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At the height of the West African Ebola epidemic, West African governments and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) were barraged with requests from international humanitarian and Western data analytics agencies to provide Call Detail Record data. This data could furnish the large-scale ambitions of data modelling to track and predict contagion. Despite its utility in tracking mobility and, as such, disease, CDR’s use raises many privacy concerns. In addition, embedded within a turn towards datafication, CDR technologies for surveillance embed specific ontologies of the data-focused society they emerge from. There is a false equivalence embedded in the relationship between humans and technology. The predominantly Western idea that one phone equals one person underlines the claim that CDR data accurately tracks distinct user movements, encoding a Western “phone self-subjectivity” (Erikson 2018). However, the refusal by some African actors to hand over sensitive mobile data to international agencies was met with forceful rhetoric of Africa’s moral obligation to comply—to forgo privacy rights in the name of ‘safety.’ The Ebola context reflects an emergent digitization of emergencies in the Global South, which is reshaping the way societies understand and manage emergencies, risk, data, and technology. The big data frenzy has seen a rising demand to test novel methods of epidemic/pandemic surveillance, prediction, and containment in some of the most vulnerable communities. These communities lack the regulatory and infrastructural capacity to mitigate harmful ramifications. With this emergence is a pivot towards 'humanitarian innovation,' where technological advancements and corporate industry collaboration are foregrounded as means to enhance aid delivery. In many ways, these narratives of innovation and scale replicate the language of Silicon Valley’s start-up culture. Surveillance of the poor and disempowered is carried out under the guise and rhetoric of care. In this scenario, market ideals and data technologies (re)construe social good as dependent on the “imposition of certain unfreedoms” as the cost of protection (Magalhaes and Couldry 2021). As big data technologies, they foreground a convergence of market logistics and global networks with existing and already problematic international humanitarian infrastructures (Madianou 2019). These convergences create new power arrangements that further perpetuate an unequal and complex dependency of developing countries on foreign organizations and corporations. Pushback against these data demands showcases competing notions of where risk truly lies. While resistance to data demands was at the state level, community responses to imposed epidemic regulations ranged from non-compliance to riots. These resistances demonstrated how the questions of ‘who and what is a threat?’ or ‘who and what is risky?’ and ‘to whom?’ experience shifting definitions in relation to these technologies as global, national, and community imaginaries are reinforced and reproduced as cultural, political, as well as biological units. 

Source

Akinwumi, Adjua. 2023. "Technological care vs Fugitive care: Exploring Power, Risk, and Resistance in AI and Big Data During the Ebola Epidemic." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science.

(MNOs) were barraged with requests from international humanitarian and Western data analytics agencies to provide Call Detail Record data. This data could furnish the large-scale ambitions of data modelling to track and predict contagion. Despite its utility in tracking mobility and, as such, disease, CDR’s use raises many privacy concerns. In addition, embedded within a turn towards datafication, CDR technologies for surveillance embed specific ontologies of the data-focused society they emerge from. There is a false equivalence embedded in the relationship between humans and technology. The predominantly Western idea that one phone equals one person underlines the claim that CDR data accurately tracks distinct user movements, encoding a Western “phone self-subjectivity” (Erikson 2018). However, the refusal by some African actors to hand over sensitive mobile data to international agencies was met with forceful rhetoric of Africa’s moral obligation to comply—to forgo privacy rights in the name of ‘safety.’ The Ebola context reflects an emergent digitization of emergencies in the Global South, which is reshaping the way societies understand and manage emergencies, risk, data, and technology. The big data frenzy has seen a rising demand to test novel methods of epidemic/pandemic surveillance, prediction, and containment in some of the most vulnerable communities. These communities lack the regulatory and infrastructural capacity to mitigate harmful ramifications. With this emergence is a pivot towards 'humanitarian innovation,' where technological advancements and corporate industry collaboration are foregrounded as means to enhance aid delivery. In many ways, these narratives of innovation and scale replicate the language of Silicon Valley’s start-up culture. Surveillance of the poor and disempowered is carried out under the guise and rhetoric of care. In this scenario, market ideals and data technologies (re)construe social good as dependent on the “imposition of certain unfreedoms” as the cost of protection (Magalhaes and Couldry 2021). As big data technologies, they foreground a convergence of market logistics and global networks with existing and already problematic international humanitarian infrastructures (Madianou 2019). These convergences create new power arrangements that further perpetuate an unequal and complex dependency of developing countries on foreign organizations and corporations. Pushback against these data demands showcases competing notions of where risk truly lies. While resistance to data demands was at the state level, community responses to imposed epidemic regulations ranged from non-compliance to riots. These resistances demonstrated how the questions of ‘who and what is a threat?’ or ‘who and what is risky?’ and ‘to whom?’ experience shifting definitions in relation to these technologies as global, national, and community imaginaries are reinforced and reproduced as cultural, political, as well as biological units. 

Akinwumi, Adjua. 2023. "Technological care vs Fugitive care: Exploring Power, Risk, and Resistance in AI and Big Data During the Ebola Epidemic." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

Most recent news (As of September 2022) focuses on the EPAs naming of 23 EtO sterilization plants as high risk. This announcement enables local leadership, environmental organizations and legal partners to assess human health risks while focusing on reducing EtO emissions, as outlined by the EPA. Most recent news (As of September 2022) focuses on the EPAs naming of 23 EtO sterilization plants as high risk. This announcement has enabled local leadership, environmental organizations and legal partners to assess human health risks while focusing on reducing EtO emissions, as outlined by the EPA. This release by the EPA has prompted activism in the communities affected by EtO sterilization facilities. As noted by EarthJustice on the news, “Raul Garcia, legislative director for Healthy Communities at Earthjustice: ‘This is an important and welcome step to increasing transparency on the toxic air pollution and health threats that sterilizer facilities pose to the health of millions of Americans. Now that EPA has new information on precisely where the worst health threats are, the agency must use its full authority to ensure public health so no one gets cancer from this pollution and require fenceline monitoring at these facilities. Now, EPA must issue a strong new rule that phases out the use of ethylene oxide at commercial sterilizers. No one should get cancer from facilities that are used to sterilize equipment in the treatment of cancer.’ “. In addition, one major article edited and published by ProPublica sparked both outrage but in addition, change. The article The Most Detailed Map of Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution in the U.S. details 

Activism has prompted more indepth research, increased acquisition and availability of EtO industry data, and increased focus on EtO as a carcinogen and toxin. This hazard was recognized fully by the EPA between 2016-2018 which led to increased assessment and acknowledgement of EtO as a toxin.

The main concern with EtO exposure includes inhalation. Laws that regulate air emissions have invariably affected and regulated this hazard. But specifically, below is a rough outline of  laws that directly impacted the air emissions of facilities processing EtO: 

• Clean Air Act Section 112, Hazardous Air Pollutants. The CAA regulates Ethylene Oxide under section 112 of the CAA. The CAA labels EtO as a hazardous air pollutant. Under the CAA, EtO emissions can be regulated in conjunction with promoting the best emission controls.

• Regulations on Sterilization Facilities (From Federal Register : National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Ethylene Oxide Commercial Sterilization and Fumigation Operations) 

Note, fugitive emissions have not been standardized by the EPA, including back vents, emergency ventilation etc.

Mainly stark contrast can be found between the EPA and various state and chemical manufacturing companies in terms of data divergence. The main concern surrounding EtO is the elevated cancer risk that occurs with long exposure both direct and indirect. The ways in which the EPA and other companies and agencies assess risk have been different in terms of unit quantity. The EPA utilized in 2016 the Integrated Risk Information System to model cancer risk. According to the American Chemical Council the, “ACC believes the value is significantly flawed.” Also, the Texas Commision on Environmental Quality has stated, “ ‘the US EPA unit risk factor (URF) for ethylene oxide is not scientifically justified.’ ”. This has led the TCEQ to raise its exposure limit from 1 ppb to 2.4 ppb.

• Results of the Risk Assessment of Ethylene Oxide Emitting Facilities in Texas and Louisiana

Provides a list of 8 high risk EtO facilities both in LA and TX. Provides a breakdown of race in terms of proximity to facility and risk level. *One point to mention, is that data from the 2018 National Emissions Inventory (NEI), which was used, is provided to the EPA by the LDEQ and TCEQ.*

• Ethylene Oxide Risk Map - Air Alliance Houston

Mapped by the Environmental Advocacy group Air Alliance Houston are EtO facilities across America. The top 25 EtO emitting facilities are labeled and census tracts with a cancer risk greater than 100 in 1 million are also highlighted.

The major organization involved in assessment of EtO is the EPA. The EPA and its branch leaders have spearheaded the response guidelines, have outlined cancer risks, and have conducted research in partnership with other national partners such as the NIH, federal departments of health, and state departments of health.

In the period between 1982 to 1984 multiple studies on lab rats concluded that inhalation concentrations of ethylene oxide could be correlated to cancer development. An analysis of the results found that increased exposure showed higher incidences of tumor development in both male and female lab rats. According to the EPA EtO is carcinogenic and, “Scientific evidence in humans indicates that exposure to EtO for many years increases the risk of cancers of the white blood cells, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma, myeloma, and lymphocytic leukemia. Studies also show that long-term exposure to EtO increases the risk of breast cancer in women.” 

Ethylene oxide mainly becomes an environmental and health hazard in any community when it is released as a gas into the surrounding air. Ethylene oxide exposure includes inhalation and ingestion. 

The map above constructed by air alliance Houston (Generated April 6, 2020) shows areas with EtO Cancer risk greater than 100/1 million as stars, top 25 EtO emitting facilities from 2008-2018 as red dots and other EtO facilities as black dots. Ethylene oxide facilities span the country mainly located on the east coast and gulf coast. 

In a close up we can see Huntsman Petrochemical highlighted within the elevated EtO cancer risk.