Our Toxics Regulatory System and Why Risk Assessment Does Not Work: Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals as a Case in Point

Our current toxics regulatory system is based on the fundamental premise that the public expects a high degree of safety-close to absolute safety 2-in the regulation of toxins in our environment. To implement a system based on this fundamental assumption, we assume further that we can use risk assessment to develop "health-based" safety standards and use command and control regulation to implement them. This Article suggests that the fundamental premise that we can and should develop and apply standards that ensure safety to human health in our toxics regulatory schemes has little basis in current political and scientific reality. Politically, human safety is not the true goal of toxics regulation, and scientifically, human safety is not an achievable goal.

Rather, politicians obfuscate the true regulatory goal-to regulate toxins so that they present politically acceptable risk by using terminology and standards that imply safety.