New York Times Letter to Editor: Seeking Effective Policy

[Guest guest]

December 10, 2002

Letters

eeking Effective Policy

To the Editor:

Re "A Conversation With Ropeik," Dec. 3: Mr. Ropeik describes the work of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis as a "rational, cost-benefit" approach to environmental and health policy making.

But effective policy involves more than a simple risk-benefit equation. It's a struggle over values and over who decides society's winners and losers in food safety and agriculture, consumer choice, environmental protection, public and occupational health, and global trade.

It's a war waged over government oversight that's unduly reliant on industry research favoring corporations and undermining public trust.

Fix the reality behind those regulatory problems and thereby change the perception held by most soccer moms that government favors corporate profits over children's health. Then we can have the rational scientific debate that Mr. Ropeik, his colleagues and all of us crave.  

  JULIA A. MOORE

Washington

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