Risk Assessment Research: Only the Beginning

摘要

This editorial is an essentially unedited version of testimony I presented to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (Subcommittee on Technology, Environment, and Aviation) on November 16, 1993. The hearing marked the release of an Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) report entitled “Researching Health Risks,” for which I was part of an advisory panel (along with Curtis Travis and a dozen other experts in risk assessment). The title of my testimony foreshadowed the dual message I hoped to convey: that more research to improve risk assessment is sorely needed, but that we ought not let that need blind us to other deficiencies in risk‐based decision‐making that may deserve equal or greater att