How Much Risk?: A Guide To Understanding Environmental Health Hazards

How Much Risk?: A Guide to Understanding Environmental Health Hazards Inge F. Goldstein Martin Goldstein OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS HOW MUCH RISK? HOW MUCH RISK? A GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH HAZARDS Inge F. Goldstein Martin Goldstein 1 2002 1 Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris São Paolo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Goldstein, Inge F. How much risk? : a guide to understanding environmental health hazards / by Inge F. Goldstein, Martin Goldstein. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-19-513994-1 1. Environmental health. 2. Risk assessment. I. Title: Guide to environmental health hazards. II. Goldstein, Martin, 1919 Nov. 18– III. Title. RA566.27.G65 2001 615.9'02—dc21 2001021985 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To our children’s children, in the inverse order of their arrival: Eyal (Didi), Ari, Avital and Teddy. This page intentionally left blank The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects; in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate. And therefore it was a good answer that was made by one who when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of those who had paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck, and would have him say whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods,—“Aye,” asked he again, “but where are they painted that were drowned after their vows?” FRANCIS BACON, NOVUM ORGANUM This page intentionally left blank PREFACE In March of 2001, Christine Todd Whitman, appointed as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency some months previously by the incoming President Bush, announced that the EPA was rescinding a decision made during the Clinton presidency to lower the acceptable level of a known carcinogen, arsenic, in drinking water. The present standard, 50 parts per billion, has been in force since 1942; the rescinded level would have been 10 parts per billion, the maximum level permitted in European countries. Ms Whitman justified the decision by stating tha