If It Ain't Broke, Don't Let Them Fix It

摘要

I very much enjoyed reading Dr. Goldstein's "Risk Assessment of Environmental Chemicals: If It Ain't Broke...I was particularly intrigued by his reference to the Houston benzene-reduction study, part of U.S. EPA's Second Prospective Study (1990 to 2020) of the benefits and costs of the Clean Air Act/3' which found that three fatal and three nonfatal cases of leukemia would be avoided over a 30-year period due to changes in ambient benzene levels in the Houston area. Consider just the three deaths avoided. How significant are they? This question can only be answered by knowing the population of, and the leukemia death rate in, the study area.