Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget Everyone should read the Summary, Introduction and Conclusion. In addition, in class on Tuesday, I assigned each of you one additional chapter.
Shapiro, Sidney A. 2007. OMB and the politicization of risk assessment. 37 ENTL 1083. This is not in the Required Course Pack, but is available through Westlaw. I encourage you to read it online, and to not print it out.
2. Suppose that OMB's Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin had been written by a Democratic, rather than Republican, administration. Explain how the Democrats might have written the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin, so as to increase the strength of federal environmental regulation.
3. What policy choices should society make, in the face of great uncertainty about the toxicity of most all chemicals used commercially? Enumerate the advantages of disadvantages of each choice.
4. What question did the authors of Toxic Ignorance ask? What methodology did the authors of Toxic Ignorance employ? That is, how did they design their study, so as to ensure that the data would be useful in answering their question. What was their conclusion?