combined with the ample scope of this notion could provide unintended leeway to the health data processing activities of Big Tech platforms, which have not been immune from carrying out privacy-infringing and socially disruptive practices in the health domain. We thus discuss further finer-grained demarcations to be traced within the broadly construed notion of scientific research, geared to implementing use-based data governance frameworks that distinguish health research activities that should benefit from a facilitated data protection regime from those that should not. We conclude that a ‘re-purposing’ of big data governance approaches in health research is needed if European nations are to promote research activities within a framework of high safeguards for both individual citizens and society.

The introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018 served as the cornerstone of the new data governance regime of the European Union. Informed by principles and values such a...

How will European societies deal with tolerance of difference, respect for otherness and striving for social bonding? The introduction to this book proposes to tackle these pressing questions through the notion of “shifting solidarities” in order to understand how contemporary societal trends and developments affect solidarity in European societies. We first show how solidarity got established in European welfare states and how the present multiple crises of Europe are a perfect opportunity to develop an analytical focus towards “shifting solidarities”. To substantiate this approach, we engage in a conceptual discussion of solidarity, clarify our approach of “shifting solidarities” and illustrate its sources, manifestations and sites in various domains of European social life through the different contributions of this book.

Medicine and healthcare have been affected by the pervasive ideal of personalisation based on behavioural, genomic and other data. Visions of personalised and precision medicine bear the promise of making healthcare cheaper and more effective. At the same time, social science scholarship has criticised these trends for increasing the risk of discrimination, and warned of a decline of solidarity. We analyse two practices, namely personalisation in insurance and in medicine, to illustrate the workings and effects of data-driven personalisation for the (un-)shaping of solidarity. We discuss how relationships between processes and phenomena that are often presented as oppositional, namely singularisation v. generalisation, the individual v. the population, and self-interested v. other-directed practices, play-off and align in surprising ways. They also open opportunities for new forms of solidarity in Europe.

What is sustaining the divide between nature and nurture, even though sciences like epigenetics have been challenging it for at least two decades? Evelyn Fox Keller asked this question and considered it a logical problem rooted in terminological confusion within the sciences. In this article, we propose a complementary diagnosis of the problem: the nature-nurture divide is (re-)mobilized when society faces questions of inclusion and solidarity. With examples stemming from the fields of insurance and health care, immigration policy and epigenetics, we demonstrate how the nature-nurture divide is performed through techniques of classification for a politics of solidarity. We identify a common operation to these different examples that we coin 'biopolitical imputation'. We use this term to draw attention to how (Western) societal institutions, including science, create solvable problems out of complex situations, defining human actors and their agency along the lines of the nature-nurture divide as a moral guide. We argue that the tenacity of the nature-nurture divide is therefore not only a logical problem needing better scientific concepts, but also a cosmopolitical problem asking for a more profound reflection on the ontology and ethics of solidarity in order to move beyond the biopolitics of nature versus nurture. ispartof: Health vol:24 issue:2 pages:203-219 ispartof: location:England status: Published online

The purpose of this article is to provide an understanding of how different countries formulate and regulate antibiotic use in animals raised for human consumption. A comparative case study was undertaken, analysing historical documents from the 1950s to the 1990s from the UK, the first country to produce a scientific report on the public health risks of agricultural antibiotic use; and Sweden, the first country to produce legislation on the growth promotor use of antibiotics in food animals. Sheila Jasanoff's concepts of 'co-production' and 'political cultures' have been used to explore how both countries used different styles of scientific reasoning and justification of the risks of agricultural antibiotic use. It will be argued that national dynamics between policy, science and public knowledges co-produced different risk classifications and patterns of agricultural antibiotic use between both countries. UK's political culture used 'expert committees' to remove the issue from public debate and to inform agricultural antibiotic policies. In contrast, the Swedish 'consensus-oriented' political culture made concerns related to agricultural antibiotic use into a cooperative debate that included multiple discourses. Understanding how national policies, science and public knowledges interact with the risks related to agricultural antibiotic use can provide valuable insights in understanding and addressing countries agricultural use of antibiotics.

William James (1919) characterises hypotheses as either live or dead. A hypothesis is live when it is taken into account as a ‘real possibility’. We follow James’ suggestion to not attribute intrin...

In line with developments in the personalisation of risk, the idea that insurance products should above all be ‘fair’ to the policyholders is increasingly voiced by commentators. The performativity...

When does gender-based differentiation in insurance practice constitute discrimination? In life insurance, gender is used as a primary factor in risk selection. Private life insurance has long been a tool of inclusion and exclusion of clients via its process of risk selection and distributive mechanisms, which creates a series of questions relating to biological classification, difference, equality, discrimination, solidarity, and governance. The realm of insurance medicalises gender by treating it as a statistical factor in determining longevity,differential disease susceptibilities, and even treatment outcomes. In this article, the authors examine whether differentiation based on a sex/gender system constitutes discrimination under European Union law. Specifically,this article covers the Goods & Services Directive (2004/113), commonly referred to as the ‘Gender Directive’, which was adopted in 2004 and implemented by all EU member states before 2007. By examining EU documents, insurance trade journals, presentations, joints responses, and recommendations from equality and consumer groups from 2004-2014, this article examines the effects of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling and ensuing European Commission guidelines from Case C- 236/09 Test-Achats (2011-2012) regarding gender-based risk-rating practices in private insurance pricing. In its ruling, the ECJ invalidated Article 5(2) of the Gender Directive per 21 December 2012, raising renewed questions as to how gender should be used by insurers in their actuarial tables and underwriting assessments,especially when deciding whether to reject or accept applicants. It further contextualises this information in EU non-discrimination law and assesses trends of favouring lifestyle factors over biological traits. ispartof: Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies vol:18 issue:4 pages:413-431 status: published

© 2015 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. In genetic counselling practices, individuals are explicitly encouraged to take an active stance towards their future. The premise is that, by considering their genetic risks and taking preventive measures, they have some control over their future life and health. However, it is unclear how families engaged in genetic testing actually deal with the promises of genetic test results, and how they perceive their future. This qualitative study aims to provide insight into the way in which families shape and live their lives with genetic risks. How do they navigate life with a familial heart disease? We followed six extended families involved in genetic testing for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in the Netherlands for 4 years. The present analysis of four of these families reveals how they make sense of the future in various ways and perceive the opportunities for control. Whereas some families strongly believe the future can be shaped in some way, others are reluctant, do not believe in or even protest against the notion that genetic testing will help them to shape their future lives. We conclude that in the pursuit of Nussbaum's notion of the 'good' life, 'shaping the future' and 'living in the present' are not opposing or mutually exclusive repertoires; instead, traces of both are apparent in all four case studies. ispartof: BioSocieties vol:10 issue:1 pages:70-83 status: published

In line with studies in sociology of genetics on the social implications of genetic information, this article focuses on the choices and responsibilities that arise when genetics, more specifically the presence of a BRCA mutation in the family, enters individuals’ daily lives. In order to study the lived experiences with genetics, we conducted 28 semi-structured in-depth interviews with Belgian BRCA mutation carriers. Based on Lemke’s (2013) dimensions of ‘genetic responsibility’ – that is, ‘responsibility for the self’, ‘informational responsibility’ and ‘reproductive responsibility’ – the article examines how people with a BRCA mutation handle making ‘responsible choices’ and how they learn to cope with this in their lives. The results of the study show that respondents wrestle with the various options, dilemmas and limitations involved in the responsibilities tied up with genetic knowledge. Not only is taking responsibility for every sole dimension a burden, but the combination of responsibilities, or more precisely the lack of a feasible combination, appears to be a complex task. In addition, this worrying about genetics apparently is an unceasing chore. Sometimes, individuals manage to accommodate genetics in their lives, but at other times they are unavoidably confronted with it again and forced to make new choices. Respondents consider genetics as a constant theme impinging on their lives. The social dimensions of dealing with genetics give rise to many concerns and they require a serious amount of human effort to socially absorb that knowledge and to accommodate it.

Both Belgian and European governments as well as private companies as Google, Apple and Samsung foster high expectations towards the recent developments in wearables devices and application technologies. Due to their expected contribution to cost-reductions, the optimisation of health outcomes and the empowerment of patients, wearables are put forward as the ultimate solution to our western contemporary healthcare crisis. However, against this techno-optimism, a growing number of critical social science analyses has denoted important societal concerns with these devices. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s early work on biopower, these sociological critiques warn for possible constraints on the autonomy of subjects, complications concerning privacy, and social inequalities that could result from wearable technologies in society. To move beyond these hypes and fears, the article proposes the mobilization of Foucault’s later notion of ‘governmentality’ as a new and productive angle for sociological research on wearables innovations. The concept of governmentality offers three important elements for investigating the complexity of wearable devices in society. Firstly, governmentality makes it possible to carry out empirical research both on studying practices of wearable innovations as well as mapping the complex network of actors in which they are embedded. Secondly, it enables one to study the social aspects of the development of wearables itself. Thirdly, this approach makes it possible to understand the societal impact of these digital health technologies in respect to three shifting societal fault lines: which influence do wearables have on the delineation between private and public spheres? Who can be called the expert today? When are wearables considered medical devices and when do they contribute to the ‘lifestylisation’ of health? In a world of wearables and algorithms, what do we consider as normal or disease?

In this theoretical research article, we develop a new approach towards the implications of the nature/nurture debate for our understanding of responsibility and solidarity. More specifically, we will consider how new (epi-)genetic information may prompt us to rethink these notions. Our starting point is Evelyn Fox Keller’s important book The Mirage of a Space between nature and nurture. While scientists are wondering whether the nature/nurture distinction is still tenable, Keller’s main question is already a step ahead of such considerations: in view of the fact that the nature/nurture distinction is no longer tenable, why do we keep thinking in those terms? To us, this is an important sociological question. We do not agree, however, with Keller’s answer to that question, and this requires us to discuss the moral and political stakes of the nature/nurture distinction. With examples from insurance, healthcare and migration policy, we show how certain societal institutions implicitly draw upon the nature/nurture distinction to determine who is to be included into organized systems of solidarity. Next, we argue that moving beyond the nature/nurture division requires us to rethink our notions of responsibility and solidarity in society, including the sciences. We give examples from the field of epigenetics. Aligning with thinkers such as Bruno Latour, Isabelle Stengers and Donna Haraway, we characterize the step beyond nature and nurture as a speculative and cosmopolitical challenge. In so doing, this article develops a political-ontological or cosmopolitical perspective on questions concerning responsibility and solidarity in the postgenomic age.

When one reads newspapers or watches TV nowadays, one is struck by the amount of news on the economy and, especially, the portrayal of the state of economy as increasingly fragile and uncertain. At...