The Public and the Precautionary Principle
Nor is
the Precautionary Principle new. It is seen in such common-sense aphorisms
as "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,"
"Better safe than sorry," and "Look before you leap."
By DICK
DORWORTH
Express Staff Writer
In 1854
there was a cholera epidemic in London, England. Many people died and
nobody knew the biological cause of the disease. Dr. John Snow, a London
physician, made a map of the locations of the deaths to see if there was a
discernible pattern. He found that the majority of the deaths took place
within 250 yards of a public water pump. Without having irrefutable
scientific proof, but possessed of good instincts and common sense, Snow
suspected that the water from the pump was the source of the contagion. He
had the handle removed, making the pump inoperable. The plague ended.
This is one
of the earliest and best known examples of the use of the Precautionary
Principle to protect the health of the public. Precautionary Principle is
short for the "principle of precautionary action," which was
eloquently explicated in a statement in 1998 by an international group of
scientists, government officials, lawyers and labor and environmental
activists after a meeting in Racine, Wis. The gathering was called the
Wingspread meeting.
It was
deemed necessary as a response to what the group sees as a primary danger
to the health of the planet and its inhabitants. Its statement reads in
part, "The release and use of toxic substances, the exploitation of
resources, and physical alterations of the environment have had
substantial unintended consequences affecting human health and the
environment…We believe existing environmental regulations and other
decisions, particularly those based on risk assessment have failed to
protect adequately human health and the environment the larger system of
which humans are but a part."
Among many
other disturbing, destructive and dangerous failures which led to that
belief are Love Canal, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Thalidomide, DDT,
species extinction throughout the world, and man-induced stratospheric
ozone depletion and global climate change. Closer to home are the
resultant high rates of learning deficiencies, asthma, leukemia, cancer,
birth defects and other ailments which, like the London water pump of
1854, are grouped around sources of radiation, asbestos, pesticides,
chemical dumps and industrial pollution.
Part of the
Wingspread statement reads, "When an activity raises threats of harm
to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken
even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established
scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than
the public, should bear the burden of proof."
Indeed, the
public so often bears the burden of proof in the role of test subjects,
human guinea pigs who are expendable, replaceable and, under current law,
powerless. A study by the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention concluded
that only 2 percent of cancer deaths are caused by industrial toxins
released into the environment. Only 2 percent is 11,000 people a year in
the United States whose horrible, painful and unnecessary deaths can be
scientifically attributed to industrial toxins. A case could be made that
these 11,000 deaths represent a form of homicide. A case could be made
that these deaths represent a form of terrorism. Each year, at least three
times the number of people who died in the horror of Sept. 11 are killed
in America by industrial toxins in the environment. Instinct and common
sense says the number is much higher.
Unfortunately,
there is no war against this type of terrorism. The reasons for this
apathy are complex and involve things like campaign finance reform and
decisions based on what is called "risk assessment." Wingspread
participant Joe Tickner of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, said
that decisions based on risk assessment asks questions like "How safe
is safe? What level of risk is acceptable? How much contamination can a
human or ecosystem assimilate without showing any obvious adverse
effects?"
Corporate
risk assessment is not new. It is reflected in such ancient aphorisms as
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained" and "Let the devil take
the hindmost." Nor is the Precautionary Principle new. It is seen in
such common-sense aphorisms as "An ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure," "Better safe than sorry," and "Look
before you leap."
The world
is sorry, and a sorry place, and paying many pounds of cure for the past
follies of the nuclear industry, the horrors released into the environment
by the chemical industry, and the on going irresponsibility of the
asbestos and mining industries, among others. And now those same
industries, and even some of the same companies, have assessed the risks
to the public and environment and decided there is money to be made in
genetically modified foods. Critics of genetically modified foods, the
seeds they grow from, the seed companies that sell the seed to farmers and
the chemical companies that own the seed companies would like to see the
Precautionary Principle applied to the genetic manipulation of the food we
eat and of the environment we all live in.
So would I.
Wouldn’t you?