Public outrage

This time, it was the 1980s epidemic fueled by crack. In 1986, the death of two promising young athletes, Len Bias and Don Rogers, added to public outrage. The new laws differentiated between powder cocaine and crack and were much harsher on the latter. These laws require 100 times as much powder cocaine possession as crack to trigger an identical minimum mandatory prison sentence. Ongoing controversy surrounds this law. Several bills have been introduced to reduce the disparity, but none have been passed into law as of early 2002. 

Many other governmental examinations of Cannabis use have been undertaken since 1894. In every case, the conclusions have been similar to those reached by this nineteeth century commission that the use of this drug in moderation is essentially innocuous that existing penalties should not be increased that its use does not lead to addiction, lunacy, violence or crime and that virtually all reports causing public outrage have been either exaggerations or total fabrications. 

Unfortunately, psychiatry shows not the slightest inclination to rein in its compulsion to damage the brains of its patients in the name of treatment. Sackeim et al. s (2007) study aroused no concern whatsoever within the profession. Psychiatry s more abusive treatments, such as ECT, will never be stopped by psychiatry itself. ECT will have to be stopped by forces outside the profession including public outrage, court decisions prohibiting its use, and legislation banning it. 

Risk tolerability reflects politically acceptable levels of risk. Tolerability seeks to balance stakeholder and public views of acceptability as individuals and societal groups4. One interpretation of tolerability is that it refers to levels of risk that are not expected to cause public outrage. At the other extreme, an interpretation is that tolerability seeks to minimise overall risks while increasing overall benefits proportionately to those that are subjected to the risk. 

But the pharmaceutical industry isn t like any other industry. By virtue of what it produces—and the respect it demands for what it produces—it does carry some social service obligations. The public expects drug makers to be more ethical than the proverbial widget makers prescription drug commercials prompt public outrage in a way that McDonald s ads do not. If the industry is ever to gain the public s trust, more companies will have to behave like the old Merck. In fact, Merck will have to behave like the old Merck. 

Public policy disputes over food safety is concerned with the acceptability of a given risk. However, the final judgment is more likely to depoid on public outrage than on the toxicological size of the risk [5]. 

The 2009 initiative by MMS stalled for these reasons. But immediately after the Maeondo accident, DOI quickly re-proposed" and enaeted the rule in October 2010, because neither API nor OMB had the heart to ftirther resist while public outrage... 

The level of public outrage following device failure and failed risk control is determined by a number of aspects lethality, scale and chances of survival, and risk perception (i.e., voluntary risk versus imposed risk). A lack of fairness on the part of a perpetrator and a lack of social equality for a victim increase public outrage (Sandman 1991). 

Public outrage can have substantial impact on politicians and other public figures responsible for legislation and enforcement. This was illustrated in the 1990s, when the Bjbrk-Shiley scandal due to fractured mechanical heart valves led to major changes in the US regulatory medical device system (de Mol et al, 1995). 

Should safety pros stir public outrage ... 

Other mining-related legislation in 1966 (Public Law 89-376), responsive to recommendations of the coal mine task force report, extended the provisions of the 1952 act to coal mines that employed 14 or fewer miners. It also empowered bureau inspectors to issue withdrawal orders whenever repeated unwarrantable failures to comply with safety standards were discovered. However, federal emphasis was still on coal mine disasters, leaving as much as 90% of injury and fatality incidents to be addressed by state law and the federal safety code. This inadequacy was soon addressed because of public outrage generated by yet another coal mine disaster, along with an intolerable nondisaster death toll. 

In the 1830s and 1840s there was little public concern about safety. The network was small, speeds were low, traffic was light and there was little nighttime operation. No wreck claimed more than six lives. That changed in 1853. A series of wrecks claiming 234 lives, injured the president-elect, and led to considerable public outrage. An editorial in the Railroad Record opined ... 

Even if the president had been a strong proponent of comprehensive reform, he would have encountered impediments that Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon did not have to overcome. As a confluence of crises engulfed the nation, the business community s idea and influence infrastructures were firmly in place, and they worked overtime to forestall change. The conservative media echo chamber and industry lobbyists effectively channeled public outrage at corporate malfeasance into... 

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