GIGO

Understanding Risk

Which represents a greater health threat -- a can of British beef-based stew from your supermarket or yesterday's custard square from the bakery? Which should you be more concerned about -- the placement of a cellphone tower outside your child's school or the placement of the pedestrian crossing?

We live in a society increasingly concerned with documenting and expounding on even the minutest risks, and we worry about them, often at length and far beyond what is warranted. Yet ironically, for people living in this society at least, life has probably never been more risk-free.

We are free of many of the risks associated with the plagues and infections that hounded our forebears, yet a vocal minority would argue that those plagues pose less danger than the risks associated with a childhood immunization programme.

The corollary associated with this preoccupation with risk is that all risk must be eliminated. It is not acceptable, it seems, to have any doubt or uncertainty about how the world works. Increasingly scientists and technologists are being asked to guarantee that their particular fields present no risk to the general public, whether it's a matter of possible health effects from telecommunications towers or mad cows.

That guarantee can be made only very rarely. In areas where our understanding is still developing, few would venture to confidently assert absolutes. All too often when such guarantees are assured, it is the voice of the non-expert, the politician, the vested interest which is raised the loudest. Sadly, it is this very confidence that is seen as more acceptable than the more honest, but equivocal acknowledgment that "further research is required" or "there is always the possibility that...".

It is necessary to accept some levels of risk in living in this modern society of ours, from the radioactive smoke alarms in our houses to the potential firebomb sitting in the garage! What we need to do is to realise which risks are really worth worrying about and work towards reducing or eliminating those. I wouldn't worry too much about that stew in your pantry -- I would worry about the packet of cigarettes in your pocket.

Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.