SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

Resources for the Future (RFF), in conjunction with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Society for Risk Analysis, and the Electric Power Research Institute, held a workshop Sept. 18-20, 2000, at the RFF Conference Center in Washington, DC. The intent was to discuss how Bayesian approaches could be useful in improving techniques for estimating exposure-response functions. Ten distinguished scholars from a range of fields (medical biostatistics, decision sciences, environmental engineering, and toxicology) served as faculty. Approximately 80 people attended the workshop. Bayesian methods have been applied to a variety of problems in biomedical research and environmental risk analysis, including design of clinical trials, estimation of exposures to...

Default and Inference Options: Use in Recurrent and Ordinary Risk Decisions

Palavras-chave: Bayesian analysis; Dose-response; Regulation; Risk assessment; Arsenic; Risk and Uncertainty.

Ano: 2001

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10754

How "default options" should be used in health risk assessment divides the risk analysis profession. Some argue that these should be "hard": set by policy, generally biased to be "health protective" and requiring a substantial body of evidence to replace by decision-specific alternatives. Others argue that they should be science-based, identified by consensus of the professional community, replaced by whatever decision-specific information may be available to the analyst. This paper shows that both positions have validity, and that both are incomplete. Each kind of construct has a useful role to play, but in different kinds of decisions. Because the two are different, we suggest giving them different names, "default option" being assigned to the...

Risk Assessment for National Natural Resource Conservation Programs

Palavras-chave: Risk; Regulation; Decision making; Default options; EPA; FDA; Science; Policy; Public participation; Risk analysis; Risk and Uncertainty.

Ano: 1998

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10712

Powell, Mark R.; Wilson, James D..

This paper reviews the risk assessments prepared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in support of regulations implementing the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). These two natural resource conservation programs were authorized as part of the 1996 Farm Bill. The risk assessments were required under the Federal Crop Insurance Reform and Department of Agriculture Reorganization Act of 1994. The framework used for the assessments was appropriate, but the assessments could be improved in the areas of assessments endpoint selection, definition, and estimation. Many of the assessment endpoints were too diffuse or ill-defined to provide an adequate characterization of the program benefits. Two reasons...

Thresholds for Carcinogens: A Review of the Relevant Science and Its Implications for Regulatory Policy

Palavras-chave: Resource /Energy Economics and Policy.

Ano: 1997

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10859

Regulation of carcinogens in the United States has been based on a "no threshold" policy. This makes the assumption there exists no level of exposure for which the possibility of causing harm is truly zero. The alternative "threshold" policy assumes that there exists some level of exposure at which no harm will come to anyone in a population so exposed. The no-threshold policy made sense when adopted, thirty or more years ago, since the science then available was not able to distinguish between these two opposing hypotheses, and "no threshold" provides more margin of safety. Since then, our understanding of biological processes related to birth and growth of cancer has greatly expanded. We now understand that two different biological processes can enlarge...

Workshop Report: Advancing the Art of Analyzing Risks and Benefits of Dredged Material Management

Palavras-chave: Regulation; Cancer; Science policy; Environmental Economics and Policy.

Ano: 1996

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10470

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been delegated responsibility for assuring the navigability of waters designated for that purpose in the United States. Dredging is among the activities required to fulfill this responsibility. In some places, the Corps finds difficulty in carrying out dredging projects because it lacks spaces where the sediments that must be removed ("dredged materials") can be placed or otherwise managed. In these cases, the public has expressed concerns about the impacts of dredged materials on the environment, either underwater or on land ("upland"). Thus, the Corps often finds it necessary to be able to evaluate and describe the costs or risks and the benefits of the possible alternatives that may be available. Scientists and...