A Hazardous Situation

Margaret Mead said it best: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Certainly this is true of the various examples of popular epidemiology that we have seen: several concerned citizens, aware at some basic level of an ongoing problem, join together to find answers to their questions and seek justice for those wronged. Deborah Stone (The Policy Paradox, 2001) would call these groups concentrated interests, people closely connected to an issue and heavily invested in achieving their desired outcome, which in most cases consisted of restitution to those who suffered, reparation of damage done to the environment, and better preventive measures by corporations and regulatory agencies.

While the emotionally-charged stories they told were successful in obtaining compensation for victims and cleanup funds not only for their specific sites but for future incidents (i.e. the 1986 Superfund reauthorization), it is doubtful that citizen suits have done much to enhance preventative steps taken except those that stem from a corporation's self-interest in not facing lawsuits of potentially millions of dollars. Not much has changed with the EPA either: a lack of funding and time plus regulations that place the burden on the EPA to show the hazardous nature of new chemicals results in hundreds of untested, potentially unsafe chemicals in the marketplace.

Despite the interest of what could easily be millions of people, whether they be victims or past participants of popular epidemiological studies, environmentalists, or people concerned with their health and the health of their children, these rules are not likely to change anytime soon because of the billions of dollars it would mean for a handful of corporations. According to Stone's logic, the concentrated interest overpowers the dispersed one, and so this is the system our society has chosen: a system that completely disregards the precautionary principle and exposes each of us to thousands of potential risks each day (contrast that with Europe, where rigorous testing is required before a new chemical can be introduced). Yet no one complains forcefully; that is, until another new chemical wreaks havoc and the public cries in outrage against corporate greed and indifference and bureaucratic timidness. But who among us will really stand up for the precautionary principle?