Journal Article

What Happened to the Red Book's Second Most Important Recommendation?

Rodricks, Joseph V.

2003

Overview

Of the ten recommendations in the National Research Council's (NRC's) report Risk Assessment in the Federal Government: Managing the Process, commonly called the \"Red Book,\" three were highlighted in the report's Executive Summary. Two of the three have had wide influence on the conduct of risk assessment but the third has been virtually ignored. The Red Book Committee's proposal that Congress establish an independent Central Board on Risk Assessment Methods, if implemented, might have done much to improve the conduct of risk assessments by regulatory agencies, to ensure greater uniformity in approaches among agencies, and to enhance the scientific credibility of agency performance. Among the functions of the proposed Board was to be the development, for use by agencies, of guidelines for the conduct of risk assessment (including the selection of so-called inference options-or \"defaults\"-to deal with limits in scientific knowledge). Guideline development was seen by the Committee to represent a critical step in avoiding case-by-case manipulation of risk assessments by the insertion of arbitrary inference options, but Committee recommendations in this area have received significant attention only from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Implementation of the several tasks proposed by the NRC Committee, including guideline development, by a truly independent Board of the type described in the Red Book, might still do much to strengthen the scientific basis of regulatory actions.

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group,Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subject: defaults / Environmental policy / Environmental protection / EPA / Hazardous materials / Health risk assessment / National Research Council / Public health / Red Book / Regulatory agencies / Risk assessment / Risk management