Cultural Aspects of Risk Assessment in Britain and the United States

Concern about the effect of toxic chemicals is one of the most visible legacies of the environmental movement in modern industrial societies. Public pressure to regulate chemicals in the environment and the work-place, in consumer products and in food, has forced the communities of scientist and the policy makers into new and uneasy patterns of collaboration. Regulatory programs place unprecedented burdens on government agencies to incorporate scientific and technical information into their decision-making. At the same time, there is growing awareness that science cannot answer all of our questions about the risk 1 and both scientific and value judgments are involved in the processes of risk assessment and risk management2.