ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the nature of subjective influences on science and their use in environmental policy. The risk assessment-risk management paradigm was proposed by the US National Academy of Sciences in 1983 and has been adopted by the US government as a decision-making framework. Scientists are trained to be objective empiricists in their approach to science. Risk assessments used in the regulatory setting, such as in the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rule-making process, are subject to administrative review, formal public comment, and scientific review by the US EPA’s Science Advisory Board. In conducting the health risk assessment, where necessary information was lacking, the risk assessor made several prudent simplifying assumptions, relying as much as possible on conventional procedures prescribed in US EPA guidance documents. The architects of the risk assessment-risk management paradigm were concerned about the prospect of the value-laden risk management process corrupting what they hoped would be a value-limited, risk assessment process, by influencing its outcome.
