Abstract
The recent development of new technologies in the health and medical areas has not occurred without cost. Progressive technologies to treat or prevent disease or discomfort may create new risks, even as they reduce risks attributed to “natural” conditions. Selective aversion to the manmade risks of advanced technologies can be counterproductive. A world with vaccines or pharmaceuticals is not perfectly safe, for example, but might be safer than a world without. The objective should not be to eliminate risk, but to reduce it to the minimum overall level by employing new technologies only when they promise to displace a greater amount of risk than they create.
This is a modified version of a longer essay by the authors, Risk, Couts, and Sgencies, 138U. Penn. L. Rev. 1027(1990).
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Gillette, C.P., Krier, J.E. (1992). Courts, Agencies, and Social Risk Assessment*. In: Isaacson, R.L., Jensen, K.F. (eds) The Vulnerable Brain and Environmental Risks. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3330-6_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3330-6_17
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