The precautionary principle and protection of children’s health\
World Health Organization, August 14, 2012
Overview
Precaution is about how do we make better, more preventive decisions under complexity and uncertainty – a compass not a hammer.
Excerpts
“Unrecognized risks are still risks; uncertain risks are still risks; and denied risks are still risks.” -- John Cairns, Jr.
“All scientific work is incomplete – whether it be observational or experimental. All scientific work is liable to be upset or modified by advancing knowledge. That does not confer upon us a freedom to ignore the knowledge we already have, or to postpone the action that it appears to demand at a given time.” -- Sir Bradford Hill (1965)
Widespread Statement on the Precautionary Principle
“When an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.”
Key components of the principle include:
- taking action to prevent harm in the face of scientific uncertainty,
- placing burdens on proponents of an activity,
- seeking out safer alternatives to potentially harmful activities, including stopping the activity; and
- democratic participation in decision-making regarding science and technology.
Problem –– Limitations in the science used to study causes of disease
- Lack of interdisciplinary approaches to find patterns in the evidence
- Difficulties in following populations
- Cumulative and interactive exposures/effects
- Low-dose impacts/windows of vulnerabilty/susceptible populations
- Lack of explicitness about uncertainties – what is known, not known, can be known, suspected
- Traditional scientific approaches often lead to “no problem”
Precaution and science
- Precaution is not anti-science or just risk management. Best available science should inform policy.
- It demands more rigorous and transparent science to characterize risks, identify opportunities for prevention and make clear gaps in understanding.
- The role of science is to inform policy – we don’t need perfect information, but enough to decide when we know enough to act and what to do.
- Call for more science.
Conclusions
- Precautionary policies recognize the limits of science and policy under uncertainty and complexity.
- Precaution should be considered a continuous approach to guide better, more health protective decisions under uncertainty.
- The most robust decisions involve a diverse range of tools, options, stakeholders, and an ability to build on knowledge – the whole of the evidence. But precaution not a guarantor against mistakes.
- The best environmental policies will be informed by the best available science, but will also be guided by a principle of erring on the side of caution.
- Go beyond the border of diagnosis to solutions. Need to increase resources for research and development of safer alternatives to problem materials and activities.
- Ultimate goal is to prevent disease and degradation and restore health.
To download the entire slide presentation: https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/childrens-environmental-health/precaution.pdf
