| Genotoxins, both radiation and chemical, by their nature have great capacity for creating unintended third-party harms (externalities), which are difficult to control from a policy standpoint. The difficulties presented by genotoxins stem from 1) the long latency between exposure and the resulting harm; 2) the potential that the size of the harm might be greater than the capitalized value of its generator (e.g., the Johns-Manville asbestosis cases in the U.S.A.); 3) the inability in many cases to determine the population exposed to the genotoxin and the extent of individual exposures. An additional difficulty that plagues environmental control policies in general, not just those targeted at genotoxins, is the inability to monitor without error. To be... |
