The Precautionary Principle Also Applies to Public Health Actions

The Precautionary Principle and Public Health

the nation's largest school district , announced a new policy on use of pesticides in its school buildings. The district committed to a policy of integrated pest management, giving priority to nonchemical approaches to pest control, and set a long-term goal of eliminating all chemical controls. In establishing this policy, the school district invoked the precautionary principle, saying: The Pre...

The Precautionary Principle : Protecting Public Health and the Environment 1

The precautionary principle is a guide to public policy decision making (Raffensperger and Tickner 1999, Schettler et al. 2002). It responds to the realization that humans often cause serious and widespread harm to people, wildlife, and the general environment. According to the precautionary principle, precautionary action should be undertaken when there are credible threats of harm, despite re...

The precautionary principle: in action for public health.

A Canadian framework for applying the precautionary principle to public health issues.

The precautionary principle has influenced environmental and public health policy. It essentially states that complete evidence of a potential risk is not required before action is taken to mitigate the effects of the potential risk. The application of precaution to public health issues is not straightforward and could paradoxically cause harm to the public's health when applied inappropriately...

The August Krogh principle applies to plants.

The Krogh principle refers to the use of a large number of animals to study the large number of physiological problems, rather than limiting study to a particular organism for all problems. There may be organisms that are more suited to study of a particular problem than others. This same principle applies to plants. The authors are concerned with the recent trend in plant biology of using A...