#395: Risk Assessment -- Part 3: Which Problems Shall We Ignore?

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RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #395
---June 23, 1994---
News and resources for environmental justice.
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Risk assessment became a hot topic in Congress in 1994. Earlier this year when the Senate passed a bill to elevate EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] to cabinet status, Bennett Johnston --a petrochemical senator from Louisiana --tacked on an amendment requiring EPA to conduct a risk assessment for every regulation the agency issues. The House of Representatives has not acted on the "EPA elevation bill" for fear that the Johnston amendment would snarl EPA in paper, making the agency even less effective. [1]

Representative Herb Klein has sponsored a new bill, H.R. 4306, called the "Risk Assessment Improvement Act of 1994," hoping to make EPA conduct all its risk assessments according to fixed guidelines.

The National Academy of Sciences in January issued a fat volume called SCIENCE AND JUDGMENT IN RISK ASSESSMENT that aims to improve EPA's risk assessments. Yes, risk assessment is enjoying great attention in Washington these days. Why?

The premier think tank on risk assessment --the Center for Risk Management in Washington, operated by Resources for the Future (RFF) --explains it this way: "The subject of risk assessment has leaped to prominence during the past year, both in Washington, D.C. and at the grass roots.... There are several reasons for the sudden interest in risk assessment, but the major underlying reason is the general recognition that government and private sector resources are scarce and that it is therefore necessary to understand what society gains from environmental laws and regulations. The only analytical method for determining this is risk assessment. Once the premise of scarce resources is accepted, the need to set priorities is unavoidable."

Really? Is it really true that in 1994, for the first time, people recognized that resources are scarce? As H.L. Mencken liked to say, "Balderdash." Resources have always been limited and people have always known it. The point of developing a Constitutional democracy in the 18th century was to allocate resources more fairly than a monarchy had ever managed to do. The whole point of "politics" is to influence the allocation of scarce resources. Will our town have a new nursing home or a new golf course? Will we subsidize public housing or give a tax break to the new incinerator? These are typical political choices in a world where resources are scarce. There is nothing new about scarce resources.

But risk assessment as a substitute for the political process is new. And think tanks to promote risk assessment as "the only analytical method" for learning what we gain from environmental laws are CERTAINLY new. Is risk assessment the ONLY way to analyze the benefits we get from environmental laws? What a silly idea. Who would support a think tank to promote such a silly, undemocratic idea? A recent newsletter from the Center for Risk Management lists the following "major corporate supporters:" Browning-Ferris Industries; the Chemical Manufacturers Association; the Dow Chemical Company; E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co.; Monsanto Company; WMX Technologies [formerly Waste Management, Inc.]; the General Electric Foundation; and Philip Morris Companies, Inc., among others. "Other corporate contributors" listed in the newsletter are the American Petroleum Institute and the Union Carbide Foundation. In sum, the Center for Risk Management is supported by many of the corporations that have fostered environmental destruction on a global scale for 50 years. Why might these corporations want to promote risk assessment as a way of establishing environmental priorities?

When risk assessment is used to establish environmental priorities, the effect is to decide which problems will be ignored, which destructive behaviors will be tolerated. As we saw last week (RHWN #394), Judge Stephen Breyer, President Clinton's choice for Supreme Court justice and a self-styled expert on risk, says the nation is wasting money worrying about old chemical dumps, pesticides, and nuclear power. It is evident that Mr. Breyer has reached a personal political conclusion that people exposed to pesticides and industrial chemicals from old dumps don't matter much, and that nuclear power is safe. He believes the American people should ignore these problems and focus resources elsewhere. Naturally he's entitled to his views. 

Unfortunately, he wants to impose those views on the rest of us, and he proposes a vehicle for doing just that: an elite corps of risk assessment "experts" who will be "politically insulated" from Congress and from the American people. This elite corps would make risk decisions for the rest of us. The public would be less involved than presently. For example, Judge Breyer says, "For reasons I have mentioned, to achieve the public's broader health and safety goals may require forgoing direct public control of, say, individual toxic waste dumps." (African Americans and native people, beware.) 

And Judge Breyer explains how the elite corps group could defuse public concerns at the local level: the Judge says his system "offers the local [EPA] administrators insulation and protection from criticism. They can answer the locally posed question, 'Is our swamp clean now?' with, 'Yes, the swamp is clean; the risks are insignificant and national technical (system-based) standards say that is so.'" [2] Unfortunately, all the scientists in the world will never be able to determine by scientific methods that the risks of a contaminated swamp are "insignificant." Science cannot determine that. Chemicals that seem safe today are often recognized as dangerous tomorrow, and that will always be the case. 

Furthermore, science has no way to judge the consequences of exposure to many pollutants simultaneously. Therefore, decisions about how to treat contaminated swamps will always be largely political. Scientists are welcome to join the debate, just like any other citizens. The plain fact is, people are uneasy about strange, unnatural chemicals in their food and water, and even in their local swamp. (Most people are also aware that nuclear power plants can be used to make bombs, and that the threat of nuclear war, even as far from home as North Korea, is a big problem.) 

People are aware of evidence of increased birth defects, developmental disorders, cancer, and other illnesses associated with pesticides, and with strange chemicals leaking from Superfund dumps. Men today produce half the sperm their grandfathers did, most likely as a result of exposure to "acceptable" levels of unnatural industrial chemicals. (See RHWN #343.) IT IS RATIONAL TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT SUCH THINGS. In a democracy, people have a right to be concerned, and to advocate that resources be applied to their concerns. 

That is politics. That is the American democratic system. It is perhaps understandable that Dow and DuPont might want to substitute risk assessment for the political process because they can "talk turkey" with the risk experts, whereas the public cannot, and thus in a less democratic system these polluters might be spared the costs of cleaning up the massive quantities of environmental poisons they have released for 50 years.

Comparative risk assessment --or CRA, as it is know in the risk biz --is chiefly a means for increasing the political power of "experts" and reducing the political power of the general public. The experts will decide what is important and what is safe, and--if people like Judge Breyer have their way--the experts will be allowed to impose their views on the public. But CRA is not an objective, scientific enterprise; for reasons given in RHWN #393 and #394, it is distinctly a political process. CRA "experts" have no more legitimate claim to authority or power than anyone else in society.

Furthermore, CRA simply will not work: who expects people living near a Superfund dump to sit by while the risk experts tell them their problem is insignificant compared to global warming, or that society is better served by spending its money, say, subsidizing nuclear power? Using CRA to set environmental priorities is an invitation to continuous warfare at the local level. It will inevitably lead to new environmental injustices, as the voices of the public are excluded from the debate, and the "experts" --many of them the same people who created major environmental problems we now face --make more bad decisions in a political vacuum. CRA simply will not fly, unless we are willing to abandon democracy. It is apparent that Judge Breyer understands this and is willing to shrink our democratic freedoms so the experts can have their way with us. Is CRA really the "only" way to analyze problems of risk in a complex society? Of course not.

Instead of prioritizing environmental problems, thus admitting that certain problems will be ignored (and certain destructive behaviors will be tolerated), we could instead make a national commitment to solve all environmental problems. Every county (or even municipal) government could produce a "state of the environment" report that assessed what problems existed and what progress was being made toward (or away from) solutions. Environmental goals could be thrashed out as part of this report, which might be updated every 2 or 3 years. New information would be factored into each update.

As part of this process, every business might be required to complete an environmental audit that would discuss THEIR alternatives to reduce THEIR impact on the environment and public health. No one would be required to implement the alternatives, but merely to "rigorously explore and objectively evaluate all reasonable alternatives, and for alternatives which were eliminated from detailed study, briefly discuss the reasons for their having been eliminated," as is required now of federal agencies preparing environmental impact statements under the National Environmental Policy Act.

The publication of environmental audits discussing all available alternatives might lead to public pressure on businesses to adopt environmentally sustainable practices. The pressure might consist of green labeling, taxes on toxics, consumer boycotts, laws, initiatives, or regulations. But these are simply the processes of an informed citizenry in a democracy and THAT is where debate about economic feasibility should come in.

There are many other possible ways to promote rational behavior toward the environment. The point here is not to insist on one particular approach, but to examine the most sensible means of addressing all environmental problems rather than claiming rationality for comparative risk assessment, an inherently irrational system of deciding which problems to ignore. [3]

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

===============

[1] Terry Davies, "Message From the Director," CENTER FOR RISK MANAGEMENT NEWSLETTER (Spring, 1994), pg. 1. Available free from: Resources for the Future, 1616 P St., N.W., Washington, DC 20036; phone: (202) 328-5060.

[2] Stephen Breyer, BREAKING THE VICIOUS CIRCLE (Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press, 1993), pgs. 73, 76.

[3] Thanks to Mary O'Brien for many ideas on risk assessment, though she bears no responsibility for their presentation here.

Descriptor terms: risk assessment; stephen breyer; epa; comparative risk assessment; bennett johnston; petroleum industry; us senate; house of representatives; congress; legislation; herb klein; national academy of sciences; nas; center for risk management; resources for the future; bfi; browning-ferris industries; cma; chemical manufacturers association; dow chemical; dupont; monsanto; wmx technologies; waste management, inc.; ge; general electric; philip morris; american petroleum institute; api; union carbide; superfund; radiation; nuclear power; pesticides; science; nepa; national environmental policy act; alternatives assessment; environmental audits; mary o'brien; terry davies;

#394: Risk Assessment -- Part 2: Judge Breyer's Prescription for Risk

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RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #394
---June 16, 1994---
News and resources for environmental justice.
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Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
==========
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========================Original Source========================

Reluctantly, President Clinton has nominated Stephen Breyer to the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Breyer presents himself as an expert on risk assessment; he has even written a book on the subject, BREAKING THE VICIOUS CIRCLE, subtitled TOWARD EFFECTIVE RISK 

REGULATION. [1]Examining Mr. Breyer's book on risk provides an opportunity to extend our discussion from last week#393 about the insuperable shortcomings of risk assessment. It will also help us learn what Mr. Breyer believes about risk in a democracy.

Risk assessment has 4 parts, says Mr. Breyer [pg. 9]: (1) identifying the potential hazard (i.e., defining the toxicity of the substance in question); (2) drawing a dose/response curve (i.e., deciding how much of a substance will cause how much damage); (3) estimating the amount of human exposure; and (4) categorizing the result (i.e., putting it all together to state the probability of a certain kind of damage).

Mr. Breyer says 2 of these 4 steps are particularly difficult: "In carrying out these activities, particularly in making dose/response and exposure estimates, regulators often find that they simply lack critically important scientific or empirical data: they do not know how many Americans inhale how much benzene at gasoline stations; they do not know the extent to which the biology of a rat or mouse resembles, or differs from, that of a human being. In such instances, they will often make a 'default assumption'--a formalized guess--designed to fill the gap and to permit the regulator to continue the analysis." [We note that Mr. Breyer is in complete agreement here with the risk expert we quoted last week, Joseph V. Rodricks; what Mr. Breyer calls "default assumptions," Mr. Rodricks called "science policy choices" but they are the same thing -- informed guesses.) Guesses to fill data gaps are not science. They are political judgments.]

Having defined risk assessment [correctly, we believe], Mr. Breyer now describes the larger problem of regulating risks, or "the vicious circle." The problem has 3 parts: public perception, Congress, and uncertainties in the regulatory process.

The problem of "public perception" is that the "experts" and the public often disagree on what's an important risk. For example, Breyer says, the public ranks toxic dumps and nuclear power as big risks but the experts rank them as small risks. [pg. 33]

The problem with Congress is that it is "not institutionally well suited to write detailed regulatory instructions that will work effectively" because (a) it writes one law at a time, (b) its committees have various priorities, and (c) "Finally, Congress is highly responsive to public opinion, as it ought to be." Even though Congress "ought to be" responsive to public opinion, the public "finds it difficult to order risk priorities" and therefore Congress has the same difficulty. [pg. 42] For these reasons, Congress can never be effective at dealing with risk, in Mr. Breyer's view.

The 3rd element of the "vicious circle," Mr. Breyer says, is the "enormous uncertainties, almost inevitably present, in any practical regulatory effort to carry out the four stages of risk assessment earlier described-- identifying the hazard, relating response to dose, estimating exposure, and characterizing the risk." [pg. 43]

The discipline called "toxicology" is part of the problem, says Mr. Breyer. "Like civil engineering, toxicology embodies as a disciplinary canon the importance of 'erring on the safe side.'" This assumption that we should err on the side of safety is a key part of the problem, Mr. Breyer says. He says, "Two scientifically plausible models for the risk associated with aflatoxin in peanuts or grain may show risk levels differing by a factor of 40,000." From this, Breyer concludes that, "With estimates that vary by such magnitudes, a simple retreat to the toxicological principle of erring on the side of safety will not solve the problem." [pg. 45]

He then goes on to emphasize how little science can actually tell us about the effects of most toxins on human health [again, agreeing with toxicologist and risk assessor Joseph V. Rodricks, whom we quoted last week]. Then Breyer says, "These uncertainties, knowledge gaps, default assumptions, guesses, and communications difficulties, all embodied in the technical regulatory process, spell trouble.... Such a system, in respect to small risks, and with assumptions of varying reasonableness, can produce random results." [pg. 48]

These uncertainties become political opportunities, Breyer says: "The very fact that the many assumptions required by uncertainties are not clearly derivable from science can make them a lightning rod for contending political forces. Regulatory bodies, after all, are politically responsive institutions, with boards, commissioners, or administrators appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate, written about by the press, and, from time to time, summoned by Congressional committees to give public testimony. Their agendas, within limits, respond to the public's demands. Their choices of default assumptions, to a degree, can respond to the desire of the President, Congress, Congressional staffs, interest groups, or the agencies themselves to appear especially careful to err on the safe side, or, alternatively, to show sensitivity to economic costs." [pg. 49]

Having established that risk assessment is a highly political, not a scientific, enterprise, and is subject to pressures from "the public's demands," Mr. Breyer develops his solutions:

We can't change people, and we can't change Congress, so we've got to change the third element of the "vicious circle," Mr. Breyer argues. We've got to change the regulatory process.

Mr. Breyer's solution is a "small, centralized administrative group" [pg. 60] whose mission will be to develop risk regulations. This group must have 5 characteristics [pgs. 60-61]:

(1) a mission to develop a risk-regulating system, to create priorities within government programs, and to determine how to allocate resources to reduce risks.

(2) Interagency jurisdiction, to transfer funds, say, from the toxic waste program to vaccination programs and prenatal care, for example, Mr. Breyer says.

(3) A degree of "political insulation" so it can withstand "political pressures" that "emanate from the public directly or through Congress or other political sources."

(4) Prestige, so it can attract a capable staff.

(5) Authority, so that it has "a practical ability to achieve results," Breyer says. [Later, on page 72, Breyer suggests giving the group real power: "perhaps such a group would begin to consider whether proposed rules, regulations, or major agency actions are 'arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion'--a legal authority that would bring with it enormous power," Breyer says.]

Are you getting the picture? Mr. Breyer says our problem is that we're wasting money on insignificant problems like toxic chemicals and nuclear power regulation. This occurs because the "experts" are outweighed in the political process by the general public, operating through Congress. The general public has different priorities from the experts. Congress listens too much to the public and not enough to the experts. Mr. Breyer is clearly saying, what we need is an elite corps of experts to make decisions for us about risk.

How would this elite group of risk assessors, empowered to create priorities, allocate resources, and achieve results, really work? Mr. Breyer offers 5 hints:

(a) They might simply declare some risks too small to worry about. These would be termed de minimus risks. [pgs. 64-67]

(b) They would call upon risk assessment expertise from outside government.

(c) The group would develop "models" to achieve "higher quality analysis and better results." In other words, better risk assessments.

(d) The group could develop a "risk agenda" and then look for practical ways to save money on some programs and transfer those funds to other programs. Here Breyer repeats his example of taking funds away from toxic waste cleanup and transferring them to pay for vaccinations, or prenatal care, or mammograms. [Clearly Mr. Breyer believes we are a society that cannot afford to clean up toxic wastes AND vaccinate our children AND provide prenatal care AND provide mammograms.]

(e) They might consider the risk-related impacts of future scientific changes, Breyer says: "Suppose, for example, that medical research identifies particular groups of persons genetically predisposed to develop cancer when exposed to certain chemicals. Society should not ignore their special plight. Yet it may prove nearly impossible, and sometimes inordinately expensive, to grant them a 'right' to the lowest possible risk and then limit society's use of chemicals to which they specially react. It might well be more effective to provide them with special counseling that includes information about how to avoid exposure to the carcinogens to which they are particularly susceptible." [pg. 67]

[Mr. Breyer is clearly ready to have his elite group declare null and void every citizen's right to clean air and water. And what about his suggestion that, instead of controlling toxic releases, we should tell people how to avoid particular toxins? How would we tell the eagles and the salmon to avoid toxins? Or don't they matter?]

Are there any precedents for similar groups operating anywhere in the world? Yes, says Mr. Breyer, France has the Conseil d'Etat, an elite civil service group that reviews the "administrative lawfulness" of government actions and proposed regulations. Is there any precedent in the U.S.? Yes, says Mr. Breyer; one is "the Armed Forces--not an open institution, but one which has successfully carried out its mission." [pg. 78]

Mr. Breyer does not seem to recognize that the chemical risk problems he seeks to remedy were created chiefly by two institutions: the armed forces, and private industry. Historically, both these institutions have enjoyed almost complete "political insulation" of the kind Mr. Breyer advocates for his elite corps of risk assessors. Furthermore, both of these institutions have always had access to the best technical experts money can buy. Indeed, technical experts shielded from political accountability were, and are, the main engine driving the global environmental crisis.

As for developing better risk assessments based on "better models": if science cannot provide consistent and reproducible results about risks, as Mr. Breyer correctly says science cannot, then his "better models" cannot be based on science. They must therefore be based on political judgments. Whose judgments? Those of Mr. Breyer's elite corps of politically insulated risk experts.

Is Mr. Breyer's final solution better than the democracy presently written into our Constitution? All we can say is, it would certainly be radically different.

                                                                         
--Peter Montague

===============

[1] Stephen Breyer, BREAKING THE VICIOUS CIRCLE (Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press, 1993).

Descriptor terms: clinton; stephen breyer; breaking the vicious circle; risk assessment; supreme court; democracy;

#393: Risk Assessment -- Part 1: The Emperor's Scientific New Clothes

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RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #393
---June 9, 1994---
News and resources for environmental justice.
==========
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
==========
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========================Original Source========================

A scientist who made himself wealthy by conducting risk assessments for industrial clients has now published a paperback book on the theory of risk assessment. CALCULATED RISKS, by Joseph V. Rodricks of Environ Corporation, is the best book we have yet seen on the theory of risk assessment -- lucidly written, and evenhanded so far as it goes. [1] If you want to understand the theory of risk assessment from the viewpoint of a successful risk assessor, this is the book for you.

Unfortunately, since the theory of risk assessment is quite different from the practice of risk assessment, Rodricks's book is little more than an enthusiastic description of the emperor's scientific new clothes.

In loving detail, Rodricks's book describes all the theoretical steps in a risk assessment. What the book does not discuss are:

(1) the insurmountable limits of science in determining chemical hazards;

(2) the environmental justice problems that government officials create when they use risk assessment to prioritize environmental problems; and

(3) the widespread destruction of the environment that is occurring because of our single-minded reliance on risk assessment;

(4) other, better approaches to establishing "safety" and to deciding environmental priorities, besides risk assessment.

This week and next,#394 we will discuss these 4 points.

The limits of science: Risk assessors are usually working with information that ranges from slim to none, and this will always be the case because the chemical industry invents new chemicals much faster than the government can test all their various negative effects. Rodricks acknowledges that our ignorance is vast: "Toxicologists know a great deal about a few chemicals, a little about many, and next to nothing about most," he says [pg. 146].

As Rodricks's book illustrates, the government often doesn't even know what toxic effects to test for. For example, Rodricks's book is as thorough and up-to-date as he could make it in 1992 (when the hardback edition first appeared), and yet it does not even mention chemicals that damage the endocrine system. The endocrine system, in wildlife and humans, is a complex set of bodily organs and tissues whose activities are coordinated by chemical messengers called hormones, which control growth, development and behavior. Bears hibernate because of chemical signals from the endocrine system, and women menstruate under control of their endocrine systems. In the past decade, evidence has accumulated that several dozen pesticides and other industrial chemicals mimic, or interfere with, hormones and thus disrupt the endocrine system. In both wildlife and humans, it is the reproductive system of unborn offspring that is most prone to disruption by hormone-like pollutants.

For 20 years, risk assessors like Rodricks -- well-meaning people inside and outside of government -- have given the green light to exposing people and wildlife to thousands of chemical compounds without understanding that some chemicals mimic, or interfere with, hormones. The very best risk assessments gave the answer "No problem" when in fact there were significant problems.

This is an insurmountable shortcoming of all risk assessments. If there are effects from chemicals that scientists have not suspected and studied, those effects will be ignored in a risk assessment. Furthermore, because it costs roughly $400,000 to $1,000,000 to study a chemical even crudely, major harm must be demonstrated before study commences. Therefore, the risk- assessment method of setting "safe" standards always requires that harm must be done to wildlife and humans before study begins.

Rodricks -- like every other person who makes a living conducting risk assessments -- is not deterred by the absence of information about chemical effects. When good data are not available, risk assessments are put together from "science policy choices" (a fancy name for informed guesses), assumptions, and speculation.

This is a key point. Rodricks [pg. 187] says, for example, that in most cases the relationship between dose and response at low levels of exposure is not known. (In other words, nobody knows how sick your child will get from eating small amounts of several poisons every day.) There are usually several "scientifically plausible models" that could describe the dose-response relationship, Rodricks says, and "scientists cannot be sure which is correct." Moreover, the different models "yield sometimes substantially different pictures of the risk for the same exposure," he says. And, "If a risk assessment is to be completed, a science policy choice (the phrase used by the NRC [National Research Council]) must be made about the model to be used.... SEVERAL SIMILAR CHOICES HAVING TO DO WITH OTHER UNCERTAINTIES ARE NEEDED TO COMPLETE MOST RISK ASSESSMENTS," Rodricks says [emphasis added]. In other words, guesswork is central to every risk assessment.

Interestingly, Rodricks does not elaborate on the "several similar choices" that go into every risk assessment--perhaps because to do so would reveal that risk assessment is not the scientific enterprise it appears to be, but is in fact largely a political exercise. Rodricks does say that, "To base risk assessment and risk management decisions upon such uncertain scientific knowledge is bad public policy" [pg. 227]. 

Unfortunately, his answer is not to reduce our reliance upon risk assessment but to do more studies, as if more studies will eliminate all the important uncertainties in our scientific knowledge of the effects of chemicals on humans and ecosystems. Dream on. (See RHWN #377.)

From the viewpoint of someone eager to dump exotic new chemicals into the ecosystem, this is the real beauty of risk assessment: no matter how flimsy the base of information, every risk assessment still gives the same satisfyingly numerical answer. Furthermore, the answer you get is completely dependent upon the "science policy choices" that you made, yet the final result appears to be entirely objective and impartial. A political choice swaddled in scientific trappings. This emperor is really a snappy dresser!

Back to our recently-discovered ignorance about hormone disrupting chemicals. In testimony before Congress last October, Richard Wiles of the Environmental Working Group in Washington, D.C., showed that we now put 220 million pounds of endocrine-disrupting pesticidal chemicals directly onto and into our food supply each year. [2] The pesticide found most often on fruits and vegetables is endosulfan and it is an endocrine-disrupter. Analysis of data from the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) routine food monitoring program revealed endosulfan on 21 out of 22 samples (95%) of fruits and vegetables heavily consumed by infants and children, Wiles testified.

At the same hearing, Dr. Earl Gray, a section chief in U.S. EPA's Health Effects Research Laboratory, reported his latest findings on a fungicide called Vinclozolin -- a pesticide currently in use with EPA's approval. [3] "Vinclozolin, when administered to a pregnant rat, demasculinizes the male fetuses in a manner identical to the anti-androgenic drug flutamide and in effect these effects are so obvious that all of the males look like females at birth," Dr. Gray testified. He went on to say, "In the rats in vivo [in other words, in studies of living animals] this chemical blocks development of the fetal male rat reproductive system so that they have undescended testes, they develop a vaginal pouch like a female, the penis fails to develop normally, and they retain nipples which male rats do not normally do."

Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Ca.) asked Gray, "Do you think that Vinclozolin could have the same kinds of hormonal effects on humans?" Gray answered, "I think that is quite possible, and likely."

Earlier in the hearing, Dr. Theo Colborn, an expert on endocrine-disrupting chemicals, made the point that a single dose of some chemicals can disturb a baby's normal sexual development. She said, "Nor is it comforting for a woman to realize that it takes only one very low dose, it is called a hit, of an endocrine-disrupting chemical during one of the many critical stages of embryonic development during her pregnancy to change the course of sexual development of her baby." [4]

So long as we use risk assessment as our chief guide for allowing chemical exposures, we can expect an unending series of unpleasant surprises as today's "safe" dose is discovered tomorrow to be unsafe.

Joe Rodricks makes a clear distinction in his book between risk assessment and risk management. First you assess the risk, then government acts to protect the public, he says. Oh, this emperor is really looking natty! 

How does this work in the real world?

At the hearing last October, Congressman Waxman asked EPA's Dr. Lynn Goldman how long it would take before Vinclozolin would be removed from the American food supply. Note the rich fudge of risk assessor's language in Dr. Goldman's response:

"Well, the decision could involve a number of considerations. What we are going to be concerned about is the issue of not only the inherent risk of the pesticide, but also the science that tells us about the exposures that might be expected given the various uses that are allowed under the label, and so that there could be a variety of actions that are taken ranging from, as you suggested, perhaps not even allowing the registration to only allowing the registration on certain uses that are safe, to allowing all of the uses that are currently allowed if we are very certain that we have no exposures that would cause harm to those who might come in contact with it, so the decision--this piece of information is one piece of the scientific data that needs to be examined to make a good decision about this compound, but obviously a very important piece." [5]

How could EPA ever determine "uses that are safe?" How could EPA ever become "very certain" that "we have no exposures that could cause harm?" Science simply can never provide such assurances. So EPA will rely on--what else?--risk assessment.

How can we really be sure that no humans or wildlife will be harmed by Vinclozolin? There's only one way: Don't use any Vinclozolin. Pollution prevention.

===============

[1] Joseph V. Rodricks, CALCULATED RISKS (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992; paperback edition, 1994).

[2] Wiles testimony in HEALTH EFFECTS OF ESTROGENIC PESTICIDES; HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY, COMMERCE AND ENVIRONMENT OF THE [HOUSE] COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE... OCTOBER 21, 1993 SERIAL NO. 103-87 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994), pgs. 29-37.

[3] Gray testimony in HEALTH EFFECTS..., cited in note 2 above, pgs. 123-126.

[4] Colborn testimony in HEALTH EFFECTS..., cited in note 2 above, pg. 38.

[5] Goldman testimony in HEALTH EFFECTS..., cited in note 2 above, pg. 127.