By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Posted: Monday, July 1, 1996
ARTICLES
Publication Date: July 1, 1996
The Precautionary Principle seems to dominate in the book written by my fellow panelists. Typically, it's invoked in situations where the scientific evidence is extremely tentatative but the potential for arousing fear is great. Our Stolen Future uses the word might 30 times, the word may 35 times. We didn't bother counting all the coulld's.
Basically, the authors contend that trace levels of environmental endocrine disrupters mainly chemicals that either mimic or block estrogen may result in disaster. Those disasters include lower sperm counts, increased breast and testicular cancer, lower IQ, more endometriosis and reproductive failure. Here's an illustration of the Precautionary Principle in action, taken from page 207 of the book:
"Those exposed prenatally to endocrine-disrupting chemicals may have abnormal hormone levels as adults, and they could also pass on persistent chemicals they themselves have inherited both factors that could influence the development of their own children." One sentence, two could's and sheer speculation based on little evidence.
I don't buy into the Precautionary Principle, for several reasons. First, it always assumes worst-case scenarios. Second, it distracts consumers and policy makers alike from the known and proven threats to human health. And third, it assumes no health detriment from the proposed regulations and restrictions. By that I mean that the Precautionary Principle overlooks the possibility that real public health risks can be associated with eliminating miniscule, hypothetical risks. As an ancient philosopher said, "It is a serious disease to worry over what has not occurred."
We seem to be a nation fixated on hypothetical risks. My former colleague, the late Aaron Wildavsky, noted that the Precautionary Principle plays well to the crowd, by placing the environmental advocate on the side of the citizenry "I care about your health, and I propose an intervention that will protect you." And it allows environmentalists to portray those disagreeing with them as indifferent or even hostile to the public health and perhaps motivated by a desire to profit from whatever product or process is held to be risky.
But in reality, the Precautionary Principle itself can be hazardous to our health. It's well known that the health of citizens is consistently correlated with their countries' standard of living. Dismantling our industrially-based high standard of living, as the authors of Our Stolen Future would like to see happen, will diminish our standard of living and tlead to poorer, not better, overall health.
In talking about hypothetical risks, we get into the distinction between what people perceive as risks and what has scientifically been established as risky. As a corollary to the Precautionary Principle, consumer activists now insist that if the public perceives something as risky, that perception should carry the day regardless whether there truly is a risk or not. In essence, these people argue that science should take a back seat to fear whether that fear is justified or not when it comes to setting policy.
An op-ed piece published several years ago exemplifies this cockeyed approach to assessing risks. It was written by Dr. Edward Groth III, director of technical policy and public service at Consumers Union, and Professor Peter Sandman of Rutgers University, and discusses Alar, the growth-regulating chemical for apples that was withdrawn from the market in 1989 because of the public outcry over its alleged carcinogenicity. Groth and Sandman conclude that the outrage over Alar was completely justsified while acknowledging that the scientific evidence failed to show whether Alar was dangerous or not. They even say that eating an Alar-treated apple is better for a child than a candy bar!
So why was the outrage justified? The authors offer several reasons:
* "It's not fair." Only the apple growers were benefitting from Alar; and children, who "consume comparatively huge amounts of apples and apple products," will bear "much higher theoretical risks from Alar than adults do."
* "It's involuntary," and therefore "consumers reasonably may ask, "who gave them the right to put my child at risk?"
* "Someone's responsible" for Alar. Even if naturally occurring pesticides "pose cancer risks thousands of times greater than the hazards of synthetic pesticides and other agricultural chemicals," Nature is "not making a business decision to sell or spray Alar."
* It's unnecessary," and therefore, "if consumers don't want Alar in apples and apple products, it needn't be there." Where is the science here? There is none, but only a reliance on fear and a hostile stance towards business.
Groth and Sandman believe that the perception of harm is more important than evidence of actual harm in determining public policy. I strongly disagree. We're not doing children nor the rest of society any favors by "dissing" science in this way. Faced with a multitude of risks, both hypothetical and real, and with limited resources for dealing with them, we must rely on science when deciding which risks truly merit our attention.
(From Priorities Vol. 8, No. 3, 1996)
Source Notes:
This article is based on remarks made on June 12, 1996 at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC, during a debate with two of the authors of Our Stolen Future, Theo Colburn and John Peterson Myers. To obtain a transcript of this debate, "Environmental Chemicals: Public Health Concern or Hype?", send a check for $3.85 to The American Council on Science and Health, 1995 Broadway, Second Floor, New York, NY 10023-5860. Or call ACSH at (212) 362-7044 or fax ACSH at (212) 362-4919.
