Document QgzKXBX7b5VnLae40r9dLvoL

Ofbio A'- &**, wjK^O, WLj Government u! *t. Risk assessment's role in regulation debated The difficulty of determining what health or environmental risks, if any, arise from use of a new chemical has become a real gremlin in the work of federal regulators, chemical com panies, scientists, and even judges. Aside from the troublesome me chanics of risk assessment, however, there are questions, serious ones, about evaluation of risks when ex perts disagree, or when the public's perception of risk is at odds with the apparent facts. Also, once it is deter mined there is a risk, there is the question of which branch of govern ment has the final responsibility for deciding how much of that risk soci ety should bear. Should it be Con gress or the courts? At the Sixth Symposium on Sta tistics Si the Environment, held by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, a number of people actively involved in risk assessment tried to come to grips with these issues. The program began with an over view of the state of the art of risk as sessment. In an attempt to put ev erything down on paper, the Com mittee on Risk & Decision Making of NAS is preparing a report on methods for risk assessment, and a status re port was presented by Howard Raiffa, Frank P. Ramsey professor of mana gerial economics at Harvard. The re port is expected to be presented to the academy in January. From Raiffa's presentation, it is clear that most of the problems with risk assessment are not with assem bling data, but with interpretation. Raiffa says obtaining value-free re ports from "synthesized" data is very difficult. There is a tendency to pre judge the data, coloring it with the Raiffa: Independent assessment groups Priority Pollutants GC: Tr*cCK S60700A MECD LSC-2 Water Sample Concentrator 1 40ppb Chtorotonri 2 29ppb Bromodtehoromefhane 3 iBppb Cftiorodilwontnetnane 4 tSppto Bromotorm Trihalomethanes and othe^organohalides may be easily monitored with the Tracor 560/HALL 700A gas chromatograph. Tracor can provide quick cost effec tive analysis for your laboratory in accordance with EPA recommended methods. oa 16 TIME, minutes Tracor liaco'.inc 65001rcOi Ln Ausitn tiu T?21 Telephone 5'? 2900 -> CIRCLE SI ON READER SERVICE CARD 90 C&EN Oct. 20.1980 analysts' own perceptions. Raiffa' committee sees the need for Minde pendent, credible assessmen groups," to do analysis. The problem with individuals' own risk values sneaking into assessments is that people often have very sub jective perceptions about risks that may bear little or no resemblance to the actual relative risk. This is the subject of studies by psychologist Baruch Fischhoff at Decision Re search in Eugene, Ore. He cites sev eral studies indicating that people's risk perceptions are colored oy their own prejudices and even the way the risks are presented. But Fischhoff warns that the pub lic cannot be ignored just because it doesn't accept the risk evaluations of a dispassionate "credible assessment group." It becomes an issue of whether a public institution, such as a regulatory agency, should respond to the public's fears or to expert's facts. Fischhoff reminded the audi ence that the public may act this way because it knows something the ex perts do not. Even if nonexperts do not know anything special, but have a deep emotional investment in their beliefs, the stress that would be caused by ignoring those beliefs may have to be a factor in forming policy. But even the experts are by no means in agreement on many issues. Panel discussions of several contro- C I3--D O GJ CD CO CO Markey: Congress should decide m to ib o versial issues found room for consid erable debate. Topics covered were the benzene regulations, banning of diethylstilbestrol (DES), the use of herbicide 2,4.5-trichlorophenol, and chlorofluorocarbons- Although much of these discussions was a rehash of the facts that led to regulatory decisions as they stand now, it was clear these decisions and the data on which they are based are not the final word. What they showed mostly was that without very clear answers to the question, "Does this chemical cause unacceptable risks in the way it is used?", regulatory agencies face a tough time making decisions. But people are searching desper ately for someone to make these tough decisions, says Paul Markey, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Customs & Patent Appeals. He does not want that someone to be the courts. "I am not sure that federal judges, immune from the political process, should ever be involved, in any circumstances, as arbiters of the degree of risk acceptable to the pub lic, Markey says. He maintains that letting the courts decide would preempt the people's right to govern themselves. Markey favors throwing the entire matter back into the lap of Congress. What Markey suggests as a "trial balloon" is that technological prob lems be reviewed by a beefed-up Of fice of Technology Assessment. Ac cording to Markey's plan, OTA could assess any new evidence regulatory agencies consider in making a deci sion and the correctness of the agen cies' conclusions regarding risk. If errors are found, OTA could hand the issue back to the agency. If an impass resulted, the matter could then be settled fy the people's representa tives in Congress. Q Lanier introduces die No Problem" typewriter for your technical typing. Want to get your typing back faster than ever before? 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URL 03641 18 INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT--OCTOBER 1980 SCIENTIFIC SPECULATION INN0W11VE NOIEBOOKBYJUENEMAN J'accuse "EVERY GENERATION of Americans has surpassed its parents in education, literacy, and economic attainment--except the present one." --Paul Copperman, President of the Institute of Reading Development in California. This reflects a lack of leadership in the administrative, legislative, and judicial branches at all levels of government, and exposes an atavistic trend in the age in which we're living. Over the last 20 years, at least, we've created a generation of feral children who have grown up in the wilds of our civilized canyons, who somehow have not benefited from the learning experience. And yet our teachers, by definition, were the crente de ia create. I accuse them all. for failing to provide effective leadership as well as the abrogation of responsibility. There is something even more insidious here than the case of any single individual, or that of a sizeable segment of society. It mirrors underlying causes that affect an entire generation and along with it the course of world history. It is for this reason that I chose the title of this Notebook entry, borrowed from the Freneh writer and journalist of the late 19th century, Emile Zola 11840-1902)." It was in 1894 that Capt. Alfred Dreyfus of the French Army was deliberately and wrongfully accused, and convicted, at a court-martial of passing military secrets to a German attache in Paris. This brought about a wave of political upheaval over matters of national security, of which our own Watergate is reminiscent, along with a storm of anti-Semitism, because of Dreyfus's heritage. 1 n 1898 Zola entered the fray with his editorial series, "J'acctu(I accuse), pointing his finger at the cover-up in the upper echelons of the French War Office. Zola himself was forced to flee to England for his own safety, where he continued his accusations. This ultimately led to the downfall of several high military careers and the final exoneration of Dreyfus in 1906. four years after Zola's death. The real spy. Ferdinand Esterhazy, escaped to London, but Dreyfus's attorney had been found murdered under strange circumstances, while Zola died after a gas-jet had inexplicably been left on in his apartment. But such heroism and integrity by any one man is not going to help us to escape from the dilemma in which we find ourselves today. The insidiousness to which I referred is not helped much by the environmentalists, with whom I disagree in principle, although there are points of imbricate The capacity for genocide is not limited to acknowledged historical monsters. agreement. Our ecological systems are generally somewhat resilient, able to recover after even a major upset, such as the Mt. St. Helens eruptions. Yet while there's kicking and screaming about the development and use of nuclear power to alleviate some of our energy problems, there's laughing and shouting over subtle poisoning of millions by fluoridation. Mankind may be resilient collectively, but there are limits. For example, the San Francisco Bay Area is almost entirely on fluoridated water supplies, and whether or not there's a connection, it also has the highest cancer rate in (he world among Blacks and Chinese. In fact, the carcinomatous asbestos-like fibers of serpentine, a hydrous magnesium silicate, were found existing naturally in Crystal Springs reservoir, supplying back-up water to San Francisco. Serpentine is the California State rock. J'accuse. Then there was the ill-fated war on malaria. The World Health Organization (WHO) began an anti-malaria program some 30 years ago. using DDT to spearhead the effort, centering the attack on the hotbeds of India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka (Ceylon), where nearly 80 million cases per year were reported, which resulted in some 7 million deaths, mostly children. On Sri Lanka alone one-quarter of the 8 million people had the disease. Three years after the DDT program was initiated on Sri Lanka to combat the anopheles mosquito carrier, the incidence of malaria dwindled to 12 cases per year and remained there for over a decade. When political caprice in the United States, under the leadership of then HEW Under Secretary Wm. S. Ruckelshaus, banned DDT and other organo-chlorine pesticides as potential health hazards, westopped manufacturing and exporting these chemicals. And. the Asian countries had little choice but to follow our lead. Within three years Sri Lanka had 1.5 million cases of malaria, and India, Pakistan, and the newly emergent Bangladesh reported a total of more than 6 million cases, with fatalities totaling about ten percent in all instances. The capacity for genocide thus is not limited to acknowledged historical monsters and maniacs. And, the fire of fever becomes a surrogate holocaust as another sacrifice is made on the altar of the voracious goddess. J'accuse. More than a century ago Charles Mackay published his book (1841): Ej'traardinary Papular Delusions and the .Madness of Crotcds (London: Noonday Press, 1974 pbl, with commentary that holdsjustas true today as it did then. Indeed, this work describes with sharp clarity how incorporeal ideas can initiate and control the reality of actions and events, from witch hunts to massed Crusades, from fear of the familiar to terror of the,unknown, and from two-bit hucksters to the selling of a world. Those who condemn the past, forget in repeating it. Again, ./'accuse. F red eric B. Jueneman, director Hydrogen Research Institute 73 r-o INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT--OCTOBER 1900 1 7 The easy-to-use, BASIC, scientific and engineering computer you buy on a calculator budget. URL 03643 minc does everything a desk-top calcu lator does and a lot more. For about the same price you'd pay for a minimal desk-top calculator, you can buy minc, the easy-to-use, complete computer system. MINC comes with ready-to-run graphic, scientific and laboratory programs. This Digital system has its own graphics terminal, built-in IEEE interface, one million character dual floppies, and three serial-line interfaces --all in a cart that you can wheel from job to job. Plug MINC in, turn it on, and you can plot charts, solve complex engineering and statistical problems, control instruments and acquire data. It's all basic tojviixc. f ( ? !' > : ' .* uA // ./ 1\u URL 03644 EDITORIAL a tittle bit of intelligence YOU MUST GET involved, says Dr. James Martin, chemist and U.S. Congressman (R-NC). In his keynote address at the meeting of the Institute of Food Technologists in Dallas recently, he warned of the dangers in the `'concept of Absolute Zero Tolerance." It is, he said, "based not so much on science as on political response to unknown fears." Calling Absolute Zero Tolerance "an absolute absurdity" in a world where chemists can detect concentrations of 3 to 5 x 10-11, he warned of the tendency of federal agencies to adopt it as their guiding principle. He said: "I am concerned that the approach of OSHA, EPA, The Consumer Product Safety Commission, and others to this policy response will be dominated not by scientists, not by experts who understand the meaning of evidence; but by those trained in law and public administration. I am afraid that, if left to themselves, their lack of scientific understanding will be conveniently replaced by their penchant for organizational orderliness. The essentials of technlogy will be obscured behind a facade of legal technicality." The agencies need help. Just as the public should not look to scientists alone to reflect the wishes of the public, Dr. Martin said, .. we must look to no one else to interpret the meaning of science. You must, therefore, get involved. If you do not, it will be left to others to bend the meaning of science so as to fit their advocacy agenda." You can organize expert panels and be available to give testimony in agency and Congressional hearings. You can point out that Absolute Zero Tolerance, rigorously applied, would ban our total food supply. You can remind the policy makers that many carcinogens have threshholds below which they are not carcinogenic. You can help to put things into perspective. Recent newspaper headlines have decried a technological sea of poisons pervading all of Earth. Critics seem especially panicky about compounds popularly identified by letters and numbers: PCB, PBB, DDT, 2,4,5-T, etc. Yet rarely do they know more than surface details. Rarely do they consider the trade-offs, e.g., nitrites in pork vs. botulism, when nitrites are prevalent in leafy vegetables and generously abundant in human saliva. When you get involved in the Absolute Zero Tolerance absurdity. Dr. Martin warns, you can expect to be challenged as someone who favors "a little bit of cancer." To this he replies, "No, I am not really in favor of a little bit of cancer. I am only in favor of at feast a little bit of intelligence." Dr. Martin is right. It is time, for those of us who care, to get involved. 9INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH/DEVELOPMENT--NOV 19?6 From the graphics leader. The Practical Plotters. THOUGHTS on product development Risk, reward, and change.. .and Three Mile Island -- IV It is interesting to analyze how our perception of risk has changed in the 372 years since the colonists first set foot on North American soil in 1607. The colonists came over to this land at great personal risk to them selves and with little hope for any reward at all. Two hundred years ago, the leaders of this country em barked on a risky experiment for which there was no precedent, namely to revolt against their mother country and establish a democratic form of govern ment. They were willing, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, to "pledge . . . our lives, ourfortunes, and our sacred honor." Since the founding of our republic, countless people have risked everything to explore this country and settle the unknown wilderness. Others risked their economic well being to develop new businesses. Most of these risks were taken with little reward in sight. From this auspicious beginning, we have evolved into a nation which does not want to risk having its children eat a non-nutritious breakfast and wants to pass regulations to ensure that this catas trophe does not befall us. Every day of our lives we face all types of risks, be they physiological, psychological, or social. Many of these risks carry no reward at ail, and, in fact, the reward for most of the risks we take is that we live another day. We can say then, that to live is to risk. Only in death does risk become zero. One of the major problems confronting our society today is that it does not want to ri sk accepting a new technology for some future reward. It appears that we are willing to forego tomorrow's reward in return for not having any risk today. Because we want our risks to approach zero, we are, in a sense, committing sociological suicide. We would rather not have elec tricity or more-efficient cars or bigger and better air planes because we do not want to accept the risks of evaluating these new products. We want advance guarantees that these products are perfect. This unwillingness to accept risk is the major threat to product development and innovation. Developing newtechnologiesand products is, in reality, creating change. Change of any sort means risk. If our society does not appear to want to accept any risk, then technology is in deep trouble. This unwillingness to both encourage and accept risk is what is causing the U nited States to lose its position as the technology leader of the world. It is also the underlying reason why it has become so easy to politicize any new technology and sidetrack it into endless legal confrontations. To paraphrase a current commercial, no product is 100% safe all the time, but without new products and new technologies, our society will slowly grind to a halt. If we want our society, our country, and the world to change and to be a better place than it is today; we must accept some of the risks of new technologies, even if there does not appear to be an immediate reward. Erwin A. Frand URL 03646 1979, Frand & A**oc., Cincinnati, OH 23INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH/DEVELOPMENT--OCTOBER 1878 M^l ,an %sff Weights at ages 25-59 based on fewest mortality Weight in pounds occording to frame (in indoor Clothing weighing 5 lbs. for men and 3 lbs. for women; shoes with V heels). Metropolitan liurwic 1 fmpnn Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Hearth and Safety Education Division Cowgr! `*83 \**>fOOO"'an l#t i-iMQnce CoTCO~>r TOMAKE AN APPROXIMATION OF YOUR FRAME SIZE... Extend your orm and bend the forearm upward at o 90 degree angle. Keep fingers straight and turn the inside of your wrist toward your body tf you have a caliper, use it to meosure the space between the two prominent bones on either side of your elbow Without a coliper. place thumb and index finger of your other hand on these two bones Measure the space between your fingers ogainst a ruler or tape measure. Compare it with these tables that list elbow measurements for medium framed men and women. Measurements lower than those fisted indicate you have a smallframe. Higher measure ments indicate o large frame. i Height in 1" heels Men 512"~5'3" 5'4"--57" S'fi"-5'ir 6*0"--6`3" 6'4" Women S'CT-S^" 5*4"--57" 5'8""5'11" 613" Elbow Breadth 2W'-2%" 2H"-2%" 2%`'-3" 2y4"-3ye2%"--3V*." 2V*"--2W' VA"-2W` 2X-2%" 2%"-2a" Might Feel Irenes s2 s3 S4 55 56 57 56 59 S to 5 11 60 6 62 63 64 1983 METROPOLITAN HEIGHT AND WEIGHT TABLES MEN / WOMEN Small frame Medium frame large frame Height Feet etches Small frame Medium Frame 128-134 130-136 132-138 134-140 136-142 136-146 140-148 142-151 144-154 146-157 149-160 "152-164 155-168 158-172 162-176 131-141 133-143 135-145 137-148 139-151 142-154 145-157 148-160 151-163 154-166 157-170 160-174 164-176 167-162 171*187 136-150 140-153 142-156 144-160 146-164 149-160 152-172 155-176 158-180 161-164 164-166 166-192 172-197 176-202 181-207 4 10 4 11 50 5 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 5 10 5 11 60 102-111 103-113 104-115 106-118 106-121 111-124 114-127 117-130 120-133 123-136 126-139 129-142 132-145 135-146 138-151 109-121 111-123 113-126 115-129 118-132 121-135 124-138 127-141 130-144 133-147 136-150 139-153 142-166 145-159 148-162 large Frame 11B-131 120-134 122-137 125-140 128-143 131-147 134-151 137-155 140-159 143-163 146-167 149-170 152-173 156-176 158-179 5o>ct of DOntOOta `*7* SuM Sfuov Society O' Aeiu* ano HOCO(r ofLfte M*aica Oroctan of A.-r^ca i960 URL 03648 T" o.1 -