Reconceptualizing risk assessment

Review of European Community and International Environmental Law

Volumn 8, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 135-143

  Heyvaert, Veerle ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION; EUROPEAN UNION; RISK ASSESSMENT;

EUROPE;

EID: 0032703855     PISSN: 09628797     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9388.00191     Document Type: Review

References (6)

1. David A. Wirth and Ellen K. Silbergeld, 'Risky Reform' Col L Rev, 95 (1995) 1857 at 1866;
2. Gerd Winter, 'Regelungsmaßstäbe im Gefahrstoffrecht' DVBl, 913 at 915;
3. Alon Rosenthal, George M. Gray and John D. Graham, 'Legislating Acceptable Cancer Risk from Exposure to Toxic Chemicals' EQL (1992), 269 at 270.
4. Joseph V. Rodricks, Calculated Risks. Understanding the Toxicity and Human Health Risks of Chemicals in our Environment (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992) 185.
5. An assessment factor is an expression of the degree of uncertainty in extrapolation from test data on a limited number of species to the real environment (Commission Directive 67/93/EEC, Annex III, section 2.4). For example, when it is not possible or feasible to measure the level of concentration at which a chemical is expected to have no effect on the environment (the PNEC), risk assessors may measure the LC50, which is this concentration of the substance at which half of the exposed objects (50%) become lethally affected (the median lethal concentration). Subsequently, the median lethal concentration is divided by an assessment factor of, eg, 1,000 to create an estimate of the level of concentration of the substance that is not high enough to affect the environment. In other words, in the absence of directly measured or measurable data on exposure and effects in the real environment, it is assumed that a substance will have no effect if, in the above example, the level of concentration is 1,000 times smaller than the median 'lethal concentration (extrapolation of uncertainty). See Stuart Dobson, 'Why Different Regulatory Decisions When the Scientific Information Base is Similar - Environmental Risk Assessment' Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, 17 (1993) 333 at 338.
6. On the normative consequences of methodological choices, see K.S. Schrader-Frechette 'Reductionist Approaches to Risk' in Deborah G. Mayo and Rachelle D. Hollander (eds), Acceptable Evidence. Science and Values in Risk Assessment (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991) 218 at 232.