A brief review of a new book satirizing risk assessment

[jrcamero@facstaff.wisc.edu (John Cameron)]

Some members of radsafe may be interested in a new book from The Cato
Institute 1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20001 phone
202/842-0200; fax 842-3490. SCIENCE WITHOUT SENSE  by Steven Milloy. It is
only 68 pages with wide margins and can be read in an hour or two if you
read without moving your lips.. Milloy took an MS degree in Public Health
from Johns Hopkins but decided it would be a bleak field because the
average American was living past age 70 and the lifespan is expected to
reach 80 about 2010. As he states in the Preface: "How much need can there
be for public health research  professionals in such a healthy society?"
The author decided to study law. He states that "In fact, there's something
of a gold rush going on in public health today."
        The book is written "tongue-in-cheek" or satirically to tell a
person entering the public health field how to strike it big. He describes
his book as "... an unabashed guide to using risk assessment to climb the
public health career ladder. It outlines the E-Z approach to "discovering,"
"proving" and "marketing" health risks." In chapter 1 (the best of the 14
short chapters in my estimation) the author gives guidance on how to pick
the risk - the risk should be unprovable, the risk should be ubiquitous,
the risk should be intuitive to the public, risks should be involuntary,
reducing or eliminating the risk should involve no perceptible personal
sacrifice and pick on the unsuspecting. An example of the latter is the
risk from cellular telephones.
        Titles of some other chapters are : What can we associate?; The
significance of significance; "Data" collection; Where to publish; and
Instant risk.The latter uses the LNT model as a method to get instant risk.
In this chapter he states ".. the linear nonthreshold model is a public
health mantra. It's not open for criticism." The author suggests that you
may want to take a media training course to help you tell a compelling
story in a 20 sec. sound-bite.
        One of the few attributed quotes in the book is from Dr. Hennekens
of the Harvard School of Public Health: "Epidemiology is a crude and
inexact science. Eighty percent of cases are almost all hypothesis. We tend
to overstate our findings, either because we want attention or more grant
money." (NY Times Oct. 11, 1995)  
        The book is short on references - in fact, it has none! For example
on p. 35 the author discusses the time when NCI conducted a very large and
well-designed study to look for risk factors for lung cancer, including
radon in the home. NCI's study failed to find an association between radon
in the home and lung cancer. At the time EPA was spending $20 million a
year on its own radon program - EPA got upset and screamed "Fix this or
else!" To atone for its sin, NCI repudiated its own epidemiologic study and
published a new study applying the LNT model to underground uranium miner
data and produced an instantly acceptable risk assessment.  A reference
would have been useful.
        The Cato Inst. is a public policy research foundation and a
nonprofit tax-exempt educational foundation. 
John R. Cameron 2678 SW 14th Drive, Gainesville, FL 32608-2050 
phone: 352/371-9865; fax 352/371-9866  e-mail: jrcamero@facstaff.wisc.edu