Special Focus

Bush Administration Says 'Proceed With Caution on Precaution'

Sep 2002
Jerome H. Heckman

Any attempt to enact a universal precautionary principle into American law should itself be the subject of considerable precaution, a Bush administration official said June 20.

Addressing a workshop on the Precautionary Principle sponsored by the International Society of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, Dr. John D. Graham, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget, said that the administration supports precautionary approaches to risk management, but does not recognize any universal precautionary principle. "We consider it to be a mythical concept, perhaps like a unicorn," he remarked.

Rather, Graham emphasized, sound science is critical in setting risk-management priorities. In assessing health risks, he said, there are four basic, scientific questions that should be addressed:

1. What is the degree of certainty that any hazard exists?

2. Is the risk significant or negligible?

3. How many people will be exposed to the hazard? and

4. What is the potential severity of the health risk?

In addition to the availability of scientific knowledge, public officials must also consider the degree of public concern about possible risks-a concept that the emerging science of risk perception and communication is exploring. "These social science questions remind us that the challenge of risk management will not be resolved by hard science alone. We need to consider the type and degree of public participation that is appropriate for decisions about risks," Graham said.

Daily life presents a variety of risks that are subject to substantial scientific uncertainty, but that also trigger significant public concern. "Under these circumstances, what is the appropriate role for precaution in the response of risk managers?" Graham asked.

Americans have suffered harm occasioned by insufficient precaution in risk management, Graham said, citing as examples the health risks of smoking, the neurotoxic effects of lead, and the respiratory diseases caused by asbestos exposure. These problems, he said, "could have been reduced or even prevented altogether if early signals of danger had stimulated precautionary measures by risk managers."

Nonetheless, scientific progress does not always verify early signals of danger or show that hazards are worse than predicted. "There are in fact many cases of postulated or claimed hazards that have not been confirmed," Graham pointed out. He admitted that he contributed to the erroneous predictions as an academic, when he predicted that air bags in automobiles would save 9,000 lives per year-a number significantly higher than the 3,000 lives actually saved.

"It is therefore useful to draw a distinction between the role of precaution in the scientific assessment of risk and the role of precaution in risk management," Graham said. In assessing risks, analysts may introduce conservative assumptions into the analysis to account for unknowns. "When considering the role of precaution in risk management, it is appropriate for policy-makers and the public to inquire about the degree of precaution embedded in the risk assessment."

While the use of precaution in risk management is sensible, it can be harmful to technological innovation if taken to extremes. The urge for precaution in U.S. energy policy, for example, led to a virtual halt in the construction of nuclear power plants; as a result, the country is now more dependent on fossil fuels, which are a major source of environmental concern.

Furthermore, Graham added, "reasonable people can disagree about what is precautionary and what is dangerous." For example, regulators in California have set such stringent emission standards that it may not be feasible to market cars with diesel engines in the state. European regulators, on the other hand, have facilitated the growth of the diesel-engine market, because diesel engines are significantly more fuel-efficient. "The diesel example reminds us that a zero-risk policy is rarely feasible," he said. "More often, policy makers are engaged in an exercise of risk selection and we should not permit any rhetoric about complete safety to obscure this truth." Graham ended his remarks by noting that he detected a number of "points of possible conceptual agreement" in the European Commission's February 2000 Communication on Precaution and related comments from European Parliament committees. They include:

• Precaution is a necessary and useful concept, but it is also subjective and susceptible to abuse for trade purposes;
• Scientific and procedural safeguards need to be built into risk management decisions that are based in part on precaution;
• Adoption of precautionary measures should be preceded by a scientific evaluation of the hazard, and an analysis of the benefits, risks, and costs of alternative measures;
• Concerns for fairness, equity, and public participation should be reflected in risk management; and
• The set of precautionary measures ranges from product bans, to consumer warnings, to market-based reforms.

"Precaution is a perfectly sensible concept that is built into many health, safety, and environmental laws in the United States. At the same time, it may be wise to apply a precautionary approach to any attempt to enact a universal precautionary principle into American law," Graham concluded.