Unacceptable harm

Ideally, further characterisation of the source and pathway, combined with understanding of receptor response to contaminants, should lead to a numeric probability of specified harm to the receptor. In reality, risk estimation is often confined to assessing whether threshold values for unacceptable harm are likely to be exceeded, because dynamic relationships between receptor exposure and harm are not generally available. Understanding and reporting the risk factors attached to threshold values is therefore important. 

These offshore aetivities involve sophisticated analytic methods, heavy engineering, large-scale investment, and complex projects, and they must be managed appropriately to ensure that benefits are gained without incurring major accidents and other unacceptable harms to the public, the workers involved, and the human and natural environments. This requires partnership between public regulators and industry, the involvement of labor and other stakeholders, a supporting role for researchers, mutual tmst that best practices will be used and continuously improved, and much more. 

But how do we then measure safety Safety is an attribute of a product/system considered in the context of activities for meeting a specific goal. Safety is concerned with physical artefacts and in common with any other it has cost implications (Bradshaw, 1998). An artefact is unsafe if it can cause a hazard which may lead to unacceptable harm (i.e. an accident causing injury, loss of life, material damage or environmental damage). But what is unacceptable harm ... 

These annexes set out the requirements for the dossier to be submitted by applicants either for inclusion of an a.i. in Annex I or for authorization of a plant protection product. Active ingredients are listed in Annex I if their use and their residues, resulting from applications consistent with good plant protection practice [or Good Agricultural Practice (GAP)] do not have harmful effects on human and animal health, or on ground water or any unacceptable influence on the environment (Article 5 of the Directive). 

It is accepted that many widely used latex vulcanisation accelerators - dithiocaibamates, thiurams and thiazoles - are capable of producing Type IV allergic response in certain individuals within the population and may also possess increasingly unacceptable eco-toxic and acute toxicity profiles. Thiurams and dithiocaibamates (derived from secondary amines) can also produce potentially harmful N-nitrosamines. Four safer accelerators developed and commercialised by Robinson Brothers are described. They are designed to reduce or eliminate the impact of the above problems using sustainable technology. At the same time these accelerators produce equivalent technological performances to those conventionally used. 10 refs. 

No milk can be considered hormone free as natural hormones are always present. The question that has been under heated debate since approximately 1995 is whether the bovine somatotropin hormone (BST) injected into cows to increase milk production results in harmful levels of hormone in milk. The use of BST, which is based upon an economic return rather than any health benefit to the animal, raises two important questions what are the health risks to the human consumer, primarily children and what are the effects on the animals It is fairly well accepted that the use of BST increases the incidence of mastitis and therefore the potential for increased residues of antibiotic and antimicrobials in milk. Because of this Canada, Australia, Japan, the U.K., and other European Union countries decided that the health impact on animals was unacceptable and that BST was not to be used in their jurisdictions. Their decisions were not based upon any human health concerns, but strictly on concerns for animal health. 

Despite its availability and current use, coal is not as widely used today as the other fossil fuels. Coal s major weakness is that it does not burn cleanly. It often contains trace amounts of other elements, including mercury, arsenic, and sulfur, and when it burns, it releases these toxic substances into the air. Over time, coal pollution builds up in the environment. Mercury released during coal combustion, for example, settles in water and builds up in the bodies of fish and shellfish. When these fish and shellfish are eaten by humans and other animals, harmful amounts of mercury can be ingested. In 2008, bluefm tuna served in expensive New York restaurants was found to contain unacceptably high levels of mercury. These fish eat smaller organisms in the ocean, and when these small organisms contain mercury, the toxic element becomes concentrated in the body of the tuna. 

Sulfuric acid is a stronger acid than sulfurous [pAa(l) < 0, p7fa(2) = 1.99 at 25 °C and infinite dilution] rain as acidic as pH 2.1 has been recorded at Hubbard Brook, New Hampshire, and the pH of water droplets in clouds can be as low as 1.5 (for comparison, the pH of rainwater saturated with atmospheric CO2 is about 5.6 at 15 °C). Acid rain destroys building materials (especially marble), kills fish and vegetation, accelerates metallic corrosion (Sections 16.5 and 16.7), and can be directly harmful to humans (e.g., it causes the alligator skin condition reported in Cubatao, Brazil). Sulfate rain is not completely without redeeming features, as many soils (e.g., in southern Alberta, Canada) are sulfur-deficient. On balance, however, its acidity is unacceptable, and sulfur oxide emissions must be controlled at the source. Several control measures are possible ... 

SUBSTANCES WITH VERY HARMFUL CUMULATIVE EFFECTS The substances noted here present chronic health hazards which are usually manifest after continued exposure over a relatively long period. In the case of workers handling this group of compounds, biological checks under the supervision of a medical practitioner, to determine whether unacceptable absorption into the body is taking place, may be prudent. 

In 1996 the United Kingdom, which was selected to conduct the scientific review of atrazine for the European Union (EU), concluded It is expected that the use of atrazine, consistent with good plant protection practice, will not have any harmful effects on human or animal health or any unacceptable effects on the environment (UK Rapporteur Monograph, 1996). In 2000, the United Kingdom for the European Commission also concluded it is not appropriate to classify atrazine as a carcinogen (UK Rapporteur Monograph, 2000). 

Cl systems can be the target of malicious attacks or fail due to accidental faults, generating effects that can cause unacceptable losses. That loss can be a catastrophic consequence (physical harm, property damage, etc.—i.e., safety concerns), an impairment of civil/personal rights (e.g., privacy infringement), an economic detriment, or the triggering of social and political unrest. This broad set of cases shows how problematical it can be to assess CIs and to define effective protection instruments. 

Exposure standards and guidelines are the products of risk management decisions. Risk assessments provide regulatory agencies with estimates of the number of persons that can be potentially harmed under specific exposure conditions. Regulatory agencies then propose exposure standards and guidelines that will protect the public from unacceptable risk. 

Risks should be identified that can result in system malfunction or failure. The consequences of failure should be analyzed, along with requirements to mitigate these malfunctions and failures. It has been suggested that risk, which might otherwise be evaluated through likelihood and consequence, should only be factored on consequence because of the social unacceptability of any known harmful impact a medical device might pose. In practice, some allowance must be made for likelihood but with a careful eye also on the probability of detection so that corrective action can be taken. ... 

Similarly, the commercial success of solid dispersion has been limited due to use of higher temperatures (>100°C) or harmful organic solvents, such as chloroform or dichloromethane, which may result in chemical decomposition of drugs and carriers or possible toxicity from the residual solvent. These unacceptable problems led scientists to explore novel alternatives, particularly the cogrinding method, which involves... 

Figure 3 shows a flow diagram for a Phase 2 risk assessment. The first stage of Phase 2 assessment is risk estimation this estimates the potential harm to all receptors within identified source-pathway-receptor linkages. The second stage is risk evaluation this considers the acceptability of potential harm to receptors, and identifies and assesses preliminary options to deal with unacceptable risks. 

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