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DEALING WITH UNCERTAINTY ABOUT RISK IN RISK MANAGEMENT 58 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. management is to be widely adopted. In particular, the aggregation of multiple risks has not received sufficient attention. Public acceptance may be the critical constraint on adoption of a de minimis approach to risk management. Thus, it may be helpful to think of de minimis risks as those that are of too low a priority to regulate rather than as acceptable low risks. This distinction, based on priority rather than acceptability of risks, naturally encourages a comparative-risk viewpoint and avoids the difficult question, acceptable to whom? A final point that could promote the acceptability of a de minimis approach is recognition that, in general, de minimis levels apply not to known risks but rather to risks of unknown magnitude, which are thought to be estimated conservatively. CONCLUSIONS The issues addressed in this paper reflect our social aversion to uncertainty about health and safety risks. We often try to deal with such uncertainty by avoiding it, as with the use of conservative analytic assumptions. Such assumptions are likely to exaggerate risk and are consistent with the adage "better safe than sorry"; they reflect the risk assessor's perspective that "crying wolf" is preferable to falsely providing assurance of safety. But this approach, sensible for a single risk, appears counterproductive when adopted as a general rule. Finally, application of such principles as de minimis risk may provide socially acceptable methods for making regulatory decisions about uncertain risks only when such risks are likely to be small. References Anderson, E. L. 1983. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Carcinogen Assessment Group. Quantitative approaches in use to assess cancer risk. Risk Analysis 3 (December):277â295. Ames, B. N. 1983a. Dietary carcinogens and anticarcinogens: Oxygen radicals and degenerative diseases. Science 221:1256â1264. Ames, B. N. 1983b. Letter. Science 224:668â670, 757â760. Calabresi, G., and P. Bobbitt. 1978. Tragic Choices. New York: W. W. Norton. Davis, J. P. 1981. The Feasibility of Establishing a "De Minimis" Level of Radiation Dose and A Regulatory Cut-off Policy for Nuclear Regulation. Report GP-R-33040. Columbia, Maryland: General Physics Corporation. Epstein, S. S., and J. B. Swartz. 1984. Letter. Science 224:660â666. Fischhoff, B., P. Slovic, S. Lichtenstein, S. Read, and B. Combs. 1978. How safe is safe enough? A psychometric survey of attitudes toward technological risks and benefits. Policy Sciences 8:127â152. Gibbons, J. H. 1983. In S. Panem, ed., Public Policy, Science and Environmental Risk, proceedings of a workshop at the Brookings Institution, February 28, 1983. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.
DEALING WITH UNCERTAINTY ABOUT RISK IN RISK MANAGEMENT 59 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. Haseman, J. K. 1983. Patterns of tumor incidence in two-year cancer bioassay feeding studies in Fischer 344 rats. Fundamental and Applied Toxicology 3:1â9. Morgan, M. G., S. C. Morris, M. Henrion, D. A. L. Amaral, and W. R. Rish. 1984. Technical uncertainty in quantitative policy analysis: A sulfur air pollution example. Risk Analysis 4 (September): 201â216. National Research Council. 1983. Risk Assessment in the Federal Government: Managing the Process . Committee on the Institutional Means for Assessment of Risk to Public Health. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Page, T. 1978. A generic view of toxic chemicals and similar risks. Ecology Law Quarterly 7 (2):207â244. Rothschild, N. 1978. Antidote to panic. Nature 276:555. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 1983. Safety Goals for Nuclear Power Plant Operation. NUREG-0880, Revision 1 for Comment, May. Office of Policy Evaluation. Washington, D.C. Whipple, C. 1985. Redistributing risk. Regulation 9(3)(May/June):37â44.