Comparison of risk management in U.S. Regulatory agencies

Abstract Although regulatory agencies in the United States have achieved substantial uniformity in the assessment of risks to human health from hazardous substances, it is not difficult to identify what appear to be quite different approaches to the agencies' management of these risks. One of many examples appears in the different levels of cancer risk (and corresponding levels of allowable exposure) found acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for the human carcinogen vinyl chloride. Even within EPA, permissible vinyl chloride exposure levels differ among programs. Thus, one can experience quite different levels of permitted vinyl chloride exposure depending upon whether one is breathing air near a manufacturing facility, working within that facility, drinking contaminated water, or ingesting beverages stored in certain plastic bottles. Inconsistencies such as these are partly explained by differences in statutory requirements, but also exist because of inadequacies in technical analyses regarding the meaning of terms such as “significant risk”.