Latour tells us that if we give him a laboratory, he will raise the world.[1] Laboratories, he claims, are sources of political strength.[2] To illustrate this argument, he shows how Pasteur, in 19th century France, used his laboratory as a lever to change French society.[3] Using the methods of microsociology, Latour follows Pasteur and the Pasteurians through society, showing first how Pasteur captured the interest of veterinarians, farmers, and the French public in general, with his experiments on anthrax disease.

The central metaphor used by Latour is the laboratory as a lever (or is it a fulcrum?[4]) raising the world. But what exactly does he mean by 'the world' and how is it 'raised'? If 'the world' is defined as the section of society which is affected by the laboratory, then his argument becomes merely a tautology.[5] We need to ask at what point is a sphere of influence considered a world and at what stage did the changes made to aspects of French society by Pasteur constitute a raising of the world? Without a precise definition of raising the world, judging the success or failure of a laboratory is not clear-cut, and Latour gives us no help on the question.

Furthermore, Latour moves from the argument that Pasteur's laboratory was strong enough to change society, to overcome opposition and ignore traditional sources of power, and extends it to all laboratories - all laboratories, that is, except those like Bernard's that turn out to be 'soft straws'[6] rather than levers.

Of course it may be objected that everybody knows that some laboratories succeed and others fail.[7] But it is not what Latour's paper says or suggests. This may be defended on the grounds that Latour's language is poetic, metaphorical and exaggerated[8]; however, I am more inclined to agree with the view that Latour's terminology is 'fairly unhelpful and even absurd' and that raising the world is an 'irredeemably vague notion'.[9] Latour's style is extremely entertaining and creative, but it does not always bear close scrutiny: 'poetic licence' should not be a means for wriggling out of criticism.

Another problem which stems from Latour's poetic but inexact terminology is the idea of the irrelevance of the distinction between the inside and the outside of the laboratory.[10] He claims that no one can say where the laboratory is and where society is. Yet by his very focus, Latour distinguishes the laboratory from society and to some extent privileges it above society. So again the colourful language distracts the reader from the imprecise and undefined terminology.

Latour claims that interest in the laboratory was a result of Pasteur's efforts. Knorr-Cetina has accused Latour

... of giving us a Machiavellian reconstruction of history that emphasises the production of events by political mastermind strategists ... and of neglecting the unplanned and unwanted, strategically accidental outcomes of social action.[11]

Latour does show us how Pasteur managed to become a successful heterogeneous engineer. And from these insights he constructs a set of rules for would-be world-raisers (a step towards writing The Prince for scientists?[12]). The problem is that he focuses on the machinations at the micro level. This may be because Latour is interested in 'hows', not 'whys'.[13] He tells us 'it is not necessary to search for political drives, for some short-term monetary or symbolic profits or for long-term chauvinistic motives' or for ideologies or drives to study Pasteur. Instead we just have to look at what he does in his laboratory as a scientist.[14] But looking at what he does only answers 'how'. As Shapin points out in his review of Science in Action,

[w]e 'follow' scientists around; we 'enter' their laboratories; we 'watch' them at work; we 'understand' the nature of science and technology. But we don't 'explain' why they make the choices they do, why the controversies we observe come to be closed and why they are settled as they are.[15]

Latour has asked how Pasteur set about doing something to French society that he calls 'raising the world'. The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) did something to Australian society that could be better described as 'raising Cain'. Using a contemporary Australian laboratory as a case study, I hope to illustrate some of the shortcomings of Latour's approach and conclusions.

In other words, did the Australian Animal Health Laboratory fail to raise the world because CSIRO didn't get it right or because Latour didn't get it right?

In 1981, exactly 100 years after the French press was, according to Latour, 'full of articles' about Pasteur's work at the École Normale Supérieure, [16] the Australian press was full of articles and letters about the Australian Animal Health Laboratory then under construction at Geelong in Victoria, and the proposal to import live Foot-and-Mouth Disease virus into it.[17] This interest was not confined to scientists or veterinarians, but included bureaucrats, vast numbers of primary producers and their organisations, as well as members of the general public. Nor was the focus of attention narrow or confined merely to superficial matters. Instead, a debate developed concerning important scientific issues, such as whether live Foot-and-Mouth Disease virus was needed for the laboratory to function effectively and whether there was a need to produce Foot-and-Mouth vaccine. Important policy issues, such as the likelihood, and wisdom, of undertaking a vaccination programme in Australia, the need for such an elaborate laboratory, and the impact this expense would have on other research, were also hotly debated.

So in Latour's terms, something was happening with this laboratory that was of direct interest and relevance to these groups and individuals. And, if Latour is correct, this interest is to be interpreted as the result of the 'enrolment' of these outsiders. So we need to look at the history of the establishment of AAHL and uncover some of the ways in which these various interests were captured.[18]

The idea for a laboratory to diagnose and undertake research on diseases exotic to Australia arose from discussions among a small group of veterinary scientists within the Australian Veterinary Association in the late 1950s and early 1960s. There were a number of reasons for this interest in establishing such a laboratory. First, the rapid advance in the recently established science of virology was seen as holding the promise of eradication, or at least better control of a number of viral diseases. If Australian veterinary scientists wanted to participate in this promising research, then they needed to establish a laboratory in Australia.

There had also been a number of successful disease eradication campaigns overseas. Following the eradication of Rinderpest in China, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) became actively involved in setting up laboratories around the world to assist in the control and eradication of serious animal diseases. Dr Kesteven, the Australian delegate at FAO conferences and consultant to the Australian Department of Primary Industry, had been involved in the Rinderpest eradication programme in China and was actively engaged in setting up laboratories around the world. Each year he returned to Australia to provide information on FAO activities. These Australian veterinary scientists were influenced by this world-wide trend and interest in establishing laboratories,[19] and the advances made in controlling animal disease outbreaks. Their next step was to translate what they wanted, namely an animal disease laboratory, into what the Australian government wanted and would pay for.

There was no a priori reason for the Australian government to want to build an expensive maximum security laboratory for diagnosis and research on animal diseases which were exotic to Australia. Australia had not had an outbreak of Foot-and-Mouth Disease since at least 1872, and even that occurrence is in dispute. Other serious animal diseases had also been avoided. This was a product of Australia's geographical isolation and stringent quarantine measures.[20] Moreover, there had been no recent changes nor even potential changes or threats to this disease-free status; farmers were not petitioning the government for action on exotic diseases, extortionists or terrorists were not threatening to infect livestock, and there had been no accidental disease outbreaks.

Latour tells us that the easiest way to find people to invest in a project is to tailor it to their explicit interests. Initially this involved setting goals which matched the responsibilities of these organisations. This meant, in effect, showing the Director of Veterinary Hygiene how such a facility would enhance his department. It meant showing CSIRO how its interests could be served. And it meant formulating arguments to show how the country's general economic well-being and public interest could be served by such a laboratory.

Interest in this laboratory was now established where there had been no interest before.

One of the interesting things about the story so far is the lack of involvement by farmers, especially in view of their later active participation in the controversy and vigorous opposition to the importation of live Foot-and-Mouth Disease virus into the laboratory. Farmers' views had not been sought, nor had farmers been given an opportunity to be involved in decision-making; in fact they were deliberately excluded from discussions. Government approval for the construction of the laboratory had been achieved without there being any need to mobilise the interests of groups outside the bureaucracy such as the farmers. And farmers saw no connection at that time (nor were they shown a connection) between their interests and a laboratory which would investigate diseases which were not present in Australia.[21]

It was not until 1981, seven years after government approval and four years after construction of the laboratory had commenced, that farmers were made aware that the laboratory was directly relevant to their interests. At the Annual Conference of the Cattle Council of Australia, farmers learned that a decision had been taken some months earlier to import live Foot-and-Mouth Disease virus into the laboratory once the building was completed and safety tested. This caused a public outcry. Not only was the decision to import the virus strongly opposed but there followed a backlash of criticism against the laboratory and CSIRO.

The Australian Animal Health Laboratory was finally opened in 1985 but its functions had been severely reduced: vaccine production was no longer included as a function, nor was training. These two functions had been responsible for a considerable part of the cost of the laboratory since they were always considered the most risky and the most difficult to make secure. The deliberate infection of large animals for the purpose of demonstrating disease symptoms or to test vaccines required the provision of large spaces under the strictest microbiological security, and a secure means of disposal of these animals. Vaccine production required the installation of expensive specialised equipment and involved the handling of vast amounts of virus.

The elimination of those two functions left only diagnosis and research, but the Government also declared that Foot-and-Mouth Disease virus was not to be imported, so any research and diagnostic work on the disease requiring live virus would have to be performed in overseas laboratories. Moreover, farmers now demanded that the importation of other dangerous viruses be restricted and carefully scrutinised by the industry. As a result of these decisions the laboratory performs few, if any, tasks requiring its elaborate and expensive maximum security technology. It has not made its mark internationally as was hoped, and it has come under some strong criticism at home for its operations.[22] Thus the gulf between the vision of the laboratory in the 60s and the reality of the 80s is vast.

According to Latour, Pasteur achieved success by demonstrating that he had not only the anthrax organism in his laboratory, but the anthrax disease itself, and that he could control it both inside and outside the laboratory. First, he was able to absorb the farm environment into his laboratory and reproduce the disease. Next, he was able to extend the laboratory, and his mastery over the disease, to the outside. It is important to remember that in Pasteur's France, anthrax disease was already outside the laboratory, and so by bringing the disease inside the laboratory he 'dissolved the barrier' between inside and outside.

In Australia, no disease was present. This provided quite a different set of circumstances. In this case, it could be argued, farmers opposed the laboratory because they believed that the disease, not just the virus, would be in the laboratory, and because they saw the prospect of what happened inside the laboratory being reproduced outside. In other words, the same procedures that led to Pasteur's success led to CSIRO's downfall. By reproducing the disease in the laboratory and dissolving the inside/outside barrier, at least in the minds of the farmers, CSIRO sowed the seeds of its own failure.

Once described as 'the jewel in the crown', the laboratory was now being referred to in the media as a 'white elephant' and strong criticism was directed at CSIRO, with charges of empire building, self-interest and a disregard for the real interests of farmers.

Clearly something had gone wrong: in this case the Latourian lever had become a stick with which to beat CSIRO!

CSIRO failed to convince farmers that its scientists were stronger than the virus and thus able to reverse the forces and control the disease. The stature and authority of scientists was reduced in the eyes of the farmers by this loss of credibility and trustworthiness. Moreover, the strength of the Foot-and-Mouth Disease virus was increased by the scare campaigns undertaken by CSIRO to justify the laboratory and its functions. If Foot-and-Mouth Disease virus was as dangerous as it had been painted, then farmers could not see how scientists could control it and keep it confined inside the laboratory.

This was an important difference between Pasteur's success and CSIRO's failure. If Pasteur had been wrong and unable to control the disease, then all that would have been lost was his reputation. French farmers certainly would not have been any worse off. On the other hand, if Pasteur was successful, then the farmers and the public would be much better off.

If CSIRO failed to reverse the forces, if it failed to show that the scientist was stronger than the virus and the virus escaped, then an industry, the economy, and many individuals would be devastated. Furthermore, there was no incentive for farmers to take this risk, since they had everything to lose and nothing to gain. If scientists were able to master the disease it would not provide Australian farmers with any advantages since they did not have the disease. In fact, any advances in the control and elimination of Foot-and-Mouth Disease would disadvantage Australia's livestock industry by removing the competitive advantage of its disease-free status.

Australian farmers wanted a guarantee that the forces would be reversed, and under the circumstances, concluded that the risk wasn't worth it. The French, on the other hand, needed only to be convinced that there was a chance of success.

Another important consideration was that having engineered a laboratory to fit the old order, AAHL's proponents were caught unawares by changing attitudes and circumstances in society. When CSIRO later reviewed its poor performance it identified a number of contributing factors. These included specific economic conditions and policies, actions of certain individuals, as well as changes to general attitudes towards investment in science and technology leading to changed priorities in research. As well it identified a number of 'broader social developments'[23] deemed relevant. These were:

... a philosophical change from regarding science as value-free, disinterested pursuit of knowledge to considering it as a social activity as subject to misconceptions, biases and prejudices as other activities; the growing public awareness of the impacts, both good and bad, of science and technology on society, an awareness being heightened by the dramatic implications of the revolutionary advances in computers, robotics and biomedicine; an increasingly pluralistic society and the trend from so-called representative democracy to participatory democracy, with the public, or active sections of it, more reluctant to leave decisions wholly to elected representatives and their expert advisers; reflecting and reinforcing these trends, the change in the media's reporting of science and technology from a fairly descriptive coverage of specific research to a more critical, conflict-laden coverage.[24]

And each of these was a counterweight, opposing Latour's lever. The laboratory's proponents were able to take advantage of a favourable economic, political and social climate to initiate the project. But they were helpless against this tide of opposing forces.

It is easy to construct a story about the Australian Animal Health Laboratory similar to the one Latour has constructed about Pasteur's laboratory. The Australian Animal Health Laboratory failed because of countervailing forces which were far removed from the laboratory's immediate sphere of influence. Under different circumstances the Australian Animal Health Laboratory could have been a success story - certainly as successful as the one Latour tells of Pasteur. There are in fact many similarities between the two, as I have shown. It is the failure of the AAHL which forces us to recognise that the strength or power of laboratories is relative and not absolute, and which also forces us to look beyond the boundaries of the laboratory or the laboratory's influence to the larger society to consider the forces that encourage laboratories or provide counterweights to sink them.

Last reviewed: 18 February, 2008