What Is Safe?: Risks of Living in a Nuclear Age / Edition 1 available in Paperback
What Is Safe?: Risks of Living in a Nuclear Age / Edition 1
- ISBN-10:
- 0854045694
- ISBN-13:
- 9780854045693
- Pub. Date:
- 03/01/1999
- Publisher:
- Royal Society of Chemistry
- ISBN-10:
- 0854045694
- ISBN-13:
- 9780854045693
- Pub. Date:
- 03/01/1999
- Publisher:
- Royal Society of Chemistry
What Is Safe?: Risks of Living in a Nuclear Age / Edition 1
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780854045693 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Royal Society of Chemistry |
| Publication date: | 03/01/1999 |
| Edition description: | New Edition |
| Pages: | 154 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.36(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
What is Safe?
The Risks of Living in a Nuclear Age
By David R. Williams
The Royal Society of Chemistry
Copyright © 1998 The Royal Society of ChemistryAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-85404-569-3
CHAPTER 1
What is Safe?
The Risks of Living in a Nuclear Age
1 Introduction
'Safe' is associated with many considerations, most of which can be summarized in terms of four-letter words such as feel and fear (as in perception), risk, dose, work, play, life, dead (as in death), and cost – even safe itself is a short word that disguises the exceedingly complex manifestations that go to make up the definition of safe.
Dictionary definitions of 'safe' include "offering security or protection from harm", "free from danger", US, a slang word for condom (Collins English Dictionary) and "free from hurt or damage", "having escaped some real or apprehended danger" (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary).
Human nature, personality and perception are very much involved with one's accepted definition of the word 'safe'. 'Safe' is often taken as the reciprocal of a magnitude of a risk. Humans tend to overestimate a risk when referring to rather unusual, rare or exceptional incidents but tend to underestimate a risk markedly when common, everyday events are involved. The triangular diagram (Figure 1.1) shows how safety is a compromise and is inter-disciplinary between the three-cornered considerations of risk, benefit and cost.
Difficulties are immediately encountered when one wishes to put a scale of numbers on to these diagrams, such as the origin implying a state of zero risk, i.e. absolute safety, which does not exist. Similarly, different humans would have different impressions of the units and relative importances of these risks and so we soon enter into subjective view-points and human values.
The traditional approach to attempting to quantify safety is to collect data concerning risks. Here one soon encounters difficulty in deciding whether these data should be in terms of deaths, length of life, or quality of life. The modern viewpoint seems to be that risk is best quantified in terms of a combination of data concerning both the quality and the length of the subject's life. This underlines the fact that we would far prefer to live our lives rather than merely to exist. There are many public figures who, when questioned about their lifestyle and whether it was safe, have publicly declared that they give zero consideration to trying to extend their lives, but rather they dedicate it to using their lifetime to maximum effect. This all suggests that they are disregarding the safest lifestyle for one which is far more risky and endangers their safety, one that either gives them great gratification from its stimulations or does a great deal of good for others through their charitable actions. These are individual and personal choices.
Most of us never think of using the word 'risk' until we hit a dilemma concerning the safety of our lives decided by other groups of people; for example, if they decide to build a facility in our neighbourhood or expose us to some threat that will possibly change our lifestyle. It is at such times that we clutch for the word 'safe' and begin to worry whether the basis upon which the decision has been reached is scientifically sound, whether the communication of the reasons underpinning that decision has been sufficiently clear, and whether, if we had played our full part in the decision process, we would have recommended differently to the body that has made the decision to impose an involuntary risk upon us.
It is about such topics that this book is directed. It is written from the viewpoint of a chemist and a technologist and, perhaps, such professionals ought to accept a greater responsibility for providing data to decision-making bodies in forms which are more helpful. After all, we produce in excess of 1000 new chemicals per year with a view to their marketing. The text lists many illustrations that can be used when talking to lay-persons. Several are taken from the British Medical Association book entitled The BM A Guide to Living with Risk and the BMA has pointed out that, in the eyes of the lay public, the healthy, enjoyable, stimulating scientific debate in which we scientists participate is seen as confusion amongst professionals. This generates fear and uncertainty in the minds of the public.
This leads us to the subject of familiarity. Because they are not familiar with the workings of the minds of scientists and technologists they see things very differently to our perception. The same familiarity with everyday risks permits one to enjoy drinking and swallowing and smoking carcinogenic, addictive, poisonous materials as part of leisure activities with little concern for their effects.
The universal observation that experts are distrusted worldwide is dwarfed by the fact that their statistics are distrusted even more so! Indeed, there seems to be only one certain indisputable fact – there is nothing certain about life except death!
In numerical terms, 'Risk = magnitude of a consequence x the probability of its occurrence', but one ought not immediately turn to quantifying risks because that is often easier than a more fundamental consideration of the significance of any risk data gathering activity that is being contemplated. The perception and emotional aspects of what is being investigated have a great bearing on the overall risk envisaged.
Even the concept of 'acceptable risk' has ill-defined margins. There is all the difference in the world between something being acceptable and a risk which has to be accepted. Although everyone agrees that premature death is not to be welcomed, there is great disagreement, dependent upon circumstances, concerning the definition of the word 'premature'. To an elderly person, any death before tomorrow seems to be premature. We have quoted the dictionary definitions of 'safe'. Another term that is widely used in this article is that of 'risk' which is defined in the dictionary as "the possibility of incurring misfortune or loss; hazard" (Collins English Dictionary), or "hazard, danger or exposure to mischance or peril" (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary).
The UK Health and Safety approach to Tolerability of Risk (TOR) has a more formal definition and is referred to later (Section 16). The origin is believed to be from the Greek word 'rhiza' which was in widespread use when discussing the hazards of ships sailing too close to the cliffs. Pharmacists remind us that Hypocrates in the fourth century stated that sharp objects are more likely to cause injury because forces were concentrated at a point. There is a parallel in modern times with nuclear and other forms of power which concentrate energy within a very small volume.
Although scientific data have long been collected in an orderly and well-planned fashion, it is only with the development of probability theory by Pascal in the mid-seventeenth century that the likelihood of events occurring could be calculated. Although it is claimed that this was the turning point when scientists analysed and made future predictions rather than relying upon soothsayers, it is perhaps sad to note the resurgence of interest in astrological predictions and the like during the last decade or so.
From data collection, causal links were soon identified between tobacco, snuff and cancer of the nose lining, between sunlight and skin cancer, between London smogs and respiratory disease, and also the historically important link between contaminated water and cholera identified by Farr, Snow, Chadwick et al.
Chadwick and Farr's research led to a listing of causes of death in 1841. Nowadays, the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys uses the standardized mortality ratio (SMR) which describes the number of deaths registered in a particular period of time as a percentage of those expected in a selected year at the age and sex mortality rates operated in the year of interest. For example, infant mortality has dropped over the last 150 years from 148 per 1000 to 9 per 1000 (from 1 in 7 to 1 in 106). In fact, the main improvement in life expectancy which has occurred during this century has been due to this great reduction in the death of neonates. Sadly, two-thirds of deaths amongst males around about the age of twenty now occur because of violence and/or accidents. After the age of forty, circulatory disease takes over and, overall, one in four deaths occur through cancer.
Technology has not only offered a cornucopia of new benefits but also new risks. Technology now influences our everyday lives through decisions concerning events and new innovations. Such are the stringent checks upon the introduction of new technology that modern-day life is now considerably safer than it was half a century ago. The complexity, however, of the prevailing technology means that life is no longer as simple as it used to be, but it is certainly safer.
2 Daily Life
The term 'safe' is related to risks and events that occur in normal, everyday life supplemented with incidents which are unexpected, unusual, or fairly random in their occurrence.
Even the pattern of normal, everyday life will vary from person to person, dependent upon their age, position in life, the country in which they dwell, their self-selected lifestyle and habits, etc.
However, there are certain common features to this background pattern of daily life to which we are all committed. For example, we all have to be born (which involved a certain amount of risk); we are all exposed to a range of risks (although their occurrence may well be determined by our own decisions), for example, travelling, smoking tobacco, infection, etc.; and we all eventually succumb to death from the residual of any conditions which have not been successfully tackled during early years.
In fact, death is 100% certain and inevitable and, in absolute terms, is not preventable when it occurs at the end of a long life. In relative terms, the expected life span at birth is expanding, such that we live an average 30 years longer than our Victorian forebears because other threats to life are being reduced through preventative medicine, therapy, information and education, and risk management. The commonest causes of death in the Western World nowadays are cardiovascular disease and cancer. These are the residual legatees after all other threats to middle age and to youth have been reduced.
This section describes certain high-rise features of elevated risk of death occurring throughout a 'normal' lifestyle and, also, discusses the quality of life throughout a lifetime which is possibly of more importance to the population than the actual cause of death at the end of a long and satisfactory lifespan.
'Being safe' is about decisions that affect the length of our lives until death and also the quality of the life between birth and death; these areas are known as mortality and morbidity studies, respectively. Decisions which enhance the quality of our life and happiness usually involve certain risks. Sometimes reducing the risk of an event will improve the happiness (for example, removing a cataract in order to enhance a person's chances of safely crossing the road) and sometimes the decision to improve the quality or the excitement of life will significantly increase the risk (for example, deciding to exceed the speed limit whilst driving a motor vehicle).
Causes of death have been recorded on death certificates since the year 1841, and since standard mortality ratios were introduced into the statistics of dying, various theories linking lifestyle during normal everyday life and cause of death have been used to justify changes in procedures; this is reflected in the increasing life expectancy for males and females shown in the diagram (Figure 2.1). What these figures do not reflect is the enjoyment of the quality of life during the many decades before death. Also, they do not reflect the number of early deaths that can be shown to have a causal link with personal decisions taken by the deceased or by collective decisions imposed upon a community by, for example, a governing authority granting permission to construct nearby.
It is axiomatic that we are challenged by fewer risks to health now a days than in any previous generation. Further, we have a far greater control over these risks than at any prior time. Paradoxically, as Wildavsky and Lee have pointed out, 'The richest, longest-lived, best protected, most resourceful civilization, with the highest degree of insight into its own technology, is on the way to becoming the most frightened', and so greater interest is being taken in risk decisions.
The following sections describe some of the main areas of life where persons, or their immediate family, have a considerable degree of control concerning risk decisions which directly affect the quality of life. Examples include childbirth and childhood, transport, recreation, home-based risks, diet and medicine. We shall then touch upon subjects where we have far less personal control, such as natural disasters and the general pattern of causes of death for the western industrialized society.
3 Childhood
After parturition, the most prevalent cause of death between 28 days and 12 months is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (cot death). This occurs for between two and three per 1000 live births. Details concerning the underlying causes are still at the level of hypotheses, several concerning the incidence of upper respiratory tract infections. Moves to reduce these tragic numbers have involved the positioning of the child within the cot and also the introduction of monitoring devices to alert parents.
Between the ages of I and 14 years, approximately three British children per day die from accidents. Over and above these 700–1000 fatal injuries per year, there are 120 000 injured child admissions to hospital, approximately 10000 of whom are permanently disabled. Clearly, their quality of life is severely reduced because of these incidents. Although the number of accidents arising from organized club and educational and recreational activities, such as canoeing and mountaineering, etc., per 1000 children being involved in such schemes has levelled off, accidents to children in the home continue to be a major cause for concern, there being up to 1 000 000 injuries (thankfully, many of them minor) per year.
Outside the home an even greater number, approximately 1.2 million per year, are injured. Road traffic accidents are the cause of death for the order of 800 children per year, some 15% of which are linked to cycling, but for two-thirds the child was a pedestrian.
Some of the accidents to children both inside and outside homes are related to social class factors. This concept is carried through to the environmental damage inflicted upon children. Those in the lower social classes have more limited sporting and playing facilities, and safety provisions. Improved safety for children goes hand-in-hand with improving living conditions and the provision of safe leisure activities for all.
5 Transport Risks
Although there is an obvious qualitative link between the distance and the number of persons travelling or the amount of goods being transported, to lowering of life quality or to death, quantitative statistics must correlate data with mode of transport (car, plane, cycle, etc.), and with exposure (kilometres, hours). There are often important secondary links; for example, the stress of being a driver gridlocked on the M25 London orbital motorway has a primary collision risk of approximately zero but the chances of an accident once released from the jam and of stress related health conditions later are considerably raised.
Statistically, high-risk factors concerning road traffic deaths include being in a rural area as distinct to urban (speeds are higher and emergency assistance is more distant, e.g. even a small population such as Wales has 10 000 road traffic accidents per year), travelling at night, which is roughly three times as dangerous as day-time travel (influence of alcohol and poor visibility on unfamiliar roads), and weekend travel which accounts for 50% of all road fatalities (unfamiliar drivers distracted by the relish of the event to which they drive). Clearly, the time travelled is also a major factor.
When one examines the statistics of road traffic accidents there are two important principles revealed which apply to all estimations of risk throughout this document:
(1) Media Reporting Bias
The widespread misconception which arises from headline and front-page colour photograph reporting is of horrendous, multiple vehicle pile-ups and burn-outs on high speed roads such as motorways. In fact, such occurrences happen exceedingly rarely and contribute only a very small number of death statistics to the data.
(2) Statistic Gathering Difficulties
It is extremely difficult to acquire reliable statistics concerning road accidents, deaths and injuries. Although the number of deaths can be counted, it is difficult to express them in terms of the total number of accidents occurring on the roads, since most of those not involving injury do not get logged. Secondly, the victims of an accident are often treated in hospitals or through GP's surgeries in widely-separated areas employing different means of reporting. Further, pedestrians involved in road traffic accidents are counted differently rather than in terms of the distance that they have travelled.
The BMA has studied road traffic accident data for the 90 years since road crash statistics were first collected in the UK; in 1909, there were 1070 reported fatal accidents which accounted for one crash per year for every 90 vehicles on the road! That is, 106 fatal accidents for every 10 000 vehicles. Nowadays, it is the order of one fatal accident for every 4700 vehicles. These data reflect another important principle concerning the statistical viewpoint – a person crossing a road in 1909 had a much lower average probability of being involved in an accident with a motor vehicle than crossing the same road nowadays. However, on the rare occasion that a motor vehicle used that road in the early part of this century, there was a far higher risk of the accident occurring and of it being fatal.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from What is Safe? by David R. Williams. Copyright © 1998 The Royal Society of Chemistry. Excerpted by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry.
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