{"id":334,"date":"2013-02-22T03:19:17","date_gmt":"2013-02-22T03:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/?p=334"},"modified":"2025-01-02T09:07:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-02T09:07:41","slug":"risk-assessment-is-a-license-to-kill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/risk-assessment-is-a-license-to-kill\/","title":{"rendered":"Risk Assessment is a License to Kill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center>(c) Copyright 2001-2013 David j Dilworth<\/center><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_345\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/007.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-345\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-345\" src=\"http:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/007-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"007-License to Kill\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/007-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/007.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-345\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">007-License to Kill<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong><strong>&#8220;Risk Assessment&#8221; is Fraud. It \u00a0is actually a highly disguised political choice to commit deadly harm.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It actually answers the perverse question &#8220;<em><strong>How can I get away with all the environmental and human damage my project will cause?<\/strong><\/em>&#8221; &#8211; though it is never stated so clearly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Those wanting to do big projects that cause real harm have to disguise it because public opinion strongly opposes serious harms to people and our environment. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A method that <em>superficially<\/em> appears scientifically credible is called &#8220;Risk Assessment.&#8221; This thousand word article will show you why Risk Assessment is rarely credible and what to insist upon instead.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Imagine for a moment you are a <a href=\"http:\/\/1hope.org\/acronym.htm#DREGs\">developer, a resources extractor, a polluter or a government agency (DREG)<\/a> that wants to do <strong>a project that causes a lot of harm to our environment or to people.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The first thing you do is hire a <a href=\"http:\/\/1HOPE.org\/glossary.htm#Biostitute\">Biostitute (an academic or professional committing fraud for money)<\/a> to write a report for you with the <strong>secret contract requirement or understanding<\/strong> that the report says all your project&#8217;s risks are &#8220;acceptable.&#8221; Since you are paying them, Biostitutes would have to be pretty dumb to give you a report that admitted your project would cause serious harm. Who would ever hire them in the future ?<\/p>\n<p>So a Biostitute&#8217;s report always <strong>defends and justifies environmentally harmful activities by overflowing with meaningless <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pseudo-scientific\">pseudo-scientific<\/a> bureaucratic <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Doublespeak\">doublespeak<\/a> and jargon ornamented with often irrelevant meaningless mathematics all wrapped up in a laundry list of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Logical_fallacies\">logical fallacies<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Judges rarely understand environmental assessments due to the lavish <strong>insider jargon<\/strong>, or complex statistical analyses, but generally are pressured to accept them as though they were reasonable and valid &#8211; even when they are <strong>outrageously bogus<\/strong>. (&#8220;Well, its got lots of pages and math in it, and it was written by an &#8220;expert&#8221; so it must be ok &#8230;&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>Most (if not all) <strong>risk assessments are based on selective information, arbitrary assumptions and enormous uncertainties. Risk Assessments often admit not calculating for the most vulnerable people or real threats to imperiled species<\/strong>.<sup>1<\/sup>(O&#8217;Brien 2000)<\/p>\n<p>For example, <strong>US-EPA has been fighting for years against admitting the numerous known different deadly harms of pesticides to endangered species<\/strong>. <strong>EPA<\/strong> has <strong>lost huge lawsuits<\/strong>\u00a0yet\u00a0<strong>still fights against admitting the pesticide harm.<\/strong> They avoid discussing it, then when forced to analyze a harm, they disguise the harms as described above.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Who Decides for You?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A valid risk assessment is when <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">you decide for yourself<\/span><\/strong> how much health or safety risk <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">you<\/span> are willing to accept<\/strong>, presumably in exchange for some benefit. For example: if you decide to make a parachute jump or buy life insurance <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>you<\/strong><\/em><\/span> make that sort of decision. That&#8217;s a valid risk assessment.<\/p>\n<p>An outrageously wrong &#8220;risk assessment&#8221; is <em><strong>when government or a corporation <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">decides for you<\/span><\/strong><\/em> how much of <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">your<\/span> health risk <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">they<\/span> are willing to accept<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>No democracy-based government has a <strong>Right to Kill You<\/strong> or even let you die negligently without Due Process. But that&#8217;s not what <a href=\"http:\/\/1hope.org\/acronym.htm#DREGs\">DREGs<\/a> believe &#8211; because you are getting in the way of their profits &#8211; or job promotion.<\/p>\n<p>An example of how wrong this can get is how <a href=\"http:\/\/1hope.org\/chkmate.htm\">in 2007, faceless bureaucrats in the US-EPA, US Dept. Agriculture, California Dept. Food and Agriculture and California Dept. Pesticide Regulation (CDFA) all approved the aerial spraying of <em><strong>secret, untested pesticides<\/strong> <\/em>on the cities of Monterey Bay area including Pacific Grove, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Seaside, Marina and Carmel<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_492\" style=\"width: 235px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/CDFA-SteveLyle.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-492\" class=\"size-full wp-image-492\" src=\"http:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/CDFA-SteveLyle.jpg\" alt=\"CDFA's Steve Lyle: Hostile to Public Voting Down the Aerial Spraying of Pesticides\" width=\"225\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/CDFA-SteveLyle.jpg 225w, https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/CDFA-SteveLyle-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-492\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">CDFA&#8217;s Steve Lyle: Hostile to Public Voting Down the Aerial Spraying of Pesticides<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The California state bureaucrats arrogantly fought having the public decide they didn&#8217;t want to be sprayed. Even after <strong>23 cities including San Francisco and Monterey officially opposed the spraying<\/strong> &#8212; CDFA spokesman Steve Lyle sneered publicly &#8220;<em><strong>You don&#8217;t get to vote<\/strong><\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>License to Kill<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Because Risk Assessment explicitly authorizes activities which kill innocent people (&#8220;only one cancer (death) per million people&#8221;) it is disparagingly and accurately referred to as a &#8220;<em><strong>License to Kill<\/strong><\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Agencies that do this all the time include the US-EPA (aka <strong>Environmental Protection by Autopsy<\/strong>) &#8212;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">&#8220;<em><strong>Generally, EPA is concerned when cancer risk estimates exceed 1&#215;10-6 or one-in-one million<\/strong>&#8220;<\/em> (<a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20141016111940\/http:\/\/www.epa.gov\/oppsrrd1\/REDs\/tm_red.pdf\">US-EPA Reregistration Eligibility Decision for Thiophanate-Methyl<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20171020213956\/https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/\">the Food and Drug Admin(FDA)<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cdpr.ca.gov\/\">CDPR (California Pesticide Approvals)<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/oehha.ca.gov\/\">OEHHA (California Toxics Health Assessment)<\/a>.<sup>(1)<\/sup> US-EPA does this every time they approve the use of a pesticide. EPA actually decides that if a pesticide is calculated to not kill more than one person per million exposed to it &#8211; that <strong>one dead\u00a0 person<\/strong> is an &#8220;<em><strong>acceptable risk<\/strong><\/em>&#8221; to them.<\/p>\n<p>What they hope you don&#8217;t figure out (they are trying to obscure) is that put another way, this means that <strong>the US-EPA is willing to have 1 person die for every million people exposed to an intentionally deadly chemical.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The number of Americans at risk of dying from industrial chemicals was not always so high. For a short while <strong>the risk number was 1 person per 100 million.<\/strong> That&#8217;s less, but still an outrageous concept.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.who.int\/water_sanitation_health\/dwq\/iwachap10.pdf\" class=\"broken_link\"><strong>1 chance in 100 million<\/strong> of developing cancer was put forward as safe. This figure was adopted by the Food and Drug Administration in 1973, but amended to one in a million in 1977 (Kelly and Cardon 1994). This level of 10\u20136 has been seen as something of a gold standard ever since. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) typically uses a target reference risk range of 10\u20134 to 10\u20136 for carcinogens in drinking water<\/a>&#8230;&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Risk Assessment is inherently wrong, morally, ethically and sometimes even legally<\/strong> when Judges understand how it really works. Someday courts will soundly throw it out for good just as they have rejected Flat Earth arguments. Lets hope it is soon.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So what do we do instead?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Alternative Analysis is the genuine examination of many different methods of achieving the same goals and to avoid or minimize environmental damage.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For example, instead of using <strong>poisonous persistent pesticides<\/strong> to kill weeds in your sidewalk &#8211; you can use a <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/homeguides.sfgate.com\/make-steam-weed-killer-47181.html\" class=\"broken_link\">steam-wand that only uses hot water<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Alternatives are often better in every respect than the original concept. <\/strong>Well not in every respect, they do typically reduce profits of toxin manufacturers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>###<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Notes:<br \/>\n<strong>1. CDFA&#8217;s website banner &#8220;CDFA Protects Your Environment&#8221; is flat out fraud.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>CDFA&#8217;s more accurate mission is: &#8220;California Department of Food and Agriculture: 94 years protecting and promoting agriculture in the golden state&#8221; (<\/strong>However, somehow<strong> the last part was cut off : &#8220;<em>No matter how deeply human health and our environment is harmed by agricultural pesticides and other chemicals.<\/em>&#8220;)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>References:<br \/>\n<strong> 1. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Making-Better-Environmental-Decisions-Alternative\/dp\/0262650533\">&#8220;Making Better Environmental Decisions,&#8221; Mary O&#8217;Brien, 2000 <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>2. US-EPA Risk Standards: Cotruvo, J.A. (1988) &#8220;Drinking water standards and risk assessment.&#8221; Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology 8, 288\u2013299<\/p>\n<p>3. US-EPA Reregistration Eligibility Decision, Thiophanate-Methyl<br \/>\n&#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20141016111940\/http:\/\/www.epa.gov\/oppsrrd1\/REDs\/tm_red.pdf\">Generally, EPA is concerned when cancer risk estimates exceed 1&#215;10-6 or one-in-one million<\/a>&#8221;<br \/>\nhttp:\/\/www.epa.gov\/oppsrrd1\/REDs\/tm_red.pdf<\/p>\n<p>4. <a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20121105032645\/http:\/\/www.epa.gov\/oppsrrd1\/REDs\/factsheets\/0063fact.pdf\">Alachlor Pesticide Reregistration &#8220;Acceptable risk is 1 x 10-6 , or lower.&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>5. <a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20121105032645\/http:\/\/www.epa.gov\/oppsrrd1\/REDs\/factsheets\/0063fact.pdf\">EPA\u2019s Risk Assessment Process For Tolerance Reassessment, Staff Paper #44, 1999<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(c) Copyright 2001-2013 David j Dilworth &#8220;Risk Assessment&#8221; is Fraud. It \u00a0is actually a highly disguised political choice to commit deadly harm. It actually answers the perverse question &#8220;How can I get away with all the environmental and human damage &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/risk-assessment-is-a-license-to-kill\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,4,3,8,9,14],"tags":[30,44,113,51,114,40,24,28,31,115,34,43,48,45,39,38,46,32,37,29,49,36,47,52,33,41,42,35,50],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environmental-health","category-environmental-law","category-environmental-science","category-human-health","category-rationale","category-staffocracy","tag-agriculture","tag-california-department-of-food-and-agriculture","tag-california-dept","tag-carmel","tag-cdfa","tag-deadly-chemical","tag-environment","tag-environmental-effects-of-pesticides","tag-environmental-health-2","tag-epa","tag-ethics","tag-food-and-drug-administration","tag-license-to-kill","tag-marina","tag-mary-obrien","tag-monterey","tag-monterey-bay","tag-pesticide","tag-pesticide-regulation-in-the-united-states","tag-pesticides","tag-resources-extractor","tag-risk","tag-san-francisco","tag-santa-cruz","tag-soil-contamination","tag-spokesman","tag-steve-lyle","tag-united-states-environmental-protection-agency","tag-us-environmental-protection-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":68,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":735,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions\/735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/env\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}