Whether the public or the environment is at risk is a commonly discussed question in numerous areas of public life, most recently and publicly with regard to issues like BSE, passive smoking and the dangers from pesticides in food production. It is therefore of great importance for everyone concerned with these issues--both policy makers and the public who may be subject to their decisions--to understand the basis on which 'risk' policy is made. The principle objective of this book is to highlight the uncertainties inherent in 'scientific' estimates of risk to the public and the environment resulting from exposure to certain hazards. It is not often that one comes across a book that reads like the smell of fresh air after being cooped in a smell room; such a book is this.
--Safety & Health Practitioner
Numerous examples of potential and real hazards are given. They all show that injury to personal health or the environment is a function not only of the toxicity (i.e. the lethality of a particular hazard) but of the level of exposure to the hazard concerned--in the words of the old maxim, the dose makes the poison. Existing regulation is criticized for being based on a flawed application of a poor epidemiological methodology, where toxicity is the basis of regulation and dose tends to be ignored. Furthermore, some authors conclude that risk is a subjective phenomenon that cannot be eliminated through regulation.
Roger Bate is a visiting fellow at AEI.
Table of Contents
I. Methodology
1. Thresholds for carcinogens: a review of the relevant science and its implications for regulatory policy 2. Biases introduced by confounding and imperfect retrospective and prospective exposure assessments 3. Problems with very low dose risk evaluation: the case of asbestos
II. Science
4. Benzene and leukaemia 5. Is environmental tobacco smoke a risk factor for lung cancer? 6. Beneficial ionizing radiation 7. Pollution, pesticides and cancer misconceptions 8. Interpretation of epidemiological studies with modestly elevated relative risks 9. The risks of dioxin to human health
III. Science Policy
10. Public policy and public health: coping with potential medical disaster 11. How are decisions taken by governments on environmental issues?
IV. Commentaries
12. Should we trust science? 13. The proper role of science in determining low-dose hazard, and appropriate policy uses of this information
V. Perception
14. Mass media and environmental risk: seven principles 15. Cars, cholera, cows, and contaminated land: virtual risk and the management of uncertainty
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