When
dealing with our health and the health of our children, the precautionary
principle refers to the wisdom conveyed in the adage, “Better
Safe Than Sorry.” We should not have to wait until people
get sick to prove a chemical is harmful. State legislation
is emerging that employs the precautionary principle in health
legislation.
In the 2001 special session of the Minnesota State Senate, State
Senator Linda Berlin passed a law requiring that state agencies
include a reasonable margin of safety in setting standards to
protect the health of infants, children, and adults when establishing
or revising safe drinking water or air quality standards.
Senator Bellin's bill emerges from the current debate among scientists,
regulators and others about our health standards for environmental
exposure. Much of our permissible exposure limits are based on
insufficient information, are often merely extrapolated from animal
data, and fail to take into account sensitive populations like
pregnant women, children and the elderly. There also are thousands
of chemical compounds on the market for which little or no toxicity
data is available.
An alternative approach follows a “precautionary principle” that
guides our laws and actions based upon reasonable understanding
of potential risks. In part, the precautionary principle states:
“When an activity raises threats of harm to human health
or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken,
even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully
established scientifically. In this context, the proponent
of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden
of proof. The process of applying [this principle] must be
open, informed and democratic and must include potentially
affected parties. It must involve an examination of the full
range of alternatives, including no action.” (Wingspread Statement
on the Precautionary Principle, developed January 23-25, 1998,
Racine, Wisconsin.)
According to Carolyn Raffensperger and Joel Tickner’s Eco-Compass
feature, Implementing the Precautionary Principle, “the
first major effort in the United States to bring the precautionary
principle to the level of day-to-day environmental and public
health decision-making at the state or federal level was a January
1998 conference of activists, scholars, scientists, and lawyers
at Wingspread, home of the Johnson Foundation in Racine, Wisconsin.
Convened by the Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN),
participants discussed methods to implement the precautionary
principle and barriers to that implementation.”
Another bill, 2001 New Hampshire H.C.R. 6, introduced by Representative
Owen, urges New Hampshire to use the precautionary principle when
determining the safety and feasibility of using products, techniques,
and technologies. It failed to pass.
Eco-Compass provides the following websites on the precautionary
principle:
http://www.islandpress.org/ecocompass/prevent/,
Island Press Eco-Compass- Contains related website titles
http://www.sehn.org/index4.html,
The Science and Environmental Health Network
http://www.rachel.org/bulletin/index.cfm?St=3,
Rachel’s News
http://www.biotech-info.net/,
Ag Biotech Infonet, SEARCH: “precautionary principle”
http://www.psr.org/, Physicians
for Social Responsibility
http://www.loka.org/, The Loka
Institute
http://www.uea.ac.uk/env/cserge/,
The Center for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment.
http://www.turi.org/, Toxic
Use Reduction Institute
http://www.greenpeace.org/,
Greenpeace, SEARCH: precautionary principle
http://www.noharm.org/ Health
Care Without Harm, SEARCH, “precautionary principle”
http://www.uml.edu/centers/lcsp/,
Lowell Center for Sustainable Production |
