Risk-risk tradeoffs: what should we do in Europe?

Risk-risk tradeoffs occur when a regulator focuses on decreasing one particular risk in one area which leads to another risk appearing elsewhere which was not originally considered. These risk-risk tradeoffs abound all around us and are frequently ignored by regulators. In this article we firstly, examine why risk-risk tradeoffs are often ignored. Secondly we summarize some of the criticisms to the use of risk-risk tradeoffs and then we look at the phenomenon via a number of European based case studies. In the final section of the paper we put forward a series of recommendations to help regulators to be better equipped in dealing with risk-risk tradeoffs.     

Risk communication and the FSA: the food colourings case

Food colourings and flavourings have a long history. Spices and preservatives have been added to foods for millennia in order to make them last longer and taste better. Herbs, spices, pepper and salt, and other natural flavours and preservatives remain popular to this day. But over the last century or so the food and drinks industry has in many cases replaced or added to naturally occurring preservatives and colourings with synthetic compounds. All natural and artificial colours, flavours and preservatives that are added to food and drink have been tested and approved as safe by the regulatory authorities in the western world. However, campaigners in several nations, particularly the UK, have attempted to have some artificial colours and preservatives banned on public safety grounds, ranging from alleged skin allergies and asthma to hyperactive children. None of these allegations has been substantiated for any individual substance by the regulatory authorities. This paper evaluates how the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) communicated the scientific findings of the so‐called Southampton study, which claimed to demonstrate a link between the consumption of a mixture of six artificial colours and one preservative and hyperactivity in children, and was published in September 2007 in the medical journal, The Lancet. The study is based on a content analysis of UK‐based newspapers from March 2007 to July 2008, as well as interviews with staff at the UK FSA, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), industry representatives, academics (including Professor Jim Stevenson who was the supervisor of the food colourings study at Southampton University) and campaign groups.     

Effective risk communication and CCS: the road to success in Europe

Over the past ten years or so, there have been multiple attempts to site and build carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities in Europe, North America and elsewhere. To date, most of those attempts have not been successful. In Europe, for example, there are currently no commercial CCS facilities in operation. There are a number of reasons for this, ranging from lack of political will, the collapsing price of CO₂, lack of commercial drivers to capture and store CO₂, and public opposition to the proposed facilities. There have been several case studies examining the communication challenges associated with the siting of CCS facilities. Up till now, most of this research has been carried out by climate change or carbon policy experts as well as social researchers rather than scientists representing the wider risk communication community, aside from some notable exceptions. This study does the opposite by examining CCS from a broader risk communication perspective. It provides a brief overview of risk communication theory in order to situate some of the findings of the CCS communication research, and then, it makes some recommendations on how the siting of CCS facilities could be improved including the importance of trust, proactive communication and early stakeholder involvement. In conclusion, this study notes that if the science associated with the technology is communicated in the correct manner and if the key risk communication recommendations are adhered to, then the siting of future CCS facilities should be successful.     

The role of accident theory in injury prevention - time for the pendulum to swing back

Injury prevention is a branch of safety sciences. While comprehensive theoretical developments occurred in the wider field in the last decades, little of these developments reached and influenced the injury prevention community. Instead, a clear retro trend 'back to basics' is seen among injury prevention scholars, especially to Dr William Haddon's pioneering work some 50 years ago. This paper intends to draw attention to this polarisation and discuss possible explanations. It is argued that the strong campaign against the accident concept among leading injury prevention groupings became a serious hindrance for theoretical exchange. The underlying process is interpreted in terms of a struggle for ownership over this truly interdisciplinary field of research, unfortunately at the expense of theoretical stagnation in injury prevention circles and lessened interest in collaboration from other scientific areas. This paper is written as a tribute to Professor Leif Svanstr?m and his scientific contributions, with special regard to his genuine interest in interdisciplinary research.     

Trennverfahren bei qualitativen Merkmalen

Schlu?bemerkungen Die 7 Weizensorten lassen sich bezüglich der Ergebnisse des Phenoltests in 3 Gruppen einteilen. Die Sorte F ergibt einen sehr niedrigen Punktwert; die Sorten A und D weisen einen Punktwert in der N?he von 0,5 auf; die Sorten B, C, E und G haben Punktwerte in der N?he von 1. Diese Ergebnisse lassen sich mit einer Trennformel für quantitative Merkmale leicht in Verbindung bringen, was eine weitere Aufgliederung der sieben Sorten gestattet. Wenn sich dies als notwendig erweist, kann durch eine Streuungszerlegung geprüft werden, ob zwischen den durchschnittlichen Punktwertenx _j gesicherte Unterschiede bestehen. Zudem kann auch untersucht werden, ob der berechnete Punktwertz=0,530 von irgendeinem andern Wert wesentlich abweicht; das Vorgehen ist beiR. A. Fisher (1954) undA. Linder (1960, § 643) beschrieben.      

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Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Measuring Structural Unemployment: NAWRU Estimates in the Nordic Countries

The non-accelerating wage rate of unemployment (NAWRU indicator), used by the OECD as a measure of structural unemployment, has risen for the four Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. In this paper we present stable empirical wage equations for the same countries over the period 1964–1994, in sharp contrast to the increased NAWRU estimates. The instability of the NAWRU estimates is an artefact of a misspecified underlying wage equation, and not due to instability in wage setting itself.
JEL classification : E 24; E 31; E 64; J 51