Risk Assessment Tools in Decision Making
Article Review
Risk assessment is a tool especially used in decision-making by the scientific and regulatory community. In Making Good Decisions, Peter Montague discusses the use of risk assessment, points out its lack of usefulness in his opinion, and posits that the current use of risk assessment today is largely unethical. He states that "Risk Assessment is one way of making decisions, but it is not the only way, and it is not the best way." (Montague, date unknown, p.1) Decision making in itself carries a substantial amount of risk because decisions are made in a less-than-perfect world. One never has all the information possible (Harris, 1998) and every decision charts a course into an unknown future. However, there are times where the potential for injury to people, animals or the environment in that unknown future should be evaluated and be considered in the development of alternatives. It is particularly important in the determination of appropriate courses of action when introduction of new chemicals into an environment or population is being contemplated.
Montague uses the four-step process definition of risk assessment described by the National Academy of Sciences and then discusses how each step has failed to have an impact on good decisions.' In step 1, Hazard Identification, he states that toxic endpoints' such as cancers and reproductive toxicities "are simply ignored." He continues in step 2, Dose-Response Assessment, with discussion of the effects of dose size on risk. He implies that because there are many ways to estimate or extrapolate the data from lab animals to humans, it causes the results to be manipulated until the answer that supports a particular plan of action is found. He implies that, at least informally, an alternative has already been isolated for implementation. In step 3, Exposure Assessment, Montague again asserts that "many sources of exposure are usually ignored." Finally in step 4, Risk Characterization, the type of population to be affected is analyzed. Here, Montague declares that "in practice, the characteristics of a particular population are usually ignored and averages are used instead." (Montague, date unknown, p. 2)
Montague continues in the remainder of the article to dispute the utility of risk assessment in decision-making. He alleges that "risk assessments never describe the real world" and "most people cannot understand or participate in a risk assessment" because it is a "mathematical technique.
When you reach for a cosmetic product or even medication you do so in confidence that these products have been tested and are safe for you to use. You use these products knowing that they have been tested repeatedly, but do you know how they have been tested? It turns out that many of the products that you use every day such as cosmetics and even medication have been tested thoroughly on animals (Abbot). These test that are being ran are supposed to be for our safety but in many cases “the results of testing on animals are different from the results of testing on humans because we have different physiologies and metabolisms” (Callanan 20). These test on animals are not only unnecessary and sometimes give false results but they cause harm to
The National Research Council in the United States has expressed its vision of “a not-so-distant future in which virtually all routine toxicity testing would be conducted in human cells or cell lines”, and science leaders around the world have reaffirmed this view. The sequencing of the human genome and birth of functional genomics, the explosive growth of computer power and computational biology, and high-speed robot automation of cell-based screening systems, to name a few, has sparked a quiet revolution in biology. Together, these innovations have produced new tools and ways of thinking that can help uncover exactly how chemicals and drugs disrupt normal processes in the human body at the level of cells and molecules. From there, scientists can use computers to interpret and integrate this information with data from human and population level studies. The resulting predictions regarding human safety and risk are potentially more relevant to people in the real world than animal tests. The wider field of human health research could benefit from a similar shift in theory. Many disease areas have seen little or no progress despite decades of animal research. Some 300 million people currently suffer from asthma, yet only two types of
...rities the computer generates the an assessment of the level of risk. Since no two cases or alike, it is unlikely that what worked for one family will work for all families. Each case is unique and requires the skill and judgement only a human being can provide.
There are a number of ways risk communication occurs, however, experts often deliver risks, especially health risks, to the general public through media. So through various media outlets, government agencies and personnel, experts, and journalist are able to provide information to the general public about the nature of risks. The definition of risk communication is the process of exchanges about how best to assess and manage risks among academics, regulatory practitioners, interest groups, and in this case scenario, the general public (Powell & Leiss, 1997, p. 33).
this is called toxicological or other product safety estimate. And some tests are used for a assort...
The most essential goal of medicine and public health is to prevent harm. This goal is only fully achieved with primary prevention, which requires us to identify and prevent harms prior to human exposure through research and testing that does not involve human subjects. For that reason, public health policies place considerable reliance on nonhuman toxicological studies. However, toxicology as a field has often not produced efficient and timely evidence for decision making in public health. In response to this, the U.S. National Research Council called for the adoption of evidence-based methods and systematic
Many pesticides, that of which have many unanswered questions regarding the potential health risk have been authorized by the EPA Office of Pesticide ...
Many of the sources documented in her piece are unreliable. These “cases” were accidents, resulting from careless acts of one or more persons involved. In other cases, the damage to local wildlife was the failure of those who used the pesticide without the consideration of the effects it might have. The way the piece is written evokes a certain response from the reader and her approach has resulted in a wider understanding of the simple fact that these are chemicals, poisons, we are using when spraying pesticides. More importantly, the population may understand the more careful approach and control in every step of the way these poisons must travel, from research to laboratory to government approval to being used in the field.
How fast should I go up the stairs in a burning building? How much heat can I take? Is this dangerous or am I scared? Is that floor burnt straight through? Is that smoke or steam? On any call, thousands of questions such as these must be asked and answered with such celerity that they exist in cognitive form only for a passing moment, if at all. Decisions of risk are made at the physical level and cannot be fully articulated into verbal accounts. The instinctual experience of risk-taking transcends linguistic expression: it is indefinable and temporary. Many sociologists, including social psychologists, claim that risk-takers decide to dive off a cliff only after carefully weighing the benefits of the rush against the possibility of the harm. Even Goffman, in his essay ‘Where the Action Is’ (1967: 238), limits risk to a cost–benefit calculation: “We can begin to see that action need not be perceived, in the first instance, as an expression of impulsiveness or irrationality, even where risk without apparent prize results. Loss, to be sure, is chanced through action; but a real gain of character can occur. It is in these terms that action can be seen as a calculated
Fischhoff et al. (1978) itemized the qualitative risk characteristics under two principal components being the dread risk factor and unknown risk factor. Nine qualitative risk characteristics were used to examine risk perceptions in this article, namely, dread, catastrophic potential, involuntariness, lack of knowledge to scientists, lack of knowledge to those exposed, harm to future generations, delayed effects, unfairness and severity. The theory was criticised by authors cited in the paper for not considering the social and cultural aspects of the risk.
Animal testing is one the most beyond cruelty against animals. It is estimated about 7 million innocent animals are electrocuted, blinded, scalded, force-fed chemicals, genetically manipulated, killed in the name of science. By private institutions, households products, cosmetics companies, government agencies, educational institutions and scientific centers. From the products we use every day, such as soap, make-up, furniture polish, cleaning products, and perfumes. Over 1 million dogs, cats, primates, sheep, hamsters and guinea pigs are used in labs each year. Of those, over 86,000 are dogs and cat. All companies are most likely to test on animals to make patients feel safe and are more likely to trust medicines if they know they have been tested on animals first (PETA, N.D, page 1). These tests are done only to protect companies from consumer lawsuits. Although it’s not quite true, Humans and animals don’t always react in the same way to drugs. In the UK an estimated 10,000 people are killed or severely disabled every year by unexpected reactions to drugs, all these drugs have passed animal tests. Animal testing is often unpredictable in how products will work on people. Some estimates say up to 92 percent of tests passed on animals failed when tried on humans (Procon.org, 2014, page 1). Animal testing can’t show all the potential uses for a drug. The test results are...
Communication is an exchange of thought, message, and information by speech, visual, signal, writing or behavior between two or more living creatures (Wikipedia, 2013). The purpose of communication is to inform, educate, or even occasionally persuade. Moreover, risk is the potential of exposure to harm, and it is triggered by irresponsibility production in the world (Rohrmann, 2008). Moreover, risks involved in the level of individual or groups encounter in the future as well as the possibility of injury and risks also involve public’ cognitive judgments of this possibility (Cox, 2006). Risk perception stems from the process of modernization of human decision-making, with a high degree of uncertainty.
The stronger version of the Precautionary Principle on the other hand says that, “positive action must be taken to avoid or mitigate the potential harm; if the harm is judged unacceptable or serious and irreversible” (Beder 2006, p. 70). It also says that there is need for intervention before possible harm occurs or “before certainty about such harm can be achieved” (Beder 2006, p. 70). However, there are some critiques concerning this principle; for instance, there is ignorance and indeterminacy; where indeterminacy is when scientist fails to show the accuracy of the scientific and social assumptions on which our assessment of risk is based (Beder, 2006). There are also scientific uncertainties where scientist cannot inform policy makers the extent of pollutants in an environment and how it will have an impact on the health of people and biotic communities (Beder,
Finally, we may say that it can be difficult to clearly separate risk from uncertainty. This is because the uncertainty is one part of the scope of risk. In other words, risk and uncertainty are closely linked to the context of risk management frameworks. Thus, it can be inferred that the effective use of risk management process frameworks particularly the COSO and the SHAMPU framework seem unlikely to rely on the ability to differentiate between risk and uncertainty. Although if the framework is able to perfectly differentiate between risk and uncertainty, it seems certain that an organization can appropriately deal with the potential issues.
“Tomorrow`s risks” also known as emerging risks – or as Rumsfeld says “known unknowns” or conceivably even “unknown unknowns” - are new risks that are difficult to quantify with possibly considerable consequences. The questions that immediately arises is whether they represent an opportunity for improved living standards in the future or a threat with serious implications? The resolution, however, is dependent on the way people perceive the benefits or hazards coming along with the development of emerging risks which are manifold and are becoming increasingly prevalent in various industries. They derive from