Abstract
“How do you explain the behavior of those geriatric rats?” asked the EPA Administrator. He wanted his medical advisers to explain why three laboratory rats which developed cancerous tumors after being dosed with the toxic chemical vinyl chloride (commonly called VC) had outlived 47 dosed rats which had not developed tumors and 50 rats in a control group which were not exposed to the chemical at all. The life expectancy of rats is 104 weeks, and 97 rats died on schedule. But the three which were the center of attention had survived until they were 110 to 120 weeks old. “Didn’t the three tumor-laden rats simply die of old age?” queried the Administrator.
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoidance of danger is no safer in the long run than exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
—Helen Keller
Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales.
—Bertrand Russell
The concept of the mythical man was introduced in the debates on the Clean Air Act—stand by a plant’s fence for 70 years, breathe the chemical 24 hours a day, and have a one in one million chance of getting cancer. If that is the case, then shut down the plant. These theories are lost on my colleagues and myself.
—Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole
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End Notes
Technical documentation about the vinyl chloride case is included in: “Preliminary Assessment of the Environmental Problems Associated with Vinyl Chloride and Polyvinyl Chloride (with Appendices),” EPA, September 1974.
A good discussion of the pervasiveness of PCBs in the mid-1970s is included in Maugh, Thomas H., “Chemical Pollutants: Polychlorinated Biphenyls Still a Threat,” Science, December 19, 1975, page 1189.
For a recent discussion of chemical carcinogens, see “Special Report: A Brief Review of Chemical Carcinogenesis,” The Texas Institute for Advancement of Chemical Technology, Special Report 1, 1989, College Station, Texas.
“Water Program: Benzidine; Proposed Toxic Pollutant Effluent Standards,” Federal Register, Part V, June 30, 1976. This notice reviews development of the quantitative standard after it was first proposed in the Federal Register on December 27, 1973.
“Auto Pollution Health Costs Calculated,” Washington Post, January 21, 1990, page A12.
Valuing Health Risks, Costs, and Benefits for Environmental Decision Making, National Research Council, National Academy Press, 1990, page 207.
A good summary of early efforts to standardize risk assessment methodologies for carcinogens is included in Rushevsky, Mark E., Making Cancer Policy, State University of New York Press, 1986.
“Scientific Bases for Identification of Potential Carcinogens and Estimation of Risks,” Report of the Interagency Regulatory Liaison Group, Work Group on Risk Assessment, 1979, page 1.
Ames, Bruce N., “Identifying Environmental Chemicals Causing Mutations and Cancer,” Science, May 11, 1979, pages 587–593.
For more detailed discussions of ecological risk assessment, see Messer, Jay J., “Keeping a Closer Watch on Ecological Risks,” EPA Journal, May/June 1989, pages 34–36; and Bascietto, John, Dexter Hinckley, James Plafkin, and Michael Stinck, “Ecotoxicity and Ecological Risk Assessment, Regulatory Applications at EPA,” Environmental Science and Technology, Volume 24, Number 12, 1990, pages 10–15; and “Review of Ecological Risk Assessment Methods,” EPA AX 8907–0100, EPA, 1988.
Wingard, Laura, “Lake Project Continues To Be Studied,” Las Vegas Review Journal, November 15, 1987, page 7B;
Beall, Christopher, “Lake Lovers Return Something to Mead,” Las Vegas Review Journal, May 31, 1987, page 7B.
EPA has widely publicized its Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program which begins pilot testing in 1990 directed to detecting changes in indicators of ecological conditions—terrestrial, freshwater, and coastal ecosystems. See, for example, Bromberg, Steven M., “Identifying Ecological Indictors: An Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program,” Journal of the Air and Waste Management Association, July 1990, pages 976–978.
An interesting discussion of uncertainty is included in Goldstein, Bernard D., “The Problem with the Margin of Safety: Toward the Concept of Protection,” Risk Analysis, Volume 10, Number 1, 1990. Also, see “Health Hazards: An Imperfect Science,” Technology Review, May/June 1986, pages 60–75.
National Academy of Sciences Symposium on Risk Communications, September 11, 1989.
Ruckleshaus, William D., “Risk, Science, and Democracy,” Issues in Science and Technology, Spring 1985, pages 22–26.
See, for example, Decision Making for Regulating Chemicals in the Environment, National Research Council, National Academy Press, 1975; Risk Assessment in the Federal Government, National Research Council, National Academy Press, 1983; and “Risk Assessment and Management,” EPA 600/9–85–002, EPA, December 1984. For more specificity, see Paustenbach, Dennis J. (editor), The Risk Assessment of Environmental and Human Health Hazards: A Textbook of Case Studies, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1989.
“Judge Bazelon’s Brilliant Address on Role of Courts in Health Improvement,” Occupational Health and Safety Letter, Washington, October 22, 1980, pages 3–5.
See, for example, Fiksel, Joseph, “Victim Compensation,” Environmental Science and Technology, Volume 20, Number 5, 1986, page 425.
Schweitzer, Glenn E., “Relevance of Radiation Compensation Litigation to Compensation for Toxic Exposures,” Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, Volume 8, 1987, pages 1–10.
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Schweitzer, G.E. (1991). The Uncertainty of Risk but the Reality of Cost. In: Borrowed Earth, Borrowed Time. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6140-2_3
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