- Apr 2, 2009
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This excellent editorial is behind a paywall, but pertinent excerpts are below.
Financial Times 2 December 2013
Science must win when setting rules
New health regulations are too often driven by emotion
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/634bb7d4-6813-11e3-8ada-00144feabdc0.html
Financial Times 2 December 2013
Science must win when setting rules
New health regulations are too often driven by emotion
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/634bb7d4-6813-11e3-8ada-00144feabdc0.html
Governments across the world always come under political pressure to impose regulations on business to combat new health hazards, whether those dangers happen to be real or imaginary. Lawmakers rarely manage to reconcile completely the interests of groups that are lobbying for and against any proposed new rule.
Yet as 2014 begins, senior government officials in many states might consider a new years resolution to assess the evidence of health risks in a more coldly scientific manner than they currently do. Too often, emotions and entrenched political views trump scientific objectivity when it comes to the setting of rules.
The rapid growth in popularity of e-cigarettes provides another recent example of the need for science to guide regulation. The evidence suggests that vaping offers an excellent option for stopping people smoking and therefore tackling the catastrophic pandemic of tobacco-related disease. E-cigarettes deliver nicotine without the far more toxic mixture of other chemicals generated by smouldering tobacco.
Even so, many regulators are banning e-cigarettes or encumbering them with so many restrictions that they are unlikely to be taken up on the scale required to cut significantly the number of smokers. Some seem to feel, in an almost puritanical way, that smokers must stop inhaling completely rather than being offered a safer alternative to cigarettes. Others are put off by the fact that big bad tobacco companies are selling e-cigarettes. A more scientific solution would be to regulate e-cigarettes in a way that ensures quality control and monitors their health effects, but enables manufacturers to compete with tobacco on price and availability.
Emphasising a scientific rather than a crudely political approach to regulation does not necessarily imply less rulemaking. But in any evaluation, the first step should always be to determine whether a proposed rule really does benefit public health. At the same time, authorities should take a long hard look before adding another thread of regulation that would be difficult to remove once woven into the ever-thickening fabric of commercial law.
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