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Concepts of Policy in the Formulation of So‐Called Standards of Health and Safety
Author(s) -
Wolman Abel
Publication year - 1960
Publication title -
journal ‐ american water works association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.466
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1551-8833
pISSN - 0003-150X
DOI - 10.1002/j.1551-8833.1960.tb00612.x
Subject(s) - hazard , public relations , safety standards , control (management) , task (project management) , subject (documents) , atomic energy , engineering ethics , risk analysis (engineering) , political science , business , computer science , engineering , sociology , economics , management , social science , chemistry , organic chemistry , agency (philosophy) , library science , reliability engineering
The staff of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy has posed two primary questions for this discussion. They deal with the exploration of the evolution of standards in the fields of health and safety, other than standards pertaining to radiation control. Such an exploration should reveal precedents, similarities, differences, and difficulties that may make the task of guiding public policy in radiation control more rational or more universally acceptable and intelligible. The questions are paraphrased as follows: for hazards other than radiation, what have been typical practices in public health in developing protection criteria, with particular reference to benefits, risks, and costs in the broadest social and economic sense; and, how do common arguments, applied to radiation hazard, appear if applied to historically more familiar hazards? Fortunately, detailed elaborations of answers to these questions are now available in the articles by Parker, Weber, Taylor, Williams, and others in the joint committee publication of May 1960. This document of approximately 1,250 pages provides a comprehensive review of the assigned subject. This article provides brief generalizations of the wealth of data already in print, with the hope of delineating some historical peaks and troughs for guidance in the effort to establish standards. The need for standards, previous standards and revisions, calculated risks, safety factors for the public, higher standards, and standards for radiation are all discussed.