Chemical safety

摘要

Beth Rosenberg's sorry tale related in "Seventeen Months on the Chemical Safety Board" (Issues, Summer 2016) raises a lot of questions about how society regulates potentially dangerous industries, what it means to believe in a democratic process, and the impact of politics and power in regulatory and investigative agencies of government. At one level, this is a tale all too familiar: a plant blows up, people are killed and hurt, investigations are done, fingers are pointed, explanations are given. There are calls for reform-do this and it won't happen again, adopt these protocols and we can lessen the likelihood of mayhem. At the very least, we might expect the best from the experts. In the case recounted by Rosenberg, things didn't happen the way they should.